SPEAKER_00: Please turn in your Bibles or your mi iPhone or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we'll be reading Second Corinthians five fourteen through twenty-one, talking through with Josh about what would be a good passage for your first missions kind of theme, gospel and missions.
SPEAKER_00: Uh for the love of Christ controls us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a great text, I think.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 5, 14 through 21.
SPEAKER_00: I go to so many different PCA churches.
SPEAKER_00: Do you all stand up in this church for the reading of okay?
SPEAKER_00: A lot of PCA churches do.
SPEAKER_00: I should have asked.
SPEAKER_00: It's in my note, always ask.
SPEAKER_00: So good to be with you all.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Hear God's word.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 5, 14 through 21.
SPEAKER_00: For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this, that one has died for all.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, all have died, and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
SPEAKER_00: From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
SPEAKER_00: The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.
SPEAKER_00: All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God making his appeal through us, we implore you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_00: For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you come, Holy Spirit, as we've already sung and prayed?
SPEAKER_00: We pray you'll attend the preaching of your word that help me.
SPEAKER_00: I am weak, I am needy, I am the chief of sinners.
SPEAKER_00: And we all need to say that and say, Jesus, show us your gospel and show us the implications of that gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We pray.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So the title that Josh and I worked out from this passage, In Christ, Loved, Made New, and Put on Mission.
SPEAKER_00: So maybe this is what's the most famous verse in this passage?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
SPEAKER_00: I pretty probably one of the top 20.
SPEAKER_00: I memorized it as a kid.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't memorize 21 until later, but as a covenant child, which one, if it wasn't 21, which one do you think?
SPEAKER_00: 17, right?
SPEAKER_00: If anyone is in Christ, they're a new creation.
SPEAKER_00: Old things are passed away.
SPEAKER_00: The new have come.
SPEAKER_00: One of the verses we we met we memorize.
SPEAKER_00: I never thought about it as being about mission until about 10 years ago in my 60s.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a pastor, missionary, seminary-trained person.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look at that.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know the story of Commander Fachida who led the attack on Pearl Harbor?
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've told that to you guys before.
SPEAKER_00: So great man, this guy woke up on December 7th on his aircraft carrier, you know, praying to his 8 million Japanese gods that the ships would be in the harbor, that he could kill many Americans that day.
SPEAKER_00: And he did.
SPEAKER_00: He was the leader of the 300 planes that attacked Hawaii and killed more than uh 2,000 people in Hawaii that day and out in Caliph.
SPEAKER_00: Could God ever make someone new?
SPEAKER_00: What does this verse?
SPEAKER_00: Anyone in Christ is new?
SPEAKER_00: Could that apply to him?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jake DeShazar was an airman before the days of the Air Force, the Army Air Corps.
SPEAKER_00: And in California, when he got that news that Sunday morning, he threw his coffee cup against the wall, broke it, was I want to go kill Japanese people.
SPEAKER_00: And he volunteered for a secret mission.
SPEAKER_00: Four months later, after Pearl Harbor, the Doolittle raid, you know, Army Air Corps, big airplane, stripped down enough gas to attack Japan, crash land in China to be rescued by the Chinese underground because Japan had occupied China.
SPEAKER_00: Jake volunteered for that mission and he went, he helped to kill many Japanese people, hated Japanese people, but he was captured by the Japanese and put in a prison camp in Nanking, China.
SPEAKER_00: And he hated Japanese.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have seen broken, unbroken, or read books, or you've seen, you know, the Nazis when they visited Japan threw up reportedly when they saw the torture way the Japanese tortured tortured people.
SPEAKER_00: And and uh and Jay, amazing that uh Jake that they let him have a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And there in his prison POW cell, uh he read the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He read the whole, my wife just finished the book about this wounded tiger, tells this story.
SPEAKER_00: The book Wounded Tiger, a new book.
SPEAKER_00: And she told me, you know, he read the whole Bible in two weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, he didn't have much to do.
SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe being in jail would help us all with our Bible reading, you know, in the new year, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But uh he read the whole Bible and he was moved, I remember, by hearing the story, particularly by the cross.
SPEAKER_00: This when he got to the story of the cross, that Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
SPEAKER_00: And he began to love it, to try to love his guards.
SPEAKER_00: And to to to to, you know, so anybody think he did it perfectly?
SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
SPEAKER_00: He's a sinner, but he's growing.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit's working in his heart.
SPEAKER_00: He's new in Christ, he believed the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: No evangelist, no evangelists, no, just the Holy Spirit and the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And as he was in his jail cell and God worked in his heart, he's the beginning of the war.
SPEAKER_00: He was there the whole war, and he did, and he began to pray, Lord, if I ever get out of here, I want to tell this good news.
SPEAKER_00: I want to go be a missionary to anybody want to guess which country?
SPEAKER_00: The country of his tortures.
SPEAKER_00: Japan.
SPEAKER_00: And he lived.
SPEAKER_00: And he went.
SPEAKER_00: And one day, he was new in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Point, new in Christ puts you on mission, right?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, new in Christ, changed, went to Japan, and one day, guess who knocked on his door in Tokyo, Japan?
SPEAKER_00: Commander Fachida.
SPEAKER_00: He had also lived through the war.
SPEAKER_00: And through a, it's amazing, a young American girl was part of his conversion.
SPEAKER_00: The story I'll tell you at the end.
SPEAKER_00: Commander Fachida had came to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He and Jake became close friends.
SPEAKER_00: If I I was gonna try to show you a PowerPoint picture of the two of them together, he became a pastor, new in Christ, on mission for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, as he began to see people telling the gospel, and Japanese people right there after the war not interested in a crowd.
SPEAKER_00: And he was, I can't tell you know, in Japan if if you are different, you know, you're looked down on.
SPEAKER_00: And when he saw they weren't listening, first time he did, he he took the microphone.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I am Commander of Fachida who led the attack on Pearl Harbor.
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is my story.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to my story.
SPEAKER_00: He had to.
SPEAKER_00: He became compelled to do that in Christ, loved, made new, and put on mission.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this passage talks about.
SPEAKER_00: People new in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He, yes, there we changes us in other ways, but we see in this passage, we see from new in Christ in verse 17, turns in to mission.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 18, 19, and 20.
SPEAKER_00: We believe what's the first rule of interpreting scripture?
SPEAKER_00: Is what?
SPEAKER_00: Let scripture interpret scripture.
SPEAKER_00: What does the context say?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's dig in in detail.
SPEAKER_00: First, gospel, okay, we'll do three things.
SPEAKER_00: Gospel message, gospel mission, and gospel motivation.
SPEAKER_00: Three M's.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: It was always fun in Japan trying to get M's or P's or something for sermons in Japanese.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I would mix English and Japanese.
SPEAKER_00: Today, all English, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Three M's.
SPEAKER_00: What are they?
SPEAKER_00: Gospel mission, gospel, I'm sorry, gospel message, gospel mission, and gospel motivation.
SPEAKER_00: All are in this passage for sure.
SPEAKER_00: First, maybe the you know the best summary of the verse of the gospel, many say in one verse is verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: He who knew no sin became sin for us, you know, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
SPEAKER_00: But the whole text is the good news of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14, you know, that Jesus gave his life for me.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that the love of Christ controls this great love that we sing about today.
SPEAKER_00: Love so amazing, so divine, right?
SPEAKER_00: We sang the songs, were great today about that.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 15, he died for all.
SPEAKER_00: Those who live might no longer live for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that he Jesus gave his life for me.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17 is good news.
SPEAKER_00: I am new in Christ, whatever my idols, I think of mine, my achievement idols, my all the sin tendencies I have.
SPEAKER_00: I still have them.
SPEAKER_00: I still, it's a fight, but I am new.
SPEAKER_00: I'm different.
SPEAKER_00: Like uh when my wife came to Christ in college, she was, you know, her friends that Jesus, he changes your want to.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a battle the whole life, but we see he makes us new in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We have a new identity, we have a new address in Christ that he gives us.
SPEAKER_00: We see verse 18 and 19, he reconciled us to himself.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he has we're sinners, we deserve his wrath, but he reconciled us to himself.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 20, it's a great good news.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us an incredible position.
SPEAKER_00: What are we?
SPEAKER_00: Ambassadors.
SPEAKER_00: Sometime in Japan on a train or a bus or on an airplane.
SPEAKER_00: People ask me, oh, you speak Japanese.
SPEAKER_00: Uh what do you do in Japan?
SPEAKER_00: I say, I'm an ambassador.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and they, you know, in Japanese, oh, you're an ambassador, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And uh kind of an entree to tell who I'm an ambassador for, you know, we're ambassadors.
SPEAKER_00: That's part of our position that we are.
SPEAKER_00: An incredible position.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 21, yes, the best gospel summary maybe in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He who knew no sin became a sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
SPEAKER_00: This wonderful promise of what Christ has done.
SPEAKER_00: I deserve.
SPEAKER_00: He who knew no sin.
SPEAKER_00: How about us?
SPEAKER_00: Do we know sin?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we know lots of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Man, the more I'm 72, the longer I live, the more I see my sin.
SPEAKER_00: This last three weeks with my wife, I thought, I'm a good husband, man.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in the top tier, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I see ways that the mist, I've had a mistress of ministry, of achievement, and I've known this, but I've seen it in new, fresh ways.
SPEAKER_00: And my wife and I go just going back yesterday and and taking a two-hour date to go back and read some of the early things, seeing my sin as a husband, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm 72 and I'm a pastor, and and uh, you know, and we did we do marriage counseling and we taught marriage about marriage in Japan, and we're on national TV talking about marriage and family one time, you know, because the longer we live, the closer, you know, it's like the the with the closer you get to the light, the more you see your junk, right?
SPEAKER_00: And how much we need Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But it says Hugh Newno Sin became sin for us.
SPEAKER_00: Our oldest son, Danny, we have nine, he's the oldest.
SPEAKER_00: That one time he when he was a bad boy, and uh and he the penalty was a spanking, and he deserved a spanking.
SPEAKER_00: It was really bad what he had done.
SPEAKER_00: Little, he was little, and uh, but he was sick, he had a had a fever, and uh, and but the the punishment due was that, and we had heard our pastor uh tell this story where one time he had taken the spanking for one of his sons, and uh and we we did that and uh said well let's try this we're new parents, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Here's Danny, he's our first, you know, and and uh probably had three kids then, and he's the oldest.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh after talking, praying, you know, but daddy is gonna take your spanking, and I bent over, and and uh, you know, some of you are glad the kids went out and didn't and didn't hear this story, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and he and Carol, you know, she seemed to do it harder than she should have, you know.
SPEAKER_00: She was really looking forward to this, and she gave me, I took the punishment Danny deserved.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not here recommending that to anyone.
SPEAKER_00: Don't say that, Pastor Man, we shouldn't have him come back and preach.
SPEAKER_00: He's asking, he's telling it.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not, I'm just telling you what we did, and we never did it again.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it hurt too much, and I'm not sure that's but the point is, Danny, it was vivid for Danny, and to this day, he's a PCA pastor to this day, 47 years old.
SPEAKER_00: That's part of his testimony of coming to understand that Jesus took the punishment that we deserve.
SPEAKER_00: But this verse is more than he took our punishment, it's he gives us his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: He who knew no sin became sin for us on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And what did he do?
SPEAKER_00: That we, he gives us his perfect, unchanging righteousness that we might become the righteousness of God in him because we're righteous?
SPEAKER_00: No, but because of what he did.
SPEAKER_00: Does this gospel not what Jesus has done for us, his rescue of us not?
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything more wonderful?
SPEAKER_00: Have I ever told you guys the story of Jessica Buchanan in Somalia volunteer worker there in her 20s, captured by Somalia pirates, and she was brutalized for 90 days.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you remember this story?
SPEAKER_00: It's uh on 60 minutes, 20, 20 uh uh 20.
SPEAKER_00: You can see the short version, 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: You know, she was captured, moved every two days,$40 million ransom, demanded for her$40 million to get her back.
SPEAKER_00: They moved her, these bad guys, 10 or 20 of them with their rifles around, drug-crazed.
SPEAKER_00: Poor girl, oh man, she was you know increasingly getting close to death, the abuse, the no food, no care.
SPEAKER_00: She 90, over 90 days, she's there, she's ready to give up, she had lost all hope.
SPEAKER_00: Can this girl save herself?
SPEAKER_00: No way.
SPEAKER_00: In the middle of the night, pitch black night.
SPEAKER_00: I was an old Recon Marine.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to love this story, pitch black, moonless night.
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, all chaos breaks loose in the camp.
SPEAKER_00: And she thinks it's one of those other bad groups that wants the$40 million that's coming, because middle of the Somalia desert, you know, and she's she pins herself down to the to the camping mat, only possession she had in the world, as the bullets fly, and suddenly there's perfect silence, and she feels a man's hands on her back, and and she's fighting, you know, and and uh she thinks it's one of the other bad guys, and suddenly she hears in English, Jessica Buchanan, we're taking you home.
SPEAKER_00: And it's American, perfect English.
SPEAKER_00: She looks up, SEAL Team Six guy, Navy, Navy, SEAL Team Six Guy, throws her on his shoulders, takes her off through the desert, rescue her that when it came, they thought there was danger.
SPEAKER_00: She tells you can hear it on 60 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: Look it up, Jessica Buchanan, rescue.
SPEAKER_00: And and he uh this is left 12 years ago, and and uh put a perimeter around her.
SPEAKER_00: She said, Those guys who didn't even know me, they put three of them, they put a perimeter around me, they put three of them put their bodies over me to take a bullet for me.
SPEAKER_00: To take what was due me.
SPEAKER_00: Does anyone think she can ever forget that?
SPEAKER_00: What did she think about the next day in the hospital in Italy?
SPEAKER_00: What did she think about?
SPEAKER_00: Every second she was awake.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: Her rescue, right?
SPEAKER_00: What these folks, she said, I man, they knew they even knew my name.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't didn't know who they are, still don't know who they are.
SPEAKER_00: You know, this gospel of of the but our rescue, anybody know a better rescue story here?
SPEAKER_00: Please say yes.
SPEAKER_00: Came not, didn't fly from, he didn't fly from America and parachute and come through the night.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came from heaven for sinners, for enemies, Romans 5 says.
SPEAKER_00: That we are enemies of him.
SPEAKER_00: Came to put his, and he they none of those guys died on that.
SPEAKER_00: He died for us.
SPEAKER_00: Enemies.
SPEAKER_00: All our ups and downs.
SPEAKER_00: My dad would always say, when you're up, the perfect righteousness that Jesus bought gives you, it's no better.
SPEAKER_00: When you're down and struggling with that besetting sin you have, and we all have them, you're right, we all have them.
SPEAKER_00: Some we don't want anyone to know about for sure, especially here.
SPEAKER_00: Yet those those two, Jesus, the righteousness he gives us, it's the same.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't change.
SPEAKER_00: When we're up, it's the same.
SPEAKER_00: When we're down, it's the same.
SPEAKER_00: This wonderful gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: This is taught.
SPEAKER_00: Great news.
SPEAKER_00: But there's an implication for this gospel that's in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: He made us new to be on mission.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18, 19, and 20.
SPEAKER_00: He gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: Can we read verse 18 together in ESV?
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Ready?
SPEAKER_00: Now.
SPEAKER_00: All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: Yes or no?
SPEAKER_00: Am I, is it that this, hey, when I was in college, really came to faith, Covenant Child, baptized as a covenant child, knew it all, knew the gospel, knew the catechism, really came to faith my sophomore year in college.
SPEAKER_00: Was made new in Christ and really, you know, man, I want to read my Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I want to, man, I know that I'm really proud.
SPEAKER_00: I want to grow.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be sexually pure.
SPEAKER_00: There are all these new things that were happening to me.
SPEAKER_00: And those are all true, but those aren't the ones that are here.
SPEAKER_00: The context is what?
SPEAKER_00: It's mission.
SPEAKER_00: That he calls us, all those are true, all right?
SPEAKER_00: Those other results of being new.
SPEAKER_00: We read the whole Bible.
SPEAKER_00: But here in verse 18, it's a missional identity.
SPEAKER_00: He gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: You might say, well, is that the right reconciliation helping Christians be reconciled?
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, that's a true thing we're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: But verse 19, where Paul repeats it, makes it really clear this is an evangelistic missional main point here.
SPEAKER_00: That is in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Read it with me slowly.
SPEAKER_00: You be silent until I ask you to come in, okay?
SPEAKER_00: 19.
SPEAKER_00: That is in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.
SPEAKER_00: Now read with me, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation for the world.
SPEAKER_00: Are you convinced?
SPEAKER_00: This is about us being a part of the world being reconciled to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Our city, yes, for sure.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he makes us witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 1.8, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and where?
SPEAKER_00: Uttermost parts of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, and he didn't say pick two out of four, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Alexandria Presbyterian Church.
SPEAKER_00: He calls us to do, be a part of all of those concurrently.
SPEAKER_00: We have to.
SPEAKER_00: This is our missional identity as new creatures.
SPEAKER_00: He puts us on mission with him.
SPEAKER_00: Word and deed, you know, just not let which leg do you want?
SPEAKER_00: The left or the right?
SPEAKER_00: When after the big tsunami 13 years ago in Japan, uh, we found a little Baptist missionary from Canada had a little church bank called uh.
SPEAKER_00: And there were like 10 people in their church plant, and there was no water in their town because of the tsunami, and everything was broken, and we started bringing them water every day.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, like I think like 500 liters or something, a lot of water, and they became the water point for the community.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I I joked with him.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is the first time in church history we had Presbyterians taking water to Baptists, you know, if some of you get that joke.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and he he said, You guys made us, you moved our church planning forward two years.
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't word ministry, but the deed ministry moved the word ministry forward two years, because everyone started coming to their they just couldn't care less before.
SPEAKER_00: But they started coming.
SPEAKER_00: You see, and all over the world we see that, how rather than getting into some dichotomy, we we know it's true, people need to hear this message of the gospel to believe and be saved.
SPEAKER_00: We can't just do good things, but we gotta share.
SPEAKER_00: We must share the good news that we see in verse 21 and in this whole passage.
SPEAKER_00: But see, and back in Chiba, it helped it actually helped our church planning too.
SPEAKER_00: Mrs.
SPEAKER_00: Shigama, she had come to a few English classes and stopped coming, but then she saw all the trucks, all the people, the teams coming from America to help take food and gasoline and water and to go up and help up north.
SPEAKER_00: And every morning, you know, we're leaving at 4 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: to send trucks up north and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And she saw that, and guess what?
SPEAKER_00: It affected her.
SPEAKER_00: She came.
SPEAKER_00: And she came over time to understand the gospel, and three years later was baptized.
SPEAKER_00: So you see the effect of, you know, we do all of it, whatever it takes to get God's word around people.
SPEAKER_00: We this is what he calls us to do.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 20, we're ambassadors for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Ambassadors have to speak.
SPEAKER_00: Yes or no.
SPEAKER_00: There are other things they do, but we need to speak.
SPEAKER_00: Francis of Assisi said, preach the gospel at all times.
SPEAKER_00: When necessary, use words.
SPEAKER_00: A good principle here, but it's necessary to use words.
SPEAKER_00: We do lots of other things, but we need to tell this good news of Jesus Christ to people.
SPEAKER_00: And third, gospel what?
SPEAKER_00: Three M's, gospel message, gospel mission, and gospel motivation.
SPEAKER_00: Does this passage not have a ton of motivating things?
SPEAKER_00: Especially verse 14 and 15, for the love of Christ controls us.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody know the two other C's in our different translations in English?
SPEAKER_00: The love of Christ controls us, the love of Christ compels us, and the love of Christ, old King James, constrains us.
SPEAKER_00: A good old word, constraint.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do anything else.
SPEAKER_00: Those are three good words.
SPEAKER_00: This is, you know, what what Jesus, we saw, I didn't know you're gonna read Acts 9 today.
SPEAKER_00: Uh was that Amy reading that?
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, wow.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, he he said, I noticed, I had noticed it before.
SPEAKER_00: Immediately he goes on mission.
SPEAKER_00: The love of Christ was compelling him to go do this.
SPEAKER_00: He can't help it.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: Like that's back to the story of Jessica began, and my wife always said, Don't use that story.
SPEAKER_00: I said, That's sorry, you tell that story too much.
SPEAKER_00: What a great story, though.
SPEAKER_00: Don't tell her I used it, I'm gonna use it again here.
SPEAKER_00: Could she she she could not help herself wanting to tell.
SPEAKER_00: Once she was healed, took a couple years.
SPEAKER_00: She wanted to write a book.
SPEAKER_00: I want to, you know, they knew my name.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know, didn't even know who they were, but I want to, she, I have to tell what these guys did for me.
SPEAKER_00: How much more us moved to be a part of what Jesus is calling us to do.
SPEAKER_00: The missions converse at a church, the family I was staying with at the church, John Piper was the preacher.
SPEAKER_00: He said, You can talk during the sermon because I'm gonna invite you to come down at the end and say, Lord, we're ready to do more serious business with you.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, you think about verse 15, everyone, look at 15.
SPEAKER_00: This is motivation.
SPEAKER_00: He died for all.
SPEAKER_00: That those who live might live for who?
SPEAKER_00: That those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised again.
SPEAKER_00: Is that not a powerful message of motivation?
SPEAKER_00: That he he died for me, therefore I say, Jesus, here I am.
SPEAKER_00: This this is what we're called to in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Say, Jesus, what do you want me to do?
SPEAKER_00: And this couple, this missions conference, the Holy Spirit worked, they were Christians, but the whole week was uh new.
SPEAKER_00: They got up, one of the applications from John Piper was, you know, giving.
SPEAKER_00: And they're very wealthy guys.
SPEAKER_00: This couple, the house, 34 years old, uh, investment banker, had done a$4 billion deal.
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know what that number means.
SPEAKER_00: The the year before they had built this house, the biggest house I've ever been in.
SPEAKER_00: And I used the the assistant pastor of the church, when he came to pick me up, said, Man, that's some house.
SPEAKER_00: I think unreached people groups live in that house somewhere, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And uh they one of the applications John Piper had made was for our giving to downsize, you might, God might lead you to downsize your house because it's bigger than you need.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and during after the sermon, they made me move out of the pew and uh and they went forward.
SPEAKER_00: They downsized their house, took a couple years, left his job at a company, he was really glad because it was Bear Stearns, and you some of you know what happened to them a few years later.
SPEAKER_00: Went to seminary, ended up going back into what he was good at to be radical givers, to give for the sake of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Came to visit us twice in Japan with his family to say, we wanna, this is what I'm good at.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I want to give for.
SPEAKER_00: How is God calling you to be apart?
SPEAKER_00: Because what Jesus did for you, that he gave his life for you, does that move us?
SPEAKER_00: Say, Jesus, what do you want me to do?
SPEAKER_00: How could I not in seminary that um that we went to seminary, gonna come back to Maryland, start a daughter church, and we were just affected deeply at a missions conference.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis to revelation, every tongue and tribe, yes, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, but the uttermost parts of the earth, there are all these places that have nothing.
SPEAKER_00: You know, yes, yesterday, driving up here, I went in the restroom at a stop about an hour away, coming here, and the guy on the back of his jacket walking into the restroom had uh about serving.
SPEAKER_00: Something about serving, Matthew 20, 28.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, You believe in serving?
SPEAKER_00: And he thought I was provoking provoking him, and he turned around.
SPEAKER_00: I said, It's a good verse.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I came not to, Son of Man came not to not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
SPEAKER_00: And he realized I was friend, not foe, and uh and uh and then I met two of his other buddies in the bathroom, met three Christians, is the point of the story, in in all together in Japan, our country where you sent us, in 35 years in Japan, I met maybe 10 Christians like that, just in a place that's not my home, not my city, over 35 years.
SPEAKER_00: 10.
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday I met three Christians with all the lostness of America, the need of the gospel in America.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of light in America.
SPEAKER_00: That God calls us to be.
SPEAKER_00: We, you know, Jesus says in Luke 15, leave the 99.
SPEAKER_00: Go where after the one, many places is leave the 999 and go for the the one out of a thousand.
SPEAKER_00: This is part of what he calls us to do, to be a part with our giving, with our going.
SPEAKER_00: What's he calling you to do, to be a part of this?
SPEAKER_00: What about going?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might God be calling you to go.
SPEAKER_00: The you know, consecration comes first.
SPEAKER_00: He he he gave his life for me, verse 15, that those who live might no longer live for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: We don't live for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, Jesus, today, what do you want me to do?
SPEAKER_00: It's uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: I know for me, in that seminary uh chapel, the preacher said to a bunch of future pastors, if you're not willing to go, you're not qualified to stay in response to this gospel of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I stood up and I didn't stand up.
SPEAKER_00: I thought I wanted to stand and say, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't want everyone to go be missionaries, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but that's not what he said.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not willing to go, he said.
SPEAKER_00: And I realized that is true, and but it's not just true for pastors, true for every Christian.
SPEAKER_00: We say, Jesus, what do you want me to do with my house, with my time?
SPEAKER_00: How can I be a part of what you're calling me to call us to as a church here in Alexandria?
SPEAKER_00: You can come to the prayer meeting tonight, be a part of the long-range artillery of missions, you know, just coming to pray.
SPEAKER_00: You can join our prayer for Japan on Zoom.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you here don't join that.
SPEAKER_00: Would you join?
SPEAKER_00: Would you join for 45 minutes, January 26, 8 p.m.
SPEAKER_00: your time, and pray for our lost country of Japan?
SPEAKER_00: There lot there, prayer is part of what we can do.
SPEAKER_00: Uh using your gifts, what are your gifts?
SPEAKER_00: What are your, you know, we're all different.
SPEAKER_00: How many military people now or in the past are part of this church?
SPEAKER_00: I think there are a lot of hands in this church, right?
SPEAKER_00: Come on, raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of, a lot of people, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: How many were on that rescue mission for Jessica Buchanan?
SPEAKER_00: Was it the 10 or 15 SEAL team guys who parachuted in?
SPEAKER_00: How many?
SPEAKER_00: At one church, I asked that question, and at the door, an army guy, he told me, I added up, I think they were, I think he said 2,300.
SPEAKER_00: Sir, you should have been listening to the sermon instead of calculating how many people were.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the pilots, the the uh the mechanics for the airplanes, for the helicopters, the the guys who were, you know, on the satellites watching where they were moving her every day.
SPEAKER_00: You know, really, hundreds, thousands.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same with this mission we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: We're all a part of it in different ways.
SPEAKER_00: With our praying, with our giving.
SPEAKER_00: What's God calling you to do?
SPEAKER_00: Uh Cordell Stone, a guy in a mission conference, mission sermon like this, falling asleep.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and suddenly the guy said, You know, I'm not a good talker.
SPEAKER_00: He was giving a testimony, but I'm good with my hands.
SPEAKER_00: I have my own construction company every summer.
SPEAKER_00: I go away for a month and I build a school or a hospital or a church building, and that's what I do.
SPEAKER_00: And he had his own construction company.
SPEAKER_00: Cordell woke up at the mission conference and said, I'm not a very good talker, but I can do that.
SPEAKER_00: He came and built our first church building in Japan.
SPEAKER_00: He and his wife came, did that, and actually God used him as a verbal witness too, which I don't have time to tell.
SPEAKER_00: I see from my iPhone.
SPEAKER_00: What's God calling you to do?
SPEAKER_00: To pray, say, Lord, what are you calling me to do missionally?
SPEAKER_00: I I told you at the beginning that there was a young lady who was a part of Commander Fachida's rescue by Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_00: I have one minute.
SPEAKER_00: Can I uh you want to hear that?
SPEAKER_00: How was a young American lady?
SPEAKER_00: Well, she was a missionary kid in Japan named Peggy Caville, grew up in Japan.
SPEAKER_00: When the war drums were beating, her family fled to the Philippines.
SPEAKER_00: The Japanese soldiers found her parents in the mountains and killed them.
SPEAKER_00: American mission, because they were American.
SPEAKER_00: She was in America in college, and she hears this advertisement toward the end of the war that there's um that they need interpreters on the West Coast.
SPEAKER_00: She's an East Coast person.
SPEAKER_00: She hears that they need interpreters who speak Japanese for a hospital with Japanese prisoners of war in them.
SPEAKER_00: We need some people who speak Japanese to come here and serve these prisoners.
SPEAKER_00: Guess who volunteered to get on a train and go across the country to love and serve and make Japanese food and talk to the soldiers of the army that had killed her parents for no reason in the Philippines.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody want to guess?
SPEAKER_00: Peggy.
SPEAKER_00: She used her gift and she spoke to.
SPEAKER_00: And guess who one of the prisoners was?
SPEAKER_00: It was Commander Fachita's mechanic.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm out of time, but what a story.
SPEAKER_00: Read it.
SPEAKER_00: Wounded Tigers, the book that tells, and after the war, the mechanic goes and finds his commander Fachita.
SPEAKER_00: And they were just amazed.
SPEAKER_00: And Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Commander Fachita, amazed, how could this girl come serve the soldiers who killed her parents?
SPEAKER_00: See, we're all, everybody agree?
SPEAKER_00: We're all a part of this mission.
SPEAKER_00: We say, Jesus, young, old, all of us, what are you calling me to do?
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for this glorious gospel.
SPEAKER_00: You make us new in Christ, what Jesus has done for us.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, when I survey the wondrous cross, what a glorious message we sang.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small.
SPEAKER_00: It demands my life, my soul, my all.
SPEAKER_00: We say, Jesus, here I am.
SPEAKER_00: Those who don't know you yet, we say today, rescue me, Jesus, I need you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, take us, grow us, use us for your glory in Alexandria and to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
unknown: Amen.