You Are My Witnesses

[0:00] Well, if we could, with the Lord's help and the Lord's enabling this morning, if we could turn back to that second portion of scripture that we read in the book of Acts.

[0:17] The book of Acts and chapter 1. And I'd like us to look at the first 11 verses, but if we just read again at verse 6. Acts chapter 1 and verse 6.

[0:57] I want to begin this morning by asking the question, what's the purpose of the church? What's the purpose of the church?

[1:10] Now, I'm not asking why we come to church, because I would hope that we all come to church to worship God. I would hope that we all came here this morning with a desire to give praise and thanks to God for being our creator, first and foremost, and also for providing us a saviour in his son, Jesus Christ.

[1:32] I would hope that whether you're a Christian or not, whether you're converted or not, whether you're committed or not, I would hope that we've all come here this morning to hear God speak to us in his word.

[1:46] Because that's why we come to church. We come to church to worship God, because he's our creator, he's our saviour, and also to hear God speak to us. To speak to us through his word, and to speak into our circumstances and our situations.

[2:02] That's why we come to church. But what's the purpose of the church? What's the purpose of the church? And I want to say from the outset that the purpose of the church is to worship, witness, and walk with the word of God for the sake and glory of Jesus Christ.

[2:22] The purpose of the church is to worship, witness, and walk with the word of God for the sake and glory of Jesus Christ. And you know, as we were beginning a study in the book of Acts this morning, and as we study this book, that's what we're going to discover.

[2:40] We're going to discover in this book that the purpose of the church is to worship, witness, and walk with the word of God for the sake and glory of Jesus Christ.

[2:51] But you know, as the New Testament makes clear, the church is not a place. The church is a people. The church is not a place.

[3:02] The church is a people. It's not a building. It's a people. And the church is a people who have been called out. That's what the word church actually means.

[3:14] The word church means those who have been called out. Therefore, the church has been called out of darkness into the marvelous light of the gospel. The church has been called out to live lives worthy of the gospel.

[3:28] The gospel that they have come to know and love. The church has been called out to serve our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has served us by giving his life as a ransom for many.

[3:39] So my friend, the church has been called out to love Jesus Christ because he loved the church and gave himself for us. The church is a people who have been called out.

[3:54] And you know, my friend, you might come to church. And it's wonderful that you come to church. It does my heart good to see you in church. But if you're not a Christian, if you're not committed, if you're not converted, then you're not in the church.

[4:09] You might come to this place called the church. But until you commit your life to the king and head of this church, until you commit your life to Jesus Christ, you will not be part of the people called the church.

[4:25] And the thing is, my longing is that you will be part of the church. You need to commit to the church, to be part of the church. You need to be committed to the church.

[4:38] You know, as we begin our study in the book of Acts, I want us to see that the opening verses of this chapter, they remind us what the church of Jesus Christ needs to be doing. These verses, these opening 11 verses, remind us what the church of Jesus Christ needs to be doing.

[4:55] So what does the church need to be doing? The church needs to be waiting, witnessing, and working. The church needs to be waiting, witnessing, and working.

[5:07] There are three headings this morning. Waiting, witnessing, and working. So first of all, the church needs to be waiting. We need to be waiting. Look again at verse 1 of chapter 1.

[5:20] It says, Now the book of Acts, it was written by Luke.

[5:47] The same Luke who wrote the Gospel of Luke. In fact, the book of Acts is the sequel to the Gospel of Luke. It's the second volume, you could say, of Luke's writings.

[5:59] And what's interesting is that both the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, they both begin by addressing this man called Theophilus. Now we don't really know who Theophilus was.

[6:11] Some have suggested that Theophilus was a Roman citizen whom Luke was witnessing to. Others have suggested, and I would go along with this one, they have suggested that Theophilus wasn't a person, but a people.

[6:24] Theophilus was the church of Jesus Christ in the world. And I say that because the word Theophilus means lover of God, which is a description of a Christian, isn't it?

[6:38] A Christian loves God, and a Christian is committed to God's Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore, I believe that Theophilus, this Persian Theophilus that's mentioned here, he wasn't a Persian, but it's a people.

[6:50] Theophilus was, and it still is, the church of Jesus Christ in the world. Now when Luke began writing his two-volume set, you could say, he wrote about the Persian and the work of Jesus Christ.

[7:05] You'll remember that Luke, he was a doctor, he was a physician, and he studied and wrote about this great physician, Jesus Christ. And Luke, he opens his Gospel account by addressing Theophilus.

[7:19] And he says in Luke 1, chapter 1, he says, It seemed good to me, having followed all these things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

[7:38] And then throughout Luke's Gospel, when you read through it, Luke presents to us who Jesus is and why Jesus came. Luke explains that Jesus Christ is the Son of Man who came to seek and to save the lost.

[7:54] But then when Luke begins his second volume, the Book of Acts, he begins by explaining how the Gospel of Luke concluded. You know, like all good writers do, or even how you see it on the television sometimes, they recap on what happened last week.

[8:11] And that's what Luke does. He begins the Book of Acts by summarizing and explaining to Theophilus where the Gospel had ended. And he says here in verse 1, In the first book, O Theophilus, in the Book of Acts, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, in the Gospel of Luke, sorry, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit, to the apostles whom he had chosen.

[8:41] He presented himself alive to them after his suffering, by many proofs, appearing to them forty days, and speaking about the kingdom of God. Luke opens by giving this summary of how his Gospel account of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ had ended.

[9:01] Now, we read the end of Luke's Gospel, and we read in chapter 24 of Luke's Gospel, where Jesus said there, Behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high.

[9:17] Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them, and while he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried into heaven. And it says that they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God.

[9:33] So that's how Volume 1 ended. But then Volume 2, the Book of Acts, it gives more details as to how Volume 1 ended. Because we're told in verse 4, And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You have heard from me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

[10:01] Now what we have to understand about the end of Luke and the beginning of Acts is that the promise of the Father is what Jesus is talking about.

[10:12] And the promise of the Father is very important. And it's so important that Luke mentions it at the end of Volume 1 and even at the beginning of Volume 2. Because Luke wrote in his Gospel, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high.

[10:32] And then here at the beginning of Volume 2 in the Book of Acts, Luke tells us that Jesus spoke to his disciples about the kingdom of God and that Jesus ordered his disciples not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father.

[10:48] And he says, And so the first order, you could say, the first order that came from the king and head of the church, Jesus Christ, the first order he gave to his church was to wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit.

[11:12] And you know, we'll see more of this when we come to chapter 2, where the promise of the Holy Spirit is fulfilled. But at this point, the message for Theopolis, the message for the lover of God, the message for the church, was to wait upon the promise of the Father.

[11:28] And the promise of the Father was that when Jesus would ascend into heaven, the Holy Spirit would then come in power. And you know, that's what Jesus actually promised to his disciples.

[11:41] He said it to them in the upper room. You remember, it's written in John's Gospel in chapters 14 to 16, where Jesus speaks about the promise of the Holy Spirit.

[11:53] And Jesus says, in John 14, I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth. And he will dwell with you. And he will be in you, he says.

[12:04] And Jesus said that the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. He is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father and he will bear witness about me and he will guide you into all truth.

[12:22] He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will declare to you the things that are to come. And so my friend, the message for Theophilus, the message for the lover of God, the message for the church was to wait upon the promise of the Father, which was the coming of the Holy Spirit.

[12:43] Because when the Holy Spirit would come, he would comfort the church, he would guide the church into the truth, he would remind the church of Jesus' words, he would instruct the church and he would fill the church with the power of God.

[12:57] But the church had to wait. The church needed to be waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. And you know, it's not easy to wait.

[13:10] We're not very good at waiting, are we? We're not very patient. And you know, that's evidenced even in the 21st century by the world we live in. Because in the 21st century, we live in a world of instance.

[13:24] We live in a world of instant coffee, instant information, instant help, up-to-date news, super fast broadband. It's all there at our fingertips without delay.

[13:36] And you know, you go to a shop and you're standing in a queue for less than a minute and yet the teller at the shop is apologising to you for having to wait for a minute. We live in a world where waiting is seen as a bad thing.

[13:51] But you know, in the Lord's eyes, it's not. Because with the Lord, waiting teaches us patience. Waiting teaches us dependence.

[14:03] Waiting teaches us to trust in the promises of God even in the midst of suffering. You know, is that what Paul said to the church in Rome? A church that was being persecuted.

[14:15] They were being killed for being Christians. And yet Paul said to the church, he said, we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that our sufferings produce patience. Patience. And patience produces experience.

[14:28] And experience produces hope. And hope, says Paul, hope does not put us to shame. Why? Because the love of God has been poured into our heart by the Holy Spirit.

[14:41] My friend, the church needs to be waiting upon the Lord. And as a people, we need to be waiting upon the Lord. We need to wait upon the Lord in prayer.

[14:52] And you know, whatever you might be going through today, whatever is in your providence, whatever is in your cup, the Lord is reminding you in His word today that you need to wait upon Him.

[15:06] And you need to trust in His promises because they are faithful and true. You know, the promise of the Holy Spirit is that He will comfort the church. He will guide the church into the truth.

[15:19] He will remind the church of Jesus' words. That's what the Spirit does every time we come together. He's reminding us of Jesus' words. He will instruct the church and He will fill the church with the power of God.

[15:31] So the church needs to be waiting. The church needs to be waiting. But the opening verses of this chapter, they also remind us that the church needs to be witnessing. The church needs to be witnessing.

[15:44] That's what we see in verses 6 to 8. Witnessing. Verse 6. So when they had come together, they asked Him, asked Jesus, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

[15:56] He said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

[16:13] So having introduced his second volume and explained that in the first volume Luke wrote about what Jesus began to do and teach, Luke now affirms that the book of Acts is all about what Jesus continued to do and teach through the power of the Holy Spirit.

[16:33] And although Jesus was resurrected from the dead after His crucifixion and burial and the ascension to the right hand of the Father it was imminent, but it was not only imminent, it was important and necessary.

[16:48] The ascension to the right hand of the Father would mark a significant moment in the life and witness of the church. Because if Jesus hadn't ascended to heaven, then Jesus says that the Holy Spirit cannot come.

[17:03] And Jesus' physical presence, if He had stayed on the earth, His physical presence would have limited the spread of the gospel because physically Jesus could only have been in one place at one time.

[17:15] But by His ascension, by ascending to the Father and the Spirit then coming, Jesus could be present everywhere through the power of the Spirit. Jesus could be with and within His church, enabling His people by the Holy Spirit to be faithful witnesses.

[17:35] And you know, that's what Jesus promised His disciples. We said a moment ago that Jesus told the disciples in the upper room that when the Holy Spirit comes, He will comfort the church.

[17:45] He will guide the church. He will remind the church of Jesus' words. He will instruct the church. He will fill the church with the power of God. But Jesus also said in the upper room to His disciples that when the Holy Spirit comes, you will bear witness about me.

[18:03] You will bear witness about me. And that's what Jesus affirms in verse 8. He says to His disciples and to the church, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

[18:23] Jesus says that when the Holy Spirit comes in power, you will be my witnesses. You will be my witnesses. But you know, the reason Jesus said this and the reason Jesus had to re-emphasize to the disciples that they are to be His witnesses.

[18:42] The reason Jesus did it was because they still didn't get it. They still didn't get it. They had been told on many occasions during the ministry of Jesus.

[18:54] You'll remember it's repeated again and again in the Gospels that the Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed. And then on the third day rise again.

[19:07] But you know, as we see in the Gospels, that was met with confusion. Peter rebukes Jesus. The disciples don't have a clue what Jesus means. They don't even want to ask Him what He's talking about.

[19:19] In fact, the disciples still couldn't understand, even by this point, they still couldn't understand why the way of the Christ had to be the way of the cross.

[19:30] because in the disciples' mind, the way of the Christ was always going to be the way of the crown. Because even though the disciples, even though they had come to discover that Jesus was the Christ, they didn't understand what sort of Christ He was.

[19:46] They thought that the Christ was going to be a king, an earthly king. They thought that Christ was going to overthrow the oppression of the Romans and then recapture Jerusalem. They thought that the Christ was going to take up the throne of David and rule the nation of Israel again from the throne in Jerusalem.

[20:03] They thought that the Christ was going to be this earthly king with an earthly kingdom and have political power. They never thought that the Christ was going to go to the cross.

[20:15] That was never on their mind. They thought that Jesus was going to receive His crown. But Jesus, all the way through the Gospels, we see that the disciples were told that the way of the Christ must be the way of the cross.

[20:29] And yet, even after all of this, after all that Jesus said, all that Jesus did, even after His crucifixion, His death, and His resurrection, the disciples still don't get it.

[20:43] They still don't fully understand who Jesus was and why Jesus came. Because they're asking, as they say in verse 6, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

[20:54] They're coming to Jesus and they're saying to Him, well, is now the time that you're going to become king in Israel? Is it now that you're going to take the throne in Israel and overrule and overthrow the Romans?

[21:09] The disciples are still thinking that Jesus is an earthly king with an earthly kingdom. After all that they've been through, they still think that the crucified, dead, buried, and resurrected Christ will be seated upon a throne in Jerusalem.

[21:27] Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? How does Jesus respond though? It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father is fixed by His own authority.

[21:39] Jesus responds by reminding His disciples and the church that His kingdom is not of this world and that the Father, His Father in heaven has given to Him all authority in heaven and on earth and Jesus says that His kingdom is the kingdom of heaven.

[21:59] Jesus assures His church that they will understand this. They will understand all this when the Holy Spirit comes. And you know, my unconverted friend here today, you might not understand everything in the Bible but that's why you need to ask the Spirit to give you understanding.

[22:20] The disciples didn't understand everything. They couldn't get their head around the Christ, who the Christ was, why the Christ came but when the Spirit came, when the Spirit came, He revealed to them, He explained to them, He showed them who Jesus really was and why Jesus came.

[22:41] And you know, you need to ask, you need to ask the Spirit to open your eyes so that you will see, so that you will understand, so that you will follow this Jesus.

[22:54] Because Jesus is saying to us here that His kingdom is the kingdom of heaven and Jesus is assuring the church that they will understand all this when the Spirit comes.

[23:05] Because as we were saying, the Spirit, He will comfort the church, He will guide the church, He will teach the church, He will remind the church of Jesus' words, He will instruct the church, and He will fill the church with the power of God.

[23:19] And as Jesus says here in verse 8, but you will receive the power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

[23:32] Jesus reminds the church that when the Holy Spirit comes, you will be my witnesses. You will be my witnesses, He says, and you will be my witnesses from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth.

[23:49] He says, when the Holy Spirit comes, there will be this ripple effect. A ripple effect where the gospel will spread out to all the nations of the world.

[24:01] But the gospel will only spread, He says, in and through the church of Jesus Christ. And remember, the church is not a place.

[24:12] The church is a people. The church is a people. Therefore, the people who are in the church, they are to be witnesses. They are to be witnesses. And what is the church to witness?

[24:25] What is the church to testify? What is the church to proclaim? And you know, when we look at the close of Luke's gospel, of volume 1, we see that Luke wrote down what Jesus said.

[24:39] Jesus said, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

[24:53] And then Jesus says to the church, you are witnesses of these things. You are witnesses of these things. And you know, that's the purpose of the church. That's the purpose of the church of Jesus Christ.

[25:06] The purpose of the church is to worship, witness, and walk with the word of God for the sake and glory of Jesus Christ. And that's what Jesus tells us we are to do.

[25:17] We are to proclaim to all nations, from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth. We are to proclaim to all the nations that the Christ suffered and died on the cross and rose from the dead on the third day.

[25:31] And that through repentance we can experience the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life. And that's the message the church is to witness.

[25:42] That's the message the church is to testify and proclaim to all the nations of the earth. And we're to do this in and through the power of the Holy Spirit. We're to do this by the Holy Spirit working in and through our character, our conduct and our conversation.

[26:05] It's not just from the pulpit. But the Spirit works in our character, our conduct and our conversation. And my friend, in the first century and in the 21st century the church needs to be witnessing.

[26:20] The church needs to be witnessing. And it needs to be witnessing not a message of confused Christianity. Not a message of compromised Christianity. Not even a message of casual Christianity.

[26:33] No, the church needs to be witnessing a message of Christ-centered Christianity. That's what Jesus emphasized. That's what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount.

[26:46] The Sermon on the Mount is a whole sermon about Christ-centered living. And Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount to his people, to the church, you are the salt of the earth.

[26:57] You are the light of the world. So let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

[27:08] My friend, the church needs to be witnessing. We need to be faithful witnesses for Jesus Christ. We need to be, as Paul says, we need to be living epistles, seen and read of men.

[27:21] Because as Paul reminds us, when we are living epistles, when we are living epistles who witness and testify and proclaim Jesus Christ by our character, our conduct, and even our conversation, by the way we live, Paul says that when we're faithful witnesses, our witness has been written not with ink.

[27:43] Our witness is not written on tablets of stone. No, he says, our witness is written by the power of the Spirit of God. My friend, the church needs to be witnessing.

[27:57] The church needs to be witnessing. And you know, I love what J.C. Ryle says. I always love what he says. He talks a lot about the need for Christian witnesses.

[28:10] And he says, it's in the intimations today, if we are true disciples of Christ, then we must bear a continual testimony in the midst of an evil world. We must testify to the truth of our Master's Gospel, the graciousness of our Master's heart, the happiness of our Master's service, the excellence of our Master's rules of life, and the enormous danger and wickedness of the ways of the world.

[28:35] Such testimony will doubtless bring the displeasure of man upon us. The world will hate us as it did our Master because we testify that its works are evil. Such testimony will doubtless be believed by few, and it will be thought offensive and extreme by many.

[28:51] But the duty, the duty of our witness is to bear his testimony, he says, whether he is believed or not. If we bear a faithful testimony, says Ryle, we have done our duty.

[29:07] If we bear a faithful testimony, we have done our duty. My friend, in our day and generation, the church needs to be witnessing. The church needs to be witnessing by our character, our conduct, and our conversation.

[29:23] And so the opening verses of this chapter, they remind us that the church in the first century and the church in the 21st century needs to be waiting, we need to be witnessing, and lastly, we need to be working.

[29:35] The church needs to be working. Look at verse 9. It says, And when he had said, Jesus had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

[29:51] And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?

[30:02] This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. Now, as we said, the opening 11 verses of this chapter, they remind us of what the church in the first century and the 21st century need to be doing.

[30:19] We need to be waiting upon the Lord in prayer. We need to be witnessing for the Lord and his kingdom, but we also need to be working. We need to be working in the kingdom. And these introductory verses to the book of Acts, they tell us from the outset that the church in the book of Acts, they weren't going to be standing around doing nothing.

[30:41] Hence, the title of the book. It's the Acts of the Apostles. It wasn't, the title wasn't the apathy of the Apostles. It's the Acts of the Apostles. It's the actions, the activity, the movement, the doings, the goings, the work of the Apostles.

[30:59] And that's what we see in the book of Acts. When you read through the book of Acts, it's an active church continually seeking to wait upon the Lord, continually witnessing for the Lord, and continually working for the Lord.

[31:14] And we see that because as soon as Jesus, as soon as Jesus ascends into heaven, as soon as Jesus goes into heaven and he disappears, the message that comes from heaven by these two men who are in white robes, the message was to stop standing around, staring into heaven, doing nothing.

[31:38] The message from heaven was get on with the work. And my friend, needless to say, that message that was given to the first century church is the same message for the 21st century church.

[31:50] And it's the same message to us here in Barvis today. It's something I took to heart even reading it this week, that we're to stop standing around, staring into heaven, doing nothing.

[32:04] When I read that, it filled me with conviction. We need to stop standing around, staring into heaven, doing nothing. There's work to be done. There's a commission to go. Go into all the world.

[32:16] Preach the gospel, he says. There's a mission to fulfill. Stop standing around, staring into heaven, doing nothing. And you know, this is what Jesus actually told the church during his earthly ministry.

[32:31] We'll touch on this this evening down in Borg. In John chapter 9, Jesus says to his disciples, we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day, because the night is coming when no one can work.

[32:47] Jesus says we must work. We must work. It's a must of necessity. It's an imperative for the church. And Jesus is reminding us that as a church, we've been given an assignment.

[33:02] And that as long as we're here in this world, that as long as we're still on mercy's ground and have breath in our lungs and strength to move, we must work. You know, we may retire from our occupation.

[33:15] We may give up our day job. We may hang up our hat and put down our tools or leave our desk. But Jesus is reminding the church that whilst we're here in this world, we have a work to do.

[33:28] And like Jesus, we must be about our father's business. We must be committed to our father's business. We must be urgent with our father's business. Because the night is coming, says Jesus, when no one will work.

[33:43] The night is coming when no one will work. work. And obviously the night is talking about when the end comes, when time is up and Jesus returns.

[33:55] The night is coming when no one will work. So we must work while it is day because the night is coming when no one will work. My friend, our commission has been given.

[34:07] We know what we have to do because the message from heaven to us today is why are you standing looking to heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven, he will come again in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

[34:27] And like the church in the first century, the church in the 21st century, the church today needs to be waiting upon the Lord. We need to be witnessing for the Lord.

[34:38] We need to be working for the Lord. We need to stop standing around. Steering into heaven, doing nothing. We need to get to work for the furtherance of Christ's kingdom and the glory of his name.

[34:55] So what's the purpose of the church? The purpose of the church is to worship, to witness, and to walk with the word of God for the sake and glory of Jesus Christ.

[35:08] May the Lord bless these thoughts to us. Let us pray. O Lord, our gracious God, may we give thanks to thee for what the church is.

[35:22] We marvel, Lord, that thou were a God who calls us at all to serve thee and to bring thy name into the far corners of this world and help us, Lord, in our lives, in our work and in our witness, that we would bring glory to thy name, that we would seek to honour the name of Jesus, because he has done in us and for us, above and beyond what we could even ask or think.

[35:48] And Lord, help us then to serve him, help us to give him the glory, help us, Lord, to see that we are a blessed people, how the psalmist could say, O greatly blessed the people are, the joyful sound that know, in brightness of thy face, O Lord, they ever on shall go.

[36:06] And Lord, we pray that that would be our testimony, that we would keep going on in strength of God the Lord, giving thee the honour and the glory that is due to thy name. Keep us then we ask, go before us we pray, for we ask it in Jesus' name, and for his sake.

[36:22] Amen. We're going to conclude our service this morning by singing to God's praise in Psalm 67. Psalm 67.

[36:35] Psalm 67. It's in the Scottish Psalter, page 300. Psalm 67.

[36:47] We're singing the whole psalm. And this is a prayer of blessing. It's a missionary psalm. The prayer of blessing for all the nations of the earth.

[37:01] Where the psalmist says, Lord, bless and pity us, shine on us with thy face, that the earth, thy way, and nations all may know thy saving grace. Let people praise thee, Lord, let people all thee praise.

[37:12] O let the nations be glad in songs their voices raise. So we'll sing the whole psalm of Psalm 67 to God's praise. Amen. Lord, bless and pity us, shine on us with thy face, thy earth, thy way, and nations all may know thy saving grace.

[37:54] Let people praise thee, Lord, let people all be praise.

[38:09] O let the nations be glad and songs their voices raise.

[38:23] praise. Thou justly people judge on earth rule nations all.

[38:39] Let people praise thee, Lord, let them praise thee, both great and small.

[38:55] The earth, her fruit shall yield, our God shall bless his hand, all shall come, thou house blessed men shall live here, unto earth's utmost hand.

[39:28] The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, now and forever more. Amen. Amen. Amen.