Transcript

Take your Bibles and let’s go to Hebrews 11. I want to use this very familiar text, Hebrews 11:1, as a foundation for some practical applications or even exhortations about faith.

How in the world can we get folks to stay out of excesses in the church? It’s one of the grievous things that I see, especially among a lot of young pastors and younger churches. They go to the word of God and ground themselves there, then have a tendency to run off the pages of Scripture and anchor in some sort of conviction or practice or commitment that is beyond Scripture. It may not be evil in itself except that they start making that conviction so important to them that it becomes an idol and that’s what hyper-Calvinism is and it’s a quagmire, it’s a killer, it’s a devourer. How you gonna stay out of excesses like hyper-Calvinism and let me just define that for you a little bit. Calvinism would be, um, without going very far, a belief that God is sovereign over everything which is a redundancy. If he’s God, he’s sovereign over everything or he’s not God. That’s really, it’s really that simple and the Bible tells us a lot more about God’s sovereign works than our puny, fallen, finite minds can logically put together. For example, the Bible says he’s God the Father, and equally and at the same time he’s God the Son, and equally and at the same time he’s God the Spirit. I can’t fathom that. How can he be one God but three distinct personalities? The Bible tells us more glorious truth than we can logically put together.

This is a fully human book. I mean, read it, you have the personalities, the styles of the original writers, you have the cultural, uh, influences of their lives and times. It’s all there yet it’s a fully divine book. Totally and completely authoritative and inspired by God. I can’t comprehend all of that but I know the Scripture teaches me that about itself. And we could go on and on and on and when you come to salvation and how God builds his church, the Bible gives us great and multiplied and consistent truths, Old Testament through the New Testament, and by the way, no exaggeration, 85-90% of all reputable Southern Baptist scholars land where we are on this so don’t let anybody tell you we’re off track. We absolutely are not. The largest Baptist seminary in the world which is the largest seminary of any kind in the world is the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and every professor there is a Calvinist. They’re not hyper-Calvinist but they’re Calvinist.

And so we wanted to have a conference because people are greatly, uh, accepting and, and, and standing on the old, biblical, evangelical, Baptist truths that God is fully sovereign even in salvation but there’s always a tendency for brothers to go too far and they get into what? Now you’ll, some of you will recognize this: hard shell. Y’all know what that means? Hard shell Baptist. Primitive Baptist. Now I love these folks and I believe many of them know the Lord but they go too far. They say, “Well, God’s so sovereign and predestination is true and, and divine calling is true, and election is true, and foreknowledge is true,” and they are true, “so there’s no need to go witness to your neighbor, there’s no need to have a friend day, there’s no need to have a fall outreach to win the lost. Well, there’s no need to do missions and go around the world and spread the Gospel because God’s just sovereign.” That is out of balance. That is hyper-Calvinism and we wanted to have a conference that said, “Yes, let’s glory in the wondrous truths of God’s sovereignty. We will never deny those great doctrines of the faith but at the same time we want to be knocking on doors, we want to be visiting our friends, we want to be going across the street, across the town, across the state, and across the world to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ urging all men to repent and believe the Gospel.” Amen? That’s where we want to be. “Well, we don’t understand that.” Well, you don’t have to understand it, just be glad you got in on it. It’s amazing to me how they can accept the Trinity and all the mysteries there but they can’t accept God’s great mysteries and sovereignties in other areas. But in the final analysis, what is the key that keeps you out of excesses and excessive viewpoints? It’s biblical faith. It’s faith. You have to have faith that this book is sufficient and where the book is not clear, or where the book does not address things, we have liberty and can, can have charity and love toward brothers and sisters who may not be where we are. But now where the book’s clear, we draw hard lines, amen? But where the book’s not clear, liberty and charity.

Well, that just ties into our theme and I want to give you that introductory thought, but look at Hebrews 11:1.

1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the evidence, conviction my New American Standard translates and says, conviction of things not seen. I, I can’t tell you how I struggled with that verse as a new believer and as a young minister. I’m not young anymore. I found out that my body is falling apart and it’s, it’s a humbling thing but it’s good to be humble, amen, and realize that we’re not in charge and, uh, we are finite and we wither away but our God does not. But I used to struggle with that and I would think, “How can I do that?” Those of you who’ve been around with me for 30 years know that I like strategy, I like to know has God given us systems, means to achieve his work, and I would look at that and I’d think, “How do I do that? How do I do the assurance of things hoped for and how do I have the conviction of things not seen?” And when I studied and prayed and learned and listened to enough preaching to know that faith is a grace gift it all worked. I don’t go do faith as much as God has in grace given me faith. Something has happened in me. Jesus said, told to Nicodemus it was called being born from above. It’s a new birth. Something has happened to me and something has happened to you as a child of God whereby you don’t know and trust and base your relationship to God on your five natural senses but God has given you a sixth sense and it’s mysterious. There’s mystery all in that verse.

How is it that one man over here, Brother Chad, hears the Gospel years ago and he just has a heart for it? Another man over here hears the same Gospel and somehow doesn’t grasp it. Faith rose in Chad’s heart and faith didn’t rise in another. I don’t understand that but I know as God has saved me there’s a new – and listen – there’s a new, resolved, rested conclusion about Jesus, about salvation, about this book, about the church that I just didn’t have before that night in my car in 1979 driving back to Middle Tennessee State University when I was born again. Something changed in me. It was the rising of faith.

“Well, pastor, how do we do that?” Here’s what the Bible says: faith comes by hearing and hearing the words about Christ. If you want your children and your grandchildren and your wife, your spouse, your grandparent, your aunts and uncles, your family, your friends, your neighborhood, the world to have faith and trust in Jesus Christ, they must hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith, something happened whereby I became assured that all these promises the Bible gives me about my eternal destiny are true and I can bank on them. Something changed in me years ago, a sixth component, if you will, sense, developed in me where I now know I have the sureness even in, in a tangible way of things that are not seen.

Well, let’s build off of this and let’s talk about some of the ways this faith has functioned in our lives. 1. First of all, we have faith-based justification. I narrowed this back, I used to say salvation but salvation would include justification, sanctification, including progressive sanctification, of course, and glorification but I don’t want to go there. I, I mean, justification by faith is such a foundational anchor for the Christian and for the child of God. I, I so want you as your pastor to rest on this, to joy in it, to glory in it. Oh, justification by faith.

In the ancient world this old word justification came out of the, the judicial system and when, when they had a case brought before them, they, they would, the judges would have black marbles or white marbles and they would place a white marble in the bag if they said he was not guilty, a black marble in the bag if he was guilty and if when your case was over, all that mattered was what did the judges declare. You may have been guilty but justification meant the white marble stated you have a new standing before the law of the land, you are not guilty. Brothers and sisters, that’s what justification is, God has put the white marble in our bag and said, “You stand not guilty before Me.” And brother, that is a status that is set and sealed and done the moment you cast your faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. That initial moment of believing on Christ, justification done.

Now you’re still a mess, you’re still a mess. You know how I know? Because I was still a mess. I mean, after I was converted I was so wonderfully converted but I’m telling you, I was so fleshly and I was so narrow and I was so legalistic, I was so excessive. I’d run all over the place and you just have to take guys like me and lock them up and grow them until they’re not as dangerous anymore, and that’s why I’m so indebted to Grace Life Church for all those years and I haven’t arrived, by the way, I’m still growing and repenting and learning, but for all those years you put up with so much and God bless you for it. Hopefully you’re reaping the benefits of your long-suffering. I hope so.

But we are, are we not, justification is settled but you’re still wicked in many ways and, and wondering in many ways, and the old lust of the flesh creeps back up in many ways, and some of you think you’re, you’re just saved and you’re just doing every, better than everybody else. You’re the worst of the bunch. You’re so full of yourself thinking, “Well, I, I,” you know, it’s like the disciples of John the Baptist walked up and said, “Jesus, Your disciples don’t fast like we fast.” No, they’re not as wicked as you and full of themselves and full of fleshly works to try to obtain righteousness.

We’re a mess but, listen, even though we’re still a mess, sanctification is just beginning. It is by faith that the declaration of the holy God and the divine bar of jurisprudence has been settled and nailed down and cannot change because of the sufficiency of the one who has made me righteous, Jesus Christ, my justification, my standing is set for eternity. Glory in that. Rest in that. Just, I mean, just relax in it. Justification is done by faith.

Well, we have a faith-based sanctification too. Sanctification, I, I’m picking up on progressive sanctification now which means that God starts a work in you and the old Baptist theologians called it perseverance of the saints, that when you started, you head toward something. You, there’s a new direction of your life. The earth no longer is the end of your purpose. You can still enjoy the earth. I had a steak dinner last night and I enjoyed it. That’s not wrong but it’s not the end of my life because should God call me to do something where I can’t have a steak dinner, praise his name. You know, there were times when Jesus ate with Matthew the tax collector and they had a gourmet extravagant meal and Jesus enjoyed it. Now the legalistic Pharisees ate him up about it but he enjoyed it, but at other times he had nowhere to even lay his head. Wherever the Lord his Father put him was where he was. That’s true spirituality, accepting where God puts you, and when you take off on sanctification, your aim is no longer things of the earth, your aim is God and God’s glory and God’s kingdom and God’s fame and God’s name. Now listen to me, not according to what you strongly feel but according to what this book says it looks like to be about God’s kingdom.

Have you been sanctified enough so that you have come to realize a whole lot of what you thought was spiritual in sanctification is not? And some of the things, you know what one of the hardest things for Jeff Noblit to do through the years was to realize I was more conservative than the Bible in some ways and I had to become more liberal to be more biblical at times. It’s hard for me to even say liberal, much less admit that I was like the Pharisees who were trying so hard at their rules and regulations and legalisms and to be right with God they needed to be more liberal at times.

Well, sanctification is that process of God growing you and maturing you. Now how are you gonna, how are you gonna be sanctified? By faith. By faith. You grow and you learn, you study the Bible and God points something out in your life that’s not right. You have some thinking that’s not right. You have a conclusion that’s not right. You have a viewpoint that’s not right and you’ve loved that thing for so many years and God says, “Get rid of it. It’s not right.” But something is in you, there’s a faith – now listen to me – there’s a faith capacity, a faith enablement by grace given to you whereby you can repent and get that right and you’re being sanctified and you repent of a pattern, you, you repent of a viewpoint, you repent of a behavior. One of the most difficult things for me as a young preacher was is I made idols out of some other preachers and these were good men and helpful but they were not perfect, and sometimes I grabbed ahold of some of their unique viewpoints and ideas and I made them mine instead of letting God say, “Quit making such an idol out of a man and just go to My word.” And it was part of my sanctification to constantly be repenting and removing and conforming to what the Scripture says and what God wants us. How you gonna do that? It’s because when you open this Bible and you read the word of God and you understand what God says and your pilgrimage of sanctification, you have, now listen to me, you have a capacity to be humble, receive the correction, get it in your life, and not be resentful or bitter toward the Sunday school teacher, the brother in Christ, the preacher, the deacon, the friend, who helped point that thing out to you. Amen. You’re teachable. There’s a humility. How does that, how do you have that? The faith component God gave you. Now listen to me, that’s one of the ways you know a true believer from a false professor, a false professor can only go so far before he bows up and he grits his teeth, “I ain’t going, I ain’t listening anymore.” He’s not teachable. A work of grace gives you a humble faith capacity to let the word of God shape you.

Now look, sometimes it’s one step forward and two steps backward. Sometimes you blow it and sometimes you blunder and sometimes you fail, but let me tell you, are you listening to me? If you’re regenerate born again child of God, every time you fell in your sin, every time you’ve fallen, every time you mess up and you grieve a holy God, do you know where you land? You land on settled justification. Did you hear that? You land on resolved, white marble in the bag, you’re not guilty justification. You can’t lose your justification. Is that not good news? Can’t lose it. Now my sanctification it, it, sanctification is not like this or at least mine’s not, it’s like this. Now over here it ought to be a little higher than over there, but it’s up and down and all around.

I’ve been sick this last week. I don’t know what it is. The doctors don’t know what it is but it is but you know what it has done? It’s sanctified me some. “I don’t want my pastor sick.” Have you prayed for me to grow? Have you prayed for me to be sanctified? I don’t want it to be wasted, do you? I mean, when adversity and things come into your life that you can’t control, let’s don’t waste it. Let’s squeeze all God wants out of it.

It’s faith. It’s, it’s this capacity to say, “Yes, God’s word is right and, yes, God’s word is true and, yes, there’s at least a seed in me of humbling myself and saying that viewpoint, that conviction, that declaration, that approach, that attitude, whatever it was is not pleasing to God.” It’s a faith-based sanctification and only those who have faith can grow in that.

Well, our time’s getting away away. A faith-based emphasis on missions. Here we are and we’re getting real practical to where we are in this conference and why have, now if you’ve only been here 3, 4, 5 years you don’t know this but you remember the years before when we’d have our World Missions Conference, it was gigantic. We’d spend $30,000 just on the conference. We’d bring in 30 missionaries, sometimes 40 missionary families. We did probably upwards to 20 trips to South Africa planting churches among the Sotho people for about a, a 10 year stretch and, and then, of course, the Hakaru in the mountains, the Andes Mountains of Peru and the trip after trip after trip after trip after trip, all the things we did. Why do we do that? Because, now listen to me, even in professing churches the first and natural inclination is to be inwardly focused, is it not? The first and natural inclination is let’s take care of us. Let’s spend money on us. Let’s, let’s, let’s serve us. Now there is some good in that but listen to me, when we take care of us, it must be to the ends of missions. If we invest here and, and bless here and work here, it must be to the end that God would use us here to impact the ends of the earth. It’s always missions. It’s always missions.

So we’re now having this True Church Conference that is our World Missions Conference and hundreds of folks coming from around and we want to be a blessing and an encouragement to them, and we want to help these church plants be strengthened and, and they’re gonna be here and our church partners which is sort of a, a, a, iron sharpening iron relationship. We want to be a blessing to them and then, of course, our, our Anchored in Truth Ministries website and conferences that we do and, and, and radio and television that the Lord has blessed wonderfully through the years, and on and on we could go. Why do we do that? Because the Bible says he should receive glory from all peoples, tongues, tribes and nations, and there’s something in me that says though that doesn’t excite me all the time, my faith says that’s what we ought to be doing. So we strive toward doing what the book says ought to be our priority and that’s why we do it.

Now, Lord knows we have no reason to commend ourselves, no reason to congratulate ourselves at all but, you know, the vast majority of Baptist churches have never even had a missions conference. It’s just not on the radar screen. Well, why would we do it? Faith. There’s a faith component that says the word of God says this is the, the main purpose of God that he be known among the nations, that his Gospel be preached everywhere that he might birth faith in men and women and boys and girls and young people all over the world, and that they might come together in churches and, and might strive toward being true churches and healthy churches, and when all those people all over the world come to faith and, and get in local New Testament churches and walk toward being true healthy churches, God is seen on earth in that like he is seen in nothing else, and so God gets more glory, God gets more recognition, God gets more fame, and that’s why we’re here. Faith grasped that.

And I have to be honest with you, when we 20+ years ago began an aggressive, personalized, strategic, world missions ministry here, I wasn’t fired up about it. I wasn’t even excited about it. I just knew it was right but have you learned in Christianity you act on truth and your emotions catch up? You act on truth and your emotions catch up.

“Well, I feel…” Who cares what you feel? Do you realize what a mess we’d be in if we did everything we felt? That’s why we need the word of God.

So I’m challenging you on this Sunday morning, I’m challenging you like I’m challenging me, “Lord, another step of faith, that Grace Life Church of the Shoals might be an instrument in Your hands to bring You fame and glory and honor among the nations of the world.” If we have an infinite God of infinite power, of infinite resource, how could we have a small vision? How could we say, “Well, we’re just Muscle Shoals, Alabama. We’ll hit a lick at this and hit a lick at that.” Why? Why not it be the ends of the earth for the glory of God? And if we fail, we’ll do more than if we tried to do a little. Amen? Faith-based commitment to world missions.

Well, very practically, a faith-based commitment to giving for world missions. Let me just give you some preliminary truths, not anything you don’t know but just as Peter was writing his epistle, he in effect came to a point and he said, “I know you know these things but I’m stirring you up again.” So as we commit to give to missions this year, first of all, I’ll just be honest, I don’t know how you could be in a local church that has more motivating, in the right way exciting doors of opportunity that God has brought them than he’s brought us. You will not be able to go to God and say, “God, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t do much about world missions through my church and I, I didn’t get real excited about it because there wasn’t much going on.” Listen, folks, God’s bringing folks to our doorstep who are urging us to join with them and help plant churches and do missions work. That’s almost unheard of. All I’m saying to you is you won’t be able to go to the judgment bar of God and say, “I didn’t get involved because there wasn’t much going on.” God’s given us incredible things to get in on. So it’s there.

But some preliminary truths, back to my outline, to get started. 1. Everything is God’s. Everything is God’s. I told you many times and I don’t do this because I’m spiritual, I do this because I’m weak, I often have to have a prayer time and say, “God, this truck is Yours and my house is Yours. That hunting camp is Yours. It’s not mine. I thank You that I get to enjoy it, I hope that it supports me in retirement, that’s my goal with some of this stuff but it’s not mine. It’s Yours. This couch is Yours and this coffee table is Yours.” It just helps me. “These clothes are Yours.” I can prove it to you. You’re gonna die and some other old grimy guy’s gonna marry your wife and he’s gonna sit at that table and sit on that sofa and drive your car and God’s gonna say, “I told you it was Mine. I give it to whoever I want to have it.” It’s all God’s stuff.

What you need to do with your stuff is, hey, enjoy it. I enjoy my 4-wheeler but it’s not my joy. Enjoy it but squeeze out of the stuff that God’s given you so that it helps you realize and recognize it’s his. That’s, that’s, a practice that I need because I can get greedy and possessive and materialistic. I need that exercise. Haggai 2:8, “‘ The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine,’ declares the LORD of hosts.” Boy, that’s simple enough, isn’t it? 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you had not received it?” 2. All the stuff is God’s. Number 2, living for God’s stuff will ruin me. I can enjoy stuff and praise him for common grace, amen? Thank God for the cars and the clothes and the stuff. We can enjoy that. Don’t be hyper-spiritual. It’s as ungodly as hyper-Calvinism. And say that stuff is somehow inherently wrong or evil. I don’t know where God has you, if he’s given you a new whatever, Mercedes, and that’s where you’re supposed to be, praise the Lord. I’m not, I don’t want to beat you up about that because if I beat you up and get you out of it, I’ve just made you an idol in another direction. It’s gotta be God guiding you in those decisions. But if I live for it, if it becomes my aim, if it becomes my goal, if it becomes the end of my life to have stuff and power and control, it will ruin you. Absolutely. Absolutely clear.

Ecclesiastes 5:10, “He who loves money,” not he who has money. You can have money and not love it. Matter of fact, more people who don’t have it love it than people who do have it and love it because there are more people who don’t have it. The love of money is a heart condition, not the amount, and that’s why so many of you love this stinking socialistic communism/liberalism that’s about to take over our country because you’re, you have a bitter idolatry about stuff and you want somebody else’s and you want a power to force you to get some that’s not really, really yours. It’s not money, it’s the love, it’s your aim, it’s your goal, it’s the, it’s the really the joy of your life, then it will absolutely bring you to ruin. “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity.”

1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many a pang.” Many griefs, the translation says.

Now look, you young people, get you a good college degree and get a master’s degree and get a good job in a good company or start your own business and do well, but don’t live for it. Work like working unto the Lord the Bible says but don’t make it your goal. Don’t make it your heart. It’ll ruin you. It’ll destroy you. And dads, I’m gonna tell you something else, it’ll destroy your marriage. It’ll destroy your family. It’ll destroy everything. And I’ve been blessed here at Grace Life to have some families who are better off than the rest of us but a whole lot of them love God and they’re humble about what the Lord’s entrusted to them, and there’s a whole lot more of us that are just more regular folks and you love God and are thankful for what God’s given you, but in either way whether you have almost nothing or whether you have a lot, don’t make the stuff the goal. It’ll ruin you.

Well, a third thing. I’m sorry, the second major point here, B, two primary approaches to faith commitment giving. I can only just mention these and we’ll have the Lord’s Table. 1. you may just want to say, “You know, God, I’m gonna by faith trust a percentage of my income to missions this year.” There have been years where we would just challenge, we never was legalistic, never was a law, just a challenge. Why don’t you commit 3%? You know, give at least a tithe to the local operating budget and take another 3% and say, “I’m giving that to missions.” That may be where you are, maybe 1%, maybe 10, another 10%. I don’t know but some people by faith, they just wanna budget an amount for missions and that’s, that’s a great way to do it and whatever God leads you to do, we will rejoice in that.

But one thing’s for sure, Satan’s a liar and he’s gonna tell you to do the opposite. He’s gonna say it’s not worth it to live for the glory of God. It’s not worth it to be a part of a church that’s been wonderfully blessed to do world missions and have plant churches and have these missions opportunities. Y’all just kind of back off. Y’all just hold back a little bit. That’s always a satanic lie.

2. And this gets more into the faith commitment component: commit an amount that might happen. Project an amount that might happen. It has been wonderful through the years, God rest his dear soul, Brother Wayne Kraft. I love Wayne Kraft. What a blessing he was to his pastor and his church. Wayne was, um, making his faith commitment one year, I love this story, and Wayne said, “I just prayed and thought about what I needed to commit to give to missions this year and the Lord gave me an amount,” and he thought, “Now that’s what I was gonna use to buy my fishing boat with.” But he said, “You know, I went ahead and committed it to the Lord’s work and set the idea of buying the boat this year on the side.” And he, I remember him coming up to me grinning and he said, “Pastor, let me tell you what happened to me.” And he told me that story and he said, “One of my buddies who has a very nice, much nicer boat than I have, gave me the key and said, ‘I want you to use my boat anytime you need it and go fish.'” So he had a better boat free to go fishing in. God just does neat things like that sometimes.

Some of our senior adults I’ve heard the story, got a little job. They, they’re living on their retirement income, they decide they’d take a job and, and maybe one day a week, two days a week, I don’t know, and they just say, “That’s my missions money. Whatever God brings in by faith, I’m gonna commit that to missions this year.”

I’ve heard of students taking one soft drink a day. Well, if that’s a dollar a day, that’s what? $365. Wow, that’s pretty good faith commitment. So I, I’ll take that out of my life and I’m gonna take that money and by faith give it to God.

And some people have little projects they do on the sides or hobbies they have on the sides or income that’s maybe, uh, a unique thing. I don’t know what it might be, but you look at it and you say, “Lord, if You’ll bring it in, I’ll give it to missions.”

We’ve had men in our church in businesses and they’ll take a whole portion of their business and say, “Lord, I, if that, whatever comes in through that sale or that area, I’m gonna give that to missions this year.” Whatever the Lord may do. Hey, it’s a tough year for guys in business. I know it is and I know that’s, I know some of you are under some real stress. Maybe the Lord would move you out in faith. Don’t go on my word but maybe the Lord would say, “Dedicate some of it to Me, to world missions, to My fame and glory among the nations.” And see if the Lord might bless it. Whatever he leads you to do.

Years ago, um, I believe it was Oswald Smith, a wonderful pastor of the People’s Church in Toronto, Canada, I had the joy of preaching there before, um, Paul Smith, his son, passed away and Oswald and Paul Smith were real real leaders in challenging local churches to be about world missions. And Dr. Smith shared the story of being in India and he talked about seeing a woman there in India who was going down to the Ganges River and the Ganges River was a place where the Indians worshiped, they actually worshiped the river as a source of life and vitality and fertility, and the woman had one child that was a beautiful healthy child and the woman had another little child that was a badly deformed and critically ill little baby. He said the lady went down to the Ganges and I don’t think Oswald Smith was there, the missionary told him the story, but as she came back from the Ganges River, he noticed she still had the badly deformed sick child but the healthy baby was gone and the man said, “Lady, what happened to that beautiful healthy baby you had?” She said, “I sacrificed him in the river to my god.” “Well, why didn’t you sacrifice your other child who probably is not gonna live long anyway?” And she said, “Well, in our religion we give god our best.”

Look, God will lead you in what you need to do but as we give our faith commitment this year and commit to support these church plants and missions work and preachers and pastors and missionaries around the world, you just seek the Lord and say, “Lord, I want to give You my best for Your glory and Your fame among the nations.”

Let’s pray together.