Welcome to the Willow Ridge Sermons podcast. This is
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Well, good morning.
Well, thank you. I appreciate you.
Hey, if you've got your bible, and I hope you do, I want to invite you to
join me in Luke, chapter five.
That's where we're going to be this morning. Now,
I'm asking permission for something that I've already
planned.
All right, so I would like to this
morning's, message to look, honestly, a little bit
different, I think, than any sermon I've ever preached.
definitely any message, that I've done here at Willow
Ridge in the last, eleven years, that I've been
the pastor here. And the reason for that is,
in the last two weeks, I've had the privilege and the
honor, to travel to India. We've, had some wonderful
speakers that have come in and filled the pulpit during this
time. but me, along with several others
from our church, Brent Hawkins, Josh Nix,
along with Mike and Gwen Vaught, along with, Wayne
Van Ham. so if you don't recognize who Wayne Van Ham is,
but you recognize the last name, that is Joel Van Ham's
dad. he lives up in the state of Washington. And he
made this journey with us for some strategic reasons,
to go to India. And for the last two weeks,
we've been there, we've been touring around India. This is
my fifth trip, that I've done, by far, the
most impactful trip that I've been on. We, did
a lot of traveling in India. We saw a lot of
people, met a lot of new friends
and partners in the ministry, and had the opportunity to share
the gospel with a lot of different people, than we normally
would, encounter to kind of give you. If you're
looking at or you're thinking about. And you can picture
the country of India, we flew in on
their west coast, to a city, a
large city. You've heard of this city, I'm sure, named
Mumbai. And so we were there overnight
twice. And then we flew from
Mumbai, to a city, named Jaipur,
which you've heard me talk about before. that's where our ministry
partners run their base ministry out of. It's where our
bible college that we sponsor, our church planning
network that we sponsor, and our preschool
through 12th grade school that we sponsor as
well, is located in Jaipur. Which is located in
the state of Rajasthan. So that's up in the north. That's
in the desert, heading toward the mountains of what's there. We were
there for several days, and then we hopped on,
planes repeatedly and flew down
to the south. And so we flew from there to
a state known as Andhra Pradesh. And we'll talk
a little bit about the dynamics of Andhra Pradesh here in a little
while. Spent a few days there. and I'll be honest with you, I
was kind of used to, Jaipur and what Jaipur looks like, what
Jaipur feels like. all the aspects of
Jaipur got down into andra, and it was a
change of scenery, change of cultures, change
of languages, but just a wonderful welcoming
of God's people who were there. We spent several days there,
and then we stayed in a city known m as
Kakinata, which is there in Andhra Pradesh. And
then we moved over for just
a brief time, literally. Our flight arrived in a state
known as Kerala about around 1030. We
made an hour and a half journey to, our hotel, where we slept
for about 5 hours, woke up, toured a hospital,
and then flew to Mumbai to start our journey home. So I'll be
honest with you. We weren't in the city long enough for me to even remember
that city's name. but I know that we were in the state
of Kerala. And so what I'd like to
do this morning is take some time to share with you some of the
details, about our trip that we were on, some things that
God showed us, that God taught us, talk about our
plans a little bit for the future, and how, if you're
interested, you can connect with that. but I
believe and hold, too, that what we do on Sunday morning is
very special when we open up God's word. And so
what we're going to do, kind of like, for the last, maybe like, 20%
of my time up here on this, on, on the stage preaching this
morning, is to connect all the things that we saw, to an
encounter of what we see in God's word, because we always want to
hold, true to the teaching of God's
word and what's there.
with all that said, I want to say this,
hands down, was the most grueling mission
trip that I've. That I've ever been on physically.
it was tiring. I share some of you saw
my post of, I believe it was like 46
hours that it took us to get home,
traveling in India. And around India,
air travel, layovers, buses. It was a lot. So a
typical indian trip, to India will take us. We bring
a team over and just go to Jaipur. round trip
total from, to get here, to there.
And then from there back to here is about 60 hours,
which is a lot. but this trip, in
airtime, in travel time and all those things, I want to say I
haven't done all of the math, but my preacher math lands me
somewhere between, like, 100 to 110 hours. and it was
grueling. It was a lot.
the second thing physically is it got hot quick. All
right. somebody asked me, what was the temperatures like there. Honestly, in
Jaipor, they're very comparable from where we've been now.
Jaipor in May and June will get up very,
very hot beyond what we're used to. but right
now it was fine. We were operating in temperatures in the low
nineties. relatively speaking, it's a
desert environment, and so it's drier than even what we're
used to when it lands. Kind of like June, July, August,
for us. So it's bearable, and we can do
that. But, then we flow down, to Andra. And we
landed in Andra. And last Sunday, we had the opportunity to visit
two churches. Had the opportunity to speak at two churches
there. And it's like I'm watching, like, my
phone in the temperature gauge from where you
guys are. I think last week, y'all had, like, 47
degrees. and it was just beautiful. we heard about
that. while I was preaching,
I looked down at my phone, and solid. Got a notification that
it was 107. And with the heat index,
it felt like 117. Right. So
I got done preaching, and then we went to another church and preached
again. And Sam looked at me. Sam, you know, pastor
Sam. He's spoken here before, our missionary pastor
that we partner with. And he looks at me and he's like,
do you think you can handle this? And
in that moment, that was like calling out a
preacher's pride. I was like, yeah, I can
do this. I can do this. and so had the opportunity to
go there, but just physically, just, it was a hard
trip, but it was very, very, very
good. Very good.
spiritually, it was emotionally,
it was hard. It was hard. We
met some people with some wonderful stories. And I want to share
here in just a moment some of the stories with
you guys. We saw places and people, that we heard
about, that we knew about,
but we'd never encountered before.
I've had the privilege in gospel work to
visit South America, Africa,
the Caribbean,
areas in Mexico, in
Zimbabwe, and never in
my life experienced some of the things that we experienced while we were
there. So this is part that's a little bit different. What I'd
like to do for, the next section of the
message is share with you guys some pictures,
and I promise not to make this feel like
grandma's, you know, slideshow from
her 1964 trip somewhere.
Okay. but just to help you guys put some faces,
and things with the ministry, so we can go ahead and throw up the
first picture that we have here. so that
is me and Mike vought there, if you couldn't tell by the names on the
back of our shirts, as they made us jerseys. So
this is that fellowship mission school. this is a school that we work
with, that we partner with, and we partner with them
specifically as they help to. It is a christian school
fellowship mission school. There's bible verses all over the
kids. you've got hindu kids reading bible passages.
Right. The teachers and leaders are praying for
them. and so what we've tried to help them do over the
last several years as a church is help them
establish their credibility, through educational
things that we've been able to come alongside and partner with them with.
But also, in athletics, their schools aren't that different than ours.
Right. If you've got a good volleyball team there, a good
cricket team there, it helps in bringing more kids in. More kids
mean more opportunities to share the gospel. And so they've come
to us and said, we'd like to introduce them to more sports,
and specifically sports that other schools aren't offering.
So last year we came, we introduced them to the sport of
basketball. And we'll. We'll meet somebody in just a second to see
him. but then also, Sam, in getting to know
Mike, if you know Mike Vought. You know Mike Vought loves Jesus and
pickleball intensely. And so, Mike was
like, you ever heard of pickleball? So they had a badminton court. So Mike brought
this gear over there for them. And so Mike taught
them a little bit about the game of pickleball. And then he
looked at me and like, all right, bo, let's play.
So you can't tell, but on the left hand side is a kid
named Anoush. I met Anoush last year. Anoosh
has got a great personality. He laughs up. He cuts up all the time.
And so we started playing, and in
his broken English, Anoosh started talking
trash,
so I did, too.
And Mike had a great serve
in a noosh. They play badminton. So
Pickleball's not completely foreign to concept to
him, and he hits it to a noose, and a
noose turns on that thing, man, and he sends it spinning to
me. And I went to hit, and I caught it with the
bottom of my paddle and went straight into the net. And this is
where, you know, like, our languages, our cultures are different,
but there are some things that just communicate. Anoush looked
at me, he dropped the paddle and went like this.
Well played, sir. Well played. so that was
part of what we have there. Picture. Ah.
Number two, I want to introduce you to a lady named lady,
Laud. Makes me look like I play power forward in the
NBA, right? Yeah,
I like laud. Laud, she was very specific. I asked
her what her name was, and she spelled it for me, and she said, I found
out in her breaking. And she tells me that I found out in English,
that lad is boy. Right? So
make sure that you say my name is Laud, because I'm not a boy. All right?
So this is laud, and laud
works there at the school. If, you've been there, you know, she's the lady that
brings us tea, all the time. So it's crazy. It's 110
degrees outside sometimes, and they're bringing you scald and hot tea, and you're
just drinking as you sweat it out, immediately.
but this time, I heard her story for the first time. You
see, when Laud came to know the Lord, Laud couldn't read,
but her daughter could. And someone gave her daughter a
children's story Bible. And she said, I want to learn
to read. And so she began, her daughter began to teach her how to read
English by reading a children's story Bible.
And years later, through the process of all that God
was doing in her life, she gave her life to Jesus Christ through
reading the children's Bible. And now she works at
the school, and she's able to support and provide for her family, which is
very important for her. She has a son and a daughter
because the rest of her family has rejected her. The
rest of her family won't help her. The rest of her family doesn't care
about her because she walked away from the hindu faith,
and she walked into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
And so when I see this picture, I'm
reminded that so many people all over the world that the
choice to follow Christ is not
simply a, choice of how does this impact
my eternity, but in a very real
way, impacts them beyond
what we could fathom or what we could comprehend.
And so she said. She said, can your church
pray for my family, that they would come to know
the Lord? And I said, absolutely.
So I want to challenge you to look at this precious
lady, to lock her face into your mind, and we'll pray
at the end, but to pray for laud L
A a d in her
encouragement in the faith. We'll see the next
one. This is coach V there
on the left, there's Brent.
Y'all giggled at that, right? I don't know why. and then there's Wayne
van Ham in the middle. And so they went and they worked with coach V to teach
about, nutrition and
stretching and different things that he could do with his basketball team.
Coach V is one of the basketball players. And
I show you this picture because this is part of what we do.
Coach V is the basketball coach who's there. Coach V is a
Hindu. If you only staffed a christian
school with christian teachers, then you couldn't have a
christian school because there'd be no teachers.
So the leadership at its core level is
Christians, but you have teachers there who are
not. And coach V is one of those teachers who
is not a Christian. And for me, this is an important
piece of what we see of, why we go to do what we do. Because
what happened about eight months ago, the first time Brent
went to India, is he became friends with Coach
V as we went there to work, to do basketball. But the gospel
is more than basketball. And they formed a friendship.
They formed a relationship. And through
abilities to communicate online, they've never
stopped communicating. Weekly, they
communicate. Coach V asked questions. And Brent
shares. And I show you this picture, because
on the very last day that we were there, Coach V had been asking more and
more spiritual questions, more and more questions about what we believe,
more and more of these things. And Brent went and pulled him to the side, into
the room. He said, can I share the gospel with you? And he shared the
gospel with him. Now, Coach van
did not get saved that day, but what we
know happened in that moment. If
seeds have been scattered, then
what happened in that moment with Brent sitting down
one on one in a room was a hard pouring
of water and fertilizer on what had already been sown before.
And so I want you to look and remember
his name. I think I'm pronouncing this correctly. We just
call it coach V. It's coach Va Bob. And I want
you to remember to be able to pray for him. I
think he's like 27 years old,
but it's the realization for him. If
Jesus Christ becomes his lord and savior,
his family becomes done with him. Right.
So I want you to pray for him as well.
All right, the next picture. So really quick before we go there.
Jump back 1 second. Real quick. So all of these places have
been in Jaipur. Okay. This has been up in the north. This has been what I'm
used to, what I'm comfortable with, what I know really well, know the
places, know the roads, all of those things.
What you're going to see moving forward is going to be in Andhra Pradesh and
Kerala, and I hope to distinguish between the
two. So let's go ahead and jump to the next one.
So this is the girl's home that, the ministry
has, which is outside of
Kakinada in the state
of Andhra Pradesh.
About 16 girls ranging between the ages of
five and 20 that live there in this
girl's home. This is out more in the
villages than in the city.
And these girls, just some special, some
sweet girls. If you see some that maybe look younger than five, there are some
workers who come there, and those are their daughters. But those
are a large majority of the girls, that we find there.
You see standing back in the back. If you don't know who, who Sam is, he's
standing beside Josh. that's Sam back
there. And then the rest of us who were able to make
this part of the trip are there. I asked
Sam, I said, how do
these girls end up here?
Cause their parents died. It was because
financially it was too difficult. We're in an area with
great poverty and great suffering of what's
there. And he said this.
He said, some.
But most,
most of these families view
these girls. And here's the word that he
used as an
inconvenience. And so
they don't want them, and so it's
easier to give them away,
but it's more profitable if they can be trafficked.
And when we hear of these, we take these
girls in
as a dad
of a daughter, especially
to sit there and to encounter a group of
girls who were looked
at not as a blessing and as a
joy, but as an
inconvenience, blew my
mind and rocked my heart.
We were able to eat with these girls. they had a group of pastors that came
in, and I was able to speak with the pastors for a while and do like a little
revival encouragement thing for them, and that was
fine. But being able to sit down with these
girls and we had a meal with them,
and then we played games with them.
They don't do pin the tail on the donkey. They do draw a
tail on a dog,
right? So they brought out, a dry
erase board and they drew a picture of a dog without a tail. And then they
blindfolded each other and spun them around. And we got to go and do
that. And then we got to go and do that. And they laughed at us
as these awkward, large american guys are trying
to get there and do that. Then we went
into another room and they played musical
chairs. Sam looked at me while they were playing
musical chairs and he said, do you have
100 rupee on you? and just let me pause 1
second. I want to make sure that I've got the right calculation on this.
I've, still got my money conversion app. I said, yeah, I've got a
couple hundred rupee notes, which is about a dollar.
And he said, give me one
of them. I was like, okay. And he
said, whoever wins this game, I want you to go.
And we're going to award them a prize of like, is that okay? He's like, yeah, it's
fine, it's fine, it's fine. So with one of these little girls, she
won and presented her the
rs100. And she got
so excited. Dollar 20.
She got so excited. And like, held on to that,
that hundred note. And
then because we wanted to give some more things out, I believe in the
ministry of candy. And so I travel with, with
candy. and so we took lifesavers and we
took, Werther's originals, right?
Which I'm m like the old man pulling out the hard candy
out of my pockets, you know. And we gave them around there. And
the girls are eating these and just loving it, loving it, loving it. But it came time
for us to go. And I noticed this little
girl, like, as we said
goodbye, we took a picture. That picture was taken right before we
left. it's the girl, you see, not the
girl with like the yellow tan cover on, but
the girl like standing right in front of me to my
left in that picture. Okay. And she's just kind of
backing up after her pictures.
And the moment we got on our bus, she took off running.
And then I watched her and she ran down
the road like a kid handed a
$100 bill. And she went down
to this little convenience store so that she could
take that dollar. $0.20 for us
and experience that. Just a
powerful, powerful moment.
Next, I want to show you the next picture.
This group of people are
known as the Yonadula
tribe, the Yondua tribe.
They live in a village
known as East Godavari.
If you take the translation of the Yonaduwa
tribe, their language,
what that means is they are the people of the
trash.
In total, there's about 75 of
these people.
The only place for them to live is
around trash dumps, specifically
medical waste dumps,
three different ones in their area where they
can support themselves. They go into
these medical waste facilities, oftentimes without
shoes on, to collect plastic
so that they can recycle the plastic.
I asked, how much money does that bring in? Like,
what is this? What is this amount of,
finances that they earn from doing this job?
A job I would not want. A job you would not want.
And what I found out was, for every two
pounds of
recyclable plastic that
they collect, what
that earns them is five cent.
Five cent.
Go weigh a plastic bag
and see how much that weighs.
And then what I want you to do is I want you to imagine how many
plastic bags that have been filled
with body parts and feces
and blood would we want to
collect in
order to make $0.05.
But it's their only option,
and so that's what they do. This man in the
white shirt, his name is Pastor Benny. Benny
Babu. He pastors a church
down the road. He started the ministry that cares for these people, that
seeks to share the gospel with them. And let me just
tell you, if all 75 of these people start
coming to his church, I would guarantee you the
giving does not increase.
There's no earthly benefit for
him to care for these people, which are known
as the untouchables,
other than for the kingdom of God.
And so he cares for them and shares the
gospel with them. Let's go to the next
picture. So this
is the side of their house. So the government has built
them. The structure we're in, there's three of these structures.
These are the structures they have to live in. I think you can
tell, that there's a mountain of trash right
there. I asked how we could pray for
them, and they said, pray for us. In this way, the rainy season
is coming, and when it rains
there, imagine, like, when we had the big flood.
Hundred year, thousand year, million, I don't know, million year flood,
right? That's what it rains, like, for two months.
So you remember how your yard got flooded?
Well, what happens here
is all of the waste from this
medical waste facility right here
gets wet. And then it works like water does with
gravity and fills their
home every day
with the disease and the filth that is
found in there. Go to the next
picture. If
it's not enough, I don't know if you can tell, but over to
the right, to get rid of the trash,
the government burns the trash.
So it's the filth that I'll stand
in. It's the filth that I'll
touch, and it'll become
the filth that I breathe
over and over and over again.
Let's get to the next picture.
This is me standing in the waste
facility back at them. And
this is their home.
They're all illiterate.
They're not given an opportunity to go to school.
They're not given an opportunity for
betterment for themselves.
This is their reality.
I was asked if I'd pray and say a few words when
we first got there. And so I'm
standing in their home. Dirt
floor, trash all over the place.
And I'm sharing with them, and I'm praying with them.
And y'all know this. Like, I move.
And so when I can't move, I move my
feet, and I feel something underneath
my shoe. I'm, Like, m that's
weird. I'm talking. I'm praying. Like,
there's times, and you probably know this, like we're up here communicating, but there's a thousand
thoughts going through our mind. I'm like, what in the world is this
underneath my foot? And I get done,
and I move my foot to the side just like that.
And I realize that I'm standing on a syringe
now. there's no needle still attached to it. It's laid
flat. My shoe kept me from where I
needed to be. But I'll look
out and see the bare feet
of most of the children and the bare
feet of most of the women who are in the room.
And that's the reality.
I knew that existed,
but my mind couldn't fathom it.
Let's go to the next one.
While we were there, this truck came in
filled with waste.
It struck me,
that's hope for them.
Think about that. That's
hope. That's more
money. That's an opportunity to
buy food. Every day when
that trash truck comes
filled with the filth that comes
out of whatever
medical place is around there,
that's hope for them
on this earth. That's
all that they know.
Let's go to the next picture.
We had an opportunity to give
out blankets, candy,
and food. These
blankets. I should have done better with my notes. I appreciate
y'all's kindness.
$3.59
rs299. We're able
to give them to them so that they can use them for a
million different things. That's their bed, that's their
cover up, that's their shade from the sun.
And to see the smiles on all the faces.
But amazingly, not a bum rush toward
them, right? Able to give them
some candy, a blanket,
and a bag of rice.
Let's go to the next one.
Next one.
Look at that.
The universal symbol of unhappy.
It's after they've been fed. It's
after some candy. More lifesavers, more
werthers. I, looked over at this one kid,
and he had his werthers opened,
and he had his lifesaver opened,
and he was doing this.
Not sure which one I want to go with and commit to, right?
So I'm just going to keep doing this, keep doing this, keep
doing this. And then Josh and
Brent, we were there, sat there and
teach them some games, taught them paper, rock, scissors.
I got a video of that. I don't have that with me. But you would have
thought, like, the newest PlayStation rolled
out. These kids became kids.
They didn't become trash collectors. They became kids.
And they played a game. There's a bunch of
old coconut shells on the side.
And Josh and Brent went back into the medical
waste, area, and they found, like, a
bucket, and they went and grabbed the
bucket. And
very unfairly, Brent made
Josh be the basketball goal. As
Brent taught these kids, who had never played basketball, how to
shoot coconut shells at Josh's
face. Josh just
smiled for Jesus while he did it, right?
And then they taught him, hm, how to play cornhole with
coconut. Right? So they're out there and they're doing
this, and show them all these games that we could do.
And they smiled.
We were there for an hour, and
we shared the gospel with them, and they
smiled.
I'll show you the next picture.
So this is Wayne right here, and I'll
explain in a minute what he's doing, but there's a man right
here named Pondu.
I heard Pondu's blind in one eye.
And I don't know. What I got to see is
I'm not a doctor, but filled with
infection and just
never seen an eye like this in my life. But I
noticed he had on a pair of sandals. I mean, his
sandals were busted, they were broken. And he had a
bandana tied, around his foot. And he was kind of limping. What's there?
And I said to one of the pastors, I said, hey, what's going on with his
foot? He says he's got an infection in
his foot, and we can't get the
infection cleaned out. So
the reason why Wayne was on this trip with us is to be
some medical eyes and ears. Wayne's, been a
nurse for years. He served in the army as a medic and
retired from there for years. And, most
recently. So he lives in the Washington area, but pretty
close to Portland, Oregon. And he serves on two boards that
work with homeless clinics in the area of
his town. And I said, wayne, you'll have some expertise, man. I would
love for you to come and go on this with us. And so
Wayne came to kind of help process through some things, and I
looked at him, and I was like, hey, man, you want to do some medical stuff here really
quick? And he got giddy.
He's like, absolutely.
So come to find out,
Pondu has diabetes
and no. No
diabetes medicine. And so
Wayne stepped in. Look at the next picture.
So Wayne got on our bus and took him down to a
pharmacy that's there. And he had the
guy take off his bandage and
his shoe. And here's what Wayne realized
really quickly. I don't have gloves.
And his excitement to get all of the antibiotics
and the creams and the wraps and all the things that are
needed, he forgot that he didn't have gloves.
And he's like, so here we go.
And he dove in,
and he cleaned his foot,
got all of the dirt the best he could off of his
foot. The wound,
Wayne thinks, is a diabetic ulcer that's on
his foot. Put the creams that was
there, cleaned it, bandaged it some more,
wrapped it, showed other people there how to do that, other people how to clean it, other
people how to do these things. Gave him some
antibiotics that he's going to need to take.
did all of those things.
So I told you these people were untouchables, right?
So he can't go to a hospital.
People around aren't going to touch him because he's dirty, he's
filthy. He's untouchable.
Wayne's like, I want to touch, and
I want to care, and I want to love.
When we got there, this man sat in the very back corner,
kind of hidden. The last to get food, the last
to do anything. And so let's
jump to the next picture. This is when
we left. All
right.
He is a
real person made in the image of
God, who is not untouchable,
but who has value and purpose.
And might not be a follower of Jesus,
but he's heard the gospel and
he felt the love of Christ
physically. And so we pray for
Pandu
next. We got three more pictures.
And then I promise the message is brief,
so let's jump to the next one.
Our last day, we went to a dialysis clinic.
This is a lady, she's 46 years old.
She's in stage five.
She will die. She is
not a Christian. When her husband
found out that she was sick, he left.
Her son has no job,
and we're now in the state of Kerala.
Let me explain to you the medical care in
India. It is free. Medical care
is free. I don't know if you know this or not, but
there's a lot of people in India, right?
So you think our emergency rooms are
crowded? You can go to their
emergency rooms and have to wait for
weeks to be seen. Now, there's no
bill, but ten to 14 days of
waiting will wear on someone.
And then when they can see you, you cannot get necessarily the care
that you need. You see, the care is saved
for those with power, those with money, those
with influence that can get these things. And ladies like
this are never going to be worth and
valued at that. So,
this dialysis unit of this hospital, which is a
private christian hospital, which means it gets no funds,
zero funds from the government to operate,
functions. And no one
pays who goes there either because they can't
afford it. Let's go to the next
picture.
So these were the four individuals who were there,
went through, heard their stories, prayed for each one of them.
According to Wayne, he thinks these two men
closest to the, to the camera stand a
chance because of the
swelling that is happening in the bodies of the last
two. Do not.
They will die because
of what the illnesses that their body is
facing. Every day this group of people gets
prayed for every day, this group of people
that comes in there, share the gospel all in
told every person that comes in there.
Over the course of the month, there's 174 different
individuals that receive dialysis treatment.
They can treat up to twelve people during a day. And they
work their best to make sure that the men and women
who come in get the proper amounts of treatments that they need
over course of a month. So
it's not just one, but if your body requires multiple times a
week, then that's what they do. The cost for
each one of these treatments is $10 every time
they get hooked up to dialysis.
There's four dialysis machines. You can see them right
there. You can buy a dialysis machine in India for
$9,000. They can are
praying right now for six more dialysis machines so that they can
see more and more people. Once a month, they gather
together. Everyone who has received this
dialysis treatment and who is alive and who is healed
gathers once a month for an opportunity to
share the gospel with them and to do all these things. And so
a wonderful ministry. who are there?
Let's go to the next one.
So, when you're on a mission trip
in a country that's restricted in sharing the gospel,
and someone says to you,
hey, would you like to participate in a
baptism in the Bay
of Bengal on a Sunday
morning? Like, you don't think about the answer to
that question, like, absolutely, I
do. Right? So we go out there,
and we're standing there on the shore. and there's two
pastors who are there. this is Jesse,
who was baptized. Sam baptized her.
Jesse is 18 years old, getting ready to go to
college to become an engineer. And her brother
Stephen, who I believe is 16 years old,
got baptized as well.
And it was a wonderful, wonderful,
wonderful time of celebration. This is in Andhra
Pradesh, but
I want you to notice there's two things
happening in this picture.
The baptism and celebration are happening.
But who else sees what else is happening?
Anybody? What's happening in the
background?
Fishing. Fishing.
Now, there was not a bass tracker
or pontoon boat to be seen, right? There
was not a motor on any of these boats. They
were not of fiberglass or whatever they're made out of.
Now, these were wooden
boats that were put together with
big old oars, with men and women out
there working these things. And it
struck me, standing out there, it
struck me in that moment. What's happening are
two things. Number one is a celebration
of life is what's happening. And that's what I thought I went
there to see. But then, number two, what I saw is a
battle for life happening in the background.
There's a celebration of life and a battle for life taking
place in this one picture.
And it's the beauty of what we go with and
what we see on the international mission field
where we can go and we can see men and women and
children, many of whom do not have access to the
gospel, much less have never heard of the gospel.
And you see someone who could be. Who could be
cast out from their family, and they're like, no, no,
no. It is greater, to
walk with Jesus than to experience
the success and the power and the
authority that this world has to offer. Offer. I
would rather have Jesus than that.
We're going to connect that to scripture here in just a second.
What's next? What's next? Here's what we're going to
do before may
ends. So we're an exploratory team to
go and kind of see what this would be like. Okay.
Nothing, has been set in stone, written on paper, or anything like that. But
what I'd like to do do is I'm going to hold an interest meeting that
will communicate both here on Sunday morning and
through email for
any individuals who may be interested on going on a
medical mission trip, either to
Jaipur in the north or to
Andhra Pradesh and Kerala in the south.
We just want to gauge some interest to see if there's any of
you who would be interested in doing that.
Now, it is a medical mission trip, so that means, number
one, we need medical people to go.
We need doctors, we need nurses, we need
technicians. We need anyone
who works paramedics, anyone who works
in the medical field. We need you to go.
Okay. But
you don't have to solely be
working in the medical field in order to go, okay.
And we can talk about that more in the meeting, and I can share
what that looks like. So, if you're here today and you're like,
but I'm not a doctor or nurse. I don't work in that
world, that's fine. That's fine. There could still
be a place for you on this. But if you are
here, if you are here
and God's kind of tugging at you and you just want to kind of have some
more information about some things, we'll sit
down one day after, one of our church services on a Sunday
morning, we'll gather for about 30, 45
minutes, and be able to share with you what all's.
What all is going on and what that could look like for you. Okay?
and so we'll get those details out, but here's
the question. And this is, we're gonna look at Luke five starting in
verse four here in just a moment. Okay?
But why do we do these things?
Why do we do these things? Why do we go to these places?
Why do we care for these people? What is
our motivation? And I think
that's important. What is our motivation
for doing this? Because
we're not just a good works
group. That's not
what we are. There's lots of reasons why
we could go and do these things. And
I'm going to tell you, when we pulled up to
that trash dump
where those people were living,
I looked at Brent and I was like, I can't
do this, man.
I can't do this.
And he's like, yeah, you can.
And I just got out, and I wanted to be like, okay, you,
you, you. Okay, your
new last name is Nix, all right? And so you're gonna
go with Josh, all right? And you, you,
you. Your last name is Hawkins,
all right? So you're gonna go with him. And we're just. Now, here are the
Van hamsters. Jacob and Ella just got some new cousins, all
right? And so we're just going to have these pieces, right?
Y'all go with Wayne, and then the rest, y'all are
ours. Emm M and Grayson, you just lost your bedrooms. All
right? This is what we're going to have.
But why do we do this?
And there's no better example to look at than
Jesus ministry. So I'm going to read verses
four through eleven of Luke, chapter five.
And when he had finished speaking, he being Jesus,
he said to Simon,
put out into the deep and let down
your nets for a catch. And
Simon answered, master, we toiled
all night and took nothing but at your word,
I will let down the nets. And when they had
done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets
were breaking. They signaled to their partners
in the other boat to come and help them.
And they came and filled both the
boats. So they began to
sink. But when Simon Peter saw
it, he fell down at Jesus knees, saying,
depart from me, for I am a sinful man, o lord.
For he and all who were with him were
astonished at, ah, the catch of fish they had taken.
And so also were James and John, sons of
Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.
And Jesus said to Simon, do not
be afraid. From now on, you will be catching
men. And when they had brought their boats
to land, they left everything
and followed him.
Chelsea, can we jump back to the baptism
picture?
When I'm standing there, that's all I thought about.
That's all I thought about. There are
boats and all the things that were there.
People who are doing the work of their business.
Then there was work of Christ being done,
the work of what's there, you
know, whether you're in
India or
America or
anywhere in between, this
world is filled,
filled with people looking for hope.
And they think they know where they can
find it, but they
can't.
Previously in this passage of scripture, getting into chapter five, we see that
Jesus is teaching, and more and more people are coming
toward him because they hear his message of hope, and they so long for
it. You see, there are people in India
and United States and every country in between
when they're searching for their hope. And anything that is Christ. And Christ
alone is putting their hope in the equivalent of a
trash truck backing up every day.
Every day. But we see
the picture of this is what's there.
India is very different. Very different.
But yet the pursuits are the same.
They have their temples. They have their gods.
We have our temples. We have our
gods. You see, the message of
why we do this is because we know where hope comes from.
We know that hope is found in Christ and Christ alone.
We know that hope isn't found in a trash truck and a trash
pile. We know that hope isn't found in a temple
to a made up God. And I hope that.
We know that hope is not found in a
401K or in a travel
sport or in a degree that we can
earn or a car that we can obtain
or the ideal of a relationship with
a person on this earth other than Christ and Christ
alone. This world is filled with
people looking for hope. And they think they know
where to find it, but they don't.
Number two, what we see in this passage of scripture
is Jesus is different. Jesus is
different. When we were getting there, most of the boats
are coming out of the water. When I come
off of the water, I stick my fishing
pole in the back of my truck, and I go
home, and I watch a group of
individuals pull nets out and
mend them and care for them. This is
their livelihood. Most of what they're
catching during this time is sardines,
massive, massive nets that
they would work in these very small boats,
paddling as they would pull these in and
then going through, one by one, removing all of
these fish and working and caring for it.
And I was imagining this passage of scripture.
Imagine working hard. You're taking care.
You're mending your nets. You're doing all that you need to do.
And I walk up.
Me, I'm not a fisherman.
And if, you're a fisherman and you fish here, let
me just say, like, your method and their method ain't the
same. Jesus is a
carpenter, and he's a teacher,
and he goes up to fishermen and says, now, let's
go back out. I got an idea.
And Simon didn't want to,
but he did,
and he did. And out of
respects, he let down his nets.
And what happened in that
moment of what he saw is.
Jesus is different. Jesus is different.
Jesus is different than any God that they would try to
find and create for themselves in Hinduism.
And Jesus is different than any God that you and I
try to settle for. He's different.
His kindness, his compassion, his love,
the essence of his very nature is
different in the reminder, in the
power of the truth of God's word, of who he
is. But the third thing we see from this
passage of scripture is that Jesus
demands a response. When
you encounter who Jesus is,
you encounter more than an intellectual
agreement. You
encounter who he
is at your core, at your
spirit. And Jesus
demands a response. And we see
that from Simon Peter. He fell at his
feet like Isaiah,
in Isaiah, chapter six, as
he's before, God
responds to God's holiness
by seeing Isaiah, by seeing his sin.
And that's what we see in Simon Peter that he
acknowledges here in the presence
of Christ. He
acknowledges his sin, but then
what does he do? It's, you see, we're really good, I think, at
doing that. We're really good at
acknowledging that we're not perfect. We know
that, and we think that that's
enough.
But Jesus called him into
relationship. He called him to follow
him.
And when they had brought their boats to land,
they left everything
and followed him.
Peter counted the cost.
Simon Peter knew that if I take this step,
that means that I leave this behind.
And he said, it's worth it. It's
worth it. And so he
followed Jesus. He followed
Jesus. He didn't perfectly follow
Jesus, but he
followed perfection.
And then in this, Jesus changes our
motivation. Jesus says,
look, the disciples are going
to go. They're going to plant churches. They're going to heal
people. They're going to perform miracles.
They're going to see dead people come to life.
They're going to see an international movement of
Christianity.
They're going to be a part of things special.
But what is their motivation?
Is it so that people will have a better tomorrow?
Is it so that people who are hungry today
will go to bed not with the pains of
hunger, but with a stomach that is full?
Is there motivation simply because a man who's got a
sore on his foot could
find physical healing from that? All
of those things are good things.
They're good things. But what Jesus
says is like, look, if you follow me,
here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna become
fishers of men, and we're gonna
use giving out candy to little
kids, and we're gonna use healing
sores on diabetic men's
feet. And we're going to use visits to
girls homes where they've been
devalued and abused by every
male in their life. And the ladies are going to come
in there and care for them, and guys are going to get to show them
what a godly man looks like.
But that's not the ultimate motivation.
The ultimate motivation is
that, is that
you see, that
man on the boat
probably caught 40 pounds
of sardines,
but God caught something greater.
And Jesus has asked for, I would make you
listen. This isn't a message, and I want to be careful
with this. This isn't a message where at the end of
this, I'm like, all right, if you don't go to
India, you don't love the Lord. That's
not it. There's some of
you that God may call to go with us,
and we'll celebrate that. But there's some
of you that God might not call. But
if you follow Jesus, if
you say that you're a Christian,
then the motivation of your
heart in all that we
do and all that we are,
is to love the Lord your
God, with all your heart,
with all your mind, and with all your
strength,
and love your neighbor as yourself.
And yes, we serve
and we clean feet and we feed,
but for something greater. Do, you know
who Jesus is? Do you know what a
relationship with him looks like? Do you know what it
means to step out of death into darkness?
Do you know that he paid the price for your sins?
That he died on the cross and then he rose
again? That's the
motivation to see more
jesses and more stevens
and more lads, and
the prayer that coach
V's and Pondus
will come to know Jesus Christ as their lord and savior.
Would you pray with me?
God, I thank you so much for today,
Lord, in the grace that this church
gives to be able to have
the time to share these things. Lord,
I thank you for that moment on the beach. We looked out and we saw
men who were catching fish
and saw men who were catching souls.
God, I pray. I pray
for lad. Lord, I pray that she
would be strengthened in her faith.
Lord, I pray that there would be those around her to support her,
encouraging her, or that while her
earthly family has rejected
her, her family in Christ has
received her. And, Lord, I,
pray that in the tears
of her loneliness,
Lord, that Jesus, you,
you and you alone would be enough.
God, I pray for coach v.
I pray for the seeds of the gospel that were sown.
God, I pray that you would work in the power of
your spirit. And that, Lord. That he
would respond to the truth of the gospel that's been shared with
him. God, I pray
that he will move
from being a friend
to a brother in Christ.
God, I pray for Pondu.
Lord, I pray for healing
for the sore that is on his foot.
Lord, I pray that in his limited
educational capabilities, Lord.
That he would be able to care for
that wound in the way that he needs to.
Lord, I pray for all those ladies,
Lord. The two that were in there who were pregnant,
the ones who were caring for the kids,
Lord. And all of those beautiful kids gathered
in that shelter that they call home.
Lord, I pray for relief for them
as the rain season comes,
Lord. As the floor of their home
will fill
with filth and decay,
blood, feces.
Word that isn't that,
Lord. An earthly,
earthly glimpse of hell that we could not
fathom.
Lord. That the truth of the gospel that they've heard,
where there is an
eternity
without that.
But, Lord, that it's possible through Christ and Christ alone.
And we're beyond their ability
to theologically understand, Lord.
That their hearts would be receptive
to the truth of the gospel.
Lord, we pray for all of our missionary partners.
Lord, I pray for Darryl and
his family, Lord. In the work
that you're using them for in the Philippines,
Lord. They see situations like what we saw
often, Lord. And give
them the strength to endure and to persevere.
Lord, we pray for Hans and brandy
in Toronto,
Lord. As they minister
to all of the millions of Muslims
who've gathered in that area
to share with them the hope of
Christ, the truth of the
gospel. God, we pray for
them as they're back here in South
Carolina for this time.
Lord. As Brandy's dad continues his earthly battle
with cancer, Lord. And we see
that the end is near for
him on this earth.
But, Lord, we celebrate for what
is in store for him as he crosses
that finish line and
his faith is made sight.
God, we pray for the Stotmans
as they gather this morning
in Salt Lake City.
M in an area of this
country filled with lostness like no
other, to share the hope of the
gospel with people who think.
Who think that they are followers of Jesus, but they're not.
And, Lord, we pray for the words
that Dustin will share this morning.
Lord, give him the
power of your spirit to speak truth
of the gospel. Lord, may they
be encouraged, regardless of the size of the crowd
or the amount of the offering.
God, we pray for all of those at Black
Mountain children's home
m
who have so many boys and girls there
whose parents have
left them, deserted them, have been
imprisoned. And what they have
to do, Lord, is go and show love to
kids who don't believe in love,
Lord. Soften those kids hearts.
Save them, transform
them the power of the gospel.
God, what a privilege and honor it is
to be able to stand along beside
these Sam and
Susan, Jacob and
Amala, these brothers
and sisters of faith linked arm in
arm, all for the pursuit of the
gospel. God, I pray if there's
anyone here and they do not know
you, Lord, I
pray that today they would stop trying to find their hope
in the things that the nets of this world will
catch. And they'll
find their hope in Christ and
Christ alone. It's in Jesus name we
pray. Amen.
Thanks again for listening and be sure to check back next
week for another episode. In the meantime, you
can visit us@willowridgechurch.org or by
searching for Willow Ridge Church on Facebook, Instagram
and Twitter.