Following services yesterday we took a picture of a good many of the saints that comprise Orlando Grace Church. Our Digo survey team intends to take a framed print to Kenya as one of our gifts toward forging and strengthening ongoing connections to the church and people there. We want them to have some idea of the community of believers here in the US that maintain a gospel love for these half way around the world.

I long as a pastor that we as a people would believe just how significant a movement we embody as part of the church of Jesus Christ on planet earth. Nobody said in better than John Piper way back in 1981.

The church of Jesus Christ is the most important institution in the world. The assembly of the redeemed, the company of the saints, the children of God are more significant in world history than any other group, organization or nation. The United States of America compares to the church of Jesus Christ like a speck of dust compares to the sun. The drama of international relations compares to the mission of the church like a kindergarten riddle compares to Hamlet or King Lear. And all pomp of May Day in Red Square and the pageantry of New Year’s in Pasadena fade into a formless grey against the splendor of the bride of Christ. Take heed how you judge. Things are not what they seem. “All flesh is like grass. And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord (and all His family) abide forever” (1 Peter 1:24,25). The media and all the powers, and authorities and rulers and stars that they present are a mirage. “For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15). The gates of hades, the powers of death, will prevail against every institution but one, the church.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God … because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the liberty of the glory of the children of God (Romans 8:19, 21).

Lift up your eyes, O Christians! You belong to a society that will never cease, to the apple of God’s eye, to the eternal and cosmic church of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

To read the rest of his message click here.

Oh for lifted up eyes to see and red hot hearts to believe all that God has for us and means for us to do in Christ Jesus among the Digo and beyond!