View Full Transcript
Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: That's great. Listen, after the service this morning, Patty and I are going to leave immediately. So if you're going to try to stop us, we can't stop and visit. You'll say why? Because I have to perform a wedding at 02:00 this afternoon, not near here. So I have to drive to the location, and the bride and groom would be really happy to have me there before the service starts. You know, it makes brides nervous when the officiant doesn't show up for their wedding. So I want to be there. All right. So if I'm leaving, I'm not trying to be rude. I'm just letting you know what I'm up to. And for those of you who don't know who this wedding party is, one of our worship leaders, Leila Harter, you know, that young gal that leads our worship, she's getting married today at two. So I'm doing that wedding. It'll be fun. It's great.
At this time, we're going to introduce our guests. But as we do that, let me just explain a little bit who they are and how they got here. So John McGovern and his wife, Pam. John got saved in 1971. He's from Arizona and felt called of God to go do ministry in China. And so they were in China for a long time, actually started a church in Hong Kong, and that's where people like John Malcolm. John, are you still here this morning?
Yeah. Why don't you stand? So John is actually now the pastor in that church in Hong Kong, which is great. I want to welcome you. It's great.
And how we got connected to this whole group of people is through Trevor and Samantha, and Samantha now has joined our staff here, and we appreciate that so much. And, Trevor, thank you for bringing John and John here to our services today. So John McGovern, a little bit about his story after leaving Hong Kong. He has a heart for the world. I can see that. We got to chat with him a little bit yesterday.
This morning, as he's preaching in the first service, he had so many ideas flowing out of him, I thought he was going to burst. He probably didn't know which one to select because he's got a. A lot of experience in ministry over the years. But when he was watching a program at the beginning of the Ukraine war, he felt in his heart he needed to do something. God kind of prompted him, and he went to Poland and began a journey now where he's been helping people in the Ukraine during this amazingly difficult time in their nation's history and has been involved in a lot of different ways in that country. So without any further ado, I'm going to have John McGovern. If you wouldn't mind just coming and sharing your heart with us this morning. Let's welcome him.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Oh, thank you, Pastor Paul. Sister Patty. We call everybody sister. I don't know Patty. Thank you. Thank you, Pastor Paul. What a joy it is that they would even trust me to come here and speak. But I feel like we're home here.
I was in the first service. Now this is second service. This is the only time I've seen you online.
But I feel, I won't go into detail, but I feel welcomed by you. Thank you. I feel like we're friends. We're long lost brothers. Even though we're the same age. He looks younger. I'm sorry about that. I've got more dog years on me, you know, traveling these different things. But he's same thing. We go in different circles, like he's India and nations like that. I'm in further east. But God is going to help us all to fulfill what he has desired. When he sent his son into this earth, Jesus, he sent him to be a sacrifice for the sin of the world. Hallelujah. But a grave didn't hold him. Amen. Hell didn't hold him. But the Holy Spirit raised him from the dead.
Hallelujah. And then the commission is just so amazing that God could take us and he says, go, yeah. Into all the world and preach the gospel, making disciples of all peoples. And that's a great trust. But see, our trust is not in our ability, but our trust is in God. He's able to help us. Amen. In all these different nations. And so I feel like I'm part of you, even though this is the first time I'm speaking to you as if we're old friends and that we can accomplish great things in the kingdom of God. Part of my problem is I've got a lifetime of stories, and the stories I tried to give are the stories from just this morning where President Deng of South Sudan, he's the president in exile, and his cabinet, much of his cabinet lives here in Canada. They're in exile. But he's going to take my son, my son in law, our son in law, Javier Solis. So he's married to my second daughter. They pastor in California. And as of this morning, there's going to be a security detail out of Kenya. They're going to bring him to the Uganda border, where the UN peacekeeping troops are there. And then Javi will figure out a way that we can minister to the 751.2 million refugees on that border. So there's 750,000 on the Uganda border, 1.2 million on the Kenya border, and 750,000 refugees from South Sudan on the ethiopian border. And that's not talking about Egypt. Egypt. There are refugees there. And so we want to do everything we can to reach all nations in our generation. Amen. I don't know about you, but I might be a little older than I was when I got saved in 1971, but I'm not finished yet. I'm not ready to step down. I'm ready to go forward. Amen. Wherever God is putting us, I think I'm not ready to pass one of those batons.
You know, everybody talks about passing the. I'm not doing that. We're going forward. Amen. Together.
Old, young, Gen Z. I've got hope for Gen Z.
They're in chaos.
They're in chaos. They know it. I mean, but God loves to take chaotic people like me and put order into their lives.
Amen. You know your pastors. This, of course, not in my notes, and I'm not going to go real long, but Patty and Pastor Paul and Pam and I together, we've been married 100 years almost in this generation. Can you believe that?
And you put the two of us together.
We've got more than 100 years together on this planet.
We're not finished. I don't know about you, but I think that you're like me. We feel about 18 years old, with a little understanding of how to get things done.
Trust in the Lord with all of our heart, and lean not to our own understanding, but in all our ways. Acknowledge him and he will direct our paths. It's a great comfort to know that we don't have to be anxious about anything that we do. God puts it together. We've seen it time and time again. Don't understand it, but God does. And this morning, if I could, I want to speak for a few minutes on 40 chances.
So Pastor Malcolm is going to help me back there. And I think there's a slide for 40 chances, and it's there, but it's not there.
So I'll trust that everything's right there. Back, John. Thank you, Howard.
Warren Buffett. Everybody is aware of Warren Buffett and how he made a lot of money, how he lived simple, how he continues to work at his age. But he had a son named Howard, and Howard wanted to be a farmer, so his father sewed $1 billion into his startup. And so Howard went to get the equipment, go to find out how to be a farmer. He goes to a meeting and was shocked when the guy told him that, I'm going to say some things to you that you've never heard before. And this is from a book called 40 chances by Howard Buffett and his son. So Warren Buffett's grandson and son co wrote the book. You can get it on Amazon. I'd figure kindle. And in the meeting, the guy said that in life.
In life, every one of you have 40 chances.
That's it. 40 chances. When you get a certain age and you're able to till the ground, plow the ground, sow the seed, fertilize it, reap the crops, sell the crops, you get to do that every year for 40 years.
Problem is, you can't take a year off and use your 40 chances.
You have to every year do the same thing. And when you get a little older, 20, and you now are 30 years old, you have 30 chances left in your lifetime to do that process.
And then as you get ten more years, I think you get the meaning. So if you're here today and you're Gen Z, you've got 40 chances, you think, well, maybe I'll live to be 100. Well, my mama is 100, and trust me, she couldn't plow, you know, a little. She can't even plant a pot.
She's 100 years old. At my age, I'm feeling a few things. You saw me limping. I found out I've got an Achilles thing from walking up in your beautiful banff and Lake Louise. I couldn't help it. I had to walk. I had to see everything that was up there. So as we get older, we're not as healthy as we were when we were younger. That's why you don't see people my age out there in the Premier cup.
Manu doesn't ask me to be a striker. I don't know why, but they don't ask me.
And because I'm old and I can't do that, I would never keep up with these young guys. So you and I have to take whether we're Gen Z and realize that they have 40 chances, people like us that maybe have ten chances left.
We can help Gen Z to fulfill everything they can do in their lifetime with those 40 chances. And I am old, so I can say to you that, oh, John, you don't understand.
My knees hurt, my back hurts, and, well, I've got grandkids now. Well, I'm old enough to say, if I can do it, you can do it. Amen. We ain't too old to fulfill the will of God in the nations of the world. His command to us is to go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. When I got saved out of a hippie background, I didn't even know there were such things as evangelists. I'd never heard of an evangelist or a pastor. Our idea wasn't to become a pastor of a church. All we wanted to do was tell people what Jesus did in our life and minister.
You know, I'd see a hurting. I'd go to parties where my friends were and I'd tell them, listen, you know who I am. You know who I was yesterday. But today, Jesus changed my life. What he did for me, you've seen it. He can do for you right now.
Ministering. I didn't want to be a pastor. And today all I want to do is to be used of God to minister in places that are an adventure. Amen. South Sudan, that's the newest nation on planet Earth. Who would have ever thought an old hippie, white guy American is tight friends with the president in exile of South Sudan.
And he trusts my word. And I'm smart enough to say, don't trust me too much. I know nothing about politics. He'd say, what is your advice for our next move? Don't ask me.
Don't ask me. I'll pray for you. I'll be there.
Ministry, things like that. But not only Deng, President Deng, but there are many others. The next president of Colombia. He's 35 years old. Juan Mercado, the next president of Mongolia. His father was a former. I'm hanging around those people. Never in my lifetime did I believe that God could put me there. But I know he put me there for a reason. And I know you and I are friends, that we have a lot to accomplish that God has for us. I believe.
I believe that you and I, Pastor Paul, have something to continue on.
This church, the Hong Kong church, the different churches we're connected with that if we can minister to those people that need direction. How many have heard of Senator Langford of Oklahoma? I heard him speak. He's one of the american senators. And he spoke to 69 politicians from all over the world. Even Canadian MP's. There were Canadian MP's in the meeting and he got up there and he said he was a former youth leader. That's his claim to fame. But if you hear him today on tape, Senator James Langford, he said, you know, I wake up every morning and I have to sign bills. I have to make decisions on things that are out of my league. And I wake up every morning and he said, he challenged every senator that we need to pray.
God, how should we vote? God, what decision should we make? Those are men I can admire. Amen. But see, I believe, Pastor Paul, that we're here today, that God wants us to work side by side with men like that.
And the mp's here in this country. There's a shift going on in the world today. People look at it as half empty chaos. I look at it out of my generation, the hippies that were rioting in the streets in 1968, not only in Chicago, but in Canada and throughout the world, there was chaos. People say, oh, there's chaos today. Well, my generation, I don't. You weren't there. I was there. It was bad. But God brought a revival out of that. I'm not saying he's going to do the same thing. I have a feeling that God might not do the same thing he did then today, but he's doing something God delights in bringing order out of chaos. And again, that's not in my notes, but I'm getting back to the notes.
We have 40 chances. We have 40 chances. And today, my life, I'm counting them. So I want to use my chances for what God wants. And I want to encourage you and challenge you to use what God has given to you to help this young generation. Tonight. There's going to be a young girl in there, and it was the greatest thing. You know who she is.
You know, Trevor's, what's her name? Trevor? Julia. Julia said, what advice would you give a 20 year old like me? I thought, wow, she's asking my advice. I wish every 20 year old would ask my advice. But I told her that you're going to have 40 chances in life. Make them count. Make them count.
Getting to the word of God. Paul's in prison.
And if you want to turn with me in your bibles or just look at up there, psalm 9012 before Paul, the Bible says, so teach us, teach us God. David saying, God, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Message. Bible, teach us to live well. Teach us to live wisely and well.
David is primarily saying, make sure that you think about your life and your time so that you live wisely and fulfill all that God has purposed for you to do. So how do we do that? Number one, well, Paul's in prison and his prayer in colossians four, three and four. In the message Bible, it says, don't forget to pray. Are you with me? He's in prison. Paul's calling the brethren.
Pastor Paul, pray for me.
Well, my thought is he's in prison. Oh, God, bring him out of prison, God, you know, but that's not what Paul's asking for. He said, don't forget to pray for us in that God will open doors, not the doors, physically, of the prison, but for telling the mystery of Christ. Even while I'm locked up in this jail, pray that every time I open my mouth, I'll be able to make Christ plain as day to them. So it's a picture of a door. New Testament. It's an opportunity in today. It's an opportunity when you come to red deer, when you go to Hong Kong, God open doors that no man can. God. And when I prayed before I went to China, that was my prayer. Is this what you have for me, God? Or is this my ego and my agenda to go into red China in 1980? That's what we called it in 1985, where they killed christians, bringing a 20 something year old wife at that time and a two and a half year old girl and a nine year old girl. When I realized they can kill my family, I mean, I don't know. We didn't have the Internet. We didn't have any social streaming.
Who knew what was going on in China? So I was hoping on that side of the altar, as I prayed in an all night prayer meeting, God, is this my agenda, or is this what you have for me? I really hope that God said, john, this is all your ego. I didn't call you to China, but God said, this is a door. Those words, this is a door I've opened for you. And he began to, for hours, poor vision. If I would have told my friends, they would have said, john, you're really. You think you're really something. You know, I couldn't even tell him what God told me would happen. But in 1992, I went to somebody in our church, and I think I might have mentioned to you, John, in 1992, that it's crazy. I fulfilled everything that God told me would happen. What else am I going to do? Do you remember anything like that? Yeah, but Paul's in prison and he's saying, pray that God will open. Give me an opportunity, the possibility to share the good news with those that need a little good news in that period of time.
And so the end of the first missionary journey with Barnabas, Paul sent a report back to Antioch, and he said in acts 1427 that they declared that God, all that God had done with them and how he had opened a door to the gentiles. It's like, I go there, I go to Ukraine. Pastor Paul, you're not going to believe it. God opened a door, and this is what happened.
And when. How many Ukrainians are here? Are there any Ukrainians? Wave your hands if you're ukrainian. God bless you. Anybody else? God bless you. Some other Ukrainians. Yeah. So they were under soviet domination for many, many years. And before that, under everybody. There's been wars there forever.
But under the Soviets, there was a coldness. There was an anti God spirit. Atheists, atheism ruled the Soviet Union. All the people there. And in some, it's been entrenched. It's been a very hard place, from what I'm told, to win the lost. But yet, during this war, as horrible as this war is that Putin enacted upon Ukraine, there are, and I can back this up, 600 people a day giving their lives to Jesus Christ.
I have a picture in my phone there that I showed the head of the pentecostal union.
We were having lunch in Kyiv, and he said, what are you doing? And this and that. This. A couple of years ago, when I first was there in Ukraine, and I said, oh, you know, I'm working with this guy and that guy.
And then I said, I'm also working with the ukrainian orthodox priest up in Korosten, up by the northwest, Belarus. He said, that's impossible.
I said, no. I didn't know what was possible and what was impossible. All I know is that this guy was taking me on a tour of the whole village. He let me ring the three bells in the church. You know, it had all sorts of things. And we became tight. He gave me presents when I left, and I showed him a picture of me and the other guy and my friend, he said, brother, that is a miracle. They haven't worked with Protestants in their lifetime.
I said, well, to me, it wasn't a miracle that all of Ukraine banded together. Zelensky did not bow his knee and leave the country, and everybody rallied around him. One man made a stand. The whole country made a stand.
It was the most amazing thing. And today, people are getting saved all throughout the country. That's an open door. I could say, Pastor Paul, you wouldn't believe it. All these guys are getting saved. We're all working together, Baptists, orthodox, etcetera, etcetera. So you got the point. And that's what Paul said. He said, they declared and sent a report back how God had opened a door of faith to the gentiles. Second Corinthians 212. When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, a door was open to me and the Lord. And again, that's another situation where the door was open, that Paul is here in troas. Across the water is Macedonia. And the macedonian man, you remember the story, come and help us. And Paul's heart was open. A door. God. God opened a door to Troas. Then he opened the door to Macedonia, a very poor region. You know, the gospel has always gone to the poor. It was tough to reach those Corinthians. They were a tough group of people to reach. They had so much money, so much culture, but the Macedonians, and Paul was like a kid in a candy store, fulfilling the will of God. You know, I'm most excited when people give their hearts to the Lord and then get changed and continue to live for God. You know, numbers don't really matter to me, you know, as far as a number thing, but change lives like my life, like your life, that means a great deal. Like, if I'm in a situation here, and I say, Pastor Paul, this is a great opportunity in Ukraine. And he would come to me and say, john, I'd like to go with you.
I would never put you in the danger zone. It's a war zone. But I'll go and take my grandkids, so I wouldn't think anything. But if you ever did come and say, hey, John, let's go together. Let's do something there.
We'll figure it. The two of us will get the mind of God, figure out what, how many are for that, not putting them on the spot. First corinthians 16, 1st corinthians 16, eight and nine. I will stay in Ephesus until to Pentecost, for there is a wide open door to me. But there are many adversaries. So in these open doors, there is going to be challenge. But how many know if God before us, who can be against us, that God can win the battle with few, or he can win the battle with many? One shall put a thousand a flight, 210 thousand. We can back everything up that adversaries. Yeah, well, you know, people do get put to death from time to time. But I have been in some of the most dicey countries ever, cities.
Our fellowship of church has come out of East La Cholo, gang members and drug addicts.
And I have never been stabbed, beaten, robbed. My kids have been healthy. My wife Pam has been healthy, you know, adversaries. Yeah. But if God be for us, amen. We put our trust in the Lord. It's not saying something couldn't happen.
But in situations we go in, I want to make sure it's not my ego. This is what God would have. Rather than throwing out Pastor Paul. Let's go into Ukraine then. Patty, I'm sorry, you know, what happened.
You know, he goes in with me to Ukraine, then I have to call you and say, yeah, I wouldn't do that if I didn't feel like there's a connection here, that God is going to do something. We're the same age and we have so much vision left that God has put into us. And two different, as you can tell, two different styles, right?
Yeah. I think that's great.
He's the educated one. I'm the Peter, I guess. Just give me a sword. Hey, stay behind me. Come on. So 40 chances could happen, could end for us any day. Amen. We know that we're not promised tomorrow, but Paul says, pray for me, not for my survival, not for my safety, not for my finances, not that I get released from prison, but pray. Open doors. Open doors. Open doors. Pray that God gives me. Open doors that I can begin to minister.
I could give you missionary stories, but I'm going to skip down to what will keep us from walking through those open doors that God gives us.
There are people in my lifetime that were far more talented than me. They could sit here and 100 people would gather around them. You could put them in nowhere. They'd have a church overnight. But they're not here anymore.
They've either gone this direction, that direction, north, south, east, west.
But revelation three seven says, write this to Philadelphia, to the angel of the church, and thank you for welcoming us as angels, messengers, the holy, the true. David's key is in his hand. Open. Opening doors that no one can lock. Locking doors that no one can open.
Speaks. I see what you've done now. See what I've done. I've opened a door before you that no man can shut. That's our God. Hallelujah. That's why you know all the things you know that God wants to do on planet Earth, he can do them. Amen. If we'll be tune our ears to hear him. I like to say, not only open doors, open ears, open eyes, open feet, that we'd keep going. But what keeps people back is fear.
Fear. Whether it be like Ukraine, well, it's a war zone. Yeah, it is. But I wouldn't take you to the front lines, number one.
You know, it's like as far as Alberta is from Alaska, you know, the front lines, from Kyiv to the front lines there is a long ways away. You know, we get up and we're protected. But fear can grip people's heart. I had a friend that brought bibles into China. He came to help me. And a seasoned minister, well educated. He got to the border of China and panicked, and he dropped the bibles, and he flew all the way back to America out of fear. It just gripped his heart. Fear that'll keep us from fulfilling the will of God. Fear of failure. What if I can't do it? I'm going to be embarrassed. The cost.
What if the money doesn't come in?
My friend Larry Neville, who is the leader of our fellowship of churches, we've always had a saying, it doesn't matter who's got the money, as long as somebody's got the money, and never to do anything based on how much money we have. If I went to Ukraine and figured out, well, do I need to raise the money? We don't do that. We just go.
We're blessed with credit cards. We went and I've never.
Pam holds the books. Patty found out. Pam does the accounting thing.
We've never been in debt for very long. I'm talking about a couple of months. And God recovers or gives whatever we need. As long as I keep going forward, if I start worrying about that on the left, worrying on the right, we're never going to get anything done.
Let me move on. Loss of vision. Colossians three, two. Stay focused on what is above, not on the earthly things.
Laodicea, affluent church, best resourced congregation, more than any other church.
But what Jesus says is, you say, I'm rich, I have everything I want. I don't need anything. Well, risk is a crazy thing.
You know, many of you here, there's so much more that God has for you in the nations of the world as short term mission teams to the neighborhoods, just even the neighborhoods here. You know, last night I was at Trevor. What was the name of that lake we went to yesterday, huh?
[00:33:20] Speaker A: Sylvan.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Sylvan? Sylvan. Packed with people. Well, I've only got two colors, white and red, and I had to be here today. I didn't want to be red, you know, I just didn't want. So I sat in the shade and one couple said, oh, please, sit here. I said, oh, great. So we got to talking. He was from Egypt. He runs all the comfort in the, whatever that group of hotels is. And his wife is from Morocco.
I mean, to me that's what I love doing in life. Rather than walk around a lake, I like being with an egyptian and a Moroccan. What an amazing thing. And I said, yeah, I'm going to be down here at this church. Let's see if they come tonight. But I've got as we're going to keep in touch. But a mandehead said that's risky when you talk to people, you're in another country, you could get arrested. I could tell you stories about that. But a man wrote a book and in it, and you can document this by going on the Internet, 350,000 people a year are injured by kitchen knives. 350,000 a year.
20,000 people are strangled by the cords on the drapery.
20,000. So don't buy drapes. It's a danger. Be careful. 4000 people are seriously injured by pillows. Pillows.
Look it up. You know, people write a book, you don't know if it's true, but look it up. But you know the most dangerous thing around your house today or around most houses in Canada, because the number one best selling chair in Canada, the number one. And you can look this up on the Internet. It's not called the risky boy.
It's not called the adventure boy. It's not called the worker boy. The number one, the number one most dangerous object in all of our house is a lazy boy.
And if I had a lazy boy up here, which I've done before with a clicker or whatever, you know, channel changer, we have lazy boys, so we can be in comfort.
We can just lay back and just do what we do. We like comfort. We don't like to be interrupted. Jesus has a way of interrupting our lives. I wasn't looking for him at the age of almost 18, I really wasn't. But he was looking for me. And he disrupted my whole life.
I had to give up drugs, I had to give up sex, I had to give up rock and roll. Nobody told me to do that. But when I got saved, I knew what was right and I knew what was wrong. And so these are things when there goes my voice. But why is that chair so dangerous? Thank you, pastor. Why is it so dangerous?
You never win spiritual battles in a lazy boy.
You never win victories in a lazy boy.
You never see 30,000 people come to a crusade impromptu in South Sudan. If you sit in a lazy boy, there are tears that you'll never weep in a lazy boy. And open doors that you'll never walk through.
And I could keep going on and on, but you get the point. And the challenge is, here's Paul in prison. One man. Just one man. Felix came with his wife, acts 24 24. With Drusilla, who was jewish, he sent for Paul. He heard him concerning the faith of Christ, verse 25. Now, as he reasoned about righteousness, self control, and judgment to come, Felix was afraid to what happened.
I almost feel like Joe Biden.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There he is. There he is, fighting all those battles in prayer. He's deep in prayer. No, he's out of it. You know, like, if I said, hey, hey, buddy, come on, let's go. Come on, let's go to Ukraine. There's an open door of opportunity that we can minister the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul's in prison, of all places, to be, to see revival happen.
He doesn't care about getting out of prison. He wants to minister to the people in prison. We lived in China for three years before we shifted into Hong Kong, and there were believers in there. They called that 20 years. The people that discipled me in China, they spent a minimum of 20 years in prison.
And they said, and so the young people would hear. They spent 20 years in prison. Their prayer was, oh, God, help us to suffer like our pastors, our leaders have suffered. And the old leaders said, listen, that's a stupid prayer to pray.
They said, we had to do that. That was our school of the spirit.
But for you, once you graduate, no need to go back to school. I don't know if that makes sense, but they gave that thing. So when I went to China many years ago, some might have heard of Dennis Balcom, my best friend, my close friend, who did a lot of work in China. I mean, he's like my hero. And both of us knew the stories of these believers in prison for 20 years. After they got out, all the government officials that put them in prison were coming secretly at night.
I had the opportunity to write for charisma one year. Steve Strang was a friend, and he wanted an article on the church in China. So I went and talked to the church there, and this is what they told me, pastor. They looked at me and said, john, that would be fine to write all of our stories, if that is what the Holy Spirit is leading you to do.
But if that's your agenda, you're going to ruin everything the Holy Spirit has been doing in the lives of the people that we're now discipling secretly.
I said, brother co, I'm not that spiritual. I said, I'm not writing the article.
Did you get all that? The way I said it?
There's no need to write about that. It's what God was doing, that God is able to take these people in prison to teach them what he had to teach them, because as we've talked about, under communism in 1949, there were 110,000 known believers, and we're talking about all religions in today. 110 million minimum. 110 million where the pastors and the leaders were put in prison. Isn't it amazing what God can do through people like you and me, normal, everyday people. Hallelujah.
And so I want to encourage each and every one. There's never a time in the christian life, my opinion, where you can say, the adventure is over. Let's let the young people have the adventure. Let's pass a baton on to them. I'm not ready to pass a baton on anybody young. I didn't get this far to pass it on. I want to work together.
Young, medium old or middle aged old. We can work together to accomplish so much more out of this chaos in Canada, in America, in England, out of the political realm. It's chaos. It's chaos right now.
If I had time, I could prove to you just by inside information the other day that we are on the verge of World War III.
It's nothing to worry about for us. We just need to work while it's day for nights coming when no man can work. And I believe it was the famous cricketer CT studd said, someone who lived beneath the sound of church and chapel bells. But I want to run a rescue station 1 yd from hell.
That's my heart.
Father. I lift up this great group of people, Lord, this great church goddess, open our eyes that we might see the fields white as unto harvest. In the midst of this chaotic, devil inspired generation, that you are always in control, you declare that you bring down one king and you set up another. The promotion comes not from the east or the west or the south, but it's you, Lord. You're still the creator, the maker of the universe.
There is none beside you. And we put our trust in you, God, to be your mouth, to be your eyes, give our ears, open them that we could hear your voice.
For the harvest is truly white, the harvest is truly plentiful, and the laborers are few.
God, renew within us that sense of adventure, God, that you put us in the greatest adventure of our life, to see many come into your kingdom while we are alive.
And let your blessing richly rest on every man, woman and child in this building, God upon the Filipinos, God upon the Africans, God upon the Chinese, God upon the Europeans, God even upon the Americans. God, in the mighty name of Jesus.
And I thank you for Canada.
Truly, God, your hand is on Canada. God from the northwest territories, God to the south, God from the east to the west, raise them up. God as a force in the spiritual realm.
And those God that maybe have wandered from you, wandered from your purpose. I pray that, Lord, they would have this heart. Father, forgive my sin, cleanse my heart.
Lord Jesus, come in and live within me. Lord, help me to walk in your ways all the days of my life.
Cause your word to be alive within my eyes or my mind, my spirit, my soul.
In Jesus name.
Amen.
Thank you, pastor. Hey, thank you.
Thank you.
[00:45:31] Speaker A: Amen. Let's stand. Thank you, John. Really appreciate it.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: Very powerful.
[00:45:36] Speaker A: Brought me to tears. Boy, I love that quote by ct stud.
Right? Let's set up shop right next to hell and pull as many people as we can for all of eternity. Amen. I know God's going to use.
We have a great congregation, guys, and we want to impact our city, our province, our nation. Amen. But not just our country. We want to get beyond that. And so we're going to continue to reach out beyond.
We don't want to lose that vision. Amen. We want to be people that are saying, I'm sold out. I'm going to make a difference. Even if it's for one person? Even if it's for one person, right. That one person God will bring into your lives. I've been praying, God, we prayed this morning. In our prayer time, John is a witness of this, that God would be sending us the heart hearts of people who are desperate right now. There's people in our city, they're crying out to God. They don't know him. They're desperate. They're saying, God, please help me. Please help me. And I'm going to say right now, I'm going to pray. In closing, Lord, here we are. Send us. Are you ready to talk to someone this week that's crying out to God in desperation? Are you ready? John's got his hand up. Are you ready? Okay. Thank you, Lori. Oh, Kelly. Yeah, Kelly. That's great. So let's pray. Lord, we've heard your cry. We've heard your heart. We thank you for John. We thank you for Pam. Thank you for John. They came. You know, I just had, when I was praying this morning, I just felt like you've had two angels in your midst, because that's what? An angel. It means a messenger. I brought my messengers.
Open our hearts. Father, there are people in our city right now. They've been praying this. Say, God, I'm so desperate, I don't know what to do. I have no clue. And I pray right now. Lord, each one of us in this room. We are your messengers. We are your angel. To those people crying right now, help us to be sensitive this week to the people that you're bringing into our lives, that we might share Christ with them. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave this morning.
