Called to Boldness

0:00This is the Relevant Life Church Podcast where we are about connecting with God, relating to people and reaching our world. Tune in as our church goes through this week's teaching in God's Word. God bless you, I'm so thankful for you today, I'm thankful that you showed up to church. Can I tell you it's miserable when you come to church and no one's here and so I'm glad that you're here. As I look out I see there are quite a few away from us and so we welcome you online and probably going to be over at our South Campus as well but I know that many are sick and traveling and we're so thankful that you're in the house. There's been a lot of medical emergencies this week and some that are on the docket for this next week and can I tell you God's faithful. God's faithful, thank you for letting us know, we're praying, we've got an amazing prayer team and a lot of things have been coming forward in God's answering prayer and we're expecting them to answer prayer in your life as well. If you're new with us this morning we invite you to fill out a connection card so I look out about I'm not sure if I see any new faces, well I guess maybe a couple maybe that

1:03I don't recognize but if you would fill out a connection card we would love to get to know you better and if you drop that off at our welcome booth we'll give you a special gift. As you heard on the video announcements you 40 is this Wednesday make sure you go on and sign up if you're a member or even someone that distattends relevant life church faithfully next Sunday is our annual business meeting and we would love for you to be part of our reports and all that is there as well as a special announcement or a special devotion that God's laid on my heart that I believe is fitting for where we are as a church and where we need to be stepping into so I hope that you'll join us and come today we are so honored to have friends but also powerful global workers that are making an impact around the world. How many love global workers today do you love global workers? I love this family and I love this man who has become a friend over the last recent years. They're a power family they're a family that does amazing things.

2:03They are planted in Vanuatu I don't know if I pronounced it exactly right or not but he's going to tell you much more about that but I'm going to ask you to applause give him applause in just a second here but before he comes there's going to be a video but would you just welcome Sam and his family this morning come on. Good morning. Good morning. How's everybody doing? Everybody's eyes are open. How many people let's be honest? How many people have had more than one cup of coffee this morning? All right more than two? All right keep me on it more than three. All right you're my people you're my people that's good that's good. I'm so glad to be with you guys this morning is such a privilege. I do want to introduce my family real quick my whole family is not here unfortunately my wife is amongst those people we were praying for this morning not feeling the best and so my wife and my two daughters are in Beaverton but my two sons are with me today so it's a man's trip today and God is good and I just want to encourage you when God calls you to something and he calls all of us to something he calls your whole family and you can trust

3:10him with that. You can trust him with that he will call and equip every part of your family and it's all about walking in what he has for you. So my family and I pastor got a right we serve on the island nation of Vanuatu I want to just say how special your pastors are for a second every time I have connected with them I have felt immediately within five seconds like I was part of their family and you guys are really blessed we travel a lot we see a lot of different people I'm not talking about anybody else but I want you to know how special this family is right here so you guys are blessed to be a part of this family it is encouraging to be with you guys. My family and I we live and serve on the island nation of Vanuatu it's a very small little island nation out the middle of the South Pacific and we've been there serving since 2015 today I'm going to share some stories and we've got some stories from two different locations one is the island nation of excuse me the island of tenets the southern island and you saw some footage from there you also saw some footage from the capital island and that is the

4:12island of Vfate God has been using us in both places and it's been quite an adventure and I want you to know as I was praying for the Church of the United States God put something on my heart and that word was simply boldness boldness and I want to look at boldness today and I want to encourage you today because I feel like the church is at a turning point I feel like if we simply step out in boldness and I'm not talking about boldness as the world season we're going to look at what that what how God defines it but if we simply step out in boldness we're going to see God move in ways that we never imagined it before people are looking for the living true God you guys know we serve the living God right the living true God we have the privilege of serving him and I'm so grateful God never asked us to figure everything out look at someone near you and say you don't have to figure it out that's right he simply asked us to obey yeah the guy on your left he needs to hear that part

5:12again he should probably say it again a little background real quick from my wife and I were both missionary kids I grew up in Japan my wife grew up in Guam and we came back to the United States and we were determined to live in America and be Americans and we were excited about that you know not that we resented our parents we loved growing up overseas and it was great but in 2009 God got a hold of us we realized we'd been praying differently we'd been saying God bless my plan and then in 2009 our prayer changed to God whatever you want us to do we'll do it and immediately God filled us with full-time ministry and then next he directed us to missions and we've been on this journey ever since I grew up in Japan and this is if you know anything about Japan it is a country that understands time in fact if you've seen videos of Japan you know that at the train station there's people that it's their job there to push you on the train it's impolite to push other people but if it's your job you just get pushed along and you just get smashed onto the train and the reason they're there is because number one there's a lot of people but number two

6:14trains need to leave on time so I grew up in this place where the trains with hundreds of thousands of people going on leave on time and then God called me to a place where time is very different in fact pastor if if you're in Vanuatu and someone came up to you and said pastor I'm going to come to your house next Tuesday well next Tuesday you're expecting them you know especially if they said Tuesday morning so Tuesday morning comes around and goes now it's Wednesday they're not there the next week comes and goes they're still not there two months from now they show up on a Tuesday morning at three in the morning because it's much cooler at that time and they're yelling at your gate guess what they're right on time so God called me to a place where time operates but operates very differently you see God is going to call you outside of your comfort zone what happens when you move outside of your comfort zone is you have to be dependent upon your heavenly Father or you lose your mind and let me just tell you being dependent upon your heavenly Father is a

7:15much better option you see we're called the boldness and boldness in faith I believe each and every one of us is called to that I want to look at Acts chapter four verse 13 before I get into some stories here Acts chapter four verse 13 it says when the leaders saw the boldness of Peter and John uneducated common men they were astonished look at this next part and they recognized that they had been with Jesus so godly boldness it isn't some sort of bravado it isn't some sort of personality it isn't some sort of confidence or swagger it's evidence that you've been with Jesus I want to tell you boldness always looks like obedience always looks like obedience so this morning I want to point us to Jesus and I want to call us to take our next steps of boldness and obedience during our first year in Tanna I had a couple pastors that came to me and they said missionary we're installing a pastor in South Tanna we want you to come with us I said okay let's

8:16do this and so we got in the truck and we drove to South Tanna and this is a bush community and what I mean by that is this is a community that's very remote most of Tanna is remote you saw footage of it but when you get into the bush it's like you see in the picture here it's it's very removed as far as even clothing is quite removed the men just wear a small covering in front women just wear the grass skirts and they live the way they've lived for hundreds and hundreds of years and in one of these communities on the edge of it there's this new church and we were installing this pastor and so we wanted to spend a few days with him make sure he was comfortable and we had brought food into to cook in the evenings and we were sitting around the fire and we were making what we call Tanna soup now and Tanna that simply means anything and everything that's available goes into the boiling water and so everything was going in there sitting around the fire with a bunch of guys and we're sitting there and and I'd brought I'd brought some vegetables another guy I had brought I think I'd brought carrots and onions another guy brought some cabbage and another guy was cutting up roots and everything's just going in this this pot and then one guy

9:20is like hey guys check this out and he pulls out a can of corned beef now you need to understand meat is very rare you you you have pigs but your pigs are your bank account you use those to purchase your wife we can talk about that later but it's so you hold on to that kind of meat but when when somebody brings something like corned beef everybody gets a little excited so these guys are like oh this soup is going to be good and he opens it and he starts ladling it into the soup and you know that sound that that a spoon makes on the inside of a can as it's scraping the inside of the can well I was hearing that and then all of a sudden the sound changed just a little bit and I could hear something was inside the can that wasn't just the meat and I said hey can I can I see that a little bit and he passes me the can and on the front of the can it simply says corned beef and on the back it says China and I look in the can and in the bottom of the can I dump into my other hand a decaying human tooth so yes my response was what yours was

10:23and I look at the other guys and I said hey this is a bad idea we shouldn't eat this there could be stuff in here that could really make us sick and the young guys that were with me they said yes missionary that's a good idea I said why don't we just stick with the bread and they said yeah that's good and then I noticed that the the village elder that was over next to the soup pot he was stirring it he just started laughing now in this culture keep in mind this was my first year I'm still getting used to the culture I thought maybe I missed some sort of social cue or overstepped my boundary and so I'm kind of trying to pay attention to see what this guy says and then he turns and he looks me straight in the eyes and he says I remember the last time I ate someone this won't hurt me once again that was my response as well just shock and I realized very quickly that there's a living memory of cannibalism in every village and this man he expressed to something to me that shocked me but then I realized that Jesus still calls his church to the hard

11:28places why because he is there he has gone before us you see obedience it doesn't wait for comfort bold steps bold faith that steps into realities that sometimes they shock us but Jesus is there and Jesus said to go so a focus of our ministry has been these custom communities and that's a term that they use custom and in the United States I understand custom we refer to like custom clothing something that was specifically made for you but custom communities in Tanna are these remote villages where they block three major things they block any sort of outside religion they block any sort of outside education and they block any sort of outside medicine they live the way they've lived for hundreds and hundreds of years there's a beauty to it but there's also a desperate need for Jesus in these places and so our heart was to establish relationships and build the church there as God opened doors and time and time again we saw God do what only he could do and I'm going

12:31to share some of those stories today but during this season I want you to understand our living situation a little bit my family and I we're no longer living like this this was the first eight and a half years but we lived in the center of a village in this little 500 square foot house well actually it's less than 500 is 20 by 21 feet we were the only people with a with a faucet on the inside of our house we had nine light bulbs I think in the whole house and it was just a little tiny place if my wife were here she would tell you we were grateful for the memories there but she's glad that they are memories we definitely out grew that place but one thing we found that when we left the island even if we were gone for just a week it took several days to get the house operational again something would inevitably happen with the water supply electricity there'd be all kinds of issues and so we had this habit that when when we would leave I would go back early I'd go back at least a day or two before the family to to to the island of Tana and just make sure that the house was operational so when the family came in we had water and you know kind of

13:34important things right and on one time we had come back from my generation this was 2019 we had seen you guys and and I was back and we'd been gone for almost a year and I knew the house was going to need some help so my my family was staying on the main island and I went down to Tana and I came back into the community and my dog Sushi she was so excited to see me yes her name is Sushi and we named her that before we realized dogs were on the menu but by the grace of God she's still there and I jump out of the truck she greeted me my village family greeted me and how many people have a dog okay how many people let your dog inside okay yeah then I'm I love dogs I'm a sucker and anytime I would go to the door and open it she's excited to go in you know your dog's like yeah let's do this let's go inside well I I walked to the door and I put the key in and my dog took a step back now FYI that should be a red flag I opened the door and there was this

14:34explosion of movement they were rats everywhere they were rats jumping off the couch they were rats going underneath everything just climbing on top of the counter everywhere and I lost my mind I grabbed the nearest thing I could find which was a small two by four and started golfing rats out of my house as they were running around my dog joined in with me and pretty soon the rats were kind of scurrying and hiding into places and at one point I felt okay I need to drink and so I went to the cupboard to open it up and inside the cupboard was the largest rat I've ever seen and I just opened this cupboard up yeah that's him right there I I opened the cupboard up and this rat he just looked at me he didn't move he just looked at me like what are you gonna do and I didn't do anything I closed the cupboard because that one scared me a little bit and I remember I I went outside and I I called my my village brother Cioni that's him and I said hey I need some help

15:35and he said with what I said a rat he started laughing because you know what no one's no one's worried about rats and he came in and he looked at it he goes oh and he yelled for his son to bring his little spear that they use for spearfishing and he took care of the rat for me when he was taking it outside I asked him I said said are you gonna eat that tonight and he just got this big smile on his face and started laughing which meant yes and so they enjoyed they enjoyed the rat that night well that night I was going to bed and I it was one of these nights where I was in bed and I was just taking a deep breath and I was praising God I was thanking him that he'd gone before us and that he'd helped me get get most of the rats out of the house and and and I could hear them up in the in the wall still and in the ceiling but I'm thinking no tomorrow I'll deal with it and for whatever reason it just felt like a good night to let my dog sleep on the bed with me so I'm like yeah you can sleep here you know just there's there's strength in numbers right and and and I'm lying there and and rats they they if you've heard them before they they talk to each other

16:40they make that noise and the fellowship that was happening was was escalating it was getting intense and I'm praying and my eyes are closed and then all of a sudden it gets louder and louder and one runs up on the bed across my stomach I jump up at this point I run to the window and all I'm thinking is tomorrow morning there's got to be a flight out of here I'll just pick up my family we're going to go back to the States we're going to be fine and as I'm as I'm as I'm thinking this I look out and next to one of the cook fires is this small little black kitten now cats they don't last very long in a village because they're also high on the menu and I apologize if you're an animal lover in this hurts your heart a little bit but it's the way life is there it's and pets are kind of like livestock and so I went outside and I scooped that cat up and I said it's your lucky day you're coming to live in my house and I brought this cat in and he was a kitten he was he was maybe maybe three or four months old and I put him down on the bed and I'm petting him and my dogs looking at him like oh why are you in here and all of a sudden his

17:44eyes dilate and if you've ever had a cat in the eyes dilate you know something's about to happen his cat dashes under the bed and a few seconds later I heard this sounds it was one of the greatest sounds I'd ever heard there's a sound of a cat purring as he was eating a rat and I'm sitting there thinking God you solved one problem thank you so much here's the thing obedience to God will test your comfort but God cares about the details and sometimes God is going to send a cat before he sends a crowd you're going to find that God has gone before you and as you step out in obedience in that bold obedience you're going to find that he has prepared the way so not long after that my family came back and our nation experienced a massive category five cyclone on that side of the hemisphere we call hurricane cyclones and they have a different rating scale category five is the largest and this cyclone it smashed into the northern islands and we're living in one of the southern islands at this time it smashed into the northern islands and damaged six of them

18:46catastrophically it destroyed villages and damaged all their gardens and so much so that we made that we made the decision to uproot our family move to one of the northern islands and we led this relief effort for four months where we would go into communities we'd assess the needs and then we try and return as quickly as possible with supplies well one place that we visited you're seeing some pictures on the screen was the island of Pentecost and in Pentecost it has a lot of communities like what I was describing in Tana where God had sent us these custom communities these traditional places and I'll never forget we hiked into this one community was the center in the center of the island and we hike in and the chief greets us and he's just wearing his nombus which is just that small covering in front and the women are in their grass skirts and he greets me and he's explaining what's going on in the village and the challenges that they're facing and as we're talking I can see that his hand is hanging limply next to his body and when I get a chance to look around I can see that there's this massive gaping wound

19:51and his hand is all swollen up you can see the tendons you can see everything that's going on inside his hand and he's got this bad infection and it's swollen up to his elbow and in this community and in really most rural communities infection is the number one killer they don't have access to antibiotics they don't have access to medical so it is a serious issue and I lean forward and I asked him I said chief I said what happened your hand and he explained that since the cyclone destroyed their gardens that he'd been going down to the ocean to spear fish and an octopus had attacked his hand and ripped a chunk of skin out and now it had become badly infected now you need to understand these are communities that are fiercely opposed any sort of outside religion but as soon as he explained what was going on the Holy Spirit says you need to pray for him well I lean forward and I asked him I said would you mind if I prayed and ask God to heal your hand well he looked at the village elder that was next to him and he kind of had this concerned expression on his face and they talked amongst each other for a little bit

20:52and then he looked back at me and he simply nodded I lean forward and I prayed I said God heal this man show this community your power and immediately I could feel the presence of God just feeling that community just like during worship today and I knew God was with us and he was doing something as I opened my eyes I could see that he was experiencing the presence of God too and I told him I said I'll be back as soon as possible with supplies well it was about a week and half later I came back into the community and the chief came running out of his hut and this is a picture from that time and he was holding up his hand and he said missionary he said the day you left the water it stopped running because the wound was weeping he said it stopped running from my hand and it dried up and he said look it's better and then he grabbed my hand and he said you have to do for every sick person in my village what you did for me and I looked back at him and I said I didn't do anything brother I said my God did and here's what happened next in a village were

21:54prayer and outside religion are not allowed I found myself being led by my hand from hot to hot by the village chief and having him lead me to pray for everyone in the village so we went from hot to hot we prayed for them shared the love of Jesus with them and here's what you need to know this village that has never had access to a church is now connected to a growing church on the southwest side of the island of Pentecost you see when you step out in boldness praise God praise God when you step out in boldness you're going to find that impossibility becomes God's opportunity I want to pause right here for a second there may be some things that you've prayed for for a long time today and maybe and maybe someone who's far from the Lord that you've prayed for for the last 35 45 years there may be a health concern that you've prayed for for a long time I just want to encourage you don't give up continue to pray we don't understand God's timing we don't even understand his by his sovereignty why healing happens when it does or when it doesn't

22:58happen but I do want you to know that when we step out in boldness you're going to find that God will move it doesn't he doesn't always move the way that we imagined it but I promise you it is the best way for you and it's the best way for the person that you're praying for you can trust him a few months later we'd move back to Tana after these four months of relief in the northern island and I was woken up by a young boy he was at our gate and he was yelling for me I came to the gate and I said what's going on he says missionary you have to come quick he says chief Yahweh look is sick now this was a chief from another community where we'd been building relationship for years and we'd been going in and inevitably it was the same thing the chief would would would take me around the community and he'd show me his pigs and remember pigs is how you purchase your wife so it's like a it is a big status symbol and guys I know where it's already passed Valentine's Day but if you want to encourage your your wife or your girlfriend just say your worth ten pigs she's she's going to feel really good and he would lead me around the community

24:00but the first time I was there he took me to the center of the community and he drew a cross on the ground and he says does this represent your faith and I said well yes that's the cross and he crossed it out and he says it's here now because I drew it so don't talk about it now that's as this this culture is an indirect communication culture so that's like someone in the United States saying in the wild in a wild west setting saying if you do this I'm going to shoot you so I understood my place I understood that God would have to open the door it wasn't I wasn't just going to go in and just start sharing the gospel but I just had to continue to build those relationships so now we're five years into this relationship and this young boy is at my gate and he's telling me the chief Yahweh look is sick well the way it would work is I would drive up into the bush and this this road that goes up into the bushes is really rough and so not many trucks go up it and they can hear my truck coming and always by the time I got to the trailhead that would lead into their village the chief was there waiting well this day as I drove

25:03into that community chief Yahweh look was not there and I got out of the truck I closed the door and I looked down the path and I could see his hut and I saw two men stooping out of his hut carrying something as they got closer I realized that they were carrying chief Yahweh look when I got close to him I could see that his face was all sunken in his upper body was shriveled but his lower body was all beloted he had some sort of sickness that was really affecting him and he reached up and he grabbed my hand and he said he said missionary he said for the last 30 days I haven't been able to sleep he says the shaman has been coming and that's like their medicine man he's been coming every night and he's been chewing up the magic leaves and spitting him out on my body and rubbing them in and then he's been putting the magic stones around my bed he says but it still hasn't helped the next thing he said is I see that our custom magic and our stones have no power well you pray and ask your God to help me

26:06with tears in my eyes I said chief God loves you and I will pray for you he has a plan for your life and it's not just to heal your body but he wants to save you and so I shared a short gospel presentation with him and he said he was ready to believe and he committed his heart to the Lord and then I prayed with him and I asked God to heal his body and once again the presence of God just filled that place and I'll never forget his son Desmond that's the guy with the real dark beard saying next to me in that picture was sitting behind him holding his dad up because his dad wasn't strong enough to sit up and when we got done praying I could see just by looking at chief Yabi looks eyes I could see that there was hope where there had been despair you could just see the peace that had entered into his life and I said I'll be back in two days to check on you and his son he shook his head as if to indicate no he's not going to be here in two days well two days later the truck pulled up and there at the trailhead was not only chief Yabi looked but a whole group from the village and chief had this big smile on his face and he was walking

27:08under his own power and he came up to me and he said missionary the last two nights I've slept all through the night and God has healed me praise God praise God and at this point at this point I thought this is it this is this is the open door that we were waiting for and and he's going to allow me to share the gospel but the chief was still very hesitant and scared to allow me to share because his two sons David and Desmond did not want the gospel to be shared so unfortunately I still did not have an open door well fast-forward six months from this time I'm woken up another morning by this young man who's yelling at the gate and he says missionary you have to come quick he says the sick has come back and the chief is calling for you so I drove back into the community and this time I could see that everybody was not at the normal place where the huts were that they were spilling out into the road up at the meeting space and its fact it's the space that's in the background of that picture it's called a necomal it'd be like a village square it's where all the ceremony

28:12everything takes place and in the center of this necomal chief Yabi look was they had him sitting in this big bamboo chair and there's hundreds of people around him and I people are already crying and as I get close to him I can see very clearly just by the way he's breathing and by the way his head moves that he's in his last few hours as I get close to him he grabs my hand and he doesn't ask me to pray for him he looks at me and he says I know where I'm going I'm not afraid I grabbed his hand and I said I'll see you again my brother and I went and I sat down at the edge of the village I left later that afternoon and it got a call that he had passed the next thing that was asked to me was they said would you come back and perform a Christian funeral for my father this was chief Desmond the new chief that was asking this and I need to understand there's never been any sort of Christian anything done in this community with hope in my heart

29:14next time and I went back the next day next morning early we had a small Christian funeral and after doing that I sat down at the edge of the village and chief Desmond got up to make his first speech as the new chief and as he's making this speech he said it was my father's dying wish that his plan and the missionaries plan for our village go forward he says not my father's voice will now pass to the missionary and he will speak for my father and now I thought okay this is very nice he's honoring me but I still didn't understood exactly where this meant he came and he said on the mat next to me and he looked at me and he said my brother David and I would like to believe in Jesus so together we prayed with David and Desmond and they surrendered their hearts to Jesus the next thing he said is would you come back and tell them our village more about God he says because I don't know how to do it but tears running down my face I said of course and the next Sunday this is the

30:19picture this was the first church service that was held in this village that the gentleman in the green shirt with the guitar there that is Pastor Simeon pastor Simeon he pastors the church on the coast but he also takes care of this community as well and God is moving and that church has now been planted in fact we just cleared land two it was was a month before we left so it would have been October and November of last year we cleared land for a permanent structure for this building because right now that's that's church that's their church under a mango tree and we're so excited for what God is doing you see bold obedience it isn't safe it's surrendered and you're going to find that Jesus will build his church through that you see when you surrender when you get out of the way you realize that the pressure is not on you you see I think sometimes we put all this pressure on ourselves about you know I want to tell people about Jesus but what if they ask me a hard question what if they ask me a question about lifestyle right now and I don't know I don't know

31:21how to answer it here's just the great news you don't save people you don't save people the holy spirit does it's not our job to convict people it's not our job to convince people it's not our job to save people it's simply our job to point people to Jesus and we do that by sharing his love in boldness and extending that to people around us on December 17th 2024 we were in port villa and there was a massive earthquake it was a 7.3 earthquake my son my oldest son and my middle daughter we were at the church together and we just got and I met with one of the staff members because we've been pastoring an international church for the last three years in port villa in addition to everything in Tana and we were we just got done planning the year it was one of those yearly planning meetings and pastor I was excited 2025 was going to be the best year we had it mapped out and then all of a sudden this earthquake hit and we get earthquakes all the time living out living in the Pacific but this one after five seconds we realized this one was

32:26different and we we were walking down the stairs from the second floor and we were running out the front door and as my feet hit the grass the earth lifted this way and I heard this crashing and crunching sound and the cement walls that were connected to the steel frame of the church just separated and it started falling all around when the dust settled we looked around and it was one of those moments where we realized okay we're we're all right and then I realized that half my family was still at the house so when we're running to the side of the house and I mean to the side of the church and I found that that wall had fallen on our truck fortunately the truck still started and I was able to back out from underneath the wall and we raced back to the houses I'm pulling around the corner I can see the house and I can see these these cracks criss-crossing throughout the whole house I can see light through the house and as I pull up my family I find them it was my wife and Kylie and Terry were just standing right out front with our dog Thor he's a mastiff mix and he's just standing there with his look on his face like we're okay and by

33:28the grace of God my family was okay in fact during the earthquake Kylie was trapped in the downstairs bathroom and she couldn't get it open and and my wife was throwing herself against the door and it had the earthquake lasted for quite a while and she got to the point where she thought the building's gonna come down and she just had made the choice she was gonna either get her daughter out or be there when the building came down trying to get her out but when the earth lifted like this instead of going like this like it had been it threw the door open and she grabbed Kylie and they ran outside well after we hugged each other and prayed and thank God we went and checked on our team members fortunately our team members were also fine but pretty soon we started to get communication of of widespread damage down by the sea front that was even worse than where we were at and we heard of loss of life and building some buildings that are totally pancakeed in fact we started getting calls and they said pastor don't worry the Sunday we don't need to have service everything's in chaos don't worry about that we'll just we'll just meet up one we can but immediately the Holy Spirit spoke to us and said no this is the time you need to have church

34:33and so we got this message out and we said we know the building is is is not usable but the church campus is going to be open from eight to 12 come as you want stay as long as you want and we'll be there we're going to have some worship and prayer before eight o'clock that Sunday the place was packed we held people we cried with people we prayed with people we worship together and we relearned what we all say we believe the church it's not the building it's the people you see the family of God when when we leave this place we just change addresses when we die it's not that's not forever we go to our forever place and you see God takes us there and that's that's the hope that we have and we saw something incredible happen as we stepped out in God's boldness over the next few months the the church we we bought these pop-up gazibos to try and oh actually first I'm sorry we bought we found this big tent that's seated about 200 people and the

35:34church was growing so much at this point that we had to go to two services see the presence of God was just there and as people show up in the presence of God and they meet with God that's what changes them and about five weeks into this in the middle of the night this freak storm came up and it shredded the tent we decided not to be discouraged and we went we bought what you see right there these little pop-up gazibos it was 14 of them it was all that we could find in the city and set them up and it's so blessed to see people in the middle of rainstorms in the middle of wind in the middle of heat just standing there holding on to the tents even in their discomfort because the presence of God was moving it's not about us it's not about some great program it's simply about the presence of God you see I want to encourage you today because we serve the living God and he loves you and he's with you and as you step forward in boldness you're going to see God move in your life you're going to see God move in your family you're going to see God move in your church and he's going to show up in a way that is undeniable you're going to be able to stand back and say

36:39that was God no one person's going to get the glory for it it's just going to be God and that's what he does so now we've been serving on the island of Tana and in the capital city of Port Vila and we've been leading the ICC church and we've been ministering in Tana and today I want to tell many of you thank you pastor you've been with us and and we talked about this before service my parents are missionaries they've supported my parents since they went on the mission field which has been a long time it's they've been on the mission field since 1986 and you guys have partnered with them since that time and it is exciting to be in a family where we're the family of God together so the stories that I'm sharing today that's not just our stories these are our stories we are your hands and your feet extended so today I'm going to close with these three bold invitations the first one is bold prayer I'm going to encourage you to pray I'm going to encourage you to continue to pray for those prayers that you felt like like you just you wanted

37:40to give up on them and maybe you even have given up on some of those prayers I want to encourage you bring those back and surrender them to the Lord and trust in him and I want to I want you to ask you to pray for your missionaries and I know you guys are already doing that but I want to ask you to pray for your church as well and pray in a way that you're saying God would you just show up would you move in an undeniable way God we surrender to you we trust you pray in that way the second thing is bold participation it was awesome to see before service here how many people were already here I know pastor has an incredible team that love to serve maybe you've never served before or maybe God is calling you to serve in a bigger way maybe even God's calling you into ministry whether it's in the United States or overseas but you can trust him so step out in that bold participation and the last one is bold provision now this is a church that has an incredible heritage of partnering with missionaries so give strategically give to missions and

38:42give to what the church is doing because when we step out with our finances that's stepping out in faith you know a lot of times we don't like to talk about money because people get uncomfortable but but the reality is is that is a physical statement of our faith and so that's why we talk about it because when we step out we give it to God it's not about giving to an individual or an organization it's giving it to God and saying God we trust you with this I could be using this for anything but you blessed me with it and so I'm giving it back so I'm gonna encourage you with those three bold things Joshua 1.9 says have I not commanded you be strong and courageous do not be frightened and do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go so today I want to finish with this boldness it's not some sort of personality it's not some sort of swagger boldness is about proximity to Jesus let's be a church that's bold let's be a church that steps out

39:42in bold faith I love you guys thank you so much pastor for the opportunity to share applause yes I don't know about you but I love Sam's stories he is an amazing storyteller and Sam would tell you this in private but I'll tell you publicly I think you need to write a book I seriously I think you need to write a book your journey of faith your journey of experience is they're transforming seriously I sense God's supernatural presence when he starts talking about all the testimonies that we've been able to be part of can I tell you that's what missions is all about that's what missions is all about and I'm going to ask for bold provision this morning because I believe his boldness should help our boldness amen I think of Romans chapter 10 one that we read every time we have a mission

40:43everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved we've heard testimonies today of salvation's how then can they call on the name of the Lord and how can how then can they call on the one they have not believed in and how can they believe in the one they have not heard about and how can they hear without someone preaching to them and I love Sam's story his family story that it was out of relationship and presence proximity their proximity to God but their proximity to people and it goes on and it says something that's so amazing at the very end of this verse 15 how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news you know I don't look at feet and go out they're man they're pretty but can I tell you gods declaring something holy about the missionaries that are going and can I even say today he says your feet are beautiful when you go and so today when we come I want to ask with a boldness our mission are our ushers are going to come forward this morning because we're going to take a physical offering as well as you can see on the slide up here you can give through our QR code all the different avenues that are there

41:48missionaries come home to itinerate and we've talked much about this because we're providing a missionary atteneration house soon they come home for a year to raise funds to go live for four years and we want to be part of their funding we want to help them in whatever way that is but there's also need for cash funds and that's what this offering is this morning is to support them with cash funds for them to be able to buy specific things on the field but they also need monthly support and so today I would just want to challenge you maybe you're here and you support parishes and you want to increase that support you want to continue that support maybe today you have never supported a missionary on a regular basis I want to tell you you are missing a sacred opportunity such a sacred opportunity that when you're here in these testimonies I'm going I give to that I'm part of that I love this family I love missions I love what God's doing can I tell you that's a joy that we get to come and celebrate today so I want to invite you maybe today it's starting out with five dollars maybe you've never done it before in this five

42:52dollars a month maybe you've already done it and you're going to go I'm going to give five hundred dollars a month whatever it might be everything that comes in for this family is going to go to this family we don't keep any of it it goes directly to them so today we want to bless them God today we thank you for your faithfulness we thank you that you're a God that provides that you're a God that gives so generously to us that we can give back God in avenue such as this and God we've been commanded this morning not just in ties but we've been commanded to also send and so God today we want to be sending sending partners of the parish family and God I thank you for their lives I thank you for their their hearts and their dedication I thank you for their boldness and God their obedience God I know that in their obedience it probably has not been easy at times God I thank you for their humanity that even feels the things that we feel but God something holds them deeper and that's obedience to you God today I pray in their obedience would you bless them would you provide strengthen their whole in their lives God would you bring healing

43:52to Lisa God in the name of Jesus would you strengthen her body re re re re re re re re re re book the devour or offer her life God I pray for direction for all of their kids and all of their family God I know that as they go back this year there's going to be a separation because some are staying in the states God would you bring comfort and peace to all of that God you are the grand coordinator of all these things. And God, we trust you with it. And God, I love that there's not just obedience in some, there's obedience in all. God, would you bless them? God, help us to be a blessing, help us to be obedient today and are giving in Jesus' name, amen, and amen. I just want to say, one more time. Let's say thanks to Sam and his family. Wow. What an amazing testimony, what an amazing testimony. Our prayer team was coming to the front of this moment because we want to give opportunity for you if you need prayer today. We believe in the power of prayer for healing, for provision, for just, if you're feeling anxiety or stress or strain in any way, we believe in the power of prayer. Would you let them pray with you today? God bless you. We'll see you next Sunday.

44:56We're going to be stepping back into rooted next Sunday and you don't want to miss a sermon of any of that stuff. So be present. God bless you. Have a fantastic day. Here at Relevant Life Church, it's our mission to see people connect with God, relate to one another, and reach our world. This single statement drives everything we do as a church. Our hope is that today you were encouraged in this. Thank you for joining us and have a blessed day.