The Glorious Riches of Christ Jesus

Heather and I want to extend our tremendous gratitude to all of those who have joined our team since we began our support raising journey just over two weeks ago. God has been beyond faithful to us, and it is truly humbling to think that in this short period of time He has already blessed us with fourteen ministry partners who have pledged to support us, bringing us to 24% of our monthly budget needs met already. We cannot say thank you enough to each of you, and I want to encourage you with the following Scripture:

"My God will meet all of your needs according to His glory riches in Jesus Christ. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen (Philippians 4:19, 20)."

This beautiful passage is familiar to many of us, but the context brings even more light to the glory of God's Word here. Paul is thanking his supporters in the Philippian church whose gifts have enabled him to pursue God's call on his life to take the gospel to the nations. Paul is assuring his Philippian brothers and sisters in Christ that their sacrificial giving is not in vain, but rather will result in incompararble spiritual blessings as the Philippians take part in God's call to all Christians to obey the Great Commission. Paul has answered the call to sacrifice his life by going to the mission field, but he needs his fellow believers to sacrifice in order to send him to the field. This is the missionary principle of "goers" and "senders".

William Carey illustrated this point when, in 1792, Carey met with the newly formed Baptist Missionary Society, led by Andrew Fuller, in which Carey declared his calling to take the gospel to the unreached in India. Like Paul, Carey was willing to give his life away, to descend into the pit, but he could not do so without the provision of his brothers in Christ, as he famously said, "I will go down, if you will hold the rope."

Andrew Fuller held the rope and never let go for the rest of his life. Despite suffering the loss of his first wife, and eight of their eleven children, Fuller persevered in the midst of severe affliction and overwhelming responsibilities in order to do his part in the Great Commission by providing for missionaries like William Carey. Despite all of his sacrifices and losses, Fuller had a spiritual life and contentment in Christ beyond virtually anybody else I have ever read about. This is the fulfillment of the promise of Paul to all those who give their lives away in order to find them, just as Jesus promised we would in Matthew 10:39.

We are grateful for faithful churches like Cynthiana Baptist, Finchville Baptist (where I had a GREAT time preaching today), and Harvest Baptist Church that have invited us to speak and share about our calling and we are looking forward to the privilege of partnering up with many more brothers and sisters in Christ in order to fulfill our calling to Ecuador as you all HOLD THE ROPE!