The following message, Family Life That Blesses the Community, was given by Jason Doan at the Regional Uniting Church and Family Conference in Wake Forest, North Carolina in 2008. About a month ago, Scott asked me, Jason, are there any topics that you think we just absolutely make sure that we get covered during the conference? And I thought for about it in a few minutes, I said, Scott, I think in our circles, among us, inwardness is a real risk and a real problem. And by us, I mean home schoolers, predominantly home schoolers who have also abandoned age integration in church life. So in this circle of people, our tendency is to retrench and if we're not careful, we end up being very inward.

And Since I know that my own family has some deficits in this area. I was just delighted by the prospect that that Scott would assign this topic to one of our great speakers either to himself or to Jeff Pollard or to Bill Einwector and But that that did not happen. I said Scott. How can I talk about this I? You asked the question and I've recognized what I think is a deficiency elsewhere but also in our own home.

I cannot be a subject matter expert on this. Find somebody else." And he said, no, it's okay. The fact that you have room for progress in this area does not disqualify you from bringing to bear the scriptures on the topic. So really my intent for this time is that I would bring to bear the scriptures on this topic and what I hope will be a helpful way. So in a way I stand before you as the designated hypocrite today to speak on a topic in which I think is a problem at large in our circles but is I know for sure is a problem under our own roof.

So that being said, no one should be alarmed at the lack of my being able to offer myself as the perfect example. This is a directional talk. What I mean by that is We know where we are. We can see from the scriptures where we need to be. Now we'll point ourselves in that direction and we'll take a step.

Let's begin our time in prayer. Lord Jesus what a great comfort it is to know that in areas where we need help that we can go to the scriptures and get everything that we need for life and godliness. Oh Lord, we pray that you would give us a heart, that we would have such a heart in us that we would fear you and always keep all of your commandments that it might be well with us and with our children forever. I pray that you would do this among us in Jesus name. Amen.

So our core text for today, we're going to keep coming back at it. We're going to hammer away at this text. The core text is James 1 27 where James says this, Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Don't you just love verses like this. This is like the verse where Jesus is asked, teacher what is the great commandment?

Couldn't you just kiss that guy because that is such a central question and then you get this concise answer from Jesus and it eliminates any debate on that question forever and this is a lot like that. Lord, what is pure and undefiled religion? Don't we need to know the answer to that question? Yes. And James concisely gives us the answer, what is pure and undefiled religion?

It is to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. So our time is going to be spent developing how we understand this cortex and how we apply it in the context of the family. Because I fear that when we look at these two things, these being an instrument of mercy, visiting orphans and widows in their time of trouble, and on the one hand, and keeping ourselves unspotted by the world, that because the pressures that our perverse generation puts upon us, a disproportionate amount of our mind share and our energies and our focus has gone to keeping ourselves unspotted from the world. And instead of these things working together hand in hand beautifully, that they compete with one another. And this should not be.

So the question is how do we redirect ourselves towards a healthy balance of these things with our families increasingly becoming instruments of God's mercy in our communities. This is undoubtedly the intent of Jesus Christ, that our families, wherever God has planted us, would be an instrument of His mercy in the communities where He's put us. So the structure of our time. We're going to do three things. One we're going to look at what is the purpose of the family.

Any time we talk about any topic, we have to start with God's design. Until we understand what God's design for any institution, whether it be the family or the church or the government, any institution, unless we understand what God's design and intent was, we'll always get it wrong because unless we put things within the proper framework, which is what God's intent and design was, we get things out of step. Once we've looked at the purpose of the family, we'll return to James 1 and we'll really bear down on this text to see what it means for us in our home lives. And then finally, we'll take some time to bring this down to ground level and talk about how can we practically apply this, what are some ways, it won't be a comprehensive list but it will be a list of ways at least that came out of my head that are at least some starting points of where where we can begin to make progress. So what is the purpose of the family?

You don't get one page off the left cover of your Bible before this is addressed. What is the purpose of the family? We see God's design for the family in Genesis 1. And Moses says this in Genesis 1 about what God said. Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

So man was created in the image of God and he made them male and female and he joined them together in marriage. In Genesis 2, God introduces the concept of one flesh, two being joined into one, a man being joined by God to a woman. And this is marriage, this is the origins of marriage. And he gave them, the male and the female, the man and the woman, the marriage, this union, the one flesh, he gave them a two-fold joint mission. In other words, there's two parts to the mission, part one and part two, and it's a joint mission.

This one flesh engages in it together. Number one, mission number one, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, Genesis 1 verse 28, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And we get more information on this in Malachi 2. In Malachi 2, Malachi says in verse 15 that marriage is the Lord's holy institution which he loves, Malachi 2 15. Marriage is the Lord's holy institution, In other words, it's the Lord's institution.

He gave it to us. He's the founder of it. He's created the purpose for it, which He loves. And then he goes on and says the opposite later on in Malachi 2, which is that he hates divorce. And then in verse 15, the purpose of marriage is stated as plainly and as concisely as you could ever want to see it.

Malachi 2 15. But did he, God, not make them, the man and the woman, one, marriage, having a remnant of the Spirit. And why one, why marriage? He seeks godly offspring. The design of God for marriage is that there would be godly offspring.

Not just offspring. Any marriage or most marriages can produce offspring. Nearly any two people can produce knuckleheads in abundance, but God is desiring from marriage that there would be godly offspring. And what he's asking for here, what he's purposing to do is to fill the world with worshippers, those who would fear God, those who would love God, those who would know God And that there would be an increase, what a blessing it is, in any community where people understand this, that God has desired that there be an increase of those who fear Him, those who love Him, those who know Him. Second mission, subdue the earth, have dominion over every living thing.

Subdue the earth, take dominion over this earth that I've made is their second mission. So it's a twofold, two things to the mission, joint mission, they engage in it together. They're to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and they're to subdue the earth, have dominion over every living thing. So back to dominion and subduing the earth. As image bearers, as his representatives that are made in his likeness, husbands and wives are joined together to bring the good government of God everywhere.

That's what it means to subdue the earth, to have dominion over every living thing. It's not that our dominion would increase, it's that God's dominion would increase. It's the increase of the good government of God. And I believe that Jesus is clarifying how this works its way out now in the New Testament era in the Great Commission. So I'm going to make an argument here that the Great Commission isn't new theology, that it's very old theology, that it's a restatement and a clarifying of what God intended in the dominion mandate.

He's clarifying and tell us how we live it out in the New Testament era. Let's look at the Great Commission. Matthew 28, everyone knows it. And Jesus came and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even to the end of the age." Now you may say, now that's a stretch connecting the Dominion Mandate in Genesis 1 with the Great Commission in Matthew 28, to which I say no, no, no.

This is exactly what Paul does in Ephesians 5. If you look at Ephesians 5, if you look at Ephesians 5 closely, what you see is that Paul is talking about marriage, a man and a woman, and he talks at length about this husband-and- wife relationship and then out of the blue he says something very striking. He says this, this is a great mystery but I speak concerning what? Christ and the church. In other words, marriage since the beginning of time, even though they didn't know it, Marriage has always been a picture of the gospel, only we didn't know it until Christ came.

It was a mystery waiting for Christ to come and throw light on it. In John MacArthur commenting on Ephesians 5, he calls marriage a sacred reflection. MacArthur calls marriage a sacred reflection. It's a picture of Christ loving and coming and redeeming a bride for himself. It's a picture of the gospel.

Home life is to be a picture of the gospel. It's what Paul says. So in that context, can you see how bankrupt it is to reduce marriage and family to nothing more than circling the wagons for self-preservation. Now I know why we do that. I'm not validating any of the outside pressures that have forced us into this in some ways that have pushed us towards an inwardness.

I understand it. I see all the same pressures. I feel all the same pressures. I hate all the same external pressures that would cause us to turn inward. And we must be careful.

But in spite of the threats that are pervasive in this perverse generation, it is contrary to the gospel to exclusively adopt a defensive position. And I understand that there's another extreme here that we've seen happen and it's gobbled up and devoured our children and we don't want that But what I'm saying is we should advocate against the other extreme as well, where we totally retrench and we've just become a circle of wagons for self-preservation. This is not the gospel. God has placed us where we are to be a blessing and this is the purpose of marriage and family, not just a blessing to each other, not just a blessing to your wife or to your husband, not just a blessing to your children, but a blessing in our communities. God has this for us.

So what is the purpose of marriage and family? It's the gospel. First in our families, yes. It's where we have the most influence that we would raise our children in the training and admonition of the world. We'll never have more influence over our neighbors, over our co-workers, over the people in our community than we have with our wives and with our children.

This is an unparalleled amount of influence and we must use it for the glory of God. We must use it for the advancement of the gospel so that our succeeding generations know God, love God, fear God, but that cannot be all. The Great Commission goes much beyond that. So now back to James 1. In James 1, we're going to take our core verse, but we'll put it in our context and add some of the verses around it.

James 1, starting in verse 21. Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. If anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. This is in the context of James' exhortation that we be doers of the word and not hearers only. And he talks about useless religion and then he concludes this thought by giving us the two parts of pure and undefiled religion.

I cannot emphasize this enough. Pure and undefiled religion has two parts. To visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. In other words, there are things that we should do. There are things that we must do.

An active ministry of mercy, visiting widows and orphans, although I'd venture to say this is not a comprehensive list, but this is a direction that James is pointing us in. So there's an active ministry of mercy on the one hand and then there's a list of things that we should be careful not to do that we would keep ourselves from being defiled by the world. We keep ourselves unspotted from the world. And these parts, what we should be careful to do and what we must be careful not to do, are strikingly consistent with what we see elsewhere in the Bible. In other words, James isn't bringing forth new doctrine either.

It is everywhere in the Old Testament and the New Testament, these parts being joined together as pure and undefiled religion. And it goes to the heart of this. God is saving us from something, Peter said, be saved from what? This perverse generation. But also that we are saved to something else, that God from the foundation of the world has prepared good works for us that we might walk in them.

We are saved from something. We are saved to something. You would think James was quoting Isaiah. Isaiah 1 16 and 17. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes, keep yourself unspotted from the world.

Do you see it here? Cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. Right here in the Old Testament we see the doctrine of James that we are saved from something, that we are saved to something, that there are things that we must be careful not to do so that we won't be defiled, and there are things that we must be careful to do because God has prepared good works for us. That should go without saying that when we're talking about good works and when we're talking about keeping ourselves unspotted from the world, this is separate from salvation. Salvation doesn't come from any of those.

Salvation only comes through the blood of Jesus Christ. The wrath of God is turned away from us. Not that we would do something miraculous to keep ourselves unspotted from the world or that we would clothe ourselves in all of our good works. That is not how salvation happens. So I want to be very clear.

I understand how salvation works. I understand about the blood of Christ being the only way. Grace alone, through faith alone. Amen. I'm not retrenching on any of that doctrine.

I'm saying now that God has saved us and called us out, how then shall we live? Ephesians 4. We see the same doctrine. We have the put-offs and the put-ons. Listen to this, Ephesians 4 verse 22, put off concerning your firmer conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts keep yourselves unspotted verse 24 put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.

Paul says exactly the same things again in Colossians 3. We see it in Ephesians 4, We see it again in Colossians 3, the put-offs and the put-ons. Colossians 3, 8, put off all these, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Verse 12, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long suffering, saved from something, things that we must be careful not to do, saved to something, things that we should do for the glory of God. Sure, Colossians 3 verse 8 and verse 12.

And did you get Ephesians 4? Okay. So to beat the dead horse, Titus says much the same thing. This is interesting. This is a great one.

Titus 2, 11-14. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify himself his own special people zealous for good works now we're getting somewhere Jesus Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and purify us that we would be unspotted from the world and that we would be zealous for good works. Now you may say I understand all that but how does that relate to my family life? At an individual level, I embrace what you're saying. Now how does that relate to the family?

Well when we read Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7, these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up and when we read a see Ephesians 6 4 and you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord When we read these passages we must ask ourselves what does it mean to teach our children diligently? What does it mean to bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord if it doesn't mean to impart these things to them? This is about love. This is about the great commandment.

The commandments are not opposed to love. The commandments are about love. Jesus, what's the great commandment? It's to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself.

The commandments don't stand in oppositions to love. This is about pure and undefiled religion. If we are to impart these things to our children, the heart of God, the commandments of God to our children, it's Nothing if it's not to impart to them pure and undefiled religion, is it? So when Jesus says this in Matthew 5, you are the salt of the earth, But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lath and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. It means that for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of the glory of God, that our neighbors and others in our communities would see the goodness of God through us and rightly attribute it to God. That in order to accomplish that, that our neighbors would glorify God because they see His mercy at work in and through us, that we must take our children by the hand and show them how to put their light on a lampstand, not to put it under a bushel.

Back to James 1-27, pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. This is the business of our homes, to model for our children, to take our children by the hand and show them what pure and undefiled religion is, what it is to put a lamp on a lampstand and not under a bushel. So let's get out of the theoretical and into the practical. Some practical ways that we can move in this direction. I'm just offering a list.

I'm not even claiming it's a scriptural list. I think it's based on some scriptural principles. It's a list out of my head. If you've got a better list, go for the better list. I'm not constraining anyone.

One, practice hospitality. This one is scriptural. There are commands about it. There's a terrific book written by Alexander Strauch called The Hospitality Commands. If you don't have it on your bookshelf, it's a maybe a two-hour read.

It's a skinny little thing, but it's great. He was hassled by his publisher about the title, Hospitality Commands. His publisher said, people don't like commands. Find another name. He said, I only know what I know.

These are commands. The Bible commands us to be hospitable. One suggestion is make this a part of your family schedule. Our experience with hospitality in our home is that if it's not a part of that family schedule then the other things gobble it up. And so now Thursday night roughly is hospitality night.

Now if you drive by my house on Thursday night you'll know whether we're hitting the target or not, about whether there's other cars in the driveway, but sometimes it's not Thursday night, but we're trying to be intentional about this in our home. What a wonderful way, especially in a world that has no idea what family life ought to look like, is to establish consistent family worship in your home So that the hearts are all turned in the same direction, worshiping God. And then create this healthy family life that Kevin was talking about in our last session. Wasn't that fantastic? And then invite people in to have a look.

Not to show ourselves off, but to say, this is the Gospel, this is what the Gospel can do in a home. It's beautiful. You've been in Lowe's before shopping for hardware and somebody says, look at them, their kids are not all over the place. It's an amazing testimony. Hospitality can be very powerful.

Turn your family into a ministry engine. Forget about family integrated churches. What about family integrated families? You know what I mean by that? We're in a home, but we still all have our own thing and there's very few times where we all pull in the same direction.

Let's make it more times where we all pull in the same direction. And hospitality is one of those things that does that for us, where we're all getting ready together. And we're all preparing and they come and we engage in this together and then they leave and we all clean up together. Or what about a conference like this? Many of the families in our church have been pulling in a direction, I think that's number two, yeah.

Look for opportunities where you're already connected. Well, we're connected with a lot of this type of stuff, and so it's a great opportunity for our family to pull all together in the same direction that can be a blessing. I think this conference is going to be a blessing. And I think it's great that our family can engage together to work to help pull something like this off. One of the things about the Browns, Scott Brown has been a friend for a long time.

He conducted Janet and I's wedding ceremony 17 years ago. And we've been in their home a lot. We just have got to watch them up close. I worked for him for eight years so I've seen him in every every different environment. He's the same he's the same man whatever environment he's in which is a great testimony and we've we've seen them turn their home into a ministry engine.

In other words, Scott looks at the things around him as resources that God has put together so they could pull in the same direction to create something, to do something of value. And it's wonderful. A lot of this conference is the result of that. Blair handles registration. Deborah and Claudia, their other daughter, has been all over the food things and they do this.

They have turned their family into a ministry engine. And this is not rocket science. Anybody can do this in their home. It takes being intentional. So look for opportunities where you're already connected.

We don't have to do unnatural things or go far to turn our families into a ministry engine. Anybody got neighbors? That'll do. Seek out the downtrodden. There are enough ministries for yuppies, aren't there?

Does the world need another ministry targeted towards yuppies? God's interest is in orphans and widows in their time of trouble. Seek them out. They're not technically widows. They're not technically orphans.

But when Kevin talks about 40% of little girls and little boys being in a home without a father. What does that mean to us? Is that an opportunity for our families to engage? You better believe it is. What about nursing homes?

Do you know how many abandoned widows there are in nursing homes? People who will never get one visit from the outside during the year. My mom from about probably the time I was 10 years old started dragging us to the nursing home to see some old lady who had no family, no visitors ever, and for the next 15 years, she went every other week, probably, for 15 years to visit this person that nobody else cared about. She died when she was 104 years old and she had one friend in the world outside that nursing home. It was my mother.

You know what, that made a big impact on me. I don't know what it did for Hagar. I don't know whether she cared all that much, but I cared. I mean I learned a lot by doing that. What about your local pregnancy support services center?

You think they have needs? Is there anyone more downtrodden than the 3, 000 babies who are slaughtered a day in our nation? Look for ways to be a blessing in your community. Now we see these things and we think open air preaching on the front lawn. That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about simple things. Scott on his property has a number of ponds. So when the community wants to do a family fishing day, it happens. It happens on the Brown property because we want to be visible not for visibility sake but to say we're here in the community, we're engaged, we do care. Fifthly, go.

We do care. Fifthly, go. The opportunities for short-term mission trips in the next county over or the next country over or the next continent over are limitless. I've heard people say well you just go for a week or two there's almost no impact for that. Maybe not for them but you know what when you go and you see the living conditions in those other countries the impact on you and the way that it has a tendency to turn your heart towards missions in a way that it wasn't when we were back here in our comfort zone is valuable.

There's something worth that. I'd love to see a study done on giving from families that go on short-term mission trips, what they gave financially to missions before they went on the short-term mission trip and what they gave afterwards. I bet it would be dramatic. Not everyone can go full-time, but if our hearts are turned towards missions through a short term mission trip in a way that causes us to after the fact give generously and sacrificially in a financial way to support those who can go full time, there's great benefit. So in conclusion, three points I'd like to make in conclusion.

One, this relates very much to how we view the role of the local church. This relates very much to how we view the role of the local church. We believe that God has tasked church leaders to equip the Saints for the work of ministry, not to do all the ministry, not to oversee all the ministry. This is how the typical local church works. Somebody has a good idea, So they go to church leadership and say, can we make this the church's thing?

And a program gets added and somebody else has a good idea and they go and there's another program added and there's another program added And when the church is going to have a program, it's got to have oversight. It's got to have administration. It's got to have resources given to it. And we create these things that have a starting point, but they never have an ending point. They just go on and on forever, and we keep adding things, never taking anything away.

And before you know, we've created a monster. And never once does anyone ask, does this fall within the charter of the local church? Do you know that God has given the local church a charter of the things it should be engaged in? And many of those things are wonderful. They are good.

They should be happening in our community, but they're not necessarily to be under the purview of the local church in a way that we would create a structure that a monster that has to be fed year after year after year an ever-increasing stream of resources. How inefficient is that? How much more efficient would it be if every home was a ministry engine, a ministry center that could govern itself and engage in the community in a way that would be a blessing. By contrast we advocate an infiltration model where people go to church to be discipled, where they sit under a mature preaching of the Word and they grow in maturity and then they go back to their home and that's where the ministry starts, not in the church building. It's boots on the ground.

It's the church responsible for creating mature believers so that there are pockets in every neighborhood, in every part of town, that are ready to be a blessing in their community. I think this is a more accurate representation of the New Testament local church. Not that all the ministry begins inside the leadership of the church, but that there are boots on the ground in every neighborhood where fathers understand that they have a responsibility to join together with their wife this joint commission to start taking ground for the kingdom of God. Number two, I believe that this explains many of the problems that families experience. Ephesians 2, 8 through 10 says this, Paul says, For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them We were created in Christ Jesus for good works that we should walk in them.

You know what? Forget the purpose of marriage and the family. What's your purpose? You were created in Christ Jesus for good works that we should walk in them. So my question is, if we're created for this, if God has put this in us and made us for this purpose, what happens when we're not doing it?

Well we have extra time to self-obsess. That's what happens. God has created us for good works that we might walk in them, but we're not doing them. So we have plenty of time to think about how our needs aren't being met. Does this describe what happens in many families today?

This describes what happens in my own brain more often than I'd like to admit. Lastly, let's get going. Let's get going. I began this talk by saying that this was a directional address. This is just about direction.

Knowing that we are one place, knowing that we need to be in another place, let's point it in the right direction and then left foot. That's all we can accomplish today, but you know what? That's enough. We have a joke in our home. Occasionally, Janet will be just busily working at something.

I'll be not working at all. I'm either tickling the kids or reading or something like that and she'll say, you know, hey Jason, could you do this? And it'll be a really little thing. And at that point, now, I'm obligated to roll my eyes and to say, do I have to do everything? And now, according to tradition, her response is, no, just something.

And that's really how we end the talk. Do you have to do everything? No. Just something. Don't go away and do everything.

Go away and do something. In the business that I work in, we have an expression. How do you eat the elephant? And the answer is, one bite at a time. You don't eat an elephant all in one bite.

But you can't eat the elephant unless you start taking bites. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for redeeming a people, that your name would be great. Help us to conduct our family lives in a way in which your name would be magnified, that people would see our good works, not showy works, but good works. Visiting orphans and widows in their trouble, having an active life of mercy in our community, and that they would rightly attribute this to you as being a great God that you would receive glory from it.

God I pray that among us you would give us a hundred households, a thousand households that are ministry engines where we're all ready to pull in the same direction for increase in your kingdom. That we would have a right view of dominion theology. That the gospel would go forward. That the lost would be saved. That the downtrodden would be defended among us.

Lord, we know we need your mighty spirit in us to accomplish any of these things. We acknowledge our weakness, our frailty, our inability before you, but we are not dissuaded or discouraged by our own frailty at all because we know of your greatness. We know that you work through ordinary people like ourselves and that you are desiring to do work in us and among us. We pray that you would be among us in a mighty way to do these things. In Jesus' name, Amen.