How God Leads Our Lives

The following is a lightly edited transcript provided by a transcription service. Please check the video before quoting.

How God Leads Our Lives

It is pure joy to be back at Southeastern. I love the seminary, I love this faculty. I love this president and I get to wear jeans. It’s just great. So if you have a Bible, and I hope you do, or somebody around you does then invite you to find Acts chapter 13. Acts chapter 13. So I want to do something somewhat unique this morning that’s a bit out of the box for me.

Something I hope and pray will encourage you, particularly as a group of seminary students, a seminary I love, and a seminary where I feel comfortable being a bit vulnerable and sharing some things that I just wouldn’t share anywhere else.

So a year ago I was serving as pastor of the church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. And almost exactly a year ago, the Lord began taking me on a journey that I never would have planned that led to where I am now serving.

Praying for Our Brothers and Sisters

And so as I prayed for you in preparation for how I might best serve you during these moments, I just have this picture of brothers and sisters all across this room, some of whom over the next couple of months, and over others who over the next year or two or three, or four or five, the Lord is going to lead to all sorts of different positions and all sorts of different places.

And I’m guessing he’s going to lead many of you to positions or places that you never would’ve planned. So as I prayed for you, I sensed a desire to share with you out of the overflow of how God in his grace and mercy by his spirit has led me. So to go a bit out of the box from pure exposition of a text, which is the steady diet we need most.

God’s Word

And so I asked Dr. Akin not to critique this particular sermon on its expositional value, all the, although I hope it will be true, obviously to God’s Word, just to make sure that’s clear. But I want to share. So tonight, I’m going to preach from Acts this morning.

I want to share a bit of my testimony from the last year in light of the Book of Acts in a way that I hope might encourage you as our Lord leads you in the coming days months and years, because that’s just it, right? There is a level of mystery when it comes to how God leads our lives. How do you know when God is leading you to a certain place or a certain position at a certain time?

Just look at the Word Acts. Chapter 13, we’re familiar with this passage. Verse one says they were in the church at Antioch Prophets and teachers, Barnabas Simeon, who was called Niger Lucius of Cyrene, Manan, a lifelong friend of Herod, the Tetra, and Saul, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

A Prayer Meeting

Just stop right there. Don’t you read that? And just wonder, how did he say that? How did that happen? It’s a prayer meeting.

Did he just say it to Barnabas and Saul? Did he say it to others? And if so, how did he say it in such a way that verse three says, after fasting and praying, the church laid their hands on them and sent them off?

Verse four, sent out by the Holy Spirit. So how did that happen in Acts 13, it’s one of those places in scripture. Wouldn’t you just love a glimpse, just be a fly on the wall in Antioch? How did this happen? And then turn over a couple of chapters to Acts chapter 16.

Look at Acts chapter 16. So here’s Paul. Now having been sent out a second time on a second missionary journey from Antioch, and the Bible says that he and Timothy and Silas, listen to verse six, they went through the region of Frisia and Galatia having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. How don’t you wonder?

How does the Lord forbid you from speaking his word in a particular place? It wasn’t just because they may have faced resistance in Asia because they were facing resistance in tons of places. So how did the Holy Spirit say, no, not Asia right now? And then verse seven, when they had come to Maja, they attempted to go to Bethia, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow them. How did he not allow them?

The Spirit

How did the spirit not allow them to go? Was it during their quiet times? Was it one of their quiet times? Was it all their quiet times the same morning they came together for breakfast? We’re like, I don’t think we should go there. How did this work? And then listen to what we read next in verse eight.

So passing by Maja, they went down to Troas and a vision appeared to Paul and the knight, the man of Macedonia was standing there urging him and saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

So there you go, a vision in the night. But even that, how do you know if you’re having a vision from God or if you just ate something funny the night before and you’re having a weird dream? Like most dreams I’ve had, I don’t trust very much. Do you base your life around your dreams? So then turn to Acts 20. Look at Acts 20. Remember when Paul, he’s spending time with these leaders in the church at Ephesus on his way to Jerusalem? Listen to what he says to them. Acts chapter 20 verse 22,

And now behold, I’m going to Jerusalem. Constrained by the Spirit, constrained by the Spirit. So how does the Holy Spirit constrain you to go to a certain place?

The Holy Spirit Abounds

He keeps going not knowing what will happen to me there except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me, which again, don’t miss. This means that just because something is going to be hard or involves resistance, that doesn’t mean the Lord is not leading you to it.

That’s actually part of the means by which Paul knows the Lord’s leading him to it. In this situation, it goes on to say in verse 24, I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself. If only I may finish my course in the ministry that I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. So he’s going to Jerusalem. But here’s what’s interesting. Look at the very next chapter, chapter 21, and pick up there in verse three.

See what happens. Verse three, when we had come in the sight of Cyprus leaving on the left, we sailed to Syria and landed at the tire. For there the ship was to unload its cargo. And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days, and through the spirit, they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.

The Spirit in Jerusalem

Okay, now I’m really confused. So Paul, constrained by the Spirit, is going to Jerusalem because the Lord is constraining him to go there. But then here’s disciples attire that through the Spirit are telling him not to go. Get further down to verse 10, and listen to what happens there.

While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Avis came down from Judea and came to us, he took Paul’s belt bound his own feet in his hands, and said, thus says the Holy Spirit. This is how the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.

When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, what are you doing weeping and breaking my heart for I’m ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.

And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, let the will of the Lord be done. So you got this back and forth between spirit-led Paul and Spirit-led disciples and prophets, and in the end, they conclude seemingly against what some of the disciples would’ve said was the best way to move forward.

Paul’s Journey to Jerusalem

The Lord’s will be done. So Paul goes to Jerusalem and we know he’s arrested there, which leads. Okay, now turn to the next book in the Bible, Romans. Romans chapter 15, where Paul on his journey to Jerusalem, so actually in the city of Corinth before he goes down to Ephesus, which we just read about, Paul makes a case for why he’s going to Jerusalem and then wants to go to Rome in order to let the Church of Rome help him get the gospel to Spain.

So fast forward with me to the end of Romans 15. Look at what Paul says in verse 17, in Christ Jesus, then I have reason to be proud of my work for God, for th will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me. To bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the spirit of God.

So that from Jerusalem all the way around to Aum, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. In other words, I’ve done what the spirit of Christ led me to do in this region. But verse 20, thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation.

But as it is written, those who’ve never been told of and we’ll see and those who’ve never heard will understand this is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. But now since I have no longer, no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain and to be helped on my journey there by you once.

Paul Leads the Spirit

I’ve enjoyed your company for a while. So get the picture, and sum it all up. Paul led by the spirit, constrained by the Spirit and all he had done came to the conclusion that the spirit was leading him to Jerusalem and from there to Rome in order to get the gospel of Spain where they’d never heard it. And a question I’m asking as I’m reading all of this is how did all of that happen? How does the spirit lead?

How did Paul come to the conclusions he came to about where he would spend his life for the spread of the gospel? And the reason I’m asking that question is because that’s the question I’m asking all the time in my life, Lord, how are you leading me? Where are you leading me to spend my life for the spread of the gospel? And I’m guessing, I’m hoping it’s the question you’re asking in your life constantly, where is the best use of my life for the spread of your gospel?

A Glimpse of God

And so here’s what I want to do. I want to give you a little glimpse into how God, by his spirit constrained me to the place where I find myself now constrained me. And I remember that may sound like strong language to some, but that’s it. I really believe God constrained me to go where I find myself now.

My hope is in sharing a little bit about how he did that, that you might be encouraged and how he is constraining you, not because, so I want to be clear, not because your journey will be the same as mine because the Lord will lead and the exact same way in your life as he has done in mine, but my hope is share this journey and then just leave you with three simple words of encouragement based on what we see here and being constrained by the spirit of God.

So it was four or five years ago, that the search team at that time at the IMB approached me and others about the possibility of stepping into this role that I didn’t find myself in. And the Lord clearly said, no, no, that’s say how? Well, that’s a whole nother story.

But the Lord clearly said no in such a way that I remember our executive pastor when he was coming to the church at Brook Hills and he said, now David, are you going to be around? This was just a few years ago. He said, are you going to be around for a long time?

I said, as far as I know, I said, I have no desire to pastor another church. Now there’s always a chance I could move overseas, but the only other thing I could even think would be IMB leading IMB. But that was such a clear no.

The IMB

So I was like, come on man, I’m going to be here a long time. And I said that with integrity, with total integrity. But then you fast forward a couple of years and a couple of other pastors were invited to go to a trustee meeting with the IMB and encourage the IMB to think through new avenues for mission sending. When I look at the IMB, it’s really breathtaking beyond words what God has entrusted to Southern Baptists.

It’s I mean every year $300 million and about almost 5,000 missionaries all aimed at getting the gospel of those who’ve never heard it. It’s just an awesome reality. At the same time, I knew going into that trust me, that there was a struggle at the IMB in this sense. And now I know even clearer the exact numbers. I mean we as IMB in 2009, were at 5,600 missionaries.

Today we’re at 4,800 and we’re fast on our way to 4,200. And much of the reason is because our funding is not matching those who want to go. And so we are just through natural attrition and through telling people, no, last year we were about 21 million. We spent more than we brought in.

A Mission of Christ

So I looked and one of the things we and a couple of other pastors were talking with trustees about was the need to take more of a bottom-up approach to missions instead of a top-down approach to missions. So I think there’s a temptation in the denominational structure in particular to look at missions from the top down as if the IMB exists to do missions among unreached peoples and churches exist to send the IMB send money and send people and we’ll take care of the mission for you. And that really misses the whole point.

I think the whole point we see in scripture is a local church at the center of the Great Commission, Antioch worshiping, fasting, and praying, the spirits saying set apart from me, Psalm Barnabas for the work to which I’ve called them, and as Antioch here, Antioch there I want to see 40,000 Antiochus across the SBC and then far beyond the SBC who are worshiping and fasting and praying.

The Lord Leads

And this is a word of encouragement to every single person who the Lord will lead constrained to pastor a church. George Pentecost said years ago that the pastor has to privilege and responsibility for the missionary problem. And basically what he was saying is, yes, mission board agencies should exist and do what they will, but it’s the job of every pastor of a local church to fan a flame for God’s global glory in that local church.

And until pastors are shepherding anti-ox, then the IMB just spins wheels. It will not have the effect that we are designed by God to have on the spread of the gospel to unreached people. So anyway, we were just encouraging IMB leadership to think along those lines.

Well, fast forward a couple of months and I found myself in Dubai and was spending time with some of our missionaries there we were having a question-and-answer time at one point and just some dialogue about all kinds of different issues. One of the missionaries asked me, and he said, well, with funding down back home, what do you think the IMB needs to do in order to be able to keep the number of missionaries we have on the field there?

Praise God

And as soon as I heard the question, my heart just broke. Like surely that’s not the question we’re asking. Our goal is not just to keep the number of missionaries on the field we have there now we have to multiply exponentially the number of missionaries who are on the field. Praise God. I read in IB history in all of IB history, that in 170 years we’ve had about 20,000 missionaries, which is glorious. But the reality is we need 20,000 now.

We need 20,000 now. And it’s possible, it’s possible. You look at Moravians and Christian history was just in Winston-Salem last night and talking with people Moravians was so crazy. But anyway, Moravians, so the Moravians one out of 92 of them were crossing cultures for the spread of the gospel. One out of 92.

The Southern Baptist Church

If you took that and applied it just to Southern Baptist churches, I mean they say there are 16 million people in Southern Baptist churches. Let’s say we could find 10 million of those people alive and in a church, let’s just be honest.

So let’s say we could find 10 million of ’em and it’ll make it easier on the math if that ratio was going out from our churches, that’d be over a hundred thousand missionaries. But we’re not even thinking in those kind of terms. We have to think in those kind of terms. So I’m wrestling through this and my interaction with some different folks in IB.

Well, fast forward then to almost exactly a year ago when I found myself in the mountains Himalayas of Nepal and the Lord did an unusual work in my heart and life on those trails. I mean when you, not just the poverty and the sex trafficking and everything else, and I’ve shared about this in different settings, but just when you walk five days and every single person you meet has never heard of Jesus before you get there, you just realize this is not acceptable, that there’s this many people in the world who haven’t even heard what we just sang about.

Our Pastors

And so at the beginning of that trip, I had taken a group of our pastors there. We were praying about sending a church planting team to work in those mountains, and we were praying about who might lead that team. Well, about midway through walking out of those mountains, I’m looking at the guy who’s rooming with me. I’m like, Hey, maybe you need to lead this team.

And then by the time we get out of the mountains, I’m starting to think maybe I need to lead this team. And such that I began asking the guys who lived there in Nepal, what does it look like to live here and what about this? What about this? Hey, can we get it down into the city? Can I come visit your house? It was really kind of invasive, but I was trying to ask all the questions that I knew my wife was going to ask me when I got home.

And I said, babe, I think it’s Cat Mandu. And she’d never been there before. She’s been to India. So I was just thinking, all right, I’ll just tell her, just think India, but dirtier and I got to have something else to go on. So anyway, I’m asking all these questions wondering the Lord, are you leading me here?

And so we get out of those mountains and that morning we had one day left in Ka mandu before we flew out and I roll over and I wake up in the morning, roll over out of my bed, and I pick up my phone to see if I missed any messages from home. The first message I have on my phone is an email from Tom Elli, former president of the IMB, saying that he was stepping down and praying that God would raise up somebody else to lead in that capacity.

Luke 17

I just put my head on my pillow knowing that they had talked with me before, not knowing if they taught with me again, thinking it’d be a lot easier if they did not. But I just began to think, well now why would I be willing to move to Nepal and not be willing to consider mobilizing tens of thousands more people to get to Nepal and places like it?

And so I just fell out of my bed and on my knees, I’ve been memorizing parts of Luke 17 during those trials and Luke 17 verse 10. So you also, after you have done all that you’ve been commanded to do, say We are unworthy servants.

We’ve only done what is our duty, and I just fell in my face. I just don’t want to do my duty. I want whatever my duty is I want to do my duty. If that’s the pastor of the Church of Brook Hills for the next 40 years, I want to do that duty. If that’s moved to Napal, I want to do that duty. If that’s IMB or anything else, I just want to do my duty. Specifically Romans 15, I wanted to see the gospel preachers not being named.

And here’s where I found myself in a collision of desires in different directions, a desire to pastor the Church of Brook Hills, which if I can be totally honest with you, has not gone away, and a desire to be in Nepal.

That’s where my mind was most focused. We flew home, we got back late on a Friday night, and my wife, because we hadn’t been able to talk on the trails, just no communication. So she’s just eager to hear how this trip went, but I’m jet-lagged.

It’s late on Friday night, so we’re just laying there in bed and I’m kind of scrolling through my journal and I’m sharing things. This is exactly how it happened. I got to the point where I shared with her that maybe we needed to move to Katmandu, and then I fell asleep. And so just give you a picture of my patient wife.

I mean there she is with her head on my shoulders, tears streaming down her face as I’ve just shared with her that we’re moving to Nepal maybe, and I’m snoring over her. She woke up the next morning, she said, can we finish our conversation because you left off with you and me and our kids in Nepal? Just pick up there and talk to us some more then.

Okay, so you got that and then the possibility of this IMB picture that’s out there, but in such a way that, so I’m just going, to be honest, not that I haven’t been honest to this point, but I’m going to be a little more vulnerable when I think IMB and SBC.

My first thought was, just, what’s the best way to put it? A prone to being nauseated by the nature of a large institution. Does that make sense? I hope in a respectful way, but just thinking, all right, this big machine and a tendency that I think is common among many of us to think, well, I mean we do more just kind of going at it on our own in different ways. And the Lord opened my eyes in a fresh way to the potential for that machine and this machine that we’re a part of, I mean, it’s breathtaking what we’re a part of.

Churches in North America

When you think about 40,000 plus churches gathered together, coalesced together to spend every year half a billion dollars on planting churches in North America and among the nations that are training thousands of pastors and planters and ministers of the gospel with strong foundations in the world surrounded by a publishing arm.

That doesn’t answer to a bottom line as much as it does to a board of trustees that has scripture at its core and on and on, ERLC, and a grassroots network of associations and convictions.

So not perfect by any means, but the reality is if we were to start doing stuff on our own, it’d take a hundred years to be able to have the potential we have now, and a hundred years later, we have a ton of bureaucracy ourselves. So I started wrestling through, and I remember one day having lunch with one of our pastors, actually the same pastor.

The Bible in My Life

I said I can’t see myself ever leaving. And we’re sitting down and he says, he just starts walking through me, remember where we were sitting? And he started walking with me through the challenges that are associated with the larger picture structure institution.

And he just went one by one through the challenges. And it was pretty convincing in such a way that I walked away thinking, all right, I need to, even if the IMB does talk to me, I don’t even need to think twice about it. And it just so happened that the next day my wife, Heather, and I were driving over from Birmingham to Atlanta and we hadn’t had an opportunity to debrief my conversation with this pastor, a good friend of mine.

And so I start telling her, Hey, here are all the reasons why I think if they were talking to us, we should just say no thank you. And she’s listened to me talking about all these challenges and she says, well, David, did you read your Bible this morning?

Said, well, yes dear. As a matter of fact, I did. And we’re walking through reading Bible Reading Plan together, and that morning we just happened to be in numbers 13 and 14 where the people of God are the edge of the promised land and they’re looking at all these challenges and they say, oh, it’s too big, so we’re not going to take that. And

So she says, are you saying that the challenges you’re thinking about are too big for God? No dear, I’m not saying that. And so we get to Atlanta and right when we get there, the chairman of the search team gives me a call and says, Hey, we’re just trying to find out a few people who are interested. Are you even interested in this?

And at that point, I kind of threw up all over him and just said, man, I’ll do anything right now. I’ll pastor the Church of ils, I’ll move to Nepal or anywhere else overseas and I’ll do whatever the Lord wants me to do.

So then that process began and just time with the Lord day in and day out. I wish I could show you just the way the word of God in prayer in times of fasting, just intersected the Lord. I’d come to as we kind of progress in that and just be asking, Lord, stop me from going in the wrong direction.

The Lord and the Church Surround Us

And yet he’d keep pushing in that direction. I really would use the word constraining in that direction just through time with him day after day after day and the way that I found myself this summer in the Dominican Republic. One, I remember one day serving with some of our missionaries over there and was in Gideon, in judges.

And I had never asked for a fleece or anything like that, but it was almost like the Lord was saying, have I not made it clear to the point where I said, okay, I looked at Heather, I said, I’m about as sure about this is anything I’ve been. The only thing I would compare it to was when I knew I was supposed to ask you to marry me.

And that’s a good analogy because I was only one part of that equation. So Gee had to say yes, right? And so, okay, I think as best as I know the Lord’s constraining me, but I’m praying that if that’s clear, then the Lord would make that clear, not just to this team, but the Lord would make that clear to the church that surrounded me.

I had involved the elders of our church from the very beginning of that process, and I would exhort you to involve your local church in discerning how the spirit is constraining you And everywhere. I remember at first I wasn’t involving elders. I thought, well, I’m not going to tell anybody this is a secret. And a friend of mine asked me, well, what do your elders think about this?

And I said, well, I haven’t told them. And he said, I mean really don’t you see what you see in scripture? Churches praying and fasting together? Who knows you better than the elders in that local church? Why would you not involve them in that process?

Is there this custom of going around in secret? Like why don’t we pray through this together? And so we did, and we had been all throughout this process and that day in the Dominican Republic where I come to this conclusion, tell Heather, okay, I think, but I’m only one part of this equation.

The Lord is Our Destiny

Let’s pray. The Lord would make that clear in others. And I get this email, I open up my email from the chairman of our elders and he says, pastor, I know you may not get to read this.

I was out of the country for a few days, but I just wanted to pass along a few thoughts as all of this has sunk in a bit, and I’ve had the chance to pray and process that I as your elder chair have grown, only more convinced that should the Lord allow you were destined for this position and it is of the Lord.

And it goes on to encourage me and the other elders in similar ways, just David, if the Lord is in this, we want to encourage you to go quickly. I’m thinking, well, don’t push me out too fast. There’s a little too much eagerness in your voice that counsel that you just gave to me.

Psalm 131

But I came back from overseas and I met with this team in Denver and just rested in the Lord. Another passage I’d memorized parts of, well, not parts of Psalm 131. It’s only like three verses, so you just memorize the whole thing. But in Psalm 131, you see this picture of resting the Lord like a weaned child with its mother.

So my soul rests in you, Psalm 131, Lord, I’m trusting you, I’m resting in you. And as we come back, we meet with this team, and then they call me after that and they say, we’d like to finally move forward with you potentially becoming going to the trustees of the IMB. And at the end of that conversation, he says, we’re just leaning on Psalm 131.

I said, well, of course, you are in such a way that we ended up going up to meet with the trustees. And the day before I met with the trustees, my quiet time just happened to be in Romans chapter 15, Bible reading plan.

Do We Pray Enough?

And so we met with this team one more time, and then we had taken our kids up there and our kids are 8, 7, 4, and two. And so we took ’em out for ice cream that night and we said, now I’m guessing you guys are wondering why we’re in Richmond.

They said, no. I said, well, okay, well you should be because I began to share with them what we were praying through. And should Daddy become president of the I and B my 8-year-old just immediately spoke up to me, he said, president, Daddy, that’s a big job.

Are you sure you can handle that? That’s a great question, son. And then he just went on. You could tell he was processing it, I’m leaving friends behind this or that. And he said, and this isn’t just preacher talk, this is exactly what he said. He just looked at me and Heather and he said, well, mommy and daddy, I know that whatever, however, God leads us, it will be for our good and his glory.

And so the next night we were going to meet with the trustees and this same Caleb, they gathered around to pray for me. And as Caleb’s praying, he’s saying, God, I pray that you would make it clear if daddy is supposed to be president of the FBI. And

Jesus and the Spirit

I didn’t have the heart to tell him, it’s not really FBI. He’ll figure it out. My 7-year-old six at the time, I mean one day we were getting off a plane. He said, so now there’s two presidents in the United States, President Obama and you, I said, A little different, little different.

So meet with the trustees. And then the next day they come to me and they say, we’d like to offer this to you. And that’s all. That’s why constrained by the Spirit, I found myself in that moment saying, yes, I didn’t go looking for this, the ministry I received, the Lord Jesus constrained by the spirit.

And so I share all of that, just give you a little bit of a glimpse. And again, not to say journeys all across this room are going to look the same but to give you these three words, one I want to exhort you to surrender.

Christ is Everywhere in Our Lives

So these are the three words I just want to encourage and challenge you with to surrender, to surrender everything in your life to Christ. I could list for you the number of reasons why I did not want to step into this role. And there is a long list and I know that in a much greater array, Paul could say the same thing. He had all kinds of reasons why he shouldn’t go to Jerusalem.

He’s going to be arrested or worse. So why do you go to places where there’s so much unknown? Why do you go to places where there’s risk? Why do you go to places when there’s cost? And the answer is you go because God says to go and you’ve surrendered everything to him. This is the Christian life, right?

It’s not the minister’s life or the seminarian’s life, some super Christian life. This is the normal Christian life. The Christian life is the life of surrender. Our lives are his to spend however he wants. So we surrender everything. And this is where I want to exhort you this morning, brothers and sisters, to refuse to put any limitations on what the Lord is calling you to do or where the Lord is calling you to go.

The Lord Calls Us

I challenge you to say, I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I’ll go wherever you want me to go. And this is where in particular I want to plead for every single person in this room, student and faculty alike, to open up your life to the possibility that God may be leading you to people who’ve never heard his gospel.

There are 2 billion of them out there who’ve never heard what we just saying. They’re plunging into hell every single day and nobody’s even told them how they can go to heaven. This cannot be tolerable to us. And it requires then a blank check from all of us, no strings attached to say, Lord, do you want me to go there at any point?

To continually put the blank check on the table and fresh ways in our lives and say, now is the time. Now is the time. There’s this may move. We’ve never heard the gospel. Knowing that much like Paul, that task is extremely difficult and dangerous, and prison and hardships to use language from Acts await you. The reality is there are 6,000 unreached people groups in the world and their unreached for a reason. They’re hard to reach, they’re difficult to reach, and they’re dangerous to reach. All the easy ones are taken.

Where is the Lord?

So will you say you think about the people that are left in Syria and northern Iraq and Libya in Saudi Arabia and Iran and the mountains of Afghanistan, Pakistan where there are bombings we see about every day? You think about ISIS, you think about West Africa and Boko Haram,

And I exhort you to put a blank check on the table and say in your life and your family, Lord, I’ll go wherever you want me to go. We’ll go wherever you want us to go.

And I know that there is potential fear in putting that blank check on the table. And what if he calls you, your family to one of those places? But this is where I just want to remind you, that if there’s any fear in you when it comes to putting a blank check on the table, just remember who you’re giving the blank check.

God Loves Us All

You’re giving a blank check to the God who loves you and who knows far better than you, what is best for your life. And you can trust him. If you can trust him to save you from eternal damnation.

You can trust him to lead you on this earth and not just to lead you on this earth, but to satisfy you every step of the way. Knowing it will not be easy. He never promised Paul that. But knowing he will be worth it, leads to the second word I want to give you.

Surrender second, abide. Abide. So surrender to Christ and abide in Christ. So there’s part of me that wishes I had a vision where a man from the IMB saying, come over here and help us. I’m guessing some of you would like a similar thing you’d like for God to give you a vision, God to arrange the clouds in the sky in such a way like an arrow, go this way, do this thing.

God Plans Our Journey

But normally, normally God doesn’t do that. Instead, follow this. He does something better. Instead, God designs journeys like the one I just described in my life to cause us to daily seek after him over every step of our journey in my life, found myself praying, fasting, regularly, and seeking to read the word in a fresh way.

And God, what do you want me to do? I just want to follow you. Don’t let me go in the wrong direction. I just want to do what you want me to do. And the result is, you know what the result is of that kind of praying and fasting and seeking and reading the word.

The result is I love the Lord far more today than I did a year ago. I love him so much and I’ve walked in sweet intimacy with him that I am not sure if I’d have gotten the vision at the very beginning.

So God takes us on a journey, takes our families on journeys, takes us with our wives and husbands on journeys where we seek him, and he leads and he guides our thoughts as we abide in him. And he does all this because he loves us.

He’s given you and me as his children something much better than the specific direction in certain decisions. He’s given us his spirit and he’s called us daily to surrender to him, put it all on the table, our lives, our families, our future, and then walk with him, be in his word, spend time with him in prayer fast before him.

Realize the goal is not a specific position or direction. The goal is for God to know him and love him and adore him walk with him and find the deepest satisfaction in our souls in the process. This is an act of abiding in him.

God Entrusts Us to Lead

It’s not a passive surrender, it’s an act of surrender. So it’s not we surrender and then sit back. It’s we surrender and we follow him and we make disciples. We live, we get plugged into a local church where we’re serving.

We lead with the capacities that God has entrusted us to lead. We do all these things. And here’s the beauty. I’m just convinced that if we surrender to him and abide in him, God is not going to let us go astray. He loves us. The Father in heaven loves you so much. He wants his mission to be accomplished in your life more than you do.

He’s put his very spirit in you to see his mission accomplished. So the third word is surrender to him. Abide in him and rest in them. Surrender, abide. And when you’re surrendered to Christ and abiding in Christ, there is a rest that you can find like a weaned child with its mother knowing no matter what happens.

The Creativity of God

I mean, there are days now, I’ve been in this thing six months right now, and just days where it’s surreal, kind of step back and be like, what’s going on? How did this happen?

And when dreaming, and depending on the day, it’s either a good dream or a bad dream, but there’s a rest in the middle of it all because you know that the God of the universe has your life and the palm of his hands.

And so I encourage you in your life, your heart, put a blank check on the table, abide in him, and rest. And isn’t it awesome to think about the creativity of God and all the different ways he will constrain by his spirit, people in this room to different places and positions all over the world for our good, for the spread of his gospel and for the glory of his great name?

Let me pray. God, may it be so. And thank you, God, thank you, thank you, thank you for the way you love us and lead us. And I pray, I pray for the brothers and sisters in this room in particular, God, the days that come, you would help them, enable them by your grace to surrender, to die daily to themselves.

We Pray to Make Your Glory Known

Help us all die daily to ourselves, to abide in you and as we do to rest, use us. We pray to make your glory known, your gospel, particularly among those who’ve never heard, whether we’re leading the church here or planning the church there, God, we pray for the day when we will not be talking about unreached people anymore.

We’ll talk about the return of our king and you getting all the glory you are due. So help us to be faithful from this day until that to walk and step with your spirit. In Jesus’ name, amen.