Holy Ghost Fire

A powerful sermon on Holy Ghost Fire. This message will transform your faith and strengthen your walk with God.

7th Adventist Church. >> Amen. >> I am so happy to be with you because I've heard about you and your faith for several years. >> I first heard about you and your faith from my good friend who's sitting over here on the front on the second row, Dr. Paul Wangai. Can you say hi to Pos Dr. Wang Guai? You know, he's one of the founding elders of this church. >> You know that, right? >> But Pastor Wang Guai and his sweet bride Mary are dear friends of mine. We have many friends in common. And we have deep ministry interests in common as well. And I just want to thank him for coordinating with Pastor Maka from the division with pastor Gerald here at the local church and pastor Emanuel at the local conference here in Nairobi. Now friends, the first thing I want to tell you is you guys have it. I'm I have to apologize first. You know, I'm an American and I don't speak the Queen's English like you all do in here in Nairobi. Can you handle my American slang English? Are you all right? >> Okay, good. Just so we're on the same page because everybody else that's been up here has spoken very properly and that would be very difficult for an American guy like me. But I want to tell you, you have two blessings in this church. Am I right, Pastor Gerald? Two blessings. I I maybe I should say you have 7,600 blessings. This is this is a lot of church here. But I recognize two immediately right here. You know what's two? I recognized >> you have heavenly music, friends. >> I have never been in a church that has music like this one. >> And not only are the people that come up here and lead the music and the choir and the children good, but you all sound like the angels. >> I believe that I have walked into heaven today. Amen. >> Secondly, the second blessing you have, and I want you to pay attention. Parents, if you're here, pay attention to me. You have children. >> And every child is a child of God. >> Every child who's standing here is a disciple of Jesus. And parents, hear me. Pastor, Pastor Gerald, hear me. Pastor Emanuel, hear me. We need to be stewards of the relationship with Jesus of every child who is here. >> We do NOT WANT TO LOSE any of them for the kingdom. But if we do it right as a family, if we do it right, each one of them will be missionaries for Jesus. here at home in Nairobi, across the country of Kenya, maybe in neighboring countries, and maybe around the world, >> we should be training our children to have a deep abiding relationship with Jesus Christ. >> And that each one of you kids, are you ready? You need to share Jesus with others as well. Amen. >> I I heard them say, "Amen." Amen. >> Children, say amen. Children only. Amen. >> Amen. Children, I'm happy to hear your voices. Friends, my message today is called Does the Fire Still Burn? Before I start that, I want to ask you two questions. First of all, how many of you have been Seventh Day Adventists more than one year? Raise your hands. More than one year. Raise your hands. How many of Let me try that again. How many have been Seventh Adventists less than one year? Okay, there are a few here, but I heard that there was a large baptism just a few weeks ago, and I know you have many satellite churches out and around the city that are moving. So, I hope that those people are fully engaged. Uh, the second question, how many in this church today are giving Bible studies to at least one non-adventist? Oh, okay. I see a few hands, but there are much fewer hands. And this helps me with my premise. My premise, my sermon title is, does the fire still burn? And I will start this with a story. Some years ago, about four years ago, my wife and I, we realized I was a a union president at the time, a church administrator, very busy traveling and all that, but my wife and I made a commitment that we would give at least one Bible study each. And we went home and we prayed, "Lord, give us at least one Bible study." Now, I was living in Beirut, Lebanon. and I was the Middle East Union president. So, I was in a area that I thought I might give a Bible study to a non-Christian person from a Muslim background. I thought so. And uh my wife as well, we were praying for this. But you know what happened out of the blue? A person contacted me who I had met from the state of Oklahoma. Now, if you think I don't talk proper English, you should hear him. And the person said on the phone, "Pastor Rick, I would like to study the Bible with you." And I said, "Are you sure? I'm busy. I'm moving around. I have 20 countries to take care of in my in my union. How can I possibly give Bible studies? But I said, "The Lord has answered my prayer. I will commit to doing this." >> And through Zoom over the next year and a half, we went through an entire series of Bible studies together. >> Do you know which Bible study I started with? Anybody have an idea where I like to start? Most pastors start with the second coming of Jesus because that's who we are as Seventh Day Adventists. But I like to start in a different place. I start with a Bible study called God is >> love. Thank you, Dr. Wongai. God is love. And when I was giving this Bible study, Andy was saying, "Uh-huh. Yeah. Uh-huh. Very good." Uh-huh. And then we moved on. And I can remember giving a study on the on the Sabbath, the second coming on D. And I remember on the Sabbath, Andy comes from a Christian background. On the Sabbath topic, ANDY SAID, "WHY have my Christian brothers and sisters hidden this from me for so long?" I challenged him. You go study it for yourself. And he came back with a list of Bible passages a mile long, sorry, kilometer long for those of you who are too too young to remember the imperial system. By the way, this is a joke about the United States. You know, there's only uh three countries in the world that still follow the imperial system, and the United States happens to be one of them. Congratulations. You're ahead of us. Friends, little by little, I realized that Andy was a thrillseker. This is Andy on a quad riding out in the by a river. Uh this is Andy bungee jumping in Zambia. This is Andy. Next slide. Uh on a river raft on the Zambesi River on a class six rapids that unless you stay alive uh you will fall in the water and drown and you'll be done. you you'll be finished. And what is Andy doing sitting on the front of the boat charging. And you notice I put a little mask over Andy. There's reasons you'll we'll come to that. And I can still remember after six months of Bible study when Andy called me and said, "Pastor Rick, I have just realized something very significant that God really does love me >> and he loves me so deeply that I can hardly manage my feelings towards God. Amen. >> I don't know where you are with your love for God, but if you have not had that experience, that emotional, physical, truthbased experience that GOD LOVES YOU TO THE CORE OF YOUR being and that it changes you, then you need to go back to your Bible friends. But hear me out. Andy says, "I decided to give my life fully to this God of love, >> to the Lord Jesus who died for me." After some months, Andy, I introduced him to a local pastor in Oklahoma, and he cleared him for baptism very meticulously. He says, "I didn't meet this person before, but I'm going to baptize him." And here is Andy being baptized in the waters of new life, friends. New life. Oh, I didn't hear any amen on that. New life. >> This is the NEW LIFE, CHURCH, IN THE WATERS OF NEW LIFE. >> All right. Now we're better. Now we're okay. Am I Am I too energetic? >> Are okay. I I'm sorry. I I see all of your smiling faces and it gives me energy in the Lord. So, I hope it's okay. >> But there is Andy and within a few weeks of being baptized, Andy called me and told me he has a new job. And I was wondering in my mind, why Lord, am I giving Bible studies to somebody in Oklahoma when I could be baptizing Christians and MUSLIMS IN BEVER LEBANON? I HAVE no idea. But Andy is a helicopter paramedic that rescues people from dangerous situations. Within a few weeks, this new job that came to him was simple. It was to come to the Middle East in a very restricted environment as a helicopter paramedic in a place where I could never go as a pastor. And suddenly Andy is surrounded by people every day who will never meet a 7th Adventist pastor. And you wonder why does God give circumstances to you that you don't understand? Why did God give me a Bible study in Oklahoma? It was because he wanted to help Andy to become a missionary >> to a people that you may be able to reach that I will never be able to reach. Friends, I come back to the question, does the fire still burn? And you can see I like to be close. Do you mind if I get closer to you all? I You guys on the side here. No problem. Right. If I just come closer. I I uh I I I never really liked pulpit that were far away. >> Okay, keep going. Ah, right in front of the camera. I get it. All right. I'll try to speak to the camera once in a while, but I have a question for you again. Does the fire still burn? Do you remember when you were baptized as a Seventh Day Adventist? The fire inside that you were joining the remnant church that has a prophetic message for the world. That it was A CHURCH THAT FOLLOWS GOD IN EVERY DETAIL. THAT IT WAS A CHURCH GROUNDED in the Bible and focused on the mission. Friends, does your fire still burn? Let's talk about God's call to mission today. And I realize that I'm only a few minutes from the trap door under the stage opening up and swallowing me up. Right? This is what the deacon at my very first church told me. He says, "Pastor, if you go by past 12:30, I will pull a lever." Probably lever in proper English, I will pull a lever and you will go down. Do you have that here? >> Oh, hallelujah. >> Because I may need a few extra minutes. >> I prepared a proper sermon for you all today. I hope you can manage. >> If you have appointments, just call and cancel them. Amen. because God's word is good. Amen. >> Let's talk about God's call to mission. What an incredible story if we go back to the beginning of Earth's history. An incredible story of a God who meticulously crafted humankind out of the clay of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, created in God's image. Is that a beautiful image? You were created in the image of God. Adam and Eve were meant to rule this world as the prince and princess, God's first son and daughter, prince and princess of this dominion of God's good earth. But by Adam and Eve taking the fruit, they gave up their rulership of this world. moving from that pure and holy relationship with God Almighty that was so intertwined where God would come and walk in the garden in the cool of the day with his creation. Why did God do that? Because he wanted a relationship with his creation. That's the God we serve, friends. He wanted a relationship with creation. But that holy relationship was disrupted by a bad choice. And our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, they became naked and ashamed. They were blocked from the entrance to the Garden of Eden. by an angel with a sword. And there, not far outside the garden, was the first murder, Abel's blood. This earthly reality that continues to describe life on earth today is what I call life in the gap. What do I mean by life in the gap? And don't go to sleep on me now. If your eyes are closed, I might call on you or even come and tap you on the shoulder. I lock to walk around. Be careful. I don't know if you saw me during the greeting time, but I was all the way in the back. If I see your eyes coming close, I might ask you a question. I actually used to do that in my local church. I had a a person who would fall asleep routinely and I'd go and gently while they were sleeping and I'm preaching lay my hand on the shoulder and ask them a question and what would happen? They wouldn't have a clue what the answer should be but they woke up. What is life in the gap friends? What is life in the gap? Life in the gap is filled with thorns. And thorns, to be honest with you, are a very good description of what life is like outside of Eden. Thorns are are a a a problem for us today in a world that not only for our first parents but for every child of God since then that all of us deals with the thorns in our life. We see the the randomness and the chaos around us. Oh friends, we are living life in the gap. We are living in that time. What do I mean by life in the gap? is very simple. Between Genesis 3 and Revelation 21, where the restoration takes place, between the fall and the restoration, the rest of scripture describes what we call life in the gap and is full of thorns. It's full of death. It's full of of pain and chaos. And oh, friends, it's not where God wants us to be. God is longing to restore humanity into his image. Amen. >> God is longing to make this earth brand new again. But for now, we deal with chaos. We deal with the broken human relationships, the pain, the disasters, the loneliness, the murders. Maybe we deal with things like bus strikes. Maybe we deal with things like other challenges. Life on earth seems to have a desire to self-destruct. Life on earth is full of destruction. And what better term to call this than the great controversy. We are Uhoh. Uh there we are in the great controversy. Is there a better description for what we deal with on a daily basis? And I'll be honest with you, the devil tries to take our attention away from what really matters. I mean, this little device in our pockets, it's a terrible device. You know why? It very useful, RIGHT? BECAUSE IT DISTRACTS us from everything. Have you ever tried to have your morning worship and they're buzz buzz buzz and you look, oh, it's notifications from Instagram or Facebook or text messages or WhatsApp messages. And what I like to do is I like to turn it off. In fact, my phone is perpetually on sleep mode so it doesn't buzz while I'm preaching or having my wor worship or prayer. And I encourage you to do the same. Don't let it rule your life. The devil is trying to put distractions into our life. But I have good news. While this world is a mess beyond description, God is a missionary God. >> This is the name of our God. HE'S A MISSIONARY GOD from beginning to end. He cares about his creation. He cares about you, friends, individually. He cares about the hairs in your head. He cares about the children that you have. He cares about your pain, your sorrows, your struggles. God is a missionary God. And as a missionary God, our God has three things that he wants to do. He wants to redeem people. And friends, are you redeemed today? Oh, I didn't hear anybody say amen. That's a dangerous question. If you are not redeemed, I better change my sermon and we'll have a baptism afterwards. Are you redeemed? >> Have you given your life to Jesus because of his great love for you and his substitutionary sacrifice for your sins? >> He wants to redeem people. He wants to restore joy to this world. And he wants so badly to re-establish, hear this, his reign on this world. To chase away the devil from his dominion and restore his reign in this world. Are you in on helping God to restore his reign in this world? Look at these beautiful passages in three places. Zephaniah 3:17, one of my favorite passages in the Bible. One day I'll preach a sermon on it, pastor, and I challenge you to do the same. Zephaniah 3:17. For the hear the the beautiful delicateness of the of the word of God. For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness, with his love. He will calm your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs. Imagine, I don't know if you've ever had this, but I certainly have. Sometimes I have the night season. I wake up in the middle of the night and the devil puts in my mind the most anxious thought I could ever have and it keeps me awake. Nobody else has that, right? But imagine the picture of the God of the universe saying, "I dwell with you. I am your savior. I delight in you." Daughters of God here. God delights in you. And with his love, he will calm your fears and he will rejoice over you with joyful songs. Imagine God bending over your bed in the night season when you have anxiety and singing psalm songs of joy to you. That's a beautiful picture of God, isn't it? Isn't that a such a beautiful picture of God? It's not one we normally think about. Psalm 1 uh Psalm 16:1 says, "You make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures at your right hand." And John 14:6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except for me, but Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. God is a missionary God. What are God's missionary methods? First of all, to help us to know him. And I want to be very clear. I want you to follow this. God's first desire is for you to know him. And the pages of scripture from beginning to end are about him. In Genesis, you see, as we already mentioned, God walking with his creation. And at the end, that last book of the Bible is called the revelation of Jesus. It's all about knowing God. This is a major theme in scripture. That God reveals himself. In fact, if you wanted to study who God is in scripture, one of the primary characteristics of God is a God who wants to be known by his creation. He wants you, friends, to know him. He wants you to know him. And he uses the Bible to reveal himself. He also wants to make himself known not only to you, but through you. He doesn't reveal himself to you as a privilege, but he reveals himself to you as a missionary responsibility. Am I right, brother? It's a missionary responsibility. If you know God, then you have no choice but to share him with someone else. Right, brother? We are called to know him and we are called to make him known to every other person on the planet. But this all happens through choice. God is a God of choice. He does not force you to love him. He invites you to love him. He does not force you to know him. He invites you to come and spend time with him. He does not force you to go to that job or this job or whatever it is. He invites you. And let me let me illustrate this with one of my favorite stories in my lifetime. Now, this is my wife and her first husband. You were supposed to laugh. That's me. Now, nobody looks at that picture and says, "That's you, pastor." Because it doesn't look like me. I I I don't know how many kilos ago that was. But I will tell you that I married my wife by the leading of God, but by choice. I married her with a choice. And if I had time, I would tell you the lovely story of our courtship because I knew her for five years before she fell in love with me. And unless you think I was persistent, I dated I gave up and I dated other girls. And then I came back when I saw that this was the one I should marry. From the beginning, I knew it, but she wasn't interested. So, I gave up. Actually, the truth is she told me she wanted me to be more mature. I had to go through some pain this year. Young people, young marrieds, this year we will be married for 36 years in a few months. >> And I want to just say that it has been a joyful sometimes painful joyful journey of love for each other. But you know, once I married her, the truth is, I thought I knew her already. But once you get married, guess what happens? You know someone so much more than you ever knew before because you know their routines. You know when they get up, when they sleep. I tend to be an early to bed, an early to rise person. I go to bed, forgive me, about 8:30 every night. I know that's shocking, but I get up at 5 every morning so I can have my faithful time with the Lord. That's it. That's how I live my life. But my wife tends to be a nightb bird. She gets her second wind about the time I'm dropping off to sleep. And she can work till 11:00 or midnight getting busy around the house. And I finally over the years we've had to pull our schedules together because if she stayed up late and I went to bed early, we'd never see each other. Now, I married her out of choice. I married her thinking I knew her but only realizing later that I didn't know her half of what I knew and the joy the beautiful creature that God has made her. And I want to use that as an illustration for one thing. God himself wants to be known by you and he invites you to know him. He wants you to know him for not who you think he is but for who he really is. And the pages of scripture demonstrate clearly throughout all those pages that God is a God of love and of relationship and he wants to be close to you. I'm sorry for my translator. I'm probably giving you a a workout today. I apologize. I took a picture of you, by the way, and sent it to my good friend Doug Van at the general conference and in charge of these kind of ministries and and I respect this church for having this. But let me just be clear. God wants you to know him. And everything God has done from creation until now is an expression of his true identity. We distort our view of God. We distort his identity. But he wants to be known all through the pages of scripture as the God who loves, as the God of truth, the God of power, the God of demonstrates his his will for your lives, but gives you choice. And I believe strongly all through my life that God is a good good father. Amen. >> God is a good good father and he wants to be yours. You know the children of Israel were 400 years in Egypt and during those 400 years they got confused about what was God. They saw all these statues and uh the the pharaohs wanted to be worshiped and all the distortion of who God was. And by the time they left, they were distorted about who God was. But God said in Exodus 6:6, "Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God." And I want you to personalize that for a minute. I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. That first encounter with Pharaoh, very simple. Exodus 51 and two. But what did what did Pharaoh say? Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go. It was because Pharaoh did not know the Lord. That's the problem. But then in Exodus 34, oh I'm Exodus 34, one of the most beautiful passage in the scriptures. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord God merciful and gracious. Here's God's self-proclamation who he is. Hear it. Merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth. G keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and sin, but by no means clearing the guilty. God is a God of love, mercy, and fairness and justice. Look at what it says in Psalm 46:10. It says, "Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted among the whole earth. And all through the passages of scripture, you can see again and again that God says, "I want to be known." Look at what it says in Jeremiah 9:24. That he understands and knows me that I am the Lord exercising loving kindness, judgment, righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight, says the Lord. Second point, I'm only on point number two. Am I still okay? All right. Are you sure? Are you sure? Okay. God's missionary methods not only to help us know him, but to bless his people and to bless all people through them. God wants to bless others through you. God does not put money or jobs or family in your life for your blessing only but to bless others through them. You are responsible to be a a passageway of God's blessings. This is what God said to Abraham in Genesis 12 1:4. Go from your country. I will make you into a great nation. And in verse three, and all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you. Now if you are here to bless only your family or your tribe or your village or your community or your clan or whatever you want to fill in the blank your country then you have not yet appropriated into your mind the mission that God has given us. God will bless Abraham's descendants so that other nations will notice and be drawn unto God. God's missionary methods to help us to know him, to bless his people, and to make his people like him, to be a positive witness because of God's righteousness, fairness, and compassion. And we come to this passage from today. And it's an amazing passage because God had given Israel, follow this for a moment. God had given Israel laws and statutes that no other nation had. Why did he give them all these strange hygiene laws, community laws, uh health laws, all these kinds of things? Why did he give them to them? Because the nations around them were sick and full of disease. The nations around them were not worshiping one God. They were wor worshiping a multitude of God. They were having immoral relationships with one another. And so God said, "My people need to be distinct morally, health, hygiene, community, villages, how you keep YOUR HOME IN EVERY WAY. And if you follow God, are you with me? If you follow God, I will make you a spectacle to the nations. In other words, the other nations around will recognize that you are following a new God, a different God that I didn't they didn't know before. But here's what it says. Therefore, verse 6, now let's start with verse 5. Surely Deuteronomy 4:E 5-9, look it up in your Bible and tell me when you're there. Say, "Amen." >> Only when you're there. Are you there? >> Oh, no. Okay, I better hurry. I see. Okay. Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. Therefore, be careful to observe them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, and the young man did a great job on this, but here's what it what those other nations would say. Surely this is a great nation, a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there that God has come so near to it? As the Lord is near to us and for whatever reason we may call upon him. They were called to be a light so the other nations would recognize it. And we as Seventh Day Adventist, are you with me? We as Seventh Day Adventist are called to be like them. The children of Israel failed God. They did not follow his statutes. They didn't do what he asked them to do. They did not become the light that God wanted them to become. They failed him. They intermingled with the nations. They took on other teachings. They worshiped other gods. They lived immorality. They even at times put up false gods and sacrificed their children to them. Friends, my God is a missionary God. And I believe secondly that this book, the Bible, is a missionary book. All through the words of this Bible, all through the way that God has led us, it shows us that God is a missionary God. And if the Bible is a missionary book, then there's a third premise that I have to tell you that the church is God's missionary people. >> God is a missionary God. Let's say it together. God is a missionary God. >> God is a missionary. >> The Bible is a missionary book. >> The Bible is a missionary book. >> And the church is God's missionary people. Now, lest you think I'm done yet, unfortunately, Israel did not seem to recognize God's plan. They did not want to give away the blessings to other nations. They did not seek to give him glory. If you read all of the Old Testament, there were like 19 kings of Israel. 18 were bad and one was good. 20 kings of Judah, 12 bad, four were neutral, and four were good. There was darkness. There was a forgotten mission. There was a forgotten purpose. All the blessings that God had promised were gone. God wanted to do things differently. And no matter what tragedies, what strikes, what pain we go through, what challenges in the church or out of the church we see, we are called to mission. We are called to display God's light in this world. We are called to be his people. Amen. And I have a question for you. When did your call to mission happen? Maybe you say, "But I've never been called to be a missionary." I I I've never been called a missionary. Have you been called to be a missionary? Oh, I I see it quiet in here because the definition of missionary may be misunderstood. But let me be clear. If God is a missionary God and the Bible is his missionary book and the church is his missionary people then you believer are a missionary >> and that every Adventist is a missionary. Amen. >> That you are called the moment you are baptized in the waters of the watery grave. You were called to be a missionary too. You are not called to receive blessings but to be a conduit to pass through blessings to others. Amen. >> And I know people in this congregation lead missionary lives. The pastor was telling me OF ALL THE SCHOOLS that you have adopted of the prison ministry you have of all the different areas that this church is ministering unto. And I want to say that is the spirit of a missionary church. I congratulate you. I I richly honor your wishes to be a missionary people in this city. But do not stop. We are missionary people created to call people out of darkness into his marvelous light. Do you remember when you gave your life to Jesus? Do you remember at special moments when you have seen the hand of God in your life? Do you know his special workings in your life? Friends, is the fire still burning in your life? And I just want to say if your fire form mission isn't burning, then you need to come back to the altar. You need to come back to where God would have you in prayer and in Bible study in communion because the fire whether it was the flaming sword at the garden whether it was Abel's sacrifice the smoking pot in Abraham's sacrifice the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire the incense the candlesticks the day of atonement the glory in the temple the road to Emmas with the burning hearts OR THE TONGUES OF FIRE THAT FELL AT THE HOLY SPIRIT'S DAY OF PENTECOST, THE FIRE SHOULD BE BURNING IN YOUR LIVES. >> And I don't want you TO LEAVE HERE TODAY WITHOUT TAKING WITH YOU THE missionary spirit to win Nairobi for Christ this year. Amen. >> Now, next year is one voice 27. I invite you to participate, but I want you to win them now because if we have more missionaries in Nairobi this year, one voice 27 will spread far beyond Nairobi. It'll be a powerful movement throughout this world and you can be part of it. Friends, is the fire still burning? Or do we need pastor a sermon about losing our first love? I do not want to preach about Leodysia. I want to invite you to be a church that's hot with the love of God. That's hot with the redemption OF JESUS. THAT'S HOT with the fire of the Holy Spirit. Amen. >> Amen. >> When you go into the city, when you see the crowds around you, when you catch the view of the people throughout the 1040 window, when you see poverty, disaster, injustice, racial bias, who are you? When you see people who for no fa fault of their own grow up in a world without love, without truth, without knowledge of the one who loves them, is your fire still burning? When you see somebody who's been set aside, fellow Adventist, is a mission for you hold up in an office is missionary only at the general conference. Is the missionary vision only at the the division or the union or the local conference? No. Pastor, you have a church of 7,600 missionaries. Wow. It took 12 to shake the world with 7,600 missionaries in this church. This world should feel an earthquake like none other. My longing in my life is one thing. I want to hear the words in Matthew 25:21. Well done. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. You were faithful over a few things. enter into the joy of your Lord. Now friends, I've kept you 15 minutes extra and I appreciate your patience with me. I want to ask you for permission to share one story. Pastor J Gerald is saying yes. Do you give me permission, friends? You wouldn't want to overrule your pastor, would you? See, I just come from having spent years in the Middle East and uh the Middle East is a special place in my in my heart. But I look across the Middle East and there's 600 million people who do not know Jesus. They come from another religious background. And I frequently pray and agonize with the Lord, how will this job be done? But imagine, pastor, if your church became a sending church to send people to the Middle East because Kiswahi is related with Arabic, right? There's a lot of Arabic words. If I start speaking in Arabic to you, you might understand me. If you can speak partial Arabic, you can learn it faster than I can. And when somebody like me from an American, I am assumed to be a missionary because I'm a white American. When I go to the Middle East, there's an assumption. But Africans come from all kinds of backgrounds. They may come from Muslim background or they may come from a Christian background. And when Africans come to the Middle East, they're well re well wellreceived. And some of them become very close to influencers around the Middle East. Have you ever thought of your background being an advantage to being a missionary? Pastor, I challenge you to think about sending. But let me tell you this one story. Uh in August 6, 2020, a terrible explosion happened in the city of Beirut. Are you with me? Okay. I I I I know you're getting tired and I I don't want to test you too long. This will take me five minutes and we'll be done. A terrible explosion. It was the third largest explosion recorded in history after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were the atomic explosions. This explosion was 2,000 tons of ammonium nitrate illegally stored near the port. And when that explosion happened, people around the world saw it. Well, I was in Beirut that day. I was five kilometers from the site and all of my windows blew in. Imagine 5 kilometers away. And the you can look it up online. It was a massive blast. After that blast, the entire port area of Beirut was blown up. one of the main office buildings for the at the government one of the government offices. All the windows were blown from one side clean through to the other side. There was no doors and no windows in that whole office building and in most of the buildings around Beirut. But on the next day after the blast, a group of young people who had earlier, and I please don't take this politically, I'm just telling the narrative, who had earlier protested that the government would have some change. They their protests didn't work out. They got uh it got politicized. So, they gave up their protest. But the day after the blast, young people around the country put brooms on their shoulders, gloves on their hands, and they went to clean up the streets of Beirut, Lebanon. An army of young people. And our university campus decided that we would join them. And look at this beautiful army with Adravests. And we went throughout the city doing projects. We did projects in that city for 70 days in a row with the church members, the union office, the the local field office, the university staff, and their families. We swept streets. We cleaned out people's apartments. We fed people. See if I can get to the next picture. This was at the end of a day. We had meticulously clean streets. There was glass that had rained on the city. No child would probably ever be able to walk barefoot again in the city of Beirut. It was such devastating. The glass from downtown Beirut made it to our office 5 km away. But the army of the church decided that it was not there to observe a disaster but to be a blessing during crisis. And they bonded together doing everything they could to serve. I remember at the end of one day after we were very tired, a man came to us and said, "Pastor Rick, my my apartment is a mess. I've got windows on three sides and everything is destroyed." I said, "Well, we'll help you." He says, "But you don't understand. I live on the sixth floor and the power is out because of the disaster. That means your people will have to be climbing up and down six floors of stairs to clean out my apartment. I said, "Sir, we will help you." And I remember going up and down those stairs, people sweating, carrying, this is his apartment actually, carrying all his trash around. And it was amazing. At the end of the day, he said to us, "Sir, you must tell me you are Christians, aren't you?" And I said, "Yes, sir. We are Seventh Day Adventists." He says, "Where do you worship?" And I told him where we worshiped at Middle East University Church. He says, "I want to worship with a group like you." Amen. >> Throughout that day, parents who'd brought their kids to help clean up. They started joining our team, non-adventists from around and people who were reluctant to have anybody else in their apartments were calling on us. Please come, please help us. And our team went throughout the city being a blessing, being a light. This is a funny story. another community um where we cleaned up a whole trash fililled broken glass and other stuff and uh after that that's what it looked like. But there was a funny story because uh military came in with shovels and brooms that had not been unwrapped yet and they stood by our clean street and they got their pictures. They took credit for what we did. >> And we said, we we waved, smiled. I can remember every day going, meeting with people, loving them, cleaning glass out of their yards, out of their homes, cleaning up their windows. We spent, we raised some money and we repaired windows and doors around the city for a few months after that. Friends, we are called to be light in darkness, descending God's blessings throughout the world, wherever we can go. Why? Because God is a missionary God. The Bible is his missionary book and the church is his missionary people. And I want to ask you today, are you willing to be God's missionary people? That was very unconvincing, very uncenyan, unaffrican to say yes. If I can stand up here for an hour and shout and dance and jump up and down, AT LEAST YOU CAN GIVE ME A GOOD AMEN. >> NO, NO, NO. Are you willing to be God's missionary people? Then join me in the greatest journey of a lifetime. If you would like to be his missionary people, stand to your feet and say, "Yes, Lord." Stand to your feet. And now on the count of three, one, two, three. Yes, Lord. Go and be a light to this world.

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