Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] It's great to see you guys.
[00:00:02] How are y' all doing?
[00:00:04] Great. Great. It is great to be back in Tyler, Texas, man. Tyler, Texas, is wonderful. I'll just tell you that.
[00:00:13] For those of you who don't know, I spent the last week representing our church in Zambia with World Vision. And it was a special week and I'm looking forward to sharing about that. But I want to say that it's also been, in a lot of ways, a special month and a half for our church. Six weeks ago, we began our series Mine, Y' all remember that?
[00:00:34] Where we focused on the reality that everything there is is God's.
[00:00:39] For from him and through him and to him are all things.
[00:00:46] And we saw the very next week that everything includes the supernatural gifts that he's given us for him to love one another and to love our world in the name of Jesus. And right now we have about 230 people in our church at our campus who are in various stages of moving towards joining ministry teams. Many of you already have. And it's amazing. We saw the next week. Doug taught that our time is a gift from God and for him that our the next week, our money is from him and for him. And then last Sunday, we focused on our opportunity to intentionally use what God has given us to love the village of Nyawa, Zambia.
[00:01:28] And the response of our church was so beautiful, hundreds of you stepped forward with an eagerness to remember the poor.
[00:01:39] You guys actually exceeded World Vision's normal sponsorship expectation by about 50%.
[00:01:47] Yeah.
[00:01:50] And I told you guys last week that across our church, we were praying for 450 kids to be sponsored that would finish out the the village of Nyah. Well, last time I checked in the airport in Johannesburg, we have 17 remaining, which means we're gonna easily surpass that today. We'll finish Nyawa. And I mean, we're gonna finish Nyawa today, guys. Okay? Just saying that to those of, yes, we're doing it.
[00:02:14] And we will be the first sponsors of the next village that World Vision gets to support.
[00:02:19] So it's been a beautiful six weeks, and today is Reveal Sunday for our chosen sponsorships. If you haven't already, the new sponsors in our church, at the end of this service, you will get envelopes from that wall for the kids that have chosen you this week.
[00:02:37] At the end of our third service last week, literally during the end of the service, I left for Dallas, to Atlanta, to Johannesburg, to Livingston, Zambia, to Choma, Zambia, eventually to Nyawa, Zambia.
[00:02:53] Steven and Carrie Ann went with me from Oj along with. You can't see that picture. I took bad pictures. Some of them are going to be much better.
[00:03:02] I got trained afterwards on turning the camera sideways. Okay, now I know.
[00:03:07] But Kyle from our Dover campus and Sarah from our Lindell campus were also with us.
[00:03:13] And we didn't actually get to Niawa till Wednesday morning. But when we got there, we were greeted by a few hundred very excited people because they know what it means for their community when the churches of World Vision show up.
[00:03:28] In fact, I want to show you a video of the moment that we got out of the Land Rovers that Stephen's back.
[00:03:38] Okay.
[00:03:42] It's inside there.
[00:03:43] I wear it.
[00:03:48] They were singing something about welcome, we're happy you're here.
[00:03:52] They translated it for us. I think the language is Tongan.
[00:03:57] I did not learn any.
[00:03:59] That's not true. Seca means smile because I got to see all these kids take the picture with their speakers. So I heard seca, seca over and over again, seca.
[00:04:08] So I know that word.
[00:04:11] But I'm not sure I've ever been more proud of my church than getting out of that car after driving two hours down unmarked dirt roads to a group of kids who have almost nothing.
[00:04:27] I did not cry at all in Zambia. I was too in survival mode, like so many things have to go right for me to get back home to my family from there.
[00:04:38] But I personally had no real concept of the middle of nowhere before this week, and I didn't have the same concept of neediness as what I saw this week. We had Zambian guides with us, of course, and I said to one of them that it seemed that many of the Niyawans that we met, many of the kids who chose some of us in this room have never seen a paved road before.
[00:05:01] They've never seen plumbing or a power line. And he said that was certainly true.
[00:05:07] Their restrooms are holes in the ground. I did not take a picture.
[00:05:11] But their houses are tiny boxes made of bricks that they form themselves.
[00:05:16] Their meals are small and mostly one a day.
[00:05:21] And they are made in the image of God.
[00:05:25] And Jesus loved them as he died on the cross for their sin. I knew I would cry eventually. I'm going to do better than this.
[00:05:34] And we got to give them a choosing party, actually several choosing parties.
[00:05:40] And they know at least some of what it means. They know a choosing party means clean water is coming.
[00:05:47] They know that it means education is coming. They know at least have some understanding that it means jobs. And the resources to do those jobs are coming. And we got out of the Land Rovers and they sang and they danced and they celebrated.
[00:06:02] So glad you didn't have to travel there this week. It was almost. It was 22,000 miles on a plane and hundreds in cars.
[00:06:12] But I wish you could have been there. And in a sense you were because we had pictures of so many of you who were willing to step forward and help these families that are living in situations that we can't really understand. One of the best moments of my life was walking up to that group of people knowing that they have unfathomably little and that our team represents hundreds of thousands of dollars for their future.
[00:06:46] So our pictures were hung up and one at a time, children came into the room and they picked out a picture of the person that they wanted to sponsor them knowing that it meant a new life.
[00:07:00] Hundreds of kids from that village got to pick out your faces. It was really wild.
[00:07:06] It's really wild. I watched about 150 to 160 of them one at a time. I got to see the Clarks be chosen again.
[00:07:17] I got to see the Rogers get chosen.
[00:07:22] I got to see Amy from my pickleball group. But I didn't get a picture of that one.
[00:07:28] I got to see my parents get chosen because even though this isn't their church, they wanted in on the action in the Yawa.
[00:07:34] So this is a picture of me with the girl who chose my mom and dad.
[00:07:39] I got to see my family get chosen twice. We lucked out. One boy, one girl.
[00:07:46] Choosing parties were hosted all week in the Yawa. And if you're one of the hundreds of new sponsors in our church who are adding your support to the hundreds of sponsors that we were already headed that direction toward Yahweh.
[00:08:00] You'll find out today who chose you if you had your picture submitted by 8pm last Sunday. If not, that's coming soon.
[00:08:09] And you will get a picture of your child.
[00:08:11] Many of you already have pictures of the children you are sponsoring in Zambia. Some of you have been supporting and writing letters to these children for years. In fact, Carrie Anne, who was on the trip, got to meet a girl she's been sponsoring for years who still had the original picture from her choosing party.
[00:08:30] And she has letters Carrie has written. And she brought a valuable gift in return to Carrie Ann. She brought a chicken.
[00:08:40] So unbelievable.
[00:08:44] And you can imagine you're not allowed to bring a live chicken back from Africa.
[00:08:50] So what Carrie Ann did was she asked the World Vision staff to make sure that that chicken got to the neediest family that we got to meet. So they were gonna. That chicken was literally tied up in the back of the Land Rover for a day till they could take it to the so it's true to say that most of you are now sponsoring children in Zambia. Many of you, I'm sure at least 17 of you will today.
[00:09:18] And what I want to do this morning is encourage you to think about three things every time you see that photo or write a letter to that child and pray for that child. Three things to remember as you think about the work that God is allowing us to be a part of in a village you probably can't really imagine.
[00:09:37] The second of the two points will be an actual sermon.
[00:09:41] The first one will be more of a trip report about this people that we love. But I just want to take a moment to say thank you.
[00:09:49] I got to feel a little bit like the Apostle Paul this week, thanking God over and over again for your faithfulness and generosity, the love of this people, for that people, and that's the love that I want us to focus on together. Some of you are already sponsoring in Zambia kids. Some of you will receive the picture today of kids that you're sponsoring. Some of you will choose today to sponsor kids.
[00:10:16] And the first thing I want you to remember every time you see the picture of that child is that your love for Nyahua is transformational.
[00:10:26] That's what the 22,000 miles is actually for. Because now I can joyfully tell you that what God is allowing us to do together will transform of the lives of these people. In these pictures we get to see the village we're going to love and a village that's years ahead of them and the essentially before and after. It's stunning. Anyone though who went on this trip would unquestionably tell you that the hardest part was not the crazy travel hours though, it was crazy.
[00:10:54] Instead, it was Wednesday afternoon after the choosing party, we drove deeper into Nyawa to be hosted by Judith and Vincent, whose last names I can't pronounce.
[00:11:04] And it was absolutely heartbreaking because they are absolutely broken people.
[00:11:11] They have five children, none of whom are able to go to school because of their living situation. They eat one meal a day. On a good day, seven people live in a small brick box that's smaller than most of our bathrooms and even that box was falling apart.
[00:11:30] I had the privilege of walking with them to the well that they use.
[00:11:35] A five gallon bucket goes into a dirty hole and the water that comes out looks closer to milk.
[00:11:42] And as Judith and Vincent described their lives to us in their language, and it was translated for us. Judith cried and Vincent looked ashamed.
[00:11:52] And there's nothing they can do.
[00:11:56] That was the thing. I called Scarlet. We stayed in a hotel about two hours away from the village where there was cell phone reception. So it was two hours there and back, both days.
[00:12:03] And I called her one night and I said, beauty. There's nothing these people can do. They. They can't work their way out because there's nothing to work with.
[00:12:11] You can't raise cows without cows.
[00:12:14] You can't plant the field without seed.
[00:12:18] Vincent makes these axe handles out of wood near his home.
[00:12:23] Takes him about an hour to make one. He can sell it for maybe 20 cents if there's somebody to buy it.
[00:12:30] And there are hundreds of families in similar situations in the Yahweh. It was one of the most this conversation. We talked to them for a little over an hour. It was one of the most uncomfort conversations I've ever been a part of. In many ways one of the most hopeless until we got to ask questions. And I asked the World Vision leader we were with, when do we start helping?
[00:12:55] And the answer is two weeks.
[00:12:59] Two weeks from now begins the first year that Niawa will get support from our church and World Vision and. And three new wells will be drilled so that they can have clean water. But what's amazing is that World Vision does empowerment support. Those of you who have been doing this for a year know this already.
[00:13:16] But that means that really the only thing that is given to them is the water.
[00:13:22] Everything else that World Vision does, using the resources that we give, is a tool to change their mindsets or to change the infrastructure or both.
[00:13:32] And we got to see the impact of that approach, to see what it looks like years into the future from now. In villages that are already years into the future, the support.
[00:13:41] On Thursday, we met two families that have been experiencing their community's transformation for years. And it was a stunning difference. Thursday I met a man who's almost the opposite of Vincent.
[00:13:52] He had joy, he had strength, he had hope. His name is Karisto and his family eats well. His kids are in school. They know what they want. We asked, what do you want to be when they grow up? One of them said, a nurse. One of them said, I think a biomedical engineer.
[00:14:07] Like, it was wild. The difference between the two days.
[00:14:12] But the thing is, Karisto described himself, his wife, his family, in the exact same way as Vincent and Judith. Only six or seven years ago.
[00:14:22] What changed their life was clean water. And five loaned Goats.
[00:14:29] My favorite thing I heard that World Vision does. One of the many ways that they bring support and training and hope into a community is they teach some families how to care for livestock, and then they let them borrow it.
[00:14:40] So Karista was loaned five goats for one year, and he and allowed to care for those goats for a year and keep the offspring.
[00:14:53] So at the end of the first year, he returned the five goats, and now he has 300 goats.
[00:15:01] Not all in the first year.
[00:15:05] That'd be a miraculous supply.
[00:15:10] But then he's able to use the money from the goats to get cows. Now he has seven cows, which cows can plow a field, and he can afford seed. So now he plants fields of corn. It was, I mean, so dramatic.
[00:15:24] We met a woman whose community. So World Vision only stays in a community for a certain amount of years, and then they move on. And the infrastructure is supposed to be in place that it sort of sustains itself. She's in one of those communities, and she still lives in this village. It's her place, thriving.
[00:15:42] There's no power in these villages, but two hours away, she's building a house in the city. Not for her to live in for as a rental property. I couldn't believe it.
[00:15:54] And she teaches the next generation in her village what she learned from World Vision years ago.
[00:16:01] It starts with clean water, and who knows where it ends. The last night of the trip, our team wondered what the next generation of NIH will look like.
[00:16:09] The generation after that.
[00:16:14] Right now, it's very little.
[00:16:16] So I just want to thank you so much for loving these people that you've never met.
[00:16:21] Thank you for being chosen.
[00:16:25] There's hundreds of families like Vincent and Judas who are right now hungry and hurting and hopeless, drinking muddy water. And we get to be part of helping them. When you see the picture of your child today, or the picture of the child that you already sponsor, I want you to remember that your love for Nyahwah is transformational.
[00:16:45] That takes us to the second thing I want us to remember, because as proud as I am of our church, and I'm so proud, we are not the heroes of the story.
[00:16:56] It isn't really possible for us to be the hero of this story or any story.
[00:17:02] You know why?
[00:17:05] For from him and through him and to him are all things.
[00:17:13] Everything there is is God's. Even the transforming love that we have for the hurting and the hungry in Zambia. All week leading up to this trip, I had a portion of Romans 5 on my heart. I want to read it for us now, for those keeping track, the sermon has now started.
[00:17:34] Paul wrote this.
[00:17:36] God's love.
[00:17:42] Has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life?
[00:18:22] And I've been looking forward to helping us notice a couple of incredible things about this passage. And the first is that our love isn't really ours.
[00:18:33] When you see the picture of that child who chose you today, or the one you already have at home, I hope you will remember that your love for Niyah is transformational and that your love for Nyahuah is really God's love.
[00:18:49] For from him and through him and to him are all things. The Bible is clear that the love that we have to give others is really the love that we have received from Him.
[00:19:02] You saw in verse 5 of Romans 5, God's love has been poured into our hearts. This is God just giving his affection forever. When going Back to verse 1 of Romans 5, we are justified when we are made righteous by faith in Jesus. We're given access to his grace, we're giving access to his presence, that which we were really originally made for. And he gives us the love of the one Creator, God of all things, for all time. And then you add to that that 1st John 4, what it says about the love of God that has been poured into our hearts. This is what it says. So we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And whoever abides in love abides in God. Then we love because he first loved us. John writes about the love that Paul tells us God has poured into our hearts. And he says that whoever abides in love abides in God. And therefore we love because we were first loved by God. We are loving these children and it will be transformational. But we love with what we have received from God.
[00:20:17] Let's go back to Nihuah. The woman that I mentioned earlier is named Pinsina.
[00:20:23] Pensina was happy to tell us that she gets to help the younger women of her village learn to thrive the way she has. But she also once had nothing.
[00:20:35] Years ago, she did not have anything to give. Poncena, I'm happy to tell you, was joyful and hopeful. But she can only give because she first received.
[00:20:47] And the same thing is true for us and the love of God.
[00:20:52] God poured his love through the cross into our hearts. And that is the love you have for children you don't know in a place you haven't seen.
[00:21:04] We love people far away from us because God loved people far away from him.
[00:21:11] And his love is even bigger, of course, isn't it?
[00:21:17] God's love is even more.
[00:21:19] The third thing I want us to remember is that God's love is infinitely more.
[00:21:25] Three things to remember when you're thinking about and praying about your child. Your love for Nih was transformational.
[00:21:32] Your love for Niyah is really God's love.
[00:21:37] And number three, God's love for you is infinitely more. And I want to help us to think about this for a few minutes by teaching you a new word. It's not Tongan. I already taught you a Tongan word, seka.
[00:21:53] Contra conditional.
[00:21:58] God's love is contra conditional. I experienced a lot of new in Zambia this week, so I thought I could at least give you one new thing.
[00:22:07] Contra conditional. We all know about unconditional love.
[00:22:12] That is, in fact very likely what we have for the children in our chosen pictures out there.
[00:22:19] We're placing no expectations on them.
[00:22:23] There was no condition that they met last week in order for you to step forward and help them other than their need. In fact, you don't even know right now who they are.
[00:22:33] The love we want to give the people of Nyawha is transformational and to the best of our ability, unconditional. But God's love is not unconditional. It's actually more than that.
[00:22:46] Unlike unconditional, which means loving without prerequisites, conditional love means loving in direct contradiction to what is deserved.
[00:22:59] Contra conditional love is, I think, an uncomfortable idea that love can be not just without condition, but against condition. God's love is contra conditional in that he loves not just without reason, but against reason.
[00:23:17] Here's what this looks like. See the words that Paul uses describe to describe all people, including us in this passage in verse six. For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. While we were weak or without strength. Some translations say helpless. That's certainly what I saw this week. And in Ephesians 2, Paul actually carries this even further to say that we're so weak we are deep dead in our sin, right?
[00:23:47] We, the people who have the love of God poured into our hearts were helpless, weak, even dead. Do you remember when that was you?
[00:23:59] We love more when we remember better.
[00:24:03] That was you.
[00:24:07] Christ died for the ungodly.
[00:24:10] Ungodly there means destitute of reverence toward God.
[00:24:15] We wouldn't do it.
[00:24:18] We would not revere. We would not be in awe of the only one worthy of reverence. We were helpless, weak, without reverence. Verse 8. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, we were sinners. And that word means devoted to sin or wickedness. We were not devoted to God. Instead, we were devoted to the very things that are against God. We were especially aligned with things that oppose God. And that leads us to what verse 10 has to say about us. While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. Enemies. That word means hateful, hostile, opposing.
[00:25:01] That is who we were. And you might be thinking, brandon, this is not fun.
[00:25:05] I just wanted to sponsor a kid from Nyawa.
[00:25:10] And I'm saying that remembering this truth is the best way we can.
[00:25:17] The more you remember God's love for you, the absurdity of God's unfailing contra conditional love for you, the more and the better and the longer and the sweeter, you'll be able to love those who he puts in front of you, even if it's just a picture from the other side of the world. World.
[00:25:38] Because Paul is saying there is a holy, infinite, all good, all powerful, sovereign, creator God. And we refuse to honor Him. In fact, we rejected him and instead we devoted ourselves to sinning against him as his enemies. And we did it in every single century, with every single command on all the way back to the beginning of time.
[00:26:04] So the truth is that God doesn't just love us simply because he chose not to place conditions on us.
[00:26:10] He did.
[00:26:13] And we comprehensively rejected them.
[00:26:19] Romans 5 is saying that we were weak and helpless, refusing to give God reference and openly hostile toward his will and his rule. And yet he still loves us so much that he died for us because we shattered the conditions.
[00:26:43] God's love is not just unconditional love. It's love that says, you could not have done more to break the conditions.
[00:26:50] And yet here is the Son of God bleeding and dying on a cross so that you can have mercy and love.
[00:27:07] Can you imagine if Stephen and Carrie Ann and I had showed up in the Iowa with the resources of Grace Community Church, ready to show them transformational love and they attacked us.
[00:27:23] What if they put a spear in Stephen's side?
[00:27:29] They did not.
[00:27:31] They sang and they danced and they said thank you countless times.
[00:27:39] Nyawans danced.
[00:27:41] That's not what we did.
[00:27:44] When God first made us, we rebelled.
[00:27:48] When he came in flesh and blood, we killed.
[00:27:54] God's love is infinitely more than human love.
[00:27:59] It's possible perhaps, for humans to experience unconditional love between one another or, you know, something close to it. But not even unconditional love, much less contra conditional love, is at the root of most human love. I missed my wife a lot this week, so I'm going to talk about her right now.
[00:28:19] I want to get some points.
[00:28:23] I love my wife more than anything in the world, and I hope my love for her is now without condition, but it was certainly born out of some amazing conditions.
[00:28:36] From the moment I had one conversation with Scarlet, I thought she was uniquely fun and interesting and witty and joyful, and she has continued to be those things. Being around her was awesome from the first moment. To me, she is as pretty as a person can be. She has treated me with a sort of exuberant goodness for almost 20 years. Truly, I am drawn to her in many ways. That's human love.
[00:29:06] Of course. I love her because she's lovable, worthy of affection, and she's for me.
[00:29:15] And when I see her, my heart knows, that's my love. And you have the people in your life about which your heart tells you that's my love.
[00:29:27] Paul is telling us here that before God, we were the opposite of those things.
[00:29:31] We were not beautiful filthy rags, we were not fun, we were failures.
[00:29:40] We were not for him. We were egregiously opposed to Him. We were nothing. We were supposed to be nothing good. That's why Paul contrasts in verse seven. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, but perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die. And I would die for Scarlet. But she's wonderful.
[00:30:00] We weren't good.
[00:30:03] No one should have died for us. No one should have loved us. But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God's love is literally contrary to the conditions. Because what this means is while our spear was literally in his side, his heart was for us, was. Those are my loves.
[00:30:33] My loves.
[00:30:36] That's contra conditional love.
[00:30:38] Not just without condition, but against it. Not just without reason, but against the reasons. I can't make it make sense, though I love to try every couple of weeks that an infinitely perfect and holy God would love ungodly helpless, sinful enemies. And it only makes sense if he chooses to make it make sense. And when every time you see the photo of your child you're sponsoring or you write a letter to that child, or you pray for that child, I'll hope you remember that that is what he chose.
[00:31:16] God saw you as the broken, needy, hopeless and he said chosen.
[00:31:29] He said, that's my love.
[00:31:34] And into your heart poured the most incredible love of the universe that we are sharing today with the precious children of Nyawa, Zambia.
[00:31:52] So we're going to take a moment now and we're going to give God the awe and reverence and worship that we now can.
[00:32:01] We're going to sing and then we're going to go to the commons right out there and we're going to get our pictures.
[00:32:12] And every time we see those pictures we're going to remember that God's love for is transformational.
[00:32:19] It's his love and his love for us is infinitely more. So let's pray, Father, help us please to remember.
[00:32:42] You love us with an everlasting love. You love us with a self sacrificing love.
[00:32:49] While we were still weak, you died for the ungodly.
[00:32:54] While we were still sinners, you gave yourself to have us back. It is unbelievable. And I pray that the more we remember that, the more our hearts will rejoice that we get to be a part of anything good that you do in this world. God, we pray that you would, that you would transform the Yowah Zambia for Jesus.
[00:33:13] For the sake of those people who are hungry and who are digging water out of the ground.
[00:33:19] God, I pray that you would multiply the love that you have given us in that place.
[00:33:29] I pray that you would be worshiped and revered here, worshiped and revered there.
[00:33:36] You are worthy and we are going to stand and sing to you now. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Let's stand. Let's lift our voices to Jesus.
[00:33:46] Yeah. The more we, the more we're undone by the mercy and the love of God in our lives, the more we live like it.
[00:33:56] And thank you guys for being a church that lives like it.
[00:33:59] Before we finish with the chosen for today, I want to invite you back next week.
[00:34:04] We're starting a more regular series for those of you that miss regular that starts back and we're going to start going through the book of book of Ephesians for several months next Sunday. I'll be kicking that off. I can't remember what verses so just read the first chapter of Ephesians. And you'll be ready.
[00:34:20] Okay, so a couple of categories of people right now as we. As we finish.
[00:34:26] If you already have your.
[00:34:28] Some of you been sponsoring kids in Zambia for years. You're set. You're doing it. We're all doing this together. Thank you.
[00:34:35] Some of you.
[00:34:36] Last week, you stepped forward. We're gonna walk out to the commons. You're gonna get your envelope off the wall right now. It's in alphabetical order, so it won't be hard to find. I think hopefully it all went right. Mine was at least in the right place. So we'll get our cards. Those of you who are not yet involved, now is your chance.
[00:34:54] The cameras are back out there again. And so you can have this, the same experience we're all having, where your picture will be chosen by one of these kids in the Nyawa village. After we finish that, you can be the pioneers of the next village, because we'll finish Nyawa today. And so if you've not yet participated, I hope you'll do that. You can scan the QR code, or you can just go talk to the people wearing the chosen shirts, and they'll help you make it happen.
[00:35:20] Praise God.
[00:35:21] Praise God.
[00:35:23] Let's go out with a blessing. If you would put out your hands to receive from Romans 5, church. God's love has been poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit who has been given to you.
[00:35:41] For while you were still weak, Christ died for you.
[00:35:49] And let's go in the hope of that and in the piece of that. And let's get to the comments. Love you guys.
