back to indexBerean Community Church Sunday Service 9/26/2021
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I hope all of you had a good week in the Lord. 00:18:28.280 |
We have again, a few announcements before we get started. 00:18:35.500 |
He's gonna come up and give some announcements 00:18:37.040 |
for our college ministry before we jump into the other stuff. 00:18:44.780 |
My name is Nathan, I'm the college pastor here at Berean. 00:18:49.420 |
a lot of the younger kind of students coming through 00:18:56.240 |
And so for those of you who are newer to our church, 00:18:59.600 |
who are visiting for the first or second time, 00:19:04.320 |
especially in the beginning part of the school year 00:19:06.540 |
so that you can kind of acclimate and connect 00:19:09.020 |
and get to know what this church is all about. 00:19:20.740 |
If you have questions, it has a black tablecloth, 00:19:25.480 |
So go over there, you can sign up for a rides ministry 00:19:29.840 |
You can sign up to kind of get more information 00:19:32.320 |
about the church and all the different things going on 00:19:38.000 |
But that brings us to our second announcement, 00:19:39.960 |
which is that this week we will also continue 00:19:44.680 |
On Tuesday we have a What is Christianity? info night. 00:19:47.280 |
And if you don't know what Christianity is about, 00:20:00.720 |
And then on Thursday we're gonna be having some hangouts 00:20:16.200 |
a college lunch devoted to welcoming those of you 00:20:23.160 |
And we'll be explaining to you what the church is about. 00:20:27.240 |
And hopefully we'll connect you to the weak things as well. 00:20:42.280 |
we actually have a new visitors welcome lunch 00:20:58.720 |
they told me that there will be plenty of lunch. 00:21:06.760 |
And as soon as we're set up, we're gonna get started. 00:21:10.680 |
'cause we're gonna, if you are attending that luncheon, 00:21:16.080 |
And then if some of you guys can just kind of help us out 00:21:18.080 |
and move some of the chairs, that'd be appreciated. 00:21:25.520 |
There's a members meeting that's coming up on 10/10. 00:21:30.040 |
Again, our members meeting is a quarterly meeting. 00:21:32.880 |
So if you are a member or you are being introduced 00:21:48.840 |
Again, that week, because we want to have you, 00:21:54.920 |
So we are not having regular Bible study this that week 00:22:00.360 |
Instead, we're having our mini conference on Friday night 00:22:03.760 |
and then it will last until Saturday afternoon. 00:22:19.680 |
'cause we're doing it in replacement of that. 00:22:38.180 |
we do have a box in the back as you're leaving. 00:22:40.440 |
There's a offering box so you can drop it off there, okay? 00:22:54.160 |
We pray that your Holy Spirit would guide and lead us, 00:22:59.160 |
encourage us, exhort us, rebuke us, challenge us, 00:23:02.800 |
that we may truly live lives worthy of the gospel 00:23:07.200 |
I pray, Father God, that with the offering that we give, 00:23:10.740 |
may it be an act of worship that we give to you, 00:24:25.680 |
Church family, let's all go ahead and rise together 00:24:33.300 |
as we sing this song, the glories of Calvary. 00:25:30.660 |
♪ Your heart is filled with a thousand songs ♪ 00:29:10.480 |
♪ The mighty King of kings has disarmed you ♪ 00:30:46.480 |
♪ The mighty King of kings has disarmed you ♪ 00:32:22.480 |
and I will be sharing my testimony with you today. 00:32:28.480 |
I did not have a specific date where I came to know Christ 00:32:34.480 |
I was raised in a Christian family for most of my life. 00:32:42.480 |
I selfishly desired Christ as a means to get to heaven. 00:32:45.480 |
I was introduced to the gospel at a very young age 00:32:50.480 |
and if I believed in Jesus, I could go to heaven. 00:32:53.480 |
Out of fear of being punished, I put my faith in Christ 00:32:56.480 |
but not actually understanding the weight of my sin 00:33:00.480 |
With this very shallow understanding of the gospel, 00:33:06.480 |
I would remember all the rules and commandments 00:33:19.480 |
in an assortment of sins such as lust, pride, and selfishness. 00:33:23.480 |
At the time though, I did not think I was indulging 00:33:28.480 |
I saw these sins as bad but nothing more than that. 00:33:33.480 |
but because I did not know the true implications of my sin, 00:33:37.480 |
I would be challenged in my faith that I had in God 00:33:43.480 |
I began to doubt my salvation and began to seek counsel 00:33:51.480 |
I again placed my faith in Christ and would be baptized 00:33:54.480 |
but again with a shallow understanding of the gospel 00:33:57.480 |
and only seeing Christ as a means to get to heaven. 00:34:02.480 |
God would work in my heart to break down the gospel 00:34:04.480 |
I created in my head and would work in my heart 00:34:09.480 |
He would do this through books, meetups, and sermons. 00:34:15.480 |
was the first time I understood God's holiness 00:34:21.480 |
God revealed to me that Christ was not just Savior 00:34:32.480 |
is not just a safety net or some free ticket out of hell. 00:34:43.480 |
This was the final piece that made me realize 00:34:46.480 |
how far I was from God and that I truly did not know him. 00:34:52.480 |
to reveal to me my sin and to understand the magnitude of my sin. 00:35:26.480 |
For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.'" 00:35:30.480 |
From this verse, God revealed to me my need for Christ 00:35:37.480 |
After recognizing this, I asked for forgiveness for Christ 00:35:45.480 |
and to no longer live for myself but for Christ. 00:35:50.480 |
I see God sanctifying me after coming to know him. 00:35:56.480 |
is that I want others to know him and to be saved. 00:36:00.480 |
but also see the grace of God that has saved me, 00:36:11.480 |
I see God's sovereign work being done in my life 00:36:13.480 |
and how he has been so gracious and merciful to me 00:36:18.480 |
This is something I am always going to be grateful for. 00:36:59.480 |
All right, thank you, Jared, for your great testimony. 00:37:10.480 |
If I can ask you guys to turn your Bibles to Hebrews 13, 00:37:15.480 |
and we'll be reading the first three verses together. 00:37:40.480 |
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, 00:37:43.480 |
for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. 00:37:46.480 |
Remember the prisoners as though in prison with them, 00:37:56.480 |
Heavenly Father, we ask the Holy Spirit to anoint this time. 00:38:05.480 |
May your people, your children, hear the voice of Christ 00:38:26.480 |
not to neglect this great salvation that you've given, 00:38:29.480 |
that all that we do may be a reflection of your grace in our lives. 00:38:36.480 |
I'm just going to give you a heads up ahead of time 00:38:39.480 |
that I'm going to be in the introduction a little bit longer than normal today, 00:38:43.480 |
because I feel like this is something that needs to be addressed 00:38:56.480 |
I don't know exactly when it became prominent, 00:38:59.480 |
but the term "social justice" has spread like wildfire. 00:39:05.480 |
Especially in the last maybe year and a half to two years 00:39:21.480 |
And then you have the other churches who say, 00:39:25.480 |
And so this has become a hot topic in our generation. 00:39:29.480 |
And I want to point out something before we jump into 00:39:35.480 |
that we need to understand what the Bible says about this particular subject, 00:39:42.480 |
Tim Keller, in his book called "Generous Justice"-- 00:39:51.480 |
It's made a huge impact, especially in the younger generation, 00:39:54.480 |
for the social justice movement in our generation. 00:39:58.480 |
I don't want to talk about what's happening outside the church, 00:40:03.480 |
What's popular in one generation is not popular in the next generation. 00:40:07.480 |
I'm concerned about what's happening inside the church, 00:40:10.480 |
how what is happening outside is penetrating inside the church. 00:40:17.480 |
because I've had so many conversations with people about this book 00:40:23.480 |
that I want to make sure that we're on the same page. 00:40:26.480 |
He says in this book, "If you do not actively and generously 00:40:41.480 |
because the whole book is about expounding on this thing that he has said. 00:40:49.480 |
and if a Christian does not share his wealth, 00:41:00.480 |
We're Bereans because our challenge and encouragement is, 00:41:03.480 |
test everything, even test what I'm saying today. 00:41:06.480 |
Test it with scripture, because especially right now, 00:41:09.480 |
there's so many things that are being said in the general atmosphere 00:41:18.480 |
and because it's being said in certain contexts, 00:41:23.480 |
and through certain people that are respected, 00:41:25.480 |
that we just assume, well, he said it, it must be true, 00:41:28.480 |
and there's certain things about that that is true, so it must be true. 00:41:38.480 |
If you've been with us studying the book of Titus, 00:41:40.480 |
it says one of the qualifications of an elder is that he cannot seek sordid gain, 00:41:45.480 |
meaning unjust gain, that he does not cheat people out and cut corners, 00:41:50.480 |
and does not have integrity in the way he makes money. 00:41:56.480 |
"Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness, 00:42:01.480 |
who uses his neighbor's services without pay, 00:42:10.480 |
but justice he's referring to are people who are taking advantage of the poor, 00:42:15.480 |
who are causing them to work and not giving them their fair pay. 00:42:21.480 |
"You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. 00:42:24.480 |
The wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning." 00:42:29.480 |
These are texts that are quoted in this book as an argument for his point, 00:42:36.480 |
that if you do not give to the poor, you are robbing, you are in sin. 00:42:39.480 |
And so that the term social justice is being thrown around in our generation, 00:42:48.480 |
because it is not justice that the Bible calls us to 00:42:57.480 |
unless they worked for you and you didn't give them their fair pay, 00:43:09.480 |
Now if you remember, justice is getting what you deserve. 00:43:15.480 |
Whether that is penalty of your sin, that's justice, 00:43:18.480 |
or whether you worked and a certain amount was promised to you, 00:43:29.480 |
Maybe you deserve to be punished, and God withholds the punishment, 00:43:35.480 |
Charity, or the word grace, is receiving something that you do not deserve. 00:43:41.480 |
That they are not required to give it to you, but they give it to you. 00:43:44.480 |
And that's the love that you and I have experienced in Christ. 00:43:47.480 |
And so the Bible calls us, the way that we discuss this topic, 00:43:52.480 |
when we use the term justice, there's a confusion in the church 00:44:02.480 |
Now let me tell you, the first problem that the church experiences 00:44:10.480 |
where if you remember, Ananias and Sapphira is inspired, 00:44:14.480 |
for whatever the reason, other people, other rich people, 00:44:17.480 |
who are selling their land, they're giving it to the poor, 00:44:21.480 |
And so they were being very gracious and generous with the wealth that they had, 00:44:28.480 |
Ananias and Sapphira decides that they're going to do the same thing, 00:44:32.480 |
but the problem with them was, instead of selling and then donating it all 00:44:37.480 |
to the church to be distributed, that they kept some of it, 00:44:40.480 |
and they lied to the church, pretending that all this was given to them. 00:44:45.480 |
And as a result of this lie, they are punished. 00:44:50.480 |
"But Peter said, 'Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit 00:44:55.480 |
and to keep back some of the price of the land? 00:44:58.480 |
While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? 00:45:02.480 |
And after it was sold, was it not under your control? 00:45:06.480 |
Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? 00:45:12.480 |
So this punishment wasn't because that they withheld some. 00:45:19.480 |
And the way that he describes it was, when before you sold it, 00:45:22.480 |
the land was yours, meaning it was not required of you. 00:45:25.480 |
When you sold it, nobody commanded you to do it. 00:45:28.480 |
You could have just held on to it, and you wouldn't have been guilty 00:45:34.480 |
So the sin was that he pretended to be generous while lying, holding some back. 00:45:43.480 |
The term "justice" and then using that term to say that this is the mission of the church, 00:45:50.480 |
this has to be one of the missions of the church, is a mistake. 00:45:58.480 |
If you study history, you'll know that there has been back and forth 00:46:05.480 |
of the rich people and the poor people, and the poor people rising up 00:46:10.480 |
and overthrowing the rich, and then after a while, the poor people will get rich, 00:46:14.480 |
and then the poor people will come up and rise against them. 00:46:17.480 |
And this social justice movement that we have seen in our generation 00:46:20.480 |
reminds me a lot of what I studied and saw for myself what was happening in China 00:46:29.480 |
In 1966, after the Communist Party took over, 00:46:34.480 |
they had this thing called the Cultural Revolution under the leadership of Mao Zedong, 00:46:41.480 |
And so poor farmers got together, and they felt that it was not fair. 00:46:47.480 |
It was unjust to have a certain portion of the population to be filthy rich, 00:46:52.480 |
and then the farmers have such a struggle in paying their bills 00:46:59.480 |
So this Cultural Revolution basically ignited poor young people, 00:47:04.480 |
and they wanted basically to overthrow those who were in power. 00:47:10.480 |
During this period, they went after anybody that represented the previous generation, 00:47:16.480 |
anybody who had wealth, anybody who was religious. 00:47:19.480 |
And so the Communist Party ignited these young people, 00:47:22.480 |
and during this period between 1966 and 1976, 00:47:26.480 |
they said anywhere from several million to up to 40 million people got executed. 00:47:31.480 |
We don't know the exact number because the Communist Party has never reported that, 00:47:37.480 |
because this is not something that they want people to know. 00:47:40.480 |
But the information that leaked out from China, people who were there, 00:47:45.480 |
they said it was probably closer to anywhere from 20 to 40 million people got executed. 00:47:51.480 |
When I was there in 1993, I went to visit major sites 00:47:57.480 |
because part of our trip was a mission trip to kind of have a vision trip toward China 00:48:01.480 |
because at that time Christianity, at least the outsiders, were just starting to come in. 00:48:10.480 |
So those of you who visited Beijing, you know the Forbidden City is one of the main attractions there. 00:48:14.480 |
And half of the Forbidden City was not open because during the Cultural Revolution, 00:48:20.480 |
We would go to the Summer Palace, and the majority of the Summer Palace was not open 00:48:27.480 |
We would go to the countryside, and any monument that represented 00:48:30.480 |
the previous generation's power was burned to the ground. 00:48:33.480 |
And so it took years for them to rebuild that. 00:48:37.480 |
Since then, they've spent billions of dollars rebuilding the Forbidden City, 00:48:41.480 |
rebuilding the Summer Palace, and all of this. 00:48:44.480 |
But what's ironic about all of this are the people who are rebuilding this 00:48:51.480 |
The young people who went and executed and forced themselves into power 00:48:56.480 |
because they wanted to make it equal, they're the ones who are in power now, 00:48:59.480 |
and they're using billions of dollars to rebuild the very things that they tore down. 00:49:04.480 |
Now I say this because the idea and the practice of justice 00:49:10.480 |
in the eyes of the world always leads to disenfranchisement 00:49:15.480 |
in the next generation and the next generation. 00:49:18.480 |
Does that mean that God doesn't want us to be charitable, 00:49:23.480 |
not to care about the poor, that you can just-- 00:49:26.480 |
if you're rich and you have all this money, that you have the freedom to do whatever you want? 00:49:33.480 |
I say all of this not because I'm trying to convince you that you can chase money 00:49:39.480 |
and it doesn't matter. Clearly, the Bible does not teach that. 00:49:42.480 |
But what is happening right now in our generation, in our culture, 00:49:52.480 |
So even the very language that we use to say it is social justice is unbiblical. 00:49:57.480 |
We would say it is social charity that God calls us to. 00:50:05.480 |
When I was younger, and I shared this with you before, 00:50:10.480 |
Esther and I, we thought we were going to commit to homeless ministry. 00:50:16.480 |
In fact, to this day, my Costco card says "Axe Homeless Ministry" 00:50:20.480 |
because I got the Costco card because it was a cheaper way to buy hot dogs. 00:50:28.480 |
I don't know how much it is now, but it was for $6 I can get 50 hot dogs. 00:50:34.480 |
But I bought two packs of those and we were able to feed about 100 homeless every week, 00:50:37.480 |
and then got some hot chocolate, and then some people would donate some old stale donuts, 00:50:42.480 |
and that's what we took out in the street every Tuesday. 00:50:45.480 |
But during that period, I was very upset with the church. 00:50:51.480 |
In fact, I was up in Canada, and we were attending this service, 00:50:56.480 |
and there was a homeless man outside begging for money, 00:50:59.480 |
and I saw all these people, hundreds of people just walked by. 00:51:02.480 |
And I would be angered because I was so wanting to see this ministry take off, 00:51:08.480 |
and I really felt like that's what God wanted me to do. 00:51:11.480 |
And so there was a slogan that I picked up, and I would preach this everywhere I go. 00:51:18.480 |
And the slogan was, "A condemnation to the church, 00:51:22.480 |
how can you worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore a homeless man on Monday?" 00:51:31.480 |
If I could make t-shirts, I would have made hundreds of t-shirts and passed it out. 00:51:35.480 |
"How can you worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore that homeless man on Monday?" 00:51:44.480 |
And my preaching was as angry as you can get because I felt like, 00:51:49.480 |
"How can you take the gospel seriously if you don't care about the poor? 00:51:55.480 |
How can we possibly go out there and represent Christ if you don't actively give attention to this?" 00:52:00.480 |
So that was my passion. I was a youth pastor and then a college pastor, 00:52:04.480 |
but my real passion was to try to help the homeless and try to get as many people involved. 00:52:09.480 |
And that's why I started AXE Ministry, an accented for Alliance of Christians Trained for Service, homeless ministry. 00:52:18.480 |
But after years of trying to help people off the streets, I gathered enough money. 00:52:26.480 |
And I remember Jin, Jin sitting back there, we had a, we had a, I forgot what it was. 00:52:31.480 |
We had this fundraiser and we sold tapes, you know, and Jin was there when we did that. 00:52:38.480 |
And we had bands that performed and we would sell that and the proceeds that came from that, 00:52:46.480 |
But after years of doing that, I ran into frustration after frustration after frustration 00:52:50.480 |
because I thought, just like probably many of us here think, they're homeless. 00:52:55.480 |
So if I can get them off the street, feed them, help them get a job, 00:52:59.480 |
and then disciple them in the process, that would be great. 00:53:04.480 |
After years of offering and some even, you know, putting them into hotels, paying their bills, 00:53:13.480 |
I would run into moms who had young children living out of their car, 00:53:17.480 |
and then we would put them in a hotel, buy the food, pay for the motel, 00:53:21.480 |
and then try to meet up with them and share the gospel with them. 00:53:24.480 |
After years of doing this, and again, some of them even at our house, 00:53:29.480 |
after years of doing this, I've never seen any progress. 00:53:33.480 |
And the biggest frustration that I ran into is more than that, they didn't want to get off the street. 00:53:40.480 |
I said, I'm offering a place to stay for free, help you get a job, food, discipleship, 00:53:50.480 |
And what I learned from that was homelessness was the symptom, not the problem. 00:53:57.480 |
Our natural inclination is because we have homes and we're wealthy and they don't have it, 00:54:02.480 |
so if we give it to them and then they get off the street, problem solved. 00:54:08.480 |
Most of the people that I met out on the street were out on the street 00:54:11.480 |
because they'd lost desire to run this rat race. 00:54:15.480 |
Something happened. Drugs, family tragedy, something happened, 00:54:21.480 |
and they no longer want to run this race and they'd rather be out on the street. 00:54:25.480 |
And what I realized, that this problem was not simple, 00:54:29.480 |
that this problem of homelessness was not financial, it was spiritual. 00:54:35.480 |
And so as much as I didn't want to be involved with the church, 00:54:40.480 |
as much as I was angered with the church, my paradigm started shifting 00:54:45.480 |
because I realized until the church is healthy, 00:54:48.480 |
all we're doing is plugging up holes in a dam that is going to break. 00:54:53.480 |
And we're not fixing any problem, all we're doing is solving surface problems, 00:54:59.480 |
1 Corinthians 1, 21-25 says, "For since in the wisdom of God, 00:55:03.480 |
the world through its wisdom did not come to know God." 00:55:08.480 |
The problem with mankind is that we've been separated because of our sins. 00:55:13.480 |
And God, who is the author of life, that mankind has no access to him. 00:55:19.480 |
And he says, "Through all of man's wisdom, all the man's effort could not bring him to God." 00:55:24.480 |
And so homelessness, drug addiction, sex trafficking, family issues, 00:55:32.480 |
all of it is related to this problem because we have been separated from the God of the universe, 00:55:39.480 |
He says, "All through mankind, history through their wisdom could not come to know God. 00:55:44.480 |
God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 00:55:51.480 |
For indeed, Jews ask for signs, Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. 00:55:55.480 |
To Jews, a stumbling block, and Gentiles, foolishness, 00:55:57.480 |
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, 00:56:02.480 |
and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, 00:56:05.480 |
and the weakness of God is stronger than men." 00:56:09.480 |
And I realized that until the church is reformed, until the church is healthy, 00:56:15.480 |
that all the work that we're doing, all the mission work, and all the mercy ministry that we do, 00:56:21.480 |
eventually get poured into an unhealthy church. 00:56:26.480 |
And we just recycle the problem that came down from us from generation to generation. 00:56:31.480 |
That's what caused me to commit to the church. 00:56:35.480 |
Because what I wanted to see, not because I've given up on the mercy ministry, 00:56:41.480 |
but until the church is reformed, until the church is healthy, 00:56:45.480 |
like I said, I realized all we're doing is plugging up a hole in a dam that eventually is going to break. 00:56:52.480 |
Does this mean mercy ministry is not important? Absolutely not. 00:56:57.480 |
Everything that I felt at that time was because I was seeing it in Scripture. 00:57:03.480 |
Because I was reading it. It wasn't because I had some sort of special affection for homelessness. 00:57:07.480 |
It wasn't because, "Oh, I was homeless, so now I know how they feel." 00:57:11.480 |
No, I was reading Scripture. I was doing quiet time. I was doing inductive Bible study, 00:57:15.480 |
and I would go passage after passage after passage, the Bible calling us to care for those who are suffering, 00:57:24.480 |
I want to show you from this text two things that we need to know in order to practice what the Bible says, 00:57:34.480 |
social charity, not necessarily social justice. 00:57:37.480 |
Number one, we practice charity to reflect who God is. 00:57:43.480 |
Remember we talked about Jesus said to his disciples, "They will know you," by what? 00:57:50.480 |
By the love that you practice with them, "as I have loved you." 00:57:54.480 |
And it wasn't just any kind of love. Remember we talked about that last week, 00:57:57.480 |
that this commandment to love your neighbor was not a new commandment in the Old Testament. 00:58:02.480 |
It was not a new commandment that all of a sudden, they've never heard this before. 00:58:06.480 |
No, it's repeated all throughout the Old Testament. The new commandment was, he said, "as I have loved you." 00:58:16.480 |
Love people who may not be able to pay you back. Love people beyond your comfort zone. 00:58:29.480 |
And so the kind of love that he calls us to is what reflects who he is. 00:58:35.480 |
You and I were created to be what? To be reflectors of his image. 00:58:41.480 |
Right? "Imagio Dei." That's what the theologians call it. 00:58:47.480 |
And Jesus says, "That image that I want you to bear is the kind of love that I practice with you." 00:58:54.480 |
In Luke chapter 14, 12-14, he says, "And he also went on to say to the one who had invited him, 00:58:59.480 |
'When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors. 00:59:05.480 |
Otherwise, they may also invite you in in return, and that will be your repayment. 00:59:12.480 |
But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, 00:59:17.480 |
since they do not have the means to repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.'" 00:59:23.480 |
The word that he uses here last week was "philadelphia," love of brethren. 00:59:29.480 |
Here it's "philazenia," and the word "zenia" basically means strangers, people who are outside of our comfort zone. 00:59:37.480 |
So the scripture tells us that we practice charity because it reflects his charity for us. 00:59:44.480 |
And it is clear that in the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, it's the same God. 00:59:50.480 |
In Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 19, it says, "So show your love for the alien, for you are aliens in the land of Egypt. 00:59:57.480 |
Because God was merciful to you, be merciful to the aliens." 01:00:03.480 |
"When you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, 01:00:08.480 |
nor gather the gleaning of your harvest. You are to leave them for the needy and the alien. 01:00:16.480 |
I don't know about you, but I remember the first time reading that, and I was thinking, "Why does he care?" 01:00:24.480 |
I mean, imagine, in his mind, at some point, he's going to have to sacrifice his son to save the lost. 01:00:33.480 |
But in the process of this redemptive history, he gives attention to nobodies, just aliens, strangers. 01:00:44.480 |
He said, "When you harvest your field, leave a portion of them so that the poor and the needy and the orphans can have some of that." 01:00:51.480 |
Now, you and I don't farm, so it's kind of the imagery doesn't really hit us like it should. 01:00:57.480 |
I think what's equivalent to now is, if you're getting a paycheck, you give a portion to the government, you pay your tithe, 01:01:04.480 |
and then God says, "Another portion of your paycheck, put it in a bag and leave it outside." 01:01:11.480 |
That makes it more real, right? Because we don't farm. 01:01:15.480 |
So you say, "Oh, what's the big deal? We'll gather this, and this part, we'll give it to them." 01:01:19.480 |
Well, that was their wealth. That's what they harvested to feed their children. 01:01:27.480 |
So when he says to leave a portion of that, basically he's saying, "Take a portion of your paycheck and leave it outside." 01:01:43.480 |
God had always concern for those who are in need. 01:01:46.480 |
God says God is near to those who are, what, brokenhearted. 01:01:50.480 |
In Psalm 146.9, it says, "The Lord protects the strangers. 01:01:53.480 |
He supports the fatherless and the widow, but he thwarts the way of the wicked." 01:01:59.480 |
When the Bible says that he counts the very hair on our head, he's not just saying that. 01:02:05.480 |
You see it throughout redemptive history, all through it. 01:02:09.480 |
And so he calls us that because you and I were strangers at one point, 01:02:14.480 |
you and I were recipients of this love that you and I didn't deserve. 01:02:17.480 |
He says, he calls us as Christians that we ought to reflect this love. 01:02:22.480 |
Not just the love of your neighbor, not just the love of your children, 01:02:25.480 |
but strangers that you went out to be hospitable deliberately. 01:02:32.480 |
In 1 John 3, 17-18, "But whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need 01:02:38.480 |
and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?" 01:02:43.480 |
How can you proclaim the love of God and how gracious he's been 01:02:50.480 |
How can you say that you won the lottery and be so stingy with your money? 01:02:56.480 |
James 1, verse 27, "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this, 01:03:02.480 |
to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world." 01:03:10.480 |
That word, philisania, is to invite people into your homes. 01:03:17.480 |
That's literally to love people who cannot help you, love people who can't pay you back. 01:03:25.480 |
You know, one thing that I learned is as I was doing homeless ministry, 01:03:34.480 |
I've never heard anybody say, "What is wrong with you trying to help the poor?" 01:03:41.480 |
And it was never really that hard to raise money, to collect, "Hey, we're going to go feed the homeless. 01:03:47.480 |
And people are generous, especially if you're doing orphan care. 01:03:53.480 |
"Hey, I want to help. I've been praying about helping the orphans, so can I give you some money?" 01:03:58.480 |
What I realized was as long as I went out on the street to help them, 01:04:07.480 |
But when I started getting pushback was when I started bringing them to the church. 01:04:15.480 |
I remember the first guy that I brought to church, you know, and he was hooked on crack. 01:04:21.480 |
And so he would lose his shoes out on the street. 01:04:25.480 |
So our church guys decided to celebrate his birthday, and they bought him $120 Michael Jordan. 01:04:31.480 |
$120 now may not sound like a lot of money, but back then it was like buying this guy who's hooked on crack, 01:04:41.480 |
He was good at basketball, so he fit right in. 01:04:43.480 |
And so we were doing that, but after a while people started feeling uncomfortable because he doesn't have money. 01:04:50.480 |
Every time we went out to eat, somebody had to spot him. 01:04:54.480 |
I mean, it's one thing to have him and do mercy ministry out there, 01:04:58.480 |
but it's another thing when we brought him into the church. 01:05:02.480 |
And then when we brought him into my house, people who were like, "Oh, yeah, Peter, that's great. 01:05:08.480 |
You know, you're doing mercy ministry, homeless ministry." 01:05:10.480 |
And all of a sudden it's like, "What are you doing? 01:05:18.480 |
As long as we're keeping our home safe, we can be generous. 01:05:25.480 |
As long as we're comfortable, as long as we have all that we need and out of abundance, okay, they can have it. 01:05:31.480 |
And we're the same way when we go to short-term missions. 01:05:34.480 |
We go out there and we're bold for Jesus Christ. 01:05:39.480 |
But we have such a hard time even mentioning Christianity to our coworkers. 01:05:44.480 |
So we have a tendency to practice love from a safe distance. 01:05:49.480 |
But this word, "As Christ in every way being God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 01:06:01.480 |
but he emptied himself, became nothing, and he walked among us." 01:06:06.480 |
Imagine how uncomfortable it is for us to come out of our comfort zone 01:06:18.480 |
Where we buy our house, where we work, where do we go, where we go on vacation. 01:06:27.480 |
This word, "Philisania," is a challenge to go beyond that, as Christ did for us. 01:06:34.480 |
To bring them into not just our homes, but to break beyond our comfort zone, 01:06:41.480 |
so that our love would exceed and go beyond just the superficial. 01:06:46.480 |
Now, the Bible is not, I mean, there's nothing that says, "Oh, we can't help the poor. We can't do this." 01:06:53.480 |
But again, we need to understand biblically what he's talking about. 01:06:58.480 |
Secondly, one, charity is to reflect his nature and who he is. 01:07:05.480 |
But number two, and this is the part that I really want you guys to understand. 01:07:09.480 |
Because the way that social justice is being practiced today 01:07:13.480 |
completely misses the mark of what the scripture teaches about this. 01:07:17.480 |
Number two, we practice charity to advance the gospel. 01:07:27.480 |
Never in the New Testament will you find where the church is challenged 01:07:32.480 |
to go look out for homeless people out on the street. 01:07:37.480 |
I'm going to explain that, and some of you guys are going to say, "What?" 01:07:41.480 |
Find me one passage in the Bible, and we'll have a conversation, 01:07:45.480 |
where God calls the charity to help the poor outside of the context of the gospel being spread. 01:07:54.480 |
Charity is to be practiced in the context of sharing the gospel. 01:07:57.480 |
He said, "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers." 01:08:02.480 |
Now, who are these strangers he's referring to? 01:08:04.480 |
Was it just at that time just a lot of homeless people just walking around, 01:08:08.480 |
and he's saying just generically if you find homeless people, 01:08:11.480 |
that you would open up your home and bring them into your home? 01:08:19.480 |
today if we were going out of town and we're going into the city, 01:08:22.480 |
the first thing you would do is you would book your flight, book a hotel, 01:08:27.480 |
find out the nice places to visit maybe, and then you find food, 01:08:32.480 |
And then if you happen to have a friend there, you might go to their house just to save some money. 01:08:36.480 |
Well, at that time, it was almost impossible to travel 01:08:40.480 |
if you didn't have help from the villages that you went. 01:08:44.480 |
And so when he says to show hospitality to strangers, 01:08:47.480 |
and I'm going to prove my point through scripture, 01:08:51.480 |
that he is specifically referring to people who are coming into town in the context of sharing the gospel, 01:08:58.480 |
just like all the apostles who went from village to village. 01:09:02.480 |
When Jesus sent out his 12 disciples on a short-term mission trip, 01:09:13.480 |
"He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me. 01:09:19.480 |
He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward, 01:09:23.480 |
and he who receives a righteous man in the name of the righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. 01:09:29.480 |
And whoever in the name of the disciples gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, 01:09:35.480 |
truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward." 01:09:38.480 |
He told his disciples that when you go on this mission trip, don't take food. 01:09:42.480 |
Don't take things because you're going to go in, and if they receive you, then bless this home. 01:09:47.480 |
And if they don't receive you, shake off your dust and continue to go. 01:09:54.480 |
This is how information and the philosophers ended up spreading the right doctrine and even the wrong doctrine. 01:10:02.480 |
So to receive a stranger means that you are receiving not only the stranger, but what he represents. 01:10:12.480 |
Now, the negative part of that in 2 John 10-11, this is what he says. 01:10:18.480 |
"If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, 01:10:23.480 |
and do not give him a greeting, for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds." 01:10:30.480 |
So to practice hospitality, meaning you bring somebody into your home, basically means to support their work. 01:10:40.480 |
So this was not devoid of the spreading of the gospel. 01:10:44.480 |
In fact, he gives the same instruction in Luke 10 when he sends out the 70 disciples, 01:10:49.480 |
and he says, "When you go out, do not carry money or bags or shoes." 01:10:53.480 |
And he says, "If they receive you, bless them, and then receive their help. 01:10:58.480 |
If they don't, shake off your dust and go move on." 01:11:02.480 |
So when he says to remember and be hospitable, he's telling within the context. 01:11:09.480 |
It's not saying that we shouldn't help the poor whether they're Christians or not. 01:11:18.480 |
That charity is not a separate ministry from the gospel ministry, the way that it is being practiced today, 01:11:26.480 |
where you have mission department, and then we have a mercy department. 01:11:37.480 |
I remember years ago when we first started going into India, and I asked Pastor Matthew, 01:11:43.480 |
some of you guys who were with us, and I wanted to find out. 01:11:47.480 |
I wanted to hear about his testimony because I kept on hearing about his testimony through his son. 01:11:51.480 |
So I had an opportunity to talk to him, and I asked him, "What was it like early on?" 01:11:56.480 |
Because he just went from village to village with his four small children to preach the gospel without any support. 01:12:02.480 |
So he said, "Those guys who went to India with us, we're in a remote area in the city, 01:12:09.480 |
but we have to take the van somewhere anywhere between an hour to two hours just to get into the village in a van." 01:12:16.480 |
But with no support, he would walk from village to village. 01:12:20.480 |
So him and his four children, who used to be a Hindu priest, and now he's excommunicated from his family. 01:12:28.480 |
He's just doing this on his own because God laid this burden to preach the gospel. 01:12:32.480 |
He told me that he would go to the village and he would share the gospel. 01:12:35.480 |
If they received him, they would feed them and they would house them. 01:12:40.480 |
If they didn't receive him, sometimes they would be hassans, and they would throw rocks at them to chew them away. 01:12:46.480 |
I would ask him, "So what would you do when that happened?" 01:12:49.480 |
He said, "Well, we would just sleep out in the field, and we weren't able to eat. 01:13:00.480 |
This is the kind of stuff that you read in history books." 01:13:03.480 |
So I asked his children when I had time, just to kind of--I'm being a detective. 01:13:10.480 |
I'm trying to--like, "Is this guy making this up? Is this real?" 01:13:13.480 |
So I would ask these--and they would tell me, they said, "How much they hated going to these villages with his dad 01:13:21.480 |
because they remember so vividly when they were children sleeping out in the field and going hungry. 01:13:27.480 |
And so when they grew up, they determined not to follow Christ, and all three of them became pastors." 01:13:36.480 |
You guys know Pastor David, he was in pharmacy school. 01:13:41.480 |
In the middle of that, he dropped out and became a pastor. 01:13:43.480 |
And then the youngest daughter ended up marrying a pastor. 01:13:47.480 |
But they were telling me how much they hated going to village to village with their dad. 01:13:51.480 |
And so I went and talked to Pastor Matthew, and I asked him, "Man, that must have been hard." 01:13:57.480 |
And he said, "Yeah, I actually considered taking my life." 01:14:02.480 |
And I said, "That's a weird thing to say as a pastor." 01:14:07.480 |
He said, "At that time, I considered taking my life because this burden to preach the gospel was so heavy on him 01:14:17.480 |
He saw his children not being able to eat, sleeping out in the fields. 01:14:21.480 |
And so he thought that if he disappeared, that this burden would be lifted from his family." 01:14:38.480 |
We were very slow to get involved with India because of my skepticism. 01:14:44.480 |
Through the years of interacting with these pastors, that's exactly how the gospel spread over there. 01:14:50.480 |
They went from village to village, walking without support. 01:14:55.480 |
In fact, majority of human history, majority of the church history, the gospel spread in that way. 01:15:01.480 |
What you and I have now, just getting on an air-conditioned airplane, sometimes business class, 01:15:07.480 |
to get over there, sleep in a nice hotel while we're texting with our friends, 01:15:10.480 |
and taking selfies and putting it up for people to see way over here. 01:15:14.480 |
I mean, that's fantastic that we have the avenue to do that, but that's not how the gospel spread. 01:15:21.480 |
For majority of human history, people picked up their cross, literally gave their life. 01:15:26.480 |
Some of you guys are old enough to remember when we said bye to missionaries when we were children, 01:15:36.480 |
Many of them couldn't afford airplane tickets, so they got on boats. 01:15:40.480 |
Some of you guys are old enough to remember that. 01:15:43.480 |
And when they said bye, we all said bye, thinking we're not going to see them again. 01:15:50.480 |
He's talking within that context, to be hospitable when they come into town. 01:15:56.480 |
And it is in that context he says, he says to them, 01:16:02.480 |
he says, "Remember the prisoners as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, 01:16:06.480 |
since you yourself also are," what? "in the body." 01:16:12.480 |
Who are in prison? Is he just talking about anybody who committed crime who happens to be in prison? No. 01:16:16.480 |
He's referring to Christians who are being dragged in. 01:16:19.480 |
The reason why they were drifting is because it became hard to be a Christian. 01:16:23.480 |
And he's reminding them, remember, in Hebrews chapter 10, 32-35, 01:16:27.480 |
"But remember the former days when after being enlightened, you endured great conflict and suffering, 01:16:32.480 |
partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, 01:16:35.480 |
and partly by becoming sharers with those who were also mistreated. 01:16:40.480 |
For you showed sympathy to the prisoners, accepted joyfully seizure of your property, 01:16:44.480 |
knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a last one. 01:16:47.480 |
Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward." 01:16:51.480 |
So he's not randomly saying, "Go visit prisoners." 01:16:54.480 |
He's talking about Christians who have been caught, 01:16:57.480 |
and they are suffering for the purpose of their faith in the context of sharing the gospel. 01:17:03.480 |
So the show of charity clearly is in the context of the gospel ministry. 01:17:11.480 |
"And in proportion that any of the disciples had means, 01:17:14.480 |
each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the," what? "brethren living in Judea." 01:17:20.480 |
Romans 15, 26, "For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem." 01:17:27.480 |
1 Corinthians 16, 1, "Now considering the collection for the saints, 01:17:30.480 |
as I directed in churches of Galatia, so you do also the same for the saints." 01:17:34.480 |
2 Corinthians 8, 3-4, "For I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability, 01:17:39.480 |
they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of," what? "of the saints." 01:17:48.480 |
Repeatedly, over and over and over again, every challenge for us to practice charity is within the context of spreading the gospel. 01:17:58.480 |
They are not two separate events. They are the same thing. 01:18:06.480 |
We are called to be charitable, to reflect who he is. 01:18:11.480 |
One of the texts that we probably use the most to challenge churches to be mindful of those who are in need 01:18:20.480 |
is found in Matthew chapter 25, and you know the text. 01:18:24.480 |
The text goes, "He who has done it unto the least of my children has done it unto me." 01:18:29.480 |
He who has done it, basically, has done it unto me, right? 01:18:34.480 |
And we use that text in saying, like, when you see the poor and you take care of them, 01:18:38.480 |
that this is our way of showing support to our God, right? 01:18:43.480 |
Which is not wrong, but if you remember in Matthew chapter 24, what's Matthew chapter 24? 01:18:52.480 |
It's Jesus' final teaching about the end times, and this is where he says that all the tribulations, 01:18:58.480 |
all these things are coming, and persecution is coming, and he says, 01:19:02.480 |
"Because there's going to be increase in wickedness, the love of most will grow cold," 01:19:06.480 |
and in chapter 25, he goes into the parable of the end times. 01:19:11.480 |
And so it's in that context, the last thing that he says is here. 01:19:16.480 |
So the context of this parable, the context of this teaching, is preparing for the coming of Christ 01:19:21.480 |
and being faithful and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, and it's in that context that Jesus says, 01:19:27.480 |
in verse 35, "For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. 01:19:30.480 |
I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. 01:19:39.480 |
Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, 01:19:45.480 |
And when did we see you stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? 01:19:50.480 |
When did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?'" 01:19:55.480 |
Jesus responds in verse 30, "The king will answer and say to them, 01:19:58.480 |
'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these," what? 01:20:03.480 |
"Brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me.'" 01:20:10.480 |
He's telling us this in the context of the gospel ministry, being faithful, to be fruitful. 01:20:16.480 |
And at the end, as we are being faithful, he who has received them, our hospital, 01:20:21.480 |
visited them while they were in prison, while they were suffering for his name. 01:20:30.480 |
Does this mean that he is telling us that we don't need to worry about those who are suffering, 01:20:40.480 |
Because we are to reflect his grace. We are to reflect his mercy for us. 01:20:45.480 |
But the primary call to Christians and to the church to be charitable 01:20:54.480 |
Because until people are transformed and regenerated with the gospel of Jesus Christ, 01:21:01.480 |
thinking that we are somehow going to move somebody from homelessness to homelessness, 01:21:09.480 |
The problem with sex trafficking isn't simply the lust of certain men. 01:21:17.480 |
Poverty, sex trafficking, homelessness, political unrest, 01:21:25.480 |
The Bible says that sin, when it came in, it reigns over mankind. 01:21:30.480 |
It has not just affected one thing. It affected our relationships. 01:21:33.480 |
It affected our marriages. It affected our economy, our politics. 01:21:39.480 |
Our sense of right and wrong, the rich and poor, it affected everything. 01:21:44.480 |
Until the gospel comes into an individual's life, 01:21:48.480 |
and there is a transformation that takes place in their heart and in their lives, 01:21:53.480 |
they will not and cannot practice the charity that he calls us to practice. 01:21:59.480 |
We can be slightly generous. We can be good moral people. 01:22:05.480 |
But the love that he tells us to practice can only be practiced 01:22:16.480 |
We need to be charitable to reflect who he is. 01:22:21.480 |
We also need to be charitable and engage in the ministry that God called us to. 01:22:29.480 |
I have shared with you, like every once in a while I'll share with you, 01:22:35.480 |
about the persecution that's going on around the world. 01:22:39.480 |
And I'm not telling you this just so that you can feel bad, 01:22:48.480 |
That the calling that he has given us, that in the context of sharing the gospel, 01:22:51.480 |
that you and I, whether they live in North Korea, whether they live in India or China, 01:22:56.480 |
that we are all connected as brothers in Christ. 01:22:58.480 |
That even though we may not know them, they are our neighbors. 01:23:03.480 |
And as they suffer, we ought to suffer with them. 01:23:05.480 |
As they pray, as they are spreading the gospel, we are to pray with them. 01:23:10.480 |
But our tendency, if we're not careful, is to, "I don't see them." 01:23:17.480 |
And because I don't see them, they're not my neighbor. 01:23:21.480 |
I remember years ago, I had a sister in the church, years ago, 01:23:26.480 |
and I think this is one of the most honest confessions that I've heard. 01:23:31.480 |
We were on this topic of talking about mercy ministry and about caring for the poor 01:23:37.480 |
And she said to me, honestly, "I didn't know." 01:23:47.480 |
She said, "I didn't know because I didn't want to know 01:23:54.480 |
Because every time I hear about the suffering of our brothers and sisters around the world, 01:24:01.480 |
And so she said, every time information would come, 01:24:04.480 |
she would either ignore it or give a glazed look, 01:24:07.480 |
and then she said, "Well, I didn't. I claim ignorance." 01:24:14.480 |
She said, "I didn't know, but it was deliberate because I didn't. 01:24:21.480 |
You know, I've been preaching long enough to know, and I could be wrong. 01:24:26.480 |
I've been preaching long enough to be able to see in your face 01:24:30.480 |
whether the Word of God is getting into you or not. 01:24:38.480 |
Because you can tell when the Word of God is preached, 01:24:43.480 |
and there is a glazed look because they don't want to know. 01:24:47.480 |
And so it's better to kind of have a vague understanding of who God is, 01:24:53.480 |
because we don't want God's Spirit coming into-- 01:24:57.480 |
like, I will meet God in the porch, but not inside the house. 01:25:07.480 |
Maybe I'll allow it, but don't open the closet. 01:25:11.480 |
And so we have a tendency to deliberately remain in ignorance 01:25:15.480 |
and keep God at distance because it makes us feel uncomfortable. 01:25:21.480 |
That word, "hospital," "love of strangers," "hospitality," 01:25:31.480 |
and to recognize that He, in every way, God-- 01:25:36.480 |
consider equality with God not to be grasped, 01:25:38.480 |
but He emptied Himself, became nothing, He walked among us. 01:25:41.480 |
We usually think about His suffering on the cross, 01:25:44.480 |
but Him, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 01:25:51.480 |
How much does it take for us to even just get on our knees 01:25:56.480 |
When we're in neighborhoods that we're not familiar with, 01:25:59.480 |
when we have food that we're not familiar with, 01:26:04.480 |
It's hard for us to be humble, even with our wives and our husbands. 01:26:10.480 |
Jesus stepped off of His throne and walked among us, 01:26:14.480 |
humiliated Himself, in order that you and I can be saved. 01:26:21.480 |
That's what He's calling us to do--to examine, 01:26:28.480 |
to live in such a way where His love is being reflected above us. 01:26:33.480 |
Non-Christians practice love for their brothers and sisters, 01:26:43.480 |
Christian love is what He's talking about here. 01:26:50.480 |
I had a friend who asked me to come out to India. 01:26:53.480 |
You were heavily involved with China, and we're busy here. 01:26:56.480 |
I went to India because he asked me to go and preach 01:26:59.480 |
and to train the pastors who were there, and I happened to go 01:27:04.480 |
Then while I was in India, my eyes got opened. 01:27:08.480 |
The way it got opened was I found out the heaviest concentration 01:27:17.480 |
I always thought it was a 1040 window in the Middle East, 01:27:21.480 |
The heaviest concentration of poverty was also in India. 01:27:25.480 |
I didn't know that. I thought it was somewhere in Africa. 01:27:29.480 |
Heaviest concentration of illiteracy in the villages-- 01:27:32.480 |
there are parts of India that's getting very wealthy, 01:27:36.480 |
but the heaviest concentration of poverty was also in India. 01:27:41.480 |
I found out the heaviest concentration of sex trafficking 01:27:48.480 |
I wanted to know--even though I didn't have a heart, 01:27:53.480 |
God opened the door and said, "Okay, I could either say no 01:27:58.480 |
It just happened that we had connection with the pastors, 01:28:08.480 |
Since we've gone there, I can honestly tell you 01:28:11.480 |
that some of the things that we've experienced and seen-- 01:28:14.480 |
and it helped me to understand what was going on 01:28:24.480 |
we were doing our work, and I could hear there was a buzz, 01:28:27.480 |
and some of the pastors came and ran to get me, 01:28:32.480 |
So I went with the pastors, and I could see this young lady, 01:28:35.480 |
and she must have been no more than about 25, 26 years old, 01:28:41.480 |
probably no more than about 3 to 4 months old. 01:28:46.480 |
it was struggling to breathe, and she's desperate. 01:29:00.480 |
and obviously all of us, the pastors that called me to that, 01:29:06.480 |
but we were also very saddened because we could tell 01:29:09.480 |
whether the child lives another few days or a few months, 01:29:26.480 |
that if she had access to the hospital early on, 01:29:34.480 |
And she was in tears, and as we were praying, she was crying. 01:29:42.480 |
but at the end of the day, it was already too late for the child. 01:29:49.480 |
it would have just been one run to the hospital, and that's it. 01:29:52.480 |
But because she didn't have access, her child was going to die. 01:29:57.480 |
We were in Romania one year, and we were out in the remotest parts, 01:30:04.480 |
we found a big hole in the side of one of her legs 01:30:09.480 |
And then she said she had the same problem on the other leg, 01:30:11.480 |
so we opened that up because we had medical workers there with us, 01:30:15.480 |
and the nurse looked at it and said, "This is really bad." 01:30:18.480 |
That most likely, in order to save her, that she has to amputate her legs. 01:30:28.480 |
She was out in the field, and she got bit by a mosquito. 01:30:34.480 |
All she probably needed earlier on was some antibiotics, 01:30:41.480 |
So we didn't know if she was going to be able to live or not. 01:30:46.480 |
After we left, was she going to be able to go to the hospital? 01:30:48.480 |
Even the amputation is going to cost a lot of money. 01:30:51.480 |
And I remember coming back from that trip thinking, 01:31:01.480 |
But we have brothers and sisters around the world who are dying 01:31:08.480 |
We have children dying in their mother's arms 01:31:12.480 |
because they don't have access to a hospital. 01:31:18.480 |
If you remember, also in India, there was this young lady, 01:31:22.480 |
another lady, and they might have been on the same trip. 01:31:31.480 |
He said that she became a Christian, and she joined the church, 01:31:36.480 |
and her family was infuriated that she became a Christian. 01:31:43.480 |
her husband fell into some kind of illness, and he ended up dying. 01:31:48.480 |
And as a result of that, the family blamed her. 01:31:52.480 |
They said, "Tragedy came into our home because you disrespected our God." 01:31:56.480 |
And so they disowned her and basically kicked her and her children out. 01:32:04.480 |
Some of you guys may remember, I came back, and I asked 01:32:15.480 |
Some of you guys were very generous, so we sent the money back 01:32:18.480 |
and asked the pastor to make sure that she's taken care of. 01:32:21.480 |
And because she was taken care of, she had enough to not only feed herself, 01:32:24.480 |
she started feeding her in-laws because her husband was a primary breadwinner. 01:32:30.480 |
And as a result of the generosity, her in-laws not only received their back, 01:32:40.480 |
They called the pastors and asked, "Tell me about your God." 01:32:45.480 |
And they were able to share the gospel with the in-laws, 01:32:48.480 |
and that whole family came to faith as a result of some of your generosity. 01:33:00.480 |
The gospel ministry and the mercy ministry are not separate things. 01:33:06.480 |
He calls us to be charitable, to be gracious, to be merciful. 01:33:13.480 |
We cannot live in a world with all the resources that you and I have 01:33:26.480 |
and somehow think that we are being the aroma of Christ. 01:33:30.480 |
But it is not justice that he calls. It's charity. 01:33:41.480 |
Not simply because they're hungry, not simply because people are in need, 01:33:46.480 |
because it gives us a platform to tell them about Jesus Christ. 01:33:59.480 |
What's sweeping the world in our generation that has penetrated into this church 01:34:09.480 |
And I want to warn you and I want to encourage you, 01:34:12.480 |
because so many false teachings that is only skewed just a little bit, 01:34:19.480 |
that sometimes is hard to tell, is penetrating into the church in every which way, 01:34:38.480 |
Don't tell me that this is what church history practiced. 01:34:41.480 |
Don't tell me all your other Christian friends believe this. 01:34:44.480 |
You must not turn from the Word of God to the left or to the right. 01:34:52.480 |
Examine the passage that I quoted and make sure that it's the voice of God that we're following, 01:35:01.480 |
So yes, in conclusion, we must be charitable for the sake of his name. 01:35:07.480 |
And I got--remember I told you I had this slogan that I live with, 01:35:13.480 |
"How can you worship a homeless man on Sunday and not worship him, 01:35:23.480 |
I picked up from a friend a while back, and this is the slogan. 01:35:26.480 |
And I'm not going to explain it to you, so if you don't get it, let it sink in, 01:35:34.480 |
If your face is bigger than your cause, then your face is too big. 01:35:45.480 |
If your face is bigger than your cause, then your face is too big. 01:36:00.480 |
then preach the gospel in season and out of season. 01:36:09.480 |
I'm going to pray for us as our worship team leads, 01:36:12.480 |
and usually I'll just give a few minutes for you, 01:36:14.480 |
but I want to pray for all of us, and then after our worship team comes, 01:36:27.480 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you that we live in a country that's free. 01:36:32.480 |
We thank you that our children are taken care of. 01:36:36.480 |
We thank you, Lord God, that we have wealth that others do not have 01:36:45.480 |
not to worry about what we're going to feed our children each day, 01:36:49.480 |
to be able to gather in a nice building without concern of a physical threat. 01:36:55.480 |
Help us, Lord God, to be good stewards of everything that you've given us. 01:36:59.480 |
Help us, Lord, to open our eyes to see the suffering around us, Lord God, 01:37:03.480 |
that we do not insulate ourselves from the suffering of the world. 01:37:07.480 |
As you saw the multitudes, Lord, and you had compassion on them 01:37:11.480 |
because they were like sheep without shepherd being tossed back and forth. 01:37:15.480 |
As you pleaded with your disciples, Lord, to beseech the Lord of the harvest 01:37:19.480 |
to send out more workers, Lord, we beseech you that you would raise up men 01:37:23.480 |
and women, Lord God, even in this congregation, 01:37:27.480 |
that you would help us to take our eyes off of ourselves 01:37:31.480 |
and know, Father God, that eternity is coming, 01:37:35.480 |
that we would not be satisfied with our bills being paid, 01:37:39.480 |
with our children being saved, but that we would truly live 01:37:46.480 |
Lord, that those who are suffering, those who are lost, 01:37:51.480 |
those who are hungry, those who are orphaned, 01:37:55.480 |
Lord, that they may know that there is hope in your name. 01:38:06.480 |
Help us to see our wealth, Lord God, not to be a trap, 01:38:10.480 |
but to be used, Lord God, for the sake of your name. 01:38:14.480 |
I pray for my brothers and sisters who are around the world, Lord God, 01:38:18.480 |
who are suffering because they have boldness and courage to stand up for their faith. 01:38:23.480 |
Give them the faith that they need, strength that they need, Lord God, 01:38:26.480 |
to stand up even for their life, that their testimony would bring others to Christ. 01:38:32.480 |
Lord, we pray for the North Koreans, Lord God, 01:38:36.480 |
who are in secret reading your word and praying to you 01:38:40.480 |
in fear of their own lives. Give them courage to know. 01:38:47.480 |
Give them courage to know, Father God, that you are their refuge, 01:38:52.480 |
that whether they live here for a long time or a short time, 01:38:56.480 |
that eternity is coming, that when you come in glory, 01:39:03.480 |
Lord, we pray for our brothers and sisters who are hungry around the world. 01:39:08.480 |
We pray for the young ladies, Lord God, who are being violated, Lord, 01:39:11.480 |
because of this sinful world. Lord, give us compassion for them. 01:39:16.480 |
As you had compassion for us. Help us, Lord God, to intercede on their behalf, 01:39:22.480 |
that we will be broken, that we would be on our knees, Lord God, crying out. 01:39:29.480 |
Lord, help us. Help us, Lord God, to break away from this rat race. 01:39:36.480 |
This temptation to think, Lord, that if we have nice homes and nice cars, 01:39:40.480 |
that we're good. Teach us what it means to love aliens. 01:39:45.480 |
Lord, give us broken hearts, that we may pray effectively, 01:39:50.480 |
we may live purposefully, that your name may be honored, 01:39:55.480 |
that eternity will be more real to us than ever. 01:39:58.480 |
Lord, bring revival. Revive us. Revive this church. 01:40:03.480 |
Revive this generation. May Christ and his name be exalted through us. 01:40:28.480 |
What love can remember no wrongs we have done. 01:40:34.480 |
Omniscient, omnowing, he counts not their sum. 01:41:26.480 |
Patience await. Patience will wait as we constantly roam. 01:41:40.480 |
He welcomes the weakest, the foulest, the poor. 01:42:35.480 |
His blood was the payment, his life was the cost. 01:44:04.480 |
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy. 01:44:12.480 |
To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. 01:44:21.480 |
And since his son, they called him Jesus, he came to love. 01:44:48.480 |
To by my power now an empty grave is there to put my Savior there. 01:45:37.480 |
And life is worth the living just because he lived. 01:46:02.480 |
>> If you guys can help us to rearrange the chairs.