Unstoppable

We want us to stand and read a couple of verses because I think we have them on the screen.

Yes. At the beginning of COVID, our media team asked if I would do a little video of how we as a church would respond to COVID. And these were the verses that were impressed on my heart.

And obviously, they are very, very in point to the theme of unstoppable. So let's read them together. Paul is writing to Timothy. This is the last letter that Paul writes. Read it with me. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal, but the Word of God is not bound. Thank you. Please be seated.

Think of that. Paul is suffering. He's bound with chains.

He's been treated like a criminal. His ministry, in a sense, is restricted. There he is, and he's awaiting his death, but he states these wonderful words, but the Word of God is not bound.

It is unstoppable. So let me very quickly summarize what we have said over and over again during this missions conference. In our music, I hear it repeated in the wonderful testimonies for our missionaries, and this has been a great week. Thank you so much to our missionaries for coming, sharing your joys, your struggles. Thank you for being so real with us. It's been a great encouragement to us, but we have learned three things. First of all, the Word of God is unstoppable.

Think of it. No book in human history has been so reviled, so attacked, so scrutinized as the Word of God. That comes right from our enemy, who in the beginning questioned the Word of God to Eve and said, has God said? And Satan, throughout human history, right to today, continues to attack the Word of God. There was a king of Judah, King Jehoiakim, and as the Word of God came through Jeremiah, he didn't like what he was reading, and he got this scroll, and you can read about it in Jeremiah 36.

He's sitting by a fire, and he gets his knife, and he starts cutting out the bits that he doesn't like, and he throws them in the fire until the whole scroll is gone. That's what happens when you say, I don't like that bit of the Bible. I don't like this. I don't like that. Soon, you're left with nothing. But again, through the prophet Jeremiah, the Word of God continued to come to King Jehoiakim.

It is unstoppable. In 303 AD, as many of you know, the Roman Emperor Diocletian directed an offensive against the Bible. He tried to eradicate Christianity. He tried and succeeded in some sense by ordering all of the churches, all of the houses where there were Bibles to be destroyed. He tried to obliterate the Word of God, the Gospel, from the Roman Empire, and he didn't succeed.

Three years later, Diocletian was dead, and another Emperor Constantine came who welcomed the Scriptures. The Word of God is unstoppable. Skeptics continue to attack it, attack the authority and the reliability of Scripture, even from pulpits. They try to eradicate the Bible from human existence. Almost every chapter of the Bible, almost every doctrine in the Bible, almost every verse in the Bible has been attacked, has been ridiculed, has been, as it were, cut out. Voltaire in 18th century France said, the Bible, this is what fools have ridden, what imbeciles command, what rogues teach, and what young children are made to learn by heart. Voltaire, the brilliant philosopher attacking the Word of God continues today, doesn't it? We see it in countries like Russia and China and other authoritarian dictators who try to stamp out the Bible.

Every single one of them has failed. The Word of God is unstoppable. Today, it still is the bestseller in the world. It has been translated, as we've heard, so movingly this morning.

It's been translated into thousands of languages and dialects. It stands. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.

It is unstoppable. Jesus said, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. And when COVID hit us here at Calvary Church, we prayed this is not going to stop the Word of God. Even during the two or three months of lockdown, I continued to preach from this pulpit, just about five people, a couple of musicians, a couple of technical people, and I preached to that camera. In July 2020, we began to regather as a church, just a few hundred at a time, and then it grew and grew.

Thank you. But during that time, the Word of God wasn't bound. We had Livestream, we had Zoom, we had the radio program, through our missionaries, we continued to preach the Word of God. It is the only divinely inspired source of truth. This book, the Psalmist says forever, oh Lord, your Word is settled in heaven. The Word of God is unstoppable. Secondly, we've heard that the gospel of God is unstoppable. Paul refers in this verse to my gospel.

When he begins to write Romans, he said, he set apart for the gospel of God. Historically, the gospel came first to the Jews, and now it's come to all of the nations. As far as the gospel of God is concerned, there are no boundaries. There's no racial or social or ideological or economic or geographical boundaries for the gospel. It continues and continues, and Paul had experienced very dramatically the unstoppable power of the gospel. He's been stoned, he's been imprisoned, he's been shipwrecked, he's been thrown out of town. People, even some of his fellow Christians, have questioned his apostleship, but he continues to preach the gospel.

Why? I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. Wherever we are, whether we're in Mozambique, whether we're in Italy, whether we're right here in Charlotte, as we've heard, the gospel and the power of the gospel is unstoppable. No other power in the whole universe can forgive your sins. In the gospel, sinners are saved. The lost are found.

The blind see. The guilty are forgiven. The condemned are justified.

The defiled are cleansed. Those who are dead and their sins are given new life in Christ. This is the gospel, and this gospel and the power of the gospel is unstoppable.

That's what we believe, and we have seen it, haven't we, at Calvary Church, through our missionaries, through the outreaches. We've seen little boys, little girls, students, and adults come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. This power, the power of the gospel, smashes the hardness of hearts. It penetrates and changes the most determined of wills. Nothing, nothing can stop the power of the gospel. It's the only power that will save your soul. It's the only power in the whole universe that will give you eternal life so that when you die, you will be eternally with Jesus Christ.

Do you know that power? Have you experienced the power of the gospel in your own soul? This is why we are so committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are many things that we as a church could be doing, but we stand on the Word of God, which is unstoppable, and on the testimony of Jesus Christ, which is the gospel. We take that gospel, yes, into the public schools.

We teach it through Awana and other programs to our children. Our missionaries, as we've heard, you take the same message, whether it's to a little tribe, whether it's to a bustling major city in our universe, it's the same gospel, it's the same power, and you say, well, who are you? Well, we are weak, inconsistent, frail people.

The power is not in ourselves, says Paul. We have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not of us. That's it. The unstoppable Word of God, the unstoppable gospel. And then as we heard, and as I listen to our missionaries in the reports, and as we were singing, God is unstoppable.

That's it. I love what Paul says here in the passage. He says, remember Jesus Christ. We do that at communion, but we do that at all times. Notice what he says, remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead.

That's the uniqueness of the Christian faith. Our Lord Jesus is risen from the dead. The tomb of Abraham is occupied. The tomb of Buddha is occupied. The tomb of Muhammad is occupied, and people go there in a pilgrimage. But the tomb of Jesus Christ is empty. We have an empty tomb, and we have a Savior who is alive, and He still says, I was dead and am alive forevermore.

There is none like Him, nor will there ever be anyone like Him. He is the unique Lord Jesus Christ, coming from the glory of heaven into the darkness of this world, and giving us the tremendous privilege, and it is a tremendous privilege, isn't it? To take this Word, to take this glorious gospel, wherever we are. We have at Calvary the Be A Light program in our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our banks, in our factories.

A trip going to Monterrey, Mexico. Wherever it is, this God is with us. Tim reminded us as we sang one of the hymns, Paul's wonderful words in Romans 8.

What shall we say to these things? Who is for us? If God is for us, who can be against us?

What a wonderful question. No, if God is for us, there is no opposition. You say, well there's a lot of opposition against the gospel.

We've heard from the Hendersons that they are committed to go to this tribe in Mozambique, and there's all these kinds of problems, all this kind of opposition. The point Paul is making rhetorically is, any opposition cannot stand against God. In a sense, there is no opposition because God is unstoppable.

And if God is on your side, who can be against you? When I played soccer at school, we were always glad to have a particular person with us. And we felt, if he's on our side, if Alan Campbell is on our team, we're going to win.

He was so good. He was on our side. Listen, God is on our side. And God is on the side of our brothers and sisters in Ukraine. And God is on the side of our brothers and sisters in Ethiopia, wherever there is opposition to the gospel. And Paul says in that wonderful passage in Romans 8, that God has demonstrated that he's on our side because he has delivered up his own son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He's given you a saviour.

He's given you new life. God has given you the best, the most costly thing. So what are you concerned about?

The other things. If God is for us, who can stand against us? It's unstoppable.

You begin a business, you begin a sport, you begin an educational study, you begin a project. There is no guarantee, is there, that it will always succeed. No, we sometimes fail.

God, please hear me, never fails. God never gets it wrong. God never has to say, oh, I should have gone another direction.

Why did I do that? No, God is unstoppable. This book, the word of God, the living word of God is unstoppable. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is unstoppable.

God is unstoppable. God is on our side, brothers and sisters. Why are we fearful?

Why do we get discouraged? Yes, Satan is against us, but he is not almighty. And all of the forces of sin and darkness could not keep our saviour in the grave. And all of the forces of darkness and Satan against you, yes and against the church, yes and against Calvary Church as their enemy attacks us over and over again, but this we believe. The risen Christ continues to build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against Him.

As you came in, you received this card, unstoppable. Now, this involves you. You say, well, I'm not going to be a missionary. Well, perhaps you are. Perhaps you're an artist. Perhaps you're an accountant.

Perhaps you've retired wondering what to do with the rest of your life. Perhaps you're a boy, a little boy. God's going to use you. Why don't you take that card and respond? You know, every week I do a little brochure for the children, third through eighth graders, and they complete it.

And I see them on Monday morning. And the one that we chose, and it's on the folder this week, is I think a little eight-year-old girl wrote, go unstoppable. I said to Michelle, my assistant, why didn't we think of that? That's good marketing.

That's good branding, isn't it? We're going to sign up this little girl for our media team. Go unstoppable.

That's what we need to do to go unstoppable. Look at it. Look at it. Full-time career mission. What a privilege. In our last church where Tim and I served over the years, three of our pastors were called to the missions field. You say they just wanted to get away from Tim and I.

That may have been part of it. Went to the mission field. Pastors. Our elders. Our deacons. Full-time missions.

Is God calling you? Short-term mission service. Good way to begin. International go trip. We saw our team going to Monterey, Mexico.

Now that COVID is over, we have more and more of these. Some of you haven't. You know, there's a big world out there. Can I say to Americans, there's a big world out there, and it's very different from this country. I love the fact that with Go Monterey and other ones, people can go with their families.

Did you see that? You see the Eddings family, the Chow family, others. An international trip. Be like neighborhood outreach. We train you. Sabu, our pastor of outreach, will train you a light in your neighborhood. Volunteer for the Good News Club. God is opening doors into the public school.

More and more. Volunteer as Charlie has challenged us for the pregnancy resource center. Showing love to women who feel very unloved. To show them the love of Christ. Thank you for those of you who do that.

Volunteer for Joni's and Friends, the family retreat. The high school. This is a new one.

The Wiyoomi Jungle Camp. High schoolers, we're going to pay completely. We might charge you a $50 application or something.

Nominal. It's free. We want you to go.

Stand by New Tribes, by Ethnos 360, that you can experience in a setting, probably a little tough setting, something of missionaries. High schoolers, you check that. What a way to spend your summer. If I was your age, I'd be volunteering. Praying consistently. Our missions council is going to change how we pray for our missionaries so that every day there'll be a particular ministry. Missionary family that you're going to pray for. You pray as a family, as an individual.

Check that. Other way that you can serve. Tim is going to come and we're going to sing a wonderful hymn. And as we do that, I don't want you just to sit there. I want you to go unstoppable.

You take that form, check it, and then just come in an act of worship and dedication and lay these on the steps. Will you do that? The Word of God is unstoppable. The Gospel is unstoppable. God is unstoppable. So may many here go unstoppable. We pray, Father, as we've heard Your Word and now we respond at the end of this conference, that we'll respond with humility and obedience for Your glory, in Christ's name. Amen.