First of all I would like to thank you all very much for inviting me to be here. At first I didn't think I would be able but thankfully the Lord has made a way and we've been able to put everything together and to come and meet you all here. I'm very thankful for the adjoining mercies that have been given to us each and I trust it will be a blessed evening as we seek to see what the Lord is doing in his kingdom as the kingdom of God is advancing into places of darkness. And first of all, I'd like us to read together from the book of Psalms. We'll read Psalm number 8. Psalm number 8. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, who has set thy glory above the heavens, Out of the mouths of babes and of sucklings thou hast ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. And I consider thy heavens and the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained. What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou has made him a little lower than the angels and has crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet. All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea. O Lord, our Lord. How excellent is thy name in all the earth. May the Lord add his blessing to that portion of scripture. And I'll seek now to explain some things about the work of the mission. I have some slides. Let me set this up. Excuse me for a minute. So I'm going to have to keep bending down because the machine is broken. Many of you I know have been following the work for some time. Elsie and I first left for Kenya probably about seven years ago. And as many of you are aware, I had a burden for the people there and to go there. And the Lord made a way for us in a remarkable way. And not long after we arrived there, seven years ago, Within three months of being there, a plot of land became available for sale and we were able to purchase it. So about four years ago Elsie and I came back to England for the first time and we began to do some talks and to make people aware of the work and how the Lord had blessed us and encouraged us and how the Lord had really worked in wonderful ways of provision for us. And so when we returned back, we returned back to this building here. This is the building that we spent about two and a half years building, and we built a big hall building here, and along this was some bedrooms, and that's where we used to stay. When we first went back, life was quite busy. It was like we were living on a building site. But we felt that we had established ourselves in the place where the Lord had called us to be at. We had arrived at the place where the Lord would have us to work. And so life at the beginning was very primitive. We didn't have running water. We didn't have any electricity. And so we had to think of many ways in which to wash the children and to get drinking water and shower water and different things like that. So the plot in which we bought was 8 acres of land. We have, this is all quite a while ago, this is the water tower here and that building there is the first building that we built and you have the other building in the background. So when we returned, the work began and we began to complete the mission building, the compound building and we added a classroom, a store and the medical room is just here. So we began to tidy up the place and to get rid of the mud, and so the mission compound became more livable, and we were able to focus more on, instead of living, but focus more on the ministry. When you have a comfortable home to come back to, it's easier to be more settled in the ministry. We also had solar installed so the mission is completely off grid. The mission is run off the solar panels and during the night we have batteries and we have a generator to top up the batteries. And many of you know that we also dug a water tank. There's no mains water. And so the rainwater is collected in this tank and we use that for drinking, showering, cooking and everything. It goes through a filter system. That is all still run off the solar. In 2018, in November, Sam and Hannah felt called to come and join us in the work. The work became too much. We were constantly, nearly 24 hours a day, being disturbed by different things. So you've got the preaching of the church, you've got the teaching, and then people would come with different sicknesses and different problems. And constantly you were dealing with things that we had never dealt with before. Elsie and I, I was a builder and Elsie was a nanny. And so we were dealing with sickness, injuries and stuff that we had not dealt with. And it became a matter of prayer that the Lord would bring somebody to help us in the work that we were doing. And Sam and Hannah, Sam had been a good friend to me, and he felt that the Lord called him to come and work with us. So when he arrived, he began to set himself up with the clinic. And so the people had a better opportunity of seeing someone who knew what they were on about. And even today, Sam is still dealing with the medical work. So Sam and Hannah, we lived together for over six months in that first building. But as you know, we white people are not very good at living on top of each other. And so Sam and Hannah built themselves this house here. They built it out of their own money and they moved out and then Not long after, we also built a house. Now this has an interesting story to it. We had a visitor come from Canada and he came to see the work and he said to me, what's the next plan? What do you feel that you want to do next? And I said to him, well, I feel that we should come out of this May Mission building and we should have a house that we could live in as a family and that would free up the May Mission building for other work, for teaching and for the medical centre. And he said, how much do you think you'll need? I said, well, I don't know, maybe about £25,000 to £30,000. He went into the room that he was staying, and he came back out with $2,000 and said, start digging the foundation, I'll pay for the rest. And so that was how we were able to get this house built. The Lord has provided for us like that from the start of the mission. If there is a need, the Lord has provided, even down to rainfall. So this is, as you can see, Sam and Hannah's house here. There's now obviously another house further down the road. This area here we use for growing maize and at the moment we've just harvested podger, which is green grams. and we harvested about a ton of green grams. That is used for food aid distribution to the local people who are in need and also it goes to another pastor we know in the town and he also has a food aid program. So you can see the difference in the space of three years. that physically speaking, the mission has grown and become established. And you think, seven years ago, it was just a field in the middle of what people would say, in the middle of nowhere. And so the Lord has really grown the work physically. There's a video here, if it will work. This was done by Sam's brother, it's just a drone going up from the centre of the main mission compound. You see the concrete in the middle, it used to be all dirt. On the left hand side is the area that we used for the church. You see the solar panels, the tank there, the truck. And you've got Sam and Hannah's. Those three manholes that you see up here, they are the cesspit system. So the sewage goes into one, overflows into another, and overflows into another. And then our house is just here. So recently, not long before we came back, we finished this store. We had a new generator, a more powerful one that's able to charge all of the batteries. We built that. And then we have been concreting the road, the access road in. Many of you have seen the photos and the videos of the rainy season. When it rains, it rains and the place becomes flooded. So to tidy up the compound, we've decided to concrete the road up to the main gate. And so there's still a remaining part of about eight more sections of that road to do. So, the mission itself, from what we would call the main road, but it's not actually a main road, it's just a track, it's about a kilometre. So, from that road to the mission, it's all through fields. And so we decided to put a rock road covered with slate from the main road to the mission, because we were getting stuck. And if it had been raining for three days, you couldn't even get out in the car. So that has all been, that road now has all been completed. The only part left is the concreting of the road inside of the mission. So when Elsie and I returned back from being in England four years ago, we then started the church. We feel that the church is the centre almost of the mission and that's why the Lord has placed us there. Any of you who know anything about Kenya, if you read you'll see that it's 90% Christian. If you see the statistics on corruption, Kenya is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and yet it's supposed to be 90% Christian. And that shows you of the level of the Christianity that they have. It is a Christianity that is based on materialism, wealth, the health and wealth gospel is there, the charismatic teachings are there, and the reformed theology, there's hardly any. Especially on the coast of Kenya there, originally there was only one church. The coast of Kenya is mostly Muslim, but there are Christians that have moved down to the coast to start businesses, but most of them are, as I say, charismatic. There was only one reformed church in Mombasa, which was Pastor Doumas, which is the man that we came to be with. And over these seven years, the Lord has brought men, as you will see, men into our pathway, which are sound, reformed, local men who are able to minister to their own people. So we started the church, originally began in a mud hut, with only very few people. But slowly over time, it grew. We moved from the mud hut into the building that I showed you, and the Lord began to bless the ministry of His Word. And what you would find is that people may come out of curiosity. And maybe they'll come to one service and they'll complain. They'll say, well, why aren't you dancing? Where's the music? We want to dance. And we tell them, well, this is a Bible church. We teach the Bible. and they don't come again. But then you have those who are touched by the Word, and they say, well, we've never heard this before. Our preachers, they don't preach from the Bible, they just preach whatever comes into their heads. And so you find that those people then, they stay. And they begin to ask questions, and they begin to ask for a Bible, and they begin to grow in the knowledge and the understanding of the Word. And we've seen some encouragement amongst the people. So this was the Sunday school. We had a Sunday school day. Elsie has about, or she did have before the virus, about 70 children who used to come week by week. And so once a year we did them an occasion where they could come and they could play games and meet with each other. And some of the games they'd never seen, like the sack race. They'd never played the sack race before. And so we had some good times with them. This is a young man called Michael. Michael was what they would call a deacon of a prophet. There were so many prophets and apostles, so-called, that Michael was the deacon to a prophet. And he was invited to come to the church at the mission, and as he heard, as I said to you, as he heard the word, Something triggered in his mind, I've never heard this before. I'm walking with a prophet and yet the prophet isn't speaking the word of God. And he began to attend. And he came to the realisation that he was not saved. Although he thought he was saved, he came to the realisation that he himself was not saved. and over a period of time he came to salvation and was baptized, and now is a deacon, and just before I returned home he expressed a desire to preach. Which is an amazing thing. If you think, seven years ago, it was just a field. And now the Lord has worked, and the young man has taken him from the falsehood of this false gospel, and he now wants to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. This is another man, Raphael. He also was a member of a church where the pastor was a woman. He was the deputy pastor. He attended our Bible studies. He came for about two years and then he went back to the church. And we saw him again and we said, are you still attending that church? And he said, yes. And we began to sit with him and to speak to him and show him again from the scriptures the error. And in the end he turned from that way and has been attending the Mission Church. So a lot of the time Michael and Raphael go walking together, evangelism, and I go with them. During the coronavirus period the churches were closed, but the government advised us to close the churches, and because we are foreigners in that land we decided that it was best to. And we did do for some period of time, but then we decided to open the church up again because there was no coronavirus around our area. But during that time, we began to minister in the different villages where the people came from. So we would go to a village, we would sit at one of the congregation's house, And due to their culture, they all sit outside, so that many other people began to join. And we actually saw the church grow in that period of time. When we opened again, we had over 30 adults attending the main service on a Sunday. And due to these meetings, we had at least two people baptised. This was a young lady, she had just recently given birth and they asked me to come and to pray with her and with their child. This man here... We were having a service at his house and he is the man whom he was a prolific adulterer and he asked us to come and minister to him and hold the service at his house and due to that service he was converted. I don't know if you heard the story that I was speaking about the narrow way that leads to life and the broad road that leads to destruction and he couldn't grasp it in his mind. And so I drew it on the floor. I drew the broad road, and the hell at the bottom, and a little doorway coming off, and the narrow way that leads to life. And I showed him that the door was the Lord Jesus Christ, the only way in which someone may be saved. And then at the end he says, I understand, I understand. And then he began, after the church opened, he began to attend and then asked to be baptised. And in speaking to his wife, she said, and she testifies also, that she's seen a complete change in her husband. Culturally, it is not acceptable for a man to go to church. It's seen as very weak. Men are strong, they're able to be self-dependable, they should have as many women as they can, and yet for someone then to step aside and say, no, I'm turning my back on that, and to even suffer persecution because of it, is an act of God. God alone worked in his heart. This was another old lady who was recently baptized, Mama Katana. This is her daughter. She was learning Psalm 23 and so she was able to recite that. This lady is Mama Mary. This is her house, this is where she lives. She has like six children. Her husband is an alcoholic. He abuses her. He disappears for weeks and weeks on end. He's banned her from attending the services. She was, in fact, one of our most faithful, not church member, but a member of the congregation. She would come on a Saturday, sweep the whole church, sit out the chairs, never ask for any money or anything like that. But then her husband became jealous and stopped her from coming. And culturally, she can't say, I'm not listening to anything you say, because she'll be chased from the homestead. She will have nowhere else to go. But she's always happy. She was always happy. She always comes to visit us and to see us. And our children are great friends with her children. So we have a food aid program at the mission every Monday, every Monday morning. Those who are disabled, who are orphans, who's widows and old people are invited to come And they are given some maize, maybe some oil, half a litre of oil. And if we've got any beans, then they have some beans as well. This is our harvest of maize. So we put it through the machine and you get the seeds off. And it's left to dry. The green is the green grams. So this year, let's say we've got, or last year, sorry, we've got a tonne of that. So in our area, there are many people who are... everybody is poor, as they would say, but there are people who are very, very poor. Now this family has an albino child. Now because of the albino child, the rest of the villagers chased them from the village, because they said that they were cursed. And so they were forced out. You see the mother, this is the mother. She only looks probably 15 or 16. She's already got four children. This is the father and that is the home in which they live. Sam and Michael went to visit them and assess the situation and they have been able to provide them with clothing and also they have redone their house. You'll see. So the whole family lives in that one room, in that one building. You see the girl, there's a little girl there with no clothes on, laying on the bed. And that's not uncommon for a whole family to sleep in a two-room mud hut, all of them on the same bed, or even the children on the floor without mosquito nets and such like. So there is the The medical side of the mission, although the mission itself is not registered, we're struggling to get a license to be able to practice legally. But when people come to you, you can't turn them away. And so, people still come day by day, people come and Sam is able to help them, or we're invited to their house. And this girl here is suffering with malaria. Malaria, as you know, is carried by mosquitoes. It kills more people than any other thing in the world. And it is rife where we are, especially in the rainy season. And often they leave it till the last moment before they come to us. Thankfully, we've never had anyone who has passed away, but we have, Sam has had us to do IV treatment, emergency IV treatment because of the severity of some of the cases. This girl also had malaria. She had already been to the government hospital and they had given her the wrong tablets. They never tested her for malaria. So she came to the mission. I was able to test her. She was positive for malaria and we gave her the right medication and she went home. And that's the problem. Everywhere is corrupt. The police are corrupt, the government is corrupt, the hospitals are corrupt, the schools are corrupt. And this little girl, one of our sons in school, had a fight with her sister. Her mum and dad had gone to work, the older sister had been left in charge. They had a fight and the big sister bit her ear and she nearly bit it off and it became infected and we had to deal with that. Some of you may have heard of Wassini Island. As I said to you before, the coast of Kenya, because of the Arab influence in the slave trade, the coast of Kenya is Muslim. And there is an island off the coast of Kenya called Wassini, Wassini Island, it's 100% Muslim. Now, Sam had been there, Sam and Michael had been there, and we had been praying about it. How are we going to go there? How are we going to get there? How are we going to take the Gospel there? 100% Muslim, we as white people, it's very difficult for us to go in a discreet manner. And so we prayed about it. We prayed about it for a long time. And then the Lord heard our prayer. And we were sent through, I think it came about through a Facebook post, and how this young man here, Yohanna, came from Nairobi, which is the capital city of Kenya. He had been praying about Wassini Island for a year, and he had been wondering, how am I going to get there? We had been praying, how are we going to get there? He is wondering how he is going to get there. And so the Lord, in a miraculous way, brought us together. And now, two days per week, Johanna and Raphael go over to the island and seek to minister and speak on a one-to-one basis with the people there. You find that the The Muslims, they're not very, maybe deep. They're more folk, more folk Islam. There's a lot of spiritual. They speak about the different spirits and it's based not, they don't know the Quran very, very well. And so they are able to speak to them. It's a nice island. There are some, obviously some buildings there. But that would be a matter of prayer. I would ask you that the Lord would open hearts, that they may receive the truth, that that island that is 100% Muslim may be 100% Christian, that the light of the gospel may shine there. So there are two villages on the island, one at either end. They don't get on. And then there's a village in the middle where there's a mixture of the two villages and that is where they do get on. And so that has been the focal point of the ministry. And so in the middle of the island is just bush. They've got a village there, a village there, and in the middle is just bush. So another... Most of you know Sam. Another breakthrough or another way in which the Lord has brought somebody to us is through this man Ryan. Ryan is from Zambia and he has had a burden for Somalia. As you know, Somalia is a closed country. You are not allowed to publicly preach there and yet he believes that God is calling him to go there. His church is not willing to send him. And so he was brought to us through a friend of Johanna. And he's been dealing with Sam since I was there. And he's come to the mission recently. And he wants to go to that country. He believes the Lord is calling him to go there. And so that would be another prayer request. The Apostle Paul says, pray for us that the Word of God may go forward. And that is something that we need. We know we cannot ourselves break open people's hearts, but the Lord, by the power of His Holy Spirit, is able to transform people. And He does so by people who are willing to take that step of faith. and to be obedient to his word. So this afternoon Sam and Ryan and Johanna and Festus went preaching. They did some ministry in the local villages. They're seeing these young men, they are what they call the boda boda riders, the motorbike riders. That's the most common means of transport. We might say that they're a bit like the boy racers of England. So they vomit around on their motorbikes. So they are, at that time, listening to the Word of God. Although they are not Christians and they are not Muslims, yet they will listen to what you have to say. Everybody believes in God, not like in England where you talk about God and you're immediately thought of as an ignorant person. But there everybody believes in God and so that does give you an access point. When you pray they will be respectful, when you read the Word of God they will be respectful, they will not shout and they would listen quietly to what you have to say. even young men. And so, that is also part of the work of the mission. As the building projects have begun to be completed, the next phase of the work is the promotion or the proclaiming of the Word of God. So, that's the end of that. I don't know if anybody has any questions quickly. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Most kind and ever-merciful and almighty God, and yet loving Heavenly Father of Thy people, we come before Thee once more at the throne of grace, thanking Thee, Lord, for Thy mercy and Thy love towards us. We thank Thee that Thou has not dealt with us as we deserve, and we thank Thee, O Lord, that Thou has given to us Thy Word, And we pray as we gather around thy word this evening, that thou give us of thy Holy Spirit, that thy Holy Spirit may be stirred up amongst us, that we may indeed meditate upon thy word this evening. You draw near to us now, we pray. Enable me, O Lord, to speak. Do pour in that I may be able to pour out. Do indeed, O Lord, make thy strength perfected in weakness, as we ask these things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I want us to turn in our Bibles to the chapter that we read together, Psalm number 8. I know many of you are probably very familiar with this psalm and how it speaks to us of the Lord Jesus Christ. But I want to first consider a few things in verses 3 and 4. And I consider thy heavens and the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained. What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visited him? David begins the psalm with a declaration of the Lord, Jehovah, the Sovereign God, the Sovereign Master, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. And as he considers the greatness of his God, he also considers the greatness of the creation of God. And as we continue reading, we see that not only does he exalt God, but he lifts up God's creation. And he seeks to declare to those around that the greatness of the creation is just the work of the fingers of God. Something that God spoke into being, and not something that caused him much effort to do. It was the work of His fingers. And when we look up into the heavens and we see the moon and the stars and the wonderful things that God has created around us, surely these things should indeed bring us to meditate upon the greatness of the One who created them. The Bible tells us that the person who built the house is greater than the house itself. The one who imparts wisdom is greater than the wisdom. The one who teaches is greater than the student. And as we consider the heavens and the things that God has made round about us, we see the greatness of God. We see in the plants and the animals and the fishes of the sea, which we have read together, the greatness of God and how everything has an order to it. We know that our God is a God of order and everything that he has and everything that he does is done in an orderly and a controlled manner. And then the psalmist says that God is over all of these things. He is over all of his creation. Everything that he has made, he is in complete control of it. And as we go through the scriptures, we see time and time again when God deals with his own creation. How he was able to turn back the world and the sun went down. How he spoke to the whale and it swallowed up Jonah. And how he spoke to it again and it spat out Jonah. How he sent his angel to close the mouths of the lions with Daniel. and how in the New Testament he told his apostles to throw your nets into the sea, and the fishes, how they swam into the nets. And we see, so everything that God has created is under his control, and listens to his voice, and does exactly as he pleases it to do. And as the psalmist considers all of these things, as he looks at the wonderful things that God has created and he meditates upon them, he then asks the question, what is man that thou art mindful of him? I mean, look at all of God's creation, how they are obedient to him. And yet man is disobedient. We find that man has gone astray. Man does not want to listen to what God says and what God commands in His Word. It is man who is rebellious. It is man who has sinned against Him. It is man that has brought the curse upon God's creation. And the psalmist then considers, what is man that thou art mindful of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels, but you have given him some domain in which to rule over. We are the least. Jesus says that John the Baptist is the least in the kingdom of God. He is the least. We are made a little lower than the angels, but in our weakness, in our frailty, in our disobedience to God, we have still been given a domain in which to rule over. We have been given command over the fish of the sea, over the animals, over the creation that God has given to us. And in our wickedness, God has still given us some authority in the sphere in which we live. And this causes the psalmist to wonder. If God is so great, if God is so holy, if God is so powerful, why then does he consider man? What is man that thou art mindful of him? Why do you even think about him? Why? Because man was created in the image of God. We see Adam at the beginning of time, how he communed with God, he was in fellowship with God, he was in friendship with God. And yet he sinned and disobeyed against God and the union, the fellowship was severed. But God is still mindful of us. He has not left us in our sin. He has not left us in our uncleanness. He has come and He has indeed plucked us and made a way for us to be reconciled unto Himself. And that brings us then to the second side of this psalm. Not only does it speak of us, That we are made a little lower than the angels. Made under the law of God, but it also speaks to us about the Lord Jesus Christ. And this shows us something beautiful of the Lord Jesus. You see how the psalmist, he elevates the creation of God and exalts the angels above mankind. And yet, the Lord Jesus Christ made himself as we are, a little lower than the angels. So we can ask the question, what is man that thou art mindful of him? The Lord was mindful of us, for he gave us. a saviour. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. If we turn to the book of Hebrews we will see that the writer here takes up the psalm and he begins to explain it and expound it for us. Hebrews chapter 2. Verses 6 to 10 says, But one in a certain place testified, What is man that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man that thou visited him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, thou crownest him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hand. I was put all things in subjection under his feet, for in that he put all in subjection under him. He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see, not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus. who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man. And we see there the Lord Jesus Christ made himself of no reputation, made himself a little lower than the angels, came under his law. This sovereign became a subject to his own law that he may taste death for every man, that is, every man who would believe and trust in Him. If we turn to the book of Philippians, in chapter 2 and verse 5, Let this mind be anew, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, and made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found fashioned as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto the death of the cross. Wherefore also God has highly exalted him, and given him a name above every name, and that the name of the Lord Jesus Christ every knee should bow. And so do you see how it is that God manifested in the flesh, came down from glory to this earth, the sovereign became a subject under his own law, so that he may taste death, humbled himself, You see, there are not many in a high place who humble themselves. There are not many kings who come to be paupers. And yet the God, the creator of heaven and earth, came from glory, the place of which there is no sin, a place of which there is no tears, there is no death. And yet He came from that place to this place, the valley of the shadow of death, the valley of tears. The Lord Jesus Christ came so that He may taste death for all who would believe on Him and in Him. We turn to the book of Ephesians. Chapter 1, sorry. Verses 19 and more, and this is something that I wanted to get to. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us, ward, who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and set him on his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principalities and powers and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world but is that which to come. He has put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all the earth. And so the Lord Jesus Christ descended from glory, put on flesh, died upon the cross, the sinless, became sin, that whosoever believeth may not perish but have everlasting life, and rose again from the grave, rose again in victory, triumphant from the grave, that now sits at the right hand of God. And all things, has been put under his feet. We go back to the psalm that we read, the animals have been put under our feet. And if we go back to the Old Testament, you see that in Egypt, that those herders, they were mocked as a low class status. And even in New Testament times, the shepherds, it was a low class status. And that is what God has given us to rule over. The animals and the fish of the sea and the trees and the plants, a low class status. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ gained a victory over death, and all things have been put under His feet. The animals, the people, the kings, the princes, the angels, all creation is under the control of our Lord Jesus Christ. All things, and even the church, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is His body, His body. which is his body. Now, the Bible tells us that a man cares for his body more than anything else in the whole world. A man does not neglect, a mentally stable man does not neglect his body. Now you think of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, how he cares for it, and how it should be cared for. For he has put his servants to be stewards in the church. He has put his servants to be his under-shepherds of his flock. He has put his servants to take care of his bride. And we are to take care of it. What is man then that thou art mindful of him? The Lord Jesus came into earth, died upon the cross, and now the church is His body which is remaining behind upon the earth. And that body is to be cared for. It is precious. It is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And within that body, the Bible tells us, there are many members. There are many members. Each member of the body has a particular use. There is no useless member to the true body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we know that the Lord Jesus Christ has his people in all corners of the earth. And he has given a commission to the church, to his body, to go out and make disciples of all nations. God is mindful of man. He so loved the world that he gave his son. And he has given the church now a commission to go and gain, to go and search out, to go and promote the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the job of the church. That is the job of the bride. That is the job of the body of Christ. To use the gifts that have been given to you as a believer for the advancement of the kingdom. Whether you're a businessman, then your job is to fund the gospel. Your job is to advance those who are going forward. You think of an army. The Bible tells us we are soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ. An army cannot go forward unless it has people behind providing them with the things that they need to go forward. What are you gifted in? What gift has God given you as a believer in the Lord Jesus? You are not useless. What is man? You are created in the image of God. Yes, defiled, but He has given you a gift. And that gift He has given to serve Him. Not to serve yourself. Not to advance yourself. Not to elevate yourself in the Kingdom of God. Not to elevate yourself as a greater member of the body of Christ. But to bring glory to the head which is the Lord Jesus Christ. Our bodies lift up our head. When we talk to people, we speak to their faces. Our bodies lift up. Our bodies work together for the good of each other. We feed our faces, we feed our heads so that they may nourish our whole body. The job of the church is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to lift him up. We have been given our domain, we have been given our jobs, we have been given the commission of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the psalmist considers the heavens and the amazing things that God has made and it makes him think, well, what is man? Well, man is created in the image and the glory of God, and God has called his church to advance his kingdom. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in heaven as well as in earth. May the Lord add his blessing. Amen.