The Great Commission given by Christ to the church is a command to go into all the world and make disciples from every nation. This global vision of God's redeeming love for people from every tribe, tongue, and nation is beautifully pictured in the vision of an ever increasing and life-giving stream in Ezekiel 47. This symbol is given to us to see the effect of the love of God on all people as they are brought to repentant faith in Jesus Christ; his love heals and brings life to everything it touches!

I just I have a few comments To begin the evening before Jamie comes up and and Carries on here, but I'd like to set the stage for our time by reminding us of three things specifically that are foundational for what we're doing here in the coming hours. And we're doing three things, And I think that you'll find that the messages will bring us to these things. And the first is recognizing the love of God. And the second is embracing our need to grow in love for the lost. And the third is affirming our call to the Great Commission.

So I'd like to deal with those three things briefly here. And the first is recognizing the love of God. And to recognize that the love of God is a very particular kind of love. It's different than your love. It's different than my love.

The love of God is the love that makes the move first. And, you know, his ways in reaching us instruct us for how we ought to think about the lost that are before us. And the presupposition of what we're doing here is that God moved first toward us. And that's what love does. Love makes the first move.

And so God comes to man. The Bible says that God sent His Son and He passed through the heavens and He came to rescue sinners. But it was God who made the first move. Theologians called this condescension, that God through his son Jesus condescended to mankind. In John chapter 3, we just recently read that He who came down from heaven is the Son of Man.

And in verse 16 in John chapter 3, we read those words, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now there's a lot we could say about that verse, but one thing that strikes you right at the beginning is that God sent his son. God made the first move. It was God's love. And God loves the world.

He has compassion for fallen mankind, and so God sends, and we read the Bible and we can see what He has, who He has sent. He's sent many prophets. He's sent His Word. He's sent His Spirit. So God makes the first move in the salvation of sinners.

And I say that to say that it's the love of God that caused him to make the first move. And if we're going to make the first move towards sinners, then we have to love them. That's the pattern. It's the pattern of love. You know, the Apostle Paul communicated this in Romans chapter 5 when he said, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.

You know, all we like sheep were going astray, and yet while we were sinners, God came to us. Now, reconciliation only happens when the offended party makes the first move. And that's what God did with us. He's the offended party. And He made the first move.

And I want to bring an illustration out of Ezekiel. I'd like you to open your rivals to Ezekiel 47 This is a remarkable chapter in the prophecy of Ezekiel and In Ezekiel 47 if you could just find verse 1 There's there's a very beautiful picture here of the temple and there's water flowing out of the temple. That water flowing out of the temple is really a picture of the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I believe Ezekiel is speaking about the time of reformation in the gospel when Jesus Christ was sent and the Spirit was poured out after the day of Pentecost. I believe that's what this is talking about.

Other people have different perspectives about it. But what you find here are these increasing waters. This is the love of God. He's pouring out the water of His Spirit throughout the world. And so in verses one and two, you have this picture of waters flowing out of the temple.

God is showing Ezekiel this scene. And then the water in verse three, it comes up to his ankles. And then in verse four, the water gets deeper and it goes up to his knees and Then the water gets deeper and at the end of verse 4 and it gets up to his waist and then it's over his head and it's It's only Navigal by swimming the water is there's so much water and it's flowing out of the temple and then in verse 6 God begins to to explain The effect of the water because the water is flowing everywhere, and there's healing everywhere. That's what's happening This is This is a picture of the out poured Holy Spirit moving across the face of the earth. You know, the glory of God is covering the earth like the waters cover the sea and so here everywhere the waters are flowing and Look at verse 7 in chapter 47 When I returned there along the the bank of the river were very many trees on one side and the other.

So Ezekiel sees trees on the side of this flow of water and then the Lord said to me, this water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the valley and enters the sea when it reaches the sea its waters are healed and it shall be that every living thing that moves wherever the rivers go will live There will be a very great multitude of fish because these waters go there, for they will be healed. Now, My opinion is that the fish are people. They're people. The prophets do this all the time. And you have these healing waters.

Everything that that water touches is healed. This is the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then if you go, interestingly enough, you know, their fishermen are standing by from En Gedi to Ngalem. And why is that mentioned? Well that's right at the Dead Sea.

Everything's dead there except when you're living in the Dead Sea and the living waters come to you, you're not dead anymore. And even where there is nothing but deadness, there's revival, there's healing. And then in verse 12, along the bank of the river on this side and that will grow all kinds of trees used for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month because their water flows from the sanctuary.

Their fruit will be food and their leaves for medicine. So you have this fruit bearing that's coming out of the Church of Jesus Christ, not like regular trees, they bear fruit every month. And then you find that this healing water is expanded and there are all kinds of people that are affected by these waters. And we see this particularly in verse 21 to the end of the chapter in verse 23, where it's where there's the division of the land among these living waters so that an inheritance is given to the people of God. So the land is being divided, the waters are flowing through the land, and then there's a remarkable statement in the middle of verse 22.

At the beginning of Verse 22 it reads, it shall be that you will divide it by lot as an inheritance for yourselves and get this and for the strangers Who dwell among you and who bear children? Among you the these are the Gentiles This is the gospel to every tongue and tribe and nation. And they shall be to you as native born among the children of Israel. They shall have an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And it shall be that in whatever tribe the stranger dwells, there you shall give him his inheritance, says the Lord God.

So out of the temple of God is flowing, living water and trees grow that are bearing fruit in their season and the water is flowing and it's getting deeper and deeper and deeper. And Matthew Henry, the commentator, says that these increasing waters that run constantly are a picture of the gospel church. Has small beginnings that begins with just a little brook and then it's up to the ankles and then up to the knees and then trees are growing and there's fruit being born. And this is the love of God in the world. And you know recognizing this fundamental matter, recognizing the love of God is really the beginning of all that we're talking about here.

We're here because of the love of God. We want to grow in our spreading of the gospel here and throughout the earth for one single reason. It's the love of God. It's because God loves sinners. He loves them very much.

You know, in a couple of weeks, we're gonna be in John chapter four, where Jesus encounters the woman at the well. And she's just at a dead end in her life. But Jesus shows up, and it's not a dead end at all. He shows her that her life is not a dead end because he loves sinners and he loves to rescue them. So recognizing the love of God and recognizing that love makes the first move.

And I pray that God would use our time to grow our love. This seems to be the most fundamental thing. I think, you know, as I look back at my own inactivity, in evangelism, and not making the most of every opportunity, it all goes back to love. Love for myself and not love for them. And so love.

Secondly, embracing our need. Our need, really, to grow in love. Paul prays a prayer in Ephesians chapter three, where he prays that the church would be rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and the length and the depth and height to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. You being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that you may be filled with the fullness of God. So this speaks of the vastness of God's love.

It's this four-dimensional, multifaceted love. There's width, there's length, there's depth, there's height. It's a multifaceted kind of love it's You know width beyond widths you know length beyond lengths That kind of love that we would that we would be filled with the love of God. And then the third thing we're doing is really affirming together our call to the Great Commission, which is communicated in many places, most distinctively in Matthew chapter 28, where the Lord Jesus Christ says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you behold I'm with you always even to the end of the age and We have been commissioned we've been commissioned to go And the Apostle Paul expands on this whole message and he says, how will they hear without a preacher? In Romans chapter 10.

And in Romans chapter 10, the Apostle Paul, he's already established that there's only one gospel, there's only one way to be saved and Then he says that that one gospel needs to be preached among all the nations and this This statement in Romans 10 is really the great charter for foreign missionary activity and it speaks of the duty of the church to preach. And so the apostle says in Romans 10, 14, how then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher and How shall they preach unless they are sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace who bring glad tidings of good things? So it's it's critical that we go as critical that we preach so these three things just by way of beginning our time, how important it is for us to recognize the love of God, that it's love that moves first. And it is a love that has healing in its wings, just like Ezekiel made it really clear.

And that we are embracing our need to grow in love and then finally that we're affirming our call to the Great Commission. We want to do all those things in the hours that are ahead. Thank you.