The sermon, based on Luke 8:1-3, explores how Jesus traveled from city to city and village to village, preaching the Gospel and bringing the good news of the Kingdom of God. It highlights the involvement of the twelve disciples and certain women, such as Mary Magdalene and Joanna, who supported Jesus and his ministry. The speaker emphasizes the importance of not waiting for people to come to the church but taking the Gospel to them, as Jesus did. The role of resources is discussed, showing how God provides means through people to support the spreading of the Gospel. The sermon also challenges listeners to consider their role in being a part of the 'gospel chain' and the responsibility of using resources for advancing God's kingdom.

Follow along as I read Luke chapter 8. And the twelve were with him and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities. Mary called Magdalene out of whom had come seven demons and Joanna the wife of Chezza, Herod's steward and Susanna and many others who provided for him from their substance. God, I thank you for your word, And I thank you for another precious opportunity to come and to dive deep into a text of scripture. There's so much here, though it's a short text, and I pray that your spirit would be here working mightily among us to teach us things that would encourage us and build us up and help us.

May it be so in Jesus name, Amen. The title of the message today is where? What with whom and how More on the title in a second last week's text we encountered a woman who was forgiven much. The text said her sins were many. And because she had been forgiven much, She loved much.

So in our text last week, we saw this outpouring, public outpouring of love and devotion. This woman who was weeping at Jesus' feet and washing his feet with her tears and wiping his feet with her hair and anointing his feet with this fragrant oil. She actually came prepared for this moment. This was not spontaneous. She came with an alabaster flask of fragrant oil and she's anointing her feet with this outpouring of love and devotion for Jesus.

Now Luke, our gospel writer, tells us what came afterward. That's what came to pass afterward. Those are the exact words of verse one. And so that's where the title comes from. Luke tells us the where, the what, the with whom, and the how of the things that came to pass right after the things that we've been studying.

So we're just going to go through those. If you look at your handout, that is the outline for the sermon. Starting with where? Where could we find Jesus since the earliest days of his public ministry? This tells us in a word everywhere you could find Jesus all over the place from the earliest days of his public ministries.

Cities? Yes, cities. City to city to city to city. Villages? Yes.

Village to village to village to village. It seemed like Jesus was everywhere. Two things I'd like to note from this. One, though many people did come to Jesus, we do see that in the gospels, multitudes coming to Jesus. Jesus wasn't just preaching to and teaching people who came to him.

He was actually going to them from city to city and village to village. The need for Jesus was much broader than just people with an appetite and an inclination and a sense that they should go to Jesus. And so we see Jesus going to them. So this is always true that there are certain people that have an appetite for gospel preaching, have an inclination they should go to gospel preaching. Most people actually don't fit that profile and the people who need or in desperate need of gospel preaching are way many more people than the people who will actually go and to seek it out.

So Jesus went to them, took the gospel to them. And that is the story of the church since the earliest days. You read the book of Acts and you find, yes, there are people coming to the church, but the church is going to the people. This has always been the case, and this is actually just walking in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ. So what about us?

Are we just content to meet here? I'm glad we're meeting here. It's important for the people of God to worship on the Lord today and to have gospel preaching. But are we content that that would just be it? And we're learning here and from the book of Acts and and and you can find it all throughout the New Testament that the people of God are not a people of God who wait for people who have desperate need for the gospel to come to them.

They actually will go to people who have no inclination at all and say this is the truth according to God and I would just say to us we have to find ways we have to find more ways to get outside these four walls to take the gospel to people who desperately need it but have no sense in them themselves that they desperately need it This is what the people of God always have done, and this is rooted in what we see Jesus doing in our text. Remember chapter four, so I'm gonna take us back to Chapter four, Jesus has just had a wonderful time preaching and healing the sick and delivering people who were oppressed by evil spirits. And This is in Capernaum, chapter four is in Capernaum. And the people wanted to keep Jesus from leaving. This is wonderful, the preaching was wonderful and people are being healed and set free and the people want to keep Jesus to themselves.

Here's what Jesus said to the people in Capernaum. I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also because for this purpose I have been sent. Jesus, why did God send you to work miracles? Well that is true but what he says here is that God sent me to preach to not just Capernaum where they appreciated it but from city to city and village to village too. He would not be kept in the one place even though he was appreciated there.

He was having a wonderful time there. But he said he must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because that's why God sent him. Second thing I'd like to observe here is that Jesus was accustomed to large crowds. 4, 000, 5, 000, 6, 000, and that's just counting the men. There are women and children there also, and so who knows what the real numbers of these crowds were.

Jesus was accustomed to large crowds, but he was willing to go to small places. He was accustomed to large crowds, but he didn't have to have large crowds. The villages of Galilee were small places. Jesus didn't need large crowds, though we often had large crowds. For instance, archaeologists estimate that Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, one of the, just I'm using it as a representative of a village of Galilee, Nazareth probably had about 200 to 400 people, Just a couple hundred people.

Jesus would go to a place like that and preach at a place like that. So he didn't know crowds of maybe tens of thousands, at least many, many thousands of people. But he wasn't reluctant to go just to a village with 200 people, 300 people to bring the gospel to them. He had large crowds, but he didn't need them. You've heard the expression, fly over country.

What is fly over country? Well, it's speak it when somebody uses that term, it's a United States term, and it's about coastal elites, people who live either on the East Coast who consider themselves to be the important people or who live on the West Coast and consider themselves to be the important people. And they just fly over the Midwest, they would just fly over a place like Youngsville, North Carolina, because the important people aren't in Youngsville, North Carolina. Well, if we're in Boston, we're important. And if we need something from other important people, we'll fly right over Youngsville, we'll fly right over Missouri, we'll fly right over Montana until we get to one of these big cities on the West Coast where the other important people are.

You know, Jesus knew no such thing. There was no fly over country for Jesus. He would go to a town with 200 people and bring the good news to a town of 200 people. This is teaching us how we should think too. There's no such thing as fly over country.

There are people who desperately need to be set free and they're in all these towns around us, towns just like Youngsville. So that is the where. Far and wide. Every city, city to city to city, every village, village to village to village. And I think the application for us is straightforward enough.

Out there has to be the place for gospel preaching for us. Yes, if somebody comes in here we want them to experience the love of the people of God and to hear the good news of Jesus Christ here, but we can't wait for the people out there to come in here. If you haven't noticed, they're not coming in here. They're just not. So we can't be content to just have that be the end of the matter.

The gospel of Jesus Christ has to be on our lips and we take it to them and we have the patterns of our Lord Jesus Christ as a sure footing for there. We can't wait for those people to come in here, have to find ways to take the gospel to them. That was where. Now what? What was Jesus doing as he traveled city to city and village to village?

He was preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. That's the exact words of the text. Jesus was preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God to the people in those places. He was proclaiming a message and it was good news. Jesus was bringing good news to all of those places, glad tidings.

There are two Greek words in view here. The first is kairouso, which literally means to herald, to openly proclaim. So I want you to think of the town crier. Every town has one and it's the town crier's job when he gets a message from the palace. These are the words of the king to go to the town square, the meeting place of the city, and say, hear ye, hear ye, the king says this.

This is the first Greek word being used. K. Russo, to herald, to proclaim openly, the town crier who takes the words of the king into the most populated place, into where people come to hear such things and say, the king, here are the words of the king. The second word is uangulizo. Sounding like I went to seminary now, I didn't.

I could just read. Hooked on phonics worked for me. Uangulizo means to bring good news, to announce glad tidings. We get our word gospel from a Greek word that has the same root. So to bring good news, It's the person who comes with the good news who brings glad tidings to where you are.

And the good news Jesus was proclaiming was about the kingdom of God. So this is the good news is all wrapped up in this thing called the kingdom of God. God is a great king, the greatest king, the king of all kings. The kings of the earth have been given their authority by God. He is the Lord of all lords.

Anyone in authority has actually been given their authority by God. He's the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And like all kingdoms, this kingdom, the kingdom of God, has citizens. So we might wonder who's a citizen, but God doesn't wonder. He knows exactly who is in His kingdom and who is on the outside of His kingdom.

His kingdom has citizens. And if you repent and believe the gospel, you become a citizen. You were a citizen of the kingdom of darkness, a kingdom of destruction, and you have crossed over the line into a completely opposite kingdom, a kingdom of marvelous light. By repenting and believing the gospel, you have become a citizen of the kingdom of this great God who is a king above all kings. And so that you now consider yourself a pilgrim and a sojourner just passing through the place where we are.

So you might be an American, but now that is so secondary in your life. Not completely without meaning, but so secondary in your life. You're really fundamentally and primarily a kingdom of the kingdom of this king. And so that will supersede everything else and you'll be a subject of his kingdom, a citizen of his kingdom before you are of anything else. Listen to how Peter, so by the way, Peter's here in our text, not by name, but he's one of the twelve.

He's one of the ones traveling city to city, village to village with Jesus, and he's the one hearing all of these sermons So you can believe this came out of the the teachings of Jesus and here's what he says in First Peter chapter 2 verses 9 and 10 Listen as I read first Peter chapter 2 verses 9 and 10. He's writing to believers, people who have crossed over this line and become citizens of this great King. Peter says, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. So Which nation are you a part of if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? The holy nation, the set apart nation, the people that God has taken out for himself and made his own holy people.

His own special people that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, who once were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." This is what Peter is talking about, this holy nation. So when we see Jesus going about preaching about the good news of the kingdom of God. This is what it's talking about. There's another kingdom. You're in a kingdom of darkness and destruction, but through repenting and believing you can become a kingdom of marvelous light.

Like all kingdoms, this kingdom has immigration laws. Who's part? Who's not a part? It's defined in the teaching of the kingdom of God. This kingdom has governing laws.

What tells us what we should be doing, must do? What tells us what we shouldn't be doing, must not do? This kingdom has governing laws. This kingdom is structured in a certain way. This kingdom has certain features and guiding principles and ideals.

This kingdom has enemies. So there's teaching about the enemies of this kingdom. Jesus was teaching about all these things as he was going about these different places and teaching about all these things and more. Our next text will be what's known as the parable of the soils or the parable of the sower. Sometimes it's called one thing, sometimes another, but it's about someone who goes out to spread seed.

And there are different kinds of soil that the seed falls upon and they produce very different results. Some look so promising at first, but in the end turn into nothing, but some are very fruitful. You have a tremendously fruitful crop, sometimes a hundredfold. And so this is part of the teaching of the good news of the kingdom of God. It'll be an example of that in our next text.

So that is the what. Heralding the good news of the kingdom of God like the town crier going out into the city square and saying, the king says this. Jesus was going from city to city and town to town preaching these things. We've had the where, we've had the what. Now with whom?

Was Jesus alone? Far from it. Jesus was nowhere near alone. Others were with him who was with him the 12 look back into chapter 6 Flip back a couple of pages. Mike Bennett preached this text.

Luke chapter six, I'll start in verse 12. I'll go for a while actually. Luke six, starting in verse 12. Now it came to pass in those days that he, Jesus, went out to the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose twelve, so when we see the twelve in our text, this is exactly who he's talking about, he chose twelve whom he also named apostles.

Simon whom he also named Peter and Andrew his brother. James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas. James the son of Alphaeus and Simon called the Zealot. Judas the son of James and Judas Iscariot who also became a traitor. So we know these 12 actually by name.

They precede our text in Luke chapter 8. We saw them named in Luke chapter 6. Let me continue starting in verse 17. And he, Jesus, came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and be healed of their diseases, as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits. And they were healed, and the whole multitude sought to touch him, for power went out from him and healed them all.

Then Jesus lifted up his eyes towards his disciples and said, and we get a sermon by Jesus. So this sort of illustrates the experiences of these twelve men. They're going place to place and Jesus is healing person after person after person after person and he's casting the devil out of person after person after person after person and they're eyewitnesses to it all. So Jesus is actually training and preparing men to turn the world upside down. These are just plain old fishermen and tax collectors, and they're going to turn the world upside down.

And this is Jesus showing them the things that they would need to bet their life on it. These men are all going to bet their life on the things that Jesus is teaching. And will they have such a solid foundation upon which to bet their life on these things, they will have seen a hundred times over people be healed, a hundred times over the devil, people set free from demon possession, and they will have heard a thousand sermons. So how did the disciples know what to preach? They heard a thousand sermons preached by the Lord Jesus Christ as they were going from city to city and village to village.

An example we have in Luke chapter 6. In chapter 9, So we're just starting Luke chapter 8 now But in chapter 9 Jesus will send them out to preach the kingdom and he'll give them power to heal and he'll give them power to cast out demons, but there's not a hint of that here. That's not even suggested in the slightest way here. They're just with Jesus. They're watching Him do those things and listening to Him preach those sermons over and over again.

They're watching him and hearing him. The word disciple simply means a learner, a student, a follower. So here we have Jesus is the master and these twelve men are the learners, the students, and they're followers of Jesus, literally and figuratively. They're literally following Jesus, but they are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is their master.

Who else is with Jesus? Certain women, a certain group of women are going city to city and village to village with Jesus. Last week at the end of chapter 7, we encountered this woman who had many sins. That's the exact words of the text. She was known as a sinner.

Not like Americans think about it, we're all sinners, but it's a word that means devoted to sin, making an art form out of sin, fully committed to sin. That was her public reputation. But she had been forgiven much, So she loved Jesus much, so we got to be eyewitnesses of this outpouring of love and devotion for Jesus. These certain women in our text are a lot like that. Some have been healed of evil spirits.

That's what our text says. Some have been healed of various diseases and they haven't aware of having received much from Jesus. You can't convince me otherwise. That's the whole reason this is said in the text, to give us a sense of their sense of how much Jesus has done for them. Has Jesus done anything from you?

Yes, I was oppressed by the devil. I was possessed by seven devils and Jesus set me free. That's what Mary Magdalene would be able to say. Yes, I had an incurable disease until I met Jesus and he healed me. So these are women who have such a sense of having received much from Jesus.

And so now they're following Jesus. It's really, it's very much like the end of chapter seven. There is an outpouring of love and devotion for these women in chapter eight. Also, They're following Jesus. They're also seeing him do these things and hearing him preach these sermons and helping the effort.

We get to Luke chapter 10. Jesus will be in the home of Martha and Mary, and Mary will be sitting at his feet and hearing him. And that is just what Jesus loved and delighted in, and He says so in that text when we get to Luke chapter 10. We see this actually of all the gospels, this Jesus's interaction with women is more prominent than in any of the other gospels. It's a very prominent theme in the Gospel of Luke.

The thought that Christianity is hostile to women, I said this in men's Bible study, it is historically hilarious, meaning nothing could be further from the truth. If you actually know the truth of what the New Testament teaches and how Bible-believing Christians view women and honor women, you have to think of that notion and just laugh because nothing could be further from the truth. Three of these women are actually named, Mary called Magdalene is named. Most often we call her Mary Magdalene. We just put those two things together.

It almost certainly means she was from Magdala, which was a small town not far from Nazareth, not far from Capernaum. So this is a Galilean Sea of Galilee coastal village, Magdala. If you wanna look it up today, I did it this morning, just look up Migdal Israel and up pops the map and the Sea of Galilee and there it is on the on the western shore not far from where Nazareth or Capernaum would be and she's introduced with this description out of whom had come seven demons seven demons used to have their home in this woman She was enslaved by the devil through these seven demons and then she met Jesus and Jesus set her free. Imagine how much Mary Magdalene loved Jesus. If that was true of you, you were dominated, enslaved by seven demons until you met Jesus, but then he set you free.

How much would you love Jesus? That's how much Mary Magdalene loves Jesus. Imagine how devoted you would be to Jesus if that had been true of you, but it wasn't true of you anymore and Jesus was the reason. These are women, by the way, who we'll find at the cross in Luke chapter 23 and we'll find at the grave in Luke chapter 24. So this was not fleeting for these women.

They're here in beginning of Luke chapter 8, but they're right there at the cross. Ryle says, last at the cross, first at the grave. And that really is true of what we find in the gospels. They are the last ones there lingering as Jesus died and after he died on the cross. That's where we'll find them at the end of Luke, at the end of Matthew, at the end of Mark, they're there, and the first at the grave.

Early in the morning, before the sun is up, they're there at the grave. They loved Jesus so much, that's why. They were so devoted to Jesus, That's why. Joanna, the wife of Chezza, Herod's steward, is named. So this word means, this word translated steward means household manager.

It could have been he was one of the structure. It could actually mean that he was the household manager, meaning anyone else was under his authority. It could mean either one. In either case, he's really an important person. He's a manager in the home of Herod Antipas.

And so this woman would be a woman of means. She would have resources. She would be a woman of status in this society. The commentators observe, almost all of them make a note of this, that we have, especially in the Gospel of Luke, we have awfully good intelligence about the household of Herod and how he related his complicated relationship with John the Baptist, how he liked to hear him preach and he even did some things in his life as a result of hearing John the Baptist preach, but John the Baptist then rebuked him of marrying his brother's wife, and so ultimately he imprisons him. Ultimately, he beheads him.

And then we have information about what Herod thought of Jesus, who he thought Jesus was. So we have a lot of good information about Herod and the commentators note that could be Joanna is the source for this. So that's a guess, but it's an educated guess because We know that this woman was the wife of Herod's steward and had visibility into this household. Susanna is named. Susanna doesn't appear anywhere else in the New Testament, But it's probably likely that she would be known to the original readers of the Gospel of Luke.

Maybe that's why she was named, but she's not found anywhere else. The idea is this. When Jesus turns your life upside down in all the best ways, when the gospel changes everything for you, you feel a debt to help it reach others. When the gospel changes everything for you, you feel this debt to pay it forward. Okay?

You realize it came to me through people and it can come to others through me. What a privilege it would be if the gospel that turned my world upside down in all the best ways that changed everything for me wouldn't it be such a privilege if God used me to have the gospel reach other people. That's really the sense of our text. So what about you? Has the gospel changed everything for you?

The gospel changed everything for me. Sometimes I don't act like it to my shame, but the gospel really has changed everything for me. What about you? We should throw gas on that flame if that's true. If we have this sense that the gospel came to us through people who were transformed by it.

So it should get us thinking the gospel could, I could be a channel for the gospel into somebody else's life and every sense of that we have we should throw gasoline on it and try to fan that in into flame in every way that we can imagine. Then the text simply says this, and many others who provided for him, who provided for Jesus from their substance. So this brings us to how. Seen where it went and what Jesus was doing and preaching. We've seen with whom, the 12 and certain women.

Now we're brought to the how. What enabled this group to travel to these places and do these things? This isn't 13 people walking around, foraging for berries. This is a significant group of people going into cities, into towns, consuming resources. What enabled this?

These many others who provided financially for Jesus are a subset of the certain women. How do we know that? Well, we know that from the Greek. So I don't know Greek, you don't know Greek. But in foreign languages, sometimes they're structured so that words have gender attached to them.

So not so much in English, but I went through high school and into college studying French and it was one of those language that had gendered words. So you could tell whether it was the female version of the word or the male version of the word, whether it was talking about a male or a female, and Greek is like that. And all the words from this part of the text are feminine words, which points it back to the phrase certain women. So this is modifying certain women, these many others who were providing for Jesus out of their substance or out of the resources that they had are part of the certain women who are being spoken of here. So there were women who provided resources for this traveling team of evangelists.

You have a traveling team of evangelists who are consuming resources and these certain women, these many others, are providing these resources for Jesus and the others with him to go where they were going and to do what they were doing and to preach what they were preaching. Listen to Paul writing to the Corinthians about this in 1 Corinthians 9. I'm going to be reading from 1 Corinthians 9. I'll read 7 through 14. This is Paul writing to Corinthians of 1st Corinthians 9 verses 7 through 14.

Paul writes this, Whoever goes to war at his own expense. Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock. Do I say these things as a mere man? Or does not the law say the same also? For it is written in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.

Is it oxen God is concerned about? Or does he say it all together for our sakes? For our sakes no doubt this is written that he who plows should plow in hope and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of this hope. If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things? If others are partakers of this right over you, are we not even more?

Nevertheless, we have not used this right, but endure all things lest we hinder the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who minister the holy things eat of the things of the temple and those who serve at the altar partake of the offerings of the altar. Now here's the punchline. Here's the most critical sentence, more critical than anything I just read. This is verse 14.

Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel. Paul actually calls support a commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ, that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel, should be supported in their preaching of the gospel. The point is that God wants some people set apart to this work full time. Now we all as we are going take the good news of Jesus Christ with us. That is true.

The Great Commission is for us all and within that, God wants some working full time on that. Not working for provision in a bunch of other valuable ways, but being able to totally devote themselves to the bringing the gospel and making disciples. He wants some people set apart to this work full-time so that Paul says Jesus Christ commanded this it is a commandment of the Lord so definitely missionaries there the churches should be sending people to places that don't have the gospel for people and Sometimes people go as tent makers We think of them as tent makers Paul allowed himself to be a tent maker to provide for his own needs but it is very legitimate and this text is even calling for this people to be doing it full-time and not to have to spend their hours in other income earning ways. But this extends actually to local pastors too. Why do we do what we do in this church?

Texts like this form the basis for that. Now let's zoom out for a minute and consider this through the lens of the sovereignty of God. So here we have a certain group of women and they have resources and they're putting these resources into play to support Jesus and the people who are with him and what they're doing, where they're going and what they're preaching. Now I want to look at that through the lenses of God orchestrating all things. How did these women come by these resources?

Where did they come from? Well, there are reasons that we could point to. Maybe this one woman, her husband was a household manager in the King's Palace, so she had resources through that. But looking through the lenses of the sovereignty of God, we say that's not the ultimate reason, that's the secondary reason, and the primary cause of her having resources is God was giving her resources. So there were things that he used through which he provided those resources but if you trace it all the way back you find God.

Looking through the lens of the sovereignty of God, we find God staging resources for the advancement of his kingdom through Jesus going city to city with the 12 and these certain other women and village to village and doing those things and preaching those things. God had put resources in place in advance, maybe working decades in advance to put the resources right in this place for this time, for this purpose. That's looking at these things through the lens of the sovereignty of God. Now me! God saved me by an act of his sovereign grace.

I wasn't looking for God. God came and got me. I couldn't see that for a while, in the early years of me being saved, but now as I think back through it and as I study this through what the scriptures say, I say, I was as clueless as it gets. I wasn't looking for God. God came and got me out of that.

And then God worked almost inexplicably. If you hear my story of my professional life, God gave us all of these resources. Why? I should be looking at God's grace to bring me into his kingdom and to give me his resources through these lenses. I should wonder out loud, God what are you doing by giving me these resources?

Surely it isn't just so that I would spend them all on myself. That's not why God is putting resources in our hands. It's so that others can know, others who desperately need what we have, what God brought to us through an act of his sovereign grace, it can make it to them too. God gives us resources for these things. How did Jesus go where he went and do what he did and preach what he preached.

Well, the human means for this were these women that God had given resources to. Now, we're going to find Jesus in the Gospels feeding 5, 000 by just giving thanks over a couple of fish and a couple of loaves. He didn't actually need this. He could have done it in very miraculous ways, but God actually wanted to set a pattern to show that he's giving resources to people to help along the growth of the kingdom of God, the advancement of the kingdom of God. Let me close with two questions for you.

Two questions and we're done. And we're done. Number one, how content am I for the gospel to terminate with me? So The gospel, if you only knew what the chain looked like, looked like for the gospel coming to you, if you could, you could look back one length, two length, three length, four length, a hundred lengths, you could trace it back to this. You could trace it back through Paul or through Peter or through Andrew, supposedly he made it to Scotland, or through Thomas, supposedly he made it to India.

There's a chain. There is a human chain through which the gospel made it to you. How content are you that you would be the last link in that chain. That okay with you? That sit all right with you?

May God give us a holy discontent with that thought. May God cause that thought to make us restless and make us want to not be the termination of a chain but to be a link that there's another link off of me that God used me in some way that someone who desperately needed to hear about the goodness of Jesus Christ and what he's done for sinners that there would be so many more links that come off of me and I'm just somewhere in the middle here. God sent people to you. You should be delighted at the thought that he might want to use you to bring Jesus Christ and what he's done for sinners to other people. Two, finally, how content am I for the resources God has given me to terminate with me?

So we say, God puts whatever amount of resources into your hands that he puts into your hands. You can say, I did all that, all that's for me. You have to reject so much of the Bible to say that. You have to just say, pretty much the Bible's not true to say, I did that so I get that. Are you content to just say, I'm the terminator, here's the resources, and it's in my bank account, so I'm the termination point, and I'll spend all that on me.

You think that would honor the Lord? You think that's the why, the why, the purpose beyond God giving you the resources. So I hope God will give us a holy discontent that we would be the termination point for the gospel. It came down a long chain to us and then it just doesn't continue any further. Perish the thought.

Or that God puts an abundance of resources, extra resources into our hands, and then we say, this is for me only. This is only for me. Let's pray. God, it's a delight to think about a chain, a sovereignly orchestrated chain. The king said, I'll put in place this link and that link and that link and that link and the chain will keep going on and us being in the chain.

But God it grieves us to think we would be the end of that chain, that no one, the gospel would make it to anyone else through us, and we would be the end of that chain. God, give us the privilege of being a link in the gospel chain that makes it to other people who need forgiveness in Jesus as desperately as we needed it. God, thank you for the resources that you've given to us. So many of us so far beyond our reasonable expectation. Help us not to be closed handed with that, but to view it as a staging of resources for the advancement of your kingdom.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.