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Pastor Tyler Pease is the director of global outreach at Sunset Bible Church and Tacoma, Washington.

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Tyler is also the Northwest Regional Director of Perspectives USA on the global Christian movement.

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And time is short.

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And so we need to get the word out, right?

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I believe this Perspective is really an opportunity to fulfill the great commission that Jesus called us to.

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So please welcome Tyler Pease.

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I serve as the regional director for Perspectives in the northwest. So I cover five states in the northwest, including

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Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. So just a small chunk of the country, really.

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And yeah, I was a pastor for 15 years. Still I'm a pastor, but just not paid to be a pastor anymore

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at my church. And perspectives is one of those things that I was introduced to about 10 years ago.

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And it just messed me up, but in a good way.

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And when I say that, it's one of these things that I went into it,

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not really understanding what it was.

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And yet, God had used it in our church to change how we look at the world.

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But what's really interesting is it changed how we look at our own community

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and radically changed how we did outreach as a community.

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And it began to unite the churches in our community and allowed us to have greater ministry impact

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working together than any of us working alone.

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And so I became passionate about perspectives and was asked to step into this role.

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And so this morning, what brings me here is we are trying to launch a perspectives movement

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here in Idaho Falls.

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And it is a challenging endeavor because this ministry is one that has a huge impact in the world,

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but it's one the enemy doesn't want to have happen.

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It's also a huge endeavor because we do crazy things.

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Like we offer graduate level college credit for taking the course.

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Now, not everybody who takes it, takes it for credit, but it's a big endeavor.

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And so Michelle and Brandon, who are pioneering this movement, are undertaking something

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that's a challenge.

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So we're excited about it.

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And one of my goals in being here this weekend is just to help with the launch of something

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that will be what we pray in ongoing movement that will have a similar impact in Idaho

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Falls that had.

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in my own community.

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Now, my goal this morning is not to talk about perspectives.

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You'll get a preview of kind of what we're all about,

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but my goal is really to open the Word of God

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because I hold this time as a sacred thing

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when we open the Word of God.

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So I'm not here to give you a promotional speech or anything of that nature.

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But my heart is this morning that you would see more clearly the heart of God,

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that even as you see God is great, that today you would see him as even greater.

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And that's really our goal anytime we open the Word of God, isn't it?

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So this morning, it's my privilege to open God's word with you,

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and I'm going to invite you to really open your Bibles to Psalm 67.

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Now, I have to admit, usually I'm more of an expository preacher,

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and I stay in one text.

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That's not going to be the case this morning.

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Psalm 67 is going to be more of a springboard for us.

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but it's really where our focus is going to be this morning.

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And the reason I turn here is partly to, in a way,

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a preview why we even do perspectives, what our ministry is about.

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One way I could describe the ministry of perspectives is to say it's a discipleship course

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that brings a global dimension into a person's spiritual journey.

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You might wonder, why in the world would I want a global dimension to my spiritual journey?

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Why would a global dimension be important?

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And in perspectives, that certainly takes us into talking about the Great Commission and to what we

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classically call missions, but we're not just a mission's ministry.

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Because what often happens is, you know, people look at the idea of missions, and I don't

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know what goes on in your mind when you hear the word missions or missionary.

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But I think for some people, what they hear is, hmm, that's that thing where there's really needy

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and we have to feel compassion for the needy. But what do I do when there's more needy people

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than I can possibly feel passion for? Or are maybe missions as seen as, well, it's great for some

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people who are wired that way. You know, some of us are wired a little differently, right?

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Some of us have been bitten by that travel bug, haven't we? Maybe you're that type of person.

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You think, boy, the greatest vacation in the world is me traveling somewhere.

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and trying to figure out how to get from the airport to a hotel where no one speaks English.

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And the weirder the food is, the better.

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And then some of you are like, are you kidding me, give me a break.

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I'm a meat and potatoes person.

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They better speak English wherever I go on vacation, and they better serve cheeseburgers.

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And so sometimes what we look at missions is we say, well, that's for some people who've been,

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you know, kind of wired that way, but it's not for me.

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Or maybe we look at missions and we say, well, missions,

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is maybe a deluxe form of Christianity.

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Maybe we approach Christianity like we do buying a car.

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Some of us want that car with the heated seats and the heated steering wheel and the adaptive cruise control.

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And others of us are like, you know, I was fine when they had manual crank windows.

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Really?

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And sometimes we approach Christianity that way of like, well, you know, that's okay.

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You have that deluxe version of Christian.

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I'm fine with the base model.

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And so sometimes we approach missions in some of the United States.

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these ways. Maybe we look at it as a thankless task that, man, I really hope God doesn't call me to be a

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missionary because I have to give up all the good stuff. See, the challenge is when we think about

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why would I want to have a global dimension in my discipleship journey? Sometimes we start the wrong

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question. We start thinking, what are my passions and what are my interests? And actually, a better way to

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approach this is to ask, what is God? What is God?

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God's passion and what are God's interests. And so this morning, what I want to do is looking at the

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Word of God, I really want us to look and see what is God passionate for. And my goal at the end of

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today is not to somehow elicit an emotional response from you to feel really sorry for some people

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across the world you've never met. That's not my goal. My goal simply today is that you would see more

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clearly the heart of God and that you had more long to be passionate about what God's passionate for.

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After all, isn't that what a relationship is like? When we have a friendship or a romantic relationship,

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that person that we're building a relationship with, oftentimes they're passionate for things

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that we don't care anything about, but just being in that relationship, doesn't it cause us start to care

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about those things? It's kind of like my daughter.

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I have a 10-year-old daughter. She comes home from school, and one day, all of a sudden, she wants to go buy Pokemon cards.

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I say, why do we want to go buy Pokemon cards? Well, why do you think? She has no interest in Pokemon,

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but there's a group of kids at her school who suddenly are all about Pokemon, and there's a natural

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desire that I want to know about this thing because they love it. It'd actually be weird for her not to

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become passionate about those things her friends are passionate for. My mind goes to a friendship I have with,

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a guy who used to be the worship leader at my church, Luke, and Luke and I did ministry together for a

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number of years. We developed a very close relationship. And Luke, of course, being a worship leader,

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you would expect Luke cares about music, right? Well, I don't really care about music all that

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much. I love music, but I'm very casual in music. But Luke is like he is constantly breathing.

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And you know what I found as I was friends with Luke and as our friendship grew?

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His passion started rubbing off on me.

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And it'd be a really weird friendship if one day I just turned to Luke and I said,

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could you just not talk about music because I don't care about it?

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Wouldn't that be odd?

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Yeah, it would be.

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Likewise, we, as we talk about having a relationship with God,

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if there is something that is at the center of God's heart,

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if there is something that God is something that God is,

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passionate for, then we really need to say, am I growing passionate for this? Or if I'm not,

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is there something wrong with the relationship? And so that's really my goal this morning is to look

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at our God and to see that our God has a global heart. And he's moving with global purpose.

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And he's had this purpose from the very beginning of the Bible. And so as we come to Psalm 67 today,

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this is part of what I want us to see is God's passions and for us just to see more and more clearly

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who our God is. So let me read Psalm 67 for us. And I understand you all read from the new King

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James. So I'm going to use that this morning. And Psalm 67 says, I'm just going to read the Psalm in its

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entirety. In fact, before I read, let's ask God for his help, all right? So let's pray. God this morning is,

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as we come before you, we're so thankful for who you are.

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And we're thankful for the privilege to open our Bibles this morning.

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God certainly, we look around our country and we see a lot of problems,

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but it's not lost on us that we still have the freedom to open your word

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and to proclaim it over a loud speaker.

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And so God, this morning, we thank you for that privilege.

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And God, more than anything, we thank you that you, that you are.

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a God who is relational, that you saw fit to give us your word so that we would know who you are.

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Because, God, if we didn't have your word, we could look around at nature and we could figure out

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that there's a creator. But God, we wouldn't know what it means to have relationship with you.

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And we wouldn't know what it is that you care for. And what pleases you and what displeases you and

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what's right and what's wrong. But God, through your word, you reveal these things about yourself.

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And so as we look at your word this morning, just open our eyes that much more to see who you are,

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to see truth about you, to understand the things that you are passionate for.

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And God, my prayer this morning would be that even though I am speaking, that it's not my words that move people.

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Because people don't need to hear what I have to say.

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But God, insofar as my words help us to see what your word says, then through your word and through your spirit, Lord,

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work in our hearts and open our eyes, open our ears to hear your voice.

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And then as we hear you, Lord, we need your help to actually act on that and to have changed

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hearts. And so we just ask that you would be the one who helps us understand and the one who

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helps us change and that we want to try to do these things in our own strength.

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And so, God, this morning with great thankfulness, we pray all this in the name of Jesus and through

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your spirit. Amen.

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Right. Here's the words of Psalm 67 says this. God be merciful to us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us.

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That your way may be known on earth your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you,

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oh God, let all the peoples praise you. Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy.

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For you shall judge the peoples righteously.

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and govern the nations on earth.

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Let the people's praise you, oh God, let all the people's praise you.

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Then the earth shall yield her increase.

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God, our God shall bless us.

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God shall bless us.

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And all the ends of the earth shall fear him.

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Now, Psalm 67, I want you to understand this morning,

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is not a stand-alone Psalm.

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It's not talking about an idea out of the blue.

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I believe Psalm 67 is actually capturing something that's at the heart of God's redemptive plan.

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And in a way, it's serving as a summary of God's redemptive plan.

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It's showing us something pretty amazing here.

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However, sometimes we have a hard time seeing some of these things.

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You know, I think about oftentimes when I look at this passage,

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and especially when we in our classes with perspectives, I think about glasses.

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I don't know about you, but when it comes to sunglasses, for instance, I buy really cheap sunglasses.

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There's a reason for that, because I'm the type of guy I lose my sunglasses all the time.

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I forget I'm wearing them, and there I am changing the oil or something on my car and scratching them up.

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And so it'd be really foolish for me to buy expensive sunglasses.

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The problem, though, with cheap sunglasses is, yes, they block some light, but sometimes they obscure.

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everything else as well. Sometimes they don't actually help you see better because they start obscuring

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things. And that's the difference between cheap sunglasses and expensive sunglasses. Now, I do have

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one pair of really expensive sunglasses. My buddy Luke gave them to me. And the only reason I have

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them is because they were a gift. You know how I said? I don't buy sunglasses because I lose them.

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I lost those sunglasses once at a restaurant, drove 50 miles down the road, remembered.

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and I had to drive 50 miles backwards to go get them.

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I don't want to do that.

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But for those ones, I did.

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Anyway, that's a side note.

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But what I notice on these nice sunglasses is they help me,

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they're polarized, and I put these on,

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and they just help me see everything more clearly.

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But the reality is sunglasses do color our vision.

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And here's where I'm going with this.

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Our culture gives us a lens through which we see the world.

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And our culture colors how we see the world.

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And sometimes our culture obscures things and causes us to not see things clearly.

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And sometimes when you have something that's obscured, you need a different kind of lens,

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like what I'm wearing today, a corrective lens.

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What does a corrective lens do?

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It causes us to see things.

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It doesn't cause us to see things that aren't there.

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What it does is it brings things into greater clarity, doesn't it?

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It might make things that are blurred.

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a little bit more sharp. And what I want to give to you this morning is Psalm 67 can become a corrective

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lens for us. Because like I said, our culture does color our vision and it does cause us to sometimes

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have things obscured that are right in front of us in scripture. And let me give you an example of that.

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One of the ways our culture is wired, and one of the ways our culture obscures our vision a little bit,

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is that we are a highly individualistic culture. In fact, the United States is the most individualistic

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culture that has ever existed on the planet. Now, here's the thing. There's some really good things

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about our culture, and there's some good things about that individualism, aren't there? We have in our

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culture a certain grit, a can-do attitude, a get it done, and we're going to do it with pride, and we're going to do it well,

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and those are some good things, aren't they? But there's also some trash. A certain attitude. A can-do attitude. I get it done, and we're going to do it well, and those are some good things, aren't they?

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But there's also some traps in our individualism.

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Some of the traps include thinking that it's all about me.

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And one of the ways that our cultural lens obscures our vision is when we take this book

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and we read it, sometimes the one thing we ask is, what does this say about me?

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And actually, this is a book about God.

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And so we need sometimes a corrective lens.

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that helps us not ask that individualistic question, but starts to look at things through a different

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light. Because we don't, we miss things in here. It reminds me of a time as a daddy, you know,

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you get to parent your children through all the seasons of their life. And there's a season in your

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children's life when they're about three where they don't have a filter yet. So they're very

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honest with you, aren't they? And I remember one day with my daughter, Jillian, and I don't remember

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exactly what was going on, but I remember in this moment correcting the sweet little three-year-old child,

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and I said, Jillian, it's not all about you. And with her sweet eyes, she looked at me and she said,

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but daddy, I want it to be all about me. You know, I thought, honey, so do I. I just filter it

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sometimes. No, the reality is it's not all about us. And Psalm 67 serves as a corrective lens for us.

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And so this morning, I want this to be a lens that going from here you use when you read your Bible

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to bring things into greater clarity.

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And here's the lens.

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I'm going to give this lens a name to make it memorable.

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I didn't come up with this terminology.

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This is not original with me.

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But I'm going to call this lens the top line and the bottom line of God's redemptive plan.

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What do I mean by that?

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What do I mean by top line, bottom line?

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Well, what I mean is when you're doing a business deal and you're negotiating with some,

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somebody. Oftentimes, you will say, what's the bottom line, right? What's the bottom? What is that all this

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about? What's the main thing? What I mean by top line is simply that it's included, it's part of it. It's just not the

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bottom line. All right? And when we look at Psalm 67, I think it starts to show us this principle of there's a top line of God's

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redemptive plan and there's a bottom line. What's the top line and what's the bottom line? Well, look at verse 1.

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God be merciful to us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us.

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Aren't those wonderful things?

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Don't you want the mercy of God?

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Who here does not want to be blessed by God?

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I don't see any hands going up.

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And this idea of God's face shining, this is a poetic way in Hebrew of speaking about,

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somebody simply smiling at you.

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You ever know someone you walk in the room and they just light up because they're glad to see you?

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That's what verse one is saying God is like with us.

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When he looks at you, he lights up and he smiles.

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This is a wonderful verse.

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But you know what happens again?

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Because of our individualistic mindset, sometimes, are like,

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what am I going to get out of scripture today?

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And I read this.

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And God's grace to me is mercy, his blessing, he smiles me.

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Oh, it's so wonderful.

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And we close our Bible and we go about our day.

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But you might notice something in this verse.

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what punctuation mark is at the end of that verse?

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Is it a period? It's a comma, isn't it?

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Because it's not the end of the thought. It's not the end of the sentence.

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And so in verse one, we see this blessing that God gives us, his grace to us, these benefits to us.

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And I would say that's the top line. And the top line I'd simply word it this way, is that we benefit from being part of God's redemptive plan.

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A famous preacher used to say,

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God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

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And you know what?

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That is absolutely true.

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You are not inconsequential to God.

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Do you hear that today?

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You are not inconsequential to God.

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But just as I told my daughter, Jillian,

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it's not all about you.

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I'm sorry if that hurts a little.

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But let's take a look at the next verse.

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There's a comma there.

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And the next verse starts with the word that.

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It's a causal word.

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You might even reword it to say so that.

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It answers the question.

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Why is God gracious to us?

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Why does He bless us?

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Why does his face shine upon us?

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And in verse 2, we see the reason it's that.

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Your way may be known on earth.

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Your salvation among all nations.

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And I would say verse 2 is the best.

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bottom line that God is working for his glory. And get this, I'm going to come back to this in a moment,

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but specifically, God's not after a generic kind of glory. God is specifically working for his

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glory among the nations. We're going to unpack that a little bit here in a moment. But top line,

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bottom line is simply this. You are part of God's redemptive plan. There's blessing for you as part of

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God's redemptive plan, but you are not the bottom line. In it, God, God,

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is working for his glory among the nations. And listen, these two things are not against each other.

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Sometimes in some of the churches I spent time in in my childhood, sometimes somebody would say,

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God loves you. And then someone would kind of be grumpy and be like, no, it's all for his glory.

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As though these things were against each other. No, God loves you. You are not inconsequential to him.

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And God is working for his glory among the nations. And these two things are actually wed and they go together.

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and they are not to be separated.

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And let me tell you this.

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This is a driving theme throughout the Bible,

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throughout God's redemptive plan.

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We can look.

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And once we have this top line, bottom line lens on our eyes,

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you're going to start seeing this everywhere.

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What I want to do is simply show you a couple examples of it this morning.

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So if this sounds kind of nebulous, we can kind of start seeing this in place.

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So I want to start with Genesis chapter 12,

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which is a foundational passage.

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and the Bible where God has chosen this guy named Abram.

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Eventually, he's going to be renamed Abraham, and he comes to Abram.

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And in Genesis chapter 12, verse 1, this is what God says to him.

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He says, now the Lord had said to Abram, go out of your country from your family and from

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your father's house to a land that I will show you, and I will make you a great nation.

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I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.

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I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse you, and I will curse you, and I will

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curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

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Now, in this we see, did God love Abraham? Did God bless Abraham? Absolutely.

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Abraham is not inconsequential to God. But here's the question. Is the blessing and the benefit to

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Abraham? Is Abraham the top line of what God is doing, or is he the bottom line?

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Is this all about Abraham?

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No, actually, the benefit to Abraham's the top line.

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He's included in what God's doing.

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But what's the bottom line of what God's doing through Abraham.

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It's at the end of verse 3.

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Through you, in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

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You know, what's amazing here is when God chose Abraham, this was not some divine act of

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favoritism as though Abraham, I like you,

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more than everybody else. So I'm going to give you stuff at the expense of those people over there and those

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people over there. No, God said, I'm going to bless you Abraham because through you, I want you to be a blessing

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to the families of the earth. And by the way, when God mentions the families of the earth here, he's not

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talking about mom and dad and sister. This is the nations, the tribes, the peoples, the ethnic groups.

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And how do we know this? Because this begins a driving theme through the redemptive story that God is

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to bless the nations and to be known by the nations. How is he going to be blessed them?

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Well, the main blessing is to deliver the nations from idolatry to bring them into a true

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relationship with the living God as true worshippers. In fact, if you think I'm making a lot of

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a big deal about Genesis 12, listen to what Paul says about this moment in Galatians 3,

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or chapter 3 verse 8. Paul says in the scripture, for seeing that God, a big deal about Genesis 12, listen to what Paul says,

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would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying,

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in you, all the nations shall be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed with

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believing Abraham. In other words, do you know when the gospel was first preached? It's in Genesis

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12. That when God came to Abraham and blessed Abraham, he had in mind the gospel in blessing the nations

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through the gospel.

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Our God has a heart for the nations.

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In fact, theologian, English theologian, John Stott once said this,

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the living God is the missionary God.

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In other words, it's God who is pursuing the nations from the beginning of the

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redemptive plan all the way through.

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So you're starting to see the top line, bottom line here, Abraham blessed,

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not inconsequential to God.

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And yet, it wasn't all about.

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Abraham, God is working through him to be known among the nations. Let's look at another example.

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I'm going to go to First King's Chapter 8, which deals with the temple. Of course, Israel being God's chosen

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people, we certainly can look at a number of ways that they are blessed, right? It'd be a blessing to be

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God's chosen people, the firstborn of the nations. And of the many blessings, one of the

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blessings they had was having the temple. And think about back in those days of King Solomon when they built the temple,

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you now have the global center of what true worship looks like in your backyard.

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Wouldn't that be a blessing?

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Now here's the question.

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Having that temple in their own backyard and being blessed as God chosen people,

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was that blessing?

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Were the Israelites the top line or the bottom line?

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Was it all about them or was something else going on?

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They weren't inconsequential to God.

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And yet God was working for a bottom line.

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purpose through them. Look at this. In 1 Kings chapter 8, Solomon has built this temple. And of course,

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just like we would do when we build a building, we have a party, we dedicate it. And they have this party

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of dedication. And look at this prayer he prays. As he's praying a prayer of dedication in verse 41,

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he says this, and he gets to the bottom line purpose of the temple. He says, moreover, concerning a

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foreigner who is not of your people, Israel, but has come from a far country for your name's sake,

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For they'll hear of your great name and your strong hand and your outstretched arm.

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When he comes and prays toward this temple here in heaven your dwelling place,

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and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you,

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that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people

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Israel, and that they may know that this temple which I have built is called by your name.

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Do you see the bottom line purpose there?

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This temple exists not just to be a blessing to us.

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but it exists so that all the nations of the earth would come to know your name, God,

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that your name would be lifted up among the nations of the earth.

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In fact, in Isaiah 56, 7, this is what God says about his temple through the prophet Isaiah.

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He says, my house shall be called a house of prayer for who?

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All the nations.

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And very interesting, if you were, we won't turn there, but if you were look at Mark 11,

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where Jesus cleanses the temple, guess what he quotes.

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He quotes Isaiah 56. He says, my house is to be called a house of prayer for the nations, but you've made a dinner of robbers.

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And you know, we don't have time to unpack all what was going on in that moment.

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But one of the chief things is the Jewish people had actually taken their blessing and they had cut it off from the bottom line purposes of God.

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Rather than the temple being the place to bring the nations, it had become a place to exclude the nations.

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and it should catch our attention that this was highly offensive to Jesus.

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My house is to be a house of prayer for the nations.

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And so we see again, the top line, yes, they were blessed.

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They were not inconsequential.

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And yet the bottom line purpose of all this blessing was that God's name would be lifted among the nations.

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I'll give you one more example here, Daniel 6, which is, I love Daniel 6,

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Daniel and the lion's den. I think we're familiar with Daniel 6 in this, this account of these evil men

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had manipulated the King Darius to get Daniel thrown into a lion's den. And of course, oftentimes,

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this is a passage where we really see our individualistic lens blind us, because when this

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passage is usually preached in churches, the application is left at the top line. It's, you know,

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Daniel was delivered from the lions. What is the lion's den in your life and how might

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God deliver you. It's not a terrible application, but it's missing something. Because when you think

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about it, think about Daniel, was he blessed to be delivered from the lions? Easy question, right?

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Yeah, if I ever end up in a lion's den, I want to be blessed like Daniel. Deliver me, Lord.

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However, was it all about Daniel? Was he the bottom line? No. So how do we see God working towards

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the bottom line purposes through Daniel in this story? Well, we find it.

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at the end of Daniel chapter 6 in verse 25. Listen to what happens as a result of Daniel's deliverance.

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It says this, then King Darius wrote to all people's nations and languages that dwell in all the earth.

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Wow. Would you like that kind of power? I'd like to write a letter today. Who do you want to write it to?

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Everybody. Okay? All peoples, all nations, all languages, and this is what King Darius says.

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Peace be multiplied to you.

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I make a decree that in every domain of my kingdom, men must tremble and fear before the God of Daniel.

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For he is the living God and steadfast forever.

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His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed and his dominion shall endure to the end.

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He delivers and rescues and he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth.

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Who has delivered Daniel from the power of the lions?

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Wow.

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Do you see the bottom?

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line here. Through Daniel's deliverance, now God is being proclaimed to who? The nations.

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And so maybe it's okay to say, what's the lines in in your life and how might God deliver you?

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But we need to not forget the bottom line and say, and through that deliverance,

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how will God's name be proclaimed to the nations? This is incredibly important.

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Here's what I want you to see in this lens is simply this. Whenever you're reading the Bible and you see

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God's blessing, look for his bottom line purposes as well. Look for his pursuits of the nations because it's

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there over and over again, but sometimes we need that corrective lens to see it because it gets a little

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blurry. Now, I want to look at one other thing today, which is simply this. Earlier, I said that

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God's not after a generic kind of glory. He actually has a very specific kind of glory in mind.

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And specifically, he wants to be glorified. He wants to be worshipped by all.

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the nations. And I want to unpack that for just a moment as we come to our end because I want us to have

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some clarity about what God has in mind. Now, when we use the word nations, our minds tend to go to

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our modern era where we're thinking about political nation states, Germany, Mexico, United States.

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When the Bible uses that term nations, it has more in mind ethnic groups. In fact, the word is

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ethne in Greek, where we get our word, ethnic,

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from. And the Bible uses a number of words for the nation. Sometimes it uses the word peoples.

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Sometimes it uses the word tribes or tongues, nations, of course. Sometimes the main word

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often used as Gentiles. When the Bible talks about Gentiles, it's not merely meaning non-Jewish

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people. It's God's way of talking about the nations that the Jewish people were supposed to reach.

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And so God has this desire to have all the nations, all the ethnic people, all the ethnic

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groups, all the tribes worship him one day. And it probably shouldn't surprise us then if we turn to the end

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of the Bible. Who do you think we find there? We find the nations. Now look at two passages in Revelation.

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I'm going to start in Revelation 7 here. But we see this as kind of an end of God's redemptive plan.

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And what do we see in Revelation 7?9? Well, John is seeing this vision. He says,

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after these things I looked and behold a great multitude, which no one could number of all nations,

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tribes, peoples, and tongues standing before the throne and before God. And they're worshipping God.

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But who are they? They're from all nations, all tongues, all tribes, all peoples. Do you think

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this matters to God? Do you think God is passionate about the nations? We're getting a preview of his heart.

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In fact, Revelation 7 is not the end of redemptive history.

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This is during the apocalypse, but it's not until Revelation 21 that we see what is a new creation.

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And check this out because the nations are still there.

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Revelation 21, we have this vision of the New Jerusalem.

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And in verse 24, we get this really amazing picture of who's coming into the New Jerusalem.

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And look at what John says in Revelation 21, 24.

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He says, and the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light.

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And the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it.

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And its gates shall not be shut at all by day.

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There shall be no night there.

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And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.

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Pause on that for a moment.

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That is stunning.

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They're going to bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

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Where do you think they got that glory and honor from?

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From God.

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Here's a personal conviction of mine.

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I believe that God has given every people group,

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unique glory that one day, we will all glorify him. And it's to give him worship, to praise him.

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And we think about this in eternity, you and I will still be finite beings with finite tongues.

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God alone is infinite. And what's more fitting to worship God through eternity? One language and one

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style or a clitoscope of cultures and styles and languages all describing God.

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in amazing ways in worshiping him. You see, this is the kind of worship that God is after into eternity.

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And so this is why God is pursuing the nations. And it's not a pursuit that's driven by how

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needy people are or how much compassion or love I feel for people. It's about how worthy is God to be

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worshipped. Let me give you one quick analogy to wrap up on. There's a day that I'm,

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I had some friends on Facebook who love puzzles. They're involved in ministry, so they have a lot of friends.

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And they were building this puzzle, and the puzzle was missing a piece. And it was really funny because as you

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looked at their post of this puzzle missing a puzzle piece, all these people were like commenting on

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there, I'm praying for you right now and, you know, all those things. It's just very Facebook.

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And then a couple weeks later, they found the piece. And then a couple weeks later, they found the piece in

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People are hitting the like button. They're praising God. The missing piece has been found. And I had this

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thought, you know, if it was your birthday and I decided to give you a puzzle as a gift,

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and I knew that one piece was missing. Is this a good gift or a bad gift?

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It's such a bad. The kind of misery I'm about to put you through. And here's the thing. It doesn't matter how

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that puzzle is, it doesn't matter how many pieces that puzzle has. If it's missing a piece, it's a

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bad gift. Think about this way. If God created every nation for his glory to worship him in eternity,

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if we get to that place one day and one is missing, is that good worship or bad worship?

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It's at least incomplete. And what kind of worship does the holy God deserve? Now here's the other

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beautiful thing. This is not a task that actually depends on us. This is a task we're invited into,

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but the living God is a missionary God. He will complete it. And he has already spoken in revelation

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that there will be people from every tongue and tribe and nation and people in eternity. And what

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God speaks about in eternity will first play out in history. And he's invited us as his church

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to be part of this endeavor. The only lasting endeavor,

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and worthy endeavor that there actually is. Now, not everybody is called to go, but as the body of Christ,

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we are all called to be part of this endeavor. In fact, it was Charles Spurgeon, who once said this.

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It's the whole job of the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world.

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It's not the job for some weird people who like to travel and eat strange food. It's not the job. It's not the job of,

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people who've been bitten by the travel bug or committed themselves to some deluxe form of Christianity.

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God's passion for the nations and his desire to be worshipped by nations is the job of the body of

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Christ, period. And so today, like I said, it's not that you would, I'm not guilting anyone.

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It's not based on how lovable people are. It's simply based on God's passions and who he is.

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So as we get ready to launch a perspective saying, you know, this is just the launch of it.

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And this is a small cohort.

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It's not a large class.

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But you know one thing I'm hoping for is that there will be a representative from every church in there.

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And I would love to see at least one person from out west in this cohort as we get ready to launch.

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But other than that, here's my question for you this morning.

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This is really where I want you to really contemplate this.

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Are you blessed?

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have you been blessed by God?

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If you've been blessed by God, which I would imagine you are,

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especially if you are in Christ,

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Ephesians say you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing.

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And the reality is that God has blessed us in addition to all the spiritual blessings,

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because a lot of us have pretty substantial physical blessings as well.

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My question for you is this, what's the bottom line of your blessing?

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And how has God blessed you that the families of the earth?

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earth would be blessed. And so really, that's the question I want you to leave with today is just

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contemplate how have you been blessed and how is God's name to be made great because of your blessing.

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What I'd like to do as one final time here, I'm going to read Psalm 67 again, and then I'm going to

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pray. But I'm going to actually invite you to close your eyes as I read this. And this time,

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I've been reading from the New King James Version. This time I'm going to read it actually from the

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English Standard Version. It's what I'm going to. It's what I'm most.

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most familiar with. But I want to read this as a prayer. And then I want to pray it over you as a

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church. Okay? So go ahead and close your eyes and listen to the words of Psalm 67 one more time

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as a prayer to God. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us.

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That your way may be known on earth your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you,

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O God, let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy for you judge people

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with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the people's praise you.

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The earth has yielded its increase. God, our God, shall bless us. God shall bless us. Let all the ends of the earth fear him.

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And God, that is our prayer. God, that is our prayer. God, our God, shall bless us. God shall bless us.

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today, God, I pray that you would bless out West Church. I pray for each person here that you would

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bless them and be gracious to them. And yes, cause your face to shine upon them. But God, I also pray

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that we want to put a period there. But God, that through that blessing, your way would be known on earth,

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your saving power among all nations. And so take what this church is, this is your body,

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and cause them to live for your purposes and to see just that much more what your heart is.

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God, cause our heart to resonate with your heart.

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That's our prayer today.

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We can't generate this in ourselves.

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We need it from you.

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And so we trust this to you, Lord.

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Pray this in the name of Jesus and through your spirit.

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Amen.

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Amen. Thanks, Tyler.

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Give him a hand.