back to index2017-01-29 The Importance of Christ's Presence In Overseas Work
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We came here like around two Sundays ago and it's been pretty good to just hang out with 00:00:16.160 |
And yeah, we've been tremendously blessed and been encouraged by all the love and support 00:00:26.720 |
We moved out to China, Beijing about almost two years ago. 00:00:33.440 |
And so it's only been a year and 10 months, but it feels a lot longer. 00:00:40.360 |
I'm still thinking, I'm like, did things change in Berlin? 00:00:43.120 |
And I'm like, the only thing that really changed are just people's faces. 00:00:45.960 |
I mean, that's not an insult or anything like that. 00:00:50.320 |
But I mean, people got added to the congregation. 00:00:58.880 |
So but yeah, it's an honor, it's a privilege to be able to come back and to share with 00:01:04.920 |
you what God has been doing through our family during our time out in Beijing. 00:01:13.840 |
I was kind of conflicted about how to present this information. 00:01:29.480 |
And so what I'm going to share with you this morning isn't going to be like everything 00:01:35.280 |
that's been going on in China over the past year and 10 months. 00:01:41.860 |
If you want to know more information or if you want to just find out what else God is 00:01:48.120 |
We'll be here until February 10th and then we'll be going back to Beijing, also known 00:01:54.400 |
as the capital of China and the most polluted city in the world. 00:02:05.480 |
I'll read it again and then we'll pray and we'll get started. 00:02:16.760 |
It says, "And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon and he 00:02:26.160 |
He did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. 00:02:30.080 |
But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came 00:02:37.960 |
Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to cast the demon 00:02:45.480 |
And he said to her, 'Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's 00:02:53.560 |
But she answered him, 'Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's 00:03:00.160 |
And he said to her, 'For this statement, you may go your way. 00:03:07.120 |
And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone." 00:03:15.080 |
Lord God, we want to continually saturate our service in prayer to you, asking for your 00:03:20.200 |
help, asking for your presence to be here with us as we hear from your word this morning. 00:03:27.080 |
Lord God, none of us would be here if it wasn't for your grace to come to pursue us, to save 00:03:33.600 |
us, to redeem us, to open the eyes of our heart, to see how sinful we are and how much 00:03:41.920 |
God, would you please help us this morning as we hear from your word. 00:03:50.280 |
So in China, we've been going through the Gospel of Mark for our Bible study. 00:03:56.000 |
We meet weekly for this Bible study, and we just concluded the Gospel of Mark. 00:04:03.400 |
It was about a four-month hiatus for various reasons. 00:04:10.200 |
And what I want to share with you is from this passage, and again, I'm just trying to 00:04:16.360 |
weave in together various things, experiences that we went through to just report back to 00:04:23.880 |
you guys how our family has been doing overseas. 00:04:28.560 |
So we notice here in verse 24, it says, "And from there he arose and went away to the region 00:04:34.080 |
Now, if you have to know this, Tyre and Sidon is a Gentile region, okay? 00:04:40.240 |
And so primarily Jesus has been doing ministry in Israel. 00:04:44.300 |
And so for him to go out of his way to enter into this Gentile territory is sort of alarming 00:04:52.440 |
They're wondering, "Why are you going to this region, this Gentile region?" 00:04:58.480 |
And it says pretty clearly why he goes, if you read the next sentence there. 00:05:01.800 |
It says, "And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know." 00:05:06.960 |
So what we could observe from this context is that he just simply wants some privacy, 00:05:12.480 |
If you guys have read through the Gospels, you know Jesus is very busy. 00:05:17.720 |
I taught this book a long time ago here at Berean. 00:05:21.120 |
And so if you know one of the key nicknames or summary phrases for the Gospel of Mark 00:05:28.640 |
I mean, Jesus is going everywhere, doing things, teaching, performing miracles. 00:05:35.320 |
And so there's a good chance that he left Israel for a bit in order to get some rest. 00:05:41.720 |
However, we know that that's not the case, right? 00:05:44.520 |
Because we see here, it says in the next phrase, "Yet he could not be hidden." 00:05:54.600 |
"But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came 00:06:10.540 |
More so than here in America, where in America we tend to have this individual, individuality 00:06:23.500 |
If you're not part of the family, then you're not going to get any of the benefits. 00:06:27.360 |
If you're not part of this certain community, you're almost like, you're almost ignored. 00:06:33.400 |
And that's what we kind of see here with this woman, with her daughter. 00:06:38.760 |
This wasn't some internal illness that's causing suffering to her, to this daughter that she 00:06:48.920 |
This is an external factor that's causing her much grief and much pain and it's moving 00:06:58.460 |
The Jesus who is seeking to be hidden and yet she finds him. 00:07:05.100 |
In China, again, like I said before, family is very important. 00:07:09.380 |
Community is, family typically is the reason why a lot of people do not profess faith in 00:07:17.520 |
They're thinking, if I go out in faith, if I accept Jesus Christ, what happens to my 00:07:36.420 |
And those are stark realities that do happen. 00:07:40.860 |
However, it was very important for me, especially in talking to a guy in our Bible study, he's 00:07:48.700 |
a non-believer, because he was expressing these concerns to me. 00:07:58.220 |
I'm not married yet, but if I become a Christian, I feel like that's going to be a hurdle to 00:08:06.500 |
I think for me, the thing that I had to share with him is that though you are entering the 00:08:10.820 |
family of God, though you are alone making this decision, it's really important for you 00:08:16.260 |
to recognize that you're not just leaving a family and going off by yourself into an 00:08:23.260 |
It's important for you to recognize that you are coming out of a family and entering into 00:08:30.980 |
And I think that for me is something that kind of brings out in verse 25 here, just 00:08:35.180 |
how important family is, how important community is, how much the woman who loved her daughter 00:08:41.220 |
so much that she was willing to go out of her bounds to seek after this man named Jesus 00:08:46.300 |
Christ to heal her daughter from this unclean spirit. 00:08:59.220 |
Joe, I mean, the pollution over there is kind of like a running topic. 00:09:05.620 |
There's like an app that you can get on your phone to find out what is the air quality 00:09:10.620 |
And it gives you a seven day prediction too, so you can like space out your misery. 00:09:21.140 |
Oh, Wednesday, okay, we're going to do something that day. 00:09:26.700 |
And I think being single, it would have been a lot easier to handle that, but it's hard 00:09:36.260 |
It's hard to see, you know, like obviously we're here now and like we're going out every 00:09:47.420 |
But I see my son, I see, you know, Hadden, I see Ryle, and they're just, well, not Ryle, 00:09:52.100 |
but at least Hadden is enjoying life, just running around and, you know, just doing, 00:10:00.540 |
So when we go back, right, when we go back, my family serves me, serves me as a reminder 00:10:08.700 |
that, yeah, there's a sacrifice that had to be made, right? 00:10:12.260 |
There had to be a sacrifice to be made in order for us to be out there, to participate 00:10:21.220 |
And so in understanding how important family is, it became a great witnessing tool to a 00:10:31.780 |
There's people who look at us and like, we're trying to get to America. 00:10:35.980 |
You know, we're trying to get to America so our family will have a better life, but you're 00:10:38.640 |
coming to China and you're settling down with your family. 00:10:54.700 |
And ultimately it just becomes a great witnessing tool, right? 00:10:58.660 |
It's a great witnessing tool for them to see like, I'm not coming to China because I want 00:11:05.620 |
I'm not coming to China because I love the food. 00:11:10.020 |
I'm coming to China because people need to hear about the love of Jesus Christ in the 00:11:17.180 |
People need to know that there is sin that needs to be forgiven. 00:11:21.020 |
And the only way to be forgiven of that sin is in Jesus Christ. 00:11:26.260 |
And so there's people that I've met recently. 00:11:29.180 |
There's connections that I made with people that I made 10 years ago when I first lived 00:11:35.500 |
And the ability to be able to share with them in light of bringing my family along has only 00:11:41.820 |
really strengthened the witness of the gospel to them. 00:11:46.280 |
And so that's my first observation is just how important family is and how much this 00:11:51.480 |
woman loves this little daughter to the point where she wants to get this unclean spirit 00:11:55.900 |
out of her and is willing to seek out this man, Jesus Christ. 00:12:02.040 |
Now in verse 26 we see that Mark gives us a description about this mother. 00:12:08.960 |
Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. 00:12:16.240 |
The reason why Mark adds this detail for us is because he wants to communicate to us that 00:12:27.640 |
And if we know anything from the culture back then, women were considered second class citizens. 00:12:39.360 |
On top of that, Mark knows that she's a Gentile. 00:12:43.800 |
And in the eyes of the Jews, Gentiles were also viewed as second class citizens, right? 00:12:48.800 |
So we're talking about second class of second class, right? 00:12:52.560 |
Almost like the bottom of the totem pole here. 00:12:58.000 |
Mark notes that she is a Syrophoenician, which means she's from the nation of Syria. 00:13:04.560 |
And if you just kind of go over through the Old Testament and kind of go over the conquests, 00:13:08.720 |
you'll see that Syria has popped up oftentimes as an enemy of Israel. 00:13:13.120 |
Okay, so you got the bottom of the bottom of the bottom. 00:13:17.760 |
This woman really has no right, no relationship to come and approach Jesus for help. 00:13:28.800 |
Oftentimes when you're out in China, you come across people that you really don't gel with, 00:13:35.600 |
They have personality quirks, they have cultural quirks. 00:13:38.720 |
Yeah, a little different quirks that kind of like rub you the wrong way. 00:13:42.640 |
Sometimes they like to get up close and personal to you and you're just kind of like, "Hey 00:13:50.760 |
The smells, yes, the smells there that can be very unique and wake you up in the morning. 00:14:01.240 |
And yet, when I think about moving out to China, we moved out to China not because we 00:14:07.320 |
want to reach out to people that we like, right? 00:14:10.840 |
We want to reach out to people that really come out of our comfort zone, right? 00:14:17.520 |
One example that I want to share with you guys is when we first moved to our first apartment, 00:14:27.240 |
I know some people on our team wanted to go visit an English corner. 00:14:31.840 |
An English corner is just like a gathering of people where they just practice spoken 00:14:37.080 |
Typically, there's like a presentation by a foreigner and then they kind of like break 00:14:41.320 |
off into groups and do like this little, this small group discussion and stuff like that. 00:14:47.280 |
So I said, "Okay, I found out this English corner, we're going to go there." 00:14:50.920 |
First night, first Monday night that we're there, we go to this English corner and I 00:14:56.680 |
go in there with the intention to be just hidden and not be seen, but they play an icebreaker 00:15:01.880 |
game and I was too loud and I got too much attention. 00:15:09.920 |
And obviously during the discussion time, there was this older guy coming up to me and 00:15:15.040 |
he's just, you know, his English is pretty good. 00:15:19.080 |
And he's asking me questions and I'm like, and he's like, "Oh, so what do you do?" 00:15:26.040 |
And I'm like, "Oh," I can't tell him I was a P or a pastor. 00:15:34.320 |
I'm like, "Oh, you know, I teach over there somewhere in the corner." 00:15:40.880 |
You know, because I don't know the exact address. 00:15:44.600 |
So it's just kind of like we're kind of asking each other questions and I'm like, "Man, you're 00:15:49.640 |
I'm like, and we're meeting at a church and so I was like, "Hey, so are you a Christian?" 00:15:58.520 |
And so he turns around and asked me, "Are you a Christian?" 00:16:01.440 |
And I was like pretty close to saying like, "I'm a pastor," but you know, I ended up just 00:16:15.480 |
So not to like sound all freaky, but he calls me and he's like, "Hey, what's up, man?" 00:16:21.000 |
And he's like, "Oh, like, I just want to like, I just want to call you and say thank you 00:16:27.920 |
You know, he's like, "Yeah, I want to be open and honest with you because oftentimes when 00:16:34.240 |
I tell people what I actually do for a living, they want to like hide away from me, you know, 00:16:39.280 |
And I'm like, "I think I know where this is going." 00:16:41.880 |
And he's like, "Yeah, you know, I work for the government, you know." 00:17:02.760 |
I'm just reaching out to people outside my comfort zone. 00:17:05.980 |
You really moved me out of the comfort zone." 00:17:11.840 |
And so basically for the next year, I avoided that English corner. 00:17:18.440 |
I was, he would call me periodically just to check in on me and stuff like that. 00:17:29.400 |
Would run into me, would run into him at other English corners, you know. 00:17:38.080 |
And I'm like, "Wow, you actually taught yourself." 00:17:39.600 |
And he's just going to his English corners, practicing English. 00:17:45.120 |
About I would say five or six weeks ago, somewhere in mid-December, he actually came to our English 00:18:01.760 |
And there was this great fear in me because of this information that I know. 00:18:12.880 |
But I got a lot of encouragement from other people who live there. 00:18:19.960 |
Why don't you just go up to him and just share?" 00:18:26.800 |
But when I sat down and started thinking about it, what was there to be afraid? 00:18:33.720 |
He's just a guy trying to learn English who happens to work for the government. 00:18:42.200 |
Is there any way that I could be in danger by sharing with him? 00:18:49.080 |
See, when we think about evangelism, sometimes we think about, "Oh, I want to evangelize 00:19:02.760 |
But one of the things that, as I'm learning out there, is that, yeah, God will bring people 00:19:06.720 |
into your life that is just outside of your comfort zone. 00:19:09.240 |
And you have to go out and reach out to them. 00:19:18.320 |
And so that's what this woman represents here. 00:19:22.080 |
She is the lowest of the lows when it comes to society and their totem pole. 00:19:27.840 |
When it comes to level of priority, she's at the bottom of it. 00:19:37.440 |
That man, I'm praying one of these days when I go back. 00:19:41.880 |
And I'll say, "Hey, I got some free time now. 00:19:52.360 |
Yeah, I really got used to tea when I'm out there. 00:20:01.200 |
But that's something that, at least for me, one thing I kept on learning is that, yeah, 00:20:05.200 |
God will bring people into your life that will challenge you to go out of your comfort 00:20:10.880 |
Now, this woman has been identified as a Gentile, as a Syrophoenician by birth. 00:20:17.720 |
And it says, Mark notes, that she begged Jesus to cast a demon out of her daughter. 00:20:29.880 |
And you were presented in this scenario where there's a demon possessed, you're a demon 00:20:43.160 |
It's just like, I have a single purpose in coming to you, Jesus. 00:20:50.120 |
And yet Jesus answers back to her in verse 27. 00:20:54.560 |
And he said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's 00:21:05.640 |
Jesus, like, I just asked you to cast this demon out of my daughter. 00:21:22.780 |
Why are you telling me this proverb about, "Let the children be fed first, for it is 00:21:27.240 |
not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs"? 00:21:30.740 |
What this proverb is trying to explain to the woman is that the promises of the Messiah, 00:21:37.620 |
the blessings that are to come from God, is to go through Israel first, and then to the 00:21:45.380 |
So it's in a way where Jesus is trying to inform her, "Your time is not here yet." 00:21:53.020 |
"Your time is not here yet for me to bless you with." 00:21:58.620 |
And sometimes we're looking at this and you're like, "Man, Jesus, that's messed up. 00:22:04.900 |
Well, as we see later on in the text, and we can see later, you can see multiple times 00:22:11.420 |
throughout the Gospels, and this is like my third point here. 00:22:18.460 |
Jesus is focused on making faith the priority. 00:22:26.040 |
Jesus wasn't just going to heal the daughter and then the mother's just going to leave. 00:22:33.980 |
Jesus is more concerned about the faith of this Syrophoenician woman. 00:22:41.320 |
It's one thing to just get everything handed to you. 00:22:45.120 |
It's another thing to actually struggle with something and then to receive it. 00:22:55.460 |
Often times with the people that we are just connected with and we try to encourage, that 00:23:03.780 |
seems to be the main piece of advice that I'm always passing off. 00:23:13.540 |
There is one individual that I could think of and yeah, she's in her mid-30s, she's in 00:23:22.100 |
the middle of a career change, she's single and so with Chinese New Year coming up, she's 00:23:39.620 |
This is like multiple times where I've talked to her about this. 00:23:42.020 |
And in the end, it was just like, it comes down to faith. 00:23:52.640 |
Is your salvation precious enough to be able to withstand all of these pressures? 00:23:59.180 |
Yeah, Jesus could answer all of those requests really fast. 00:24:15.200 |
Is that why you profess faith in the first place? 00:24:25.520 |
You got to remember what your faith is based upon. 00:24:30.640 |
You made this decision to believe not because Jesus is going to give you a husband and a 00:24:38.300 |
You chose to profess faith in Jesus because He redeemed your soul. 00:24:45.520 |
You no longer live for the world, but you live for Christ. 00:24:51.740 |
That's what Jesus is trying to get at here with this Syrophoenician woman. 00:24:56.240 |
Not to say no to her and be like, yeah, you know, I'm on my break right now. 00:25:09.000 |
He wants her to profess faith, to profess faith in a way that will make this exchange, 00:25:17.260 |
this conversation that Jesus is having so much more memorable. 00:25:26.840 |
Now we see in verse 28 here, after making this statement, this woman understands what 00:25:37.200 |
Jesus is saying, but instead of taking it as a no and just turning around and just walking 00:25:42.800 |
away, she says, but she answered him, yes, Lord, you're right. 00:25:51.480 |
Israel is supposed to get the blessing first. 00:25:55.560 |
Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs. 00:26:03.720 |
Jesus replies back to her saying, for this statement, you may go your way. 00:26:09.520 |
And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone. 00:26:18.200 |
I think the main takeaway from these two verses here is that this Syrophoenician woman persisted 00:26:26.800 |
She did not allow Jesus, did not allow this proverb to prevent her from asking Jesus again, 00:26:48.480 |
But please, even the dogs take the crumbs off the children's table. 00:26:54.360 |
And this is just an expression of tremendous, tremendous humility on her part to be able 00:27:11.960 |
Over the last year and 10 months, this is probably an area where it has really just 00:27:22.040 |
became really clear that I need to pursue and to really work on. 00:27:28.240 |
Obviously, being in a nation where counterfeits happen and the temptation to just compromise 00:27:36.480 |
is there left and right, I realized that as for me and for our family, there is a need 00:27:47.640 |
for us to remain holy in our living, to be spirit-filled in our interaction with others, 00:27:56.320 |
and to persist in that, to pursue that persistent faith. 00:28:05.300 |
And what this woman expresses here, just the humility to come before Jesus and continually 00:28:10.440 |
ask Him, is something that really stood out to me. 00:28:21.040 |
And again, this is something that was really, it really got my attention. 00:28:29.280 |
But 2 Peter 1, verses 3-8, when it comes to faith and persisting in it, 2 Peter 1, verses 00:28:45.080 |
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through 00:28:49.640 |
the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has 00:28:53.600 |
granted to us by His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become 00:28:59.960 |
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because 00:29:07.960 |
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue 00:29:12.440 |
with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness 00:29:17.760 |
with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 00:29:28.120 |
I was meditating on this because for me, it was, I understood, okay, my faith matters 00:29:42.240 |
And so, verse 5, it says, "For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith." 00:30:04.520 |
Self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. 00:30:17.440 |
And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, "How do I do this?" 00:30:22.080 |
But if you just go back to verse 3, if you just go back to verse 3, it simply states, 00:30:27.400 |
"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness." 00:30:36.840 |
All things pertaining to life and godliness has already been granted to His people. 00:30:49.960 |
He knows anything in the fridge that's not red, because he doesn't like spicy food, 00:30:57.840 |
And so there's some mornings he just goes, like, "I'm tired, Jen's tired," and he just 00:31:01.800 |
goes to the fridge and finds something to eat. 00:31:05.180 |
One time he found French toast and he just busts out the fridge and sat down, popped 00:31:11.560 |
open Tupperware, and just started eating French toast. 00:31:22.240 |
Anything in the house that he wants to eat, yeah, it's his. 00:31:29.400 |
But there are certain snacks, certain foods that he cannot reach. 00:31:33.680 |
One because physically he's just short and he can't reach that high, or it's locked behind 00:31:47.200 |
Does he make every effort to try to open that door and try to open the lock? 00:31:57.640 |
He comes to me, he comes to Jen, and says, "Can you open the door so I can get some snacks?" 00:32:06.120 |
When I think about this passage and the need for persistent faith and all these things 00:32:12.060 |
that we are called to make every effort to supplement our faith with, it's already been 00:32:29.120 |
To pray a genuine prayer saying, "God, I can't do this on my own. 00:32:33.360 |
Please supplement my faith so I can live for You. 00:32:39.780 |
So that it will keep me," as verse 8 says, "to keep me from being ineffective or unfruitful 00:32:51.800 |
You know, being in China, you're tempted to always cut corners. 00:33:01.080 |
One of the hardest things about being a Christian and working in a company is just ethics. 00:33:09.980 |
If we don't do it that way, then our business will sink. 00:33:14.580 |
There was one time I exchanged some money and I got back Rem and B and just one of them, 00:33:25.840 |
It was funny because I didn't know it was a fake so I gave it to a taxi driver and he 00:33:31.180 |
looked at me and he started feeling it and he's like, "No, give me a different one." 00:33:35.580 |
He saw I had another $100, 100 kuai, so I, you know, I, okay, busted. 00:33:41.900 |
So I take the fake bill with me and you know, I'm not, it's not to make it all dramatic, 00:33:47.140 |
but yeah, the temptation to do something with that bill was great. 00:33:52.620 |
Find another taxi driver, find another storekeeper, pass off that bill. 00:33:59.620 |
Keep that corrupted cycle of counterfeit going. 00:34:04.700 |
You know, I was asking around to my friends, Christian friends, "Hey, what do I do with 00:34:15.140 |
I'm like, "They're not going to give me back the 100 kuai?" 00:34:24.180 |
It's like $20 in the US, but man, 100 kuai could go a long way in China." 00:34:29.820 |
And then one other guy suggested, "Why don't you just go to an ATM? 00:34:37.940 |
And I'm just sitting there and I'm like, "Is that right? 00:34:45.860 |
Of course, the other option is just to throw it away. 00:34:52.320 |
And so I was in this room talking to my coworkers and they're all Christian. 00:34:58.260 |
And they're all looking at me like, "What are you going to do?" 00:35:05.100 |
In the end, one of the coworkers was the financial person, the finance office. 00:35:15.780 |
I said, "They put the fake bills on the wall and they put fake on it." 00:35:21.620 |
And it just became a way to westernize the office. 00:35:27.140 |
And I just remember, she came up to me and she was like, "Wow, I can't believe you just 00:35:36.020 |
She said, "Most people I know would just try to get rid of that bill and try to get some 00:35:41.900 |
And for me, at that moment, it just kind of hit me. 00:35:52.020 |
And still though, to persist, to make those decisions to live a holy life matters in the 00:36:01.900 |
And so this Syrophoenician woman, Jesus was able to draw out from her that important commodity 00:36:16.980 |
I know I'm probably going to end really early. 00:36:19.380 |
But I just want to share with you guys that it's been a tremendous joy so far to serve 00:36:28.580 |
Yeah, I know you see our blog posts and you might see our Facebook and like, "Oh man, 00:36:41.220 |
But to be honest with you, and if you talk to me privately, I'll say the same exact thing. 00:36:47.420 |
There's so much joy in serving the Lord overseas. 00:36:55.660 |
I mean, I wasn't able to talk about it this morning, but other people that we sovereignly 00:37:02.020 |
brought into our lives and the changes that have taken place. 00:37:11.820 |
And though there are going to be potential obstacles coming along the way, right? 00:37:33.980 |
There's just a lot of joy in being able to be a participant in His work overseas. 00:37:40.860 |
And I think the greatest reason why there's so much joy, and I'm excited to go back, February 00:37:50.740 |
It's a little bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter. 00:37:54.380 |
Because we get to go back and be able to participate in His work. 00:38:00.860 |
Second Corinthians 5.14, it says, "For the love of Christ controls us." 00:38:07.820 |
That's not the full sentence there, but that's the part I want us to focus on as we slowly 00:38:22.020 |
I'm not going overseas because of some desire to be Chinese. 00:38:32.500 |
I'm not going over to China just to raise my family, to have them have different cultures 00:38:39.820 |
He's going to have an identity crisis when he's a teenager. 00:38:49.140 |
Just for the record, he said he's Korean, but I'm trying to correct him on that, okay? 00:39:01.860 |
This love that Christ has shown me, has shown to our family, is what is compelling us to 00:39:12.680 |
To keep sharing the gospel, to keep discipling others, you know, to continue to share the 00:39:18.980 |
good news of Jesus Christ, believer or non-believer, because it's worth it, right? 00:39:27.020 |
To understand this love, the quality of that love that Jesus has for his people is tremendous. 00:39:35.020 |
It is a great motivation and it's a great reminder of the joy that we have in knowing 00:39:42.100 |
And there will be nothing that will tear us away from that. 00:39:45.620 |
And so there's a lot of joy going back, and going back to restart the work that we started. 00:39:55.140 |
And as we kind of conclude, there's just one question that I want to leave us with. 00:40:00.220 |
Because I know some of you guys in this room, yeah, missions, yeah, going overseas, it's 00:40:07.540 |
Some of you guys maybe have wrestled with it longer than others. 00:40:11.380 |
Maybe some of you guys came to a quick conclusion that, "That's just not for me." 00:40:17.340 |
I used to be like that too, you know, when I thought about overseas work. 00:40:22.940 |
And then I just remember this one question unraveled all of those barriers, completely 00:40:39.140 |
I was like, I was deeply challenged by that question. 00:40:51.820 |
And that's the same question that I want to leave with you guys too. 00:41:01.060 |
I'm not saying you have to go like what our family did, you know, but I'm saying, why 00:41:17.700 |
But find a way to participate in the work overseas. 00:41:23.700 |
Everything I've shared so far this morning, I think everything that I have yet to share, 00:41:28.580 |
if you guys want to come up and talk, all of it really is an answered prayer to everything. 00:41:34.500 |
I know you guys prayed for us, and I'm so grateful. 00:41:37.780 |
And I want to use this morning to be able to edify you guys and say, these are answered 00:41:46.140 |
Let's have people in this room start thinking about why not. 00:41:50.100 |
And let's see where God will take us so that the gospel can continue forward to the nations. 00:41:57.260 |
And so with that, we'll pray and we'll close. 00:42:07.260 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you again for this morning and as we just looked at those observations 00:42:17.180 |
from the text and as we understand, Lord God, the priority of faith, the importance of persistent 00:42:27.420 |
faith, help us, Lord God, for all of us here in this room, to really seek to apply, to 00:42:41.940 |
I know, Lord God, that there's a lot of distractions, a lot of priorities that are constantly fighting 00:42:47.500 |
for our attention, seeking to displace you as our top priority. 00:42:55.460 |
So God, would today be a day in which we are reminded how important it is to place our 00:43:00.660 |
faith in you and not ourselves, to place our faith in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, 00:43:07.580 |
and not in any other blessings or gifts that you have blessed us with, but to pursue you, 00:43:14.100 |
Lord God, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.