November 3, 2025 • 42 mins
Revival rarely starts on a stage. It begins in kitchens, in quiet prayers, and in everyday courage that crosses lines we once avoided. We share how a “graveyard of missions” like Bihar has become a field alive with faith, and why that matters for anyone who wonders if their prayers still move mountains. We talk honestly about loving enemies through the lens of Naaman’s servant girl, then follow Philip from serving overlooked widows to preaching in Samaria to running alongside an Ethiopian official on a desert road—all led by the Spirit, all grounded in simple obedience.
Guest speaker Andy Swanson joins us from a bustling Middle Eastern city where East meets West. He paints a vivid picture: earthquake relief that turned into a public testimony, a viral post meant to discredit Christians that instead highlighted their humility, and an Antioch‑shaped identity where believers are known as doers of good. We explore what it looks like to bring the church into unlikely spaces—a spoken word night in a bar, conversations with seekers from Muslim and atheist backgrounds, and stories of dreams, healing, and new faith. Through it all, a theme emerges: when we carry the name of Jesus with gentle courage, doors open in the most unlikely places.
You’ll walk away with a clear pattern for mission drawn from Acts: ask God for a heart to love your enemies, serve the person in front of you, cross cultural lines with humility, and stay attentive to the Spirit’s promptings. Whether you’re praying for a neighbor, considering a trip, or simply longing for renewal in your family, this conversation offers practical steps and fresh hope. If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review to help others find these stories of faith in action.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
Well, we have uh a wonderful day planned for you
guys this morning.
And I I really do hope thatyou've come anticipating uh our
mission Sunday as somethingthat's gonna be meaningful for
you and exciting for you.
We have a guest speaker.
I'm gonna introduce him in justa minute.
Um but before we get into that,I just have a few things I want
to share.
The uh most of you already knowme, but for those of you that
(00:23):
don't, I'm Chad Mason, themissions pastor here at First
Baptists, and uh just celebratedthree years of being here, and
it's just been incredible to seehow God has been using thank
you, how God has been using thischurch to do things among the
nations.
And I want to read you thisverse.
Uh Sandra Radke read ityesterday at our our um our
(00:46):
training.
We we talked about how are wegonna reach the unreached
yesterday, uh Saturday morning.
And she read this it says, Lookat the nations and watch.
Be utterly amazed, for I'm gonnado something in your days that
you would not believe, even ifyou were told.
And there's places in the worldtoday where God is just opening
people's hearts to the gospel inways and in manners that he's
(01:09):
never done in history.
There's a place uh in northernIndia called Bihar, and for a
hundred years it was called thegraveyard of missions.
It was places where people wouldsend missionaries and they would
spend their whole career andcome back having little to no
fruit.
And the missionary agencieswould say, What are we gonna do
in this place?
We keep sending, but nobody'sresponding.
But since about the mid-1990s,God has been doing something
(01:32):
unique and special in thatspace.
And just a few weeks ago, whenwe came home, we got to see uh
movements that were engaginghundreds of thousands, if not
millions, of new believers.
We we were seeing that God ismoving in Bihar State.
They say over 10 million newbelievers in the last 20 years
in that area.
And and this is the thing (01:49):
if you were to tell William Carey
in 1792 that one day there wouldbe a movement of millions in
North India, he would saythere's no way.
If you were to tell a missionaryin the 1980s that God was gonna
do something there, they wouldalso say there's not this isn't
happening in this space likethat.
But what we're seeing happeningthere right now is is akin to
(02:09):
what we see in the book of Acts,where people are responding to
the gospel in droves.
Even Pastor Jason said he wasthere in that space 25 years ago
for an engineering trip, and hethought, this place is so hard,
people are not gonna respond tothe gospel.
And so, seeing this time, howGod was moving among them.
I want to tell you that's justone example of many where God is
(02:31):
working in unique and specialways around the world.
And it is such an incrediblething that we get to be a part
of in this day and age thatthere are mysiologists, people
who study missions and movementsthat are saying we're within
striking distance.
Within the next five to tenyears, we could see a church
planted among every unreachedpeople group on the planet for
the first time in history.
(02:52):
We're praying to that end, andwe're praying that God would
burden our hearts so that wewould turn our affections and
our resources and our attentionand our time to see those things
accomplished.
And honestly, it's amazing howFirst Baptist is responding to
these opportunities and theneeds.
And I just want to tell you, I'mso thankful to be a part of this
community of faith.
I'm so thankful to be encouragedby you so many times.
(03:16):
Uh uh over and over, thecommunity that is the
stakeholders in our church thatare guiding and leading and
participating and makingdecisions for missions continues
to grow over and over, and it'ssuch an exciting thing to be a
part of.
Church, it is a thrilling thingfor me to be a part of this
community and to be a part ofwhat God is doing among us.
Uh, it really is incredible.
(03:37):
Many of you know that today wehave a luncheon after church,
and we're we're hosting, we'reinviting you to come have lunch
and hear about the mission tripsin 2026.
We have a table aboutperspectives.
We're gonna host it for thethird time, and probably the
last time for a few years in2026.
So, anyone that wantsinformation about mission trips
or perspectives, or or reallyeven just what we're doing,
mission wise, come and join usfor lunch.
(03:59):
We'd love to chat with you andtalk to you and tell you more,
like what's the next step thatyou can take.
But God is working among us, andwe're inviting you to jump in at
any level.
I just want to learn more.
I want to jump in and go on somecrazy places.
God has called people in ourchurch to lead our trips.
There are more going on.
We have nine trips going out in2026.
We had five this year.
(04:20):
In addition to the nine, there'sanother five or six that are
gonna be small strategic teamsthat are not open to everybody.
So we may have 15 differentteams going out in 2026.
Praise God, he is moving withinour midst, and he's moving our
people to engage in his work.
I feel like there's somethingelse I was supposed to say, but
we're gonna go ahead and moveon.
(04:40):
I have a pleasure to introduceyou to a friend of mine.
Um he was here with his familyearlier this year, uh, this
summer, and we interviewed hiswife on the stage, uh, Natalie.
Um my friend has pictured andhis family's up there.
And he is gonna share with usthis morning about how God has
been calling him and using hisfamily for so many years.
Uh, I met them first when theywere missionaries to China.
(05:01):
They were working in in uh inthat part of Asia.
They've been there for 15 years,they speak fluent Mandarin.
Uh, incredible how God usedthem.
But during COVID, they camehome, they got locked out of the
country like many othermissionaries at that time.
And now they've made a changeand they're working in the
Middle East, and God is usingthem.
Many of our teams haveinteracted with them as we've
gone through that area and uhand have gotten to know them
(05:22):
very well.
So, Andy, we'd love to have youcome up.
Uh, he's been a good friend,he's a coworker, he has been
encouraging to me.
He's a guy that I've bouncedideas off of.
So, guys, this is Andy.
Glad to have you here, sir.
SPEAKER_01 (05:34):
Thanks, brother.
Good morning, church.
I'm I'm happy to be here againwith you today.
Um, yeah, last time you got tohear from my wife and hear from
her perspective what it's liketo serve overseas.
And I put this picture upbecause I know that you're in
(05:56):
the midst of 21 days of prayer.
And it is amazing what happenswhen the people of God come
together to seek his face, andhow it begins to create a
personal stirring as the Lordcalls us back to himself.
(06:17):
And it doesn't stop withpersons, with individuals, but
it spreads to families.
And how the health of thekingdom begins with the
reconciliation within families.
And yet it doesn't stop therebecause God's heart is for the
(06:40):
whole world, that all thenations of the world would be
reconciled to him.
And this is why we're here, andthis is what we're seeking.
We're seeking revival, we'reseeking our neighbors and our
communities to experience JesusChrist, to know him as personal
(07:03):
Lord and Savior.
And this is an exciting thingbecause God is working around
the world and doing similarthings with all the these
different nations of the world.
And so I start with this picturebecause we sent our daughter off
to college this year.
We're in the Middle East, we'rein a city of 20 million people,
(07:28):
and she's in California, whichsome people here think is a
little bit more scary than maybethe Middle East.
But I wanted to thank you forpraying for for us and praying
for her.
She's doing well.
And it's interesting, my kidsgrowing up, they didn't grow up
here.
They grew up as foreigners andimmigrants.
(07:52):
Living between these two worlds.
For example, when when our kidswere little, living in Asia,
everyone would always ask, Whereare you from?
It's a weird question whenyou've lived in Asia your whole
life.
But the question comes, whereare you from?
Because you don't look like youbelong here.
(08:14):
So they learn to answer, oh, I'mfrom America.
And then they would come herefor a summer and see family and
come into these churches, andpeople would say, Where are you
from?
And they say, Oh, I'm from Asia.
Living between these two worldsand never really fitting in
(08:35):
either.
There's something about theChristian life where we're
called to have a foot in thisworld and yet a foot in the
kingdom of God.
And today, this is a little bitwhat I'm gonna share with you,
but we're gonna start with aninteresting story from the book
(08:58):
of 2 Kings.
I'm just gonna summarize it, butI encourage you to look at it
later this week.
So there is a Syrian commanderof the army.
He's a great man, and he has aproblem.
(09:20):
He has this sickness calledleprosy.
Something's wrong with him, andhe doesn't know what to do.
But there's this servant girl,and she says, Okay, there's a
prophet, and if you go to him,he's gonna heal you.
So he gets some letters ofintroduction to the king, and he
(09:40):
goes, and he goes to Elijah, andElijah doesn't come out, and
he's just like, go dip yourselfin this river, and it's a really
weird story, but it ends withthis Syrian army commander,
Naaman, being healed of hisfleshly disease, but also healed
(10:03):
in a way that allows them toacknowledge the truth and the
magnificence of this God.
And I remember looking throughthis this little passage before
and this story, and it's kind ofconfusing.
A lot of the Old Testament islike, what's what's the point
here?
Who's the hero?
(10:28):
And I thought about it, andthere's a little girl in this
story that is captured, takencaptive from her her village,
from her town.
Maybe she was just kidnapped.
The best of cases, she waskidnapped.
Worst of cases, she saw herfamily slaughtered in front of
(10:52):
her.
And she's taken as a slave intothis household, and she sees the
master of the house suffering.
So for a lot of us, he'd belike, look, God is getting you
back for what you did.
And yet, this little girl, shesays, you know what?
(11:15):
You know what would help Naaman,this master, this guy that
ripped me from my home?
He should go talk to theprophet.
If my master would go to theprophet who is in Samaria, he
would cure him of his leprosy.
The example is this littleHebrew girl who has been
(11:39):
kidnapped, and yet she's the onethat loves her enemy enough to
say, I want you to be healed.
This is the message of thegospel.
And this is where we start.
So I'm not talking about thistoday, but I just wanted to give
(12:00):
us a picture of the heart thatwe need to have to engage
cross-culturally.
The people that we engage witharen't necessarily our best
friends.
They don't necessarily loveAmerica or love Christians.
And yet, a heart like thislittle girl is what it takes to
(12:23):
cross some of these boundaries.
So let's let's continue.
Or maybe not.
Yeah, let's go.
Alright.
So we're gonna talk about a guynamed Philip.
And so we see in the beginningof Acts, Acts 1.8, Jesus tells
(12:45):
his followers, he says, the HolySpirit's gonna come, and when it
comes, you're gonna be mywitnesses to Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria, and to the ends of theearth.
And then at Pentecost, the HolySpirit comes down, and these
people are coming to faith,3,000 at one time.
And as they grow, it saysnumbers were added to them
(13:07):
daily.
And with revival, these thingsthat we're praying for, you
start to have some issues andsome good problems.
And one of the problems that thethe followers are running into
is you know, there's thesewidows that need to be fed.
(13:28):
The believers aren't justpreaching the gospel, they're
feeding people, they're healingpeople, they're selling their
possessions to take care of thenew body that's being born
through the Spirit.
And one of these problems isthere's these widows that don't
necessarily speak the language,they've been raised in a
(13:51):
different culture.
So they speak Greek.
And because of that, becausethey're kind of in between these
two worlds, they're Jewish, butthey're also kind of Greek.
They're being looked, overlookedin the distribution of food.
And so the apostles, they theycome together, and it says this
it says, the twelve summoned allthe disciples and said, It is
(14:14):
unacceptable for us to neglectthe word of God in order to wait
on tables.
Therefore, brothers, select fromamong you seven men confirmed to
be full of the spirit andwisdom, and we will appoint this
responsibility to them, and wewill devote ourselves to prayer
and the minister and theministry of the word.
(14:34):
This proposal pleased the wholegroup.
They chose Stephen, a man fullof faith and of the Holy Spirit,
as well as Philip.
And so for this problem, theysaid, okay, we need some special
servants.
Who can we find to take on thisrole?
And it's interesting, the peoplethat they chose, by their names,
(14:58):
we can tell that they'reprobably also Hellenistic Jews.
They were also people that livedkind of in between these two
worlds.
They have the religion and theblood of the Jewish people, yet
they live in the Greek cultureand the Greek language, they
were probably bilingual, and yetthey've been given this specific
(15:22):
task to serve the widows.
Because maybe it looks a littlecondescending only to me, but
maybe if you read this, it'slike we need to devote ourselves
to prayer and preaching of theword.
And yet they have this servantheart to come and say, yes,
okay, I'll do it.
(15:44):
We'll come and we'll give outfood.
We'll make sure these widows getwhat they need.
And this is how we're introducedto Philip.
But as we move on, we oh, Ithink can we we can move on to
that next slide.
So in February of 2023, in theborder between Turkey and Syria,
(16:08):
there was a massive earthquake.
This is what Antioch ormodern-day Antakya looked like
after the earthquake.
Over 50,000 people lost theirlives in this earthquake.
In this place that we live, inWest Asia, the place where West
(16:30):
and East meet, for many yearsthere have been missionaries
serving there.
One of my good friends said, Ihave been here for 15 years, and
I've seen one disciple that hascome to faith and stayed with
the Lord.
And yet, two years ago, almostthree years ago, there was this
(16:50):
massive earthquake.
And things began to change.
There began to be a new opennessto Jesus and reading the Bible.
You can look at this next slide.
The interesting thing about thisearthquake area, there was uh
(17:14):
these churches from all over theworld that began to send workers
and laborers to come and andfeed the people that didn't have
food.
They began to set up these soupkitchens, maybe like those early
church people.
Hey, people need food.
(17:35):
How do we come and we love onthese people?
And as they did, people wereexposed to the gospel, they're
exposed to Jesus and the love ofhis people.
And so this man, this religiousteacher, this Muslim religious
religious teacher, he posted onTwitter or X this statement.
(18:00):
He said, The church opened asoup kitchen, they treat people
with a very humble smile, theyalso clean the area every
morning.
We must not leave these placesempty.
He said, There's this disaster,and it's all these Christians
that are coming in.
This is dangerous becausethey're so kind and they smile
(18:22):
and they clean up everything.
We don't want them here becausetheir influence is too great.
And so he posts this, and theamazing thing is that 30 million
people in this country see thispost.
(18:43):
They see, oh, when the churchshows up, they show up with a
humble attitude and a smile, andthey clean and they take care of
us.
What he meant for evil to rallythe Muslims to say, let's get
these Christians out of here,actually became a witness.
(19:05):
And the responses of the localpeople are like, Yeah, this is
what Christians do.
So in Antioch, you might knowthis is where the followers of
the way, the followers of Jesuswere first called Christians.
Okay?
(19:26):
So it's interesting, Christianwas not a good word.
Some so Pentecost happens,people come to faith.
There were some people fromCyprus that went to Antioch and
they began sharing with theGreek-speaking Jews, and the
Jews, for the most part, theJewish people, they didn't want
(19:46):
the gospel.
So they transitioned and theystarted just sharing the gospel
with the Greeks, and the Greeksresponded.
And the Jews began to use thisword Christian or Christos to
talk about these people thatwere always talking about the
Christ, about the Messiah.
(20:08):
It wasn't a good term, but forthe Greek speakers, they didn't
know about the Messiah, theyhadn't heard this word Christ or
Christ before.
But there was a similar wordthat they did know, and that was
the word Christos, which meansdoers of good.
And for the next 300 years inwritten documents, Christos and
(20:32):
Chrestos were interchanged.
The Christians were the doers ofgood, and that made sense.
There wasn't, okay, here's whatthey believe, but this is what
they do, and that's together.
The followers of the Messiah,the followers of Christ, are the
(20:54):
doers of good.
Yeah.
So let's continue with thisstory.
So we turn to Acts 8, and at theend of Acts 7, we see that
Stephen, one of these men thatwas called to serve the widows,
(21:17):
he gives this impassionedspeech, tracing from Abraham all
the way to Jesus.
And the people stone him.
Great persecution breaks out.
And Philip, we come back toPhilip here in chapter 8, says,
(21:38):
Those who had been scatteredpreached the word wherever they
went.
Philip went down to a city inSamaria and proclaimed the
Christ to them.
The crowds gave their undividedattention to Philip's message
and to the signs they saw himperform.
Okay, so Philip, he's justserving the poor, he's serving
the widows, persecution breaksout, and all these people that
(22:03):
were just humble servants, theywere full of faith, they were
trusting in the Holy Spirit, allof a sudden they get activated,
not long, no longer justservants, but now as proclaimers
of the word.
And where does Philip go?
Well, they were in Jerusalem andJudea, and he goes to that next
(22:25):
spot, Samaria.
This other group of mixedpeople, the enemy of the Jewish
people.
And yet, because Philip is usedto operating in two worlds, he
goes to Samaria.
And this is interesting, wedon't see the apostles going to
(22:47):
Samaria, even though they werewith Jesus, and Jesus took them
into Samaria, and they sawrevival through the woman at the
well.
They're not the ones that aregoing to Samaria.
It's Phila.
And so he goes and he begins topreach and he begins to heal.
(23:09):
And the crowds gather and theybegin to respond.
Let's go to this next one.
I said, I live at thiscrossroads in a city of 20
million people.
Napoleon said, if the world wasone nation state, this city
(23:32):
would be its capital.
And so it's cool to see thenations flooding in from all
over.
And when I first got there, I'mlearning the language, and yet
I'm praying and I say, God, canyou give me some kind of
ministry before I know thislocal language?
(23:55):
And so there was something thatI looked on Facebook, and there
was a group and this said spokenword.
And every Tuesday night you cancome and anybody can talk about
anything.
You can sing, you can telljokes, you can read poetry.
You get six minutes.
And so I decided I would I wouldjust go and I would check it
out.
(24:16):
And maybe I could use sixminutes at a time to tell
stories about Jesus.
And so I went and I wassurprised this was in a bar, and
the group was a mix offoreigners and locals, a high
(24:36):
number of people from the LGBTQcommunity, and they were talking
about crazy things.
I said, Oh, I can't probablyinvite most people here because
you would be shocked about someof the things that they said.
And yet I began to share littlestories from the Bible.
And there was one other person,um, she was from Dubai, or she
(25:01):
is from Dubai, and she came upto me, she's a covered Muslim
woman, and she said, We are theonly two religious people here.
I said, Okay, yeah.
Uh another time she told me, shesaid, I come here every week
because this is like my church.
She said, People can can sayanything, and there's a a level
(25:25):
of acceptance and love here.
And I thought, wow, what wouldit be like if that was a church?
If a church was like what shethought a church was.
And so I went to our, we'reconnected to an international
church, and I talked to thissome of the young people, and I
said, hey, would any of you wantto go with me to this bar every
(25:48):
every other week?
And maybe we could bring thechurch to this community.
And so I got a Nigerian brother,I got a Pakistani brother, and
uh and a Zimbabwean brother.
Okay?
This is us going into the barinto a kind of hostile
environment, and one would singworship songs in his six
(26:12):
minutes, one would do a spokenword and and talk about kind of
parts of his testimony andthings and ways that he's
experiencing Jesus, and then alittle bit from the word.
In the midst of crazy otherthings that I can tell you more
later, but we began to to go andpeople started asking us, where
(26:36):
are you guys from?
What are you doing?
This this one woman, she's halfLebanese, half um Palestinian,
she said, You know, I would Iwould like to go to your church.
I don't want you to convert me,I just want to see what your
church is like.
And there's something aboutcrossing boundaries and going
(26:59):
into places that make usuncomfortable, where we allowed
to shine the light in thedarkness, and people are
attracted by the light.
Um, let's go to this next.
Next slide.
And so in between these twopassages, there's revival
(27:20):
coming, people are coming, theapostles are coming, and at the
height of this ministry inrevival, Philip gets called to
go someplace else.
And it says, Now an angel of theLord said to Philip, Get up and
go south to the desert road thatgoes down from Jerusalem to
Gaza.
(27:41):
And he started out, and on hisway he met an Ethiopian eunuch,
a court official in charge ofthe entire treasury of Candace,
queen of the Ethiopians.
He had gone to Jerusalem toworship, and on his return was
sitting in his chariot readingIsaiah the prophet.
The spirit said to Philip, Goover to that chariot and stay by
(28:02):
it.
So Philip leaves this amazingministry to go into the middle
of the desert.
And what he sees is this personof some status, but a different
(28:22):
nationality, a different race,maybe an ambiguous sexuality,
gender, being a eunuch.
And God says, go over to thatchariot and stay by it.
Okay, let's see what happensnext.
So Philip ran up and he heardthe man reading Isaiah the
(28:45):
prophet.
Do you understand what you arereading?
Philip asked.
How can I?
He said, unless someone guidesme.
And he invited Philip to come upand sit with him.
The eunuch was reading thispassage of scripture.
He was led like a sheep to theslaughter, and as a lamb before
the shearer is silent, so he didnot open his mouth.
(29:09):
So Philip goes close by, and heis invited up into the chariot
to sit with this person.
Again, to cross some boundariesthat maybe he felt uncomfortable
with, or maybe he'd started toget used to.
And he sits with this man, andin God's providence, what is he
(29:31):
reading?
He's reading from Isaiah, Isaiah53, which is the suffering
servant passage that speaksdirectly of Jesus.
This is a passage that eventoday, if you go into Israel and
you say, Hey, what part of theBible is this from?
(29:52):
The Jewish people think it'sfrom the New Testament.
Because it's so clearly talkingabout Jesus.
And yet, this is what ThisEthiopian eunuch is reading, and
Philip gets to explain who he istalking about.
Let's continue.
(30:12):
In his humiliation, he wasdeprived of justice.
Who can recount his descendants?
His life was removed from theearth.
Tell me, said the eunuch, who isthe prophet talking about,
himself or someone else?
Then Philip began with this veryscripture and told them the good
news about Jesus.
(30:45):
And yet, God is doing this inplaces around the world.
Can we get that next slide?
From that little Tuesday nightgoing into the spoken word,
people said, okay, what are youdoing?
Can we know more?
And so we said, maybe we need tostart kind of a little Bible
study on the off weeks.
(31:08):
And we began to come togetherand to talk about Jesus and to
say, Yeah, what do you thinkthis means?
We have a couple people thathave have come into the kingdom
through this.
There was one um young woman whowas dealing with a lot of mental
(31:32):
health issues.
She had tried to take her lifemultiple times.
At one time she was in a comafor over a month and she was
laying there and she heard avoice that said, Get up.
And she woke up from her comaand she looked around and nobody
was in the room.
(31:53):
And she said, I think, eventhough at that time I didn't
know, but I think that was God.
And that started her journey tocome to know the Lord.
There was another friend ofmine, and he came from a wealthy
family.
He actually came to the U.S.
(32:13):
and did his university and hismaster's here.
And yet he never went to achurch, he never heard the
gospel.
He went back to the country, andone night he had a dream.
And in his dream, he felt therewas incredible weight and burden
that was just pushing him downto the ground.
(32:35):
He said, I couldn't get upbecause this weight was so
heavy.
And he said, then Jesus walkedup to me.
He said, He didn't say a word,but I knew it was Jesus.
And he smiled at me, and when hesmiled at me, this burden, this
weight just fell away.
(32:56):
He said, I never felt so muchpeace and joy and freedom.
So he wakes up and he says,Okay, I need to find out who
this Jesus is.
So he calls his friends back inAmerica, his Christian friends,
because in his countryeverybody's a Muslim.
And in America, everybody's aChristian.
(33:18):
So he calls his Christianfriends to find out who this
Jesus is, and they say, Man, didyou are you on drugs?
You drinking?
Like, forget about it.
So he doesn't know what to do,and he's thinking, okay, these
are my Christian friends.
And they said, This isn't real.
(33:40):
So from the next year, hecontinues to seek and say, God,
is this you?
Is this from you?
Until one day a local brothermeets him and shares the gospel
with him.
And he hears the gospel andgives his life to Christ.
Let's go to this next slide.
(34:01):
So here's my call to you andcall to all of us is to live
like Philip.
One is to ask God for a heartfor your enemies.
Sometimes we think, oh, we don'thave enemies, but we were just
talking to a neighbor the otherday and talking about maybe it's
a political party.
(34:22):
All those people are bad.
Maybe it's somebody thatactually has done you wrong.
Like the little girl.
But begin to ask God to changeyour heart so that you can love
your enemies.
And then serve the ones in frontof you.
(34:42):
Sometimes we assume, okay, I'mgonna go serve these people
without first asking what theyneed.
And then be bold in faith, reachout to those who are different,
and be sensitive to God's call.
I have one last little thing toshare before I pray.
So a friend of mine, she went toa different part of the Middle
(35:07):
East, and she went to a veryconservative area, and there was
a woman's college, and all thewomen were in full burqa.
And she went up and she said,Hey, I'm here just making some
friends, and I'm interested ifanybody here is interested in
reading the holy book.
And one girl stopped and sheturned and she said, Do you mean
(35:30):
the Bible?
She said, Yes.
She said, I need to talk to you.
So they they go off bythemselves, and she said, For
the last three months, I've beensecretly reading the Bible.
And I have so many questions toask you.
So during this conversation, myfriend explains the gospel to
(35:50):
this woman, and this womandecides to give her life to
Christ.
And in the Muslim world, beingcalled a Christian can be very
dangerous.
And so my friend explains this.
She says, you know, in theMuslim world, some people that
follow Jesus, they will justsay, I'm a follower of Jesus,
(36:14):
instead of using the wordChristian just because of it's a
loaded word.
And so the girl began to thinkabout it.
And she said, She said, I wantto call myself a Christian
because Jesus died so that I canhave his name.
(36:36):
And the question is the thirdcommandment says, don't take the
name of the Lord in vain.
That word take can also mean tocarry.
Where we go, are you known as aChristian, as a Christos and a
Christos, those doers of good?
(36:57):
A friend from Iraq.
He's rejected Islam.
He is almost a militant atheist.
He is involved in advocacy forthe LGBTQ community.
And I was talking to him, and welooked at Jesus' interaction
with the woman caught in the actof adultery.
(37:21):
And began to cry.
He said, if Christians would actlike Jesus, the whole world
would believe.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, we come before youand we humbly want to repent
(37:42):
before you and ask that youwould remind us of who you are.
Remind us of the gospel.
Remind us that you died so thatwe could be called by your name.
That you died and invited us tobe a part of your family.
Lord, we pray for reconciliationwith our enemies, with our
(38:08):
families, with our friends, withour neighbors.
We pray that you would give usthe boldness and faith to step
out and trust you to love andserve those around us, to be
sensitive to your Holy Spirit,to speak the words that you
would give us.
Lord Jesus, we thank you thatyou are present with us, that we
(38:32):
are not alone, that allauthority on heaven and earth
have been given to you, and youare with us to the end of the
age.
Jesus' name we pray.
unknown (38:41):
Amen.
SPEAKER_02 (38:44):
Thank you, Andy.
Church family, 1 Corinthianschapter 9, verse 23, Paul
writes, I do all things for thesake of the gospel, and that I
might become a partaker of it.
See, the truth of the matter is,is the gospel is, yes, the
gospel is your salvation, thatyou receive Jesus, that you have
(39:09):
your sins forgiven, that you nowcall God Father, and that you
know him personally.
But the gospel is even further,that you enter into becoming
like Christ and a partaker.
You are the hands and feet ofJesus.
You enter into the mission thatI might become a partaker in it.
(39:34):
And so this week, guys, we'vebeen praying for two weeks, and
now we are entering into thethird week, and we are praying
for revival.
Let me be clear about what thatmeans.
God has placed in your lifepeople that do not know Jesus
Christ.
(39:55):
And God is calling you into themission.
First and foremost, to pray, tobeg on their behalf that the
Spirit of God would move andwould open their eyes.
And as Andy just incrediblyarticulated, that we are called
to be in both worlds and toengage and to shine the light of
(40:21):
Jesus Christ.
So as we pray all week, thequestion is who close to you
does not know Jesus that you aregoing to beg the Lord for.
And you may say, but Pastor, Ihave done that before.
(40:43):
I know.
I know.
Do not be discouraged.
Continue on.
We are in this together.
I know it's hard.
I know there are times andseasons when you prayed and you
didn't see any movement.
Do not give up.
Do not be discouraged.
(41:04):
As we close our service, we'regoing to close our service.
We have two songs and we have atime for you to respond.
Church family, God has preparedour hearts over the last two
weeks and for a particularmoment like this where we can
press in with genuine sincerityfor a move of God that He would
save amongst us.
(41:25):
So we'll have people down hereat the front who would love to
pray with you.
If you have a loved one, if youhave a burden, do not pray
alone.
Let us pray together.
Let us carry one another'sburdens and let us beg God to
move for the glory of the nameof Jesus Christ because He is
worthy.
So as we sing, you be obedientto whatever the Spirit of God
(41:46):
has pressed upon your heart thismorning.
Well, we have uh a wonderful day planned for you
guys this morning.
And I I really do hope thatyou've come anticipating uh our
mission Sunday as somethingthat's gonna be meaningful for
you and exciting for you.
We have a guest speaker.
I'm gonna introduce him in justa minute.
Um but before we get into that,I just have a few things I want
to share.
The uh most of you already knowme, but for those of you that
(00:23):
don't, I'm Chad Mason, themissions pastor here at First
Baptists, and uh just celebratedthree years of being here, and
it's just been incredible to seehow God has been using thank
you, how God has been using thischurch to do things among the
nations.
And I want to read you thisverse.
Uh Sandra Radke read ityesterday at our our um our
(00:46):
training.
We we talked about how are wegonna reach the unreached
yesterday, uh Saturday morning.
And she read this it says, Lookat the nations and watch.
Be utterly amazed, for I'm gonnado something in your days that
you would not believe, even ifyou were told.
And there's places in the worldtoday where God is just opening
people's hearts to the gospel inways and in manners that he's
(01:09):
never done in history.
There's a place uh in northernIndia called Bihar, and for a
hundred years it was called thegraveyard of missions.
It was places where people wouldsend missionaries and they would
spend their whole career andcome back having little to no
fruit.
And the missionary agencieswould say, What are we gonna do
in this place?
We keep sending, but nobody'sresponding.
But since about the mid-1990s,God has been doing something
(01:32):
unique and special in thatspace.
And just a few weeks ago, whenwe came home, we got to see uh
movements that were engaginghundreds of thousands, if not
millions, of new believers.
We we were seeing that God ismoving in Bihar State.
They say over 10 million newbelievers in the last 20 years
in that area.
And and this is the thing (01:49):
if you were to tell William Carey
in 1792 that one day there wouldbe a movement of millions in
North India, he would saythere's no way.
If you were to tell a missionaryin the 1980s that God was gonna
do something there, they wouldalso say there's not this isn't
happening in this space likethat.
But what we're seeing happeningthere right now is is akin to
(02:09):
what we see in the book of Acts,where people are responding to
the gospel in droves.
Even Pastor Jason said he wasthere in that space 25 years ago
for an engineering trip, and hethought, this place is so hard,
people are not gonna respond tothe gospel.
And so, seeing this time, howGod was moving among them.
I want to tell you that's justone example of many where God is
(02:31):
working in unique and specialways around the world.
And it is such an incrediblething that we get to be a part
of in this day and age thatthere are mysiologists, people
who study missions and movementsthat are saying we're within
striking distance.
Within the next five to tenyears, we could see a church
planted among every unreachedpeople group on the planet for
the first time in history.
(02:52):
We're praying to that end, andwe're praying that God would
burden our hearts so that wewould turn our affections and
our resources and our attentionand our time to see those things
accomplished.
And honestly, it's amazing howFirst Baptist is responding to
these opportunities and theneeds.
And I just want to tell you, I'mso thankful to be a part of this
community of faith.
I'm so thankful to be encouragedby you so many times.
(03:16):
Uh uh over and over, thecommunity that is the
stakeholders in our church thatare guiding and leading and
participating and makingdecisions for missions continues
to grow over and over, and it'ssuch an exciting thing to be a
part of.
Church, it is a thrilling thingfor me to be a part of this
community and to be a part ofwhat God is doing among us.
Uh, it really is incredible.
(03:37):
Many of you know that today wehave a luncheon after church,
and we're we're hosting, we'reinviting you to come have lunch
and hear about the mission tripsin 2026.
We have a table aboutperspectives.
We're gonna host it for thethird time, and probably the
last time for a few years in2026.
So, anyone that wantsinformation about mission trips
or perspectives, or or reallyeven just what we're doing,
mission wise, come and join usfor lunch.
(03:59):
We'd love to chat with you andtalk to you and tell you more,
like what's the next step thatyou can take.
But God is working among us, andwe're inviting you to jump in at
any level.
I just want to learn more.
I want to jump in and go on somecrazy places.
God has called people in ourchurch to lead our trips.
There are more going on.
We have nine trips going out in2026.
We had five this year.
(04:20):
In addition to the nine, there'sanother five or six that are
gonna be small strategic teamsthat are not open to everybody.
So we may have 15 differentteams going out in 2026.
Praise God, he is moving withinour midst, and he's moving our
people to engage in his work.
I feel like there's somethingelse I was supposed to say, but
we're gonna go ahead and moveon.
(04:40):
I have a pleasure to introduceyou to a friend of mine.
Um he was here with his familyearlier this year, uh, this
summer, and we interviewed hiswife on the stage, uh, Natalie.
Um my friend has pictured andhis family's up there.
And he is gonna share with usthis morning about how God has
been calling him and using hisfamily for so many years.
Uh, I met them first when theywere missionaries to China.
(05:01):
They were working in in uh inthat part of Asia.
They've been there for 15 years,they speak fluent Mandarin.
Uh, incredible how God usedthem.
But during COVID, they camehome, they got locked out of the
country like many othermissionaries at that time.
And now they've made a changeand they're working in the
Middle East, and God is usingthem.
Many of our teams haveinteracted with them as we've
gone through that area and uhand have gotten to know them
(05:22):
very well.
So, Andy, we'd love to have youcome up.
Uh, he's been a good friend,he's a coworker, he has been
encouraging to me.
He's a guy that I've bouncedideas off of.
So, guys, this is Andy.
Glad to have you here, sir.
SPEAKER_01 (05:34):
Thanks, brother.
Good morning, church.
I'm I'm happy to be here againwith you today.
Um, yeah, last time you got tohear from my wife and hear from
her perspective what it's liketo serve overseas.
And I put this picture upbecause I know that you're in
(05:56):
the midst of 21 days of prayer.
And it is amazing what happenswhen the people of God come
together to seek his face, andhow it begins to create a
personal stirring as the Lordcalls us back to himself.
(06:17):
And it doesn't stop withpersons, with individuals, but
it spreads to families.
And how the health of thekingdom begins with the
reconciliation within families.
And yet it doesn't stop therebecause God's heart is for the
(06:40):
whole world, that all thenations of the world would be
reconciled to him.
And this is why we're here, andthis is what we're seeking.
We're seeking revival, we'reseeking our neighbors and our
communities to experience JesusChrist, to know him as personal
(07:03):
Lord and Savior.
And this is an exciting thingbecause God is working around
the world and doing similarthings with all the these
different nations of the world.
And so I start with this picturebecause we sent our daughter off
to college this year.
We're in the Middle East, we'rein a city of 20 million people,
(07:28):
and she's in California, whichsome people here think is a
little bit more scary than maybethe Middle East.
But I wanted to thank you forpraying for for us and praying
for her.
She's doing well.
And it's interesting, my kidsgrowing up, they didn't grow up
here.
They grew up as foreigners andimmigrants.
(07:52):
Living between these two worlds.
For example, when when our kidswere little, living in Asia,
everyone would always ask, Whereare you from?
It's a weird question whenyou've lived in Asia your whole
life.
But the question comes, whereare you from?
Because you don't look like youbelong here.
(08:14):
So they learn to answer, oh, I'mfrom America.
And then they would come herefor a summer and see family and
come into these churches, andpeople would say, Where are you
from?
And they say, Oh, I'm from Asia.
Living between these two worldsand never really fitting in
(08:35):
either.
There's something about theChristian life where we're
called to have a foot in thisworld and yet a foot in the
kingdom of God.
And today, this is a little bitwhat I'm gonna share with you,
but we're gonna start with aninteresting story from the book
(08:58):
of 2 Kings.
I'm just gonna summarize it, butI encourage you to look at it
later this week.
So there is a Syrian commanderof the army.
He's a great man, and he has aproblem.
(09:20):
He has this sickness calledleprosy.
Something's wrong with him, andhe doesn't know what to do.
But there's this servant girl,and she says, Okay, there's a
prophet, and if you go to him,he's gonna heal you.
So he gets some letters ofintroduction to the king, and he
(09:40):
goes, and he goes to Elijah, andElijah doesn't come out, and
he's just like, go dip yourselfin this river, and it's a really
weird story, but it ends withthis Syrian army commander,
Naaman, being healed of hisfleshly disease, but also healed
(10:03):
in a way that allows them toacknowledge the truth and the
magnificence of this God.
And I remember looking throughthis this little passage before
and this story, and it's kind ofconfusing.
A lot of the Old Testament islike, what's what's the point
here?
Who's the hero?
(10:28):
And I thought about it, andthere's a little girl in this
story that is captured, takencaptive from her her village,
from her town.
Maybe she was just kidnapped.
The best of cases, she waskidnapped.
Worst of cases, she saw herfamily slaughtered in front of
(10:52):
her.
And she's taken as a slave intothis household, and she sees the
master of the house suffering.
So for a lot of us, he'd belike, look, God is getting you
back for what you did.
And yet, this little girl, shesays, you know what?
(11:15):
You know what would help Naaman,this master, this guy that
ripped me from my home?
He should go talk to theprophet.
If my master would go to theprophet who is in Samaria, he
would cure him of his leprosy.
The example is this littleHebrew girl who has been
(11:39):
kidnapped, and yet she's the onethat loves her enemy enough to
say, I want you to be healed.
This is the message of thegospel.
And this is where we start.
So I'm not talking about thistoday, but I just wanted to give
(12:00):
us a picture of the heart thatwe need to have to engage
cross-culturally.
The people that we engage witharen't necessarily our best
friends.
They don't necessarily loveAmerica or love Christians.
And yet, a heart like thislittle girl is what it takes to
(12:23):
cross some of these boundaries.
So let's let's continue.
Or maybe not.
Yeah, let's go.
Alright.
So we're gonna talk about a guynamed Philip.
And so we see in the beginningof Acts, Acts 1.8, Jesus tells
(12:45):
his followers, he says, the HolySpirit's gonna come, and when it
comes, you're gonna be mywitnesses to Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria, and to the ends of theearth.
And then at Pentecost, the HolySpirit comes down, and these
people are coming to faith,3,000 at one time.
And as they grow, it saysnumbers were added to them
(13:07):
daily.
And with revival, these thingsthat we're praying for, you
start to have some issues andsome good problems.
And one of the problems that thethe followers are running into
is you know, there's thesewidows that need to be fed.
(13:28):
The believers aren't justpreaching the gospel, they're
feeding people, they're healingpeople, they're selling their
possessions to take care of thenew body that's being born
through the Spirit.
And one of these problems isthere's these widows that don't
necessarily speak the language,they've been raised in a
(13:51):
different culture.
So they speak Greek.
And because of that, becausethey're kind of in between these
two worlds, they're Jewish, butthey're also kind of Greek.
They're being looked, overlookedin the distribution of food.
And so the apostles, they theycome together, and it says this
it says, the twelve summoned allthe disciples and said, It is
(14:14):
unacceptable for us to neglectthe word of God in order to wait
on tables.
Therefore, brothers, select fromamong you seven men confirmed to
be full of the spirit andwisdom, and we will appoint this
responsibility to them, and wewill devote ourselves to prayer
and the minister and theministry of the word.
(14:34):
This proposal pleased the wholegroup.
They chose Stephen, a man fullof faith and of the Holy Spirit,
as well as Philip.
And so for this problem, theysaid, okay, we need some special
servants.
Who can we find to take on thisrole?
And it's interesting, the peoplethat they chose, by their names,
(14:58):
we can tell that they'reprobably also Hellenistic Jews.
They were also people that livedkind of in between these two
worlds.
They have the religion and theblood of the Jewish people, yet
they live in the Greek cultureand the Greek language, they
were probably bilingual, and yetthey've been given this specific
(15:22):
task to serve the widows.
Because maybe it looks a littlecondescending only to me, but
maybe if you read this, it'slike we need to devote ourselves
to prayer and preaching of theword.
And yet they have this servantheart to come and say, yes,
okay, I'll do it.
(15:44):
We'll come and we'll give outfood.
We'll make sure these widows getwhat they need.
And this is how we're introducedto Philip.
But as we move on, we oh, Ithink can we we can move on to
that next slide.
So in February of 2023, in theborder between Turkey and Syria,
(16:08):
there was a massive earthquake.
This is what Antioch ormodern-day Antakya looked like
after the earthquake.
Over 50,000 people lost theirlives in this earthquake.
In this place that we live, inWest Asia, the place where West
(16:30):
and East meet, for many yearsthere have been missionaries
serving there.
One of my good friends said, Ihave been here for 15 years, and
I've seen one disciple that hascome to faith and stayed with
the Lord.
And yet, two years ago, almostthree years ago, there was this
(16:50):
massive earthquake.
And things began to change.
There began to be a new opennessto Jesus and reading the Bible.
You can look at this next slide.
The interesting thing about thisearthquake area, there was uh
(17:14):
these churches from all over theworld that began to send workers
and laborers to come and andfeed the people that didn't have
food.
They began to set up these soupkitchens, maybe like those early
church people.
Hey, people need food.
(17:35):
How do we come and we love onthese people?
And as they did, people wereexposed to the gospel, they're
exposed to Jesus and the love ofhis people.
And so this man, this religiousteacher, this Muslim religious
religious teacher, he posted onTwitter or X this statement.
(18:00):
He said, The church opened asoup kitchen, they treat people
with a very humble smile, theyalso clean the area every
morning.
We must not leave these placesempty.
He said, There's this disaster,and it's all these Christians
that are coming in.
This is dangerous becausethey're so kind and they smile
(18:22):
and they clean up everything.
We don't want them here becausetheir influence is too great.
And so he posts this, and theamazing thing is that 30 million
people in this country see thispost.
(18:43):
They see, oh, when the churchshows up, they show up with a
humble attitude and a smile, andthey clean and they take care of
us.
What he meant for evil to rallythe Muslims to say, let's get
these Christians out of here,actually became a witness.
(19:05):
And the responses of the localpeople are like, Yeah, this is
what Christians do.
So in Antioch, you might knowthis is where the followers of
the way, the followers of Jesuswere first called Christians.
Okay?
(19:26):
So it's interesting, Christianwas not a good word.
Some so Pentecost happens,people come to faith.
There were some people fromCyprus that went to Antioch and
they began sharing with theGreek-speaking Jews, and the
Jews, for the most part, theJewish people, they didn't want
(19:46):
the gospel.
So they transitioned and theystarted just sharing the gospel
with the Greeks, and the Greeksresponded.
And the Jews began to use thisword Christian or Christos to
talk about these people thatwere always talking about the
Christ, about the Messiah.
(20:08):
It wasn't a good term, but forthe Greek speakers, they didn't
know about the Messiah, theyhadn't heard this word Christ or
Christ before.
But there was a similar wordthat they did know, and that was
the word Christos, which meansdoers of good.
And for the next 300 years inwritten documents, Christos and
(20:32):
Chrestos were interchanged.
The Christians were the doers ofgood, and that made sense.
There wasn't, okay, here's whatthey believe, but this is what
they do, and that's together.
The followers of the Messiah,the followers of Christ, are the
(20:54):
doers of good.
Yeah.
So let's continue with thisstory.
So we turn to Acts 8, and at theend of Acts 7, we see that
Stephen, one of these men thatwas called to serve the widows,
(21:17):
he gives this impassionedspeech, tracing from Abraham all
the way to Jesus.
And the people stone him.
Great persecution breaks out.
And Philip, we come back toPhilip here in chapter 8, says,
(21:38):
Those who had been scatteredpreached the word wherever they
went.
Philip went down to a city inSamaria and proclaimed the
Christ to them.
The crowds gave their undividedattention to Philip's message
and to the signs they saw himperform.
Okay, so Philip, he's justserving the poor, he's serving
the widows, persecution breaksout, and all these people that
(22:03):
were just humble servants, theywere full of faith, they were
trusting in the Holy Spirit, allof a sudden they get activated,
not long, no longer justservants, but now as proclaimers
of the word.
And where does Philip go?
Well, they were in Jerusalem andJudea, and he goes to that next
(22:25):
spot, Samaria.
This other group of mixedpeople, the enemy of the Jewish
people.
And yet, because Philip is usedto operating in two worlds, he
goes to Samaria.
And this is interesting, wedon't see the apostles going to
(22:47):
Samaria, even though they werewith Jesus, and Jesus took them
into Samaria, and they sawrevival through the woman at the
well.
They're not the ones that aregoing to Samaria.
It's Phila.
And so he goes and he begins topreach and he begins to heal.
(23:09):
And the crowds gather and theybegin to respond.
Let's go to this next one.
I said, I live at thiscrossroads in a city of 20
million people.
Napoleon said, if the world wasone nation state, this city
(23:32):
would be its capital.
And so it's cool to see thenations flooding in from all
over.
And when I first got there, I'mlearning the language, and yet
I'm praying and I say, God, canyou give me some kind of
ministry before I know thislocal language?
(23:55):
And so there was something thatI looked on Facebook, and there
was a group and this said spokenword.
And every Tuesday night you cancome and anybody can talk about
anything.
You can sing, you can telljokes, you can read poetry.
You get six minutes.
And so I decided I would I wouldjust go and I would check it
out.
(24:16):
And maybe I could use sixminutes at a time to tell
stories about Jesus.
And so I went and I wassurprised this was in a bar, and
the group was a mix offoreigners and locals, a high
(24:36):
number of people from the LGBTQcommunity, and they were talking
about crazy things.
I said, Oh, I can't probablyinvite most people here because
you would be shocked about someof the things that they said.
And yet I began to share littlestories from the Bible.
And there was one other person,um, she was from Dubai, or she
(25:01):
is from Dubai, and she came upto me, she's a covered Muslim
woman, and she said, We are theonly two religious people here.
I said, Okay, yeah.
Uh another time she told me, shesaid, I come here every week
because this is like my church.
She said, People can can sayanything, and there's a a level
(25:25):
of acceptance and love here.
And I thought, wow, what wouldit be like if that was a church?
If a church was like what shethought a church was.
And so I went to our, we'reconnected to an international
church, and I talked to thissome of the young people, and I
said, hey, would any of you wantto go with me to this bar every
(25:48):
every other week?
And maybe we could bring thechurch to this community.
And so I got a Nigerian brother,I got a Pakistani brother, and
uh and a Zimbabwean brother.
Okay?
This is us going into the barinto a kind of hostile
environment, and one would singworship songs in his six
(26:12):
minutes, one would do a spokenword and and talk about kind of
parts of his testimony andthings and ways that he's
experiencing Jesus, and then alittle bit from the word.
In the midst of crazy otherthings that I can tell you more
later, but we began to to go andpeople started asking us, where
(26:36):
are you guys from?
What are you doing?
This this one woman, she's halfLebanese, half um Palestinian,
she said, You know, I would Iwould like to go to your church.
I don't want you to convert me,I just want to see what your
church is like.
And there's something aboutcrossing boundaries and going
(26:59):
into places that make usuncomfortable, where we allowed
to shine the light in thedarkness, and people are
attracted by the light.
Um, let's go to this next.
Next slide.
And so in between these twopassages, there's revival
(27:20):
coming, people are coming, theapostles are coming, and at the
height of this ministry inrevival, Philip gets called to
go someplace else.
And it says, Now an angel of theLord said to Philip, Get up and
go south to the desert road thatgoes down from Jerusalem to
Gaza.
(27:41):
And he started out, and on hisway he met an Ethiopian eunuch,
a court official in charge ofthe entire treasury of Candace,
queen of the Ethiopians.
He had gone to Jerusalem toworship, and on his return was
sitting in his chariot readingIsaiah the prophet.
The spirit said to Philip, Goover to that chariot and stay by
(28:02):
it.
So Philip leaves this amazingministry to go into the middle
of the desert.
And what he sees is this personof some status, but a different
(28:22):
nationality, a different race,maybe an ambiguous sexuality,
gender, being a eunuch.
And God says, go over to thatchariot and stay by it.
Okay, let's see what happensnext.
So Philip ran up and he heardthe man reading Isaiah the
(28:45):
prophet.
Do you understand what you arereading?
Philip asked.
How can I?
He said, unless someone guidesme.
And he invited Philip to come upand sit with him.
The eunuch was reading thispassage of scripture.
He was led like a sheep to theslaughter, and as a lamb before
the shearer is silent, so he didnot open his mouth.
(29:09):
So Philip goes close by, and heis invited up into the chariot
to sit with this person.
Again, to cross some boundariesthat maybe he felt uncomfortable
with, or maybe he'd started toget used to.
And he sits with this man, andin God's providence, what is he
(29:31):
reading?
He's reading from Isaiah, Isaiah53, which is the suffering
servant passage that speaksdirectly of Jesus.
This is a passage that eventoday, if you go into Israel and
you say, Hey, what part of theBible is this from?
(29:52):
The Jewish people think it'sfrom the New Testament.
Because it's so clearly talkingabout Jesus.
And yet, this is what ThisEthiopian eunuch is reading, and
Philip gets to explain who he istalking about.
Let's continue.
(30:12):
In his humiliation, he wasdeprived of justice.
Who can recount his descendants?
His life was removed from theearth.
Tell me, said the eunuch, who isthe prophet talking about,
himself or someone else?
Then Philip began with this veryscripture and told them the good
news about Jesus.
(30:45):
And yet, God is doing this inplaces around the world.
Can we get that next slide?
From that little Tuesday nightgoing into the spoken word,
people said, okay, what are youdoing?
Can we know more?
And so we said, maybe we need tostart kind of a little Bible
study on the off weeks.
(31:08):
And we began to come togetherand to talk about Jesus and to
say, Yeah, what do you thinkthis means?
We have a couple people thathave have come into the kingdom
through this.
There was one um young woman whowas dealing with a lot of mental
(31:32):
health issues.
She had tried to take her lifemultiple times.
At one time she was in a comafor over a month and she was
laying there and she heard avoice that said, Get up.
And she woke up from her comaand she looked around and nobody
was in the room.
(31:53):
And she said, I think, eventhough at that time I didn't
know, but I think that was God.
And that started her journey tocome to know the Lord.
There was another friend ofmine, and he came from a wealthy
family.
He actually came to the U.S.
(32:13):
and did his university and hismaster's here.
And yet he never went to achurch, he never heard the
gospel.
He went back to the country, andone night he had a dream.
And in his dream, he felt therewas incredible weight and burden
that was just pushing him downto the ground.
(32:35):
He said, I couldn't get upbecause this weight was so
heavy.
And he said, then Jesus walkedup to me.
He said, He didn't say a word,but I knew it was Jesus.
And he smiled at me, and when hesmiled at me, this burden, this
weight just fell away.
(32:56):
He said, I never felt so muchpeace and joy and freedom.
So he wakes up and he says,Okay, I need to find out who
this Jesus is.
So he calls his friends back inAmerica, his Christian friends,
because in his countryeverybody's a Muslim.
And in America, everybody's aChristian.
(33:18):
So he calls his Christianfriends to find out who this
Jesus is, and they say, Man, didyou are you on drugs?
You drinking?
Like, forget about it.
So he doesn't know what to do,and he's thinking, okay, these
are my Christian friends.
And they said, This isn't real.
(33:40):
So from the next year, hecontinues to seek and say, God,
is this you?
Is this from you?
Until one day a local brothermeets him and shares the gospel
with him.
And he hears the gospel andgives his life to Christ.
Let's go to this next slide.
(34:01):
So here's my call to you andcall to all of us is to live
like Philip.
One is to ask God for a heartfor your enemies.
Sometimes we think, oh, we don'thave enemies, but we were just
talking to a neighbor the otherday and talking about maybe it's
a political party.
(34:22):
All those people are bad.
Maybe it's somebody thatactually has done you wrong.
Like the little girl.
But begin to ask God to changeyour heart so that you can love
your enemies.
And then serve the ones in frontof you.
(34:42):
Sometimes we assume, okay, I'mgonna go serve these people
without first asking what theyneed.
And then be bold in faith, reachout to those who are different,
and be sensitive to God's call.
I have one last little thing toshare before I pray.
So a friend of mine, she went toa different part of the Middle
(35:07):
East, and she went to a veryconservative area, and there was
a woman's college, and all thewomen were in full burqa.
And she went up and she said,Hey, I'm here just making some
friends, and I'm interested ifanybody here is interested in
reading the holy book.
And one girl stopped and sheturned and she said, Do you mean
(35:30):
the Bible?
She said, Yes.
She said, I need to talk to you.
So they they go off bythemselves, and she said, For
the last three months, I've beensecretly reading the Bible.
And I have so many questions toask you.
So during this conversation, myfriend explains the gospel to
(35:50):
this woman, and this womandecides to give her life to
Christ.
And in the Muslim world, beingcalled a Christian can be very
dangerous.
And so my friend explains this.
She says, you know, in theMuslim world, some people that
follow Jesus, they will justsay, I'm a follower of Jesus,
(36:14):
instead of using the wordChristian just because of it's a
loaded word.
And so the girl began to thinkabout it.
And she said, She said, I wantto call myself a Christian
because Jesus died so that I canhave his name.
(36:36):
And the question is the thirdcommandment says, don't take the
name of the Lord in vain.
That word take can also mean tocarry.
Where we go, are you known as aChristian, as a Christos and a
Christos, those doers of good?
(36:57):
A friend from Iraq.
He's rejected Islam.
He is almost a militant atheist.
He is involved in advocacy forthe LGBTQ community.
And I was talking to him, and welooked at Jesus' interaction
with the woman caught in the actof adultery.
(37:21):
And began to cry.
He said, if Christians would actlike Jesus, the whole world
would believe.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, we come before youand we humbly want to repent
(37:42):
before you and ask that youwould remind us of who you are.
Remind us of the gospel.
Remind us that you died so thatwe could be called by your name.
That you died and invited us tobe a part of your family.
Lord, we pray for reconciliationwith our enemies, with our
(38:08):
families, with our friends, withour neighbors.
We pray that you would give usthe boldness and faith to step
out and trust you to love andserve those around us, to be
sensitive to your Holy Spirit,to speak the words that you
would give us.
Lord Jesus, we thank you thatyou are present with us, that we
(38:32):
are not alone, that allauthority on heaven and earth
have been given to you, and youare with us to the end of the
age.
Jesus' name we pray.
unknown (38:41):
Amen.
SPEAKER_02 (38:44):
Thank you, Andy.
Church family, 1 Corinthianschapter 9, verse 23, Paul
writes, I do all things for thesake of the gospel, and that I
might become a partaker of it.
See, the truth of the matter is,is the gospel is, yes, the
gospel is your salvation, thatyou receive Jesus, that you have
(39:09):
your sins forgiven, that you nowcall God Father, and that you
know him personally.
But the gospel is even further,that you enter into becoming
like Christ and a partaker.
You are the hands and feet ofJesus.
You enter into the mission thatI might become a partaker in it.
(39:34):
And so this week, guys, we'vebeen praying for two weeks, and
now we are entering into thethird week, and we are praying
for revival.
Let me be clear about what thatmeans.
God has placed in your lifepeople that do not know Jesus
Christ.
(39:55):
And God is calling you into themission.
First and foremost, to pray, tobeg on their behalf that the
Spirit of God would move andwould open their eyes.
And as Andy just incrediblyarticulated, that we are called
to be in both worlds and toengage and to shine the light of
(40:21):
Jesus Christ.
So as we pray all week, thequestion is who close to you
does not know Jesus that you aregoing to beg the Lord for.
And you may say, but Pastor, Ihave done that before.
(40:43):
I know.
I know.
Do not be discouraged.
Continue on.
We are in this together.
I know it's hard.
I know there are times andseasons when you prayed and you
didn't see any movement.
Do not give up.
Do not be discouraged.
(41:04):
As we close our service, we'regoing to close our service.
We have two songs and we have atime for you to respond.
Church family, God has preparedour hearts over the last two
weeks and for a particularmoment like this where we can
press in with genuine sincerityfor a move of God that He would
save amongst us.
(41:25):
So we'll have people down hereat the front who would love to
pray with you.
If you have a loved one, if youhave a burden, do not pray
alone.
Let us pray together.
Let us carry one another'sburdens and let us beg God to
move for the glory of the nameof Jesus Christ because He is
worthy.
So as we sing, you be obedientto whatever the Spirit of God
(41:46):
has pressed upon your heart thismorning.
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