Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast.
How do we know where to find answers to the toughest questions in life?
While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search and how do we discover
this truth?
Today, in this teaching podcast, John Metter, lead pastor of Cross City Church, takes a
specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth for the life we're searching for.
Well good morning.
We wish you to take your Bibles today and turn to Philippians chapter one today, Philippians
one.
I want to talk to you about completing the mission.
Most of you know that we've been in the book of Philippians for quite some time.
We finished Philippians four last week, but I'm jumping back into the first chapter today
because I want us to focus on just a few lines that are so important for us understanding
how to complete our mission.
By the way, why do we have a mission Sunday?
This is mission Sunday in case you haven't picked up on that yet.
The messaging is everywhere.
Hopefully you've got a mission booklet that's been handed out.
So in one hand have your Bible and the other have your mission booklet and maybe in the
back pocket a pocket book.
But all these things are going to be contributing to our mission and getting us the gospel
around the world.
But really why we have a mission Sunday is because this is at the heart of what we do.
What we do is not just simply gathering for worship and studying the scriptures and growing
together, but we also are about the mission of taking the gospel to people that haven't
heard the gospel yet.
Whether that be across town, another part of Ulysses or Dallas Fort Worth, whether that
be in another state, whether it be another nation or even the uttermost part of the world,
that is our mission.
So we're going to take some time and talk about what our mission is.
You know, if people are hungry, we know the mission is to get them food.
If people are thirsty, we know the mission is to get them water.
If people are lost, the mission is to get them the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We know that because we were once lost and then we're found, we were blind, but now we
see and we have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
So the mission is what we're talking about today.
And I'm going to ask that you stand with me as we have a reading of God's word beginning
in chapter one, verse three.
Paul is in this prison, riding to the church of Philippi.
If you remember, Philippi is the very first church on the other side of the Macedonian
vision.
Paul is in Troas and he sees the vision to come across, even though he's sought to go
different ways with the gospel, the Holy Spirit is sitting there, you can't go there, but
he sees this Macedonian vision, goes across the Aegean Sea and lands in a place that we
now know as Philippi.
And there the gospel began.
So this is the first church in Europe as the gospel goes westward and then northward and
eventually across to us.
Imagine for just a moment with me what that would be like if the gospel had have gone
the other direction instead of our direction and your life would be radically different,
I would suppose.
So I'm very grateful for the direction that God gave Paul.
And here it is at Philippi, he's riding back to the church now from prison.
Here he says this, verse three, I thank my God and all my remembrance of you, always
offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all in view of your participation
in the gospel from the first day until now.
For I am confident of this very thing that he who began a good work in you will perfect
it until the day of Christ Jesus.
It's an amazing passage.
Father, today I pray that you would give us all the insight we need, Holy Spirit, I pray
you would illuminate, shine light on this text so that we might know what we need to
know about our lives, about our mission and about you fulfilling that mission through
us.
Today help us to get our sights on others around the world that needs the gospel.
We ask this in Jesus' name we pray.
All God's people said amen.
Please be seated.
It might be tempting for you to ask me why do you keep coming back to the book of Philippians
and of course the Philippians book is a phenomenal letter.
It's just a short letter, just four chapters.
But in those four chapters are so many powerful principles for living life.
As a matter of fact, as I started this series earlier on in the book of Philippians, I took
time to walk through what I consider the top 10 verses in Philippians.
Have you ever ranked things like top 10?
Do you have top 10 list of football teams?
Of course that's different after yesterday.
Or a top 10 list of restaurants you eat at or a top 10 list of whatever it might be.
You all have a top 10 list.
I have a top 10 list of Bible verses that are in the book of Philippians.
And when I put this top 10 together, I realized in looking back that these are not just the
top 10 verses in the book of Philippians, but for some of us, these are some of our
favorite verses in the entire Bible.
Out of 66 books, this book has so many quotable verses that I want to remind you of some of
those just to appreciate the Word of God.
I'll put on the big screen here.
By the way, if you know these verses and if these verses mean something to you, when I
read them, I want you to read them out loud to me as well.
All right?
I'm not going to read all the verses, but I'm going to read the portion that's most
familiar with it.
For example, we just read verse 6.
It says, he who began a good work and you will complete it even to the day of Christ
Jesus.
But if you keep going in Philippians chapter 1, you'll come to verse 21.
Read this one with me if this is one of your favorites.
For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
Man, I don't know how many times that's been meaningful to me.
Earlier this year when I went through a bout with cancer, that's the first verse that came
to my mind and it became very powerful to me during that time.
Or Philippians chapter 2 verses 10 and 11, everybody knows this one.
At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
You know that verse well.
What about Philippians chapter 2 verse 13?
It is God who is at work in you both to will and to do His good pleasure.
Often when we ask ourselves, what is God doing around me?
Well that's what's happening right there.
God is working in you to bring about a great result.
What about Philippians chapter 3 verse 10?
That I may know Him, Paul said, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of
His suffering.
And then Philippians 3 verse 14, I press on towards the goal or the prize of the upward
call of God in Jesus Christ.
Philippians 4, 4, say this one with me, rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice.
Man, that's the perfect perspective in life.
We talked about that a few weeks ago.
And then Philippians chapter 4 verse 6, this is the prescription for us when we're anxious.
Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication.
With Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
Philippians 4, 13, everybody knows this one, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens
me.
And then last week we looked at chapter 4 verse 19, my God shall supply all your needs
according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus.
Man, what a great top 10 list in the book of Philippians.
It's so filled with truth but so filled with application at the same time.
And that's what we're looking at today.
God gave Paul the Macedonian vision.
He came across to Philippi and there he met a woman on the seashore because there wasn't
really a synagogue there for people to worship and he met with her and she came to Christ.
Her name was Lydia, we'll talk about her in just a few moments.
And as the church began to grow with that conversion and others, Paul wrote back to
them while he was in prison.
They're helping him by meeting his physical needs and he's writing back like only an apostle
can write back to the church that God used him to plant.
And I want you to see what he said to them in these three verses today.
The first thing he said is extremely simple today.
The first thing he said was, first, thank God for you.
Paul said, I thank God for you in the church at Philippi.
He said literally, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering a prayer
with joy in my every prayer for you all.
Now you're going to see this unfolding and I've mentioned this before in the book of
Philippians, the you, the you word, the personal pronoun, Y-O-U, is in the plural almost every
one of those times.
And I'm not saying this just because I'm from Texas and preaching to a Texas congregation,
but literally this can be interpreted, translated, you all.
Somebody say y'all with me, y'all.
You all abbreviated y'all.
Literally that's what he says there.
I thank my God in all my remembrance of y'all, always offering prayer with joy in my every
prayer for y'all.
It's corporate.
Sure, that means you as an individual is who Paul has in mind and individuals within that
church is who Paul has in mind, but he had in mind the whole church.
Can I tell you something about the church of Jesus Christ as I've experienced it?
After 40 years of ministry, I've experienced so many blessings from the body of Christ
that when I think of the church, I think with thanksgiving in my heart.
When I pray for the church, I pray with thanksgiving in my heart.
I know there are people out there that say the church hurt me or the church did me wrong.
I know there are many of those.
I don't discount that people sometimes in the body of Christ can be meaner than junkyard
dogs sometimes, and they need to be rebuked for that.
But the bottom line is when I look back over 40 years, I can say with Paul, I thank God
for every remembrance of you.
See, the body of Christ, the church, the called out ones representing Christ, they do a really
good job of loving one another as the body of Christ and being on mission together.
I don't know where I would be without those people who love me and pray for me and counsel
with me and sometimes rebuked and reproved me and helped me and encouraged me at other
times when I was a young boy, even to the present day.
I don't know what I would be or where I would be without people lifting me up in prayer
when I was at critical junctions in my life when I was facing health or any other decision
or crossroads.
And I knew the body of Christ was praying for me.
I can say with Paul, I thank God for my every remembrance of you.
So he thanks them.
He opens us up by thanking them.
You know, the body of Christ is extremely diverse.
We're from all kinds of places, all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of history, and
we're brought together by the blood of Jesus Christ.
It's a beautiful picture.
When I'm reading about the book of Acts and I'm reading about the church at Philippi,
specifically in Acts 16, you read about the individuals that first came to faith at Philippi.
Lydia, a seller of purple.
And the idea behind that is she sold garments to wealthy people.
Purple was reserved only for royalty or wealthy people.
And so here's Lydia waiting on the seashore, even though she doesn't know Paul is coming.
She's there with others worshiping God.
The Bible says she wasn't a believer yet, but she was a worshiper of God.
Most likely followed Judaism to a degree until she learned about the Messiah who fulfilled
the prophecies of the Old Testament.
And then she came to faith in Jesus.
Lydia became not only one of the most generous and hospitable people in the New Testament
church, but she was also the first convert.
Later on, others suggest that she was a significant leader in the New Testament church at Philippi.
And the very next conversion you read about in Acts 17 is a slave girl with a spirit of
divination.
Here's a slave girl.
She's owned by somebody because she's demon-possessed and she's telling other people's fortunes
and she's making a fortune for people that are her handlers, that own her, so to speak.
And Paul recognizes what's going on.
There's incredible and rich history behind this.
He actually uses the word Python, which is our transliteration today, Python, to describe
the spirit of divination, which really is an allusion to the oracle at Delphi and the
protector of that oracle at Delphi.
You have to dive into Greek mythology to really embrace what's going on.
But here she was, a promoter of that kind of mythology and then a fortune teller that
others were making money as a result of.
Paul literally confronted her with the gospel, cast the demon out of her and caused an uproar.
She was free, but now everyone wanted Paul to be put to death or put in prison.
And so he is in prison.
And in prison, the third convert is the Philippian jailer in Acts chapter 16.
Remember that story?
Paul and Silas are singing in prison.
They're worshiping God and an earthquake comes and the jail cell opens and the Philippian
jailer is standing there, probably a former Roman Empire soldier retired to Philippi,
which many of them did.
And here he is watching this earthquake and seeing these cells open up and Paul is now
free and he's in fear of his life.
And so he says, asking the greatest question in the book of Acts, what must I do to be
saved?
And what does Paul do?
Remember the missionary, he shares what he needs to do to be saved.
And he comes to faith in Jesus.
He watches Paul's wounds and the Bible says that night the Philippian jailer and his family
were baptized because he had come to faith in Jesus Christ.
Now Paul's probably got these three very diverse people in mind as well as many other people
in mind when he says, I thank God for every one of you and praying with joy in my every
remembrance of you all, no matter who you were, no matter who you were following, you've
come to faith in Jesus.
So my greatest experiences in life have been on mission fields or mission trips where I've
gone to people I didn't know and shared the gospel of someone I didn't know and became
brothers and sisters of those people that I formerly didn't know because they responded
to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
My first mission trip was with my father and the church he passed her to a place called
Tic Nass Pass, New Mexico.
Tic Nass Pass is near the Four Corners region of New Mexico and Arizona and Colorado and
Utah.
I mean, it's desolate desert.
And I was 17 years old and they gave me the keys to a 15 passenger van.
I don't know why.
They must have run out of somebody responsible.
And I drove that van from household to household on a reservation, a Navajo reservation, and
I picked up kids and brought them back to a vacation Bible school where we shared the
gospel with them.
It was there that I realized you meet people you wouldn't ordinarily meet while on mission
for God and learn to have a love for them.
In fact, I learned how to say I love you in the Navajo language, a yo anishinaab, if anyone's
ever curious and you want to say I love you to a significant other.
In Navajo it's a yo anishinaab.
Why did I learn to say that?
Because that's all I needed to say to those kids and add to that God loves you.
And it made an impact on my life.
I still remember the faces of some of those people I saw who later came to faith in Jesus.
I remember going to the University of Illinois while in college on a mission trip and meeting
some college students that had never heard the gospel in their whole lives and being
able to share the gospel with them.
I remember going to the west coast of the United States, Corvallis, Oregon, one of the
most unchurched places in America and having a revival there in a church there and seeing
people that never heard the gospel before come to faith in Christ.
Those people I think about sometimes when I thank God for my remembrance of those opportunities.
When I've gone to India I've seen things I've never imagined seeing in my life.
Or to Cabrera in Kenya last year where we saw the largest flum in the world and came
and brought the gospel to them.
It's amazing how God takes us and uses us whether we go or whether we pray or whether
we give for that to happen.
He uses all of us to take the gospel to every place in the world and every place we do that
and share the gospel with people that it brings great joy to us and certainly great joy to
the apostle that people come to faith in Jesus.
In 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 Paul is writing to another church but here's what he says
about them.
He says, for who is our hope or joy or exultation?
Is it even you?
Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ that is coming for you are
our glory and our joy?
Look at me for just a moment.
There are very few things that will bring you greater joy than the fact that you can
help somebody else come to know the Jesus that brings you joy.
There are very few things in life that mean more to you than that.
It's not an attempt to put a guilt strip on you to share the gospel.
It's just the opportunity you have to share the gospel brings incredible joy.
The greatest joy we can have is to know that others either close to us or those who are
far from us learn to follow the Jesus that we love so much.
I don't share this message.
I don't think you share this message out of sense of obligation as much as you do out
of a sense of reality.
Jesus Christ is your Savior.
He's your Lord.
He's the one that directs you and guides you.
He's your protector.
He promises heaven for you.
You do that and you share that with other people because you know what it brings to
you.
And Paul said, I thank God for every one of you.
And then the second thing he says to them is in verse five, he says, thank you for your
participation.
He said, I thank my God for every one of you all in view of your participation in the gospel
from the first day till now, the word participation in the Greek is koinonia.
Most of us know that that means fellowship or sharing.
And this sense is sharing.
He said, in the sense that you shared the burden of taking the gospel to the world from
the first day that I shared it with you onward.
Now, why is this important?
Well, over the course of the weekend, I wrote a statement down that reminds me of why it's
so important to participate together to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Here's what I wrote.
If God exists and he does, and if he speaks and he does, and if he spoke to us through
the scripture, which he has and through his son, which he has, then eternity is inevitable.
And there is one way to heaven that every person must know about before they die.
And we are on mission to tell them that.
If all those things are true, then we're on perpetual mission until Jesus comes back to
tell others about Jesus Christ.
And we're in partnership.
That word koinonia means you're closely linked with other people who are doing this.
And we do have this in common.
We may be very different in who we are, our backgrounds, our skin color, whatever our
social economic status might be or might not be, we all have this together.
We are fellow believers in Jesus Christ and we are on a common mission together to take
the gospel to the world.
You're on common mission together.
We are.
Amen.
You know, there's something about being on mission together with other people that draws
you closer to them.
I mean, I've worshiped in churches in Brazil where I didn't know anyone, but I had a common
connection with them that we worship the same Jesus Christ.
I've been on a mission trip with people that I hadn't met before I went on the mission
trip and there's just this camaraderie that's there that is just distinct and unique.
Normally in our secular world, we talk about the camaraderie of serving as soldiers on
some mission where we're liberating people in the world somewhere.
You come back from the fight, your brother or sister has your back and you're in that
common battle together.
I see that same kind of connection, but with an eternal focus when we are on mission together,
when we serve in a church together, when we go places together with the mission of Jesus
Christ at heart.
This is not just mission trip work we're talking about.
Paul says, I thank God for you as an individual who works together with me as an apostle to
get the news out.
I want you to think with me for a moment about Lydia beyond that moment when she came to
faith in Jesus.
Think about her growing in her faith and think about her the next year and the next year
where she just really began to open up her home, which was where the first church was
planted.
Her generosity was obvious.
We see allusions to that in the scripture and her leadership skills began to be put
to work in that church, that first church in Philippi.
Think about the slave girl who had been set free.
All of a sudden she was once in bondage, now she's free to know that Jesus has set her
free, to understand the prophecies of the Old Testament that pointed to him.
Now she's growing.
Now she's praying to the Most High God instead of using some demon spirit to give fortunes
and tell fortunes and make money.
Now she's freed from those who were her masters and now she's only serving the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Think of her as a young girl growing up.
All of a sudden all kinds of possibilities are open to her because of the gospel of Jesus.
Think about the retired Roman soldier who was a Philippian jailer who thought he was
going to die because Paul was out of prison but didn't die.
Instead God used him in a powerful way and he led his whole family to faith in Jesus.
Think about him growing and reaching out and becoming a vibrant person in that church at
Philippi.
Paul is writing to people like that and more.
I thank God for my every remembrance of you especially in view of your participation in
the gospel from the first day until now.
The phrase your participation refers to the way they served, gave, prayed and were willing
to go with the gospel.
That brings me to you.
I want you to take a moment and open the other book that you have in front of you and that's
the mission book for just a second.
It's this book that I hope you got when you came in.
If not maybe you can look on with your neighbor.
I encourage you to read every page of this book.
Take it home.
Keep it in your Bible or your card or your home.
Wherever you keep your significant pieces of paper and pray over it.
But I also want you to open it up to the very center page.
You'll see this page because it looks like this and we're going to put it on the screen.
I want to show you where you have participated in the last year with us with the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
This serves as a reminder that we're always on missions.
Statistics and numbers help us to know where that mission is going, who is hearing and
what kind of money are we devoting to this.
If you look at the upper left, you can just start right there by knowing something that's
very very important.
Ten percent of everything you give as a church is given to missions through the cooperative
program at the Southern Baptist Convention.
That's about $700,000 annually that we give right to the cooperative program.
On top of that, everything you give to Cross City missions, ten percent breaks down to
Six Stones, ten percent to Kids Beach Club, ten percent to Mid-Cities Women's Clinic and
seventy percent to on-spot mission trips that we help fund you to go on.
Six Stones has incredible numbers this year.
We tell the story of its founding as it was started on this stage.
Literally in 2009, I asked this congregation to commit to $250,000 a year for the first
three years of its existence and then we did it again, did it another three years and we
just keep on helping Six Stones.
But look at what's going on.
Last year alone, all these numbers, 3,000 students served, 715 Six Stones volunteers.
Look at all the families served in so many different ways.
New Hope, Pantry, 8,400 people last year found food and clothing.
Kids Beach Club, listen, you may not know this about Kids Beach Club but they now have
500 million households watching the Kids Beach Club Gospel presentations every week.
Can you imagine that?
Not 500, 500 million in all kinds of languages across the world.
Look on the upper right hand corner.
We can celebrate that anytime you want to.
Look on the upper right hand corner.
Mid-Cities Women's Clinic began here after a message by Jimmy Draper all these years
ago.
More than 79,000 clients served since 1984.
So many Gospel presentations this past year.
Over 1,000, 1,500 women were served.
A thousand babies were saved last year in Mid-Cities Women's Clinic.
Yeah.
International Mission Board, this keeps coming.
Some of the biggest numbers come from the International Mission Board where we've seen
more than 269,000 people disciples but 879,000 people heard the Gospel through 4,000 missionaries
in every nation of the world.
And then the lower right, Athe River, where we're very involved in a new project.
Last year you gave $358,000 on missions under the author at the end of the year and we've
seen more than 1,400 professions of faith.
156 people have been baptized.
21,400 people heard the Gospel.
We've discipled or walked through discipleship lesson with more than 36,000.
This is what your participation of the Gospel did this last year and I am thankful for you
and I want to take a moment and just thank the Lord that we've all been able to be involved.
Amen.
Keep this near you so you can pray and remember.
Let me just say I'm standing here today to say thank you.
Thank you that you're willing to give, to pray, to go.
Thank you that you're willing to meet the challenge.
I've learned this about this church.
It's just amazing.
This church likes meeting big Gospel challenges.
We love it when someone presents a challenge to us and say, hey, we need to go and get
into India and this particular part of the world and we need to move and send money and
go and we do that.
It's really incredible.
Listen to me very carefully.
Every number I've given you has a receipt attached to it.
We are transparent in our finances and when you give something to a thing, it goes to
that thing and nowhere else.
That's important to us.
That's our history.
That's what we do.
Last year when you gave $358,000, this was amazing to me.
Over 40 days from Mission Sunday, which was in November last year to the end of the year,
$358,000.
When that money was given, I was astounded at the amount.
I was surprised at the amount.
We had a big goal, but you had never been to Athie River.
You'd never been to Cabara.
You'd never been to those places and yet you saw a need and you gave so significantly.
It meant so much.
The first that popped out to me about that offering was a fragrant aroma.
That's in the book of Philippians.
When the church of Philippi gave to Paul, he said, that's a well pleasing sacrifice.
It's pleasing to God.
It's a fragrant aroma.
In other words, your giving smells real good right now.
That's what he said.
It's cause for rejoicing.
Paul says thirdly, not only do we thank you and not only do we thank you for your participation,
but thirdly, let's complete the mission.
Let's complete the mission.
Now we're in verse six.
He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
Now let's do the literal translation.
He who began a good work in you all will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
If you're saying, pastor, now I claim that verse for myself, that's an individual verse.
Well, anything that's spoken to a whole church is also applicable to one member in the church.
But this is the whole church verse.
Paul said to Philippi, you've got a mission.
You're going to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.
I don't know all the church of Philippi was on mission about.
All that God wanted to use her for, I don't know.
It wasn't a big church.
A church of about 100 to 150 people, but it was a gateway church in that the gospel came
through Philippi to the rest of the Western European world and then onward from there.
And Paul was saying, you are a significant player in the role of kingdom progress.
And I want to say that to you as well.
When this church was planted in 1904, they had no idea that they would be a significant
player in the world of causing the gospel to go forth to the end of the earth.
There were only 18 people in the city of Ulysses when it started.
And there were four that started the church.
So they had big vision.
We're going to double.
We're going to triple.
First business meeting when they built the preschool, they voted to build two preschool
beds instead of one.
That's big vision.
But God placed this church here.
The city grew up around us.
DFW airport came in and over the years, this church has been a significant role in helping
grow the kingdom of God.
I'm so grateful for that.
The 120 year anniversary just blew me away in how God has worked so powerfully over 120
years.
But I'm here to say to you today, that may be history, but we're not done yet.
It's important for us to know that that prayer, I'm confident that he who began a good work
in you all will complete it into the day of Christ Jesus.
That's my prayer.
That's my prayer for us.
And I don't know how long it'll be before Christ comes back, but I'm starting to preach
on the next week and I'm going to hope it's really soon.
But until that day, we continue to complete our mission.
In 1 Thessalonians, which I've been reading this week, I can't wait to share this with
you.
Chapter four, verse 16, the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout and with
the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first
and we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with him in the air to meet the
Lord in the clouds.
And so we will always be with the Lord.
Man, are you ready for that day?
I'm ready for that day.
That's talking about the rapture of the church.
About three weeks from now, I'm going to give you details about the rapture of the church,
not the day he's coming, but how he's coming.
That's what we'll talk about.
But until he comes, we're on mission, right?
Until Jesus comes, whether it's next week or next year, we're on mission to do everything
he's called to do.
And one day we'll stand before God in heaven.
We won't be able to give anymore or go anymore or witness anymore.
We won't be interacting with anyone on earth anymore because our time is done and we'll
be standing with him, job complete.
Let's be busy till he comes doing what we're called to do.
That's what this is about.
That's what we need to be doing.
Beginning here, go as far as you can with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's our call.
Last year, when I was in Kibera, I was brought into the slums of Kibera.
Again, the largest slums in the world.
Literally houses are built upon other houses that are made of cardboard, plywood, whatever
they can rummage up somewhere and kind of mow it together.
Very little privacy.
Most homes are about eight feet by 10 feet, the whole house.
Water is not available.
They can't drill in the ground to get it.
There are no clean sources of water anywhere near Nairobi, Kenya.
And so water has to be filtered, but they have no filters.
Tens of thousands of people that don't have access to filters, that don't have access
to water.
And what caught me was the smell and sight of their water source.
I want to play it on the screen for you.
This is the water of Kibera.
This is their only, only source of water.
If you look at that screen, you can see obviously it's filled with trash and garbage, sewage,
the animals, the dogs are all out there.
The people are out there.
In one of these video clips, you'll probably see a man standing there with a transparent
water bottle.
You know what he's doing?
He's going to find the place in that little sewage creek where he can find the cleanest
of the water that he can possibly find.
And that's his drinking water.
He's taking that home and his children are going to drink it and they're going to get
sick and they have no source and there's no one there to help them.
And the stench was horrendous.
I mean, I asked our sound guys, I asked our technicians, can we cause that kind of smell
to happen in the worship center?
And the reason I said that is because until you smell it, it just doesn't hit you.
It just doesn't have the same impact.
But when you smell it, you realize, wow, they have absolutely nothing.
And they drink that water every day and the bucket ministry and our ministry with them
involves going with these little water filters and a bucket and training them how to use
water filters.
The leader of the bucket ministry actually got a glass of water out of that creek you
looked at and he held the glass of water up and the YouTube video today is unbelievable.
He poured it through the filter and he drank what was in that glass after it had been filtered.
And this filter actually works.
You know, you can get this at Walmart or you can get this on Amazon for about 30 bucks.
When you go camping, you probably use something like that.
They can't get it.
They have no money.
They don't have internet.
They have no way of getting these water filters.
Government won't get it for them.
Nobody gets it for them.
But we get it for them.
And when you gave last year $358,000, that's what we did with that money.
We bought water filters, shipped them over there.
We trained them.
We shared the gospel with them as we trained them how to use the water filters.
They went home and they were overjoyed.
It was like the greatest gift you could give them was clean water for their families and
for their children.
It was amazing.
And I said, your offering last year was a fragrant aroma.
And I want to position that against the stench of that creek and to say your offerings are
like a fragrant aroma that overcomes the stench of the filthy water.
That's all they have until we show up.
Wow.
We have a big goal this year.
Our goal is bigger than it was last year.
We have a goal of $500,000 given over the next 50 days until Thanksgiving.
You know, there's 50 days until Thanksgiving.
And by the time we come back after Thanksgiving, we will want to raise $500,000 over 50 days
for this cause.
And if we do that, guess what happened?
It means that we'll be able to share the gospel 40,000 times with the people that we're going
to in that Nairobi area that are in the slums.
10,000 homes will be able to have this water filter system.
150,000 people will hear the gospel and we will see many of them come to faith in Jesus.
And we'll later baptize them.
It's really amazing what happens when you help someone and then share with them the gospel
of Jesus Christ that motivates you and then say to them, the people in the church that
we came from love you and want you to know that Jesus has saved us.
Dear friend, that's what it means to be on a mission.
And we challenge you to join us in that, to pray prayers that we've been praying for years.
Lord is this of you.
Lord, what's my part?
And then Lord, bless your people so they can give.
I know sometimes it's tough to give, but I want you to think a little bit about what
they're going through.
And we're doing this mission, not just in Nairobi, Kenya, but we're also on mission
here.
We're calling for 500 volunteers to meet us in the next two weeks to work with CPR at
six dollars.
We want to be on mission and we want you to join us.
How do you do that?
Well, if you're going to give, it means you go online and be able to help us give.
There's a QR code.
There's a way to find that on our website, cross city dot church slash 50 days.
Same way we said last year.
This is how you can do it.
And you pray about you and your family's involvement.
Maybe it means you give up a few cup of Cino's, a few Starbucks visits.
I don't know, but it's worth it to take clean water to the nations.
Let me just tell you what you do now.
You don't feel the significance of.
But one day standing before God, you will feel the significance, the eternal significance
of being on mission, participating with the church in the mission of taking the gospel
to the ends of the earth.
That's what I'm asking you to look ahead to, to keep your mind on eternity.
Paul says, I thank God for you.
I thank God for your participation.
Let's finish the work, Jesus Christ comes back.
You know, just a moment.
I'm going to lead a word of prayer.
And after I pray, I'll dismiss you.
But I'm going to give you several invitations.
One, if you're a guest, I would love to visit with you personally.
And I guess reception center right outside the center exit doors across that hallways
that glass in room.
I'll be in there in just a moment.
I'd love to just meet you and say thank you for being here today.
If you have questions about what we've said today, love to answer those questions.
That's number one.
Number two, our commons area is set up so that you can personally become acquainted
with all these different mission points.
We talked about CPR and 500 volunteers.
You can do that out there today.
We talked about the bucket ministry.
You can you can meet with representatives of that and see exactly how we do that on
and on.
We have a number of displays out there.
Just take time to browse through.
It'll be one of the most important 10 or 15 minutes of your day.
I promise you to see how we partner.
Thirdly, I invite you back next week.
Next week, I start the series called Great Expectations about the return of Christ.
And we're going to talk about Old Testament prophecy.
We're going to talk about where Israel is in prophecy.
We're going to talk about the the rapture that I mentioned a few moments ago.
We'll talk about the Antichrist.
We'll talk about Armageddon.
We'll talk about all those things beginning next Sunday morning.
There's so much to look forward to in these days ahead.
Would you stand with me as we have a word of prayer?
Father, I thank you today for those in this room whom you brought to faith and you brought
to this family, this fellowship, this church.
And Father, I thank you for them because they're now walking with us together with the gospel.
I thank you for their spiritual lives.
I thank you for the growth that I pray they will be experiencing.
I pray for the victories for them to experience those as well, day in and day out, the relationships
that they build.
Father, I thank you for their participation in the gospel, how they've prayed, how they've
gone or how they've given or how they plan to, Lord.
I thank you for them.
Altogether we can make a big difference.
And then Father, I pray that you'll help us complete the work you've given us as a church.
So much that you put in front of us, so many opportunities and we are able to go.
Father, meet that need so we can go as far as you lead us, Lord.
Complete your work even to the day of Christ Jesus.
Lord, we look forward to your return.
We eagerly anticipate your return.
And Lord, we want to serve and be faithful to that day.
I pray this for all of us in the room.
In the name of Jesus, I pray.
Amen.