Thank you all all for coming and for inviting me.

What I'd like to do to begin with is bring you right up to speed as to how I understand my mission here today and in my church

in words that are newer and fresh for me.

They come from a text in Matthew, chapter 24.

And I'm gonna give it to you and then try to explain

to you why I'm here and why I do what I do at Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis.

The text is chapter 24 versus 12 to 14. It goes like this because wickedness is multiplied. Most men's love will grow cold, but he who

end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom

will be preached throughout the whole world

as a testimony to all the nations,

and then the end will come.

Now what I hear in those verses is the juxtaposition of two surprising things.

The end of the age is going to be with a glacier. Robert Frost, some say the world will end by fire, some say by ice.

Well this text says ice. The love of many will grow cold. So I picture

the end of the age coming with a great glacier of lovelessness moving across the world

and across the church and the love of many growing cold.

It's verse 12, but when you juxtapose that with verse 14,

this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the

nations you know somebody's love has not grown cold.

Namely the people that are taking that gospel because verse nine

verse nine says

that when you go to those nations they're going to kill you and hate you

...