John is a tremendous blessing to our church, and he wants to come up and share with you some things that are going on in his life and in our ministry. And so, John. It's really a great privilege for me to see what God is doing in so many places. Every year I'm more convinced it's not what we're trying to do, it's what God's doing. We can try, and we have, I have, tried many things that don't work. But in the middle of all that, there's nothing that God does that doesn't work. And so, As God works in our lives as we get older, if he saved us, he's convincing us all along how little we can do, nothing, but that he's very much involved in using the nothings like us to do his work throughout the world. It's the greatest difficulty I think we have coming to grips with is the fact that he's going to use weak instruments like the likes of us to accomplish his work. Of course, I was just talking to Tim. He was saying, well, his migraines are a little bit subsided, but he feels so weak. We don't want to be weak. How many times we haven't talked about that at our church during this past year? We don't want to be weak. We want to be in control. And brethren, we're not in control. And one of the greatest blessings God can give us is teaching us that we're not in control. It's His kingdom. And it's his glory. And he's on a mission. And he is completing his mission. The other brother yesterday morning that was sharing with us, he was reminding us that we can look at the news from the perspective of the world and see that it looks like everything's turning upside down. But if we would look at it through God's eyes, God's moving people all over the place so that now they can hear the gospel for the first time in their lives. There's a picture there, I think it's on the bottom of that poster there. That to me was one of the most incredible things. Here we were in Iraq, in the northern part of Iraq, very, very Muslim area, handing out blankets and Bibles next to a mosque. It shouldn't have happened. It couldn't have happened. And one of the strange things is none of us were afraid. God took the fear away. And God gave brethren in that area that supported that and then took the flack of it after we left. I can remember when we were living in India and we were in one place. Brother, this is not me. I don't have the ability to squelch fear any better than you do. But I remember some years back, we were in a certain place in India, and we were supposed to be teaching some men. And they got this idea that we should have an open air meeting in front of the house. So they arranged the meeting and they set up all the chairs. And then all the people started gathering and the street was full. But my problem was I was supposed to preach. And all I had seen that day was all these idols. And the only thing that could come to my mind was that Paul saw all the idols. And then the way he communicated with the Thessalonians that they turned from their idols to serve the true and the living God. And I'm thinking, we can't preach that. I can't preach that here. These are a bunch of Hindus. We won't get out of here alive. But it was the only message that would come to my mind. And so that's what I preached. The true and living God, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And nothing happened. They didn't cut off my head. We got out of there alive. And we can repeat those kinds of stories as we went to Iraq, as we went to Nepal. God's gonna preserve us till our work is done. Our brother Dan is over there in Lebanon and I've been talking to him in these last days and he sends his greetings and he sends his urgent plea for help. not only just in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Nepal, in India. Come over and help. Send people to come over and help. And I guess that, let's just read this verse in 1 Corinthians 2, because this has really made an impact in my mind in this last year, We'll start there and then a couple of other verses. But in 1 Corinthians 2, Paul said this, verse 1, and I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom, For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. And my speech and my message was not in plausible words of wisdom. but in demonstration of the spirit of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." I am so thankful that we don't have to have lofty speech. And we don't have to have special wisdom. And Paul determined not to use even lofty speech and special wisdom that he had. The commission that's before us is a commission that can be carried out by ordinary people who don't have lofty speech, who can't speak eloquently like Apollos, When I was younger, my heart was gripped for missions. That's what moved us to Texas 25 years ago. But I argued a long time with the Lord that other people had better gifts and they had better ways of speaking and they had better oratory and they were better theologians and they had more wisdom and God could and should use them. And now I'm more and more convinced that God uses plain, ordinary people who really know how weak they really are and aren't expecting that God's going to use their strength, but they're only committed to what God is going to give them and enable them to do. Last Saturday, we were in Reynosa. Brother Raul, some of you know him, and he had the opportunity. We were in a village that's controlled by the cartels, and he had the real privilege to interact with this man who, for many years in the past, labored for the cartel, and his job was hitmen, to kill people. Now, Raul, as far as I know, hasn't preached a single sermon at Grace Community, but he knows something. He knows something of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Brother, that's the issue. Is Jesus Christ and Him crucified growing in preciousness in our hearts and minds? When I started thinking of a fellowship conference, and I'm thinking, maybe a thousand people, but if our fellowship is in Jesus Christ and Him crucified, the simplicity of that, let's not complicate that. Other theological issues, many extremely important, but everything flows out of this simplicity that Paul spoke about. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This was ever so precious to Paul. This was everything that satisfied his own heart. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is what brings satisfaction. This is what unites us again with God, restores us into fellowship with Him. And if the reality of Jesus Christ and Him crucified is real and it's growing in our lives, God can take ordinary individuals, as we would call them, men and women, as us Hudson Taylor very well realized and can use them in the most remote parts of the world. It's the greatness of what Jesus Christ has done. This is what is keeping us from accomplishing what God wants us to accomplish in the world today. We do not have a sense of the greatness of what He's done. If the greatness of what Jesus Christ has done for us would grip and grab a hold of our hearts like it did the demoniac, Jesus came to the island. Jesus saved him, and he wanted to be with Jesus. What could be a better thing than to be with Jesus? He'd gotten a taste of it. He was sitting in his right mind at the feet of Jesus, and now he said, I want to be with Jesus. Brethren, that's a good desire. That's the place we must start, and we must continue and begin every day that way. But Jesus said no. You're not going to stay with me physically speaking. You're going to go. You're going to tell the great things that Jesus has done for you. You're going to tell of the great mercy of God, the great mercy that came to you through Jesus Christ. And so he went. He began to tell of the greatness of Jesus Christ and the greatness of his mercy. Jesus sent him home to tell his friends. We've heard messages yesterday about the importance of starting with our friends. But the greatness of what Jesus Christ had done. Couldn't keep him contained at home with his friends. He had to publish it in 10 cities. Then I got thinking this last year, what happened to that demoniac? When Jesus really died on the cross, when he was really lifted up and the demoniac heard, I know it doesn't say that in the Bible, this is the way my mind runs, the demoniac heard how that Jesus procured that mercy for him. The greatness of what Jesus Christ had done on the cross. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I can but imagine His heart was so stirred with love that not only would He proclaim it to ten cities, but ten countries. No, it doesn't say that in the Bible. But the point is, He was moved to do what He did because of the greatness of what Jesus Christ had done for Him. My desire is that we would have this growing fellowship, this growing fellowship, not just in what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross, but a growing fellowship in what Jesus Christ is doing through us. now as regenerated, born again believers. Jesus finished His work on the cross. It is finished. But the work is not finished here on earth. He has given us new hearts and new lives. And as Paul said, it's not I who am living, but it's Jesus Christ who lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God or in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. So this fellowship that draws us together around the greatness of what Jesus Christ has done for us, now this fellowship grows so that we together can bring the message of the greatness of Jesus Christ and Him crucified to the rest of the world. And those two kinds of fellowships never will be separated in the true heart of a true believer. If we only have a fellowship in what He has done for us, but we do not have an awareness of Jesus living in us and our fellowship together in the gospel to bring the message, to proclaim the message of the greatness of what Jesus Christ has done on that cross, how can we say we're Christians? How can we say we know of the greatness of Jesus Christ, brethren? You can't separate them. The one moves into the other. It becomes our life. Jesus Christ is our life, Paul said. For me to live is Christ. To die is Cain. Oh, one other interesting comment. One other interesting comment that Spurgeon made regarding that demoniac, you know. He made a very good comment about the demoniac. When Jesus said, no, you're not going to stay here. You're not going to go with me. I'm going to send you back. Spurgeon makes a comment. He said. It is so absolutely essential to sit at Jesus feet and be fed. But if we always sit at the table and eat. and we don't take from that nourishment and go, we're going to get indigestion. And he used some old time words. But basically, we're going to get indigestion and we're going to get sick. We're here at a conference. We're taking in the precious truths of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Yes, the doctrines of grace. Yes, that's what the demoniac preached, didn't he? He preached. He told everybody, I was a lost, dead, absolutely, totally depraved, helpless sinner. But the great thing is this, that Jesus, the sovereign Lord of all, came to my island on purpose, for a purpose. And by His irresistible love, He saved me. And then after that, he stirs my heart. Now I can't stop telling people about the greatness of what Jesus Christ did. You see, the sitting at his feet. And Spurgeon's got good counsel for us here. And he used the counsel of George Mueller. He says, you spend time at Jesus' feet every morning until there's no cloud between you and the Lord. And then you can go out and spend the rest of the day with Jesus doing what He wants you to do. If we claim that we're regenerated by the power of God and we're new creatures and Jesus lives in us, what kind of life is Jesus gonna live in us? If Jesus on this earth lived a life with a pathway directly to the cross and now he lives in us, what kind of life are we gonna live? What kind of life do we expect that Jesus is gonna live through us? Some new different kind of American cultured lifestyle? Is Jesus gonna help us get all of our nice houses and families together and live without discomfort and without problems and without difficulty and without suffering and without persecution? No, brother. That's not what Jesus told the first disciples. He told them they're going to have to be going, and they will be going, and they'll be laying down their lives. Oh, but not for precious James. He's going to live forever. No, he was the first one that was murdered. He was the first one that was killed by Herod. But maybe he will let us live a long time. Think about it, brethren. What was better? to be killed quickly by Herod right at the beginning, or to live as long as John and be persecuted for many, many more years and tortured. You really start to think about it, James had the easier pathway. But for all of them, Everyone who desires to live righteous in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. And if Jesus is going to live in us and through us, and we're going to complete the commission that's set before us, brethren, we're going to have to have a different mindset. We're going to have to rethink what our Christian, New Testament, Christ-centered lifestyle will be. I've been so challenged this last year. Challenged by two stories. I was watching a documentary. You can probably find it online. And it was how ISIS is now training boys at eight years old with the glory of laying down their lives as suicide bombers for the glory of Allah. It'll turn your heart upside down. but they're training their children that this is the most glorious thing you can do is lay down your life as a suicide bomber and receive all of these blessings that God will give you. They can't even entangle them with the deceitful idea of 70 virgins. They're eight-year-old kids and yet they're brainwashing them from eight years old how to use a gun and they're training them with this in their mind that at some point they're going to lose their life for the sake and glory of Allah. That's one story. The other story that probably has impacted me more this last year than any other story is when we were in the northern part of Iraq, northwestern part of Iraq, And we're visiting with this pastor who for the last 10 years has been very much involved in smuggling Bibles into Iran, and has been spreading the gospel amongst the refugees now, and there's a little cluster of house churches there. But what's really interesting is talking to his two teenage, one particularly teenage daughter. Another brother from our church was with us. And the teenage daughter was 15, 16, and I was asking, because she knew a little English, you know, where she would like to best live, because everybody over there wants to get out of Iraq. Everybody wants to flee. And she said, no, this is a very, very good place to be. We have all these opportunities to reach out to the refugees. And it was a very strange way of responding for a 15, 16-year-old girl. And then I said, well, when did God save you? And she said, I don't know. I was so young. I don't remember. And I thought, oh, no. Some easy believism. You were a Christian from birth." And then I started to talk to the father afterwards. If you saw him, he's the humblest guy you could meet. No, no, he says, you don't understand what happened. He said, when God saved himself and his wife, he said, we started teaching our children and his son was four years old then, the greatness of Jesus Christ and him crucified in the glorious reality of having Jesus. And he's the treasure and he's the greatest. He said, we don't encourage our little children to accept Jesus or say some empty thing. But one day, one day, my four year old boy came all excited about how Jesus had saved him. And now he sees Jesus as the most precious thing, a four-year-old little kid. So he says the four-year-old boy went out into the street and started telling everyone that Jesus is the only God. And they beat him up. Not kids, adults beat him up. He come back in the house rejoicing. And Tawfiq was with me. We hung our heads. Because I realized something. I've never taught my kids that how glorious it was. I didn't teach them in that way. How glorious it is to have Jesus and follow Him. And the glorious future before us. But, it's going to cost you your life. You're probably going to be persecuted. You're probably going to be be killed in the end, long before your natural days. That's what they're teaching their children in the midst of that kind of environment. Brethren, that's what we need to be teaching our children. Not that we live in America and things are getting worse and that persecution may finally come, but we need to be teaching our children that this is a serious business that's before us. And if we're going to complete the Great Commission, and go into all those areas that are yet unreached, it's going to cost us our lives. It's going to cost us persecution for sure. But it's glorious, the momentary light affliction that we might have in this life now can't be compared to the exceeding weight of glory before us. Tim is talking about the glories of heaven. God wants us to get our eyes fixed off of this world. We're strangers to be strangers and pilgrims here. This is not our home. It's not the American dream. Our dream is in heaven. Our place is in glory. Our eyes have got to get on the end of the race. Let's just turn quickly one minute more to the book of Numbers chapter 13. You all remember the story of how God miraculously delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt. They were in bondage in Egypt. And we understand that this is to be a clear type and shadow for us of what God does spiritually in taking us and delivering us out of our Egypt. But the deliverance out of Egypt doesn't stop in the story. That's not where the story stops. We get to chapter 13. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. And for from every tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, one everyone a chief among them. This story, 25 years ago, when we first moved to Texas, had such an impact on my life. We came here for missions. We were already involved in Mexico. But this story, every year when we go through it, hits me again. And when I was told maybe I'll have something to share about missions, I felt I'm gonna share this appeal, which is a serious one. God promised to give a possession to the children of Israel. And, what does it say? They went, they saw. And if we go in chapter 13, in verse 27, and they told him, we came to the land, 13, numbers 13, 27. to the land to which you sent us, and it flows with milk and honey, and this is the fruit. However, the people that dwell in that land are strong. The cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there, and the Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negev. The Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites dwell in the hill country, and the Canaanites dwell in the sea and along the Jordan. Isis is here. The Hindu radicals are there. The Muslims are here. But Kayla quieted the people before Moses. And he said, let us go up. At once. And occupy it. Why? For we are well able overcome it? What a strange answer. But brothers and sisters, if we believe in an all-powerful, sovereign God, who's commissioned us to go and possess a land, will He not give us the power to do it? The point isn't whether there are big walled cities. The point isn't whether there's huge numbers. The point isn't whether there are giants in their land. There are all of these things before us. And all of the hardest countries and places in the world. We're going to be faced again and again with obstacles that are so big and so far beyond us. That there's no way in our own strength that we are going to be able to conquer the enemy and take the possession, not really ours. It's so strange that God would use us, but it's really his possession. It's the ones for whom he has died. And he said, we are well able. Do we believe in an all powerful sovereign God or don't we? Do we believe in the doctrines of grace or don't we? And that will be put to the test in the way in which we will move forward from this time forth. And so the sense, the burden of my heart in coming to this fellowship conference is this is a wonderful thing. God is bringing huge numbers of people and the opportunities before us are exceedingly great. But perhaps we're at a point of a crisis. He said, let us go up at once. Caleb knew that this was God's will. This was God's purpose. If the children of Israel didn't focus their lives in this direction, the consequences were coming. And the consequences, brethren, came. For 40 years they would wander in the wilderness. I can remember 25 years ago, a little church between two cornfields over there down south of San Antonio and Elmendorf. And Brother Pat made that same appeal. Are we going to press forward and do what God has commissioned us to do? Or will God let our churches, our church, wander in the wilderness for 40 years till we die? And that was a sobering message. It really was a sobering message. By God's grace, it didn't happen. There was a stirring amongst the people. There was an increased burden to pray that God would raise up laborers. And as we're praying for God to raise up laborers, God was raising up people in our own midst to do things. Ordinary people, you know, not well, not highly educated, not real eloquent. Just people that are impacted by the greatness of what God has done. You see, the reason why the people said, the people said, look what the other spies said. We are not able to go up, verse 31. We're not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we are. They were filled with pride. That wasn't humility. So much of what people think is humility. Oh, woe is me. I can't do anything. This was their own pride. They were expecting that they were going to do something in their own strength. God isn't expecting us to do anything in our own strength. But He's expecting us to obey Him and to move forward. And He's going to do great and marvelous and wonderful things. He's done that for every other person, every other church, every other age. He's had people who have risen up together and have attempted to do great things for God. And God came through for them. God will come through for us. And so my desire would be to change the name of the fellowship conference, not really, but a fellowship in the Great Commission Conference. Because I think if God has given us a fellowship in what Jesus has done for us on the cross, We should have a fellowship in what Jesus Christ is doing through us now in the proclamation of that message to the rest of the world. Now obviously, that means a direction of our life. It doesn't mean we're all gonna pack up and go to the field. We were exhorted from Hebrews yesterday, but earlier on in the book of Hebrews, what was the author dealing with there? In the time that you ought to be teachers, you're yet need milk. Brother, let us, could it be that this would be the day, this would be the conference that all of us would say, we are done with our old life. And we want a life that's focused on living for Jesus Christ and him crucified. We are focused together in a direction. No. Wasn't Timothy a precious part of the New Testament? Yes, he was. Who was behind Timothy? His mother, his grandmother. There's a direction. But if we are only going to train up our children to live a normal Christian American lifestyle, We're not preparing them to lay down their lives and go to the ends of the earth. There's not a unified fellowship in this. But if we would start with our own little families. And if you're single, don't be focused on just marrying someone. Someone held up a book here yesterday of Jim Elliot. Two young people. They didn't abandon marriage. They appreciated marriage. I appreciate marriage. But their life was given before they were married to the cause and purpose for which they were going to live. They knew beforehand that he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. But it was a united together. Families with children can go to the mission field. Families with children can have a united vision. Young couples can look for spouses with the same vision. We're here for such a short period of time. Those who are married as though they were not married. We're here together. We're strangers and pilgrims. And we can accomplish what God has purposed for us to do. Oh my time, time. For Dan, poor Dan. No, blessed Dan in Lebanon. I've been talking to him in his last weeks, and he's probably in his second deep valley, as he puts it, since he's been there. You all know Dan, Sam. just weighed down by so many things and so many obstacles. And yet his testimony is it's good. It's been good for him. It is good for us to be in places where we feel so weak and so helpless. But I did tell him I would put out a plea for Lebanon. that God would raise up laborers for Lebanon. I would put out a plea for Iraq. Almost everybody's leaving who possibly can leave. But there's a vacuum there. There's all of these refugees there. There's people ready to listen to God's Word. We've given out these little Bibles, and Dan was giving them out in Lebanon. They got a solar panel on the back and a speaker on the front. We were giving these out in Nepal. We came back after several days and here's a lady with it hanging around her neck saying, this is my new friend. We were in places in Nepal, in the deeper villages after that great earthquake over there. Never heard the name of Jesus. There's places to go, brethren. We as Americans can go. I can't get into India. I'm blacklisted. Several others from our church are. But brethren, some of you can go. You can go places and you might not be the primary preacher. You might not be the primary speaker. But if Jesus Christ and him crucified is really, really burning in your heart, you can be an encouragement to the man who does preach. Think of Barnabas, maybe he was a great preacher, but he was the son of consolation. First of all, that's what the Bible called him. Look at how much influence Barnabas had. The whole New Testament is really shaped in the background by how God used Barnabas. He's the one who encouraged Paul to come to Jerusalem. He's the one who convinced the brethren in Jerusalem to accept Paul. He's the one who went later on and got Paul to come to Antioch and said, I think God's doing something here in Antioch and you could just really fit this place. Barnabas wasn't trying to put himself in the foreground. He was just so, so thankful that he could support people and encourage people. Brethren, so many of us here, if we're not called to be the primary preacher, we can be such a great encourager. Even to the end of his life, it seems. Here he was encouraging John Mark, who'd left the work. And here's John Mark. John Mark is the one who writes the book of Mark in the end. And Paul's asking him, come, he'll be a help to me. Brethren, there are so many ways in which we, if we had this united heart together, we could do very much for missions. Even a little thing like this, a few less meals out, how many of these could be given away? They cost us too much, about 20 bucks a piece, but they never stop playing. They've got this solar panel on the back, and you can give this to people who can't read, whether they're Arabic, whether they're Kurdish, whether they're Nepali, and the thing keeps playing. You can't load anything else on it, so all they can listen to is Jesus Christ. and Him crucified, the message of the New Testament we have on most of them. So brother, what can we do together? Where can we start? Let's pray. Father, there are so many blessings that You've showered upon us. Father, thank you for this fellowship conference. Think of all the places in the world. All these different countries. Whether it be Asia or the Middle East. Whether it be India or Nepal or Bangladesh. Whether it be Lebanon or Turkey. Whether it be right over our border here in Mexico. Lord, we thank you for what you're doing. And we thank you for the way that you're uniting hearts together. Lord, there are so many countries, so many places, so many opportunities. Lord, please help us to start at home. And then, Lord, continue to burn the vision in our hearts for the rest of the world. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.