Cornerstone Christian Center
Cornerstone Christian Center
The Eyes Have it | Kingdom Builders
What happens when God disrupts your vision and redirects your focus to places no one wants to go? Mark and Dalene Good share their remarkable 30-year journey as missionaries, from Bangladesh to France and now to the overlooked Benelux region of Europe.
These veteran church planters take us through a spiritual eye exam, challenging us to develop the three dimensions of spiritual vision: eyesight (seeing what God sees), insight (feeling what God feels), and foresight (knowing what to do about it). Through powerful stories like Clara, a trafficked woman who experienced God's intervention when a client tried to strangle her, and Julie, a skeptical French student who eventually asked to study the Bible, we glimpse the spiritual hunger beneath Europe's secular exterior.
The spiritual crisis in Europe is more severe than most realize. In France, where secularism was born, faith in God has been replaced with faith in self, leading to epidemic levels of mental health struggles. "We were never designed to be God," Mark explains. "We were never designed to wear the weight of having to be God in our lives, and it's literally crushing people to death." In Luxembourg, merely 0.25% of the population knows Jesus, while Belgium's Dutch-speaking region has only 40 small churches averaging 15 people each, mostly led by aging pastors with no successors.
This message parallels Paul's vision in Acts 16, where a Macedonian man begged him to "come over and help us." Just as Macedonia was an overlooked military buffer zone in Paul's day, Benelux occupies a similar position today – overrun in wars, not a destination anyone chooses, yet desperately in need of the gospel. If we could hear Europeans' spiritual cry, Mark suggests, it would be "an SOS with two exclamation points."
What barriers is God asking you to cross? Whether it's praying more intentionally for unreached peoples, giving sacrificially to missions, or stepping out in faith to share Christ with a neighbor, the Goods' testimony reminds us that when we obey God's redirections, He provides everything we need for the journey.
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Amen. Kingdom Builders is exciting as we continue today with that message. Do you see the little Easter egg in that video? Two little kids by the pyramids. Do you see those guys in there? They look shockingly familiar if you think about it. Hey, today we're excited to continue in our Kingdom Builders series.
Speaker 1:We have some heroes of ours, longtime friends of ours, in Mark and Dailene Good. Mark and Dailene are pastors. They've served as pastors in the US and abroad. They've been church planters. They've been people who have seen and established ministries that have a future. They've done training teams, all sorts of amazing things.
Speaker 1:When I first encountered them, I did so from our church, as we supported them as missionaries to Bangladesh. Little did I know that my future wife would actually go and serve with them in Bangladesh and get a chance to partner alongside of them. Also, as Celeste and I went to Europe and started serving in France, we didn't know, but God was working on their hearts and actually moved them to Europe as well. We got to serve alongside them and see all that God is doing firsthand. And it's amazing to see even today as they've taken even a further step into leadership to be all over all of Western Europe for Assemblies of God, world missions, how God is still using them on the forefront of what he wants to do. Saying yes to God even when it's not comfortable to go and do the next thing, so that all may know the love of Christ. Friends, I'm going to ask you to welcome today Mark and Dalyene Good as they come today.
Speaker 2:Well, it's such an honor to be with you. We're so thankful for Pastor Rich and Pastor Cindy for their kindness to us. They knew me when I was young and they have been so very kind and encouraging. They took us on. You guys took us on as a church over 30 years ago and we are so grateful, and we have been serving in Bangladesh for 14 years and then, as Pastor Jay said, and then, as Pastor Jay said, we've been serving now in France for 15 years. As Pastor Jay mentioned, we got to serve alongside of them and I just want to say that you could be so very, very proud of your pastors, pastor Celeste and Pastor Jay, who walked with great integrity in the small things, in the small decisions and how they served with open hearts in Bangladesh, in France and in Egypt. They both lived with integrity and lived sacrificially on the field, and I also want to thank Javen and Shiloh and Amelia if she's in the room because you guys were excellent MKs. We get to see a lot of MKs and I just want to say that you guys served really well and we're thankful for your investment and all that the Lord did through you. So I wanted to share a story with you.
Speaker 2:Our friends and colleagues had started a ministry to trafficked women in Grenoble and then God called them elsewhere. So I was leading the ministry. One night we were out and we walked up to a new woman. It was at night. We would go out and we would offer warm drinks it's usually cold in Grenoble and a snack, and then we would get to know the ladies and to pray with them and to connect them with different services that the government could provide and also invite them to church. So we walked up to a new woman I'll call her Clara. She was Roma, which is kind of a PC term for gypsy it would be the old way of calling that people group. And as we walked up to her she was pretty guarded at first and we started to say we were from a church, the refuge, and that we just felt like God wanted to show his love and was there anything that we could pray for? And she pretty soon got pretty teary-eyed, which is unusual. Especially it takes usually several months of connecting with the ladies before they'll usually let down their guard even a little bit. But she said oh, I know, I know what you're doing, I know who you're with. And she said just God has sent you here.
Speaker 2:Just a couple months ago I was pregnant and I was with a client, and the client got upset with me and so he started to strangle me, put his hands around my throat and started to strangle me. And so he started to strangle me, put his hands around my throat and started to strangle me. And I just want to say this woman, clary, it's her husband who sends her out to work on the streets, but that's the nature of their culture, anyways. So this client, she said, he had his arms around my throat, he was angry at me, he was yelling at me and I started to feel like I was about to pass out. And I said, god, I know that I don't deserve anything, but this baby deserves to live. Will you help me? And she said at that moment, the guy let go and left the room and I survived. And she said so, I know what it is. She said I know.
Speaker 2:And so we talked to her a little bit more.
Speaker 2:We were inviting her. We said it's just down the street here. If you want to come to refuge, we will love you and we will accept you. And she said well, I just want to get my life together. I can't dress like this and I want to get some things in order. And I said to her Clara, god doesn't want you to try and get yourself together and then come to him.
Speaker 2:Jesus came because none of us can get our lives together.
Speaker 2:We all need him and he wants to come in the middle of now and he wants to meet you and walk with you towards change.
Speaker 2:And I wanted to share that story with you this morning because, for all of us, whether we've been raised in church all of our lives or whether maybe we don't know Jesus yet, his invitation, jesus's invitation to each of us is always come now as you are, and I will bring healing and I will bring restoration and I will enable you to change that. We do not have to be tired disciples who are trying to somehow change ourselves, project self and make us better, but Jesus wants to come in the middle of our moment today and meet us and help us to walk out of whatever is gripping our hearts and our lives. He loves us and he's able Amen. We're just going to watch a video that shows a little bit of what we do. Hi, this is Darlene and Mark Good, and we have been serving in Grenoble for the past 14 years. When God first called us here, we were able to plant a student ministry on the university campus, and from there we were able to plant a bilingual church.
Speaker 3:One of the great privileges for us was to have established a training hub here in Grenoble. For us was to establish a training hub here in Grenoble and we received short-term workers and those that have a longer-term call to France to learn language and culture and missionary competencies and then to be mobilized out to join other church planning teams in the nation of France.
Speaker 2:The Lord opened up a new opportunity for us to serve as area directors for Western Europe. The nations in Western Europe are France, the Netherlands, belgium, luxembourg and Monaco.
Speaker 3:The Lord's really put it on our heart to now move our focus to the area of Benelux. One of the predominant countries in Benelux is the country of Belgium, and this is a place where we face some real difficulties in getting missionary visas, as well as in Luxembourg. It's financially unsustainable and it's difficult to get approvals. So we're just put on our heart to establish some training hubs at the borders of Belgium. In the northeast corner of France there's a city, in Longueuil, which is 15 minutes from the Luxembourg border and about the same distance from the Belgian border, and we're going to establish a team there that will go into these areas and will help to establish church planning teams. We also want to establish a training hub in the city of Tilburg, netherlands, that can reach into the nation of Flanders and help in church planning efforts there.
Speaker 2:Flanders is the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. It has 7 million people that's about 60% of the Belgian population, and there are only 40 or so some of the churches in that part of Belgium, and each church averages about 15 people as well. The pastors are nearing retirement age and we don't have any young Belgian pastors that are in the mix to come up and to take those churches, so there really is an urgent need for renewal amongst church planting in Flanders.
Speaker 3:And you know, we could also highlight the need in the nation of Luxembourg, this small nation that has an outsized influence on the rest of Europe. One quarter of one percent of Luxembourgers know Jesus personally, and it's considered to be social suicide to even become an evangelical believer or to join a church, so there's a great need for church planning in this nation. We haven't had any personnel there for the last 16 years. These are places that have not been destinations for people. Even in the wars they were places that were overrun. If people tried to get somewhere else to London, to Amsterdam, to Paris and you know, because they've never been anybody's destination, they become a spiritual desolation and we're asking God that he would put these places as destinations for missions on people's hearts, so that we can see the tide turned and Jesus glorified and people come to Christ and the church flourish and the kingdom of God advance.
Speaker 2:We're excited to get back to this region of the world, to Benelux. That we feel like has a huge impact not only on our area but on Europe as a whole, and we're asking God to raise up a new generation of workers that will come and be trained how to love secular people and how to plant the church in Benelux life.
Speaker 4:So good morning, cornerstone. It's wonderful to have a name like Cornerstone, because that's what you were to us, a cornerstone of our financial prayer partnership, as you first sent us out 30 years ago. Continue to be that for us. For those of you who had to go Siri, where is Benelux? We don't know where it is. Don't worry, we're going to talk a little bit about what that means. But, man, we're so grateful for your prayers. I want to encourage you that, as you invest in praying for nations, what God can do, as you have gotten behind us the last 15 years we've been in France have gotten behind us.
Speaker 4:The last 15 years we've been in France. We're seeing some amazing things happen. We were at a conference just a number of months ago and it was aged 18 to 30-year-olds across France in our Assembly of God churches. There were 6,500 that came to that conference and a challenge was given, because the Assemblies of God in France has a vision to plant a thousand churches in the next 10 years, and so they know they need these young people to be involved. And they gave the challenge and said all of you who feel like God is speaking to you, to give your life and your future to plant the church in France, 1,500 came and bowed at the altars to give themselves to that cause. That just doesn't happen except when we pray for God to move, and God is moving in France. And so just don't doubt at all that when you invest in prayer on a Sunday, when maybe a missionary's photo is put on the screen, and we pray for France or another nation across the world, god listens and he takes those prayers and invests them in transformation and change, wherever he's at. So thank you so much for that. It's great to be here. Thank you, pastor, jay and Celeste, for your friendship and for the ability to be here. We're the goods.
Speaker 4:If you've not been here before and or met us before, people say I don't know your last name and I'll say, good, and I don't make too many friends that way, but I know you're friends because you guys are partnering with us. But people will also ask they'll say, hey, how is the radiation in Grenoble? And we'll say, well, with our best glowing smile we'll say, well, that's actually Chernobyl, but Chernobyl's pretty good. But you know what? I know that we're geographically challenged and I would just venture to say that our greatest obstacle in the church and as believers, is not geography, it really is optometry. And I'm going to talk this morning about our vision and what God wants to speak to us about our vision. You know we're getting older. I just had a birthday, I just turned 60 not too long ago and you know, dean and I talk about our changing bodies and she said I can't read the words on the shampoo bottle anymore and I'm like that's nothing. I was stopped at an intersection and waited for 15 minutes for a hedgehog to cross the road before I realized it was a pine cone.
Speaker 4:So you know, the reason why we are here today and we're focusing once again on this third week of Kingdom Builders Sunday is because something happens to our vision and we need to be reminded to see things more clearly that maybe have gotten out of focus, or the Lord really wants us to see and to understand, and that's why we're here today. And the Lord was needing to change Paul's vision at one moment in his ministry and I want to talk about that as we begin the sermon this morning. But it's found in Acts, chapter 16, verse 9. And it says During the night, paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him come over to Macedonia and help us, and after Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. So I want to invite you on a journey this is the journey that Darlene and I are on that's very similar to what God was doing in Paul's life, and maybe that you join us as partners in this ministry, that you would also allow God to maybe change your vision and help him, to help you to see what he wants you to see. So we're going to have a little spiritual eye exam. Don't worry, I'm not going to blow air in your eyeballs or make you say you know A or B, a or B, which do you see? No, we're not going to do that this morning, but we want to talk about three kinds of vision Eyesight, insight and foresight. So the first thing we're going to talk about is eyesight, and the question is are we seeing what God wants us to see?
Speaker 4:I got a call just a few months ago from a man named Vincent Vincent in English, but he's a French guy and he told me his story. He said the reason I'm calling you Mark is I got your name from a friend at my church and I know you're a missionary in France. And he said I came here to America when I was 24 years old. I was raised in an atheist home, I'd never been in church, I'd never heard about Jesus my entire life. And he said I found myself in a college group, a Chi Alpha group in Washington DC. And he said and I ended up giving my life to Jesus. Since that time I've gotten married, I joined a church, I've got a ministry where he works for United Airlines. He said I have a very fulfilling life.
Speaker 4:But he said the Lord's been speaking to me and showing me and reminding me of what it was like back when I grew up in France. And he said the Lord's been speaking to me and showing me and reminding me of what it was like back when I grew up in France. And he said here in Washington. He said I can walk out of my door in the suburb that I live in and walk down almost any street and I'll probably find a church on some corner. He said there's radio stations, there's bookstores. He said the gospel can be accessed everywhere.
Speaker 4:But he said back where I grew up in northern France. He said I never met one Christian. I didn't know there was a church. And he said the Lord is convicting me that I've got to go back to France. He said, mark, I'm in my 50s, my kids are out of the house. I don't want to go back. That's the last thing I really want, he said, because I love my life here but I can't escape the fact that all of my people back home, they don't have the same opportunity.
Speaker 4:You know a great missiologist pastor named Oswald Smith. He said years ago. He made this bold statement. He said none of us have the right to hear the gospel twice until everyone has heard it at least once. And the reason why he was able to make that statement was because he understood the character of God, that God is just and fair and he loves everyone the same. But he also knows that God said in his word that he wants all men to be safe. He wants them all and to come to knowledge of Jesus Christ. So because God is fair and he loves them all, that means that he's fair with his opportunities. And so in our world, where there are places without access, these are the places that God is looking at, that God is seeing and he wants us to see what he sees.
Speaker 4:And this is what God was doing in Paul's life. He was showing him, and you know what? Paul was doing good things At this moment in his ministry. He was going church to church, to the churches that he had planted and turned over to other pastors, and he was having a fulfilling ministry. His ministry was a raging success, and it wasn't that he was doing bad things or wrong things, but God was saying Paul, you're not doing strategic things. Why? Because what he was doing, if you read earlier in the passage, in verse 4 and 5, it says as they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles in Jerusalem about things like food sacrifice to idols or circumcision, or should we eat blood? Or what about the gospel to the Gentiles? And so Paul was faithfully going around correcting problems of practice among the churches, which was an important thing. He was teaching and all of that.
Speaker 4:But the Lord was saying Paul, I want to open your eyes to not just the problems of practice, but the problems of presence. There's this place called Macedonia, where they do not have access to my name. They've never heard my name. Macedonia was a military buffer zone. It was a piece of land that, basically, was there under Roman control in order to keep his enemies further away from them as possible, but it had no other strategic purpose. No one went to Macedonia for any strategy. And you know what? Benelux, where the Lord has called us to, is exactly the same. It is a military buffer zone that's been overrun in times of war. No one goes to it, no one knows about it, no one cares about it.
Speaker 4:And the Lord spoke to Darlene and I, just like he spoke to Paul, and said Darlene and Mark, I want you to lift your eyes from the important things that you're doing in France and I want you to use your voice and your role about a people that you have not seen, but I want you to take a look at. They've been overlooked, but I'm looking over them and I want you to see what I see. And so for you this morning. You know, as you've heard these messages, these last few weeks, you may have been carrying in here your own burdens of things that are super important, things that are on your agenda, that are weighing on you. It could be just trying to pay your mortgage or raise your kids in this culture. It could be taking care of sick parents. It could be just trying to make ends meet, you might be dealing with medical problems, or there could be a care of sick parents, it could be just trying to make ends meet, you might be dealing with medical problems, or there could be a host of things that you're carrying and it's so hard in those moments when our needs seem to be so great in our eyes and taking up and dominating our focus, to come and to hear a missionary talk about an area of the world that you know we could really all maybe care less about. But here's my challenge to you this morning is, in the same way that our eyes were focused on and Paul's eyes were focused on, some important things, the Lord said now it's time to shift your focus to something I want you to see. And would you be open this morning to say, lord, will you show me anything that you want me to begin to see and to envision and to put my focus on that are strategic in your eyes? That's what it's like to be focused on.
Speaker 4:So Paul received a new vision. You know this happens at day, night and day. Paul's first vision was on the road to Damascus and Jesus appeared to him and changed and revolutionized the direction of his life. His second vision was to show him a vision of heaven and he went out after that vision and went to Arabia and was there schooled and instructed by God for his future ministry as an apostle. And now, a third time, he sees a new vision to change his direction even again. And I can't help but think how, for D'Aline's and my life, that was where we are at, when the first time that we got a vision of something was when a missionary to Bangladesh came to my church when I was nine years old and I saw the slides of the civil war in Bangladesh in the early 70s and the Lord touched my heart as I saw that need and I gave my life to go to Bangladesh. And the same missionary came to Dalene's church that same year. We lived 400 miles apart and didn't know each other until we got to Bible school and realized through the same missionary's ministry that we were called to Bangladesh. So we thought that we would go there for the rest of our lives and that's where Pastor Celeste met up with us and we served together there.
Speaker 4:And then we were invited to go to Europe to teach a course on reaching Muslim students. And while we were there at this seminary, where a conference was held during the summer, in our class was a man who was a school teacher. He was French, but he was teaching way down in the Indian Ocean Basin, in Reunion Islands. He'd come all that distance to take our course and he was gonna go back. And at the end of the course we took a time of prayer where we were praying for each other and he had the boldness to. As he laid hands on us, he felt he had a word for us and he said Mark and Deline, I don't know how to say this, but what I get is this picture of you guys trapped in a spider's web and it's going to be very, very dangerous and difficult, but God's going to deliver you and it's going to be followed by green pastures. Well, have you ever wanted to take half of a word from God where you just said, well, yeah, I like raise your hand? Have you ever wanted to just say nah? We didn't know what it meant. We left there and God gave me this dream about Grenoble, france, and we were going to leave Bangladesh and go to Grenoble, and it was like how in the world.
Speaker 4:We went back to Bangladesh and what we didn't know was that the church planting school that we had established had been infiltrated by an Al-Qaeda terrorist. But it was revealed in a dream. I had a dream about this young man had a beard and then suddenly he changed and he morphs and his eyes change and he's looking at me very angry and with hate in his eyes, and he changes back and it's this young man that's in our school and we love him. His name's Shafiq, and I can't make sense of it. And then I wake up from the dream and when I go down to confront Shafiq, he confesses and he says I'm not who you think I am. We were plotting to destroy this place and to kill everyone here, but he said I was visiting my grandfather. I told you I was visiting my grandfather in the hospital, but I wasn't. I was visiting my leader and I was calling off this attack because I know you're not enemies of Islam and man. Our life was just thrown into turmoil and we're like this is the spider's web and maybe France is green pastures, and we fasted and prayed and God changed the direction of our life. So we stepped out and we went to France.
Speaker 4:And now, 15 years later, another vision, another dream, another focus to say I'm calling you to a people that you had no idea about and I want you to go there. So this is where God has us, where he wants to change our eyesight and help us to see. And for you, you know, what is it that God may want in you to see? I mean, it could be that he's speaking to you about a nation. You've had different missionaries from Thailand and from other parts of Europe come through and you've seen some videos and it could be.
Speaker 4:The Lord is calling you, but for most of us, he wants to talk to us about what we're not seeing. Right here in Avondale, right here in the valley, wherever we're at. It could be a vision of someone that's just in the cubicle next to us at work. It could be of our neighbor across the street. It could be a vision of someone that's just in the cubicle next to us at work. It could be of our neighbor across the street. It could be of a family member who we have just thought. You know they're so hard and far away and are least likely to accept Jesus. You know he wants maybe to share your faith, to reach out, to try to witness or to show compassion. He may be speaking to you about that.
Speaker 4:I just want to encourage you that oftentimes we don't see what God sees. We need to trust, like Nestor, who came into our church and he was a refugee from Venezuela. He was trying to get into university but didn't have any money, had no means, and as he came to our church that we had planted right next to the university and invited by a friend, he ended up accepting Jesus and then he got into university and he had his doctorate in robotics. And today Nestor, as a citizen of France, is working for a company and he has a Bible study in his home, where God has gifted him with this ability, with apologetics, and he explains the gospel to some of the most scientific, doubting minds of our city. And you and I would have looked right past Nestor, not seeing him to be strategic or someone that God would use in that way, but God saw and we need to ask God to help us. Lord, help me to see what you see. The second thing that he wants to correct about our vision is our insight. He wants to give us insight, not just what you can see, but can you feel what God feels about, what he wants you to see.
Speaker 4:This is what was happening to Paul. In verse nine it says a man of Macedonia was standing and begging him. This word beg comes from boiteo in the Greek it's a military term. It's not just please, it's a pleading, it's like an SOS with two exclamation marks in the Greek language. Basically, this man was a representation of a spiritual need in Macedonia and he was not just begging, he was pleading. Literally, he was saying it's urgent, you've got to come, it's desperate, please come and help us. And this is something not just that Paul saw, but he felt the urgency of this need and that was compelling him to come to the rescue.
Speaker 4:You know there's so many needs in our world, in the Ukraine, in Israel, in Gaza, you know in other places where there are conflicts going on, where there's been earthquakes and rubble, in Thailand and in Myanmar and you know we see it on the screens and so often there's so many needs that our heart can't have compassion for at all. How do you determine where the priorities of needs are? Well, I want to talk to you about the need in Europe. The need in Europe is, you might think well, years ago, centuries ago, europe already had the gospel, yeah, but so did places like Syria and North Africa, which were the places of the early church, places like Alexandria, egypt, where the Browns were. You know, it doesn't matter that they had the gospel, it's just what's going on right now, where there's lack of access and the Lord was showing us and wanted us to feel what the Europeans feel, what French people feel.
Speaker 4:We knew there was a need, we knew he was calling us, we went and he showed us, but it wasn't until we started sitting around the table with French people and hearing their fears and their dreams and their doubts and their hurts and their bitternesses, just like Katie, who was working with us on our team and she used to work with Chi Alpha in Louisiana and she became a student to reach students in France and she's in her 30s, but she had to learn a new language. You know Gen Z speaks a new language. You know that, don't you? They talk in slang and stuff we don't understand, and so she was learning their language, dressing like them and inviting them into her apartment, and she spent a year with a young girl named Julie. Julie was one of the many that she was inviting into her home.
Speaker 4:But Julie knew that Katie was a believer, a Christ follower, and she said to her from the very beginning Katie, I don't believe in your Bible, don't invite me to church. I will never, ever believe in the God you believe in, so don't even try. But Katie just kept loving Julie, inviting her in, and over coffee and over meals and on hikes, she began to listen and to feel what it was like to grow up as Julie in France and understand where she was coming from and to hear her heart. And through that process of being able to feel what Julie felt and understand Julie, that it was just a few weeks ago that Julie called up Katie and said Katie, let's go on a hike, bring your Bible, because I want to study it with you and if I'm ever going to become a Christian, I want to become one just like you.
Speaker 4:There's something about when we take time to feel what God feels about the people around us that makes a difference in their life. And so, as we look at Benelux, you know, I remember when there was a young woman in France who she had been suicidal, and her roommate asked if we would talk to her. And so we did, and I remember, as she sat there at the cafe, she positioned herself outside so that she could run at any moment in case it got too weird for her to be around these two pastors. And as we talked to her, we started to try to give her a Bible and talk to her about church and all Well. We found out later that she had taken another attempt on her life, so we went to visit her in the psychiatric hospital of Grenoble. We thought we were going to a building, but what we ended up going to was a compound, and in this compound there were building after building after building, four stories high, all of them full of people that were the worst of the worst cases of psychosis harm to self and others, observation having to be restrained, and it was just. It was rife with people and we were like, oh God, in this one city there's this many people that are under this effect. And here's what happened.
Speaker 4:France is one of the largest consumers of psychotropic drugs to treat mental illness in Europe, and what France did was, a couple hundred years ago, they kicked God out of the country and they said we want nothing more to do with God, nothing more to do with religion. And when you and they replaced God with self. Basically, reason is God. That's the enlightenment. France is ground zero for the secular movement that replaces faith in God with just trusting yourself. And that's all you can trust just me. All I've got is me. All I believe in is me. And it's literally crushing people. They can't bear the weight. We were never designed to be God. We were never designed to wear the weight of having to be God in our lives, and it's literally crushing people to death.
Speaker 4:And if we could hear a European say, come over, they wouldn't be saying hey, hey, come on, there's a need here too. It would be an SOS with two exclamation marks Please, you've got to come. It's desperate. We don't know what to do. We're about to lose all of our hope, and many of them don't have access to a church. They don't have access to a believer. They don't know someone who knows someone, who knows someone who even has the audacity to believe that God even exists, let alone believe in Jesus. And if we could hear and feel their call, it would be please come and help us.
Speaker 4:And the last part of our vision that the Lord wants to correct maybe this morning, is foresight, the ability to know what to do about what we see. And the question for us this morning is will we step across the barriers? In verse 10, it says the man of Macedonia said come over. So we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia. Concluding See, here's the thing they heard this invitation and they concluded they made a decision that God had called them to do something about it. God had not only opened Paul's eyes and touched his heart, but Paul knew that. Now, as a result, I have to move my feet and I've got to take a step and do something about it. This is foresight knowing what we're called to do, looking at all the good that I could give my time, attention and invest my finances in, and realize there are some things that are not just good but they're urgent and they're critical.
Speaker 4:When my dad was dying of cancer, we were missionaries in Bangladesh and we knew that he had cancer was terminal. We were trying to keep a pulse on how he was doing and we finally rushed home because we knew he was getting bad. When I first walked into the room where he was, he was on oxygen and he was skin and bones and he was weak and we had a number of moments of reunion. And it wasn't long before my dad kind of sheepishly said, mark, I don't know how to ask you this. But he said there's just some things around the property ask you this. But he said there's just some things around the property and in my personal affairs that I don't have the strength to do and your mom doesn't know how to do them. And he said I got a list. Would you be willing to help me? And I said, dad, absolutely, and it'd be the joy of my life to help you. I mean the least I could do, give me the list. And the Lord reminded me of what it was like when I was a teenager, growing up, on a Saturday morning, when my dad had a list and said, mark, I want you to do, I want you to wash the car, I want you to mow the lawn. I want and I want you to know at that moment't, dad, it'd be the joy of my life Give me the list.
Speaker 4:What was the difference? The difference was time was getting short and there was something weighing on the heart of my father. And I think that if we would pause this morning and realize that it's not just about statistics and needs or, you know, challenges and all that we've heard. But this morning, if we would listen and listen to the heart of our Father, is that time is getting short and as we go further and further into time, when he's going to return more and more, there's going to be one strategic thing that weighs on His heart the most, more and more. There's going to be one strategic thing that weighs on his heart the most and that is not he loves us, but we're in the fold. If you know Jesus, you're his, but there are so many that have not yet heard, so many who don't yet know, and that weighs on his heart, and that weighs on his heart and he wants us to, to, to, to, to, to seize our hearts.
Speaker 4:And so this morning, just as Paul was asked to step across, literally it says come over. It literally means to step over a border or to push through a barrier. And so, as Paul got this vision of Macedonia, he was in Troas and there's a body of water between him and Macedonia. This is Europe. It was his first opportunity to go. No one was going to Europe. Europe was not strategic at that time. In order for him to obey, he had to cross a border, maybe face some Roman officials and explain why he was trying to get into that country and he had to overcome.
Speaker 4:And for you and I, for us to often do what God wants us to do, whether it's to pray and to be more of an intercessor for the nations and the needs of missionaries and the needs of nations, it may be to go where we have to, like, apply for a passport, and we have to, you know, raise money and we have to take that step of faith and lead family, like many missionaries do. It might be that our part is to give, our part is to invest our finances and for many of us, there's a barrier there. The barrier would be you know, I've got a budget, I've got limitations. You know the things that have happened in the past few days with the stock market, the insecurity of what's going on around, real barriers that might be there and the Lord is saying listen, I want you to step across the barriers and trust me, because if you will, I'll supply, I will provide for you, I'll be there, I'll back you up. I want to encourage you with this story as we close.
Speaker 4:Remember the school teacher from Reunion Islands who had a word for us Spider's web. Well, he went back to Reunion Islands, to his wife, who was Reunion A's, and he said I think, as I spent time at that conference, the Lord was calling me into full-time ministry. I'm supposed to leave my job as school teacher, we're supposed to go to Brussels to that very seminary and I'm supposed to study there. And his wife's first response was you're crazy. All she could see were the barriers and the borders they would have to cross and the lines they'd have to step across and the obstacles that were there. She said you know what? We can't afford it. I'll never get a visa. They don't just hand out visas to me like that. You're French but I'm not. And we got kids and a career, and what are you talking about? But as they prayed together, she felt convinced as well. The Lord was calling them, and so they stepped out in faith and as they did, and they crossed that border into Belgium. Do you know what God did? God paid all their tuition, god gave them a car, god gave them favor, god helped them to study and he graduated with his degree, became a pastor and the church he went to where he was the assistant pastor. It was years later that that pastor retired and he became the senior pastor Sounds like a familiar story. And then, in 2020, he was elected by all the pastors in the Belgian Assemblies of God to be their leader and their superintendent.
Speaker 4:The same year that God asked us and we were chosen and asked to be area directors for Western Europe, where our role would change from just being centered on France to now Belgium, netherlands, luxembourg. And do you know what? Today, gerald Meyer and I meet a few times a year at that seminary. We're on the board together. We strategize about reaching Belgium for planning churches. In the very room where he put his hands on us and had that prophetic word, I'm telling you, as long as the Lord is speaking and we're seeing and hearing what he wants us to do, there's no border that we have to step across, that he is not going to be there with us and enable us to do what he's called us to do. And we've seen his faithfulness and I'm telling you there's nowhere that Daly and I would not go, and there's nothing that we would not do, because for the past 30 plus years, we've seen his hand of favor and provision again and again and again.
Speaker 4:So this morning, I just want to invite you. Invite you to join us, because you know the easiest thing for Delia and I would be to stay in France. We know the language. We live in a beautiful city. He's calling us to go to this place where, you know, it's gray and it's flat and it's not beautiful and it's small and it's everything. The place we're at is not and it's new and I just turned 60 and I'm getting grayer and I'm getting grayer and I'm getting greater. But you know what? It's not time to retire, it's time to just say okay, lord, at this section in my life, no matter what's going on, what do you say? What do you see? What do you want me to feel? And if we'll let him do that in our life, I'll tell you what it'll take you on an adventure, but you'll never regret it. Will you join us on this journey? We pray for you this morning, father.
Speaker 4:I pray for all of our hearts today, lord, in this atmosphere that we live in of a lot of change and increasing uncertainty and, lord, increasing needs. So I pray for our hearts. I pray for the hearts of this church that has stepped up and stepped out in so many ways, through Mercy House and through supporting needs, both here at home and around the world, and they've done such an amazing job in partnering with you. And yet, lord, there are some that still are you're wanting to speak to. About their part, maybe a new step of faith, maybe stepping in for the first time to trust you for something that really seems impossible. That might really seem, maybe not very logical.
Speaker 4:But, lord, we don't deal with logic and we don't deal with possibilities. We deal with the God of the impossible and the God, lord, who speaks, and what you say comes to pass. And you're able and you're trustworthy and I pray, oh God, that you would speak to hearts. If anybody here is feeling convicted about going and to go to the nations, I pray, oh Lord, you would empower them and help them. Lord, give them a vision, give them assurance of what you're saying. If someone is being called here, lord, to give out of their finances to the faith promise in a new way, I pray that you would strengthen them and empower them, lord, to do that. We ask for your help and your strength. Help us to see, help us to feel and, lord, help us to have the courage to do what you want us to do.
Speaker 1:In Jesus' name, amen, can we have a hand of appreciation for Pastors Mark and Dailene. Wow, wow, man, what a challenge, what a challenge, what a blessing to be challenged to be those that stretch and trust the Lord to step over those boundaries. You know we've been talking about from the beginning of this year that we want to go after the deep things of God, that he has a plan and a purpose for each one of us, that he values us and that we, uniquely, are his. And as he speaks that over us, it also means that he's challenging us uniquely to be obedient to what he calls us to do. And so that challenge is in front of us and how we would say yes to him In this season, right now. How are we going to say yes to God? And I want to challenge you today, as we are those who are looking towards kingdom builders, that we would participate together. You know I already talked about how Celeste and I, how we've already started to stretch in that area and we want to give you the opportunity today to respond. And if you'd like to partner with Barker Daily, you can just put right on there Europe Today, as you give to missions, and it'll go towards them and towards what they're doing in church, planting across that whole region. But we also wanna make a challenge to you.
Speaker 1:We've been praying over a few weeks about what our faith promise would be, and I wanna challenge you that you would go and, during this song that we have coming up, that you would fill out your faith promise and you would turn it in and you'd say, lord, as you would enable me to do so, I want to be able to give this amount to missions this year, if it's weekly or monthly or however you like to designate it, but that it would be a thing no one's going to come looking for, that this is something between you and God. But what it does is allows us, as we have missionaries calling us all the time, many that we know personally, and they're saying, hey, can you partner with us? Hey, we have a need that it's urgent that we get out. Can you help us? And I gotta say, hey, we will, as we're able to do so and this is how we're able to do so is we step up and we're able to give so that others may know the love of Christ. So, and we're able to give so that others may know the love of Christ. So, as we head into this song, let me ask you to fill this out. You'll turn it in the back. We're going to be tallying these so we can give you a number of what the total charge has been of what people have said. Hey, we're going to make this faith promise to the Lord, but let me challenge you to do that in this next few minutes, you prayerfully consider what God wants to do in and through your life.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're here and you're hearing Mark talk about being willing to give up everything they know to go and to tell others about the love of Christ, but you yourself, you have not yet embraced Jesus. Today is your opportunity to do so. You have to answer the question of have you embraced Jesus? See, for each of us that are Christ followers, that's what we've done, is we've said yes to Jesus. We say Lord, I believe you are who you say you are, lord, that you came, and you came and empty yourself of glory to be a sacrifice for all people for all time. That's why the cross is such a powerful symbol for us, because it's the place where Christ went and he gave his life for us. He took my mistakes and my sin and my brokenness and yours and he took it to the cross and he paid for it once and for all. And when we come to Jesus by faith and we say, lord, we know we can't earn our way into this relationship. But by faith, lord, I accept these. Can't earn our way into this relationship, but by faith, lord, I accept these things that you've done on my behalf, the grace, the love, the forgiveness that you give to me. Lord, I ask that you would forgive me. I ask that you would become the Lord of my life. Lord, I ask to start a new relationship with you. Friends, that's what it means to start a new life with Christ. That's what it means to be saved.
Speaker 1:Apostle Paul, he writes to the church at Rome. He says this because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified. With the mouth one confesses and is saved. Friends, today is your day. It's your opportunity to say yes to Jesus.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna ask everyone in the room if you just stand to your feet right where you're at and just bow your head, be ready to respond to what God wants to do. If you're online, wherever you are, take a moment, take a pause, be ready to let God work in and through your life, as we've been talking about this here today. And if that's you, you've never made a decision to follow Jesus. Today, you wanna make that decision in your life. Or maybe you have made a decision in the past, but you haven't been living it and you need to make that recommitment to him, saying Lord, please, please, forgive me of my sin. I want to recommit my life to you to live for you as heads are bowed here in the room. If that's you, you say Pastor, I just want to be remembered in that prayer. If you just raise your hand right where you're at, just indicate to me that that's you make. You want to make that today. Thank you, god.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna ask everyone to pray this prayer out loud after me. Lord, thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending. I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me of my sins. I surrender my life to you. In Christ's name, I pray Amen, amen, amen.
Speaker 1:Friends, we rejoice that you make a decision to follow Jesus today. The hands that are raised in this service the first service, even online Friends. We rejoice with you, hey, if you're with us here in person, connect with us in the back. We want to put materials into your hand so that you can be successful in living this life after Jesus. You can even do that at the cafe. Well, during this song, we have this opportunity to fill out your faith promise. Celeste and I do that in the first service and fill it out and you'll hold on to the blue part, but the white part you'll turn into our team in the back, just so we can tally those, and we'll actually put it in your giving profile so you can see where you're at on the app or online as you give to the Lord. But let's just pray and ask the Lord to move upon our hearts that we respond during this song. We'll open up this altar to you if you want to draw near to the Lord as well.
Speaker 1:Lord, we thank you so much for the word that was shared today, lord, and I thank you, lord, for heroes like Mark and Darlene, who are willing to say yes. They're willing to say yes and to keep on going after the things of you so that people will have the opportunity to hear about the gospel message. Lord. Today, lord, we ask that you would move by your spirit, holy Spirit, have your way in us, lord, that you would challenge us, stretch us, lord, that we would say yes to you, lord, and, as you empower us to do so, that we would give above our ties to missions, to kingdom builders, so that you will be made known, so that people have an opportunity to hear about your love and sacrifice for them. Lord, thank you for letting us be a part of this mission's endeavor. Lord, that we give beyond so that other people may know the love of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Lord, as we open this altar, we do so with an intentionality to go deeper after the things of God. We pray all this in the powerful name of Jesus Christ, amen, lord. We pray all this in the powerful name of Jesus Christ, amen, lord. We thank you so much for this opportunity to respond to you today. Lord. We thank you for what you're doing, lord, and drawing us near to yourself, lord, and speaking to us. Lord. We thank you for all that we know, lord, and that you are the God who loves us. He protects us and guide us, lord, even in the dark places. Lord, you do not forsake us, lord. We return back to you, lord, saying that we love you and we believe, lord, in what you want us to do and stretching over those barriers, lord, to say yes, so that we can respond and that others may know about the gospel message. We thank you for all these things. We pray this in your name, lord, jesus, amen.
Speaker 1:Friends, we celebrate that we have over $52,000 pledged to missions already, with more even to be turned in this next week. We're excited for that. Amazing, amazing things. You may be seated for just a moment. Let me encourage you in this that as we finish up the service today we have just announced it for a second, come back with a blessing, but that you would do this. You would grab a prayer card from Marky D'Aleen, put it in a place that you'll see it, maybe on your fridge, somewhere you go too often and then pray for them and lift them up before the throne, amen.
Speaker 5:How many of you were blessed by the word this morning? Yeah, thank you, mark. Thank you, d'aleen. My prayer is that Easter is coming up it's just a couple weeks away and you need to invite someone. There is a colleague, there is a neighbor, there is a family member, and you need them here. Pray for them, ask them to come, invite them. Most people come to church because you invited them, not because they see an advertisement somewhere on social media, but they come by personal invitation. So let them know. We have a Friday evening Good Friday service. It'll be one hour. It's a very, very special service that we have here, and then on Sunday morning we're going to celebrate a risen Savior, a risen King, and so we want you to invite someone. Bring them, save a seat for them, tell them I got a place right next to me for you and just see what God does in their life.
Speaker 1:Amen. Before we go, I want to pray this blessing over us today. The Lord bless you and keep you. Lord, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. Lord, lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Lord, I pray a blessing upon your church, your people. Lord, you empower us by your spirit to live your love out to those around us. We pray this in the powerful name that is Jesus Christ. Amen, amen. Know this. We love you very much here at Cornerstone. God bless you and have a great week.