Ukrainian Alumnus Encourages Faculty and Staff during Chapel Service

Tyndale Theological Seminary, let us continually dedicate ourselves, our talents, and our achievements to God.

We praise the Lord, who sustains our life and allows us to be here. Thank you, President Gunnar Mägi and Dr Adam Day [seminary chaplain], for your invitation and the privilege to share my story. It is an honor to be here and to share with you how I became a student of Tyndale Theological Seminary.  Studying at Tyndale changed my life completely. 

Allow me to invite us to dedicate ourselves to God; our talents and achievements, for that is “our spiritual act of worship”. One truth I wish you to remember and practice: That all the days of our life we may be faithful worshipers of God who dedicate ourselves to Him, and continue to offer to God spiritual sacrifices, remaining themselves, before God, as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing. 

How did I find out about Tyndale Theological Seminary? Allow me to tell you how I met Tyndale’s first president, Arthur Johnston, and the consequences of that meeting. I had prayed for five years for an opportunity to study God’s Word abroad. In the former Soviet Union, a Billy Graham Evangelical school was organized in 1991. Five thousand of God’s ministers came there to learn  from different places of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine. I was among these ministers. Also in 1991, Ukraine had received its independence and soon after, the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain collapsed, opening up the possibility of crossing the border.

In August of 1991 I was standing in one of the back rows of a huge stadium in Luzhniki, where the Billy Graham Evangelical School conference was being held. Suddenly, I heard someone speaking in English behind me. I turned and saw two tall and friendly gentlemen who were talking together. I was immediately drawn to them and became acquainted with the former president of Tyndale, Arthur Johnston, and with his colleague, Theo Kunst. Theo Kunst was a professor at Tyndale and a well-known evangelist in the Netherlands (They are now both with the Lord ). 

I shared with these two men my desire to study the Bible and they invited me to come to Tyndale. A little over a year later, God opened the door for me to study at Tyndale Theological Seminary in the Netherlands. I completed the three-year Masters of Divinity program and, now, thirty years later, I am standing before you as a living testimony of God’s mercy, grace, and love to me and my family.

We are here at Tyndale because each of us has received from the Lord a certain number of talents, each according to his abilities. We are to be good stewards of what God has entrusted to us. We must be good stewards of what God has entrusted to us. When we gain new talents, let them be used for the glory of our Lord. 

Dear students, when you finish your program here your talents will have doubled as you gain a higher level of biblical and theological education. Some of you are asking God to grant you the gifts of the Holy Spirit. God will answer your prayers and will enrich you spiritually.

Dear professors, you are enriched by the experience of teaching and serving your students. May the Lord bless you and your families abundantly.

When we have achievements and blessings, it is good and right for each of us to dedicate them to the Lord. I simply want to remind you of the necessity to do that. This necessity of dedication is firmly grounded in the Bible. Firstly, we are called to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - that is our spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1, NIV). Through that offering we reveal that we are true worshippers of God, being living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to the Lord. All true and faithful servants dedicate themselves to God. Secondly, the act of dedication is “our spiritual act of worship” to God (Romans 12:1). The Bible invites us to not only dedicate ourselves once, but to dedicate ourselves again and again as an act of worship to the Lord. Third, we are called to be grateful (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Let us show gratitude to God (Hebrews 12:28) because he provides everything that we need for life and godliness.

As we seek to dedicate ourselves to God, let’s look at the example of Moses from Psalm 90. Moses was a true worshipper of God, knowing that the eternal God is our dwelling place and we are mortal (Psalm 90:1-2). “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Moses worshiped in the dwelling place of God, the tabernacle, but he says, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.” Moses was looking ahead in faith as Hebrews 11 tells us. “He regarded disgrace for the sake of the Messiah as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward”. So what does this mean for us? God is also our dwelling place. By faith we live in Him and He lives in us (Ephesians 3:16-19). By faith we offer ourselves to God as living, holy, and pleasing sacrifices in our act of worship to God. Those who dedicate themselves to God and worship Him continually will see glorious fruits from God in their lives here on earth and in eternity.

Friends of Tyndale Theological Seminary, I want to invite us all to pray to dedicate ourselves and our talents to God as an expression of our thankfulness and love to Him. May “Your work appear to your servants and Your majesty to our children (Psalm 90:16). We want to dedicate our talents and achievements to the Lord as they are given to us from your hand. Oh, Lord, help us to multiply what you have entrusted to us, for your glory. “And establish the work of our hands” (Psalm 90:17). Amen.

Alexey (Ukraine), Alumni 1995 - February 2025