Istrouma Baptist Church Podcast (Go Global)

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Syndication

Istrouma Baptist Church (BR)
Nov 13, 2022

==========
November 13 l Go Global
Welcome! We're glad you've joined us today for our Sunday morning worship service! For more information about Istrouma, go to istrouma.org or contact us at info@istrouma.org.

We glorify God by making disciples of all nations.
==========

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November 13, 2022 | Kambiz Saghaey
Go Global Sunday

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Direct download: IBC_20221113.mp3
Category:Go Global -- posted at: 12:00pm EDT

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Istrouma Baptist Church
Oct 18, 2020

==========
October 18 | Go Global (BR)
Welcome Back! We're glad you've joined us today for our Sunday morning worship service! For more information about Istrouma, go to istrouma.org or contact us at info@istrouma.org.  

We glorify God by making disciples of all nations.
==========

Update
Update:
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October 18, 2020
"Go Global"
Acts 13:1-4

Acts 13:1-4
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

See how the Holy Spirit sent out missionaries

Reactive Fasting

See the strategic choice of sending Barnabas

Revelation 7:9-12
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

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Good morning. My name is Clint. If you don't recognize me. And it's probably because I've got a beard on my face and shoes on my feet, because when I was here to stay from a, I often didn't know, were either won. And so as a new attributes that people were getting used to what I'm here to serve. But when me and my, and my family were serving overseas, we have been overseas for about two years. And particularly when we miss family, we miss friends. But when we come here to Istrouma, we particularly feel very special because we equate this with seeing family. 

We love you. And I'm kind of shaken right now. I don't think from stage fright, but just because I'm so happy to be at a store, a man I've been dreaming about speaking to you and reporting to you and how you've invested in us and how that's reaching the nations. So Istrouma from the bottom of mine and my wife's heart. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So this morning I have got 20 minutes. Okay. So this is going to go quick as, as the third eighth in line for Noah's art. 

And it's just started to rain. We are moving this morning. Okay. To get through this. Okay. So this morning we're going to be in acts 13. So if you wanna turn in your Bibles to acts 13, we'll have it on the screen. As if you don't have a copy in while you're finding your place to act 13, kind of laid down in the context of where we're at, because we're starting about halfway through the book of acts. Okay? So by acts 13, Jesus has ascended into heaven and the Holy spirit has sent the Holy spirit has been sent to equip the church from a ministry. 

Okay. Persecution. At this point, it's increased greatly. Okay. If you've heard the name, Stephen, he was a believer that was bludgeoned to death by stones for following Jesus. Okay. Christians, they fled from this persecution and they have been scattered all throughout the region and they have been forming churches where they've gone. Okay. Antioch where were looking at this morning? This is one of those cities. Okay. We're a church has been formed and the persecuted Christians have come together to form a church. Okay. So now let's read, we'll have it on the screen. 

Acts 13, one through four. Now there we're in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers Barnabas Simeon who was called Niger Lucius of Cyrene Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch and Saul in While. They were worshiping the Lord and fasting the Holy. Spirit said Set apart for me. Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. 

So being sent out by the Holy Spirit they went down to Seleucia and from there, they sailed to Cyprus, 

What's your name, 

Father, this, this record of your work and the first century Church I pray that you, that you can pick your heart's with how they operate on how they serve you. And we serve as a model for how we continue to strive in reach the nations or pray blessings over Istrouma as they, as they receive these blessings that they've turned them around to serve you further. Amen okay. So what we just wanted, this marks, the beginning of Paul's first missionary journey. 

Okay. After all these new churches have started from as a result of this lethal persecution. OK. And there were two observations that I want us to look at this morning from those four verses that we looked at the first is I want you to see how the Holy spirit sent out missionaries. Okay. How the Holy spirit sit on a mission is the heart of this church in Antioch, it beat for God's mission 'cause they were all together worshiping as you saw and Fasting together as one. 

Okay. So this is a service that they're having where they're coming together to worship. And, and through this coming together, they are praying. And so, like I said, we started halfway through the book of acts, but let me remind you of what has happened in the church since they've been praying. Okay. So in acts one, okay. We see that they prey in the upper room for 10 days and the Holy spirit comes and 3000 people are saved as a result of Peter's preaching. Okay. Acts four and five, they pray. And they were emboldened by the Holy spirit. 

And then we see there are nearly 10,000 believers in Jerusalem at this point. Okay. In some of those are the worst opponents to Jesus. And in his message that he brought was you have the, you have the priest and then you have Paul who we'll see later. Okay. And then acts 12. We see the church praying and God up in the prison to rescue Peter. And then God strikes down King Herod Agrippa, who was the lead persecutor at that time. And now in acts 13, where we are, we see the church pray and they send off Paul, the greatest missionary that we've known. 

If the award Jersey his number would be a retired today. So the Holy spirit sent Barnabas and Paul, as a result of their prayers, they, they were scent as a result of their prisons. This was the point that you have to see is the Holy spirit, responding to your prayer, not your responding to the Holy spirit. 

Okay. Samuel Chadwick. 

He was a Wesleyan minister who wrote this in his book and the path of prayer. And this was a great quote too, to reflect on in this importance of praise it's Satan, dreads, nothing but prayer. His one concern is to keep the saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, from prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, he mocks our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray 

Okay 

To worshiping, we see the next thing we see the church was Fasting and most of the world familiar with what Fasting is. And in this case, it's abstaining from food to drive our focus on our dependence on God. But what is peculiar here that we want to look at is when the church was Fasting okay. Because there was a drastic difference in when they fast it from the old Testament to how the church in Antioch right now is Fasting they are in Antioch. 

Okay. So let me 

I'll I'll tell you the story to illustrate the reference. I'll say in the old Testament. Okay. So I'm paraphrasing the book of judges specifically chapter 20. Okay. And if your familiar with the book of judges, this is dark history for God's people, the Israelites, and in Joshua, as a leader, he's just died. And at the beginning of the judges, OK. In his last thing, he was dying breath. He was saying, Hey, you need to obey God's law, obey the Torah. And part of his command was they needed to drive the Canaanites out of the promised land. 

Okay. But rather than this, this first command, rather than drive them, 

I'm out, they assimilated. 

So they allowed the outside influences of this surrounding culture to change them, to wear. They were indistinguishable with the world around them. Okay. They didn't drive out the Canaanites. They became just like the Canaanites in the Canaanites. They were worshiping idols and there were sacrificing children. Okay. So all this lead to a civil war within Israel, and many of the tribes of Israel have come together at this point that I'm paraphrasing. And there were at war with a tribe of Benjamin. Okay. And in Israel's army, there are 400,000 strong, okay. 

Day one have this battle against Benjamin 22,000 Israelites die. Okay. The people they went and they prayed asking God, should we go back? And should we fight again? And God says, yes. In the second day, 18,000 Israelites died. And the Israelites, they were really on their last leg. Okay. I mean, they have prayed. They were sincere about it to the point that they even cried and wept over it a little bit. And now they're asking 

God what do we do? Okay. 

No, the third night, when they were addressing God, they bring a whole army up and they fasted and they burnt sacrifices. And they did all of the things that they know that God likes. And on the third day, God gave them victory. And so set in motion, what I'll call Reactive Fasting. This is how they did it in the old Testament is the Israelites are in a, in an emergency. And they react to the emergency by Fasting as their last resort option. 

Okay. You see the Israeli, you see, those are the ones they repeat this process throughout the old Testament. Really beginning from this, this pair four is a story in judges to where this is their last act of desperation. Okay. And this is, this is similar. When you hear people who are in emergency themselves and they say something like, well, I've done. All I can do. All that's left to do is pray as though praying is their last act of desperation and not their first act of prep. 

Okay. 

The difference in how Antioch fast and in what we read in acts 13, and this is where the question of when they fast, it is really important because the church in Antioch, they proactively Fasting 

Because 

The church in acts 13 here in Antioch, they're at a point, a slight relief. Okay. In the next 12, just before this, the King a King Herod had just executed James and he's got Peter in jail that I referenced earlier in God has now struck there, a lead persecutor down here, they have free Peter. And now we see a church that is getting ready for mission. Okay. Barnabas he saw the mission field and he recruited Paul to come to Antioch to prepare. And before the church was sending them off before they sent them off, they go fast. 

The Israelites they use Fasting right. 

As a hail Mary in the fourth quarter with seconds left on the clock. But the church in Antioch, they use Fasting as their pregame warmup before they even went on a mission. The, the concept of when it's really, really stark and when they do it and, and this week Istrouma is about going, but Istrouma no one will go. If you do not pray and prepare for the Holy spirit to send them okay, I'm in Louisiana. And so I have to squeeze some French in here. 

A laissez Faire attitude is not going to reach the nations. Okay. In with this proactive prayer, with this proactive, Fasting the church. They did it together. Okay. Because look in verse two in your Bibles, it says as they were Fasting or worshiping the Lord, and Fasting the Holy Spirit said, OK. So the wording of this pronoun, it's not exclusive to just the leaders that were mentioned. 

This was for everyone because we see in acts 14, just after, at the end of the journey, they come together and they call the whole church together where they report on, on the success, how the Holy spirit works on the Island of Cyprus. And so you can say in the context, this was the whole church was all in, on sending Barnabas and Paul. So we must not saturate missions with individualism. This is not how the church did it in the first century. 

This is not our model for how we do it in the sermon. It would be untrue to save me and my family that we were simply on a mission trip for two years. When in reality, we were sent by you, you sent us, you discipled us our first discipleship before going overseas, was he read Istrouma you financially gave to us in a way that didn't have any stipulation that this would be an investment that would have returned yields back to yourself. This was a kingdom investment outside the walls of Istrouma. 

Okay. I'm making a slight semantic difference. And between going and being sent out. But it, the difference is sharp because there is no individualistic in mindset and going to reach the nations. Okay. The church nurtures and it disciples members from within to be sent out outside of these walls and out of this culture of prayer and discipleship, the Holy spirit will, will call upon you as a Church to send members locally, regionally, and internationally. 

So the church is intimately connected with those who go on mission, because it is a team effort of sending those people out so that you are so tightly bonded with those that are sent out there. Just like any other member of your church. Now just serving in another location. Cause the Holy spirit sent missionaries from the church as one where they proactively worshiped. And Fasting. So the second point is see the strategic choice of sending Barnabas okay. 

The church in Antioch, they were in a unique location at this point. So at this point in history, Antioch their third of importance in the Roman empire. Okay. So you've got Rome itself and then Alexandria, and now you've got Antioch. This was a major trading center. They had, 

They had a Seaport and So this diversity of all of these people being a hub there socially and culturally ethnically and linguistically diverse. The whole city is okay. So look back in verse one at your Bibles again, and I want you to see the people that are mentioned and the leaders in this Church okay. First you have Barnabas okay. Barnabas he's a Levi, right? And he's a native of the Island in the Mediterranean Sade called Cyprus. Okay. And he has been living through this persecution or responding to God's use of Stephen stoning to plant churches. 

Okay. So he's a first, second Simeon who was called Niger. So he was a believer of dark complexion, presumably from Africa somewhere because they were referred to him by the Latin word for black. Okay. Lucius of Cyrene he was possibly a friend of Simeon. That was from the North African city of styrene Manaen he was later described as to foster brother of heroine and the Anthropocene. Oh. And then you have solved who we knew as the Christian persecutor and after his conversion, he became known as Paul. He led the international church planting efforts and the first century, and he wrote the majority of the letters that you're holding and your new Testament Bibles today. 

Okay. So do you see the diversity of this church? Just from the few that are mentioned? Okay. You've got a beach boy fishermen from Island life. You've got two African men, someone on a royalty and dog to a Christian bounty Hunter worshiping in one church. And so it's, it's a lot with only the five that are mentioned. And if you count the rest of the Church members of that nature that are not mentioned, you're possibly looking at three continents and three to four languages represented just in this one body of believers. 

And, and I bring this up because I hope you see yourselves in this same predicament. Okay. Cause look at yourself, your, your already well-represented with English and American side and Spanish And the Holy spirit. He said to set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul and the church sent them to Cyprus coincidence. I think not Barnabas is from Cyprus. Okay. He's the one in acts four. He he's sold his field and I gave all of his money to the apostles for missions. 

And Barnabas was sent by the Jerusalem church to discover the rumors of the church. And Cyprus from the persecuted church planners at Barnabas. He shows up and he sees the work and he goes, and he finds Paul to share in the work they are in Cyprus, in his hometown so that they go to Antioch and they prepare for one year teaching in the church and writing and the church to send on mission back to Cyprus. So the church in Antioch, they sent two missionaries to Cyprus. One was native to Cyprus. 

One was foreign to Cyprus, it's a mission trip. They are not exclusively for those that are native or foreign to the location. But what I'm showing to show you is when you pair the two together, you traverse obstacles 

Better. Okay. 

So it took us about a year and a half overseas to pick on this in a way, a cultural blunder that, that we had just, I mean, natural personality, we would like to compliment people. You see something nice and you want to give attention to it and say, Hey, it's a good skill you've got. Or like, by example, you see a baby and your thoughts on that was the cutest baby I've ever seen. And you just want to tell the mom how cute the baby is. And we would give people these compliments, but we would sometimes kind of see some odd behavior like, Oh, well that's just acute as a baby I've ever seen. And, and the mom's like, yeah, 

Okay. And 

You're just going to have taken a back. And, and you're like, I'll just like elevate it like that. Just like some of that's a really good compliment or about your baby. And its almost like they've got a super strict cuteness, maybe judgments there's something. And it's like, I don't understand. And so, but not just for babies, but just on a whole string of compliments that we do. And we'd see weird, weird behavior from this. And then after about a year and a half, we come to learn about what has this cultural concept was all over the world. But our people really believe it in what's called the evil I, and this is that you can kind of a think of it as a karma, a system of beliefs to were they, if they get to much positive attention, then they, then there are more susceptible to this curves from the evil OD is going to like balance it out and bring the curses upon them in. 

So when you complement, not everybody, but it was a substantial portion of the people that are, Oh yeah, no, no, no, not really. And they're kind of like, and here I am not realized. And I picture of this evil eyes, like the evil eye have solver on and more door and here like Frodo is trying to sneak across and I'm just complimenting and like dancing around the sand, waving the flags, getting the evil eye to look at him. And I'm done that for a year and a half before I finally catch on. And I'm like, Oh man, if I had Barnabas with me, he would have been like, no Clint stomp, you have no idea what you're doing. You're making these people really uncomfortable right now because it was very intentional two work together. 

The church, the first century Church they sent payers or teams and missionaries to work together. And assuming you have to see the multicultural, ethnic, social enlisted, linguistic environment that you live in America, it's a nation of immigrants. And can you imagine saving your Indian neighbor and then you to go on mission together to India, think of that, the benefits of that kind of ministry partnership. And so particularly for you, I want you to see something unique and how God has equipped you. 

Istrouma for reaching the last in your area every year, the IMB, they put out statistical reports and they give values for the number of people and the number of professions of faith and the baptisms churches planted. Okay. So within the deaf affinity of the IMB, there were 69.9 million people, 1,534 of those deaf people die every day without knowing the Christ within that in the Americas affinity, that's the Mexico to the Southern tip of Argentina, 633.9 million people and 10,283 of those people die every day without knowing Christ two, six are taken from international reporting. 

So they're not the local context of right here in Baton Rouge and there's over 200 sign languages and there's many more languages than just Spanish that is South of us. But I want you to see this, to get a grasp of what is ahead of you, because if the diversity of your church is not unified, it will be like fighting with a hand tied behind your back. When you're engaging a diverse, Will you take the gospel to someone else? There's always going to be barriers and walls between you and them. 

Okay. There's always going to be a barrier between Doug packets and the barbershop that he wants to reach with the gospel. But if he brings somebody like Mike and with him, they may just reach that barber shop together. Okay. And I spent two years overseas studying the language and the culture and us still make dumb mistakes like complimenting babies and attracting the attention of the evil eye. I'm surrounded by seven different languages. And the almost all of them were entirely different than the one that I've I've learned. 

And my closest local friend who knows for languages where on a daily, no one of the seven is my closest partner in ministry. So Istrouma those of you that cannot sign the gospel to the deaf person. You know, you're not handicapped when you partner with somebody that can sign the gospel two, that deaf person, you know, in the same, those of you that cannot audibly share the gospel. 

You are not handicapped. When you partner with somebody who can audibly share the gospel. And this same principle applies when English or Spanish is your first language. Okay. When you're crossing that barrier between English and Spanish or vice versa, the diversity of believers in the church is not a progressive trophy for display. The diversity in the church is a gift from God use for communicating the gospel to a diverse world. 

And this is for me, if you would, let's stand together and we're going to close our time by praying this scripture over It, Revelation seven that For tells me the end result of God's mission. Okay. I will read the text in white and you as the church, you read the Text in yellow. After this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne. 

And before the Lamb clothed in white robes with Palm branches in their hands, in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb and the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. And they fell on their faces before the throne and worship God saying a man Blessing and glory and wisdom and Thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might be to our God forever and ever amen. 

A minister for a month. Let's continue 

Our focus this morning on going by saying this update from some of your members serving overseas and our city. There's only one Baptist Church for every 100,000 people. 100,000 people can fit into tiger stadium. When you see a tiger stadium, please pray for the millions of people and our city, the need remains great, but God is building his church. 

Even in the midst of this pandemic, two new Baptist churches performed in our city. This summer. One of these new churches now exists in an area of the city where no evangelical church has ever gathered before. Please pray for more churches to be planted in our city. Please pray for us that God would give us grace to continue to learn language, wisdom, and courage. 

Please pray for all the brothers and sisters and our city, the life-wise and the wisdom and purge. You might not be able to see the impact of your support with your own eyes or your support is extremely tangible in our lives, in the lives of our local friends, because of your giving. We were able to continue learning a new language Online even while our school remain closed. And now we can simply share the good news of Jesus Christ in this beautiful language, because of your giving. 

We've been able to purchase Bibles and gospel tracks to give to people in partnership with our local Church. Thank you for your prayers, encouragement and generosity. We love you. Istrouma 

To be recognized those voices. I know probably many of you here recognize the voices of our missionaries in Eastern Europe. And we sent them from a streamer in January, and they've experienced a lot of challenges as COVID hit their country as well, but even so we can see God working through them, using them to work with the local people, to plant new churches in their areas. They asked me repeatedly, please thank Istrouma for praying. Please think a stream of forgiving 'cause every time you give a huge portion of that goes directly to support our IMB missionary. 

So they thank you for giving so that they can be on the field, that they can provide resources for their local partners, and just keep working with these ministry opportunities. You can continue to give online or by text, or even as you leave this morning. So, Amanda, thank you all for being here. We are so happy you're we know that a lot of times people we'll have questions for people living overseas. So I just want to ask a couple of those questions and then give people the opportunity to, to respond to maybe the call of God has placed that on your life to become missionaries. 

So many of our families here at a parish at a streamer who have expressed to me their desire to go and to become oversees missionaries, but they're hesitant 'cause they have children. You have three small children, one on the way. So you know what its like to serve as a mom, especially in another country. Why would you encourage families to go, even though it is challenging? Well, honestly we went over with two kids and you have difficulties, no matter where you're at, you have difficulties here, you have difficulties they're they just might be different difficulties. 

So for me personally, I think the best verse that really encouraged me was the first Corinthians 10, 13, where it's talking about God never giving you so much that you can't handle the temptation. He's never going to tempt us beyond what we can handle. And so for me, that first holiday season, the holidays are really important to me. And I was really struggling. I was pregnant with our third, throwing up a lot, having a one-year-old and a three-year-old never felt like I could keep the house clean. And so I have that temptation to just be like, I can't do this. 

Like, I don't know if I can stay here. I think we might need to go home. I hit a wall with language, felt like I couldn't get any further. And that was when that verse was just so encouraging to me because it's like, God is not going to give me so much that I can't continue the call that he's called me to do with serving overseas in sharing the gospel with these people because others may not Go. And so for me, that was versus was really encouraging to let me know that God's going to help me through it. He is going to provide for me, whether it's through Clint, with helping while I was sick through teammates, through a language teacher that was really encouraging and helping giving me the other resources to study, it just really allowed me to See and to remind me of that, God is going to provide everything I need and that the temptation will never be so great that if I am truly called to go overseas, then God will provide everything needed for me. 

Yeah. I think she describes a lot of moms, right? I mean, you're going to struggle here or in there, so don't let going like a scare. You go to the point where you do not follow God obediently as a family on a mission. Thank you. Clint, give us an update. What is the Lord doing in your area? 

Yeah, I'm excited to put this question. Okay. So I mentioned earlier, like So at 14, they come back Barnabas and Paul, when they report back in the church on, on what's happened. And so this is something that I said was really, really healthy. I'm being cited about because like I mentioned, we're all invested in the us with no stipulation of that investment coming back to you, but solely go in to God's kingdom. And so if that makes me happy to come back, be like, Hey, here's a little bit that's that's been going on. And so we a, we were there for a little, a little over two years in that first term has really focused on culture or language acquisition. And we were able to get an advanced, a level of the language there in that first term, which we were proud of. 

And that really advance us to get involved in a lot of the cool things that are happening. The there's several, a hundred thousand people that, that we live among and we know have less than 10 believers. And most of them were scattered. They don't know each other, some of these believers, other than a foreigner that's come in like us. They've never met another believer in their lives. And so they're very, very isolated. And so its kind of hard for me for church planting when people are so spread out like this, but in one particular village we have three young men all in their twenties, they're close, close to the agents. 

So we connect really well. This is like in, in 20 years that we've not seen anything like this where we have three people in one location, it's like, Oh you all get together and you all get started. You know? And so it's, it's a very, very, very exciting. So for us in particular, that's where we read a really long for you to partner with, with, with us in prayer and these people that we work with and particularly in this village, because God has, has really been working in a very dark place. And we've seen things that you just can't deny. This was the Holy spirit at work. 

So that's our, our quick report of how you've given to us and how the world was continuing to work with them. 

That was awesome. Yeah. We really want you to pray for our missionaries. Update Clint and Amanda have a prayer card scattered throughout the four year. And I know there are some on this back table here, but there's some at the welcome desk. Please grab the line before you leave today and put it somewhere. You can see it and just constantly remember them in prayer. Also remember our partners that are in Eastern Europe, in the middle East and the gins that aren't in the Americas. So last question, people, anyone may be called to be a missionary. 

They really don't know how to go about even beginning of the process. What advice would you give to them? 

You don't do it alone. I mean that was kind of 20 minutes of do it together. So that, that is so if, if, if you, this is something that your, your, even for the short-term long-term, if your, if you were feeling a sense that, Hey, maybe a little, it could be leading us on our hearts. Then don't hold on to that to a long cause the whole focus, the whole aim is to do this as a Church. So with that, if you are feeling a sense of it, Then talk to talk to your fellow church members, talk to the, your leadership and your church get connected. 

'cause you need to be appropriately discipled and loved on. And so you can be sent out in a healthy way and the support. So really, if that is something that's like, I mean, please, please, please, in a way, voice it a voice it to yourselves among yourselves and to your church and don't keep it to yourselves for sure. 

So if you are feeling that call to be an overseas missionary, even if you just think, Hm, maybe I want to explore it a little bit and see what that might look like. Clint and Amanda will be here after the service. I will be here. We would love to just talk with you and get you connected. And it, you know, it doesn't commit you to anything obviously, but we would love to just hear if God is calling you to that. And as a streamer, we would love to walk alongside you. I'm in that process of that as the way that you were going. 

So thank you for being here this morning. Let's give them a hand. Thank you so much. So everyone is not called to be in overseas missionary. We know that the majority of people aren't, but our mission field is still here. We have many opportunities in a stream of missions to go and make disciples. It's not a project missions. Isn't something that we do. Missions is who we are called to be. 

It is a life that we are called to live. So in 2020, all of our mission trips were canceled due to COVID. We're hoping that 2021 is different. So there are a list of opportunities. Trips are not scheduled yet that we will put that information out. So begin praying about it. If the Lord would send you on one of these short term missions, we also have things that are happening within our state disaster relief right now is our biggest opportunity to serve. William did not. No I was going to do this, but could you like stand up for me? 

People know who you are. This is William Davis. We need help in disaster relief. We we need people that can work chainsaws. We need people that can work rakes and shovels. If you are able to serve in any capacity and disaster relief, we need you to get involved. So they use our one time, one day trips. This week, we have a one week trip going out, but please sign up. You can text the word disaster to that number on the screen and you'll receive texts with every single trip. 

Update an opportunity that we have. And lastly, we want you to always be prepared to share the gospel. The Bible says always be ready and seasoned to share this truth. So we will have an evangelism training this Friday from six to 8:00 PM and Saturday from nine to 12, it's a two-part training. The first 50 people to sign up will receive access for 90 days to the Billy Graham, rapid response sharing hope in crisis training, you will become equipped to share the gospel in crisis with people that believe differently than you do is important in this political climate. 

I think to be able to share the gospel with different beliefs and thoughts, but we want to equip you and then we want to help you equip others. So sign up@istrouma.org, SLAs missions, go down to Go Global and sign up for that. And we would love to see you this weekend and we'll pray. And then we'll continue to worship the father in heaven. Thank you much for this day. Thank you for a day where we can celebrate what is happening around the world and just to learn about ways that we can join you in that work. 

You don't need us, that you allow us to walk with you and others is they reach the nations with your truth. God, in a moment, we were going to sing words and I pray that they aren't empty words were, were going to sing that this world is dying to know who you are in the world is dying to know who you are. And we're going to sing that, change our hearts in a way that only you can and make us more like Jesus. And it's going to be easy to just Mel, the words because we were here on a Sunday morning and they're not just words. 

I pray that they will be the cry of our hearts today. And always that you would remind us constantly missions is not a project. It's not an activity. It is who you have called us to be in this in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. 

Direct download: IBC_20201018.mp3
Category:Go Global -- posted at: 12:00pm EDT

Direct download: IBC_20191027.mp3
Category:Go Global -- posted at: 12:00pm EDT

This Lord’s Day we will celebrate “Go Global” Sunday.  It is our special yearly emphasis on taking the good news of God’s grace to the far corners of the globe.

 

The basis for our global goal is the grace of God in Christ.  Because we have come to know His grace experientially, we are motivated to give generously and go courageously till all the world has had an opportunity to experience the same gift.

 

William Borden was heir to his family’s massive wealth.  As a young man he was already a millionaire.  His parents gave him a trip around the world as a graduation present from high school.  He was sixteen. 

 

He went to Yale University and there impacted his campus powerfully for Christ.  He eventually surrendered his future to become a missionary to Muslims and to “go global.”  He renounced the wealth and comforts that could have been his and set sail. 

 

He never made it there.  He died at 25 years of age of spinal meningitis, contracted in Cairo, as he studied Arabic.  When the news of William Borden's death was cabled back to the U.S., the story was carried by nearly every American newspaper.  "A wave of sorrow went round the world . . . Borden not only gave (away) his wealth, but himself, in a way so joyous and natural that it (seemed) a privilege rather than a sacrifice" wrote Mary Taylor in her introduction to his biography.  He had written in his Bible, “No retreat, no reserves, no regrets.”  God wants us to live that way as well.  He wants us to “go global” because his grace is global.

Direct download: IBC_20171029.mp3
Category:Go Global -- posted at: 12:00pm EDT

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