Dangerous Prayers Part 8, by Pastor Rob Ketterling
We are continuing our series called Dangerous Prayers. It's interesting, I didn't know there was a book by that title, Dangerous Prayers, until we started preaching this series. And then the pastor that wrote the book saw us hashtagging this, sent me a copy and said, "Hey, I wanted you to have this. I wrote this about praying dangerous prayers." And I read it this past week. It's full of testimony that people that had something they needed to pray, and it covered A to Z. And he just categorized this and said here is how they prayed it, here is what God did, here is how he showed up and here is the miracle. It's full of testimony after testimony. If you're looking for a book to increase your faith, to show you God answered somebody else's prayer, this is that book. I love what he said in there.
He had one statement that just jumped out to me that I agree with wholeheartedly. He said every one of us has a dangerous prayer to pray. I believe that. I believe every one of has a dangerous prayer to pray. I don't know where you've been in this series; if you felt like that was yours already in week one or week three or week five or, you know, you're still wrecked over week four. I don't know where you're at. But I will tell you this, this dangerous prayer today is one that every single one of us needs to pray. Every one of us should pray. This one covers all of us. And I will tell you this, that when you hear this dangerous prayer, everything within your flesh is going to not want to pray this prayer. Okay? I know that's kind of been a theme, isn't it? How many know the dangerous prayers are opposed by the flesh. Therefore they must be good. All right.
So this one is going to really be like that, or you're going to want to pray it with conditions. You cannot pray this one with conditions. You have to pray it as is, all right? So just agree before you even hear what it is you're going to pray it as is. All right? Don't cross your fingers. Nothing, all right? This is for real.
Here is what it is. "Here am I. Send me." "Here am I." Now see, your flesh just riled up; "Here am I. Send them." Don't do that, all right? "Here am I. Send me." And we are going to look at the Old Testament version of this in Isaiah 6. If you have your Bibles, go there. And then we are going to look at the New Testament version which is very similar. So I want to look at an Old Testament passage and a New Testament passage. And although it doesn't say, "Here am I, send me," it's the exact same thought. I believe it is really an Old Testament version and a New Testament version. We will find the New Testament version in Matthew 9 as Jesus is speaking.
But I want to make this very clear why we need to pray this prayer. We need to pray this prayer, "Here am I, send me," because we believe as a church, we believe as followers of Jesus Christ that sin has separated man from God. All of us have fallen short of God's glory. We've all sinned. We are all separated from him. And man tries through all sorts of human efforts to try to appease God or appease their conscience and bring peace. But nothing works until they realize that God paid the price. He sent Jesus to die on the cross, that Jesus was sinless and perfect, he died on the cross and rose from the dead. And now if you ask him for forgiveness, you can be forgiven of your sins. We believe that as a church. We believe that as Christians. And God's plan is for those that have received that grace. You don't do anything to earn it. You receive the free gift of God. His plan is for those of us that have received it to go into the world and share with other people. We are supposed to tell them. They need to hear the same Good News that you heard. They need to know this. And the Bible says they can call on the name of the Lord and be saved. But how can they call on the name of the Lord if nobody preaches? If nobody brings it to them, if nobody talks, if nobody opens up their mouth, they are going to be lost. So we've got to say, "Here am I. Send me."
Don't let the term preaching scare you away either. You say, "Well, I'm not a preacher. Here am I. Send Pastor Rob." No. You are a preacher. You can share the Good News. When you are sharing the Good News, when you are sharing what God has done in your life, you are preaching the message of Jesus Christ. It doesn't have three points to it, it doesn't have a nice closing there, but it's your testimony and you're preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and you're called to be a preacher. So don't shy away from this. This is why we need to pay, "Here am I, send me." Because people need to hear.
Now in Isaiah, we pick this up Isaiah, Chapter 6. Isaiah, it says in verse 1:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
So that's the count of Isaiah. He's in the presence of God. We will break this down in just a minute. But I want to read from Matthew so you can see the New Testament version that's kind of similar and has that same implication; Here am I, send me. God needs to send someone.
In Matthew, Chapter 9, it says in verse 35, Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
So let's start with Isaiah here, this dangerous prayer, "Here am I. Send me." "Here am I. Send me." Isaiah has had a vision, he's in heaven, he's with God. And the holiness and the awe of all that's going on, the seraphim, he's never seen anything like this. I can't wait to see these creatures. Isaiah is just overwhelmed. And in that moment he falls on his face. He realizes, "This is way beyond anything I've ever seen. I'm filthy, I'm undone, I don't deserve to be here. It scares me. It is so amazing it puts me in awe."
And God is in this moment just he's strategizing. He's trying to think who will go and who will be sent for me and who can do this. And God asks for a volunteer, and Isaiah is like, "Here am I. Send me." But before he volunteers for it he's realizing, "I am not qualified. I am not qualified. I am not a good person."
And maybe you've thought that. Maybe when you hear, "Here am I, send me," and you hear me say like, "Come on, we've got to pray this prayer together," you're thinking, "I am not qualified. I'm not good enough. As a matter of fact, I don't do well. I'm like Isaiah; I'm not very pure and holy. As a matter of fact, my family is worse than me."
Isaiah is saying, "I'm hanging around a bunch of unclean people. I can't do it. The people are unclean, I am undone, I'm not qualified."
Let me tell you this, if you are thinking that, you are in the right spot. No excuses. You're like, "Man, I thought that would get me out." Uh uh. That got you right to the spot God needs you. Okay?
Because here's the thing. Every time God calls someone in the Bible, there is a pattern here. God calls them to do something and they are like, "I don't think I'm qualified."
And God is like, "I know who I'm calling, and I'm doing the work anyways."
He calls Moses. Moses is like, "I stu stu stu stutter. I can't. Take somebody else," and God is like, "I'm picking you."
Jeremiah, he's like "I am too young. Do you know that I'm not old enough to drive? I'm too young." And God is like, "I picked you. Don't tell me how old you are. Don't tell me what the qualifications are. I put the words in your mouth. You are not too young."
I mean, think about this. Isaiah says, "I'm unclean." God is like, "I'm going to take care of that problem. I'm getting you exactly where I want you."
So if you thought that excuse of I'm not qualified was going to get you out of this, that got you right where God wants you.
As a matter of fact, the apostle Paul says that's really where God wants you. In 1 Corinthians 1:26, he says, Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.
God is like, "Your very excuse is the reason I picked you."
You're like, "Man, all right, does he know that I have gluten issues?" You know, like, "Is he aware of that?" He knows, all right?
It's no good it's okay if you start with an excuse, but you can't stay in your excuse. And no one stays in the excuse. But it's okay, you say, "But, God, I'm afraid." You know what? Face your fear and realize that greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. Okay, something I've learned in life, pretty much everybody is afraid. Everybody is afraid. And then once they get over that fear and they get to the next level, all of a sudden the peace of God comes upon them. What they were afraid of becomes their new normal. And then God calls them to another level and they are afraid of that level, but they realize God has been faithful over there and they go to the next level. It is not an excuse that you are afraid, not an excuse you are undone, not an excuse you are young or don't feel qualified. So you can start with the excuse, but don't stay in the excuse.
Now, a couple of things I noticed that are going on in heaven that I think will help us to have a greater desire to be sent. A greater desire to be sent. The first of these is worship. And one of the reasons why we are so strong about worship, worshipping God with your time, your treasure, your talents, worshipping God with praise and worship. And you'll notice our church doesn't take our worship time lightly. I am all in when I'm worshiping. Sometimes I do have to admit that I have to lip sync to hold my voice. But, man, I am in on this. Man, I am going for it. I am singing. I am excited. I want to worship God with everything I've got. I am going after this, and I cannot tolerate a church that is just halfway worshipping God. I mean, we are not going to go halfway, we are going to give, we are going to serve, we are going to praise. We're going to do this.
And, again, let's just take that element of praise and worship. The reason why this environment here is so strong with praise and worship is because I think an environment of worship fuels missions. As a matter of fact, I put this out on Twitter not that long ago. I said, "Great worship fuels missions, missions fuels generosity, generosity empowers the church, and great churches can change the world."
And so I think when we have an atmosphere of worship, that is actually fueling the mission of God, and so when the presence of God comes into our worship service you feel the presence of God in a stronger way. And some of you are new to this, and you're like, "I don't know what I felt. I felt something." That's the presence of God. We are very much enjoying the presence of God in our worship time. And I'm telling you what, that fuels missions forward.
Now if that fuels missions forward, let me just challenge you for a moment. What if you coming late to worship actually hinders missions? What if you being half interested, tweeting and texting during worship, and sitting around and wondering where we are going to eat and just half interested in it, not worried about the praise of God, what if you're hindering missions? What if you're draining the missions tank at River Valley? I don't want you to be a part of that. I want you to be a part of filling the missions tank, changing the environment and the atmosphere so it is a place where missions is brought up. Because as they are worshipping God, there is an atmosphere of worship, "Holy, holy." The heavens are being just shook. It says the door posts. I mean that is loud volume for those of you that complain. That is loud. The presence of God is there and worship is going forward, and all of a sudden missions is being fueled. There is a desire to be sent in the presence of missions in the presence of worship. So let's raise our worship. Let's be senders. Some of you might be asking, "Why are you raising your hands?" I am sending missionaries. I am sending missionaries. I'm raising the environment here. All right?
Another thing that I see, there is holiness going on. There is holiness. It is holy in the presence of God, and holiness fuels missions work. Okay? Now there is probably a very strong connection as to why the church is going down in missions and looking more like the world. Okay? Holiness, holiness, when you start to say, "I want to be more like God, I want to be less like the world, I want to have less sin and more of God in my life," when you start pursuing holiness, you start to see the sinfulness of man, and instead of getting judgmental and lifting your nose at them, you start to weep for the people in sin. You start to have a burden for the people trapped in this world, and trapped in the sins of this world.
But when the church is worldly, it starts to get entertained by the people living in sin. When we start getting worldly, when we lose holiness and we have to keep holiness in the church. We have to pursue holiness and be more like God. It is a beautiful thing. We talked about that a couple of week ago. We pursue holiness. Holiness will fuel missions because we will see the gap that is building. We will see the lostness of man. And I'm concerned that the church is entertained by sinners and not burdened by them. It's a sad thing if we can see celebrities living a train wreck of a life and want to buy the product they are pedaling instead of being heartbroken at the sin and heartbroken at the train wreck of a life and heartbroken by this and saying, God, help us to reach this world and not be entertained by the sin. So worship and holiness just fuel this forward, and it causes us to say, 'God, here am I. Send me." I want to have an atmosphere of worship. I want to be in an atmosphere of holiness, and from that, "God, I want you to send me. Send me. Send me."
Now, an interesting thought. I didn't see this until I you know, again, I'm reading commentaries and reading sermons and preparing for the sermon. And I have a whole new concept about the throne room of God. Okay, I understand that in the throne room of God right now there is worship going on, and there are things that will blow our mind. But there is another thing going on according to this text and according to all that we see. See the throne room of God as Command Central. See it as Command Central. It is daytime right now while God can still get the Word out to people, and he is looking around going, "Who's going to Afghanistan? Who will go for me to Afghanistan? Who is going? Holy Spirit, stir the Church. We've got to get to Afghanistan." It is Command Central because he is like, "Who will go and deliver the message?" And Isaiah is like, "Send me."
See, God is on mission right now. The Holy Spirit is moving throughout the earth, and God is involved in all this going on. "This is where I need something going on. I need somebody over there, and who will go, who will answer the call?" It is Command Central. There is worship going on. There is strategy going on. There is outreach going on. It is time to bring the message to the world.
It is a whole new concept for me. It heightens our awareness to say, "God, what mission do you have for me to go on? Here am I. Send me. If it's Command Central for Isaiah, then it is Command Central for me. Send me."
Isaiah said, "Here am I. Send me." Do you know his message was to go to preach to people that God said they are not going to repent, they are not going to change their mind, but I want them to know they have no excuse. Who is going to go and preach to people that have no excuse? Isaiah is saying, "Here am I. Send me."
And God right now is saying, "Who will go to your neighbor, who is desperate for the gospel, who would probably come to church with you if you invited them, who's crying out looking for hope, and he is saying, "Who will go?
And we're like, "Oh, that's risky. I don't know."
Isaiah is like, "I'll go to the people that are going to be angry, and I'll go with no results. No results. Send me."
And God is saying, guess what, you can go into a neighborhood or a school or a workplace where people are friendly. Wow! "Here am I. Send me." When we pray it today, here is what is going to happen. When we pray this prayer today and this week remember that's our focus to pray this prayer I believe that God is going to immediately start to send you to your neighborhood, to your school, to your workplace. I mean immediately he's like, "Okay now, now that you prayed this, let me explain to you why you got the job at Target. You are not that good, but I got you in there. Here is why. I want you to reach that person. All right. Here am I. Send me. You know why you are at that school? Not because they have a great hockey program. You are there because I have put you there as an ambassador to that school." And he is going to start telling you why you are where you are and how he has uniquely gifted you. And that's why he gifts us all differently; so he can get us all over the place. And he's like, "All right, I'm going to send you." He's going to send you local first. You're going to do the local stuff first, and he is going to start you with that.
Another thing that is going to happen, he is going to open up your eyes to your resources, and he's going to say, "Start leveraging your resources to go. Start leveraging your resources to send somebody."
And if can I say this, thank you for all the people in our church that are so generous that allow us to support over 200 missionaries, add 21 missionaries last month. In one moment, 21 missionaries over a hundred dollars a month, boom, that's going on. Thousands being sent to Iraq because people are generous. Thank God, because when you start saying, "Here am I, send me," God says, "All right, go local. Now I'll send a little bit of you with your money. Watch this. I'm going to send your money all around the world, and it is going to be a part of you, because when you work you exchange it for money, then you take the money, you bring it to church, and we send it all around the world, and God is like, "Look at that. I'm sending you all over the place." He says, "I'm going to use you in a bi vocational way," if you start praying this prayer. You're saying, "Yeah, but what if he calls me to be pastor or a missionary full time?" He is going to use you in a bi vocational way.
And if I could break for just a moment on Pastor Lindsay. For years she gave her services to the church for nothing. Volunteered as a pastor for like 20 hours a week and said, "I can support myself." Now she is part time with the church and part time with her company. I am praying right now that there would be hundreds of people that will say that, that would say, "I have the means to do this. I will give. I will volunteer. Here am I. Send me. I don't need a dollar. I'm going."
I'm praying for people that on the second half of their life, maybe you worked your first half and you accumulated wealth, and the second half you can use that for the glory of God and take your skill set for the kingdom of God. I'm praying for people that instead of being retired and they say, "Send me to Miami," you say, "Send me to Morocco." That's what I'm praying. And God is saying, "I can use that within my kingdom."
If you prayer that prayer, "Here am I, send me," I guarantee you God will start to stir in your heart to go on a Global Team. We have 25 Global Teams next year. I guarantee God will stir on your heart, "Here is the team I want you to go on," and your flesh will say, "No, not there." But you know what? Overcome your flesh. Your flesh fights against dangerous prayers, and we learned that by now. Let's listen to what the Spirit of God is saying.
You can join a Lifegroup like Missionary Talk or Missionary Call. These are things that will start to happen. You could start an internship and be part of our internship program at River Valley. You could go through the credentialing process. Many people in our church are going through Global University to be credentialed as ministers because they said, "Here am I. Send me." And many are going. As a matter of fact, within the next few months we are sending three couples around the world as missionaries from our body, raised up from here that we are getting ready to send out. That's all part of the process.
And if you feel a call to go, you said, "Here am I, send me," and God starts pushing you, you talk to your campus pastor. They are prepared to talk to you. They are prepared to help and disciple you and get you on this road.
It is important to just remember "Here am I, send me" comes with no conditions. You can't say "Here am I, send me to a warm place." "Here am I, send me to a place where they don't eat people." You just pray it. I'm serious. You just pray it. And you're not really praying this prayer until you pray it all the way. "Here am I. Send me. Send me wherever."
And I get so excited about it. Sometimes I start to, like, pray it and anticipate it, and Becca, it is a good thing she balances me out. We were in Dubai, and I was like, "What if God is calling us to Dubai?" We were on a walk, we were doing one of our little four mile walks that day. I said, "What if he's calling us to start a campus here and leave everything in Minnesota and start a church in Dubai?"
And she's goes, "He's not."
I said, "Well, how do you know?"
She's like, "I can tell. That didn't sound like a Spirit led thing. I think you're falling in love with Dubai a little too much."
I'm like, "Okay, let's put a campus here."
But I'm telling you, you're not praying until you pray with no conditions. "Here am I. Send me. Send me to a tough spot. Send me wherever you think. Wherever you see that I could be best in your service, send me."
Second scripture, Matthew 9, he's saying, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest." Here is something that I think is absolutely amazing. This is the Lord's prayer request that you get to pray with him and be the answer to the prayer request. Think about that. Think, if Jesus was here and you're like, "Hey, Jesus, is there anything you want us to pray about?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"I want you to pray that workers would be sent out in the harvest field."
"Okay. How about me?"
Think about that. You get to pray it and be an answer to the very prayer that Jesus said for us to pray. Jesus is moved with compassion, and I'm telling you, we should be praying, "God, increase our compassion so we look more like you."
And he said, "The harvest is everywhere. It's ripe. It's ready, it's ready, it's ready, it's ready. It's all around you. Go, go, go, go, go."
And if you're wondering where to go, I want to put this map up for all our campuses to see. Go ahead and put the map up here. If you look at this, wherever it's red, that's where the people of this world live. Wherever it is orange, again. And wherever it is white, not a lot of people. So those of you praying for a call to Australia, stop! Okay? Greenland, it's off the map. Don't worry. We're good. But look there. You can see India. You can see China. You can see Africa. You can see a whole part that's red hot. And you know what? People are right now saying, "Not there, Lord. Ebola! Not there. No, don't send me there." And you look at other red areas and you say, "No, those aren't good areas." But wherever it is red, I'm telling you right now, we should start praying for wherever it is red. We should start saying, "Here am I. Send me. Send me to a red spot."
I've been reading a lot of Spurgeon's sermons this year and just enjoying it like crazy. And he had an illustration. He said what if you could see a map, similar to that one that we just saw, what if God elevated you out so you could see the whole world, and instead of being red with population, what if it was green with the grace of God? And what if you could see where it was green and where it was black? You know what I'm thinking right now, if we could see the world where it was green and where it was black, America would look like a giant party of green. And there would be regions of the world that wouldn't even look like they had a glow stick going on with the grace of God. And if you want to know where we should go, we should go where it's hard, where it's dark. And if we could get a glimpse where the grace of God is and where the grace of God isn't, we would say, "God send us where there isn't the grace, where the grace isn't known. Send us where it's hard, where it's tough, where there is little glow sticks of grace. Help us to bring grace there in a greater measure." You're saying, "Here am I. Send me." The harvest is ready.
Here's the amazing thing that I think about this. God says the harvest will be brought in get this according to the laborers. Now, people say, "Well, is it works? Is it grace?" There is something here that he's saying the amount of people going will equal or will determine how many people are coming in. It's right there. He said, "The harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers to bring forth." He's saying, "I'm partnering with you." And he doesn't say, "Pray that for every one that goes, they will do the work of ten men or women." He doesn't say that. He says, "There is a lot of work to be done. There is not a lot of people. Pray that more people get involved and will go and do this. The laborers are few. I need more laborers."
We've got to go and be out there. He works in proportion with you and I being involved. That's a heavy responsibility. That's a very heavy responsibility. And he says, "Pray that God would send forth laborers." And just so you know, I want you to understand the term "send forth" is not a nice term, okay? When it says pray that he'll send forth laborers, it means like kick them in the rear end and get them out. That's what he's saying. Pray that God will kick people out of their comfort. Pray that God will push people out the door to where they need to go. And I want you to know it is used with such intensity it is actually used in the Bible in the same way where demons are cast out of people. Now I'm not saying laborers are demon possessed. Okay, just want to be clear. But with the same intensity that somebody would say, "In the name of Jesus, I command you to come out of him," that Jesus is saying that we'd be praying, "God, in the name of Jesus, send people to Iraq." "In the name of Jesus, go to Japan." "In the name of Jesus, Viet Nam." "Start praying for it right now." You see what I'm saying? With that intensity.
I don't think we pray like that as a church. We are like, "Lord, if you could, could you send any laborers? We'd go out there." We should be praying, "God, Viet Nam, India, China, red countries! God, hard places! Dark places!" We ought to be praying, "God, command someone out of our body to go to Iraq." Think about that. We don't pray like that. We pray, "Lord, if you could, use us in the high school or the marketplace, Lord." He's saying pray like that. Pray with that intensity that he would send them, send them out into the harvest field. Wow! That's intense.
And here's the reason why I don't think we have more missionaries and here's what we want to change with this series and with this dangerous prayer. I don't think we have a lot of missionaries because we don't pray for the harvest at all. We don't pray for the red countries. We don't pray for the red countries. We don't pray for enough of them. We are terribly illiterate of where the nations of the world are and where the need is. We don't go on Global Teams. We don't pray for the needs. We don't pray over what we can give and where we could go. We don't pray for the lost. And if we would start praying for the lost, I believe as we start praying for the lost, it will raise our missions giving. It will raise our missions sending. It will raise our missions going. We need to pray. That's where he said it starts. Because I think this: When you start to pray for something, you start to fall in love with that. You just do. You just do. You start praying for a country, you will start loving that. You will hear this. You will see it all around you. So choose a good red country and start praying. Go for it. You watch what happens. And I think we need to pray more. We need to pray more. We need to pray more. And as we pray for the world, as we pray for the lost, as we pray to the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers, as we realize people are lost and need Jesus and we start praying more, our missions giving is going up, our sending, our going, it's all going up.
And I want to let you in on one dangerous prayer that was prayed on your behalf that you're a part of. And the prayer has already been prayed and it is continued to be prayed for by our pastors. We continue to pray for it as elders. We continue to pray for our church. And it is a prayer to raise up missionaries. I want these guys to help me out.
Not that long ago I was in Egypt, and I had the opportunity to be at the grave of William Borden. While I was at the grave of William Borden you may not know this, but William Borden was a young man that was going to be the heir of the Borden fortune; Borden's Sweetened Condensed Milk.
We have this board up here. Thanks, guys.
This is a picture of William. Borden's Sweetened Condensed Milk, that's an old label from years and years and years ago. But he was set to be an heir and to receive this, and God called him into ministry, and after graduating from Yale he said, "I'm going to be a missionary." His family wrote him off. They said, "No way. You're not going to do that. We stand against this." He went to Egypt, and he died not long after he got there. It was only a few months. Short time. He got spinal meningitis and he died, and it was very tragic. But they found this when they sent this Bible back to his family. They found the words, "No reserve, no retreat, no regret." And he said, "I did this with no reserve. I am not retreating. I have no regrets. I am going to go and be a missionary. I am going to go and be a missionary. I am going to answer the call. Here am I. Send me." He could have said, "I'm Yale." He could have said, "I have wealth. I have all this, all these other things." He didn't.
Incidentally, if you find yourself in that position, God could use your wealth, God could use your Yale, your Princeton, your Harvard, your CEO to open a door to get you into a country other people can't go into. That's no excuse.
But he said this and passed away. Well, we were in Egypt, and we're going to pray for all the people. And I want you to know that I've been praying for a hundred missionaries from our church to be sent out. I thought that was a giant goal. I thought that was a giant goal to have a hundred missionaries sent out. And while we were there at his grave and we were getting ready to pray for a hundred missionaries, these two caretakers in Cairo, Egypt, that were taking care of the grave came over, and they were very angry. I said, "What are they angry about?"
They said, "Well, some Christians were here not that long ago, and they told us to repair his grave, and they never paid the bill. It was $500. His grave was in total disrepair, and we've done this repair." It was beautiful. It look absolutely beautiful, his grave area.
And I said, "It was how much?"
They said, "It was $500 and they never paid us."
I said, "River Valley will pay the $500. Christians are good for their word. We are going to pay that $500." So I got $500 out and I gave it to them and paid the bill.
And they said, "Hang on." And they came back with this icon here, and they said, "This was between his casket and the concrete. This was laid on his casket, and when we did all the repairs to it, we took this out. And we want to give you this because you paid the bill."
So I brought this back to the United States, and I had it validated by an antiques collector. I didn't tell him where it was from or what it was. He said, "Boy, it looks like that Egypt region." He said the nails in it are about a hundred years old, which is exactly. He died a hundred years from when I was given this. And he said, "So I would estimate it is about a hundred years old. It's authentic." He said that's not dirt on there actually, that's a form of art that they put on this picture. And I told him the story. He said, "Yeah, I believe that's authentic." And so they gave it to us.
Well, in that moment here is where I'm going with the story the missionary we were with, he said, "I want to pray for one missionary for every dollar. I want 500 missionaries out of River Valley."
And I said, "Well, I had big faith in a hundred."
And he said, "I want 500."
And I'm like, "I'm in. Let's do this."
And so we started to pray for 500 "Here am I, send me" missionaries. And we made this qualification that you'd spend at least one year on the mission field away from your home, away from your family, wherever God would call you, whether that's to Mexico or Afghanistan or wherever, with Youth With a Mission or with the Assemblies of God or with some other agency. We just said 500 is what we want. And we agreed to pray for that; one for every dollar. When you wonder why do they want another campus, why do they want to keep growing, why do they want to do Kingdom Builders, because we have to have a big church to send 500 missionaries out. And there has already been a prayer prayed "Here am I, send me," and that could be for you. That could be for you.
So I want to close in prayer and do this. I want here and at all of our campuses, I want us to do this: I want you to place a hand on yourself and a hand towards the church, and I want you to pray this. "Here am I. Send me." But you're agreeing for you. You may be called to be local missionary to your high school, to your marketplace. You may be called to go. You may be called to the hardest place on the planet. We don't know. But you're saying, "God, here am I. Send me. But, God, here am I. Send me. Send my kids. Send my relatives. Send us. Send us to the world. Send us to the world." Let's believe for 500.
So, Lord, what a giant prayer. What a giant prayer that is, and I overcome doubt in Jesus' name, realizing that we could do that. We could do that. We could see 500 people sent out from this church, men, women and children, counting every one of them and sending them around the world and raising millions and millions of dollars. We can do that in your strength and your grace, and we can say right now "Here am I. Send me." If you say high school, it's high school. If you say marketplace, it's marketplace. We all have a neighborhood, so we know that's a given. Lord, we say here am I, send me. One year, two years, ten years, whatever the case may be. Here am I. Send me.
And as a church we commit to leveraging our resources, to leveraging what we have, to building our campuses, to building bigger campuses and more campuses, and doing whatever we can to raise up a church that could fulfill that, because it has already been prayed. We've already started to agree with it. And we thank you, God, at a place where someone said, "No reserves, no retreats, no regrets," we prayed that we would send people into all the world and we could say, "Here am I. Send me."
So, God, here and at all of our campuses, we come into agreement, as the body of Christ, we will send others and we will volunteer ourselves. Here am I. Send me. It is a dangerous prayer, but we pray it, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen, amen.
