Lights to the World

of 2023 the title is managing for themaster till he comes and today we'll besetting lesson four the title of LessonFour is offerings for Jesus and so wehave a beautiful study about how we canoffer our very best to Jesus Christbefore we get into the lesson though I'dlike to invite you to take advantage ofthis free offer if you want this studyyou could call the number866788 3966 and you could ask for theoffer number 156 if you're in theContinental North America you can textsh80 to4544 you can get a link to the digitaldownload and if you're outside of theContinental North America if you'reoutside of uh the United States and ofCanada then you could go to study.aftv.orgsh80 and you could also get a digitaldownload of this study take advantage ofit I'm sure that it will be um Pricelessfor you and for your family and yourfriends if you want to give it to themas well before we begin I'd like toinvite you to your head and to say aword of prayer with me dear Lord Godthank you so much for all of yourblessings thank you so much for all ofyour gifts thank you for offering usyour very best Lord today as we learnmore about this concept of offering Lordof giving our best to you I invite youfather and I ask you to dwell with usand to inhabit us right now please allowthe human instrument to fall into thebackground of the message and your powerand your knowledge Lord to reign supremein our lives and in this moment as wellbless all those that are watching fromwherever they are I ask in Jesus nameamen friends this week's study isextremely deep extremely profound um Igot to tell you that at the beginning ofthis quarter when I found out that thewhole quarter was going to be aboutstewardship you know initially I was alittle bit you know taken aback I waslike well a whole quarter about thisit's going to be interesting you knowbut as I've studied this lesson and theprogression of what we've been goingthrough there have been so many thingsthat I've either recapped right I'veI've seen again and there are somethings that I got to tell you have beenpainted in an entirely different lightand so just learning more about this hasbeen a truly enriching experience formyself I hope that that is yourexperience as well um when we talk aboutthis subject when we talk aboutofferings right giving to Christ thereare several Bible verses and several umplaces in Scripture that truly tell usmore about this right where we canactually dig in and find out morethe memory verse of this week's lessonis one of those right the memory versecomes from Psalm 116:1 12-14 and this iswhat it says Psalm 1161 12-14 that saysfor uh what shall I render to the Lordfor all his benefits toward me I willtake up the cup of Salvation and callupon the name of the Lord I will pay myvows to the Lord now in the presence ofall his people so this question what canI give to the Lord what can I offer tohim that's the question that's beingasked throughout this entire lessonlet's go to the very beginning let's goto the Book of Genesis back to Creationwhere we can actually see the firstConcepts the first slivers of insight ofthis uh of this subject right we findthat in the memorials of creation whatthat means is that from the verybeginning from the creation week Godestablished sacred institutions asMemorials of creation sacredinstitutions that remind us aboutcreation and his connection to us rightwhat God wants to represent to us andthese memorials have the objective ofreminding us of first of all who God issecond of all who we are and thirdly howwe are to relate to God so who God iswho we are and how we're meant and howwe're supposed to relate to him thefirst Memorial that we find here in thefirst two chapters of the Bible is thememorial of the family the firstMemorial is the institution of thefamily when God created man and womanand United them through the sacred bombsof marriage the sacred bonds ofmatrimony he was establishing the familyas the foundation of life in societythat's what God was doing as heestablished the family the very core thethe cell of human civilization and andhuman um Society that's the firstMemorial the second Memorial that wefind is the Sabbath right we're notgoing to get real deep into theseConcepts because they're not you know uhthe the true true subject of this lessonbut as a context I want you tounderstand that God was very intentionalin what he was creating in that firstweek of creation and um after it rightfollowing it as well so the secondMemorial comes as the Sabbath the Bibletells us that God blessed the Sabbaththat he Sanctified it that he hollowedit right he separated it um as a specialday a day of celebrating ourrelationship with him as a memorial ofwho he is and what he's done for us theseventh day is an eight temporalMemorial if you think about it rightwhat that means is that it's a temple intimeanywhere anyone anywhere can keep theSabbath anyone anywhere can rememberwhat God did on that week of creationand that established god um as the lordof the world the lord of his childrenwhen we keep the Sabbath that's whatwe're recognizing that's the secondMemorial the third Memorial this is aninteresting one and maybe you might betaken off guard by this one right butthis is an interesting Memorial thethird one is the tree of the knowledgeof Good and Evil that symbolize the giftof free will really I've I've I'verepeated this in the previous lessonsI'm sure that my colleagues have as wellfoundation is uh the foundation of FreeWill is everything to us right the theessence of what free will means whatit's given to us that representseverything so the tree of the knowledgeof Good and Evil it's given as amemorial that God has given his umcreation the freedom of choice the giftof free will later on right um we findthat this Memorial is substituted bytithe now that might strike you assomething interesting right what do youmean by that how is tithing substituteduh or the substitution for the tree ofuh knowledge of Good and Evil I know itsounds strange but look at what thisquote from the book um testimonyTreasures page 35 and 36 saysit says of the tree of the knowledge ofGood and Evil they were not to eat thistree God reserved as a constant reminderof his ownership of all thus he gavethem the opportunity to demonstratetheir faith and trust in him by theirperfect obedience to his requirements soit is so it is with God's claims upon ushe places his treasures in the hands ofmen but requires that one tenth beFaithfully laid aside for his work herequires this portion to be placed inhis treasury it is to be rendered to himas his own it is sacred and it and is tobe used for sacred purposes for thesupport of those who carry the messageof Salvation to all parts of the worldhe reserves this portion that means Mayever be flowing in his Treasure Houseand that the light of truth may becarried to those who are nigh and thosewho are far off by Faithfully obeyingthe requirements we acknowledge that allbelongs to God and so what this tells usis that the memorial of Free Willrepresented by the tree of the knowledgeof Good and Evil is after the fall thensubstituted by the memorial of tithingthis week's lesson isn't about tithingright that's something that anothercolleague of mine is speaking about buttithing is substituted in the memorialof creation um or it substitutes the thethe tree of the knowledge of Good andEvil because we are free to give back orto not right we can make that decisionGod tells us what we should do but hegives us that decision tithing friendsis an experience of continual worship toGod as the Creator as the provider asthe sustainer and as the maintainer ofall of life he is The Sovereign of allof life that's what we are acknowledgingby tithing right now the fourth Memorialand this one is very interesting as wellit's very different from the previousthree because this uh this fourthMemorial it's an act of worship that'sintroduced by God at the at thebeginning of the world but after thefall right this is a memorial that isinstituted that is established after thefall after the expulsion from the Gardenof Eden it was at the expulsion of thegarden when the Saviorhimself met with Adam and Eve he meetsup with them after they are kicked outof the garden after they're expelledfrom the garden because of what they haddone because of their their abuse of thegift of free will God meets with themand he introduces this Memorial rightnow this is already going into Monday'slesson um sorry Sunday's lesson that hasthe title the motivation for giving sohere we're looking at the context we'relooking at the background of why weoffer of why we give and this is what wefind in Sunday's lesson it was at thatmoment of the expulsion when God rightwhen Jesus meets up with Adam and Eve asthey're being um expelled from thegarden to reveal to them His Marvelousplan of Redemption of what his planwould be um in answer to the emergencyof sin he explained to them that hewould be the offering for sin nowfriends we have to remember that at thispoint Adam and Eve had never witnesseddeath yet they they were starting tounderstand what their decision impliedright and here Jesus appears and hereveals to them what he would do as ananswer to the problem to the emergencyof sin he would be the offering for sinnow in the book uh Patriarchs andProphets page 63 Ellen White masterfullyexplains this whole situation she saysthe Son of God Heaven's gloriousCommander was touched with pity for theFallen race here we're g we're beinggiven a glimpse into the heart of Godhis heart was moved with infinitecompassion as the woes of the Lost Worldrose up before him but Divine love hadconceived a plan whereby Sinners couldbe redeemed the broken law of Goddemanded Ed the life of The Sinner inall the universe there was but one whocould in behalf of man satisfy itsclaims since the Divine Law is as sacredas God himself the text says only oneequal with God could make atonement forits transgression none but Christ couldredeem Fallen man from The Curse of thelaw and bring him again into harmonywith Heaven Christ would take uponhimself the guilt and the shame of SinSin so offensive to a holy God that itmust separate the father from the sonChrist would reach to the depths of themisery the depths of misery to rescuethe human race friends Jesus the lambslain since the foundation of the worldwould need to be torn from his fathertaken away from his father and abdicatethe throne of Glory motivated by thefact that as we find in John 3:16 forGod so loved the world that he gave hisonly begotten son that whoever believethin him shall not perish but haveeverlasting life friends this is a textthat is repeated over and over and overagain when it comes to understanding thereasons why we you know return titheswhy we give offerings it all stems froma recognition of what has been done forus of what has been offered and givenfor us right if we return these theseyou know these resources withoutthinking about what we're doing thenwe're doing it for no reason at all andso the motivation for this is profoundit's deep and it stems from God God'slove for us when Adam and Eve were shownthe horrible consequences of their sinundoubtedly they were filled by anguishand by Remorse by what they had done andthey implored for their own death thethe their death to fall upon themselvesand their posterity because theyunderstood what was the consequence thatit was Christ himself who would pay theultimate price for what they haddone but there was Jesus offering andthere's that word offering them thefirst lamb to be sacrificed as aPerpetual Memorial of the horribleconsequences of sin and of hisdisposition of being their substituteand so if there's one thing that thePlan of Redemption truly demonstrates ishow horrible sin is how bad it is buthow good God is how loving God is Jesuswas there offering his life in favor ofthem and their descendants friendsthat's why the act of offering that'swhy when we offer is or it at least atleast it should be so sacred and sosolemn when we understand what was givenand what was offered for us we need tounderstand that salvation friends isonly offered through Jesus Christ Petermakes that abundantly clear in Acts14:12 when he declared nor is theirsalvation in any other for there is noother name under Heaven given among menby which we must be saved the ultimatebiblical understanding of offeringdoesn't have to do with money and that'swhat I'm going to repeat this to thepoint of exhaustion throughout thisstudy because sometimes we think thattithing offering it's all about moneyit's all about finances it's all aboutyou know it friends no the primary thefoundation of this understanding haseverything to do with salvation intheology this is called soteriology thedoctrine of salvation how we understandGod Saves us and um is working in orderto save the Human family the ultimatebiblical understanding of offering hasto do with salvation it doesn't have todo with money it has to do with what wasoffered to us in Jesus Christ I'verepeated this again and again and like Isaid I I'll go to almost to the point ofexhaustion but in Christ Heaven emptieditself of its most precious of its mostvaluable resource in giving us Christall of this for you and for meand one of her most revealingcommentaries on this subject on thetopic of offerings Ellen White States inPatriarchs and Prophets page 68 she saysthe sacrificial offerings were ordainedby God look at that they were ordainedby God to be to man a Perpetual reminderand a penitential acknowledgment of hissin and a confession of his faith in thepromised Redeemer they were intended toimpress upon the Fallen race the solemntruth that it was sin that caused deathto Adam the offering of the firstsacrifice was a most painful ceremonyhis hand must be raised to take lifewhich only God could give it was thefirst time he had ever witnessed deathand he knew that had he been obedient toGod there would have been noneed for death there would have been nodeath of man or beast as he slew theinnocent victim he trembled at thethought that his sin must shed the bloodof the Spotless Lamb of God this scenegave him a deeper and more Vivid senseof the greatness of histransgression which nothing but thedeath of God of God's dear son couldexpiate and he marveled at the infinitegoodness that would give such a ransomto save the guilty a Star of Hopeillumined the dark and the terriblefeature and relieved it of its utterdesolationall of this friends seen as thesacrificial offerings all of this seenas offerings so do you see that thememorial of offerings has the solemnobjective of being one of the greatestcommitments of man withGod it's represented to those awaitingthe first coming of theMessiah as well as to us that await hissecond coming what it represents is apre precious and IR IrreplaceableMemorial to celebrate the redeeming workofJesus this reminds us when in Luke 9:51the text tells us that Jesus in going toJerusalem right his last week he set hesteadfastly set his face to go toJerusalem The Book of Luke describesJesus's Journey as a concentric Circleright going from the periphery to thecenter from Outer Judea toJerusalem and as he drew closer andcloser to Jerusalem as he drew closerand closer to his to his final momentsthe opposition against him from the Relfrom the religious leaders and from thepeople the crowd it grew and not onlythis but especially during that lastweek gradually he felt the separationfrom his father and from the spirit inhis life since he was called to Traverseby himself alone the gates of hell andeternal death in our stead so do youunderstand here why do you understandwhy Jesus agonized on that Thursdayevening to the point where he shed dropsof blood do you understand why it wasthat Jesus right God mademan experienced the greatest Agony inthe history of the world in the historyof the universe do you understand why heasked the father if possible to let thecup of Eternaldeath the cup of separation from thefather brought on by the sins of allgenerations of humanity to pass from himdo you understand why in Matthew 27:47Jesus on the cross agonizing from theweight of the sins of a planet cried outmy God my God why have you forsaken mecuriously Jesus was quoting from a Psalmwhen he cried that out Jesus was quotingfrom Psalm 22 you see friends Jesus wasseparated from the father from thespirit because of our sins God hid hisface from his son in order for Jesus togo through the Exodus of life here onplanet Earth by himself the darkness ofthe seconddeath 2 Corinthians 5:21 one of myfavorite Bible verses says for he madehim who knew no sin to become sin for usthat we might become the righteousnessof God in him friends on the cross Jesuscould no longer see the resurresurrection ofSunday on the cross Jesus could could nolonger see the resurrection of Sunday soenshrouded by the second death he was sodo you understand why so many animalswere offered on the altar of sacrificebefore Jesus's death on the cross as areminder as a memorial this is thereason today friends why we are invitedto bring our offerings to the temple andas an act of worship demonstrate voluntarily our love and gratitude for theredeeming work of Christ on the cross doyou understand now the reason foroffering why it has to bevoluntary it can't be forced it can't becoerced it can't be manipulated andthat's one of the elements of our modernyou know what we see out there in theworld today the modern theology calleduh the Theology of of prosperity wherepeople they feel coerced to come to givetheir money and that way they could thenbuy God off that's not what the Bibletalks about when it speaks aboutofferings offerings need to be voluntarythey need to be planned it's notsomething that you just give you know ona whim no it's a planned commitment withGod it has to beconsistent there has to be continuityand it has to be proportional to what wehave God wants us to give in proportionto what we have we're going to talkabout all these Concepts but today whenwe touch our offerings I I um I'minviting you to consider to reflect onbeing touched by the reality of howserious our situation is but also of thevictory of our beloved Jesus and in hisoffering for us for you and forme think about that next time and allthe times when you go to church and youare given the opportunity to offer togive as an opportunity of saying Lordthank you thank you thank you so muchfor what you did for me thank you forliving for me thank you for dying for meand thank you for resurrecting forme see that as anopportunity the opportunity of givingback of recognizing what was done nowMonday's lesson continues here with withum with this uh with this topic but weshift now from a more from from a moreabstract understanding of this topicright we were talking about a a littlebit more of the motivation the deeper umsignificance of offering and now we'regoing to go to a little bit more of apractical um reasoning a practical uhimplementation of this in our livesright so now that we've understood themotivation as was Sunday's lesson we'regoing to go into the more practicalelements of what it means to give backhow should it be done right Monday'slesson what portion for offerings nowI've known many people several peoplethat have come to me and you knowspeaking about this that in their heartof hearts they know that they shouldgive back they know that they shouldbring their offerings to God they knowthat but because they feel that theydon't know how to go about it right howmuch do I give how do I do it how oftenhow consistent how does how should thishappen because of all these questionsthey end up uh they end up giving upbefore they even start before they evenbegin so the basic rule that Godprovides to us about offering is foundin Deuteronomy16:17 Deuteronomy 16:17 says this itsays every man shall give as he is ableaccording to the blessing of the Lordyour God which he has given to you sothe logic that is presented here is thatthe quantity is not the main focus thequantity of how much you give backthat's not what's in in discussion itdoesn't really matter how much when itcomes to offerings it doesn't matter nowthis is different from tithing becausein tithing God does stipulate an amountright a 10% right that's what the wordtithe means it's 10% but when it comesto offerings there is no realstipulation that is given every man mustgive according to what God has given toyou every person should give accordingto what H God has given so as I've saida few times before already friends GodGod doesn't need our money he's notlimited by our um by our lack of givingor by by our resources he's not limitedby our circumstances he doesn't needwhat we have God doesn't need your moneyhe doesn't need what you can give what Ican give he has no need of this as I'verepeated in a previous lesson the powersof creation are his the powers ofpulling things into existence creating Xin a hillo right is pulling things intoexistence out of nothing God has thepower to create with the verb bar theHebrew verb that describes only God'spower of creation where he pulls thingsinto existence he doesn't need what youand I have but as the lesson puts it ourofferings are an acknowledgement and anexpression of ourgratitude to God for his abundant Giftsof Life Redemption sustenance andconstant blessings of many kinds so aswe noted in the passage above the amountof offerings is based on what we havebeen blessed with so God isn'tarbitrarily you know in an unfair mannersaying well you have to give back thisno regardless of your circumstances youhave to give this and this and thisthat's not what God is saying Goddoesn't want this to be a dreadfulmoment in the life of his children theBible says that those who give must givewith joy right rejoicing so how is thatdone right proof of this appears in thequestion proposed in our memory versePsalm 1161 12-14 that I'll read it againit says what shall I render to the Lordfor all of his benefits toward me I willtake up the cup of Salvation and callupon the name of the Lord I will pay myvows to the Lord now in the presence ofall his people so the question is whatcould we ever give what could you everoffer what could you give back for allthat he's done for you for all that he'sgiven you for all that he he representsto you the natural answer is nothing thenatural answer is nothing nothing at allthe gift of Grace friends it's freelygiven freelygiven now this is where many many peoplemultitudes have a problem with religionbecause too many people right peoplehave a a difficulty we all have adifficulty of swinging from extreme toextreme right you'll have people thatare in the extreme of you know Grace allis Grace God is going to save everybodyuniversalism right it's the idea that atthe very end everyone will be savedincluding the devil and the demonsthat's a gross misunderstanding andmixed mixed um interpretation ofscripture but on the other side thereare those that believe that they can buytheir own salvation that they can Meritit that they take a step towards God andonly after they take a step towards Godthen he will take a step towards themthat's not what the Bible reveals theBible doesn't tell us that we must firstdo something for then God to uh you knowlove us or for God to forgive us God wewe repent because God live loves us wewant to live with God because he lovesus and so is the same with Grace rightso there is nothing that I could dothere's nothing that I could offer whereI could buy where I could pay salvationthere's this one story told about alittle boy that was walking through thethe the the Washington Monument Park inWashington DC and so this little boyhe's walking with with his father andthey come upon the Washington Monumentright and this little boy he ismesmerized by the Washington Monumentand he turns to his daddy and says DaddyI want to buy the Washington Monument Iwant it for myself I I have this silverdollar in my pocket and I'm going to buyit with this with this coin now his hisfather you know didn't want to dash hishopes his dreams but he knew that thatwas an impossible request but he sawpolice officer you know patrolling thegrounds and so he said Son go and askthe police officer you know um if youcan buy the Washington Monument so thelittle boy he marches up to the topolice officer and he says Mr Officer Iwant to buy the Washington Monument andI have the silver dollar here and thisis how I'm going to pay for it and sothe officer he turned to the little boyand he said look son three things thatyou have to understand first of all it'snot for sale it's not for sale secondlyyou could never buy it with the amountof money that you have you could neverafford it but thirdly as a citizen ofthe United States of America it'salready yours it's already yours so it'snot for sale you could never buy it butit's already yours that is the same withthe gift of Grace it's not for sale youcan't buy it secondly with anything thatyou have to offer you could never affordit but thirdly as a child of God it'salready yours and so that's what we haveto understand we're not we're not tryingto buy anything here we're not trying toearn or to Merit anything here it'salready ours when we go back to John 3:116 we find an emphasis that is God soloved that he gave for God soloved that he gaveand so this offering of God for us it'sbased on love it's not based on Meritit's not based on earning it's not basedon on on a trade God so loved the worldthat he gave that's the foundation ofoffering giving comes from the heart itcomes from love it comes fromunderstanding what was done for us andreacting to it and so the amount doesn'tmatter freely we have been given freelylet us giveback that's the lesson that is taught tous from Matthew chap 10:8 freely youhave been given and so freely you shallgive friends that is the truth aboutofferings the truth in life is that ifwe keep everything to ourselves hoardingeverything to ourselves we find thatultimately it's not us who own thewealth it's not us who own the horde ofthings that we that we hoarded thosethings end up owningus and they end up becomingGods so many people fall for the or fallto the idolatry of wealth the idolatryof hoarding things of having things ofownership it's no wonder that Jesusspoke so much about this subjectChristian offerings demonstrates that weknow who is the trueowner it demonstrates that we understandthe underlying topic and logic of thePlan of Redemption and that we have theprivilege of participating with much oreven with little again the amountdoesn't matter we are given theopportunity to participate to take partin what God is doing through theresources that are given to um differentpeople different institutions tomissionaries going out to hospitals toclinics to boats on Rivers there's abeautiful boat on the Amazon River umthat that serves so many um Natives andthere are so many clinics like thisaround the world hospitals missionariesthat they receive these resources andthey go out Tuesday's lesson offeringsand worship you know growing up as apreachers kid I I often had theopportunity of of you know being inseveral different churches and um onething that's interesting is that youknow no no two churches are alike You'llAlways Find that there are differentways of doing the same things the lit isoften different you know sometimes it'speople doing the same thing but indifferent ways sometimes doing um thesame thing but in different ways anddoing different things but in the sameway and so what you end up seeing isthat there's this beautiful diversity inGod's people wherever you go in theAdventist in the Adventist Church you'llsee that there are different ways thatthings happen but the main things arealways there are always the same maybein different orders or in a differentway of doing it but the main things arealways there uh a church service anychurch service right any good completechurch service will include four thingsthe study of the Bible right a sermon ora reading of the Bible a pre a preachergoing up and preaching something likethat right you have the study of theBible you have prayer right of coursethere has to be prayer you'll findpraise right music song Praise Andtithes and offerings giving backparticipating in worship it'sinteresting that tithing and offering isone of the only two moments in anyDivine service here at church where wewhere you know the the the worshippersthey participate actively there is thepraise the song service where we singand then there is the tithes and theofferings where we return we give backand recognition of God's love and whathe's done for us now the reason why thisis a universal reality why why you willfind this anywhere in the world thesefour elements the sermon right the studyof the Bible the prayer the praise andthe the giving back the offerings thetithing and the offerings the reason whythat is a universal reality is becauseit's so ubiquitous in the Bible itselfit's so consistent in the in in theBible wherever we find God beingworshiped we will usually find theseelements or the elements of theseprinciples in one way or another youwill find the study of God's word youwill find prayer you will find praiseand you will find an offering forexample the example of the Old TestamentIsrael they were to be come to comebefore the Lord three times a year rightthe children of Israel they were invitedthey were called to come as a holyassembly before God three times a yearthey were called to come to Jerusalemand they were instructed not to comeempty-handed not to come without anoffering these three occasions werePassover Pentecost and the Feast ofTabernacles now that doesn't mean thatdoesn't mean that they couldn't come onmore occasions with free will offeringswhich they did multiple times rightpeople could still come to Jerusalem andthey could still come with offerings butthese were the Baseline these threetimes a year with these three moments ofoffering they were the norm coming emptyhanded handed that wasn't an option itwasn't optional now note thatdifferently from the ties there therewasn't ever a stipulation I I've saidthis before there wasn't really astipulation of theamount that each family decided orwanted to give back and to return it wasa free will gift they were called tocome and to give free will gifts andseveral texts in the Bible reveal thisreality this isn't something that I'mjust making up okay for example we'llfind this in 1st Chronicles chapter 16:29 that says give to the Lord the gloryto his name bring an offering and comebefore him and then it says oh Worshipthe Lord in the beauty of his HolinessPsalm 96:8 and9 says give to the Lordthe glory due to his name bring anoffering and come into His courts ohWorship the Lord in the be Beau in thebeauty of his Holiness tremble beforehim all the Earth then Psalm 1161 16-18so the sequence of our memory text itsays oh Lord truly I am your servant Iam your servant the son of your maidservant you have loosed my bonds I willoffer to you the sacrifice ofThanksgiving and I will call upon thename of the Lord I will pay my vows tothe Lord now in the presence of all hispeople so what we see is that to giveback offering is toworship to give back offerings is toworship God it's an integral part of itif you skip that part of the blessingthat comes from worship worshiping Godit'll be missing it won't be there nowfriends again here I'm not advocatingfor some sort of prosperity theologythat's not what I'm doing I really wantyou to understand the contrast betweenone thing and the other on one side inprosperity theology the understanding isis that the more I give God I can getback from God so if if I give God my youknow my salary for six months well he'sgoing to give me a business if I do thisit's kind of like a do this for thatright that's not what we find in theBible in the Bible you don't find mostof the Servants of God most of themweren't wealthy people they weren't Richyou have a few of them that were rightyou have job um Solomon you know maybeKing David and the the latter part ofhis life and you know maybe AbrahamIsaac and Jacob but for the most partthe apostles theprophets they weren't wealthy now whatdoes that mean does that mean that theydidn't give back tithes and offerings ofcourse they did of course they did theBible Bears witness of that but theBible doesn't advocate for Prosperitytheology so on one side you haveTheology of prosperity we do not believein that that's not what I'm talkingabout what I am talking about on theother side is the understanding that wegive back as an answer to God's love forus as an answer to the knowledge thatGod gave his best God offered his bestfor us why wouldn't we offer our best aswell Wednesday'slesson um has as a title God takes noteof our offerings now a big demonstrationof what we have been talking about tillthis point is uh is given in twoseparate instances in the New Testamentfirst in mark 12 41-44 and then again inActs 10: 1-4 so both of these storiesare extremely well-known stories I'msure you've heard sermons you knowlessons read books about them these arestories that usually come to mindespecially the first one in the Book ofMark these are stories that come to mindyou know when you see someone coming upto do the the tithing and the offeringmoment in any given church service rightthis is a story that's used very muchbut there are some very deep lessonssome very interesting lessons that wecould always bring back back from itright it's the F the first story is thestory of the Widow and her two mites soMark 12: 41-44 says now Jesus satopposite the treasury and saw how thepeople put money into thetreasury and many who were Rich put inmuch then one poor Widow came and threwin two mites which makes a quadron so hecalled his disciples to himself and saidassuredly I say to you that this poorWidow has put in more than all those whohave given to the treasury for they allput in out of theirabundance but she out of her poverty putin all that she had her wholelivelihood now without going too deepinto the story because we don't have thetime for that there are a few thingsthat we can glean from it there's somevery interesting lessons from this fromthis story first of all it's theconfirmation that it's not the amountthat matters she gave friends that was Imean imagine two pennies and giving twopennies right she gave very little andyet this is the only story where we findJesus praising someone for returning uhtheir offerings or returning theirtithes this is the only story where wefind someone giving and Jesus um Jesuspraising them for it so the lesson is itdoesn't matter how much it doesn'tmatter how much never be embarrassed ofof your offerings never because thequantity doesn't matter what matters isthe spirit in which you're giving backis it a spirit of recognition a spiritof love a spirit of understanding of whoGod is of relationship withhim it doesn't matter how much what doyou suppose was going through her mindin that moment you know do you thinkthat she was asking well how are wegoing to eat do you think she wasthinking how am I going to pay rent howam I going to buy clothes for the kidsno no friends I do not believe thatthat's what was going through her mindbecause that's not the spirit ofworship in order for her to offer thosetwo mights out of her poverty out ofeverything that she had her entirelivelihood that can only be done by thecertainty that God alwaysprovides that can only be done bysomeone who finds joy in being faithfuljoy in understanding that God is the ULultimate offering joy in making Godtheir portion you see this little widowshe made the Lord her portion it wasn'ther poverty it wasn't her livelihood itwasn't her even her family she made theLord her portion and Jesus honored thatthat's why after Millennia we stillremember this Widow this is someone thatI really want to meet when when I get toheaven I want to meet this this womanget to know herstory as the lesson points out this isthe only gift that Jesus ever commendeda gift to a church that was just aboutto reject him a church that greatlydeviated from its calling and itsMission you know sometimes I hear thecomplaint of contributing to a churchthat is corrupt or a church that doesn'tdo things the way I like it a churchthat is going the wrong way you know Ihear a lot of people saying that no whyam I going to contribute to a corruptChurch why am I going friends the ideaof the church has nothing to do withthis here the church has nothing to dowith your offerings not primarily thisisn't what we're talkingabout this isn't the heart about whatwe're talking about atleast this is an act of recognition notof Merit it's not about the churchdeserving your tithes and your offeringshas nothing to do with that this isn'teven about the church deservingofferings like I said has nothing to dowithMerit now that being said when it comesto the Seventh Adventist Church one ofthe things that I I always been veryhappy about being a member of thischurch and being a pastor for thischurch is how transparent the AdventistChurch is when it comes to tithes andofferings um the Adventist Church is oneof the most transparent organizations Imean you can go find it on its websiteyou can go and find it um on on its uhon its projections for every year youfind exactly what was done with themoney you find where it went I really umand very happy that the Adventist Churchis transparent when it comes to tithesand offerings uh Adventist pastors don'tbecome pastors for the money if they dothey're not very smart I promise youthat now that doesn't mean thatAdventist pastors are poor it doesn'tmean that you know we can't live oranything like that but we'll never berich right we'll never be rich I didn'tI didn't become a pastor for the money Idid it because I felt called you knowevery Pastor in the Adventist World theythey they receive the same salary ofcourse it has to do with um the contextof where they live right but um pastorof a church with 20,000 members is goingto get the same amount of compensationas a pastor um of 200 uh me uh 200member church right so no one reallydoes this for the money if they dothey're not very bright right so thatdoes make me happy that the church thatI that I am a member of it's verytransparent very open with its financesand its resources um but again we don'tdo this for the money this is an act ofrecognition of what God has done for usultimately regarding the story of theWidow Ellen White puts it best in thebook councils of stewardship page 175when she says but Jesus understood hermotive she believed that the service ofthe temple to be of God's appointmentand she was anxious to do her utmost tosustain it she did what she could andher Act was to be a monument to hermemory through all time and her joy ineternity her heart went with her gift itV it's value was estimated not by worthof coin but by the love to God and theinterest in his work that had promotedthe deed that had prompted the deed andso this had nothing to do with herrelationship to the institution of thetime this had to do with herunderstanding that God used theseresources and ultimately it was God whocommanded them right so sometimes I feelthat I myself have to divest myself fromsituations from circumstances frompeople friends human beings are corruptanywhere in the world that you go humanbeings will be corrupt unfortunatelyeven in the church now what I've beenable to witness um for myself is thatthe large amount of people are justtrying to do their best they're justtrying to do their best with what theyhave with the knowledge that they havethe understanding that they have um youdo have the bad apples everywhere butmost people just want to do their bestthey want to serve the Lord the best waythey can not always do we agreewith how they do that but this is theChurch of God this is his people this ishis movement his prophetic movement inthe time of the end and so what Ilearned here from this woman is that shewasn't looking at the institution shewas seeing the god behind theinstitution the god behind the churchthe god behind the humanleaders and because of thatunderstanding she gave back openlyfreely right the second story that wefind on Wednesday's lesson is that ofCornelius in Acts CH 10: 1-4 it saysthere was a certain man in cesariacalled Cornelius the Centurion of whatwas called the Italian regiment a devoutman and one who feared God with all hishousehold who gave alms generously tothe people and prayed to God alwaysabout the ninth hour of the day he sawclearly in a vision an angel of Godcoming in and saying to himCornelius and when he observed him hewas afraid and said what is it Lord sohe said to him your prayers and youralms have come up for a memorial beforeGod look at what this text is sayingright in this case not only did God hearthe man's prayers from heaven but healso took note of his offerings of hisalms calling them a memorial before Godnow one thing that the lesson repeats umwhen speaking about these truths is thatthat their their hearts followed theirgift so the woman in giving back theWidow in giving back those two mites herheart heart followed the gift it was aheart um a heart thing right withCornelius the same thing his heartfollowed his gift it wasn't somethingthat he just gave for no reason just youknow because he could no his heartfollowed his gift in this casecornelius's heart he it followed hisgift it followed his arms it wasn'tabout appearance it wasn't about youknow tax breaks nothing to do with thatin his case it meant that he was readyfor more more he was ready for more andthat's when the Lord sent Peter to givehim more more understanding the gift ofthe spirit all of these things camebecause he was ready for that Corneliusfollowed the biblical truth of lovingyour neighbor as you love yourself youknow part of the danger of sin is thatwe tend to dehum dehumanize people wetend to dehumanize people andunfortunately especially with the Adventof mainstream media social platformswhere we see so many people and you knowyou're scrolling down be it whatever itis you know Facebook Instagram whateveryour platform of choice is you know youhave one post or one thread or one tweetor whatever that is something happy youknow and then you see something that'shorrible you see you know the birth ofquadruplets and then you see a bombexploding in Jerusalem and then you seeyou know someone won something and so webecome so desensitized to the to thepain the suffering in the world that weyeah our tendency is exist exactly thatto dehumanize people we see them as lessthan human but friends the truth thebiblical truth is that people are notthings people are notthings souls are not objects and sowe're called to love them as we loveourselves and a big part of that isloving ourselves as well you can't lovesomeone else if you don't learn how totruly love yourself in the right wayrecognizing how valuable we are in theeyes of heaven and so so this is whatCornelius does right he loves hisneighbor as himself he gives out arms tothe point where this Rises up as amemorial before God a demonstration ofhaving the heart of God of having theeyes of God to see each individual thathe was giving those alms to as aprecious child ofHeaven that's what God saw in Corneliusand that's what God wants to see in allof his children now Thursday's lesson tofinish off our week we find specialprojects big giving uh big jar giving sothis is a it's a pretty interestingtitle right but you know maybe one ofthe last uh points that we that weshould mention that we have to bring uphere in our study of this week's lessonhas to do with priorities right withpriorities as the lesson States it theaverage of uh the average of liquidassets for most people average ofdisposable um money that people onaverage have is%. what that means is you know your bankaccount you know things that are liquidthat that are right there and that youknow you can use on the spot it's about9% of what people own and the rest 91%are seen as IL liquid right El liquidassets non-liquid assets and so as itgoes when we're thinking about returningtithe when we're thinking about offeringto God it usually comes to mind that wewill contribute from the 9% right fromthe from the little jar that's what thelesson is talking about right the littlejar the smaller portion but in the Biblethere are several examples of peoplethat seem to live off the 10% that usedto live off the tithe now what thatmeans and I don't believe that this isfor everyone okay I'm not advocating forthis I've known people um um that havelived this way and usually when this isdone it's it's done by extremely wealthypeople right so I know people who theykeep 10% and they return90% right so what is it's people wholive off the tithe and so they'll giveback and that's something that they feelthat God has brought them to God hasconvicted them of and they do rightagain I'm not advocating for this Idon't F it's it's not a Biblical orderit's people who have come to the pointin their life where they can do thisfirst of all they're they're able to dothis and they feel convicted toparticipate in God's mission to theextent where they are giving back mostof what they have right the big jargiving that's what the lesson is talkingabout when it says the big jar givingnow again does this mean that everyoneshould do this no absolutely not this issomething that you have to discern withwith God that you have to be umconvicted of and that you have to havethe the means to do it right that firsttext that we talked about you know giveof what you have proportional to whatyou have so again please don't go leavethis lesson saying well Pastor Lucas issaying that we have to you know live offthe tithe and give back 90% absolutelynot that's not what I said I know peoplewho do that and there are biblicalexamples of people who they did giveback from the larger portion of whatthey had right a positive example ofthis of this reality is BarnabasBarnabas is Barnabas is seen as one ofthe heroes of the New Testament righthe's mentioned several times as one ofthose the most prominent figures in theNew Testament but the first time that heappears in the Bible is in Acts 4: 36and 37 it's in the and it's in thecontext of offerings right look at whatit says and joses who is also namedBarnabas by the apostles which istranslated as son of encouragement alevite of the country of Cyprus havingland sold it and brought the money andlaid it at the apostles feet right sothis is an example of someone who gave avery big gift it's something that hefelt called to do by God another examplehere of a big jar gift right a bigportion gift um is Mary and theexpensive perfume right it was anextremely costly giftbut her heart followed the gift it itcame as an understanding of everythingthat had been done for her it was a freewill gift in which the cost was notmeasured it wasn't even important andhere this is coming from someone thatwas not wealthy right Mary wasn'twealthy and yet she gave a big jar giftand so it's something that she feltconvicted of she felt that she she shewanted to do it for God it wasn't aburden for her friends we often timeshave a hard time not being selfishnot holding back for many of us theTemptation is to be similar to ananasand saf right where they wanted to givea gift for appearance where they said itwas the entire gift but it ended up notbeing the entire gift it was a free willgift but it wasn't truly a free gift itdidn't come from the heart it didn'tcome from a place of recognition theirheart did not follow the gift theywanted to appear to be something morethan they were they were interested inShowmanship in the appearance ofsomething but not in its Essence and thetruth is that God sees what is in theheart God doesn't isn't impressed byShowmanship the lesson here is it's notabout giving much or little with theWidow and her mites we know that shegave out of her poverty and the Lord sawthat the Lord honored that he waspleased by that in the case of Corneliusin the case of Barnabas in the case ofMary they gave costly gifts but it alsowasn't a burden it came out of an openand free heart it came out of wanting tobe children ofGod it's not about how much friends it'snot about how much it's about do youunderstand what was done for you whatwas offered for you does your heartfollow your gift that's the questionquestion and in this context Jesus couldnot be more clear and more on the pointthan when he declared in Matthew 6:21for where your treasure is there yourheart will be also I'd like to finishtoday's lesson reading from the booktestimonies for the church Volume 2 page518 that says the recording Angel makesa faithful record of every offeringdedicated to God and put into thetreasury and also of the final result ofthe means thus bestowed the eye of Godtakes cognizance of every Farthingdevoted to his cause and of thewillingness or reluctance of The Giverthe motive in giving is also chronicledthose self-sacrificing consecrated oneswho render back to God the things thatare his as he requires of them will berewarded according to their works eventhough the means thus consecrated bemisapplied so that it does notaccomplish the objective or the objectwhich the donor had in view the glory ofGod and the salvation of souls those whomade the sacrifice in sincerity of Soulwith an eye single to the glory of Godwill not lose their reward so may Godbless you in understanding the gift ofgiving right it's more blessed to givethan to receive and that is a truth thatwe see over and over again in ourjourney with the Lord I'd like to againencourage you to to take advantage ofthis free offer the high cost of theCross right if you would like thisbeautiful study you could call866788 3966 and you could ask for offernumber 156 if you're in the ContinentalNorth America you could texts080 to the number40544 if you're outside the ContinentalNorth America you could go to study.aftv.orgsh80 and you could get a digitaldownload for this study that walkshandin hand with study because this thisthis study right here the high cost ofthe Cross it's really an emphasis onwhat it cost for Christ for God forheaven everything that they did for useverything that God did for us and I'msure that it will be a blessing for youI'd like to invite you to Bow your headand say a word of prayer with me dearLord I Thank you so much for your giftthe gift of Christ the gift of Grace thegift of Salvation Lord thank you so muchthat we are able to live in this worldwith hope hope in you hope in theunderstanding that you are coming verysoon hope that there is forgiveness forsins and hope that we can be used by youfor the Salvation of souls thank youLord for using us father I ask you tohelp us understand what it means tooffer to give back allow us Lord totruly give back and allow our hearts togo with our gifts to go with ourofferings May these offerings not be aburden not be done by reluctance but begiven given freely and joyfully pleasebless your children father your churchin this world I ask these things inJesus precious name amen may God blessyou don't forget to request today'slife-changing free resource not only canyou receive this free gift in the mailyou can download a digital copy straightto your computer or mobile device to getyour digital copy of today's free giftsimply[Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music]Hello friends and welcome to the GraniteBay 7th Day Aven church here inSacramento California we'd like towelcome those who are joining us onlineacross the country and around the worldalso watching on AFV and we want towelcome you thank you for being a partpart of our church service we also wantto welcome our regular members thatattend week after week always good tosee you and I know we do have somevisitors that are joining us today wehave some firsttime visitors so ifyou're worshiping with us for the firsttime today we have a specialannouncement just for you and theannouncement is this we've got a gift itis our thank you gift for coming andworshiping with us today a book writtenby Pastor Doug it's called finding peacein a world of worry it's your free gifttoday all we do is that we ask is thatyou fill in a visitor's card and thecards look just like this you'll see itin that seat back pocket let us know howyou heard about the Granite Bay churchif you have a prayer request you canwrite that down as well and thenfollowing the church service today onyour way out as you enter into thechurch Lobby you'll see some of ourchurch hosts they'll be holding the bookjust give them the card and they'll behappy to give you the book Finding peacein a world of worries so welcome thankyou for worshiping with us today we dohave some announcements that we need tobring to your attention and I'd like toinvite the health ministries out firstand they're going to be telling us abouta Ministry opportunity or not justMinistry opportunity but a healthopportunity that you want to hearabout good morning so we are excitedthat Granite Bay will be facilitatingBestway which is a 10- week umEvangelistic weight loss program and itis going to be running Sabbathafternoons from 2:30 to 4: um March 11through May 13th and it's going toinclude um a weight check a spirituallecture a health lecture workbook timean opportunity to build relationshipswith community members yes and therewill be uh volunteermeetings in the month of February andthe success of this program is alldepending on everyone taking part weneed volunteers and with participantsand you can bring your friends and weare going to have table outside to signup or you can also email us as DBBestway gmail.com thank you verymuch thank you we want to thank ourhealth Ministry for all of the manyexciting programs that they have uh forthose of you who might be wondering thespecial needs program usually we do iton this sabbath but it's not going to bethis month um it's going to be inFebruary so just stay posted for thatthat is the special needs uh programthat we have we'd also like to inviteJeff to come out and uh Granite Bay hasgot an exciting Pathfinder club we havehow many 50 kids in our club about 50kids lot of volunteers and so we've gotan event coming up that is one of thehighlighted events on the calendar notjust for Pathfinders but for us yeahit's uh involving uh couples and uhsometimes mothers with daughters orthings of that nature but it's um it'san annual dinner happens on February12th and it's that's aore and uh if anyif you've ever been to one of theseevents uh we try to provide a five-starexperience and so some of the menu itemsum are rather fancy some of them I can'tpronounce um but there's uh this is anItalian theme we've done a French themea Greek theme and everything else and souh I'll just highlight some of thedesserts there's a uh it's all veganit's alland so there's terisu and panacota andlemon cream cake we I got to samplethese so I know they're incredible so umand we'll be sampling and refining therecipes just a little bit more but thiswould benefit the Pathfinders they comeout in their uh kind of uniform and partof the uniform and they serve they helpprepare and it gives them an opportunityto serve you and enhance relationshipsas well so this is something that isclose to our heart and we hope that youwill visit us in the table outside andthat you will join us thanks thank youJeff and thank you for the leadership ofour Pathfinders they do such anexcellent job also want to uh remind youthat the Bible study class for thoseinterested in baptism or rebaptism isgoing to start next week so Pastor SeanBrahman he'll be in the foyer at a tableafter the service today if you've beenthinking about getting baptized maybeyou were baptized a long time ago andthe Holy Spirit is speaking to you aboutgetting recommitted or re-baptizedplease speak with Pastor Brahman theclass is going to start next Sabbathafternoon so more information about thatin the church for you and then we're abusy church here at Gran a bay all kindsof programs I'd like to invite Savannahto come out and she's going to tell usabout another program a very goodprogram that's foryou Matthew 25:23 says his Lord said tohim well done th good and faithfulservant you have been faithful with fewthings I will make you ruler over manythings and if you've been joining us forour Sabbath school lesson this quarterit's about managing for the masterlearning how to manage our finances andwe believe that we should not only beheres of the word but doers as wellright so I'm very excited to announcethat in February Granite Bay is going tobe hosting Dave Ramsey's Financial Peaceprogram this is going to start February6th and run through April 3rd 9 weeksit's going to be every Monday at 6:30p.m. if you're interested in thisopportunity please see one of the Flyersaround church or email FPU granate Baygmail.com to register for the event it'sa great opportunity to not only getthese resources at a discounted ratethrough the church but also toparticipate with a group of people whoare striving to learn how to manage ourmoney God'sway thank you Savannah there is uhinformation there in the bulletin aswell you can see that under thefinancial peace plan if you're wantingto learn more the email address is alsolisted there with additionalinformation couple of other quickannouncements just notice that we aregoing to have a Jamie George concertthat'll be taking place January the 28that 400 p.m. right here at the church ifyou've ever gone to Jamie George concertbefore you know how inspiring and what ablessing that is so please take note ofthat we also have first readings fortransfers coming in coming out and ofcourse today we have a special guestspeaker that is with us and I'd like toinvite Pastor Doug to come tell us alittle bit about our speaker today wealso have a program this afternoon withConrad Vine and that's going to behappening at 2 o' yeah that's right no Idon't have my mic I'm glad you handed methat I'm so used to having it on goodmorning happySabbath good to see each of you herewe're very excited about our guestspeaker today Dr Conrad Vine he's B inBaran Springs Michigan the president ofAdventist Frontier Mission and he hasserved as a missionary Pastoradministrator and goes all over theglobe helping to spread the Three Angelsmessage he also has just somefascinating some fresh insights that arebible-based on some very importantissues and we're just glad that he canjoin us here today at Granda Bay want towelcome him of course he'll be sharingum about missions and talking about someof the work happening around the worldfollowing our morning prayer thismorning and so we're looking forward tothat he'll also be here this afternoonat 2:00 and for those of you that aremen he'll be speaking at the Men'sbreakfast tomorrow morning and wewelcomehim at this time we'd like to invite youto stand for our cult to worship you'llsee the words on the screen we have thishope let's stand as we sing[Music]we have this hope that burns within ourheart hope in the coming of thelord we have this faith that ChristAloneinv faith in the promise of his wordwe believe the time is here when theNations far and near shall awake andshout andsinghallelu Christ isKing we have this hope that burns withinour heartin thecoming of theLord let bow our heads and close oureyes dear father on this beautifulSabbath day we come into yourpresence father I ask that you steal thevoices of the worldoutside and today during these holy oursThe only voice we hear is the voice ofyourspirit so father as we lift our voicesin praise to you as we are bow our headsin prayer as we open your word and readit I pray that you will renew ourthinking you will direct our paths andyou'll give us the abundance of lifethat only Jesus can give we give thisservice into your hands in the name ofJesus we pray amen please be seatedgood morning happy Sabbath I'd like toshare with you a few words of KingSolomon the wisest man that ever livedhe says in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that thereis nothing new Under the Sun what hasbeen before will be again and that istrue of worldly history but it'sespecially true of Bible History when weread the Bible stories we not only learnabout how God deals with his people butwe also get an insight into prophecybecause those stories in many casesrepresent what is going to come in astory form one of the examples I'd liketo look at this morning is when Jesuswas on the cross in Matthew 27 and verse50 there it says and Jesus cried outagain with a loud voice and yielded uphis Spirit he'd been on the cross fornine hours he'd been through a verydifficult two three days and he paid forthe sins of the world there and we knowfrom the Gospel of John that those lastwords were it is finished what wasfinished he had given his life anatonement for sin and that part of theGospel atonement was completed it goeson and it says then behold the veil ofthe temple was torn from top to bottomand the earthquake and the Rocks weresplit and the graves were open and manybodies of the Saints who had fallenasleep were raised and coming out of thegraves after his resurrection they wentinto the holy city and appeared tomany so we have a a loud cry we have aresurrection and then they all thesesaints that have been raised go into theholy city and it says so when theCenturion and those that were with themwho were guarding Jesus saw theearthquake and the things that hadhappened they feared greatly sayingtruly this was the son of God now thisis a picture of what's going to happenat the end of time if you were to turnto Revelation 16and you look the last thing that happensbefore Jesus comes is the outpouring ofthe seventh plague judgment has beencompleted and it says this then theseventh angel poured out his bowl intothe air a loud voice came out of thetemple in Heaven from the throne okaythis voice comes out of the temple fromthe throne this is Jesus voice and itsays it is done or it isfinished this time what is finished isthe Judgment the Saints have beendetermined and therefore the wicked iswell there's no more changing sides andit saysthat there were noises thunderingsLightnings and an earthquake anotherearthquake you see a repetition of whathappened on the cross then Jesus bringsall the angels with him comes back tothis earth calls forth his sleepingSaints as then he and they go soon intothe holy city and as a result just likethat Roman Centurion at the cross allthose on the earth whether they arebelievers or not will acknowledge andsay truly this was the son of Godso we all are looking forward to thattime and when he comes everyone will bekeenly aware of his presence the wickedwill go to the mountains and ask for therocks to fall on them to hide them fromthe face of the lamb and the thefaithful will cry out with joy as theyhear Jesus say Well done thou good andfaithful servant enter into the joy ofthe Lord forever so with all that saidwe have that hope to look forward toamen I I believe the signs of the timesindicate we are getting closer andcloser to the final events of P Bibleprophecy how aboutyou and so the question is what are youdoing to prepare yourself and the othersaround youU God has given us the time talents andresources to give the last invitation tojoin his eternal Kingdom to othersbefore it's too late can you imagine howjoyful it will be with a small sacrificeyou make now to see many people in theKingdom that will be there forever somemight be your closest friends when theytell you you know if it wasn't for thegift you gave I may have perished thinkabout that that's why we give tithes andofferings let's pray Heavenly Father wepray that you would bless our tithes andofferings and that they would go notonly to helping people but to bringingthem into the kingdom eternally we thankyou and ask your blessing on them and oneach one here in Jesus name amen uh foryou those of you who may be visiting wepick up ties at the end of the offeringthere are uh at the back door thedeacons have the the offering basketsyou can put your offerings in there oronline and I would invite the childrento come down now for the children'sstory thankyou no children no children thismorning here they come[Music]oh oh[Music]are[Music]good morning good morning boys and girlsit's good to see you all you all look sonice thismorning and uhnumberseven testing there weare okay uh you guys look great thismorning it's such a beautiful Sabbathmorning but you guys are even morebeautiful than the beautiful sunshine mystory this morning is about somethingthat happened to me when I was in secondgrade do we have any secondgraders here some second graders raiseyour hand if you're in second grade ohwe got a few yeah so in second grade andthis story I'm going to give our I verseright here at the beginning and I thinksome of you may know it so here's thefirst question what is the ninthcommandment can anyone tell me what theninth commandmentis I'll give you a hint it starts withThou shaltnot oh okay let's see if you know Thoushalt not lie that is exactly right thatis exactly right Thou shalt not lie doyou know when I was in second grade Ihad a problem I I uh I was aliar yeah and do you know God is somerciful but I had this problem and sowe were on the playground and one of thestudents had brought a pogo stick to theuh to the school and uh do you know whatnobody knew how to use this pogo stickwe would try to jump on it and we wouldfall off we would maybe bounce once ortwice or three times we'd fall off wellit was a frustrating recess because wewent around the group everybody tried itand nobody could figure out how to workthat pogo stick and when we went in fromuh from our recess the teacher myteacher asked she said so who was ableto bounce the most on the pogo stick andsomeone said oh I I bounced five timesand someone else said they bounced seventimes that was the best they could doand she asked me she said Bradley howmany times were you able to bounce on itI said 20 times20 was I telling thetruth no do you think my teacher knewthat I was not telling the truth I'lltell you what she knew cuz you know whatshe said next that's really good afterschool we're going to get out the pogostick and you can all show us how to doit ohboy do you know the rest of that day Idon't remember anything that happenedbut it lasted it lasted like ayear it was the longest year of my lifedid you have something you wanted toshare you need to just pray every dayGod behappier that is exactly right you knowif you screw up if you tell a lie doesGod say well now it's all on you sorrybut you did that to yourself he doesn'tdo that he wants to save us from all ofour problems even the problems we bringon our eles and this really is a storyof God's grace because I was reallysweating forhours and in my in my heart I waspraying God I don't know what's going tohappen but it's going to be bad and I'mso sorry I am so sorry and do you knowI'm going to tell you God answered thatprayer God is sogracious he is so gracious and he knewthat I was suffering and uh do you knowthat the Bible says that one time Daviddid something really bad and he said inthe Psalms later he said unto you andyou only have I sinned it was G it wasDavid's relationship with God that heknew he had broken by his sin and he hadremorse because he loved God somuch well I had that that kind of brokenheart experience with God and I willtell you God's grace is soabounding when when the end of the daycame and it was time for me to prove myskill on the pogo stick a miraclehappened it was truly a miracle but I'mnot going to tell you I'm not going totell you what happened but you can askme later if you want to know cuz cuz butyou know sometimes God Is So mercifuland he knows he knows that you havelearned your lesson but some otherchildren they need to learn the lessonover and over again and the Bible saysThou shalt not it says it for a reasonand uh so I hope that none of you havethat problem and I hope that maybe ifyou just think about how embarrassing itwould be to say something that wasuntrue and then to have to prove it thatthat would maybe help you to not be aliar is there anyone who will say aprayer forus okay let's bow our heads forprayer dear Lord dear Lord please helpus to follow you please help to notplease help us to not lie please help usto follow you please help us not to getinto temptationamen you can go back to your seatsgoodmorning please stand forreading I'm going to be reading fromacts 13 verse38-49 therefore let it be known to youBrethren that through this man ispreached to you the Forgiveness of sinsand by him everyone who believes inJustified from all things from which youcould not be justified by the law ofMoses beware therefore lest what hasbeen spoken in the prophets come uponyou behold you despisers Marvel andperish for I work a work in your days awork which you will by no means believethough one were to declare it to you sowhen the Jews went out to the synagoguethe Gentiles begged that these wordsmight be preached to them on the nextSabbath now when the congregation hadbroken up many of the Jews and TheDevout prosites followed Paul andBarnabas who speaking to them persuadedthem to continue in the grace of God onthe next Sabbath almost the whole citycame together to hear the words of Godbut when the Jews saw this multitudesthey were filled with Envy andcontradicting and blaspheming theyopposed these things spoken by Paul thenPaul and Barnabas grew bold and said itwas necessary that the word of Godshould be spoken to you first but sinceyou rejected it and judged yourselvesUnworthy of everlasting life behold weturn to the Gentiles for so the Lord hascommanded us I have set you a light inthe G to the Gentiles that you should befor salvation to the ends of the Earthnow when the Gentiles heard this theywere glad and glorified that the wordwas that the word of the Lord and asmany had been appointed to eternal lifebelieved and the word of the Lord wasbeginning to spread throughout theregion please remainstanding I'm sorry please be seatedyou[Music]the[Music]he a[Music]oh[Music]amit's not time for our congregationalprayer and those of you that havespecial petitions that you'd like tobring before the Lord this morning Iinvite you to come down as wesing please stand with us as we singplease[Music]stand now dear Lord as wePR take our hearts and Minds faraway from the Press of the world allaround to your throne where Grace does[Music]abound May Our Lives betransformed by your loveMay our souls be refreshed from[Music]above at this moment let peopleeverywhere join us now as we come to youinpray I invite you to kneel with meHeavenly Father we come before you thismorning on bended knee and we are justso thankful and grateful for all you dofor us for this beautiful Sabbath dayand the chance to come together andfellowship and worship We Praise YouLord and thank you for all that you dofor us Lord we also come before you thismorning as many have come down in frontmaybe some that even haven't we all havepetitions we're all struggling withdifferent things in our lives and wejust pray Lord that as we do that youwould just send your comforter to eachone of us and lift us into your presenceremind us by bringing the scriptures toour minds of how you bless and comfortthose who come to you and that youanswer prayers Lord many are strugglingwith so many different things ofdifferent nature I just pray that youwould hear each one of those prayers youknow what they are Lord we thank you forthe hope we have in Christ for the factthat he is given his life to wash awayour sin and to transform us and given usthe hope of eternal life by hissuffering he has made us free and wethank you for that Lord I ask yourspecial blessing on each one here mayyour Holy Spirit anoint each one anointour our leaders our pastors our guestspeakertoday and uh we just pray that you wouldbe with each one of them be with PastorDoug and Jean as they go to Australiaand be with uh Pastor Vine as he bringsus the word this morning Lord I prayagain your blessing we thank you I HasNot Seen Nor Ear heard the things youhave prepared for them that love you wethank you for that hope in Jesus nameamen[Music]a[Music][Music][Music][Applause][Music][Music][Music][Applause][Music][Music][Music][Music][Applause][Music]well good good morning Granite Bay 7Adventist Church it's a real privilegeto come and share with you on thissabbath day um it's really my first timein Sacramento and it's a beautiful partof the world everything's so green hereand there's so much water here all theserumors I've heard about California mustbe fake news from the past but um maybethis is climate change but you're abeautiful green wet part of the world Ithink it's a good place to live uh soit's a privilege to come and share withyou during these Sabbath hours uh myname is conad Vine I come from beranSprings hence my strange accent and I'dlike to thank um Elder Bachelor and thepastor team for their gracious welcometo come and share with you during theseSabbath hours um I bring greetings formy wife who's back in Baran SpringsMichigan and um from our two childrenone of whom is at Southern and the otheris still living with us in Baran Springsand our I'm going to be talking todayabout missions for our worship servicetoday uh because this is one of thegreatest joys of my life and missions isstill necessary until the whole worldhas heard the gospel and when we get toheaven there's going to be no moreMission there's just just going to bepraise but we engage in Mission todaythat the whole universe might be filledwith praise and nothing else that theuniverse will pulse with the truth thatGod indeed is love and so um I'm goingto be talking about Mission today I'mgoing to be talking about the problemthat we face in our world I'm be talkingabout God's response and then I'm goingto be transitioning to our role withinthat response and I invite you to Bowyour heads with me and we'll open with aword of Prayerdear father God As We Gather in yourpresencetoday and as we break open in the breadoflife I pray father that you will changeourlives I pray father that we will notleave this house of prayer as the samemen and women and boys and girls whocame in in the last fewhours I pray father that we will bedrawn closer to you in worship andadoration I pray that our faith willhave deeper roots and I pray that ourwitness for you will burn brighter andbrighter despite the GatheringGloom father I pray that you speakthrough me you speak for me and that allthat happens today in these next fewmoments brings honor and glory to you inthe name of Jesus I prayamen so uh many years ago back in1913 a famous explorer called ErnestShackleton um posted an ad in the LondonTimes and you see the ad there on thescreen um well I hope it's there it saysmenwanted the it says men wanted forhazardous Journey small wages bittercold bit like Michigan long months ofcomplete darkness constant danger safereturn doubtful honor and recognition incase of success it's a very famous ad inthe London times he was inundated withmultiple thousands of men begging to beon this mysteryExpedition we like challenges don't weand there were thousands of men inLondon in the early 1900s who wanted achallenge like this only a handfulactually joined him on the transAntarctic Trek he was going to walk fromone side of the Antarctic to the otherside of the Antarctic and uh so that'swhat they did uh but they got stuckalong their way and their ship wascaught in the ice flows and it wascrushed around them and some of them hadto sail a small boat about 800 milthrough the stormy Bing 40s off to anisland where there was a British Outpostthey eventually rescued um over a yearlater the survivors it was an incrediblestory of um survival and just sheerdetermination to get through the crisisand in a sense the Apostle Paulunderstood exactly what these explorerswere going through the job descriptiontoday for a Pioneer Church planterserving among the unreached uh mayactually correspond to this advert thatShackleton wrote in the London times ifyou turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthianschap 11 you'll see there how the ApostlePaul describes or gives the jobdescription for a Frontline Churchplanter a missionary an evangelist andwe have you have many evangelists inthis congregation we say praise the Lordfor that and he gives the description in2 Corinthians 11 of what it means to bea Frontline Church planter I'm going topick up the text uh in my Bible here um2 Corinthians chapter 11 and I'm goingto talk pick it up from verse 23 it saysare they Ministers of Christ I'm talkinglike a madman I am a better one with fargreater labors far more imprisonmentswith countless floggings and often neardeath five times I received from theJews the Lash the 40 Lashes minus onethree times I was beaten with rods onceI received a stoning three D three timesI was Shipwrecked on a night and a day Iwas a drift at Sea on frequent Journeysin danger from rivers in Danger fromBandits Danger from my own people Dangerfrom Gentiles danger in the city dangerin the wilderness danger at Sea Dangerfrom false brothers and sisters in toiland hardship through many a sleeplessnight hungry and thirsty often withoutfood cold and naked and besides otherthings I'm under daily pressure becausemy anxiety for all the churches who isweak and I'm not weak who is made tostumble and I am not indignant but if Imust boast I will boast of the thingsthat show my weakness and as he goes onto say as in his description of hisministry in 2 Corinthians 12 and verse10 he brings this this autobiographicalsection to an end he says therefore I amcontent with weaknesses insultshardships persecutions and calamitiesfor the sake of Christ for whenever I amweak then I amstrong and I would say today that thatfirst century job description of aPioneer Church planter really hasn'tchanged over thecenturies now in AFM we produce a niceglossy magazine and there's about a 100out in the foer I'd encourage you topick one up as you go home today and wetell the stories of people being led toJesus Christ among uh Hindu Muslimanimist and Buddhistcommunities but what we don't tell arethe stories so much of the personalcost the cost of seeing your childrenphysically or sexually assaulted thecost of being run out of town by a mobthe cost of staying in a country whenthere's an ebola outbreak and you can'tget to the airport you just have tohunker down and pray the outbreak passesby without you dying a very horribledeath uh some people like to go and uhtravel around the 1040 Mission windowand uh they like the SES they like thetemples they like the mountains and ifyou see up the screen here there's acouple of slides I'd like to show just acouple of maps that give us a sense ofwhat I'm talking about here um on thescreen there you'll see a map of theworld and if you look closely at thescreen there's a circle that encompassesChina and India and Southeast Asia nowthere are more people living inside thatCircle than living outside that Circleit gives you an idea of the relativepopulation density in our world today onthe next slide here you have what wecall as myologist the 1040 Missionwindow which is 10 to 40° north of theequator and um that is the area of thegreatest poverty the the worst politicalviolence the highest infants and Mortalinto infant and Ma maternal mortalityrates around the world it truly is aplace of great human suffering those yousee on the screen there the thecountries of the 1040 Mission windowthat's where most of our AFMmissionaries work today that is wherethey're needed and if you're everthinking being a missionary the chancesare you're going to be in one of thosecountries maybe spending the next 30Years raising your family learning thelanguage and planting congregations andthe next slide you see really emphasizeswhere we as Adventists today because onthis slide here the green dots arecities of a million with more than20,000 Adventists but the red dots arethose part cities of the world with morethan a million inhabitants with fewerthan 125 Adventists and this slide heregraphically illustrates the challenge ofthe 1040 Mission window we do well asAdventists where when we go into acommunity and say this is the word ofGod such as Latin America or CentralAmerica people already accept that butwhen you go to a country where they havetheir own Sacred Scriptures you'restarting from a much more fundamentalstarting point you have the Bible wehave the Quran you have the Bible wehave the bhagvad Gita or other Hindu orBuddhist scriptures and so forth and soyou're starting from a much moredifficult um starting point in thediscussion uh many years ago I was inNepal and I was um you know I was therefor a few days I did the tourist stuff Iwas looking around the river goes to thecenter of Katmandu and beside the riverthey cremate the bodyand these these funeral PES are leftburning for days and the air reallystinks it's really awful and you seethese holy men sitting there and theirfaces are covered in white powder andthey have what seems to be like pythonsnakes crawling around their necks andthey want you to pay a few Rupees totake a picture with it and I Stay Wellclear of snakes I don't particularlylike snakes um but the thing is you getwesterners by the tens of thousands goto places like Nepal they go trackingthey go and see Mount Everest but whenyou go there as a missionarywhat you see is 30 million peoplelaboring under the fear ofdemons and everywhere you go you see alittle red dot of wax or red mark on atree on a stone um on a plant on theside of a building and that is now aDivinity for somebody in that communityand as people walk through thatCommunity they will stop and make Pujaoffer their worship before each of thoserepresentations of a demon because theyare scared of the demons and their powerover their lives so westerners will goto these countries and say oh they nicepicturethis is a cute looking Temple this is anice looking holy man or look at thatpython but you go there as a missionaryand you realize that these nations arefilled with spiritual darkness and allthe pain that goes withit and you realize how wonderful thegospel truly is that there is one Godnot millions of deities and he is a godof love not a God to be appeased that hesent his son into the world not tocondemn the world but that through himthe world might be saved the god gospelis truly wonderful wonderful news andwhen we live in a country with a judeoChristian Heritage like America wesometimes forget how beautiful thegospel really is but when you go tocountries in the 1040 Mission windowwhere other gods hold sway you might sayyou realize the spiritual darkness thatexists out there so let's dwell for amoment on the nature of that problem anduh we're going to focus on Psalm 74: 20now the text will be on the screen ifyou want to follow in your own Biblesthat's fine um but we're going to belooking for a few minutes at Psalm 74and verse 20 and Psalm 74 and: 20 um isbelieved to be a Psalm written duringthe Babylonian exile and uh NENebuchadnezzar has come three times he'staken Daniel in his three friends on thefirst um visit to Jerusalem in 605 BCand uh then he finally destroysJerusalem a few years later and the Jewsare taken captive and the remnant towith the Prophet Jeremiah they flee downto to um they flee down to Egypt despiteGod saying do not do this and Psalm 74is believed to be a Psalm written duringthe Babylonian exile and the Jews arelooking back at the destruction ofJerusalem the tearing down of the templetheir national pride is gone the centerof their Universe has been destroyed itappears that God has forsaken them andthey're not reading the Prophecies ofJeremiah that says 70 years is going tobe this captivity in Jeremiah 29 theyseem to have forgotten that particularprophecy and they they are sunk in thisPsalm here in their Despair and so theystart off in verse one with this passagehere oh God why have you cast us offforever why does your anger smokeagainst the Sheep of your pastor they donot use the words against your peoplethe idea of the sheep of your pastorthis is injecting a tone of tendernessinto the psalm Lord you see yourcongregation you see your sheepincluding your Lambs why are you angrywith these innocent lambs of yours andthen the psalmist goes on to describethe the the pain of seeing thedestruction of Jerusalem it says thatyour enemies Roar in the midst of yourmeeting place they set up their bannersfor signs they seem like men who lift upaxes among the thick trees and now theybreak down its carved work all at oncewith axes and hammers they have set fireto your Sanctuary they have defiled thedwelling place of your name to theground they said in their hearts let usdestroy them all together they haveburned up all the meeting places of GodGod in the land and so the psalmist arereflecting on the fact that the centerof their Universe has now gone and forJews in the time of Daniel and andJeremiah and Ezekiel all of whom werecontemporaries at the time ofNebuchadnezzar it seems Unthinkable thatJerusalem is gone it's just a pile ofruins the psalmist goes on and it talksabout the despair that they they do notsense that God is even with them intheir Babylonian captivity they say wedo not see our signthere is no longer any Prophet nor isthere anyone among us who knows how longoh God how long will the adversaryreproach will the enemy blaspheme yournameforever and so then the then thepsalmist turns from verse 11 through tothe next 10 verses we're not going toread those to recount to God how God hassaved his people in the past they tellthe story of The Exodus they tell thestory of The Parting of the Red Sea theytell the story of the Mana they tell thestory of The Parting of the River Jordanso they can enter into the promised landit is good for us in moments of Crisisto recount what God has done forus and it's interesting that when yousee people making transitions in thescripture whether it's Moses to JoshuaJoshua to the leaders of Israel David toSolomon or Paul to the Elders of theChurch of of um Ephesus each time theyrecount what God has done in the pastfor that group of people because whenyou pass on the story you en you'reencouraging them and you're sayingyou're going to face challenges as wellbut this is how God worked for us in thepast you can hold to him I wouldencourage you as you in your ownfamilies maybe at the end of the year tosit down and recount what God has donefor you maybe make it maybe make it acustom at Thanksgiving to share withinyour family God's Providence hisprotection his guidance during theprevious year our children need to hearthis they need to be raised with thestories of God's protection andProvidence and guidance so when they aremature and they face challenges of theirown they have a a reservoir oftestimonies of God's goodness andfaithfulness within their ownfamilies but then the psalmist goes onto say this this is the verse I want todwell on here it says have respect tothe Covenant for the dark places of theEarth are full of the haunts of Crueltynow I've put four versions up on thescreen so we get the sense the newrevised says have regard for yourCovenant for the dark places of the landare full of the haunts of violence thenyou the King James says have respectunto the Covenant for the Dark Places ofthe Earth are full of the habitations ofCruelty and the new American saysconsider the Covenant for the darkplaces of the land are full of thehabitations of violence and so what thepsalmist is saying here is that whenpeople dwell outside of the Covenantrelationship with God the inevitableresult isviolence and some of you are noddingyour heads this morning when peopledwell away from that saving Covenantrelationship with our heavenly fatherthe inevitable um cycle and spiral ofhuman behavior isdownwards and the psalmist is is is uhmentioning this In this passage herebecause the people of Israel areexperiencing the violence of theBabylonians OD DOTA babum happy shallthey be who take your infants and dashtheir heads against the Rocks becauseyou did it to us Psalm139 unspeakable violence took place inthe conquest of Jerusalem now just todwell on this passage here just look atsome of the words there in the Hebrewhave regard for your Covenant for thedark places of the land that word inHebrews erets nowadays you have eretsIsrael the land of Israel are full Malleof the haunts of violence and the wordthat is used is Hamas have you heard thename Hamas in the news there's aPalestinian group their name is Hamas itmeans violence it also means uhrejection against established orderagainst um that which is in place and soIn this passage here the psalmist saysthat the dark places of the world um myversion says land but the word eretsmeans the world they are filled withviolence not just violence but thehaunts of violence where violence iscelebrated that word Malle it actuallymeans to be full to be covered to bemasked to be overflowing to be gratifiedor to be satisfied that is um it's notjust the world is filled with violencebut the yearning of men's Hearts is forviolence that men find satisfactionengaging in violence or watchingviolence and you know that's truebecause one the most popular genres ofmovies these days is action movies andpeople enjoy watching action movies andwe get pleasure in watching the violentdeaths of otherpeople it's aparadox even Christians glory inviolence and the destruction of thosewho bear the image of God now the wordHamas it means violence or crueltywrongdoing it means to treat violentlyor to injure another so in this versethe psalmist is saying is the naturalstate of humanity outside of a covenantrelationship with God is Manifest by ayearning and a satisfaction with and alooking for violence and cruelty one toanother as in the time of the psalmistso today so violence is endemic in the21st century in the world in which welive whether it be abuse in all of itsforms whether it be human trafficking inthe sex trade whe whether it be neglectwhether it be substance abuse the listgoes on and on and on Brokenness and theyearning for violence is now the normfor fallen humanity and this violencepermeates our marital relationships itpermeates our family relationships itpermeates our community relationshipsand it permeates our national and ourInternational relationships norelationship on planet Earth today isimmune from the lust forviolence our desire to dominate somebodyelse every relationship ship known tohumanity is poisoned we are yearning forDomination over somebody else or overanother Nation or another group and evenas a nation we glory in violence uh yousee movies like Top Gun and so forth weglorify in our ability to kill otherpeople as a nation we celebrate ourability to kill large quantities ofpeople very efficiently am I speakingthe truth here brothers and sisters yeahI'm speaking the truth now thepsalmist in this verse here is echoingthe state of it before the flood and soon the screen there you'll see that uhGenesis 6 and: 11 has the same threeverse three words there it says therenow the Earth was filled well the Earthwas corrupt in God's sight and the Earthwas filled with violence so Genesis 611has those three same vers words theEarth the erets was filled Malle withviolence Hamas so before the flood whenGod said I'm going to wipe out thisworld and I'm going to start over theEarth was filled with violence and onlywas the earth filled with violence butthe next verse of Genesis 6 and13 saysGod said to Noah I have determined tomake an End of All Flesh for the Earththe eret is filled marle with violenceHamas because of them now I'm going todestroy them along with the Earth and sojust as the psalmist experienced a worldfilled with violence so as in the daysof Noah the Earth was filled withviolence and Jesus tells us in Matthew24 and: 37 he says for as the days ofNoah were so will be the coming of theson of man now Jesus goes on to say thatthey are eating and they are drinkingthey are marrying and they're giving inmarriage but if we're to take everythingwe know about the flood the pre floodtimes we can also deduce that beforeJesus comes again our world is going tobe filled not with peace andlongsuffering and Community Harmony it'sgoing to be filled withviolence and is that the world in whichwe livetoday oh yeah that's the world in whichwe live today we're going to be livingin a society and a world that filledthat is filled with um pointless butendlessviolence this is hardly good news butthis is the reality of serving among the1040 wind Mission the peoples of the 104Mission window those who are outside ofthe New Covenant relationship with Godnow I've I've traveled you know prettymuch continually since the age of 18that's 32 years on theroad and I can tell you that um thereare some countries where you fly in andyou read the glossy inflight magazinebrochure and you don't believe a word ofit because you've been there before andyou know what it's like and there aresome countries you fly to and you knowthere really is a problem because whenyou look in the glossy inflight magazinethere are adverts for armed Patrol guardfor for from um trained rot viers andDobermans there are adverts for 24/7armed response units private securityteams there are adverts for for barbedwire razor wire wire configurations atyour home and you know when you'reflying into a country and you see adsfor razor wire and and armed securityteams or something's not quite right inthisnation and we see this in more and morecountries around the world today and inthe 1040 Mission window and Beyond humantrafficking and gender-based violenceand the persecution of religious andother minorities including Christiansethnic cleansing linguicide and thengenocide um plague parts of the 1040Mission window today the fear ofviolence is a daily companion for manyback in 2015 I was in Iraq um Isis cameacross Northern Syria into Northern Iraqand um the Christians fled from ThePlains of Nineveh where um the prophetJonah was actually that Jonah was a verysuccessful missionary he doesn't realizeit he maybe didn't know it at the timebut today the largest group ofChristians in Iraq are the Assyrians theethnic Assyrians where Jonah was up inancient Nineveh nowadays it's the cityof mostand around the city of mosul you get aregion called District called The Plainsof Nineveh and the Christians fled fromthe arrival of Isis from the West theyfled East into um Iraqi controlKurdistan and there was a city in inNorthern Iraq Kurdistan called irel andin in urel there is a small Districtit's shaped like a pie wedge and it'sabout 2 miles wide at the narrow thewidest bit and it comes down to just asliver of land and in that pie of landin the city the District of anowa iscalled in the city of herbel theChristians of Northern Syria andNorthern Iraq gathered that was theirAlamo in 2015 they were armed to theteeth because they knew that if Isiscame down that road nobody was going tolift a finger to save them this wastheir last stand in 2015 the Christiansof Northern Iraq the fear of violence istruly a problem for many in our worldtoday the dark places of the earth thatis they do not have the the light of theworld shining in them that is JesusChrist are filled with a yearning and adesire and a lust for violence that'sthe problem and as missionaries we seethis and when you go into countries asmissionaries you go there knowing thatthere is real danger and you go thereknowing that your life is cheap and manywill celebrate if you are killed in thecourse of your time there that yourdeath will not be greeted as a nationaloutrage it'll be viewed with as a causeof Celebration among many people to thatcountry so what what is God's solutionwell God does have a solution and thatsolution really is the gospel and God'ssolution is found not in so much a textbut God's solution is found in theperson of Jesus Christ so they say thatthat preaching is the proclamation bythe spoken word from the living from thewritten word of the LivingWord and so God's solution is not to umbring more violence into planet Earthbut it is to send the Prince of Peaceand the Prince of Peace comes into theworld into the dark places of the worldJohn 8 and: 12 Jesus spoke to hisdisciples and he said to them he saysJohn 8:12 he said I am the light of theworld whoever follows me will never walkin darkness but will have the light oflife to a world sunk in the violence ofspiritual Darkness God sent his son tobe the light of the world and that lightshines in the darkness John 1:5 in theprologue of John's gospel it says thisit says and the light shines in thedarkness and the Darkness did notovercome it let's just hold that on thescreen for a minute the light shines inthe darkness but the darkness does notovercome it now implicit within thisverse is the idea there is conflictbetween light and darkness is that rightthere is the light of the world and theDarkness was not able to overwhelm it itmeans that the darkness is always tryingto overwhelm the light but the lightstillshines and so that Light In this passagehere is relating specifically to JesusChrist as the light of the world uh theum darkness by its very nature cannotcoexist with light where there is lightit always dispels The Darkness Darknessnever seeks um a modus operandi modusvendi never seeks a um a manner of coexwithlight you cannot have light coexistingwith Darkness the darkness will try andoverwhelm the light but if the light haspower in it it will always shine and itwill always dispel the darkness so if Iwould put a candle here right now um andlight it you wouldn't see much of thatcandle because there's so much light inthis room but if we were to turn thelights off here and come back atmidnight everybody in the room would seethat candle the candle hasn't changedwhat has changed is the darkness hasgathered around it and now the light ismore visible so people worry how am Igoing to be in the final crisis beforeJesus comes again we'll live a life thatis given over to the following of theHoly Spirit a life that is um anoverflow of the love of Jesus Christtoday you're not going to have to worryabout too much because that's who you'regoing to be in that final crisis andpeople will see the light of yourlife so there is conflict between lightand darkness Darkness and Light cannotcoexist not just in theological termsbut Darkness and Light cannot coexist inmy home nor in yours in my heart nor inyours and maybe you have come to churchtoday and there's an element of darknessin your homemaybe there's a tinge of darkness inyour heart and you know there'ssomething there maybe it's a cherishedsin maybe it's something that you knowyou shouldn't be in your life but youkind of play with it you've got kind ofused to it and you excuse it toyourself but I want to challenge youtoday to go home and stay and put thatout of your life to repent of that thingand to confess it and give it over toGod you do not need that conflict withinyour heart or with within your home AHouse Divided is not going to stand inthe final crisis if we're to be readyfor that final crisis before Jesus comesagain we need to be making our livesready now that is building our lives onthe teachings of Jesus Matthew Chapter 56 and 7 the wise man builds his houseupon the rock and he doesn't mix sand inwith therock so we are to clean our lives ofthis darkness that inhabits the worldaround tragically today we allexperience that conflict in our lives inour ministry Satan pushes back onpastors and on Bible workers and onAmazing fax workers and on AFMmissionaries we see it he tries todiscourage us to depress us to divert usuh to deny us access to countries and todestroy the bodies of those who carryand represent the light of the world tothe unreached and dark haunts ofviolence every time that bloodstainedBanner is planted in the middle of anunreached people group that blood isoften our own or generally it's that ofourchildren that's the reality of missionwork your children pay a price if youserve as a missionary your children willpay a price if you answer the call togospel ministry here in the UnitedStates there is a very strongpossibility your children will pay aprice how does Satan discourage gospelworkers whether they are here oroverseas is by attacking theirchildren and he attacks you where you'reyou're most vulnerable and he attacksyou where it hurts the most and heattacks you where there may be a senseof Shame involved it you don't want totalk about it but you get involved inMinistry on the outside but on theinside there is a terrible pain andshame that you're battling with on adaily basis every time a new believerenters the body of Christ the bodies ofthose we love particularly our childrenseem to suddenly experience illness andpain I experience this on a regularbasis when I with my colleagues engagein Deliverance Ministry I have a son atSouthern and he knows that when weengage in Deliverance Ministry andsomebody says Pastor there's a shadow inmy life there's a demon in my life Iplayed with Ouija board as a teen was atcollege and now um the these things arecoming true in my life or I had myhoroscope read or my mother was a witchor whatever the entry point is into thatperson's life my boy knows that when Ifast and pray for a couple days with acouple of colleagues and we go and visitthat person and anoint them and driveout the demons my boy knows is thatSatan attacks myson he knowsthat so I used to tell him David this iswhat's going to happen you need toprepare yourself because Satan's goingto push back and you're going to gethurt and he knows this and I knowthat and yet if you being if you'regoing to be involved in Ministry it's awhole family business it's not just medoing stuff my family at home notinvolved where my entire family is fairgame for satanic attacks once I or youengage inMinistry and so the whole family needsto understand this we had one missionaryin in Benin um this missionary um washe's from West Africa himself and hasmany years experienc and DeliveranceMinistry and they consecrated their homeand uh then the missionary made thecomment to his wife at Family Worshipthat we've consecrated the home so nowwe can we don't need to worry aboutSatan attacking our children and thechild infant was lifted from hismother's lap and carried through the airto the kitchen by the other end of thehouse and dumped in a pot of boilingwater and all the skin came off his leftleg uh this is what happened to thatmissionary child these things happen andthe missionary realized oh yes thedemons are present even within thesefourwalls this stuff happens in the missionfield Ministry whether you're a pastorin in Sacramento or a missionary in the1040 Mission window is really two stepsforward followed by another two stepsforward in reality is one step forwardit is one step sideways it is one stepback maybe a pause to lick your woundsbefore you summon the courage to launchforward again and all missionaries bearscars whether they are physical scarsemotional scars or psychological scarspastors also bear scars they very goodat hiding it but pastors also bear scarsit is not easy to be involved in gospelMinistry these days and those scars umare recogn earned precisely becausethose missionaries did not shrink fromGod's call in their life and as suchthose scars are nothing to be ashamed ofbut their Badges of Honor because it'sour privilege to go and serve and bearthe gospel to the ends of the Earth wefollow in the fate of Jesus when we dewhen we do so and if Jesus experiencedpersecution and rejection and was a Manof Sorrows and acquainted with griefthat then is the lot of Frontlinemissionariestoday Jesus did not say in that passageon the screen the light shines in thedarkness so he does not say the lightShone in the darkness John does notwrite that he says the light shines inthe darkness that is it's a presentactive in this verse so uh In thispassage it doesn't read that Jesus cameand he Shone like a comet going throughthe sky and then he left went back toheaven and the light is now gone thispassage here says that the light isshining in the darkness and this waswritten after the Ascension of Jesus toJerusalem so what is John talking abouthere in what sense is the light of Jesusremaining as a Shining Force in ourworld today well Jesus explained it inMA Matthew Chapter 5 and verse 14 and hesays to the Church of Granite Bay youChurch of Granite Bay you are the lightof the world a City built built on ahill you're on a Hilltop here cannot behid know after a lighting a lamp putsunder the bushel basket but on thelampstand and it gives light to all inthe house in the same way let your lightshine before others so that they may seeyour good works and give glory to yourfather which is in heaven and so we arecommissioned to be the light of theworld today you are commissioned to bethe light of the world in your workplacein your home in your marriage with yourchildren are you serving as the light ofthe world does the light of the love ofGod shine in your life do people seethis do people take note of this dopeople even know that you are aChristian do people even know that dopeople um talk about the fact that yourlife maybe is different you havedifferent values the values of thisworld that when somebody's being hurt insociety um or hurt in the workplace thatyou show empathy and sympathy andcompassion and you stand by them do theysee the principle of forgiveness in yourlife forgiveness is a uniquely Christianprinciple and our world is in dire needofforgiveness Jesus represented hischurches in the Book of Revelation asseven golden lampstands and there's agreat truth in that picture because acandle not only gives out light but itgives out soot and smoke it is totallyunrealistic for a c to expect a candleto only give out light the very natureof a candle is to give out light andsoot and also smoke no candle has evergiven out light alone but we his churchare represented as a Candlestick whichmeans we don't give off a pure light wegive off a smoky light individually andcorporately we are not perfect but ourexperience of the body of Christ will bedetermined whether we choose to look atthe light or whether we choose to lookat the smudges on the roof there willalways be soot or smoke in the body ofChrist but we are called to look to thelight and jesus' response God's responseto the dark places of the world beingfilled with violence was not only to setsent his son Jesus Christ but it was tocall us to be the light of the worlduntil Jesus comes back again and if youhave never studied with somebody andyou've seen the lights go on when theyaccept the gospel I I challenge you toask your pastors today is there somebodyI can study with because when you studywith somebody and the light goes on intheir eyes and you see they get thegospel and they've internalized it it'sthe most beautiful thing you've everseen it's the most beautiful thing andso uh many years ago I was in some partof the Middle East studying with aMuslim family and uh we went through wewent through a few few days studyingtogether and this uh the as we on theend of the final at the end of the weekI invited them to accept Jesus as Lordand Savior and they all agreed to it andthey were baptized the next day but aswe were studying with them um thisMuslim lady she opened her Bible toRomans chapter 5 and verse 8 and Romanschapter 5 and Romans chapter 8 arebeautiful passages to study with Muslimsbut she pointed to Romans 5 in verse 8which says that God proves his love forus and that while we were yet sinnersChrist died for us and she looked at meand she said this is so beautiful thereis no picture of God like this in myMuslim faith the God is a god of loveand God sent his son to die for me andhe sent his son to die for me while wewere yet a planet in rebellion andhostile toGod and the lights went on and the tearsflowed and you realize just howbeautiful the gospel trulyyears so what is our roletodaywell we do have arole I want to go back to our scripturereading today Paul and barnabas' firstmissionary journey were sent from thecity of Antioch that's in Southeasternturkey of today and they went from fromAntioch to Cyprus and from Cyprus theywent North into Southern turkey of todayand they went to the cities of perga andAntioch in pidia and there theyproclaimed the gospel and you see thatpassage on the screen Paul concludes hisgospel presentation with this appeal hesaid but he whom God raised upexperienced no corruption let it beknown to you therefore my brothers thatthrough this man forgiveness of sins ofof sins is proclaimed to you by thisJesus everyone who believes is set freefrom all those sins which you could notbe from which you could not be freed bythe law of Moses this is truly good newsyes you can be set free from all yoursins of the past okay and uh last uhweek I preached a sermon and uh I got anemail this morning from a lady somewherein the world who said that her daughterwatched that sermon and was wasoverwhelmed and confessed to a terriblecrime and handed herself into theauthorities and that lady spoke aboutthe peace that her daughter now has tobe set free by the gospel from aterrible crime and the guilt that thatyou carry the burdens of guilt well whenPaul proclaimed the message of theGospel to the to the Jews and theGentiles in in Turkey there um he waskind of rejected by by the um by thecrowds and the next Sabbath he came backand so many Gentiles came that the Jewsof that city were filled with jealousyand so the the story goes on in verse 45it says there when the Jews saw thecrowd they were filled with jealousy andblaspheming they contradicted what wasspoken by Paul and so Paul thenresponded with these very very famouswords words that apply to us today andwhat did he say he said then both Pauland Barnabas spoke out boldly saying itwas necessary that the word of Godshould be spoken first to you that isthe Jews of that particular synagoguebut since you reject it and judgeyourselves be Unworthy of eternal lifewe are now turning to the Gentiles forso the Lord has commanded us saying Ihave set you to be a light for theGentiles so that you may bring Salvationto the ends of the Earth now thisprophecy that you will be a light to theends of the Earth a light for theGentiles was first spoken of of aboutthe people of Israel in Isaiah 41 andIsaiah 49 God planned for a people to bea light to the world when Jesus wasdedicated in the temple by Simeon inLuke Chapter 2 Simeon quoted thisprophecy over Jesus and said you aredestined to be a light to the Gentilesbut then Paul when he's the FirstMissionary on his first missionaryjourney he claims this passage heappropriates it for Frontlinemissionaries and said it's not justapplying to the people of Israel and itdoesn't just apply to Jesus himself thisthis passage applies to every Frontlinemissionary in fact every disciple ofJesus today we are called to be a lightfor the Gentiles that is our callingthat is our purpose and I thank the Lordfor the ministry of this church andamazing fact TV and the light that goesaround the world from this church um butthis is our calling today to be a lightto the Gentiles so the Fulfillment ofthis prophecy was found in the work ofthe people of Israel then the work ofJesus then the work of the Apostles andby extension we are also to be afulfillment of this prophecy we are alsoto be a light for the Gentiles nowhistorically there have been many but uhprofoundly inadequate motives forMission some people may be thinkingtoday well maybe I'd like to be amissionary or maybe I feel a call togospel Ministry but if you are sensingthe call to be a missionary um therehave been some historical but veryinadequate motives for this one was theimperialist motive that was to turn theconverts into the docile subjects ofsecular Colonial authorities anotherinadequate motive was the culturalmotive that's the transfer of themissionaries allegedly Superior cultureto another country there's a fascinatingstudy from Southeast Asia that showsthat you can tell which country themissionaries came from by what peoplewear in church 150 yearslater and the American missionaries theywore kind of more they didn't have theties like the British missionaries didand you can tell that in the churcheseven to this day that's the that's whatChristianity is based based on themissionary's cultural norms some peoplehave a romantic motive that is you wantto go overseas for adventure and findfood and all the rest of it and I cantell you that there is not much truth tothe Romantic motive when you've had youknow ganja gut or Deli belly for a fewdays the Romantic motive disappears veryfast there is also the ecclesiasticalmotive that's the desire to export yourconfession to establish your Church'sAuthority in another part of the worldthese are inadequate and reallyunbiblical motivations some people havethem as missionaries and really theyshould not have those motivations butthere have been better motivesthroughout the history of missions onewas the conversion motive you might saythis is the focus of the evangelicalsthis emphasizes making personaldecisions for Jesus Christ which is goodbut it Narrows the kingdom of God to thenumber of visible saved Souls then thereis also the eschatological motive whichpoints Believers to the second comingthat's where we major as Adventists thechallenge with the focusing on theeschatological motive is you ignorepresent injustices with in society thenyou have the church planting motivewhich we have in AFM to buildcongregations of s Adventists around theworld but this exclusively identifiesthe visible church with God's kingdomand that's not always true then you mayhave the philanthropic motive such asthe Salvation Army which works forjustice and the alleviation of sufferingin this world but it limit it limitsGod's kingdom to social improvements inthis world alone our time is moving onso why do we serve well somewhy do people today why are they willingto Bear such scars and to make suchsacrifices and if you are sensing thecall to serve as a missionary I want totell you now it is not romantic it isnot glamorous it's where your life isyou die to Christ and you get planted ina foreign land and God will give thegrowth but you have to be willing to diein that foreign land sometimes literallyoften spiritually and metaphorically andif you go into a closed access countrywhere missionaries are not allowed youalmost disappear from the inet like youdon'texist you have to be willing to makethis kind of sacrifice for a muchgreater good and for the joy of seeingpeople among the Lost except Jesus asLord and Savior so why are so many todaywilling to carry such scars and bearsuch sacrifices well first of all we'recompelled by the love of God for thelove of Christ the love of God urges uson because we are convinced that one hasdied for all therefore all have diedGod's love has entered into our livesand it now flows out of our hearts andour minds as a stream of life-givingwater our sharing of the Gospel is thenatural overflow of a lovingrelationship with our heavenly fatherand it's but the organic expression ofour own joyful experience of Salvationif you fall in love with somebody it'shard to hide it is itnot like if you have a teenager in yourhouse okay and and they fall in lovewith somebody you can tell they don'thave to tell you they may try and hideit and they may oh no there's nothinghappening there you can tell it's likebody odor you can't hide thesethings you can't hide these things whenyou are in love it seepsout when you're in love with JesusChrist it seeps out when your life isgoverned by his teachings and his loveand the principles of his kingdom itseeps out and so why are so many willingtoday to Bear the S make the sacrificesand carry the scars of Frontlinemissions is number one because they arechanged by the love of God and the loveof God flows out of them to people whooften times hate them inreturn and when that people groupmolests your daughter because thathappens doesn't make the magazine but ithappens you have to choose is love anemotion or is love a principle are wegoing to stay or are we going to headhome those are hard decisions thatmissionaries have tomake and we encourage them each time todwell upon the love of Christ for themand what does that mean for them andtheir family sometimes it means cominghome sometimes it means staying secondlywhy do so many people accept the call togospel service today is because throughproclaiming the gospel throughout allnations we are hastening the end as yousaw in the video I showed at thebeginning this Gospel of the Kingdomwill will be proclaimed to All Nationsas a testimony to them and then what theend shall come and when the end comes itmeans no more disease someone sayhallelujah hallelujah um I'm not surewhat you're trained to say this some sayAmen some say hallelujah some say praisethe Lord some wave their hands I'm notsure what you're normal way of sayingappreciation here but uh some when Jesuscomes again all disease comes to an endamen all death comes to an end amen alldivorce comes to an end all drugaddiction comes to an end all Despairand doubt and fear comes to an end whenJesus comes again all human sufferingcomes to an end and all animal sufferingcomes to anend I think that's a powerful motive forbeing a Frontline gospelworker and you can do that here inSacramento or in California or in Mexicoor to the ends of the Earth I want tochallenge you to think of where whereare you going to be doing where are yougoing to be playing your role as anindividual churchmember what part are you going to playin making that possible when we serve asFrontline gospel workers we serve todayso that no tears will be shed tomorrowor eternity we also serve asmissionaries because the cosmosreverberates with joy over every sinnerwho is welcomed into God's Kingdom inleading the lost to Calvary we bring joyto our Heavenly Father and to the angelsof heaven when every sinner is savedthere is a anguish among the Demons ofSatan and there is Joy among the angelsof God which means that your ministryhas a cosmic significance when you agreeto study the Bible with someone when youshare your testimony with somebody whenyou pass on a glow trct or you sayhere's a copy of steps to Christwhatever you may do there is a watchingCosmos watching what you're doing andthose angels are cheering you on can youimagine what the angels are thinking ifyou if you let's say you're a fan of ohI don't know the Patriots there a randomgroup if you're a fan of the Patriotsand you're sitting in the stadium in theChicago Bears run out and you're waitingfor your team to come out but they neverarrive on the field you're going to bekind of disappointed yes imagine how theangels feel when you're sitting in aplane next to somebody or in the inWalmart or wherever you may be and someraises a question that has spiritualsignificance and you just switch the theconversation to theweather how do you think the Angels mustfeel come on guys we're cheering for youyou share the gospel and there'srejoicing in heaven you need to get inthe fight you need to be activelyshining the light of the love of God inthis particularcommunity and what is a result ofturning from the darkness from the abodof violence to the light of the worldand to the Prince of Peace wellaccording to the Apostle Paul this thisis how he records it he says when theGentiles heard this they were glad andpraised the word of the Lord there isJoy when the gospel comes into people'slives and maybe we've lived with thegospel for so long that we forget thesanctifying influence and the upliftinginfluence of the Gospel within our livesor within our communities but when thereis no gospel presence within a communitythe inevitable result is a decline intoviolence political violence ethnicviolence interc communal violence we seeit all around our world today whenpeople turn to God and receive the agapelove and that washes away the Hamasviolence people experience a renewal oflife that nothing else can bring it's abeautiful beautiful thing we see it inour history Cory tboom who survived theNazi death camps Archbishop Desmond Tutuand uh Nelson Mandela in South AfricaEven in our own Nation when there is arace-based killing and you see anAfrican-American man or mother a fatheror mother standing up and offeringforgivenessthat's the most powerful thing I see inAmerican history time and again it's theForgiveness based on The Well of aChristian faith that comes fromAfrican-American communities when theyexperience senselessviolence and that calls us to a higherstandard of living when people arewilling to transcend the violence and tosay um I'm not just going to offer youforgiveness because forgiveness involvesone person but I'm going to work forreconciliation reconciliation involvestwo people then there is a powerfulforce for change not just in how we livebut in the hearts of the people withinthatcommunity so our time is up what are wegoing to say in conclusion today wellour existence in this congregation YourExistence may be summarized in threesimplequestions these are those three simplequestions do you believe as acongregation that God's promises alwayscome true yes I believe that absolutelythey always come true number two do youbelieve that the good news news of theKingdom will go to the ends of theEarth yes you're participating in itwith all your Ministries that come outof this incredible congregation and theamazing facts Ministries next questionis this and do you believe that God'spromises will come through true throughthiscongregation through this congregationnot just somebody else doing it butthrough thiscongregation I believe so you have anoutsized impact all around the worldI've been in countries where peoplewatch Amazing Facts TV and come toAdventists and say I would like to bebaptized this congregation has a reacharound the world and I want to saythere's something else about Frontlinegospel work we also need boots on theground because I've met Muslims whowaited for years to meet a livingChristian they listen to 3abn they watchamazing facts and they're waiting for aliving Christian to turn up in theirCommunity who will disciple them andlead them into the body ofChrist we need radio and media and weneed boots on theground so I want to appeal to you todayif you sense that God is calling you tobe a Frontline missionary I'm here forthe rest of today for the men'sMinistries tomorrow please come andspeak with me we say in AFM that thereare three things you can do and tosupport Frontline missions they're up onthe screen now first of all startpraying that God will raise upmissionaries to reach the unreachedtoday it's about 40 45% of the worldJesus ain't coming anytime time soonunless we get to work that 40 45% isgrowing with every year we needFrontline missionaries number two startgiving I want to thank the family whereI'm staying for their Hospitality givingdoesn't have to be necessarily Financialbut it can be uh giving of your time itmay be participating in a prayer groupit may be giving word of encouragementto a passing missionary if you're aclinician it may be saying I can giveyou you know A reduced rate medical carefor your children who've been hurt inthe mission field there are many manyways that you can give to supportmissions or you cango and I'll say this after 30 plus yearsof living around the world there isnothing I would ever do there's nothingI would rather do than being a Frontlinemissionary because you get to see thestory of the book of Acts being writtenon a daily basis today we get to see inthe Philippines children raised from thedead happened just a few years ago weget to see miraculous healings we get tosee Miracles that we read about in theBible there still happening today Goddoes not change his ways among FallenHumanity are still as true and asglorious and as beautiful today as theywere in the 28 chapters of the book ofActs and he's still working so you maygo and if you sense God calling you tobe a Frontline missionary please comeand speak with me today or tomorrow youcan go for one year or you can go for 30years as a career missionary and makethis your life calling and uh if a youngperson comes to this congregation says Iwant to be a student missionary or gowith with Adventist volunteer servicesor I want to go on a marinaa trip or Iwant to go with AFM for a few yearssupport that young person give themencouragement you may not be able togive of your time but you can give ofyour resources so that they can be ablessing in the mission field and ifevery Miss if I give you an arrow andevery the missionary represents theArrow Head behind every arrowe headthere's a shaft and there's feathers atthe back the arrowhead cannot reach itsMark without the entire Arrow beingpresent the missionaries may go overseasbut they need the whole body of Christto be withthem and we can play that role as acongregation so pray give or go there issomething that each one of us can do inthis congregation when Jesus comes againmy prayer is that there'll be people onthat sea of glass who are there becauseof the ministry of this congregation notjust of this congregation but becauseyou stepped up and you said here my Lordsend me here are my Lord send me we areonly in this congregation today because2,000 years ago there were missionariesin the EasternMediterranean and They Carried thegospel to Western Europe and TheyCarried the gospel to North America andto Southeast Asia and to Africa we havereceived the gospel today we are theinheritors of an eternal treasurebecause somebody in the past lefteverything to answer the gospelcall and it cannot just stop with us itneeds to flow to the rest of the worldpraygive or go there's something for all ofus we can some each one of us can dosomething in that gospel task my prayeris that we will all participate we willexperience the joys and the sacrificesof mission and when Jesus comes againthere'll be many stars in our crownsbecause we answered the gospelmessage we I'd like to invite you tostand for our closing hymn today ourclosing hymn is seeking the Lost hymnnumber 373let us rise As we sing this songTogether seeking the Lost kindlyinre wers on the mountainof come unto his messagerepeating words of the master speakingtoday[Music]going a going a upon the mountain uponthemountain bringing the Wonder back theWonders backagain the intothe of my redeemer Jesus the Jesus the Lfor sin SL for sinSL taking the a and pointing to JesusSouls that areweak hearts that ares leading them for in ways ofsalv showing the path to lifeever going a going a upon the mountainthe mountain bring the bringing theWonder back wanders back again intotheold into the of my redeem of myredeemer Jesus the lamb Jesus the lambfor S SL for sinSL I will go on missions ofMercy followingChrist day untoday cheering the fthefall pointing the lost to Jesusaway going a fall going a upon themountain upon the mountain bringing thewall bringing the water back again wersback again into the F into the F of myredeemer of my redeemer Jesus the lambJesus the L for S SL for SSL as we close oureyes we bow ourheads we humble ourhearts and todayFather we thank you from the bottoms ofourhearts that at some stage in the pastsome man some woman some boy some girlshared the good news with someone intheirCommunity someone got on a boat someonewalked over land someone rode onhorseback someone took a plane and thegood news came to my community and to myfamily and I pray father that each oneof us will not just be recipients ofthat gospel but we will be channels ofyour grace that we will live out theministry of reconciliation that you haveentrusted us with Father May others seein us the light of the world shine in inthis coming week and father whereverthat light shines I pray it will dispelthe darkness and the violence will Abateand it will be replaced with the Shalomof God and the agape love of JesusChrist so father lead us and guide us inthis coming week May Our Lives be a hymof praise to you and may it lead theLost into your kingdom thank you forspeaking through us with your spiritthank you thank you for surrounding uswith your angels thank you for guidingus into those Divineconversations thank you for stirring upour hearts and bringing us conversionand conviction aresh on this sabbath dayfor these mercies we thank you and WePraise You In The Name of Jesus we askamenuh if you came a little late uh we aregoing to have a presentation at 2:00this afternoon we're going to haveConrad Vine he's going to be sharingwith us but he's also going to take sometime for answering questions so ifyou've got a question related tomissions something related to evangelismOutreach he'll be happy to take yourquestions this afternoon so that's 2:00right back here in the sanctuary Godbless we hope to see you then[Music]