VIDEO: A Taste of Outreach - Post 1

Here's a little taste of what we did on our outreach. I'll put more up when I get the chance!

~Chris

Classroom: Muslim Evangelism 04-19-07

04-19-07 Martha from USA (Texas)
Muslim Evangelism

We’re going to focus on Muslim Evangelism – how to reach out to Muslims.

A few statistics about the Muslim world:

1990: there were about 200 million Muslims, about 12% of the world population. Today, 2007, there are over 1.4 billion Muslims, approximately 19% of the world population. So we’re talking about

In missions for the longest time, we focused on tribal groups. So if you’ve been in missions, or if you’ve been a pastor, you’ve focused on these groups. And thanks to these guys, we’ve reached out to a lot of these tribes! But during this time, the Muslim population has been growing and growing and growing. Nobody really wanted to reach out to the Muslims. It’s said that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Now, projections show, it’s possible, that by the year 2020, Islam could replace Christianity as the number one religion in the world.

As you know, Islam can be very violent. And if you notice that as they make their way into Europe and other places, they are rising up and fighting for their civil rights. Now, what has been the Church’s response? Only 6% of missionaries are focused on reaching them with the gospel. They are the largest unreached people group in the world and only 6% of missionaries are going out there for them!

I think the reason is because of Satan. I think Islam might be one of Satan’s greatest weapons. It is said that Arabic is the second most difficult language to learn, after Chinese. So he protects this people group like this; then he places a lot of truth in the religion. There is one God. He is the Creator. He is Just, Merciful, Perfect. There is a Heaven and a Hell. There is evil (Satan). There are a LOT of things similar!

In YWAM Jordan, we didn’t see anyone come to Christ for a long time, maybe 5 or 6 years. Now we were more focused on community work, and maybe that was one of the reasons. But we got very, very convicted of this! People would say, “you can’t do straight forward evangelism in a Muslim community, you have to be quiet, you have to be careful.” The Muslims are ruled by fear. If you live in a Muslim community, you know this. And this spirit of fear jumps on the missionaries. So we prayed that God would give us strength and courage. Now I can tell you that at least 8 people in Jordan have come to Christ! That is exciting!!! So now we started praying for signs and wonders. This is always a nervous thing for me to pray for, because we always think, “well what if God doesn’t show up? What if He doesn’t do it?” But my DTS leader said, “no, no, no, we need to pray for signs and wonders. These people need signs and wonders.” So we did it.

We got two guys, an Egyptian and a German, to go together and evangelize. Now, there’s a mosque in the middle of the downtown area. So they just sat there and prayed, “Lord, lead some people to us!” So one day this guy named Mohammed came running to us. And this man said, “Last night, Jesus healed my eyes! And I don’t know who Jesus is! But he healed my eyes! And my neighbors told me you know who Jesus is! So who is he?” Now this man had eye problems his whole life. And that morning he woke up and was healed. So he went out and said, “who is Jesus? Who is this Jesus?” And his neighbors said, “we don’t know! But there are these two guys outside the mosque!” And so he went to the mosque and told the missionaries. And they asked him if he wanted to know more. He said, “YES! This man healed me! I want to know more!” So they took him to the house and, for three hours, they explained about all the prophets and why Jesus had to die. And this man believed. So they said, “do you want to be baptized?” And he said, “yes!” So they took him up to the bathtub and baptized him.

Here are some of the

The way that you answer these questions can either open a door to talking with them and begin sharing your life as a Christian, or, it can slam the door shut and you can lose all opportunity for them to be your friend.

1 Peter 3:15
but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you;

1Pe 3:16 yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

1Pe 3:17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.

So we’re supposed to be prepared with a reason – but we’re supposed to do this with respect for the person we’re talking to.

Basic Islamic world view is that there are two groups of people on earth. There is the house of peace, and that’s where the Muslims all are, and there’s the house of war. Everybody outside of this is inside of this house. Now, it may not be a physical war – but to others it just means that there is us and there is them.

In one of my classes in Jordan I had a student named Samir. We were studying love from first Corinthians. It says, “love does not rejoice with evil.” So I asked my little small group. I said, “I heard a strange thing and I saw a strange thing. After September 11, 2001, I saw pictures of the Middle East. And people were dancing in the streets and handing out candy because the twin towers fell in New York and thousands of people were killed. And I was real straight with them, and I said, “Did you rejoice?” And most people said, “oh, no, no…” but Samir said, “I did.” And I asked him why. He said, “because they’re my enemies.” And I said, “Samir, why are these people your enemies?!?” And he said, “because they aren’t Muslim.” And it was that simple for him. It’s black and white. There are two houses. If you’re not in his house, you’re an enemy. So you’re in a box.

So what we want to do is give them answers to their questions to confuse them. They want you in a box because it’s easy for them. So answer the question in a way that puts you outside the box, because then they’re confused. And if they’re confused and you’re outside the box, it gives you an opportunity to share the gospel with them and share your story.

One of the first questions they will ask you, if you see children playing on the streets is, “are you a Muslim or are you a Christian?” Because that’s how they divide the world.

What is a Muslims definition of Christian? Give me some words. Unbeleiver. Worshipping 3 gods. Immoral. Right! They believe all westerners are Christians – they really do, I’m not exaggerating.

So when they ask you if you’re a Christian, ask them what they mean. Answer the question with a question. Then if they give you their definition, you know, somebody from the west, you can say, “no, I’m not one of those, but let me tell you what I am.” And you can tell them you pray, and follow Jesus…”

Now, if you’re a Arabic Christian, you call Jesus “Yesua” – but the Muslim term for Jesus is “Isa” (eesa). So if you’re talking to a Muslim and you say, “I follow Yesua,” they won’t make the connection. But if you say, “I follow Isa,” they will say “ooohhhh!”

You can turn the question on them – “Are you a true Muslim?” And most of them will say, “no, I’m not a good Muslim.” Because they live in a constant state of guilt. So then you can start talking about how to be a good Muslim.

If you’re a guy, you can say “Ana Mu’min” – and this means “I’m a believer.”
If you’re a girl, you can say “ana mu’minay”

Messiah

What do you think of Islam? When you get closer to your friends this question will come up – especially if they trust you. Now, I’m going to give you an explanation and I invite you to disagree with me. I want you to feel free. This is where I am right now – and I stand scripturally behind this belief.

With Christians, we all want to enter the Kingdom of God. This is the goal here on earth. But if I’m going to look at my own religion – how many Christians are really in the Kingdom of God, fully submitted to Him? The answer to this question will probably admit that we are not all in the Kingdom of God. Then I’ll ask them where Muslims are and they will say many are in the Kingdom of God but many are not. And I will say to them, “well I want everyone to be in the Kingdom of God.” And we will talk about it. Now, I don’t believe that Muslims need to become like Christians culturally – like America or western nations – in order to enter the Kingdom. I believe the door is the same for Christians as it is for Muslims. And then I will say to them, “do you want to know what that door is?” And they’ll say, “yeah.” So I’ll say, “Let’s look at Isa the Messiah’s teachings and find out. Do you want to?” And they will say, “yeah.”

Now, does anybody know what a Messianic Jew, is? It’s a Jew who believes in the New Testament, but remains a Jew. Now, there’s a new thing called a Messianic Muslim. They do not change their culture – but only the things that go against Jesus’ teachings. They will look at things like this, “is it wrong to pray 5 times a day?” And they will say no. It’s not wrong. It’s probably good. So we keep that. But they’ll take other things like, “there is only one God and Mohammad is His prophet,” and they will change it to this, “There is only one God, and Jesus Christ is His only Son.” Of course the biggest problem comes with Muslims who have many wives and then become Christians. What do they do? Do they stop taking care of all but one? I believe they need to take care of all of their wives still.

Now, what’s the biggest sin in Islam. Shik. What does it mean? To have more than one God. This is the worst sin! So if you’re Christian, they believe you have three gods. Now, because of traditional Christian denominations… most Muslims believe the three gods we worship are “God, Mary, and Jesus.” Now if we are asked these questions, the first thing to ask is, “what do you mean when you say three Gods?” And if this is their answer, you can say, “no, as a Christian, I worship one God and follow Jesus – I do not worship Mary.” And they will say, “Oh! I never knew this!” But if they are more educated about this, they will know about the Trinity.

Somebody’s words, are they separate from the person? Do they or can they exist without the person? No. God is a Spirit. When He spoke, He said “let there be light. Let there be land.” His words went out and let things be created. So what I say – goes out from part of me. So if God is eternal, His words must be eternal. Jesus is the Word of God. So God’s word went out and created this flesh being known as Jesus.

Two examples you can use:
But a tissue over your fist. God is hidden from us. Poke a finger through and say, “But for 33 years, God has shown us part of himself. Jesus came to earth and became flesh. But Jesus is part of God still. They’re the same being.

Think of the sun. It’s just one body in space. The sun gives us light. We see light. The sun gives us heat. We feel heat. But it’s still all just part of the sun. In the same way, God is one. He sends forth His light into this earth and gives to us.

Another example from a student:

Water – ice – steam/mist

They’re all the same substance (H2O) – but they have different forms.

Why do you say Jesus is the Son of God?

Muslims assume that God and Mary had sex to produce Jesus. Of course that’s horrible for us and horrible for them. The first thing you can say is that we don’t believe that God and Mary had sex to produce a physical son. Then you can begin to explain to them the virgin birth from the Quran. And you can say, “what’s written in your Quran is the same as what’s written in the Bible.

“O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter at all concerning Allah, save the Truth. The Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and His Word which He conveyed to Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not “three” cease! It is better for you! Allah is only one God. Far is it removed from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth!’ –Surah 4:171

“Such gave unto Jesus, son of Mary, clear proofs of Alla’s sovereignty and we supported him with the Holy Spirit.” –Surah 2:87

This is why we say that Jesus is the son of God. Not a physical son, but a spiritual son. Jesus is a part of God on earth.

The next question is hard. “What do you think of the Prophet Mohammad?” You might be tempted to answer, “I think he was demon possessed.” But resist this temptation!!! Be careful here! Muslims are very passionate to defend the honor of the prophet Mohammad. So when they ask me this, I say, “I believe he is exactly who he said he was in the Quran.” And I take them to Surah 46:9

Surah 46:9
I am nothing new among the Prophets; what will happen to me and to my followers, I do not know; I am only a plain warner.

There. I’ve given them an answer, and I have not offended them. This is the goal. Later, as you become friends and become to know them more and more – you can come to share more. And you can say, “however, one thing I love about Jesus, is that he knew where he was going. And he knew where His followers were going to go.”

Surah 3:55
And when Allah said: O Isa, I am going to cause you to die a natural death and cause you to ascend uto Me and purify you of those who disbelieve to the day of resurrection; then to Me shall be your return.

And you can say, “that’s why I follow Isa Messiah. Because he knows where he’s going and he knows where his followers are going. Do you want to look at his teachings with me?” And at every point you can invite them to look at the scriptures with you. Okay, is that helpful for you?

Okay, the next point you will hear a lot! “The Bible is corrupt, it’s been changed!” And actually, as far as I understand, this is a fairly new teaching in the Quran. So when they say this to you, “the Bible is corrupted,” say to them “When? When was it corrupted? Before Mohammad or after Mohammad?” And the first thing they’ll say is, “when? I don’t know.” And they’re going to take a guess. These are not going to be educated Muslims – and most of them are not going to be educated when it comes to Islamic teachings. Mohammad lived somewhere in 580-640 AD. Now, if they say “before. It was corrupted before.” And if this is the case, then why did Mohammad encourage us continually, in the Quran, to read from it?

Surah 3:84
Say: We believe in Allah and what has been revealed to us; and what was revealed to Ibrahim and Ismail and Ishaq and Yacoub and the tribes, and what was given to Musa and Isa and to the prophets from their Lord; we do not make any distinction between any of them, and to Him we do submit.

Surah 6:68
Say: O Followers of the Book! You follow no good until you keep up the Taurat [TaNaK] and the Injiil [Gospels, New Testament] and that which is revealed to you from your Lord.

Surah 29:46
And do not dispute with the followers of the Book except by that which is best, except those of them that act unjustly, and say: We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you, and our God and your God is One, and to Him we do submit.

Surah ????
And recite what has been Revealed to you of the Book of your Lord; there is none who can alter His words; and you shall not find any refuge besides Him.

These are just a few. There are many, many verses in the Quran where we’re told to read the Torah and the injiil (the gospels, New Testament – it means different things to different people. Some consider the injiil the entire New Testament, others consider it only the four gospels).

So the question is – if it was changed before, why does he keep telling us to read it? Certainly he knew, right? So if he knew he would say, “it’s been changed, don’t read it.” And again – this answer works. I’ve used it many times.

And if they say “AFTER” you can say, “you know what – the Bible we have today is the same Bible that we had in the third and fourth centuries. These are the earliest manuscripts we have. This was before Mohammad. The three main manuscripts we have are: Codex Siniaticus, Codex Alexandrius, Codex Vaticanus. The first two are in the British Museum on display. The last is in the Vatican library in Rome. So the Bible we have today, my Bible on that desk, is backed up from manuscripts from the third and fourth century. So there’s no way the Bible was changed after Mohammad. Because if you look at the Bible today and you do the research and compare it, you will find that it says the same thing as it did before the prophet Mohammad. Now they’re thinking, “gosh, I’ve been taught this my whole life. Now I have to think.” And now you can ask this question, “Is God not powerful enough to protect His word?”

Mona: One time I said this, and the man said, “God allowed it to be corrupted because He knew the Quran would come.”

Then you take them back to the verse we looked at.

Surah ????
And recite what has been Revealed to you of the Book of your Lord; there is none who can alter His words; and you shall not find any refuge besides Him.

It says NO ONE can alter God’s word. And when you recite this verse in Arabic – they don’t argue with you. They are quiet.

You can also say, “isn’t the revelation of the Quran built on all of the earlier revelations? Isn’t that what you teach? Mohammad says, “if you doubt my teachings go back and look at the earlier teachings.

Surah 10:94
But if you are in doubt as to what We have revealed to you, ask those who read the Book before you; certainly the truth has come to you from your Lord, therefore you should not be of the disputers.

Some of them may continue to argue with you. And if that’s the case, you can say to them, “if you would like to argue – you may go to other people. I want to be with the ones who really want to learn.” Be careful. Don’t let your time get robbed. Invest in people that are hungry for answers, not ones that just want to argue.

Now, I’m going to get you a Bible study that goes through the Quran AND the Bible at the same time to take Muslims through the prophets to Jesus and teaches who he is.

You can say this to Muslims when they question or doubt the English translation of the Quran you use, “I am so grateful to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia – the keeper of the holy places, for authorizing the translation of the Quran into all these different languages!” And they will not have anything to say, “okay… King Fahd… I guess your translations is good.” Muslims respect King Fahd very, very much.

Next, they might say to you, “Jesus did not die on the cross.” The Quran says it wasn’t Jesus, it was a man who looked like Jesus.

But this verse does not say Jesus did not die on the cross!

Surah 5:117
1 did not say to them aught save what Thou didst enjoin me with: That serve Allah, my Lord and your Lord, and I was a witness of them so long as I was among them, but when Thou didst cause me to die, Thou wert the watcher over them, and Thou art witness of all things.

This is Jesus actually talking. It’s a conversation they were having. Here Jesus says, “caused me to die.” This is in the PAST.

Next is in the PRESENT tense. It says, “causing you to die.”

Surah 3:55
And when Allah said: O Isa I am going to cause you to die a natural death and cause you to ascend unto me…

The next is in the future. He rose from the dead.

Surah 19:33
And peace on me on the day I was born, and on the day I die, and on the day I am raised to life.

– words of Jesus according to the Quran

I talked with somebody says, “I know the injiil says he did die! But I know the Quran says he didn’t die!” And I said, “I ran into the same problem! Surely the Quran confirms the truth of the Injiil! Right? If the Quran confirms the injiil, it must be in the Quran! And I found that it is!” And he asked me where, so I walked him through these three Surahs. You can say, “Jesus was so powerful he actually gave his life, they didn’t take it.”

So these are tools. You can put them in your tool box. Remember, you don’t want to argue with them. You want to lead them. And in this way, we can be faithful to 1 Peter 3:15-16.

Okay I have one more tool to give you. I want to give you a verse from the Quran. It’s just one passage that you can use to move Jesus from being just a prophet to being more than a prophet.

Sun, moon. Bible is sun, Quran is moon. Does the moon emit light? No. the sun does. The moonlight is a reflection. The only light that comes from the Quran that we can use is the light from the word of the true living God that is reflected. So if the Bible says that Jesus was born of a virgin, and the Quran reflects that and says, “yes, Jesus was born of a virgin.” Is truth any less true if I find it in a book or a song or in creation? Is it less? No. Why? Because truth is truth, right? Truth is truth. I can hear it in a song. I hear it. It resonates with my heart. So I like to use the truth that is in the Quran to lead Muslims to the full truth. That is my opinion and I will not force it on you.

Now I want to challenge you. You have a passage of the Quran in front of you.

In the Quran, you are commanded to obey Jesus. Surah 3:51
You can use these verses from the Quran.

Isa (Jesus) is Holy (Surah 3:45-47)
Isa has power over death (Surah 3:49)
Isa knows the way to heaven (Surah 3:55)

Now remember what I said. You’re not going to use this to lead somebody to Christ. You’re going to use it to see WHO IS HUNGRY? So if you say these things and they agree with you, then at the end of this you can say, “what do you think about this?” And if they say, “this is amazing. I have never thought about this before.” Then you can say, “ do you want to learn more about Jesus. I can show you some more amazing things about him.” You know you’ve found an amazing Muslim. If he says, “Mohammad is the prophet and he’s greater than Jesus and you need to read more of the Quran.” Then you know you have not found a hungry person. So don’t continue. I want to give you a challenge. Try this on 10 Muslims that you know. Some of you have 10 Muslim friends, easily. The rest of you might meet at least 10 on outreach in Egypt. I dare you, I challenge you to try this on 10 different Muslims and see who responds. And then if they respond, invite them to read the gospel with you.

“You will find the Christians to be your best friends” Surah 3

Trash/Garbage City ~ Cairo, Egypt

Here are some pictures of the Garbage/Trash City.
Below is the church. The story about this city is at the very bottom!

Below are pictures of the church that was built.

There are beautiful carvings in the rock ALL around

the church.

THE STORY:

Cairo is a big city, like many other cities around the world. From the 17 million residents living there, 13,000 tons of trash is produced; so what happens is there are over 7,000 people who take their carts all around Cairo and pick up the trash every day. Then they bring their carts full of trash to the outskirts of Cairo to a city, where they drop it off wherever they want. There is so much trash, it covers and fills buildings, it fills the streets, people sleep in the trash and build things from it. Women and children spend the day sorting the trash and separating the plastics, metal, and paper, then transferring them into large bays and taking them to recycling rooms. In the beginning, people didn’t even really have chairs. They sat on cardboard. There was no water, no electricity, and you can’t even imagine the smell – the stench of trash and dead animals filling the air. Despite the smell, people are eager to work and turn the trash into useful items. They sort the organic trash from the inorganic first, and the organic is used to feed the livestock. Some of the things you would see there would make you cry; very young children playing, sleeping in the trash.

30 years ago, a Coptic priest named Father Samaan came to garbage city. He walked around the poor and rejected people, and he saw a people in need of the grace of Jesus – no different than anyone else.

At first, when he walked around, people would run and hide in the pig stalls. These are people that come from a culture where pigs are the most wretched, filthy creatures. Father Samaan would go into the pig stalls after them, into knee deep mud and waste, pulling people to their feet and telling them about Jesus Slowly, lives began to change as Jesus’ teaching became truth in people’s lives.

As the number of Christians in Trash City began to grow, they started to pray for a church – but there was no room. In 1995, a huge part of the mountain they’re on fell in to reveal a cave. When Father Samaan saw it, he knew his prayers were answered. The rubble was cleared away, and a huge church was built in that place; today, this church seats over 20,000 people.

Jesus came to those who needed hope, in their time of despair, offering eternal life. Now many Christians take their carts out around Cairo – and they are no longer trash collectors, but evangelists, a light to the city, and precious children of God. And God is using them to bless Egypt. That is the story of Trash City.

Classroom: Evangelism 04-18-07

04-18-07 Martha from USA (Texas)
Evangelism

Evangelism – taking the good news to those who have not heard

First we talked about why? Why do we evangelize? Because it’s God’s heart and command.
Second, we talked about how? We evangelize with authority that Jesus purchased and we must take it. God took the authority from Satan and gave it to Jesus who gives it to us.

Complaining. Those teams come in thinking about themselves and not the authority that God has purchased and given to them for the nations. So hang on to that teaching, walk it out, live it out – believe in great things. Don’t settle for a mediocre outreach. Pray over the sick. Preach the gospel. Believe God will change the nation and He will do it.

Today we will talk about what. What is the message of evangelism? You can go in with any message – but it might not have the power of God’s salvation. What is the only story that has this power?

Me: “That Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and was risen from the dead.” (silence)

Yes! What a simple message. And it’s the only one that God gives the power of salvation through.

Postmodernism. Does anyone know what this word means? What are some ideas behind this?

Adam: lack of absolute truth.

Has anyone heard the cliché, “all roads lead to Rome.” I hear this in Jordan sometimes. A taxi driver and I once asked if I was Christian or Muslim. We started talking about the difference between the two, and he said, “it doesn’t matter. We’re all on the road to God.”

Long ago, there was a belief. Jesus is the way, the only way! And in the 1900’s there was an explosion of evangelism because of this belief. They said, “we have to go! People are dying without Jesus!”

We have famous evangelical authors who have promoted the view that Jesus is not the only way. I’ll surprise you with one – maybe – and I love his books. His name is C.S. Lewis. He wrote lots of books! Many of you have read the Chronicles of Narnia. How many of you have read “The Last Battle.”

Now, I love that story – but it’s not Biblical. I have to check everything with the Bible, whether he likes it or not. In the story, there’s a character that serves the dark lord his whole life. When that character dies, he comes before Aslan and basically apologizes and says he’s so sorry; that he had been following the wrong leader his whole life. And Aslan says to him, “everything you did for him, you did for me.” And Aslan allows this character to enter the gates. This is in direct contradiction to what the Bible says will happen.

What if the person has never heard the gospel?

I believe, like the proverb says, that if you seek me with all my heart – you will find me. So because of this, I believe that if somebody is really seeking God, he will find Jesus. There is a man here (the former Muslim from Lebanon) who is an example of this. He never heard what Christianity was about. Nobody led him to be a Christian. He sought God.

Now let’s look at a Biblical story. I’m going to let you look at it and I’ll ask some questions. Now, I’m going to attack postmodernism with all I can, because it is not Biblical and it is dangerous. I am passionate about this; somebody has to be. Read chapter ten in the book of Acts (in the New Testament – the first book after the four gospels). Read the whole chapter. Think about these characters and questions.

1) God – what is He thinking? Doing? Why?
2) Cornelius – who is he? What is he like?
3) Peter – what is his message? Why?

Acts 10
At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, "Cornelius." And he stared at him in terror and said, "What is it, Lord?" And he said to him, "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside." When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him, and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him: "Rise, Peter; kill and eat." But Peter said, "By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean." And the voice came to him again a second time, "What God has made clean, do not call common." This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven. Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon's house, stood at the gate and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, "Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them." And Peter went down to the men and said, "I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?" And they said, "Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say." So he invited them in to be his guests. The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, "Stand up; I too am a man." And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. And he said to them, "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me." And Cornelius said, "Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing and said, 'Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.' So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord." So Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, "Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.


Cornelius: A centurion, Italian Cohort, humble, just, not a Jew, religious (he worshipped Peter. Why? He was a Roman soldier. A lot of times the Emperor of Rome claimed divinity, so it could have been normal for him to bow and worship a man), generous, obedient to God, God fearing, righteous, hospitable/kind, prays and fasts

God: God sees the heart of Cornelius. Even though Cornelius is acceptable to God, there were things Cornelius didn’t know and God wanted him to have the full revelation of God.

Peter: Did Peter think the gospel was for the gentiles? No. When he got the vision, God was trying to tell Peter that everything God made was clean. So if God made man, all men are clean.

Me: This begs the question, why does God give the Israelites limits on what they can eat in the Law, Deuteronomy?

I’m not sure I know the answer, but here is something I’ve heard. By avoiding certain things in their diet, they could avoid health problems. They didn’t have great ways of cleaning animals.

You can check these qualities of Muslims (except for being Roman).

I feel like I came to a deeper and more real understanding of the God I had been worshipping my whole life. 100% of all Muslims that have come to Christianity have said this. I bet if you could ask Cornelius, he would say the same thing.

This is the difference between the people who know God and the people who have information about God.

How can God send “good” people to hell? Most of these people live by Biblical principles – they won’t kill and they won’t steal.

What the Gospel is NOT…

There’s a popular gospel out there that is NOT the full gospel and it’s what I call the “quick fix” gospel.

“Do you have problems in your life? Addictions? Come to Jesus and he’ll fix it. Come to Jesus. Jesus is the answer.” Okay, now this is all true. But it’s missing a something big. Where’s the focus? ME. But the gospel is about Jesus – NOT about me. Now, what he did effects me, but a big part of what he did for us is missing from this gospel. There’s no mention of repentance or the Lordship of Christ. The fruit o this message, from people who have tried, is this, “I tried Christianity and it didn’t work for me.” Have you met these people? I call this a man-centered gospel instead of a Christ-centered Gospel.

The gospel is NOT a quick fix to our problems.

It is NOT a philosophy that we reason people into.

The New Age movement says that God is in each one of us. It’s like, “we are gods, there are powers within us and we just have to realize that.” This is NOT the Gospel. Once you meet Jesus, that’s where you find the life. Not in reasoning.

It is NOT just the message that God exists. That’s only part of the Gospel message (the beginning). There are too many important things missing: the cross, sin, repentance, forgiveness, Jesus.

What is the Gospel?

Let’s start with Romans 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone believing, both to Jew first, and to Greek;

So if you want people to get to know the gospel on outreach, you have to share this with them.

So you give them a solution – this is great, but what is the problem? So it’s important to talk about sin.

1) There is a God. (Genesis 1:1, Surah 1) – most cultures understand this from general revelation (Romans 1:20).
2) 95% of the world believes in God, but the majority believe he is impersonal and unreachable. Islam is an example of this. God is unreachable and impersonal.
3) The profound message of the Gospel is that he is personal. He desires to be known. (“Adam, where are you?”) God is looking for us.

This became so real for me when I was in Africa. We were going from Cape Town to northern Zambia. And God began to speak to us about Lake Takanika. We would be spending time there and sharing the gospel. So we began researching – who lives there? What are they like? And we learned there was a tribe called the Mambuay. And we started looking for a gospel in their language – but there was none! And this was a big tribe, hundreds of thousands of people. But we did find tracks. Thank God for the translators who translated tracks into this language. So we went. All you have to do to draw a crowd in Africa is stick a white person on top of a truck and just stand there. Then hundreds of people begin to look at you very confused. So we do this, we have a loud speaker and I start singing a song about Jesus. After, we start sharing our message. At the end, there is a silence over the crowd. So I said, “if you want to know this God, raise your hand.” Well, they all raised their hands. So I decided to double check. So I said, “okay, if you want to know this Jesus, follow me.” And all of us walked 200 yards away. The whole crowd followed us. Suddenly, we turned around, and this older lady fell on her knees and started yelling in a loud voice with her hands raised in the air. The translator turned to me and said, “she is confessing all the sins of her life – right here and right now.” And we were shocked. There had been outreaches here before and this had never happened. The translator was shocked too. Many people started falling on their knees and calling out their sins. There were tears. We watched so many people come to know God that day.

[Note here: A “Surah” is a what a verse from the Quran is called.]

So there is a God. The bad news is that we know from the Bible that we are separated from Him. (Romans 3:23, Surah 2:30-38)

Even our righteous acts, even our attempts to be righteous are like filthy rags!

Isaiah 59:2; Isaiah 64

Here’s the problem. If I am God, I am 100% holy. I am perfect. There is nothing wrong with me at all. And because of that, sin cannot dwell with me – because if sin dwells with me it infringes on my holiness.

God’s holiness destroys sin – it cannot be in his presence.

So we are separated from God.

Genesis 1-3, if there wasn’t a problem in the first the chapters of the Bible, there wouldn’t be a story after that.

Jesus came, and he defined his mission by Luke 19:10

Luke 19:10
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."

If people were not lost, then Jesus would not have needed to come.

This mission cost Jesus his life. So I want to suggest that coming to Christ is not just a good idea. It’s a matter of life and death. If you have accepted Christ and your sins have been washed away by the blood of the cross, and God’s righteousness is covering you – then you can enter eternal life. And if not? You can’t.

We were created for relationship, but sin created an uncrossable chasm.

If you believe the biggest problem in the world is ignorance, what’s the solution to ignorance? Education – to know. So people who think that ignorance is the problem – they will spend their lives in education; in schools. Other people think the basic issue is poverty. If we could just fix poverty… one of the solutions for that is community development. Let’s go help. And these are all good things to do – but these are symptoms of the problem. Ignorance and poverty are the “runny nose” – but they aren’t the infection.

As a Christian, I believe the biggest problem is sin – separation from God. And what’s the answer to that problem? Jesus. So I’m a missionary. Now, let’s take care of the symptoms – YES! Let’s educate and build the community… but let’s not ignore the problem.

Without Jesus, people are on their way to an eternal separation with God. Not necessarily because they are horrible, horrible murderers or because they have done terrible things – but because they don’t have Jesus.

Jesus talked about hell more than heaven. We cannot ignore this.

Pretend you come to class and outside the door is a man-eating lion. But I don’t want to scare you… so I say, “okay, outside that door there’s a cat. So be careful, because there’s a cat.” Now, have I loved you by no sharing the full truth? No. I’m sure you want to know

Romans 5:8
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

You know – Christianity is the only religion in the world where God takes the initiative towards man. In Islam – it’s all about good works. In Buddhism, it’s about man seeking Nirvana. In Hinduism, you try to be good so you can come back to life as some better form of life.

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Surah 3:42-55)

John 1:14
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus didn’t wait for us to be perfect. He came into our mess. And this is great for evangelism. GO to the sinners. When you’re a Christian, go to the people that need to hear the gospel – don’t wait for them to walk through the doors of a church. Don’t wait for them, go GET them. Because Jesus came to get us.

He not only came, but he sought.

Luke 15:8-10
"Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

This is beautiful – not because it’s about a woman with a lost coin… but because it’s about God and how He feels about all of us. All the other coins? God has those. He has them. He wants to find the one that’s lost; and He still seeks people today.

And in the end of Jesus’ life – he made a way – because there was no way. We were trying, and trying. How do we get there? In the Old Testament there was a sacrifice – but that sacrifice wasn’t good enough. It was only good for a year – and they had to do it again and again and again. But when Jesus went to the cross – he took all of our sins. He had one hand on earth with us and one hand in heaven, and he brought heaven to earth and gave it to us. He took our shame, took our sin, and in his resurrection, he defeated death to give us life. This I what he did. He didn’t have to – but he did because he didn’t want any of us to perish.

Jesus made a way. Now it’s our job to make him known.

There is a saying: to know Christ and make him known.
Now there’s something else. A response is required.
What is that response? Is it just to know?

Romans 10:9-10
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

Acts 2:38
You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.'

Acts 17:30
The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,

What is repentance? It’s confession of your sin and making restitution. It’s if you’re walking one direction – you change and start walking the other direction. Repentance is turning your back on your sin – and not looking behind you.

I want to tell all of you that I’ve made the mistake before of sharing the gospel with somebody and then never giving them a chance to respond. Give them a chance to respond. Ask. “Would you like to ask forgiveness?” And many people say, “yeah!” So don’t forget to leave your friend with the question.

Martha’s challenge:

NOW – take this message and put it into some form that you are good at and that you like – so you can share it with whoever you want to share it with. If you think you’d like to share it with your family, friends, youth, adults, strangers… write it for them. Who are you talking to? Keep that in mind – because that will change how you present this.

Presentations can be from 5-10 minutes. If you choose children, you might want to use stories, storybooks, games, a craft, and the rest of the class will be your audience. We will pretend to be whoever you have written it to.

Classroom: God's Authority 04-17-07

04-17-07 Martha from USA (Texas)
God’s Authority – Given and Taken

I just wanted to share something personal with you today. I read Psalm 116, and two verses stuck out to me.

Psalm 116:1-2

As I read this, I just got this picture of God, Jesus. I got this picture that God was inclining his ear to me – in a very personal way, coming close and saying, “what? What are you saying today? What are you thinking?” And I don’t know why the God of the universe would incline His ear to me… I wouldn’t ever think that He would do this if it didn’t say that He does, here.

“Delayed obedience is disobedience.” – Joy Dawson

With missions, God is going to take us into unfamiliar territory where there is no worship.

Once you know God – everything just gets better and better. Getting older is not something to fear when you’re in the Lord, it’s something to be excited about. My dad is 75 now and he’s more excited about the Lord than he was when he was in his 40’s.

So, when you “get saved” – I don’t know about this term, first of all. I think it’s a process. I don’t know when I “got saved.” Was it when I was 3, and I asked God to come into my life? I don’t know. I think it’s when we give God invitations to come into our lives. But at some point, there’s an imperishable seed that cannot die.

1 Peter 1:23
since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

So you start to walk with the Lord, and things are getting better and better – you’re starting to see victories! But after some months you start to fall and go back into an area of weakness or addiction in your lives. This has happened in my life. I didn’t just meet the Lord and then soar without any other problems. And you fall into this time and you think, “is God still with me? Am I still ‘saved?’” And you get desperate and call out for God a second time, “help me! I need that grace like I had the first time I met you!” And what does it say in the psalm I shared? He listens to us.

He picks us up and continues walking with us. And then later you fall again and you have another area of weakness. But this time you might think, “wait a minute! I remember the grace of God! He helped me up once and I know He’ll do it again!” But all of this – our lives on this earth – is called “the process of salvation” – it’s also called “sanctification.” But in this process, WE WILL BE SAVED! Why? Why can I tell you this with confidence?!? Because THIS SEED CANNOT DIE! And sometimes Paul will say things like, “be careful that you don’t lose what you have gained.” But if salvation really is from the Lord – He will see you through till the end. Now, theologically there are different views on this. Some people teach salvation is 100% God, that would be Calvinism. Some people would teach that salvation is 100% man, that would be Armenianism; and there are good people – Godly preacher on either side of this. I’ve heard a preacher on the radio – “these people say this. These people say this. This is what I say… salvation is both 100% God and 100% man.” [Martha later told me that it was John McArthur who said this.] God comes to us when we are dead! It says we are dead when He comes to us! But in Romans it says that we are saved when we hear and respond to the Word of God. So this is my definition because this has been my experience. And I believe this has been the experience of most people that walk with God.

[I also talked with her later and like something else she said. She said that somebody once said to her, “it’s like a doorway – and on the front of the doorway is an inscription that says ‘I choose Jesus Christ as my savior.’ If you walk through that door, you choose Jesus, but after walking through you look back and there’s another inscription that says, ‘predestined and chosen in Jesus Christ for eternal life.’”]

I do daily repentance. I do it, really. Every day I check myself before the Lord – and He points out specific things, “Martha, I’m still working in you. There are these things that are not perfect.”

Authority
Now I want to talk about the authority that you guys have in Jesus. You might say, “I’m only a DTS student, I have addictions, I have issues…” well join the club, people. Everyone has issues and problems and imperfections.

Now, missions, right now is moving at a great pace. It is moving faster than it has ever moved before. For whatever reason, there is a great urgency for missions. More people have come to Christ in this past century (the 1900’s) than ever before in the history of the Church. So in the last century, more people came to Christ than all the people added up from the cross until the 20th century. There has been exponential growth.

This is interesting. This move has gone from Europe, and is now coming out of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. These are now the powerhouses of missionary work right now. Who knows where the largest church in the world is? South Korea. Who knows where the second largest church is? Nigeria (Africa). I think the Nigerian church is close to a million people, now.

Another sign of God is that previously unreached and untouched areas of the world are starting to open. Places where people could not share the gospel before. North Africa – maybe no movement in the

In 1315, there was a missionary named Raymond Lull. He went to Algeria. He went to a little village on the coast. In the course of his ministry, he was one day preaching the gospel, and he was stoned to death. Mad and angry Muslims just stoned him to death, and in 1315 he died. In 1983, in a town in the same area where this happened back then – on one night (and you can research this on the internet, it’s all over), this village of 400-500 people, angels began to visit this village. In one night. People had visions, dreams, and visitations. In one night this happened. These people are a tribal people called the Berbers. They woke up the next morning, looked around the village… “how’d you sleep last night?” They started asking each other the next morning… “yeah, something happened to me. What happened to you?” They said an angel visited us. He started talking to us about the prophet Jesus. And all across the village people began to realize that it happened all over the village! And obviously a divine message has been given to them! So they started to follow Jesus, and they began to go out and share Jesus with the surrounding villages! There were no missionaries involved! Now there are hundreds and hundreds of believers in Jesus in this area. Maybe God is honoring this one mans blood, who died in 1315. Who knows? Why now? God is doing something.

DTS YWAM students helped plant 7 of those 42 churches.

World Christianity since 1800. The professor was telling us about how the gospel is just moving! He said, and he’s a big guy who’s written all these books, and he said, “we don’t know what’s happening. Because the only thing that makes sense is Habakkuk 2:14 – that the earth shall be filled. He said, that’s the only way we can explain this.

So here you are. You’re in your DTS. You’re in YWAM. What is your part in this current move with the Spirit of God? YWAM all over the earth has over 16,000 workers in over 150 nations.

And this is NOT our doing! This is the Lord’s hand on this! Loren and Darlene never set out to build an organization. They just believed that young people could make a difference in the earth. We are currently the largest mission agency in the world. Campus Crusade is right behind us. They have about 15,000 workers. We’re right there with Campus Crusade. We’ve had some great partnerships with them. We have over 30,000 people that come through our short term programs every year, and I have seen an anointing on these short term teams to really start new things, and to see churches started and fellowships be born.

We’re going to talk about the authority that you walk in. You’re in a stream now. You’re in the flow of God. I want to share with you a little bit about how I started sharing this and what God put on my heart. I did my DTS in Switzerland, and later I did a workshop there to learn to staff better schools. At this workshop, Loren and Darlene were there (the founder of YWAM) and many of the original pioneers of YWAM. And in this class, we learned that this wasn’t about taking a vacation, it was about taking nations.

And Dean told us a story about how God spoke to us. “God, where do you want us to go?” And they believe God said, “Go to Tonga.” So they raised the money, and went there. They didn’t know what to do, so they asked God, and He told them.

“Go in front of the king’s palace every day, do dramas and preach the gospel. I’ll raise up some translators for you from the crowd.”

That was their schedule. They had nothing else to do. The first day there were about 10 or 15 natives staring at them. Every day the crowds grew, “look there’s some foreigners… they’re trying to tell us something.” And the translators would come and translate the message. And each day they did something new. These guys had never heard the message. They never heard about the cross and Jesus. And this is the message that we get bored with sometimes! Let’s be honest! But if you’ve never heard it before, it’s not boring! We’ve been in church TOO LONG, guys! TOO LONG! If YOU are BORED with the gospel, GO to another nation where they haven’t heard it and SHARE it with them!!!

There’s a lie out there in YWAM that says outreach is just for the students. It’s just exposure for the students. That is a lie. DTS teams are meant to change cities and nations where they go.

[this is what God told me when I prayed about outreach. It’s about where God sends us, and specifically it’s about the people there, where He sends us.]

Two of the Romanian students had seen their pastor shot to death. Four out of the five girls had been sexually abused. This was a broken group of students. You think you had problems – these guys had some real problems. We had a good lecture phase. People were getting healed and coming along in Jesus. Time came in outreach. We started praying over a map. We were told we could only pray over Eastern Europe because we only had finances to go there. So we’re praying, and the nation of Bosnia just starts leaping off the map at us (not literally, of course). This was 1987, and a war had just finished. It was a horrible war. We felt called, and we went to the staff about this. The staff said, “okay, have you ever been there?” No. None of us. “Okay, you’d better go.” I had a little jeep. We jumped in, the 4 staff, and we headed through Greece up to Bosnia. We were all excited and full of faith. We crossed the border into Bosnia and we started seeing bombed out villages – one after another after another. Now, I’m an American. I’ve never seen war up close. I’ve never grown up with it. All the joy and excitement in the car just started to go down. We got into the capital city and started driving down the main street. There were shadows of buildings, and huge piles of rubble and blown out windows. We saw graffiti that said, “welcome to hell.” We were humbled. We got up in the morning, and pray, pray, pray. We got up and walked down the street. We saw these people walking around. We went to them and said, “good morning” and they looked at us and kept walking as though they looked through us. We went back to Greece and, as a staff, everything was just drained out of us. All our energy was gone. And we got back and all the students were like, “okay! Okay! What are we going to do on outreach! What’s Bosnia like!?” And we had nothing for them. I went out on the street and I walked and started talking to God. “God, this is stupid. This is STUPID. Look at our team! We’re all broken! The people are hopeless in Bosnia. What can we do? What can WE do!?” And the Lord said, “Martha, STOP. I’m going to tell you something. You are being ROBBED of your inheritance. That destiny that I’ve called you to, Satan is just trying to rob you. Who do you think I am? Who? Who is calling you to Bosnia? Who am I in your eyes?” And I fell down on that beach and said, “Lord forgive me! I’ve made you an inch tall in my eyes. Forgive me.” He said, “I’m going to teach you something, and I want you to write it down and preach it.” And He showed me two scriptures about the authority we have.

Luke 4:5-8
And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." And Jesus answered him, "It is written, "'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'"

Who’s talking here? Jesus and Satan. What does Satan show Jesus? Kingdoms. Nations of the earth. What did Jesus come to die for and redeem? God’s Kingdom, People, and Nations. That’s why he came. So Satan has put in front of Jesus the exact things Jesus has come to redeem, and Satan is saying, “you can have this. I will give you all this authority for it has been given to me and I will give it to you.” So at this point, who has authority over the nations? Now, if this isn’t true, would this have been a temptation? You are only tempted by things that you desire, things that are real. Now this next passage is one of the most famous. And this is after Jesus’ resurrection. What has changed?

Matthew 28:18-20
And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

You’ve all had teachings on the cross. Usually they say, “this is where Jesus has died for your sins.” And that’s very true. But that’s only a personal application. The cross was SO much more than that! The cross was a cosmic or universal event! And authority over the nations of the earth changed hands! It literally moved from the hands of Satan to God. This one moment in history, in a nation called Israel – changed the powers of the universe!

One little moment, and the entire power structure changes. This was prophesied in Daniel 7:13-14 – a powerful passage! This transfer of authority…

God said you walk like that. When you walk in my authority, you walk with my badge. Jason’s not just going on outreach and saying, “oh, I’m going on my own.” He’s going with God’s badge. And when he’s faced with the spiritual forces, he can say, “in the name of Jesus! I command you to stop.” And they will come to a screeching halt!

One of my favorite missionaries planted hundreds of churches in the Philippines.

“A clear undiluted call compels a person to a revolutionary status because he has all the authority of the universe behind him.” Charles Brock

How can you listen to God when you are angry at this moment?

There are a lot of great examples in the Bible of where God is doing something and people don’t understand. This reminds me of a passage in Isaiah (1:18) where God says, “come, let us reason together.” It’s this moment of disappointment when you wrestle or reason with God. And here God invites the prophet – “come let’s dialogue let’s reason let’s talk.” This is combined with a trust. You’re disappointed but you trust the one you’re talking to. I trust that You’re good! I trust that You’re forgiving and merciful! But I don’t understand! So I’m arguing with somebody I trust – and I’m angry – but I admit I don’t understand. And thank God that He’s gracious and has mercy on our little minds and the fact that we’re here.

Okay – back to my story about the DTS in and calling about Bosnia. The best part about a relationship with God is that it’s built on trust and an understanding of who God is. A great quote by Leonard Ravenhill.

You have to be known in heaven before you can be known in hell.” – Leonard Ravenhill

Acts 19:11-16
And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, "I adjure you by the Jesus, whom Paul proclaims." Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?" And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

So there is an authority that is granted to one who walks with and knows the Lord Jesus.

“Passion for Jesus is the fruit of recognizing His dedication to us, not the fruit of our dedication to Him.” – Mike Bickle

Passion for Jesus is not a personality trait! It’s not a characteristic of your personality! You can have the most quiet and gentle personality and still be consumed with the fire of God. It doesn’t matter how much energy or personality we have. And this is why. Passion for Jesus is the fruit of recognizing His dedication to us! It’s not the fruit of our dedication to him.

Okay? In other words, Passion for Jesus is not produced by doing more and more for him – you get more and more passion for the Lord as you recognize what He’s done for you!

So NO – you don’t need to read the Bible more and go on more outreaches and do more things. No. Sit in your quiet time and just say to God, “Lord, I have nothing. I have nothing. I am dry to the bone. Speak to me about your love for me, and show me my weaknesses.” And it’s in this place that your passion will grow – because you love people that love you! It’s really hard to love somebody you don’t know. Does that make sense?

Passion for Jesus: It’s not about duty so much as it’s about devotion. It’s not so much about works as much as it’s about worship. It’s not about trying, trying, trying, as much as it’s about trusting.

Let’s look at a little slice of King David’s life to get another little taste of intimacy.

1 Samuel 13:13-14
And Samuel said to Saul, "You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the LORD your God, with which he commanded you. For then the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you."

Okay? So we haven’t even met David yet, and God says something about him. God says David is a man after my own heart. And in the past tense, God says that He has already commanded David to be a prince. At this time, David is a simple Shepard boy, unknown to everyone. But God already knew him –and knew him enough to already crown him prince. God knew him because He saw David in the quiet place. A king is a king in heart, first.

“To be mature Christians, each one of us must have a secret life in God, hidden from the eyes of others. As we commune with Him in prayer, meditate on His word and behold His glory in the secret place, a beautiful and unique expression of Christ is developed in us.” Mike Bickle

Some of you might be in this place where you say, “Martha, that’s great, but I really struggle to sit with the Lord for even 5 minutes.” Okay – now let me say this to you. Start with what you have. If you can give Him 3 minutes, give Him 3 minutes. And keep giving what you can. And start there. God will build in you. Don’t set the standard so high!

[My experience is different. If you’re having a problem sitting down with God – I would suggest planning half of a day, or a full day, just to go off by yourself somewhere and be with Him. Go somewhere without your phone, where you don’t know anybody. Bring your Bible. Just be away from everyone and force yourself to stay out there until the time you have committed to come back. You don’t have to focus on God the entire time, but while you’re out, give Him as much time as you can muster. I believe you’ll be broken. Sometimes we can’t focus because of distractions – and this eliminates distractions. And after this, you will taste and see that time with God is good!!!]

Intimacy vs. Ability

1 Samuel 16:7
But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart."

That’s good! Listen to this, the Lord sees not as man sees!

Authority is built on intimacy. God builds David’s authority on the intimacy David has with God in his heart.

Intimacy vs. Information

1 Samuel 17:20-26
And David rose early in the morning and left the sheep with a keeper and took the provisions and went, as Jesse had commanded him. And he came to the encampment as the host was going out to the battle line, shouting the war cry. And Israel and the Philistines drew up for battle, army against army. And David left the things in charge of the keeper of the baggage and ran to the ranks and went and greeted his brothers. As he talked with them, behold, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistines and spoke the same words as before. And David heard him. All the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were much afraid. And the men of Israel said, "Have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel. And the king will enrich the man who kills him with great riches and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel." And David said to the men who stood by him, "What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?"

God was such a reality for David here that it affected his thoughts, and emotions. He had righteous indignation for God. And look at the result! Even David’s brothers and the army of Israel heard this Philistine. David had the same information they did and this is how it affected him. “Are you talking about the living God? The one I know? Who are you to be talking like this compared to Him?”

You can sit your butt in the pew in a church and do nothing your whole life. Intimacy with God, on the other hand, produces passion. It produces a desire – a want to walk with God! To know Him! To partner with Him in the earth! You start caring what He thinks about! You start saying, “God, what are you thinking about today?” You stop saying “gimme gimme gimme!” Huge difference between information and intimacy. And authority is built on intimacy. Remember that. The verse we looked at in Acts – the sons of Sceva had information, not authority.

A funny story. We were in Kosovo on outreach. I was leading and we had all these young people. The goal of outreach was to reach about 14 villages in two months with the gospel. So we prayed and made a plan. We were going to be working with house reconstruction for four days. And on two days we were going to run kids’ camps – with sports and games. Every week we would show the Jesus film in a different village. Then I challenged the team. I said, “after the film, every night, one of you will share your testimony.” And in my pride, I said, “don’t worry I’ll do the first one. I’ll show you how it’s done.” And in my shame, I didn’t pray about this – because I’d been a missionary for 10 years! I had done this type of things many times before. So we go out to the crowd where people are waiting. I gave my testimony, I was preaching – as good as it ever came! I gave it my best, and I was using all the tricks of the trade! And at the end of the message I said, “and if you want to know Jesus, put your hands up!” And the stars are out! This is a holy moment! And I look out at the crowd… and not one hand is up. Nothing happened. So I tried again… “I don’t think you understood me!” And nothing. So we’re packing up later, and I’m saying myself, “it’s all their fault. Those people are hard. God’s not moving.” So the next week, it’s Maria’s turn. She’s from Denmark, very quiet, but she had a really neat walk with the Lord. She really was not good at public speaking and she hated it. She didn’t want to take her turn. She said, Martha, please, don’t make me do this. So because of this, she spent hours and hours and hours praying – for the people, for the village, for the night, for her message. She actually read her message from a piece of paper. She was shaking… and she read it. She didn’t use any of the public speaking tips – eye contact – nothing. It was dry. “…and Jesus died for our sins…” and I thought, “oh no, this outreach is not going well.” And she didn’t ask people to raise their hands. She just said, “if you want to talk to me about it, just come up after and come.” And there was silence. A little later, a small crowd of about 18 people got up and walked towards her. We started giving out Bibles and sharing our faith… it was the first breakthrough on that outreach. I just sat there and thought, “man… who am I?”

[Martha was floored.]

It’s not about personality and how funny you are and how much of a good speaker you are – it’s about intimacy with which you walk.

Authority must be taken

Numbers 13:26-14:4
And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, "We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan." But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, "Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it." Then the men who had gone up with him said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are." So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, "The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them." Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" And they said to one another, "Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt."

Let’s go up and take the land! We will take it! We will! It’s what God promised. And the others looked at him and said, “are you crazy? They’re giants.” And right there, where are they looking? They’re looking at appearances, they’re looking at the physical. They’re looking at themselves and comparing. “we look like grasshoppers.” It’s the same thing as in David’s time. Then, they get so depressed – AFTER seeing God doing all these amazing things – they have a meeting and say, “let’s pick a leader and go back to Egypt.” This is where I was on the beach the other night during this DTS. “Let’s go back home. Let’s quit.” Then, Joshua and Caleb stand up and do something. It’s in chapter 14 and verse 6.

Numbers 14:6
And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, "The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. If the LORD delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them."

Authority comes as I step out in obedience.

Back about the DTS. So I took this DTS and said, “Okay, I still believe God’s calling us to Bosnia with this authority, and I believe that something powerful is going to happen. And instead of going to the capital, God began to speak to us to go to a town called Bana Luca. It was a little town, so our leader said, “why don’t you go do another spy trip?” So we went. We met a lady who’d been working there. We told her we’re YWAM DTS and said, “what’s there?” She said, “there’s no church, and two Christians that I know of. I’ve been there a lot. People are pretty hard and pretty closed off. And probably the best thing you can do is silent prayer.” So I said… “well we’re feeling different. We’re feeling like going pretty public with the gospel, and going to the streets and being loud about it.” And she said she didn’t recommend it, but we could do as we wanted. So we went and met a Dutch guy. We said, “we’re a YWAM DTS from Greece and God is calling us here. We believe it’s to see a church planted.” He was a middle aged man with grayish hair, and he started crying. He said, “I have to tell you, I arrived in this city 6 months ago, and there is no church. And I said, “Lord, there’s no fellowship! I need a church!” And the Lord said “pray. Pray for a YWAM team to come.” And I said, “Why should I pray for YWAM? I used to work for OM (Operation Mobilization). I will pray for an OM team.” But God said, “No. Pray for YWAM.” So he prayed faithfully, every day, for months. And one day he received some papers. It said a YWAM team came 100 meters away from Bana Luca. And he thought, “Oh my God! It’s a miracle! God answered my prayer!” So he goes to this team from Cona Hawaii – it’s an impact teams. They rebuild homes. They said, “we don’t know about you, but God’s called us to this city to rebuild homes.” And this man argued with them. He said, “no!” And they argued and said, “no!” And they stayed and he left. And he got back to Bana Luca and God said to him, “keep praying.” And we hadn’t even started our DTS yet! Then, almost 6 months from the first time he began to pray… we knock on his door and say, “hi. I’m a YWAM team and we’re here to start a church?” And he starts crying, and tells us this story. And I think – “oh man… look at our team. We’re so broken.”

So we pray about what to do, and God tells us to contact a University. So we do, and we go into the president’s office. And we made a plan. We decided we’re no longer YWAM. We said we’re “Exchange Programs International” (EPI), and we even made little badges. And we said, “we’re here to meet Bosnian students and to share our culture, can we do that? And he got so excited! He said, “oh! We haven’t had any foreigners here since the war! Will you go on national television? Will you talk about it there?” So the first week of our outreach.

So we went on a program called, “Good Morning Bosnia” – and we got on and they said, “EPI! How long have you been up and running?” And we said, “oh, well, we’re the first team. Pioneers.” And they said, “welcome to Bosnia.” So we began with “does God exist?” And after that we would share with people, and some would get angry and throw bottles at us. But slowly we drew up a group of hungry people, wanting more. And that’s where it began.

They found out about us and said, “can we join you guys?” And we said, yeah! So after about 3 weeks when we were having Bible studies in our house, the Baptist pastor said, “I think we should give our invitation tonight about people to come to Christ.” And I said okay – if you feel like doing that, we’ll back it up! And at the end of the night he said something simple. He said, “you guys have been coming for weeks – you know a lot more – and if any of you want to know more, we’ll be out back after the meeting, and you can really get to know this God we’ve been talking about.” There were about 25 people there. So we went out back afterwards, and Me of great faith is saying, “Oh God, let there be at least one person.” And we turn around, and the porch is just full of people! People are hungry for the gospel, more than you’d think! And I turned to the pastor and said, “what should we do now?” And the pastor said, “I don’t know… what do you think we should do?” And so we asked them, “do you know how to pray?” And they said, “no, we don’t know how to pray…” so we had them repeat a simple prayer – the sinners’ prayer. “Dear Lord Jesus, we’re so sorry. We’re sinners. We’ve done evil in your sight. Please forgive me. We accept you and what you’ve done…” and we turn around, and these people are crying. And we were confused – and it’s at these times when you know that God is really there.

One girl says this, I’ll never forget it. She said, “I just had this weird feeling that I’ve just been born a second time.” And she’s never heard about that common phrase. And this other girl says this, “I feel like my whole life I’ve been lost… and tonight, I’ve been found…” And they’ve never heard these passages in the Bible. They’ve never heard the song “Amazing Grace” – and I watched about 25 people come to Christ. And we stayed in the town and discipled these guys into the first steps of knowing Jesus.

And we started the first church ever in that town. And these girls said, “if you hadn’t come, we would have never known.” And now in Bana Luca – there are about 4 or 5 churches.

Why am I telling you this? Why? Because this is your inheritance. This is the power of your God. This is the reality of your God. This is what God is doing – that you can join. Not just to hear about it… not just to read about it… but to DO it.

You have been given the authority over the nations. You are authorized. You have the badge. Will you take it? Will you walk out in obedience? If the answer to those questions is “yes” – you will see some amazing things in your life. Not because of who you are, but because of who He is through you. Do you believe it?

Classroom: Evangelism/Missions 04-16-07

04-16-07 Martha from USA (Texas)
Evangelism

FIRST: Just a little about Martha. She was born and raised in Texas - comes from a Christian family. Since she was a little girl, she's had it on her heart to be a missionary. She got her masters degree from Wheaton Christian on Biblical Theology. She spent a lot of time in Africa, and then recieved a calling to learn Arabic and reach out to Muslims. She's been living in Jordan for 2 years, now, doing this - and she's fluent in Arabic.

Habakkuk was a prophet, a contemporary with Jeremiah. He lived at about 605 B.C.

Habakkuk 2:14
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

The knowledge of the Lord was with the Israelites. They had an understanding of who the one true God is. And I’m not talking about the Israel today, that came in and stole land from the Palestinians and are committing all of these terrible acts.

But this all happened during a dark time. When you work with the Muslims, it’s not a real bright world. There’s still a very big darkness out there. So I’m living for this. Okay? I don’t see it yet, but I see pockets of it, and I’m seeing some things in Amman that’s blowing my mind and I’ll tell you some stories. But this will happen. This is a prophesy of the Lord and is written in scriptures. This will happen. This is my hope and my whole life is dedicated to this right here. I have nothing else to live for, and I’ll share a little bit of my story with you.

You know, they say not to put all of your eggs in one basket in case the basket drops? Well… all my eggs are in this basket – right here. So the Lord better hold it.

Tomorrow, I really want everyone to get a hold of the authority that God has given us to do this task. Are you walking in God’s authority? Or are you walking in the flesh?

And on Wednesday, we’re going to look at this message that you’re supposed to take to the nations. We do a lot of talking as Christians, “We’ll take the gospel to the nations!” We stop and ask a lot of people, “well what is that message?” And then some people say, “uhh, I don’t know. I don’t really know how to share it.”

Because you’re going on outreach, you really gotta know what this message is. Because there’s only one way that people get saved. There’s only one way they move from darkness to light.

Then on Thursday we’re going to have some fun and we’re going to talk about how you can really learn to share this message with Muslims.

Then on Friday, you are going to have little 3 to 5 minute presentations.

So what we’re going to do, is, on Wednesday when we talk about the gospel – I’m going to have you guys to pick a group of people to share this message with. It could be kids, youth groups, friends back home, and I’m going to challenge you to create a mini presentation of the gospel – whether it’s a powerpoint presentation, a drama, a song, a testimony – something. Some tool that you can use on outreach or in your life after DTS. So this might take a little bit out of you. You might have to work, you might have to think, but this is a Discipleship Training School. But don’t worry, I think it’s something that you’ll really find beneficial. And at the end of this week we’ll talk about the power of this message and how it can spread to the ends of this earth.

So that’s how things are going to go.

What do you think of when you hear the word “evangelism?”

Our Answers:
Standing in the street yelling.
Preaching (negative).
Door to door invading people’s lives that don’t want to be bothered
Bringing people to Christ

We are all evangelists in different ways


I could never stand on a street corner pointing at people and imposing my thoughts on others. I just can’t do that. It’s not my personality. I don’t want to do that. I just want to live my life and the rest of the world can make their own choices. I’ve had those same experiences. When I got out of University I wanted to be a missionary. So I went to a place called “Christ for the Nations” in Dallas Texas. Have you heard of it? It’s Assemblies of God Bible school – that’ll give you a little bit of an idea. But I got to Bible college and they were, “Don’t walk on the grass. No boys in your room. Lights out at 10pm. Dresses must be worn every day. (No capris). No movies and no secular music.” And then to top it all off, we had this class called “evangelism” that we all had to take. And in this class we all ahd to go door to door, and we had a little piece of paper. We would knock on the door – and the first thing out of your mouth must be, “if you would die tonight would you know where you would go?” And depending on if they said “yes” or “no” there were two sides of the paper you could go to. And if they said “no” you would share with them. And sometimes this person was in their bath robe… and I felt so awkward! Instead of being personal with this person and loving them, I was spitting a message. And nine out of ten people would slam their doors in our face. And we DID see some fruit from it! We did see some people come to Christ! But we saw a lot of people turned off from Christianity.

Once we had a guy come and teach. He looked like he was stuck in the late 70’s – with curly, big, thick hair and big glasses. And he spent the whole week screaming at us. “How many people have you led to Jesus this week! Have you seen this apartment over here? There are probably 200 people in that apartment! How many of you have spent time talking to them about Jesus?!?” And as the week went by you would get smaller and smaller and think, “Oh God, I am a terrible person! I haven’t brought anyone to you!” And the worst was street evangelism! We would stand in the street and pray first. “Oh Lord, lead us to people. Amen!” Okay – and then we would spread out. And the teacher would go around and call out a name and say, “how many people did you lead to Jesus!?” And the first person would say, “five!” and the next person would say, “three!” And I would be sitting there shaking. And they would say, “Martha, how many people did you lead to Jesus!?” And I would say, “none… but I had a really good conversation…”

All of this – and the goal was how many people you could lead to Christ through this paper prayer. And I couldn’t do it. I was a failure. And at this little school – I couldn’t do it. I left Bible College totally depressed. “How can I be a missionary if I hate evangelism?”

I remember, at that time, something the Lord said to me. “Martha, remember the way I evangelized to you.” And this is the way God spoke to me!

When I was young, I would go out – drinking, dancing, playing pool. That was my life. When you were 14 or 15, you started drinking in Texas. That’s what you did. And in my life – I loved Jesus. I never didn’t love Jesus – he just wasn’t real for me, at that time. Jesus was the religion of my parents.

So when I went to college, I chose the college that was as far from my house as I could get. It was in the panhandle of Texas, called Texas tech.

The first week, I had my little refrigerator. We went out and bought some beer and stocked the fridge. We partied every night – you know what I’m saying? We didn’t need to wait until Friday anymore. And I was thinking, “this is the life! I’m free from my parents! I have my own life! I can do what I want!” And those of you that know about college life in America… a lot of bad stuff is happening. I would come in my dorm room and my roommate would be sniffing lines of cocaine on her desk. Her boyfriend would spend the night in our room. This is the kind of life that I was in the middle of. Parties, boys, everything I swore I would never do – I found myself in these things. And I had this weird thing going on inside of me. On the outside, I was the party girl – everybody loved Martha. I was with the beer and in the middle of the crowds. But on the inside I was remembering my life as a little girl, how badly I wanted to be a missionary, and how I loved Jesus. And in my car, I had two things hanging from the mirror. I had a cross, and a Hawaiian lei. And as the years went on, I got more and more depressed in my soul. How many of you have felt that? That heaviness? That emptiness? And the more I tried to do things the heavier it got. And there was this time when I just got so depressed… well I was a runner. So I went running. And I ran and ran and ran and I got out into the open fields of Texas. And instead of jogging I just started to run as fast as I could – as fast as I could, until I got so tired that I just fell face down. And I said, “Oh, Lord, if you’re real, things have to change. These things that are in my life, I keep trying to fill myself with and fill myself with, and I never get full!And that was jut one day. Those days pass. But it was the beginning of something.

So one summer, I was driving with my parents. We were on vacation, and I received something. It was a word, saying, “You are going to tell your parents everything you’ve done. Everything you’ve been into.” And I thought this was the craziest thing I’d ever heard!!! Why would I tell my parents? That would be stupid. I would be kicked out of college, they would take my money away. So I turned up the car radio and continued living. But a few weeks later – the heaviness got to be more and more and more. And one morning, I sat across from my dad, and my mom was making lunch – and I just started crying, weeping uncontrollably. The kind where you’re shaking – and my dad just kept eating. There was no response from him. So I said, “dad, I need to talk to you.” And he looked up at me and said, “I know.” And I got scared and thought, what does he know?!? And we went into the other room and he said, “talk.” So I sat there and told my dad the things I had done. And in the middle of this conversation – he reached over to me and put his hand around me. And he said, “Martha, you need to get this out. So say it. But I want you to know that nothing you say is going to change how I feel about you. My love for you is a steadfast love.” And what I heard was the voice of God then. And what I heard from God was, “Martha, my calling on your life is eternal! You think you’ve ruined it? You have not ruined it! I can do anything! And I love you! And there is hope, and forgiveness in my name!” And they said, “Martha, at the beginning of the summer when we came home, the Lord spoke to us. He told us everything you had done. And when we saw you, we knew. And we were ready to confront you.

He draws us through cords of loving kindness. It says His kindness leads us to repentance. It is this incredible love of a Holy God that pulls us to Him when we are dirt, we are less than dirt! And that day, my parents prayed over me the forgiveness of the Lord. They prayed I would be filled with the Holy Spirit. And something changed that day. I went back to college – and I had this hunger for the Bible that I had never had! It’s just a book! I would be sitting on this couch, it’s a Saturday night! And all my friends would be getting ready to go out… and I would read and say, “hey, guys! Look at this!” And I would read part of the Bible! And they would look at me and say, “are you crazy?!?” You have to understand, in my dorm, we had a bowl of hash sitting on the table. And they would look at me and say, “Martha what has happened to you?!? You are not the same person we knew a month ago.” And instead of going out – they pulled up a chair and they would say, “well what is it?” And I would say, “I don’t know!!!”

You see, I didn’t have the paper yet. I didnj’t know how to explain what was going on inside of me. But I had the Holy Spirit within me. You see? One Spirit was being replaced by another. And I didn’t know! I love dancing. I love boys… but I didn’t want to go. And they would say, “well… teach us what you’re learning… teach us about this!” And I didn’t even know where Acts or Romans was… I didn’t know! So we all went over to the Christian book store and found some Bible study help. So we would all sit around a picnic table and smoke cigarettes and drink beer and say, “check this out… what do you think about when he said this?”

I’ll never forget the first girl I led to Christ. It was my roommate Jean.
“Martha, how do I get what you have?” and I said, “I don’t know, but lets just start praying and ask God to give it to you.

She came to Christ, not because of a paper – she saw something real. And it was so real it pushed us onto the streets. We didn’t think “let’s go to the streets” – we just went to the places we normally went. We went to 6th street in Austin Texas – famous and known for the bars.

This girl, one of our friends, was an incredibly heavy smoker. She had a cigarette in one hand and she was handing out tracks. I’ll never forget this one man, she handed him a track. He looked at it and said, “you’re handing me this?!? You’re standing there handing me tracks and smoking?” And her answer was, “God ain’t finished with me yet!” It wasn’t about us. It was about Jesus. It’s not about your talents, or how well you preach or how well you sing. It’s about His power. Not about your power. It’s about His power.

And get this – evangelism is really God’s responsibility. We can’t save people. But you see, God was chasing some people like he was chasing me that summer. And when we’re falling in love with Jesus and we meet those people that god was chasing – and we have a real conversation with them, and we say, “you’re on a journey? I’m on a journey too. Can I share with you what happened on my journey?” We partner with God. And He blesses them with His Holy Spirit and He saves them!

Imagine this – we’re walking down the street with God. Right next to each other, and God leans over and whispers in your ear, “hey look at this guy. He’s hurting today. Go talk to him.”

You see, it’s not about messages and screaming and yelling. It’s about God and how incredible He is. And He just wants to use us, and He wants us to be a part of this. This is how simple it is – this thing called “evangelism.” I’m not here to yell at you or tell you what to say. I’m just here to help you fall in love with Jesus all over again.

Me: There’s one thing I’ve always struggled with about evangelism, and that is balance. I’ve been on both extremes of the spectrum. One is going to spend time with somebody and having an agenda with them, you know? Putting the person on the side and your agenda first – which is to share the gospel with them, and I know this is wrong. Then I’ve been on the other side, which is to put the person in the spotlight and ignore the gospel to the point where – even when a lot of good opportunities come up, I don’t take the opportunity.


Yeah, that’s hard. I understand, and I even fluctuate from one side to the other on occasion. Keeping that balance, being somebody’s friend first and being able to take advantage of opportunities they give you when they’re looking for answers is hard. I laughed because we talk about friendship evangelism. And what we do is we have a friendship. There isn’t any evangelism in it.

In England, you can’t sit at a pub and talk to people about the Bible or Jesus – nobody wants to talk about religion because they believe it’s the cause of problems.

Once you get into Christian circles, you never see that – smoking and studying the Bible.

I remember this girl who would go around from door to door and invite everyone to a Bible study – and nobody would ever go! But after I became a Christian, I went and sought that girl out because I would go to Bible study and they would say, “turn to Galatians” and I wouldn’t know where it was!

There’s a rule: No religion, no politics. So we would talk about relationship. “You know God, right? You love God?”

LIVES ARE AT STAKE

[Martha pulls out a little mini wooden tent stake]

In English, we call this a stake.

God’s call has really been going out from the beginning. What is the first question that God asks in the Bible?

“Adam, where are you?”

God comes to him. When Adam comes out, is he still naked? Is he still ashamed? This is what God does. He calls out to us, and we come as we are.

The Bible begins with missions, “Adam where are you?” Evangelism and missions is actually the theme of the whole Bible – God reconciling people to Himself. And the book of Revelations says what’s going to happen in the end. What’s happening in Revelations 5. What’s happening in that picture? Okay let’s look.

Revelations 5:6-14
And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth." Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Pretty powerful picture for the end of time. Who’s there? Who’s present? Creatures. Elders. People from every tribe and nation and tongue. God is present, and the lamb. And what is happening here? They’re worshipping God. It’s a big worship service! So there’s people from everywhere here. How did this happen???

There’s no way that everyone could have gotten to heave unless they heard something. So in the Bible, there’s missions and evangelism all the way through, and then that’s what’s happening at the end of time – and then they’re no longer doing evangelism. What do they do? They’re worshipping?


“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exist because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.”

- John Piper


A comparison between evangelism/missions and worship. Where is the focus of evangelism/missions? It’s here on this earth. Who are you targeting with missions and evangelism? Who is the focus of your communication? With people. With worship – where is your focus in communication? With God.

Now let me tell you something, and this is true, John Piper agrees.

Where worship is weak, missions is weak. If a church is weak in worship, they will also be weak in evangelism. But where worship is strong, missions and evangelism will often be strong as well. Worship is the fuel of missions. So when you worship God, you’re filled – you’re satisfied – you’re caught up in another place! And in that place, God begins to be revealed from you!

Remember this in your own life and remember this when you’re choosing a church.

So how does God get the nations back to Himself? He does it through people, doesn’t He? He could snap His fingers and allow everyone to be saved. Or, He could have created everyone to worship Him. But He didn’t. He gives us a choice. If we don’t have a choice, it’s not real, is it? If I am created to be Ellie’s friend, then I have no choice. I will always be her friend. But then it’s not real, is it? I need to have the choice.

Okay, I want to ask you a question. Who was the first missionary in the Bible? Who was the first to leave his own culture and go to another place for God?

Okay, let me ask you another question. What was Abraham’s father’s name?

Genesis 11:31-32
Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.

Now something compelled Terah to move – nobody knows what that was, but we do learn later that from this family would come something special.

Nobody knows the history of Malkizadek – from Salem (Jeru-salem). We don’t know this man! But there is a witness of the one true God on earth! From before the Jewish people!

Now what does it say that Terah did in Haran? He died, but what did he do before that? There’ another verb. He settled. What was his target? Salem. Palestine. But he didn’t go there. He settled. He may have been tired. He may have taken the safe option. He had a destiny, he had a calling, but for whatever reason, he stopped. Maybe it was easier to stay in Haran. He probably had sheep and there was water there. Maybe he was just tired. But for whatever reason, he had a calling and he just stopped.

Let me give you some statistics. 9/10 missionaries never make it to the mission field. This statistic is from Troy McCloud. He’s a famous YWAMer. He said nine out of every ten missionaries don’t make it! Why do you think that is?

Maybe lack of faith?
Job security? This is the number two reason.
Money? This is a part of job security.
Family? Okay, the number one reason fits in this category. The number one reason is relationships. People who don’t fit this calling, coming together. Some people have a stirring, they have a destiny, they have a sense, and somewhere along the way they meet somebody! And instead of making this calling a priority, they let their emotions get involved and they make the choice.

I had a friend who was younger than me, her name was Mandy. She had a strong calling to Cuba. It was SO strong that she majored in Spanish in college to prepare herself for this calling! She was a Godly woman! And she went to a Christian college! She met a guy named Andy – you know, Mandy and Andy. And they started dating, as we do in the western culture. And they decided to get married. So they went to my brother for counseling to see what they should do. And my brother said, “Mandy, do you still feel you have this calling for Cuba?” And she said, “yes! Yes! I still have this calling for Cuba!” And he turned to Andy, “Andy, do you have a calling for missions?” And he said, “Well… no, not really. I’m open, and I love her, but I’ve never had that calling for myself.” And my brother did something unusual. You don’t hear about this happening now-a-days. He said, “I counsel you not to marry. I’ve known Mandy for a long time and this is really in her life. This is a strong calling on her heart.” And they left that counseling session angry. I didn’t get involved. They went ahead and got married. Five years later- Mandy kept pushing Andy, “come on! Let’s get ready for the missions field! Let’s do a DTS!” And he would say, “oh, I don’t know, I need a new job, I need money, we’re still young.” And this carried on and on. After five years of marriage, Andy ended up having an affair. His relationship with the Lord went down and he had a relationship with another woman. Mandy called me on the phone, crying. And she said, “you know Martha, if I had to do it all over again, I would not have married him.” But she’s committed to him. She stayed with him. And he said, “I won’t go to the missions field, but we can adopt some kids from another country, and that’s as far as I’ll go.” So they did that. It’s a good life. Andy has come back to the Lord – and they have a baby, but they’re living in Haran. And unless a miracle happens, they’ll die here – and Mandy was meant to make it to Cuba but she won’t make it.

Think about this! Today, we know God! One of His titles is “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!” But He could have been the God of “Terah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” The whole title of God could have been changed! Different! You’re here at a DTS. Don’t settle for something less than your calling.

Keith **** - you have to be called to stay. It’s clear from the Bible that everybody’s called to go! (The Great Commission) – so if you stay, be called to stay! And people ARE called to stay! My dad was called to stay in America! But here’s the difference! My dad asked the question! Lord, where do you want me to invest my life!

Can the calling be to a person?

My opinion – I think it’s very possible for one person to have a calling, and the other person to be willing and go along with that person. Now, it’s usually easier when the man has this calling. Because of his nature and who God created him to be, he’s usually the leader. Now I’m speaking generally. In general, it’s usually in the woman’s nature to follow the man and say, “I’m committed to you and your calling and I will go with you and do what you do.” So in once sense, guys, you have it easier than we do as ladies. So to answer Chris’s question, men? If you make a good choice in marriage, and you make clear your calling – she will go with you.

I would say, if you’re a woman, it’s more important that you marriage somebody that already has the calling, because he will ultimately probably lead the direction of the marriage.

So if Mandy and Andy’s roles had been switched, they probably would be on the missions field.

So are you punished if you don’t make the right choice?

Well I would say that there’s a difference between the consequence of your choice, and punishment from God. God is big enough to send somebody else in place of you if you don’t follow your calling. I think God is grieved when we don’t follow our call, but He never gives up. And in the end – I don’t know if there is punishment.

I think God sometimes takes years to prepare people for their ultimate calling! I had the call to missions, and I knew it since the time I was a little girl. But I didn’t know where. I had no nation in particular on my heart. I was 25, I had a Bible, and I said, “okay God. I don’t know where to go. Where do you want me to go? I’m ready. Take me.” And a guy came into town. He was speaking on Africa. And I was sitting in a meeting with a heart full of remissions, and I heard God saying, “I want you to go serve this man in Africa.” So I spent 4 years here in Africa. Then I got engaged and that didn’t work out so I had to leave Africa. So I went back to Texas and said, “what do I do?” And God said, “try YWAM.” At this time I wasn’t with YWAM. So I did it. I tried. I ended up in Europe. And my DTS ended up in Yugoslavia on outreach, and on our outreach we were able to see a church get planted. And I ended up staying there for 6 years. I ended up in Kosovo, which is full of Muslims from Albania. This is the first time in my life I thought about missions to Muslims. Very, very few missionaries – impossible language called Arabic. Nobody wants to go. Arabs are not the most popular people in the world right now – neither are Americans if it makes you feel any better!

Right now, my life is in fruition – and only now do I really feel like I’m walking in exactly what God created me to walk in and do. Your 20’s and your 30’s are very much for ministry experience and character building. Almost all leadership books will tell you. There’s kind of this point where your character and your experiences come together and you’re walking with this depth of understanding. Anyway, that’s a whole other subject.

Okay, I have to finish up. Let me end with a story.

Back to Abraham and Tarah. You have a choice. You receive a calling. You can stay or you can go. Abraham had the same calling as his dad. He went. And everywhere he went he set up altars and worshipped God. And he had children and these children became prophets and priests – and eventually through Abraham, Jesus was born. Jesus went to the cross and died for the world.

The choices we make effect humanity. One life given to God, and nations changed. It wasn’t just Abraham. It was all the rest of the prophets too. And then it was guys like William Carry and Hudson Taylor. One life given in obedience.

One more story.

I’m going to tell you the story about the stake – because lives are at stake. Abraham put down the stakes. I’m going to tell you the story about a lady who put down a stake. I heard this story in Africa from a pastor. He told me it’s a true story. Back in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s, there was a tribe in Africa. They never heard anything about God. They worshipped idols and things made with hands – the rocks, the trees. One day, this young lady was walking in the mountains, and a cloud came and rested over the place where she was standing on the mountain, and she felt the presence of a supernatural being. And she fell on the ground and she said, “whoever and whatever you are, what do you want with me?” And for about 6 hours, she felt the presence of something so holy and pure and powerful that she could not describe it. It was full of justice. And in that place, in reflection of this being, she became so aware of the sin and filth in her heart. And for about 6 hours she was in this place of utter desperation in the presence of this being. After about 6 hours, something changed. The presence changed and began to reveal aspects of mercy and forgiveness. And she became so filled with this – that she began to dance on the mountain. She was so filled because she knew she was loved. She was so thrilled that she wrote the date on a stake and hammered it into the mountain so the day would never be forgotten, and she went and told everyone about it! And over a period of about 20 years, everyone in the tribe knew the story and knew the lady. And then a man came from the United States. His job was to take the Gospel to this tribe that had never heard it. So, he learned the language, and after a period of about 3 or 4 months, he began to explain to them who God was and what He was like – that He was Holy and Pure and no sin could be in his presence, but that he so loved people that He sent His son to die on the cross to pay for those sins, so we could enter eternal life with Him. And this lady just began jumping around, and said, “this is true! We know this is true! Because for 20 years we have had this revelation!” And the entire tribe accepted Jesus as their God at the word of this man’s testimony. Now that’s a pretty good first missionary experience, isn’t it? And it happened because God had prepared these people and their hearts. The tribe asked the man if they could take him to see the place on the mountain where the stake was and he agreed; so they took the man to the place and they showed it to him. And the date on that stake… the date was the exact day that this missionary was born. Can you imagine that? Seeing your birthday on a stake in a mountain in Africa? Knowing that from the day you were born, you had a calling.

God’s not going to give up, but are you going to see the stake that was meant for you? Do you know what I’m saying?