Rethinking Our Lives - David Platt

Rethinking Our Lives

David Platt

Delivered October 12, 2018 at the

Rethink Church & Rethink Mission Conference

If you have a Bible—and I hope you do—let me invite you to open with me to Ezekiel 36. This

is not where I originally planned on going tonight.

I want to say how thankful I am to be serving with these two brothers this evening. I am grateful

for God’s grace toward me in both Andrew Scott and Francis Chan. Their friendship is an encouragement

and their example is evidence of God’s love in my life. I’m thankful for how they spur me on toward

Christ in many ways.

The plan for tonight, Lord willing, is for Andrew to talk about rethinking mission and Francis

will talk about rethinking church. My task from the beginning is to help us rethink our lives and

Christianity as a whole. At least that’s what was given to me. I thought, “Wow, okay, that’s fairly general.

Where can I find a text about that?” I had a whole sermon prepared in which I would walk through the

New Testament, looking at every description I could find of a follower of Jesus, things like “dead to

ourselves,” “crucified with Christ,” “alive in Christ” and other pictures of disciples.

But then today, as I was praying about where to go and looking over those other notes, I just

sensed the Lord leading me to Old Testament texts, where God talks about what is new about our

relationship with Him—the new covenant when it was promised in Ezekiel. Basically this was God’s

design for us in sending Jesus. What I want to do tonight, based on Ezekiel 36, is to ask you three

questions that I hope will lead you to rethink your life and your Christianity—your salvation—according

to God’s Word.

Let me remind you of the context of Ezekiel 36. The historical setting was 597 B.C. The

Babylonians exiled Jehoiachin, the king of Judah, along with several thousand others, including Ezekiel

the prophet. So from the beginning of this book, Ezekiel was in exile. For the first 25 chapters of the

book, Jerusalem had not yet been destroyed. Then in the middle of the book of Ezekiel, Jerusalem falls.

And the last 16 chapters of Ezekiel occur chronologically after the fall of Jerusalem. So chapters 33-48

are after the fall of Jerusalem, including the text we’re looking at right now.

For the entire book Ezekiel is in exile, speaking to Israelites who were suffering in exile. In this

chapter specifically, Ezekiel is telling God’s people what God is going to do when He brings about a new

covenant. Start with me in verse 22. This is the Word of God.

Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your

sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which

you have profaned among the nations to which you came.

And I will vindicate the

holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you

have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the

Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.

I will take you

from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses,

and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will

remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

And I will put

my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my

rules.

You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my

people, and I will be your God.

And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And

I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you.

I will make

the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again

suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations.

Then you will remember your evil

ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your

iniquities and your abominations.

It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord

God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of

Israel.

O God, I pray that in the next few minutes, You will take these words and bring them to life in a

fresh way in this gathering. God, I pray that these moments will be a demonstration, not of any wisdom

in man, but of Your Spirit’s power. We’re asking You to help us rethink our lives. Lord, that doesn’t come

naturally to us. We’re so prone to think like the world thinks. We need supernatural help to think

according to Your Word. So we ask for that right now. Please, O God, help me to proclaim Your Word for

what it says. Please help us supernaturally in these moments to hear from You. Transform our minds

according to Your Word, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Here are the three questions that spring from God’s Word to His people about a new covenant,

our covenant, the covenant by which we know God.

1. How convinced are you that you have been saved solely by God’s grace and

supremely for God’s glory among the nations?

The first question is how convinced are you, right where you’re sitting, right now, that you’ve

been saved solely by God’s grace and supremely for God’s glory among the nations? If we use the

“Rethink” theme, the Word is causing us to rethink how and why we have been saved.

First, the how. How have we been saved? Are you convinced that you have been saved solely by

the grace of God? Over and over again in Ezekiel 36, there is an emphasis on the sovereign initiative of

God in saving His people. This text is driven entirely by the gracious activity of God. Just look at how

many times the words “I will” are used in what we just read:

• Verse 22, “Say to the house of Israel...it’s not for your sake...that I am about to act, but

for the sake of my holy name which you have profaned among the nations to which you

came.”

• Verse 23, “I will vindicate the holiness of my great name.”

• Verse 24, “I will take you from the nations.”

• Verse 25, “I will sprinkle clean water on you...and from your idols I will cleanse you.”

• Verse 26, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will

remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

• Verse 27, “ And I will put my Spirit within you.”

• The end of verse 28, “I will be your God.”

• Verse 29, “I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain

and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you.”

• Verse 30, “I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant.”

• Then verse 32 sums it up when God says, “I will act.”

Thirteen times in 11 verses, God says, “I will do all of these things.” Salvation is clearly

grounded in the sovereign grace of God. The hearts of God’s people will never be clean and the souls of

God’s people will never be saved, unless God acts in sovereign grace and mercy. Man is hopeless in his

sin. Unless God comes to save, unless God comes as a Shepherd to bring permanent peace—to use other

imagery from Ezekiel—then man will remain under His perpetual wrath. The sole ground of salvation is

the sovereign grace of God.

We s ee t his is Ephesians 2. We know this text in the New Testament. For three verses, Paul talks

about the sinfulness of man and that we are dead in our sin. Not kind of dead, partly dead, sort of dead—

dead in our sin. The hinge verse though, where everything changes, is Ephesians 2:4. Remember it? “But

God, being rich in mercy…” Then remember all the things God does. Because of His great love, He

made us alive together with Christ. He raised us up with him. Verse six, “He seated us with him in the

heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his

grace.”

God is doing all the action there. God is the One Who’s doing. It’s interesting when you look at

Ephesians 2, all the references to us are actually in the passive voice. Ephesians 2:5, “You have been

saved.” Not, “You saved yourself.” No, you were saved. This happened to you from the outside. We

know Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace you have been saved...” This has been done to you, “through faith.”

And just in case we’re not getting it, Paul makes it clear in verse nine: “And this is not your own doing;

it is the gift of God.” God did this.

It’s the same language with which the Bible describes salvation throughout. Remember those

glorious verses in Romans 3:21-26: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified

by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” We “are justified.” Salvation is

something that happens to us. Sinners don’t justify themselves. Sinners are justified by God. God does

this. The sole ground of salvation is the grace and mercy of God—and the supreme aim of salvation is the

global glory of God. The “how” is that we are saved solely by His grace. The “why” is that we are saved

supremely for His glory among the nations.

Think about this passage in Ezekiel. Why does God save His people, even when they sin against

Him? Time and time again, throughout the Old Testament, God’s people turned away from Him to

worthless idols. They followed foreign kings. They worshiped false gods. They indulged in idolatry and

immorality over and over again, and they warranted the wrath of God.

As a result, God showed His judgment to them here in Ezekiel. He scattered them into exile, into

a foreign land, but He did not destroy them. God did not do what He did with all kinds of other peoples

in the Old Testament. When we read through the Old Testament, we see God striking down entire pagan

idolatrous nations—and it is right and just and holy for God to do this. So why did He not do the same

thing with the people of Israel?

Well, back up to Ezekiel 36:16 and you’ll see the answer. Listen for the motive of God in saving

His people from all-out destruction. God is recounting His people’s rebellion, then we read:

The word of the Lord came to me:

“Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their

own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the

uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity.

So I poured out my wrath upon

them for the blood that they had shed in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled

it.

Then God describes in verse 19 what He did to them in His judgment: “I scattered them among

the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries. In accordance with their ways and their

deeds I judged them.” But now, here’s the answer to our question: why were they judged and exiled, but

not destroyed?

But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name,

in that people said of them, “These are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go out

of his land.”

But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had

profaned among the nations to which they came.

Did you hear that? God just said, “When My people were exiled to the nations, they were

profaning My name.” The nations were saying, “These are the people of the Lord, but look how

miserable they are.” The conclusion among the nations was clear: the God of these people s not great. So

out of concern for His holy name among the nations, God declares what He will do:

Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O

house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have

profaned among the nations to which you came.

And I will vindicate the holiness of my

great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned

among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when

through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.

God says, “I want the holiness of My great name to be known among all the nations. That is why

I’m doing what I’m doing. That is why I will do what I will do. I will save and redeem and restore My

sinful people, not for their sake but for the sake of My holy name.”

Are you hearing this? This is a very different way to think. The reason God saves His people

from destruction is because God is zealous for the fame of His name among the nations. The resounding

reality of Ezekiel is clear. Why does God save His people? Because God loves His glory and desires His

glory among all the nations. When God saves His people, He doesn’t do it ultimately for their sake. He

does it ultimately for His sake. God will bring His people back from exile. He will cleanse them of their

sin. He will restore them in the land and in the process, He will show the nations that He is great. Follow

this: God is for them because it brings great glory to Him. God is for His people because this brings great

glory to Him among all peoples.

This is not the way the 21st century Christian in America thinks about God on both levels. We

are saved solely by His grace, but we are so proud of what we can accomplish. We think so highly of

what we bring to the table. Ezekiel 36 is a reminder to every one of us who is in the church, every one of

us who calls himself a Christian in the church. Not one of us are in this gathering right now because of

any merit in us. The only reason we are here is because of the mercy of God and He has shown us this

mercy for the spread of His glory among the nations, for His glory in the world. This is the purpose of

our salvation. The picture here is a God Who is zealous for His own glory.

If you look at this throughout Ezekiel, 70 different times God says, “I am doing what I am doing

so that people—the nations—will know Who I am.” God is passionate about His name being known and

His glory being exalted all over the world. He judges people and He saves people—why? Because He

loves His glory.

Now, that may feel uncomfortable for us to say or think about, namely because that would be a

negative characteristic in any one of us. To love our own glory, to delight in our own fame, to center on

ourselves—that would be inappropriate for us. But brothers and sisters, that is more than appropriate for

God. It is more than appropriate for God to be God-centered. Whom else would you rather He center

Himself on? If it rubs you wrong that God lives to exalt Himself, whom else would you rather He exalt?

You? At the moment when He would exalt someone or something else, He would no longer be the God

Who is worthy of all exaltation—and He is. That’s what it means for Him to be God. God, by His very

nature, is centered on God. There’s no one greater than Him.

You might think, “Well, doesn’t this take away from His grace for us, from His love for us—if

He loves me for His own glory?” No, no, no. Think about it. If God is completely good and right and

loving—all that is love is summed up in God—then what is the greatest gift He could give us?

Enjoyment of Himself. Worship of Himself. Glory in Himself. This is the beauty. How does God show

His glory? He shows His glory by sending His Son as a sacrifice for our sin, so that you and I, by His

grace, might be forgiven of all our sin, restored to a relationship with Him where we worship Him with

our all. And not just that—we worship Him among the nations.

This is just what the text says. It’s right there. We don’t think like this though. What child comes

home from a Sunday school class in our churches and has drawn a picture that says at the top, “God loves

Himself”? No, He loves me. It’s about me. Yes , He does love us. But He loves us supremely for His

glory among the nations. That changes the way we live. It changes the way we think about God, the way

we read through Scripture. It makes sense. Just think about this Book. It’s all that’s done here in Ezekiel

36.

I was preaching at a conference a couple weeks ago on the Psalms and it hit me in a fresh way.

As I was meditating on various psalms, I was thinking, “God has written a book that instructs us how to

give Him glory.” I pictured going to my wife Heather and saying, “Babe, I wrote some poems about how

great I am. I want to give them as a gift to you, so that you can read them to me. You will love this. It

will be so life-giving for you. In the morning and in the evening...” That’s very different.

But this is what God has given us, because He knows this is actually good for us. It’s most life-

giving for us. Psalm 63: “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh

faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the

sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will

praise you.”

His love is better than life. To be saved means that you love the glory of God more than you love

your own life. You want the glory of God among the nations more than you want your own life. It will

change your Christianity when you love the glory of God among the nations more than you love your

own life, your own plans, your own dreams, your own possessions. When you have all that on the table

before Him and say, “My entire life is Yours for Your glory among the nations,” that changes the way you

think about your life.

It changes the way you think about Christianity when you are convinced that you have been

saved solely by the grace of God and supremely for the glory of God among the nations. I would just

submit that if we were actually convinced of that, it would change the face of our Christianity. It would

change the look of our lives, our families and our future. Can I remind you? God has written a whole

Book, He’s designed all of this to end, with Him getting glory from all the nations for the grace He has

shown.

That is where the train of history is headed. Based on the Word of God, I’m saying tonight to

every one of us, “Let’s get on that train.”

2. How confident are you to make disciples and multiply churches without

dependence on performances, programs and professionals?

These are not short questions and I realize this seems like three questions in one. Right where

you’re sitting—not generally or vaguely, but specifically—How confident are you to make disciples and

multiply churches without dependence on performances, programs and professionals?

Whereas the first question had to do with rethinking how and why we’ve been saved, in this

second question we’re rethinking what happened when we were saved.

Think about Ezekiel 36 here. Right after God states His clear concern for His consummate glory

among the nations, He tells His people specifically what He’s going to do. Remember what He says,

beginning in verse 25?

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses,

and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

And I will give you a new heart, and a new

spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give

you a heart of flesh.

And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my

statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Put this together. How is God going to glorify Himself among the nations? He’s going to form a

people who are forgiven of their sins. It’s a great phrase: “…clean from all your uncleannesses…”

They’re cleaned from impurity and immorality and idolatry—“…from all your idols I will cleanse you.”

God will glorify His name by forgiving His people of their sins. We are tempted to stop at verse 25 in our

understanding of the new covenant. Trust in Jesus and you’ll be forgiven of your sins. You can know you

have eternal life in heaven, cleansed of all your sins. This is absolutely true—yet utterly incomplete. It’s

not just forgiveness of sins that’s being promised here.

If we stop there, what will happen? If we stop here, we will create in our minds a version of

Christianity that says, “Come to Jesus, be forgiven of your sins,” but then we have all kinds of people

living just like the rest of the world, saying, “I know I asked Jesus to forgive my sins, so I’m forgiven.”

Then they live just like the rest of the world, just coasting until they get to heaven. That is not biblical

Christianity.

Forgiveness of sins and “I will give you a new spirit.” What a promise! In verse 27, God says, “I

will put my Spirit within you…” God will dwell in His people. Think about that. Rethink that moment

when you trusted in Christ, repented of your sin and put your faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord—at that

moment you were forgiven of your sins and received His Spirit. Christian, think about it where you’re

sitting: the Spirit of God is dwelling inside of you right now. It will knock you out of your seat if you

really think about it. He’s in you. The Spirit of God is in you.

Why? So that we might obey His will. In giving His Spirit, God says, “I will transform their

wants. I’ll give them entirely new wants.” Verse 26: “I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and

give you a heart of flesh.” People who had hearts of stone that were hard toward God, unresponsive to

God, unyielding to God will now be soft and responsive and submissive to God. We will want God.

We’ll desire God. We’ll delight in God. This is the Christian life. We have radically new wants and an

entirely new will. We want to follow Him. Our hearts will be changed from the inside out.

Verse 27:, “I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to

obey my rules.” God will dwell in His people so they might obey His will. And what is His will? Put it

together with what we just saw. His will is to make His glory known in the world. That’s the will of God

for our lives. We don’t even have to ask, “What’s Your will for my life?” He’s told us. “Make My glory

known in the world. That’s My will.”

Now, obviously there are all kinds of ways that takes place in our lives as we walk in God’s

statutes and obey His rules. But think about this specifically in light of when the new covenant happens.

In Luke 24:45-49, Jesus—after dying on the cross and rising from the dead, right before He ascends into

heaven—says this:

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,

and said to them, “Thus it

is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,

and that

repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations,

beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things.”

Did you hear that? Repentance and forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all

the nations, starting here in Jerusalem. “You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the

promise of my Father upon you” —My Spirit— “but stay in the city until you are clothed with power

from on high.” Jesus is promising the filling of God’s Spirit; what Ezekiel 36 is talking about. For what

purpose? So they will be His witnesses in the world.

When Luke picks up the story in Acts 1, what does Jesus say there? Verse eight: “But you will

receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and

in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Don’t miss what the Bible is teaching here. The

promise of the new covenant—the reality of the new covenant—is this: when people are saved by the

grace of God, for the glory of God among the nations, God forgives them of their sin and fills them with

His Spirit so that they might obey His Word as His witnesses in the world.

Let me say that one more time. When people are saved by the grace of God, for the glory of God

among the nations, God forgives them of their sin and fills them with His Spirit so that they might obey

His Word as His witnesses in the world.

In other words, by God’s grace in the new covenant, believers in Christ are not just forgiven of

sin, they are filled with the Spirit of God in such a way that they have what it takes to obey God’s will as

witnesses in the world.

So now I come back to the question: how confident are you to make disciples and multiply

churches without dependence on performances, programs and professionals? Every single follower of

Christ, as we’ve just seen in God’s Word, has the Spirit of God in them and the Word of God in them. In

this, every single follower of Christ has what it takes to obey the mission of God, the will of God, and to

make His glory known as a witness in the world.

My concern though, if we’re not careful in our thinking, is that we become unnecessarily—and in

some ways unhelpfully—dependent on performances, programs and professionals to do that which God

has already equipped us to do. Here’s what I mean by that. How have we implicitly, if not explicitly,

communicated disciple-making in our church culture? We gather together for a service—what I’m calling

here a performance just because most of our churches, like the one we’re in right now, are set up theater-

style, with a stage and an audience. Much is made to center on what happens on the stage, mainly the

activities of musicians and a preacher.

Then we go from performance to programs designed for every age and stage of life—preschool

programs, children’s programs, student programs, college programs, young adult programs, men’s

programs, women’s programs, married programs, singles programs, senior adult programs—and even

programs for people who just don’t fit. These programs are often facilitated or organized by professionals

who make them happen.

Now, I want to be really clear here. I’m not saying that all of those things are bad in themselves.

In fact, I would argue there’s much good and much biblical that is happening in some of those areas. But

here’s the problem. What might happen if you were suddenly planted in a remote or unreached part of the

world, where you didn’t have a performance, you didn’t have programs and you didn’t have any

professional ministers around you? Could you make disciples, then gather those disciples together into a

church that was focused on making disciples and multiplying that church? How confident are you to

make disciples and multiply churches if all you have is the Word of God and the Spirit of God?

I think that sounds pretty intimidating to us, but that’s what I want us to realize. This is almost

exactly the circumstance we read about in Acts 8, when the members of the church in Jerusalem were

suddenly scattered across Judea and Samaria. What does the Bible say they did? Acts 11:19 says they

proclaimed the gospel and planted the church at Antioch—the church that then became one of the most

strategic multiplying churches in the history of Christianity.

As a pastor, I want to prepare people to do just that. In this gathering today, I want to exhort us to

be ready to be so confident in the Spirit of God in us and the Word of God in front of us to make

disciples and multiply churches wherever God leads us in the world, without dependence on

performances, programs and professionals. When that is the case, I think mission according to God’s

design just takes off.

I was out in the lobby a couple weeks ago and a guy came up to me and said, “All right, Pastor, I

get it. I saw a job opening in the Middle East, so I took it. I moved my family to the Middle East. What

do I do now?” That’s a good question. He said, “Well, you showed it to me in the Word—but now what

do I do?” I want that brother, that sister, that family to be ready for that. I want them to be making

disciples here, right where they live, where they work, where they play. I want them to be ready so that

when God says, “Do this somewhere else where the gospel has not yet gone,” they’re ready to do that.

How confident are you in the Spirit of God and the Word of God? Are the Spirit of God and the

Word of God sufficient for you to make disciples and multiply churches? I want to encourage you: He is

sufficient, so you can be confident.

That leads to the last question.

3. How desperate are you to see dead people come to life?

We need to rethink how and why we were saved. We need to rethink what happened when we

were saved, that we were filled with the Spirit of God and forgiven of our sin. Now let’s rethink what we

do now that we have been saved. We live to see dead people come to life.

Let’s read what Ezekiel wrote in Ezekiel 37—an illustration of God bringing the dead to life:

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord

and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones.

And he led me around

among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold,

they were very dry.

And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I

answered, “O Lord God, you know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones,

and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord God to

these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.

And I will lay

sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and

put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound,

and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.

And I looked,

and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had

covered them. But there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the

breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come

from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”

So I

prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and

stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.

Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.’

Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your

graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of

Israel.

And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you

from your graves, O my people.

And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live,

and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have

spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”

The context here is clearly God speaking to His people in exile. He’s saying, “I’m going to

restore you. I’m going to bring you back to life. That’s how this new covenant is going to play out.” But I

want you to see how it happens. How does the dead come to life? It’s connected to what we just talked

about. Are the Word of God and the Spirit of God sufficient? How did dry, dead bones come to life?

There are two factors at play here: the Word of God and the Spirit of God. “Speak and the Spirit will

move.”

In this passage, I want you to see a picture of how the gospel will spread, how dead people will

come to life. When servants of God speak His Word in the power of His Spirit, the dead will come to life.

So how desperate are you to see the dead come to life?

If you think about where you live right now, you are not in that neighborhood or that apartment

complex by accident. God is sovereign over everything, including the details of your life. He has the

whole thing rigged and He’s put you in that neighborhood or that apartment complex for a reason. There

are people who are spiritually dead all around you. Why are you in that workplace? There are people who

are spiritually dead all around you. Why are you in that city? There are people who are spiritually dead

all around you.

So how will they come to life? They’ll come to life when servants of God—children of God who

are filled with His Spirit and His Word—are bold enough, desperate enough, to step out and speak this

Word to one of those people, trusting His Word, not because of our ingenuity or creativity in presenting it

but because of the power inherent in it. He will bring the dead to life. Do you believe this?

If we’re not careful, we can get so caught up in talking about how hard our culture is, how hard it

is to share the gospel with various people or across cultures. But we will miss the point if we spend all

our time talking about how hard the ground is instead of how great our God is. His Word has power to

bring the dead to life. Are you desperate to see that, not just where you live, but all around the world?

I was praying two night ago with my kids for the Brahmin in India. There are nearly 60 million

of them. They’re upper echelon—upper class Indians—and very few are known to be believers. I was

praying, “God, please bring the Brahmin to life. Send laborers to India. Raise up laborers in India to

spread the gospel among the Brahmin. You’ve saved us for Your glory among the nations. Show Your

glory among this people group, the Brahmin.”

Are we desperate to see the dead come to life? When it all comes down to it, if we are desperate

for the dead to come to life, then there will be an urgency in us when we realize there are people who are

dead but who will come to life if we’ll proclaim this Word to them. So let’s proclaim this Word to them.

Do we feel that urgency?

Right before I came out tonight, I was reminded of a quote from Jonathan Edwards that I want to

put before us. It’s a hard quote to hear, but I think it drives home the necessity to rethink these things,

because by God’s grace our eternity is secure in Christ. We need God to take our minds off ourselves and

rethink how we’re living for the spread of this good news to those whose eternity is not secure, who are

on the road that leads to an everlasting hell. Jonathan Edwards said:

To help your conception of what hell is, imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven,

or into the midst of a great furnace, where your pain would be as much greater than that

occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire, as the heat is greater. Imagine also,

that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, full of fire, as full as a bright coal

of fire, all the while full of quick sense.

What horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace! And how long would

that quarter of an hour seem to you. If it were to be measured by a glass, how long would

the glass seem to be running. After you had endured it for one minute, how overbearing

would it be to you to think that you had yet to endure the other 14.

But what would be the effect on your soul if you knew you must lie there enduring

that torment to the full for 24 hours. And how much greater would be the effect if you

knew you must endure it for a whole year. And how vastly greater still if you knew you

must endure it for a thousand years. O then, how would your heart sink, if you thought, if

you knew that you must bear it forever and ever, that there would be no end, that after

millions of millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer to an end than it ever was

and that you would never, never be delivered.

Brothers and sisters, I plead with you: do not be ignorant nor indifferent. This is not a game.

There’s real, eternal, everlasting judgment awaiting those who don’t hear and believe this good news,

who are dead and don’t come to life. So I plead with you to live with desperation to see the dead come to

life wherever you live and wherever God may lead you, praying, Open up my life wherever You might

lead me, God. You have saved me by Your grace.

Praise God, you don’t have to fear eternal death. Praise God, you have been saved from your sin

and all of its effects in eternity. Realize that you’ve been saved by grace for His supreme glory among the

nations. That is why you have breath right now. You’ve been forgiven of your sin and filled with His

Spirit to make disciples and multiply churches with your life. Do it. Work. While you still have time,

work to see the dead come to life. And as you do, you will experience the joy of proclaiming His grace,

exalting His glory and fulfilling the purpose for which you live.

Before we move on, I want to invite you to let this soak in and pray, right where you’re sitting.

For the next few minutes, I invite you to go to the Lord with what you just heard from His Word. If you

have something to write on, maybe you could write out a prayer. I know that’s helpful for me sometimes

to keep my mind from wandering. Maybe you could write out what God is speaking to your heart right

now. I want to give you a few moments to let the Spirit cause His Word to soak in, then we’ll move on to

what is next.

God, we pray that Your Spirit will transform and renew our minds, even right now; that You

would lead and guide our thoughts, our desires and our prayers in this gathering. Amen.

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