This morning as we were wrapping up the service, one of the brethren in the church asked me if I had read a book about missions that was really compelling, interesting, and helpful. And immediately came to my mind the biography of Adoniram Judson entitled, To the Golden Shore. This biography is about 500 pages long, so that automatically makes you say, perhaps to yourself, not interested. I often react that way to really long books like that as well, but the evening I got that book, early in the evening, in fact, as I recall, it was late in the afternoon, I started reading it, and it was one of the only times in my life when I found a book so compelling that I was finished still reading that book until the wee hours in the morning and almost early morning the next day, and I read the entire book. What would make a man who is having a prosperous ministry as a young man in New England who'd come to Christ, son of a pastor, decide to go to the other side of the world with the very first group of American missionaries over 200 years ago? to spread the gospel in a country that had never heard the gospel, that was antagonistic to the gospel, and then to labor for some seven years with none even coming to Christ, no converts to the gospel, but continuing on faithfully to translate the Bible into Burmese for those people, and to see many thousands come to the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, so much so now that when you visit what is called Myanmar, which is the new name for Burma, you find that there is a significant percentage of Baptists in that country. There are, of course, Asian religions, but unlike other southeastern Asian countries, lo and behold, you know, there's this surprising number of people who are Baptists who are reached with the gospel, and there are still a surprising percentage of people who know the Lord Jesus Christ. But what takes a man through great personal sacrifice to a very faraway place, to a culture that is completely unfamiliar, resulting in the loss of children and a wife while he's on the mission field, to serve the Lord faithfully? Well, you could really ask the same question about missionaries today. Why would my friend Phil Hunt leave America and go to Zambia, Africa, and serve there for nearly 30 years, planting churches, establishing a school, establishing an orphanage, faithfully serving Christ for the glory of God? I mean, when you go to Zambia, Africa, you just know you're going to get diseases that you don't get in the United States. Malaria, for one. In fact, that's the greatest killer of people on the continent of Africa today. And you know when you go there as an African missionary, you're gonna catch malaria on a regular basis. Now they have medicines that you can take that will prevent you from dying from it, you know, today. and recovering, you know, fairly rapidly, but nonetheless, that's, you know, that's a great burden. That's a great time of suffering that those families go through, and they've done it by choice. I think of the amazing American missionary, Pablo Jules, who many decades ago went to the island of Dominican Republic when things were not nearly as well developed in that island as they are today, that's the eastern end of the island of Hispaniola. And Paul reached in that city, the capital city, Santa Domingo, through great personal sacrifice and service over many years, a young man named Rafael Rodriguez Nina who became a pastor and shepherded and built a very substantial large church which stands today on the main thoroughfare in the capital city and is pastored now by a man named Pedro Quina who was the first person I ever met in the Dominican Republic. He was a very young man. He came to the airport to pick me up and it was a chaotic scene, a marvelously chaotic scene like only you can have in an underdeveloped Caribbean island. The Eastern Airlines pilot, that airline no longer exists, landed us on the military airstrip instead of the commercial airstrip. We were surrounded by machine gun toting military guards and sat on a hot plane for several hours and then were escorted to the main international airport and it was absolute mayhem. And here was Pedro to meet me and to shepherd me to where I needed to go to preach and to teach the word of God. But the reason there was that ministry, the reason there was that opportunity to go and teach pastors and also preach to the people of God there and evangelize was because Paul Joel's went to the Dominican Republic, actually decades before. He had already left the Dominican Republic by the time I went there to visit. What compels people to do things like what these dear folks that have come to be here with us this week, the Dan Hyden family, to do? I mean, when I looked at that map and saw where they went in Siberia, I thought to myself, what is going on in the mind of a person, people, who do this sort of thing? Has that ever crossed your mind? I'm sure it's crossed your mind as you sit here, as residents in this area, that that hasn't ever gone on in your mind. Obviously, what's happened to them hasn't happened to you. But knowing what has happened to them, how that has happened, how they have been directed of God, compelled, called, and really strengthened to the mission field is an extremely important thing for us all as Christians, faithful believers. How does this happen? And how do people go from one culture to another, to a very unfamiliar place, with a different language, and achieve great works for God? Well, there's a surprising statement in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. that you would never really expect to find. And this is not the passage that I'm gonna preach from, so I don't intend you to settle down in this passage. But what's remarkable about 1 Corinthians 15 is it's what is called the resurrection chapter of the New Testament. It discussed the resurrection of Christ and the effect of the resurrection on the believer's life. And what you don't expect to find in this chapter is this short autobiography of the Apostle Paul. I'm gonna read it to you. And last of all, he was seen of me also, the Lord Jesus, as one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, that I'm not me to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." Now read that sentence again with me there. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. There was a supernatural bestowment of what the New Testament describes or calls grace. That's what compelled this man, the prototypical missionary of all time, to go everywhere he went in the Roman Empire, traveling to 30-some different cities over a 12-year period, planting many churches, and of course, as you well know, writing a good portion of our New Testament. You've often marveled at that man and his life and what he's done, and we're still talking about him two millennia later, for obvious reasons. but we have an explanation of what happened in his life, what can happen in your life, whether you are compelled of God into ministry anew and afresh in a surprising way here, or you are compelled of God to a different place entirely, even a foreign place with a different language and a different culture. The answer for how that happens and why that happens and people serve so productively in these places is the grace of God. Now, I want to take you. to what I like to call a window text in the New Testament. And here, we'll use that text as a way to look at the teaching of the New Testament on this very important idea concerning abounding life and ministry. And this is found in 2 Corinthians 9, verse 8. It's actually in a part of a passage that talks about God's working in the life of the Corinthian believers to give generously for the work of God. But then suddenly, Paul generalizes and he says, now I'm gonna say something that applies way beyond just Christian giving monetarily. Listen to the words that he states in the form of a promise. Verse eight of chapter nine of 2 Corinthians. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. That is God's great promise to us. His grace for you. is as unwavering promise to you. For the ministry God will give you here or God may give you abroad in a foreign mission field. Grace is a major theme in the New Testament. It occurs in 156 passages, in fact, in the New Testament, the term that we translate grace. It is a treasure for us. Without it, we actually can do nothing. We wanna ask, I think, several questions and answer those questions tonight about this phenomenon called grace. What really is this grace? That's an important question. Think of it this way. You all have in your chest a muscle about the size of your fist. And of course, it's called your heart. If you live to 70 years of age, which I'm in my 70th year right now, your heart will beat 2.5 billion times in your life, pumping five quarts of blood to every cell in your body. your physical heart and the blood that it pumps, specifically, can be likened to the grace of God in the Christian experience that's intended to flow into every part of your life. I don't mean the physical shed blood of Jesus on the cross. I'm using physical blood now as a spiritual analogy. This grace of God is intended to flow into every part of your life to strengthen and empower you. You've probably heard it defined before by using the five letters of the word grace, G-R-A-C-E. God's riches at Christ's expense. That's a good definition. That's a legitimate definition. That's not the whole picture, but that gets us started in the right direction for sure. As we look at this promise, it begins to answer for us this question, what really is grace? Well, we see from the words that are stated here in the very opening of the verse, and God is able to make all grace abound to you. It is something from God. It is something from God through the ministry and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember the words of John chapter one, verse 14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth. And then verse 16, just two verses later, and we have received his grace and grace upon grace. Christ through his ministry for us is the bestower of grace from God the father and by the spirit of the Lord. John Bunyan, famous English a non-conformist English Baptist pastor, spent 12 years in a prison in Bedford, England, writing Pilgrim's Progress, a famous book which has sold more copies than any other book in the world other than the Bible itself. Bunyan not only wrote Pilgrim's Progress, he wrote a lot of poems, he wrote a lot of other books. One time he wrote these interesting words about Christ's grace. He said, thou son of the blessed, what grace was manifested in thy condescension. Grace brought thee down from heaven. Grace stripped thee of thy glory, O son of God. Grace was in thy tears. Grace came forth from every word of thy sweet mouth. Grace came out where the whip smote thee, where the thorns pricked thee, where the nails pierced thee. Here is grace indeed, grace to astonish demons, grace to make angels wonder, grace to make sinners happy. When you think of grace, think of this. Christ is the vine, we are the branches, the Father is the husbandman, and as the life of Christ by grace, this grace, flows out of Him into us as the branches to bear fruit. we honor him and glorify him through that fruit bearing. The Bible says in John 15, herein is my father glorified that you bear much fruit. We are the branches, he is the vine and that grace flows to us from Christ into our lives. God, the son, the father by the spirit is the source of this grace for us. But it's something also this passage says with many facets. Look again at the verse, the promise. God is able to make all grace abound toward us. All grace abound toward us. What quantity, what quality there is. Now I come from a place that I call the, there's a group that's named the Bent Elbow Society. Liberty may become acquainted with some in that society, as one of the young women at the university. But sometimes after spring break, or sometimes after Christmas break, or sometimes after summer break, I see girls do a lot of this. Their elbow bends. And what they're doing is they're showing their friends this magnificent rock that's sitting on their finger. I don't know how the guys afford what they buy girls these days, but they are magnificent. Multi-faceted gems. And when the light hits those just right, they glisten, they shine because of the many cut facets on that jewel. that really is what grace is like. In fact, that is exactly what 1 Peter 4, verse 10 says. Listen to the words. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God, the many faceted grace of God. Those that speak are to speak as the oracles of God. Those that serve are to serve as those that have been given grace to do so, the passage goes on to teach. And this grace is not only multifaceted, it is not only from God, the promise goes further as we look at it carefully. The Bible says God is able to make all grace abound toward you. It is something that is abundantly available to us. There is no lack of ability or lack of willingness on the part of God. Men and women, we really would sooner exhaust the ocean of water. We would sooner exhaust the sky of stars. We would sooner exhaust God of his very nature than he would ever run short on grace to bestow upon you. in your life and on those who go to the far-reaching ends of the earth. This is the secret. This is the answer. This is the great power for missions. It's the only thing that explains it after two millennia. And you know, there's something else in this text about what really is grace. It is something which enables us through Christ. The passage goes on and says that ye always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work. There are a lot of superlatives there, aren't there? Always, all sufficiency, all things, Every good work, what an incredible promise. Now either Paul was really having a bad case of inspired exaggeration, or he was telling us the truth. He was giving us a promise we could count on. And men and women, I'm very inclined to believe, in fact, I'm dead on certain after the literally scores of people I have witnessed, lives I've witnessed, of people who have gone to the far ends of the earth, that God is able to grant what is needed to those people to do what He's called them to do. He enables them. consistently and completely to do the ministry they've been called to do. I remember a time of particular personal weakness and desperation. I was a young, younger man serving on the faculty, trying to finish a doctor's degree, parenting four young children and serving as an associate pastor in a church. And you may say, well, you deserved to feel weak. That's half crazy to take on that much stuff. But that was my circumstance in life. And I was very desperate to be able to meet my responsibilities. And I didn't, in some cases, feel like I really knew what to do. I felt really very unable. Well, one of the things I needed to do, and I did do to some degree, was change some priorities and cut down on a few things here and there. But more importantly, what happened to me is I was forced in desperation at that time to search the scriptures to get an answer about where I could get power, strength, enablement from God to meet my responsibilities in service for Christ. And I took an exhaustive concordance of the Bible, and I looked at every reference in the Bible I could find that had the word strength or power in it. And when I did that, I came upon what personally I just call the golden text of the New Testament on the subject of grace. And I found it in chapter 12 of 2 Corinthians, just a couple pages over from where we have been looking at this magnificent promise. It's that instance where Paul was stricken with this really serious physical condition. We don't know exactly what it is. There's a little hint in Galatians that he might have had some kind of eye infection or disease, but we know he had a serious physical problem. And the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 12 that he cried out to the Lord to deliver him from that problem. Verse eight, for this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee. For my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, while I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. And Paul responds, therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. Do you see what's happening in these verses? Paul is using interchangeably the words grace and strength and power. He's defining for us that grace is divine power imparted to us to enable us to do the work that God has appointed us to do. Now, let's just hone in even more. When you look at a promise like what we're looking at in 2 Corinthians 9, 8, that just has all these unbelievable extreme superlatives stated in it. It really does raise a question, another question, and that is how central is grace to spiritual life? Well, you're already getting the idea that it's very central, but the New Testament is not silent about this. The New Testament, in fact, is profoundly full about it. Grace was central to all the prayers of the Apostle Paul, and they should be for those that he served, and they should be for us, for those we serve who are on the mission field, like the Hydens. They ought to become an object and a subject of our prayers constantly, and we ought to be praying for grace for them. Let me show you what I mean about this being central to what we pray for people. Turn to Romans chapter 1 in your New Testament. We're going to take a quick journey right now, and I'm going to show you a phenomenon here in these books of the New Testament, Paul's letters. Romans 1-7. Paul writes in his introduction, to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, well now, there's the introductory prayer to the letter, but guess what? When we go to the very last chapter, we find the benediction of the letter in verse 24, and Paul says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen. Well, now that's interesting. He starts by praying for grace for them, and he ends by praying for grace for them. But look over to the very next page in chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians, verse 3. Okay, there we have it again. in the introductory prayer. But if you go to the very end of the book, in chapter 16, verse 23, you find another one of these summary benedictions. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. And then we turn one page over to Galatians chapter one, verse three. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, That he states right after verse two, which says, grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. In chapter 13, verse 14, in this same epistle, we're right at the end again, there's another benediction, verse 14, the last verse of the letter, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Romans 1, grace, Romans 16, grace, 1 Corinthians 1, grace, 1 Corinthians 16, 2 Corinthians 1, 2 Corinthians 13. We turn to the next page, to Galatians, to chapter one, verse three, grace be to you and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. You go to the last chapter, to verse 18, brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, amen. And folks, listen. This happens in Ephesians 1-2 and Ephesians 6-24. It happens in Philippians 1.2 and 4.23, Colossians 1.2 and 4.18, 1 Thessalonians 1.1 and 5.28, 2 Thessalonians 1.2 and 3.18, 1 Timothy 1.2 and 6.21, 2 Timothy 1.2 and 4.22, Titus 1.4 and 3.15, Philemon 1.3, there's only one chapter, and verse 25. the beginning and the end, the start and the finish. Grace to you, grace to you, grace upon you. Central in Paul's prayers for those that he served. But as we examine the pages of the New Testament, we find that grace is central to every dimension of spiritual life and service. Really? Yes, really. God is able to make all grace abound to you for every dimension of your Christian experience. It is central to salvation. There is grace for salvation, saving grace. As Ephesians 2, 8, 9, which most of you can quote here in this room, for by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. but it's central to your growth as a Christian, for your sanctification, sanctifying grace, as we learn from 2 Peter 3, verse 18, that through it we grow, growing in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I've seen so many beautiful examples of this in my life. Jim will tell in his own testimony of coming for one year to Bob Jones University to meet a request of his parents because he was an absolute rebel. He had been living in tremendous iniquity and tremendous sin. His parents were wonderful, godly Christian people. Jim came and God reached down and saved him. And God started to sanctify him. And what was the outcome of that? The outcome of that was 30 years serving as the Dean of Students at Bob Jones University, writing a magnificent book on sanctification, changed into his image. Maybe you've read that book or you're familiar with it. You've seen it before. God sanctifies, God saves by his grace. God enables people to suffer as they serve in a magnificent, in an astonishing way. when I went to the Chippewa compound in an outlying area of Kituwe, Zambia, and went to the church of Francis, I came to understand what that was about a little bit. was saved by grace, had grown magnificently by grace, and as true of a huge percentage of people in that country, he was suffering from AIDS. He'd been infected by HIV. But he was a believer. He had been a prosperous electrician. He had gotten out of the slums, which were the Chippewa compound. But God so worked in his life, even while suffering with HIV, and he still lives and he still serves to this day. He went back into the Chipota compound and he started a church. He built a church, the Faith Baptist Church. I preached in that church to a whole audience, congregation of people, and saw several men trust Christ that morning. Here's a man suffering physical ailment and weakness and difficulty, leaving his comfortable life, which was very hard to come by actually in many of those African countries, and serving faithfully by the grace of God. Amazing grace to suffer and serve at the same time. Right now I'm thinking of Bobby McCoy. In the Oakwood, Tennessee area, Oakwood Baptist Church, Bobby became a quadriplegic, hit head-on by a drunk driver in front of the campus of Bob Jones University. He was in seminary when that happened. He finished seminary, he's still a quadriplegic. He went back and was the associate pastor in his home church at Oakwood Baptist Church. And when the pastor died of pancreatic cancer, Bobby, who was a quadriplegic and in a wheelchair and a magnificent expository preacher and a man of a heart that you could not believe serves as the senior pastor today in that ministry. with all the physical suffering that goes along with being a quadriplegic. How does that happen? It happens by the grace of God that sustains people in the midst of their suffering as they serve. And it sustains people a long time in ministry. wonderfully, beautifully long time. We read the passage about Paul where it says that it wasn't he that served, it was the grace of God that was with him. That was over many years. You remember he had served in his own home area for some 14 years before he ever became a missionary. And then he traversed basically most of the Roman Empire by various means in service, suffering physical ailment, but he endured, he ran the race, he finished the course, he was sustained by grace in his life. If you wanna read a compelling book, read the biography of Dr. Ed Nelson, wonderful pastor of out in Colorado, who went on after his 35 years as a pastor to become a missionary to Russia and to Ukraine and do a magnificent work with his wife. And then when he was in his 80s, he came back and planted a church in Tucson, Arizona, and then kept preaching on until his 90s, until he went home to be with Jesus. What is going on? Well, he just had unusual stamina. Well, he just was that kind of guy. Well, he just, you know, people are different. No, no. That isn't what it is. That is not what it is. It is the grace of God central in every dimension of spiritual experience and central to reaching full potential as a believing person. This grace is ours, this promise says, that we always, having all sufficiency, may abound unto every good work. How does that sound to you? How does that sound to you? How does that sound to you as an evaluative standard, that ye always, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound unto every good work? That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Wouldn't you like to say concerning yourself, that describes me? What Christian doesn't want that to describe them? We all want that to describe us. It can describe us. It should describe us. that we would have this magnificent ability to have potential fulfilled, constipotential, complete potential. No wonder Hebrews 12, 28 says, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. But there's another question that we have to answer. It's inevitable, it's also encouraging. It's inevitable because when you observe the lives of people who serve on the mission field and you observe the lives of all of us really as believing people, you recognize that some abound in grace, but some don't. Why is that? The Bible says God is able to make all grace abound. That's right in this magnificent promise. So what has to happen for that abounding grace to be operating as that lifeblood that flows through every dimension of your life as a Christian? Well, the reason some abound in it and others don't. The reason, can I put it this way, people you know abound, it seems, in ministry and service, both at home and on the mission field, and you don't? The reason some do is that they have a humble, receptive heart. You see, the grace of God is a lot like water. It flows to the lowest place. Two times in the New Testament, Proverbs 3.34 is quoted. The same passage. It's quoted in James 4, 6, where James says, but he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. And then it occurs in 1 Peter 5, verses five and six, where Peter writes, likewise ye younger, submit to the elder and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud, but gives grace under the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God and he will lift you up. The humble heart is a heart that can be receptive of the grace of God because there is not arrogant self-dependence. No, there is a broken heart. As Psalm 51, 17 says, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. I just, this morning, in some of my Bible reading, read Matthew 5, as verse 3 says, blessed are the poor in spirit. for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. As Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 4, 7, we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. That's a contrite heart. That's a humble heart. That's recognizing that without him, we really are hopeless in carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth. We're hopeless in accomplishing this thing called missions. at home and elsewhere. It's all about him pouring out his grace on us and it's all about taking advantage of the means by which that grace can be imparted to you. I mean to each of us. We need to pray this for our missionaries, for the Haydns and others. We need to pray this for ourselves. What are these means by which we can receive this grace from God? Listen to these verses, would you please? Acts 20, 32. I commend you unto God and the word of His grace which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among them which are sanctified. The Bible is the word of grace. It is a golden pipeline. When you read its words, that grace will flow into your life. Listen to the words of Hebrews 4, 15 and 16. We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may find grace and obtain mercy in time of need. We come to the throne of grace. and we ask for fathering grace and mothering grace and serving grace as a deacon and as a Sunday school teacher and as a witness for Christ and as supporters of missionaries. Listen to the words of Ephesians 4.29, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace onto the hearers. You are a source of grace as you communicate encouragement and up building and edifying to other people. You know it is really true when we speak to other people we are either building them up or we are tearing them down. You say well I'm not saying something negative but if you're saying something neutral and useless you really are in all for all intents and purposes tearing them down. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And then we've already quoted 1 Peter 4.10. You each have a gift of grace, at least one from the Lord by which to serve, as every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. You have a special capacity to serve in you by grace, at least one. There's no question about that in the teaching in the New Testament. We can talk for a while about whether there could be many in one person, but there's no doubt there's one, at least, for everyone here, by grace, to especially serve and minister to other people. That ought to get you very curious and very excited, very interested, and set you on a search if you're not clear what that is for you. God has ordained that we bear much fruit by grace, and we can bear much fruit by grace through receiving this grace through these established means from God. There's another question that we'll wrap up with, and that is what is the result of a grace-filled ministry? What will happen? Well, there will be an ability an incredible capacity to suffer with endurance and joy through Christ's grace. We all do and will have suffering in our life experience as servants of God. I already mentioned Bobby McCoy. There are others that I can list that I've known who have gone through tremendous suffering in life. and yet have abounded in service by grace, Christ said to them, my grace is sufficient for you. And the response of Paul was, I will much rather than glory in my infirmities, in necessities, in weaknesses, in tribulation, in persecutions. And that goes to James chapter one, men and women, where James makes that incredible statement where he says, that we can have joy when we face various trials. Really? Really? A happy, joyful, full life of ministering to other people, even when things are bad for us and troublesome for us, physically, financially, and otherwise? And the answer from the New Testament is absolutely yes. That is what makes your life a supernatural life as a Christian. That is what grace does. It makes it so you transcend living the life being morose and dark and beaten down and destroyed and troubled and problematic and complaining all the time. No, not with grace abounding in your life, an ability to suffer wonderfully, an incredible capacity because of grace, and an incredible capacity to serve tirelessly, energetically, fully. This is the antidote for burnout. This is the antidote for giving up and giving in. This is the answer for serving faithfully in an abounding way for 20 and 30 and 40 and 50 years. for the glory of God. This is the answer for why the Haydns have been doing what they've been doing since the early 2000s in way less than an ideal environment. I mean, think about that, you know? And yet there's joy and there's service and there's productivity and there's fruitfulness. Amazing. I don't mean to embarrass Ben, but I mean his father, Alan Patterson, served for many, many years, I think nearly two decades in Japan, faithfully and productively and fruitfully as a missionary. Serves as a mission administrator now, today. What a blessing. What an incredible thing. Why don't you be an incredible thing? Why don't you? Be one of those incredible grace-filled people who just abound in this place, supportive of the ministries in this place, and supportive of the worldwide missionary activity that goes forth from this place for the glory of God. Resolve. to live a grace-filled life, not a graceless life. Resolve to make Hebrews 12, 28 true in your life. Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. I've read the biography of and watched films about and just always marveled at the life of John Newton. He was a man of incredible, desperate early life as a young child taken on to a ship in the British Navy, later as the captain of a slave ship carrying 300, 400 Africans at a time across the Atlantic Ocean, during which many would die from disease and deprivation, unbelievable inhumanity. God reached down and saved him. God worked in him in a terrible storm at sea, and he was saved. And he became a pastor. And he became an author. And you know he became a hymn writer. And what a legacy that hymn is. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come, tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, We have no less days to sing his praise than when we first begun. Grace really is amazing. Father, I pray thy blessing on thy people by strengthening in their lives. thy help in them to become grace-filled people as they serve here and as they serve to encourage the outreach of the gospel throughout the world for thy glory. We pray for thy grace in this place. In Jesus' name.