Take Heart, for Christ Has Overcome the World

Has your heart been troubled lately?

News bombards us every day, it seems, with troubling and heartbreaking stories. As I and other colleagues have traveled and met with Christians in other countries, many people have shared the burdens on their hearts and their concern for the church. Each day, Ligonier receives messages from believers who tell us their concerns and request encouragement.

The only effective solution to troubled hearts is to remember the promises of God. We need, as Dr. R.C. Sproul told us, the renewing of our minds with the Word of God so that our hearts will not be overwhelmed (Rom. 12:2). We must not despair. Remember Jesus’ promise to our troubled hearts in this world: “Take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

I have been helped to focus on Jesus' promises by Dr. Sinclair Ferguson’s outstanding book and teaching series?Lessons from the Upper Room, and Ligonier is offering that now for a gift of any amount. (And we really mean "any amount.")

It's easy to get so entangled by various troubles that we don’t take the time to dig deep in God’s Word for the renewal of our minds and the encouragement of our hearts. This is where Ligonier seeks to step in and help.?Ligonier Ministries labors daily?around the world?to help people dig deep into the life-giving Word of God so that minds are renewed by truth amid a world of lies.

By producing and distributing faithful Bible teaching through broadcasts,?conferences,?books,?devotional magazines,?study Bibles, and more, Ligonier is calling Christians worldwide to turn to Scripture so that they can stand firm.

There is very little Bible teaching here in the West that upholds the authority and sufficiency of God’s Word. Even much of what’s produced by the evangelical church is in many ways theologically shallow, pragmatic, and short-sighted. This problem is exponentially multiplied around the world as believers in many places don’t have access to God’s Word, let alone sound study tools to assist them in understanding the beautiful truth of who God is in all His majestic holiness.

The need is great, and Ligonier is responding as much as we're able. By God’s grace, we’re pursuing our goal of developing the world’s largest?library of discipleship resources?that are anchored in the historic Christian faith. In addition to gathering and producing these resources, we want to distribute this library in the world’s?top twenty languages?in an effective and sustainable way in the next three years.

In God’s economy, there are no supply chain difficulties or scarce resources. He supplies an abundance of what is needed at just the right time to build His church. The gospel moves forward with strength by the power of the Holy Spirit. We marvel that Ligonier is playing a part in the Great Commission and, with many others linking arms with us through?prayerful generosity, we can do more ministry.

We’re seeing a tremendous response as we rapidly add new languages to our outreach and extend more Christian discipleship resources to millions of people outside the United States. Recently we heard from Manuel in Chile, who said:

“I had never been taught Reformed theology before, so I realized while listening to Dr. Sproul and others that this is a new beginning for me at 54 years old. Now I want to study the truth every day, and I thank God for all of you. Much of South America has not been reached by Reformed preaching yet, so having this teaching is great.”

Many people have responded quite enthusiastically to Dr. Ferguson's new teaching resource in our library:?Lessons from the Upper Room?from Dr. Sinclair Ferguson. This video series takes us through Jesus’ teaching in?John 13–17, where our Savior prepared His troubled disciples on the night before His crucifixion and death. These videos were so well received that we asked Dr. Ferguson to expand on those messages and write a?book by the same title. The response has been enormous. Generous support from ministry friends and partners enabled us to give 10,915 copies of this book to pastors and church leaders last year. We’ve already dubbed the teaching series into?Hindi?and?Spanish, and efforts are underway to translate the book into Simplified Chinese and Farsi. We’re prioritizing translation and dubbing into five additional languages, with plans for more.

Your support?enables the production and distribution of trusted discipleship resources not only in English but also in?Spanish,?Hindi,?Farsi,?Chinese, and many other languages. You can help Ligonier do more of this church-focused, church-supporting outreach and, through our Bible-based teaching, offer gospel hope to troubled hearts around the world.?Thank you.