Luke 8:1-3

Speaker 5: I think I'm on, yeah. OK. Well, where this land of family and where missionaries to Zambia, we're out of the Hillcrest Baptist Church in El Paso, Texas. I'm pretty sure you're familiar with that being Brother Matt's home church while he was youth pastor before he became your assistant pastor. We've known the mainlines before they had any kids. All right. He came in my office one day and we were talking. He's like, So you know, family, what? What is it like, you know? And I explained to him and then after that, he didn't need my help because he is dead and his he is. He's a great guy. We're we're thankful that they're here with you and serving in this wonderful church now. I was born and raised in Zambia until I was 18 years old. I was out with the kids and I told the kids this and they were like, Whoa, man, that's cool. I was 18 years old, about 19 years old when I came here, went to Pensacola Christian College. As a business student, I was saved in Zambia and now get the Zambia was a one party state. And for those who might be wondering where Zambia is, it's in South Central Africa, not California. It is. It is in South Central Africa, and for the most part, it was a one party dictatorship until 1994, when it received or it became democratic. And until then, we were never exposed to anything other than Catholic Church of England. And, you know, Adventist and Episcopal. Yeah, and in that kind of thing. So when the the the new president came and became leader of the nation, he said, I'm going to declare this country a Christian nation. All right. Now, I don't believe in a country becoming a Christian nation more than any more than I believe in being a Christian car. But it is the people, and of course, I won't go into that. However, they started showing Christian, you know, you know, preaching and and televangelist TV. And so that was all new. It was new to us. It is new to me as I sat there now watch. One day I was watching and there was this preacher on the TV and he was saying, You know, if you die in your sins, if you haven't trusted crosses, you're saving your dying or since you will go to hell. This is the first time I ever heard that I was 16 years old and I used to go to Church of England, Church of England, United, Church of Zambia. You know, the Queen is the head of that church and never heard. I thought maybe they were told what we were told in Sunday school that if you confess your sins on Good Friday, you know when the Lord resurrected on Sunday Resurrection Sunday, your sins are all washed away and you're good for another year. And that's what I believe. But this time I was confronted with the fact that. I could die and go to hell. I thought to myself, this can't be true now. It even became worse because this man said, I'm going to put my hand on the camera and you get up from your seat and come put your hand on the TV and pray this prayer with me. And I said, Now come on. A TV saving me. No, you know this. I've, you know, I've never heard of this. I just don't think this is real. And so I was sitting there having this debate with myself, so I said, you know, our God, you're all powerful you, you're your God, you're almighty. If this is true, why don't you send a real person to come and tell me? And I thought I had made my my case before God if I ever died and showed up at the judgment. I'd say God asked you to send someone you didn't send anybody. It's it's not my fault. Later, did I know that God was going to take me up on that offer? Two weeks later. An American missionary. From South Carolina, moved in two doors from my house, invited me to come play football, I didn't know it was a trick, but used it to share the gospel. And I was able to hear the gospel song from Genesis knowing that I was a sinner and where sin came from and why Jesus came, and I was like, Wow, I didn't know all of this. And at that point, I knew. Exactly what I needed to do. In order for me to spend eternity in heaven. So a month later in camp, I trust the classes, my savior. And that was the beginning of the journey. Now, of course, having been in America and, you know, as a business student at Pensacola, the Lord was working with, working on me, trying to, you know, not trying. But the Lord was was had, you know, I had this burden on, I don't if it's a burden or it's a call. I didn't know what it was, but I wasn't comfortable as a business student, but I pushed it off. I said, No, God, come on, why would God want me to come all the way to America just to turn around and go all the way back to Zambia? It doesn't make sense. It doesn't add up. Can't be. It's it's not God, but it never went away. I was working in Chicago. I graduated and had a job with UPS in Corporate America, in downtown Chicago. And I was fine. I was OK. You know, my wife and I were attending a church out in Bolingbrook, Illinois. But I still had this discomfort. There was still that uneasiness. I wasn't happy. I knew that even though I had my dream job and I was driving the corporate ladder. It wasn't what God wanted me to do, but I had no proof, no evidence to show that this is indeed what God does, not what God wants me to do. And so I kept excusing it. This one time a missionary came in to church just like I have come in. And started giving his testimony. He's sort of saying he went to Penn State and he he's from Paraguay, went to Penn State, got an electrical engineering degree and his testimony sounded a lot like mine. So I sat there and I listened and he said, You know what? I didn't think God would want me to go back to Paraguay because I just didn't think he needed me there. Then he started reading Scripture from Luke, Chapter 12 looked up to 12, believes verse forty forty four through forty eight somewhere around there. He he began to say to whom much is given, much shall be required. And you know, I sat there and I heard him reading scripture. And the Holy Spirit said having a discussion. I don't know what he was talking about after that, I didn't hear anything, but when I read the scripture, I heard the Lord say Martin. Do you think? That. American students, American. You know, families going into Africa and in on the mission, students in Bible colleges have to take language school. Yeah. If you were born in Zambia, you have to do that. No. Do you think they have to get there and spend some time acquainting themselves with the culture and the traditions and the way things are done? Yup. Do you think that slows them down? Yep. Do you think that's going to happen with, you know? What about the passengers in Zambia? Do you think they have the exposure and Bible knowledge and resources that you have? No. Do you think it's much easier and you could have a greater impact? Then they are. With what they have. Yeah. The walls are closing in. Laws that. Martin, have I given you much? Yup. And I bless you. Yeah. Right, taking care of you.

Unidentified: Yeah. So what are you waiting for?

Speaker 5: I knew at that moment it was a what I referred to as a Jonah moment. God showed me exactly what he wanted me to do, where he wanted me to go, and I knew exactly what I needed to do. And he rejected it. And I've been rejecting with the high hand saying, leave me alone. I don't want to hear anything you have to say, and I knew what I had to do went forward and surrendered. To go to Zambia as missionaries. I knew that we had to resign, I had to resign my job. I knew there was a lot of people who are not going to be happy with it. I didn't know what was ahead. I didn't promise to resign your job. Go to the ministry and I will give you such and such. No, I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know if I was standing Illinois. I had no idea. I just knew that I had to surrender to the Lord. And when we did that? Once I resigned, took the step step of faith. The Lord began to open doors. We found ourselves a Second Baptist church in Festus, Missouri. Bulgaria's preacher friend is is there, is there now, but the pastor that was there said, Oh OK, you want to go to the mission field? This is what's going on here. I told him everything, and he said, We need to get you in seminary. I'm going to get you on staff right now. You're going to start learning ministry right now, show up Monday. I didn't fill out an application. And that's the law. And from then on, of course, we move to El Paso with our pastor. And we're on staff there for, I don't know, four years before we. Is it something like that four years before we got on deputation? We've been in Zambia since then, since 2014. And so what you've seen in the video is the second church that is in the capital, Lusaka. When I got to Zambia in 2014, we were in the city of Sittwe where I grew up. There's a missionary there that had come back to to America, had some health problems and was couldn't go back and said, Could you go back and organize this work for us? And so that's what we did. We went there. There was a few people got the numbers up and we were able to organize that church. And there are an indigenous church there in the city of Sittwe and then moved on to the city of Lusaka, where we've been since 2015. Now, as you saw in the video, this church is growing and has grown even through the time of COVID. We actually have a bus project, a bus ministry. We pick up kids and even adults and has been just just just growing tremendously. We're using three busses. We're using our vehicles, our personal vehicles, every Sunday morning. Sometimes I'm rushing in Sunday morning to come in and, you know, drop people off and, you know, get the service going. And it's just something that the Lord is blessing. You know, the Lord. We ask the Lord to bless your church, and he gives you the the work and you have to perform the work. And it's just amazing to see what God has done. All right now, we have a great need, which is this bus ministry. If we were able to have our own bus and have a man driving that bus that was able to, we have these rows of busses that they have in Zambia that would be able to drive around and just pick up. We can make two trips and can pick up everybody. It would really enhance our ministry and work there in Zambia. As you saw the children, there's there's there's there, there's a lot of them. Some of them, we have to leave because there's just not enough time. There's not enough time for us to go back and get them when it's raining. They can't come because they can't walk. They're coming from low income communities. It's just it's just, you know, it's sad to sit back and know that there are people who wanted to come to church that can't come to church. And so we're we're praying that the Lord will be able to provide us with a bus. Normally, it would be about sixteen thousand dollars. We're hoping that through our furlough, we could be able to raise a substantial amount to be able to purchase, purchased this bus and have this bus ministry working effectively for us in in in Zambia. And so do be in prayer with us about that. And we are thankful that you've given us the opportunity to come present our ministry with you here in Collinsville. We've been looking forward to to being with you. And so. I think I'll go right into the preaching now, if you have any questions, feel more than welcome to ask. Ask us as we're out here this this evening with you. All right. OK, let's get him our Bibles so we can say we heard a missionary. Preach Luke, Chapter eight, Luke, Chapter eight and your Bibles. And we're going to look at three verses and I've done I've done this one before because I thought of I thought this would be the the instance. Normally a Sunday, a Sunday afternoon, Sunday. I'm sorry. A Wednesday evening service is is brief. All right. Look, Chapter eight and verse one, I can't look Chapter eight and verse one. We're going to read from verse one to verse three, and it came to pass afterward that he went throughout every city and village preaching and showing glad tidings of the Kingdom of God, and the 12 were with him and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities. Mary called Magdalene out of home, went seven devils and Joanna, when the wife of Chesa, Herod's Steward and Susanna and many others which ministered onto him with their substance. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to be in your house this evening. Thank you, Lord, for these, these good people that you have brought here this day in this specific place. Lord, to hear your words, you hear your work, to hear Lord from you. What would this church have you to do for your cause? And Lord, I pray that you may help me to communicate this word. This your word to your people. That Lord, they may be able to respond according to Lord, your desires. I pray all of this now to the Lord and Savior. Amen. Amen. All right. OK, now just in case I don't get in trouble. OK, I won't stop preaching. But this is my wife, Jennifer, huh? I left. I didn't do that OK and say, Well, you forgot to introduce me. I just introduced her. I hope you get a recording of that. All right. And then we got our oldest daughter here, Caroline and the others are out. You know, we're going to have Gabbie, Hanna, Isaiah and Jenna. All right. And we've been on furlough since March, beginning of March, and we're going all the way until the end of July. And so this is sort of like the beginning to just hit the our stride, so to say. And so we're looking forward to a couple more months on the road. All right. There will be a prayer for us about that. All right. So in Luke Chapter eight, we get to see something. We see the Lord showing us how it is. We can be part of the work of missions or how missions takes place. OK, now I know we have our traditional great commission verses and most people don't look at this verse, but I want to read this chapter, but I want to show you something from this chapter, Lord, showing us exactly how how it's done. Maybe we may have a question as to how do you start a church? And that's the question I had when we got to Zambia. I don't know how to start a church. I mean, we talk about it. We learn about what we read about it. You know, people start in churches. But has anybody ever told you move into Collinsville? This is where you must set up and now start a church. You have to go do this and then go do that and go do that. No one. Because that's not how it works. And so we see the Lord in Luke Chapter eight being able to to to to to give us a blueprint for missions if you like or church planting or however you want to look at it from whatever angle that you look at. First, we see here and then it came to pass afterward that he went. In the first verse, we see the Lord's obedience. He takes obedience for God to begin our work, going to perform at anything and in any one, any miracle, in any one. It takes obedience. God blesses obedience to the Lord Jesus. Christ himself had to be obedient for God. So loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. The father sent the son, Luke, 19 10. The Lord Jesus Christ said this, he said to the son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost and twenty. He said that before he was sent out as my father sent me, so send I knew in Matthew Chapter four and verse 17, the word of God tells us the first message he ever preached that the Lord began to Jesus began to preach and to say Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand. And so we see the Lord's obedience to the mission, to the task, to the two, to the asking of the father as it was ordained. He has commanded us to go the same way he left and he went and he even even here on Earth, he did what he went, OK. And then the second thing we see is throughout every city and village and the Lord's vision, the Lord's vision. Now it is important that if we're going to make an impact whatsoever concerning souls being saved and churches being planted, you know, countries being reached with the gospel, we ought to have a vision, the vision, the same vision that the Lord of Jesus Christ had. He says to seek to save that which was lost, every single lost person on this world. And here we see how he did it. He went into every city and every village, and we understand that in acts chapter one and verse, verse eight and acts chapter one, verse eight. Here we see it says that by but you shall receive power speaking to the disciples that were there gazing rather at the Lord's assent. But you shall receive power after that. The Holy Ghost is come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in all Samaria. Sorry in all Judea and Samaria and unto the outermost parts of the Earth. Now here we see that the disciples are the apostles of the people that were there. We're told that you shall receive power. OK, now we're talking about the power that was in, dude. The people that were in the upper room, the Holy Ghost Power, which was in effect to help them in their task that God or the writer, the Lord Jesus Christ, had left them to take the gospel to the outermost parts of the Earth. We all understand when we're talking about power, talking to Preacher and he was asking me, You say, what are some of the challenges you find in Africa? And I told him, I said, utility's power power just goes out. That's it. I got a I got an email from a friend and he said, urgent prayer request. I said, Oh man, I need to open this. I opened it. And he said, we've been out of power for two hours and we and we really need your prayers. I said, Brother, where you go out of power, we go without power for days, huh? You start, you know, you start thinking about them survival shows on TV. You know, how do you make a fire now? You know, going out just to rub sticks together. And so power, you know, when we started our power power increases your effectiveness, even if you're talking about it. If this place is dark, you couldn't see me. You couldn't read a thing. I mean, how would you even have a evening service on a Wednesday? It increases your effectiveness. And so we see even the power of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost, empowering the church, empowering the disciples that were there. We understand it increased their effectiveness. And so here we see the Lord Jesus Christ being able to show us they don't just go to where you are, just there you go to every city and every village. The Lord's vision was World Vision. There was no partiality in his approach with the gospel. And then I don't think we see here is the Lord's mission, the Lord's mission. What did he do? He went preaching and showing glad tidings of the Kingdom of God. And then that is interesting. Here he went preaching and showing or showing the Kingdom of God. That was his task. I mean, his his his primary responsibility was not to heal the sick and get the blind to see and perform all these miracles. That was not his primary mission. His primary mission was a preaching mission to preach so that they may be whole. Indeed, not just to have a food or be able to have the the health that they they needed. And so we understand that he went out preaching a mark. 16:15 talks about going there for and preach the gospel to every creature. There's a preacher that said, where there is a creature, there must be a preacher, and that is true. And the church's mission to do today is the same to preach the gospel to every creature now to every like, I know, your church has a very good. I'm very impressed with the children's program. And when you get to Zambia, churches don't care about kids, they don't care about children. So that's why we have so many children in our church. They just, you know, they're they're a nuisance. You get to keep up with them and they cost the money. They don't tithe. They're just costing you stuff. You know, just leave my home. You come with your wallets and you're the one we want in church. OK. So we provide the ministry for four for the children to be able to to hear the gospel because I know how that was with me in being able to hear the gospel as as a child. And so we see the Lord Jesus Christ went preaching and showing glad tidings of the Kingdom of God there. And then the other thing we see is this he went and sorry. Yes, he went into every city and village preaching, preaching and showing glad tidings of the Kingdom of God. And it says the 12 were with him. He didn't go alone. The 12 were with him. We see his partners, the Lord's partners. Now you can apply this to anything starting a church, growing at church or being able to be effective in a community. And you can apply this to anything. This is the great commission. On display. OK. And so here we see the 12 were with him. He bought his church with him. You know, Pastor Gary over here needs this church to go with him in reaching this community for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not just his paycheck, so that's your job. I work my 40 hours of the week. That's that's your 40 hours, 60 hours. You know, you surrender to the Lord right here. Praise God, we've got you, man. But you know what? It is our job. It is our responsibility to be able to be right there with your preacher in the vision that God has placed upon this church for this community and the are most parts of the Earth. And so this is what the Lord did. This is the great commission, the great commission for that local church, for this church. See the servants of the gospel need partners. They need prayer partners. They need financial partners. They need coal laborers. Now, if you ask me to borrow money, you need somebody to come and help you out in Zambia. Is there something you know I can come and do? Yeah. You better believe it. I'll give you my bedroom if I have to. You know we need. We need help. You can come the mission field. You can go wherever this guy is sending you to go area. You know what? Partners are always helpful, whether it's permanent or temporary, partners are always a benefit. Call laborers are benefits to the spreading of the gospel. And the last thing we see is this the Lord's substance. He speaks about those that were with him verse, verse two and certain women verse two, which had been healed of spirits and infirmities. Mary called Magdalene out of home, went seven Devils anniversary, and Joanna, the wife of Charles Harris, Stewart and Susanna, and many others which ministered unto him with their substance. Here we see that these folks that were with the Lord were ministering to him with their substance, with what they had. OK. The Lord's partners in support. If you would like, we go out on deputation of furlough to raise support to get partners who will partner with us financially so we can be able to go into the different countries and preach the gospel. Here we see the Lord lessen the. Lord to perform miracles. I mean, he could have just got everybody to walk on water to the other side of the sea. I mean, I think he would have been easier for the people to obey and to listen to the gospel. So see a church walking on water coming toward you like, man, it's this interesting. I want to hear what they have to say. OK, I mean, but he went on boats. He had to go buy food. You know, paid ties. There was actual financial transaction that took place. In the Lord's ministry, and so here we see that the people that were with him, you know, different people see women here. And also, some some women may think, you know what I mean, I can't be a preacher, I can preach unless I was mislead, I could be a journalist pastor. No, we're talking about that yesterday. That's just a joke. But, you know, a lot of women think, Well, there's not a place for me to serve. I can't do anything. I'm no better. I'm no good. Look at the Lord. Look at the people that are there helping him. Women. Contributing being giving a part and being a help to the furtherance of the gospel. They're not out there preaching, I don't know. We don't know of any of them standing out there preaching, but we see that they are ministering unto the Lord with what they have to. God wants to use our talents. God wants to use our possessions. God wants to use you. To reach the world. With the gospel souls that you've never seen. Possibly may never set eyes upon here on this Earth. But you meet in heaven. And that will say. I heard the gospel. Because you. As Paul says in Philippians Chapter four of his 17. It is fruit. To your account. And we're thankful for you. We're thankful that you've even given us the opportunity to be a part of your missions program, to be a part of. Your outreach. Efforts as a church, and we hope that the Lord will greatly use you and continue to greatly use your. In this community, in this country and throughout the world, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your work. We thank you, Lord, for your goodness. We thank you for your love. We thank you that you have chosen to. Put. Collinsville Baptist Temple Tabernacle right here. And you have chosen to bring. Every single person. To this place. On purpose. Each one. With his specific role to play. And the contribution. To your great commission. Father, I pray that you may work on the hearts. Of these people. This great church. To rally behind their pastor. The vision that you set before him. Of what this church should do. For the cause. Of missions. And the great commission ought to get. I thank you that you have given us salvation and we have the opportunity to hear multiple times. Your saving grace. Help us not to forget. Those that have not heard even ones. Those that have no idea. They even have to hear. Forgive us where we've failed you. Give us boldness. Where we lack. Help us, Lord, to surrender our self. Self-will. To allow you to work in our heart, our life. So that you may do a great, magnificent work unless. Thank you and praise you for what you've done. And what you would do now is residency.

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