Guest Speaker : Bob Andrews

Well, we have a special treat with us this morning. Bob and Lynn Andrews are here to minister to us. Bob and Lynn serve as directors of Devon Oasis.

They live in Little India in Chicago, and they seek to minister to the people that live in Little India in unique ways in Chicago. So Bob is an ordained minister with the missionary church.

He also finds time to teach theology in the midst of all this at Loyola. So we are very thankful to have Bob and Lynn. Bob, would you come and share from God's Word this morning?

Thank you so much for allowing me to come. Today's Sunday, and all this wonderful evening. I'm really excited to you.

Oh, my, am I off here? I'm on.

This church, this church, Redeemer Church, was the first church to support Devon Oasis' ministry on a monthly basis. Do you want me to do the hand?

That's all right, man. And I feel like I'm at O'Hare Airport, you know. This guy's checking me out. At least you don't have the bomb-sniffing dogs around me.

So I'm all right. But this church, Redeemer Church, you were the first church to support Devon Oasis' ministry on a monthly basis. And we're indebted to you.

I want you to understand that Devon Oasis is serving the Lord because of you. And we are your ministry, ministry of the missionary church. I'm kind of excited that we've set up this date at the end of June.

I believe it's Tuesday, June 23rd, for a group from Redeemer to come to Chicago and just see the community where we're serving, see the people.

A little bit about the neighborhood there. It is the most diverse and densely populated community in the entire United States, outside of New York City, Jersey, that area.

We have over 30,000 people living in every square mile, over half of whom, according to the U.S. Census, are foreign-born. English is not the primary language in over half of those homes that we are at.

The ministry of Oasis specifically is a gospel ministry that is focused on those who, many of whom had never heard the gospel, not even one time prior to coming here to America.

We work with a large refugee population, but I want to be very clear, we stay out of politics. I believe I mentioned last time I was here that in Chicago, every citizen gets to vote two or three times every election.

And so I'm always guaranteed to vote for God's candidate. But in the ministry, we stay out of politics. We have people on the far left side of the spectrum who serve with Oasis, those on the far right.

We simply serve the poor in the name of Christ. And we call them to faith in Jesus unashamedly. Devon Oasis is a place where people are called to mission.

So it's really cool. We have about, I think this semester, 45. So I'll say 40 to 50 college students serving at the ministry center every week.

And we get to work with them and train them. And I'll give you a little insight as to what goes on. There were three men. I think they were in school like 2018 through 2021, something like that.

And I worked with them every Monday night. This was part of their internship. Every Monday night for two or three years. For one of them, it was three years.

The other two, it was two years. And their internship was pastoral visitation in an unreached community. It was great experience for them. So how do you do parish ministry in a community that is not even Christian?

How do you go into homes? So we would go into people's homes. We would break bread with them. We would invite them to different outings that we were doing.

For a few years, we invested in these guys. And it was really an honor. One of these men is now living in Marseille, France, in southern France.

And he is working among almost an entirely atheistic community as a missionary. Another of these men that worked alongside of me is in East Africa, in a very restricted area.

Actually, one of the most dangerous regions of the world, if you're a Christian. He and his new bride are there as missionaries serving the gospel.

And the third one of these men is a pastor in a small town outside of Fort Wayne. Not with the missionary church, but serving the gospel in another church.

This is the thrill I have. To work with young men and young women, middle-aged people too, and encourage them towards the gospel. To teach them, how do you share Christ in an unreached community?

How do you faithfully witness about the Lord Jesus to people who have diametrically opposed understandings of Jesus? How do you serve the poor?

Not just give words to people. But how do you care for people's real needs as Christ calls us to give to those who cannot give back to you?

Today, people who have gone through Oasis are around the world serving in different mission posts on this globe. Today, I want to explore with you just a little bit about this whole idea of call to missions.

Maybe God is putting a little prompt in your heart. Maybe God is calling you to missions. We all serve the Lord one way or another, right? Some of us are called to go.

Others of us are called to send those who go. We're all called to mission one way or another. But maybe some of you here, I'm thinking of maybe some of you in high school or college, or maybe you're a recent graduate and you're seeking God's will.

Where does God want me to go? How do I explore the call of God? Today, I'd like to focus on what does the beginning of a call of God look like?

The very start of it. How can you discern if God is calling you to missions? So, this spring marks 40 years that Lynn and I have been in this one neighborhood, this most unique neighborhood in the whole United States.

40 years there. And I've always felt like I am a missionary in that community. From day one, when I was 21, I just felt that God called me there as a missionary.

How do you know if God has called you to missions? Thankfully, the Holy Scripture gives us a little bit of a guidance, a little bit of help in this.

If you can, turn to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 9. I'm going to read the section that is called The Calling of St. Matthew. And I'm going to read just a few verses, beginning in verse 9 of Matthew 9.

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting in the tax collector's office. And Jesus said to him, follow me. And he got up and followed him.

Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and began dining with Jesus and his disciples.

And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to the disciples, why is your teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners? But when Jesus heard this, he said, it's not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.

Now go and learn what this means. I desire compassion rather than sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. And other passages will say sinners to repentance.

Looking at this passage, I want to pull out a few observations with you. And really, I'm going to focus on just the first verse, verse 9, although all of it must be considered.

First of all, in missions, if God is calling you to missions, or when God calls us to missions, he initiates it. It's God's idea, not mine, not yours.

Matthew, Jesus came to Matthew, or he was passing by. Jesus saw, and Jesus called. Jesus initiated the call, and he called to Matthew to follow me.

And you all know the story, how an unlikely candidate Matthew was. He was a traitor, basically, to his own people. He had sold out to the controlling government in order to tax his own people.

It would be like you sell out to the local mafia, Lord, to hustle down your own family, your own father, your own cousin, your own brother. Matthew made a buck off of his own people and had a bad reputation.

He was not a likely candidate for the gospel ministry. It's interesting that later in Matthew's gospel, it lists all of the original apostles, the original followers of Christ.

And one of them is Simon the Zealot. And as a zealot, he was possibly a political zealot, but more likely, he was a religious zealot. He was someone who was just devote to the law, to the word of God.

And he was very religious. He crossed his T's and dotted his I's. And Jesus brought in a tax collector in that same inner group. I mean, it's just so unlikely.

But yet, those are the ones that Christ called. But notice that Jesus took the initiative. He called Matthew. He did not base Matthew's call on Matthew's reputation, did he?

He did not base Matthew's call on Matthew's repentance. There's no evidence before this that Matthew had repented or reformed his life. But Jesus initiated the call.

And this really shows us that the call of God begins in grace. Please know that. If you feel that you are unworthy to serve the gospel as a missionary, if you feel that you are just not qualified,

then you are seeing things clearly. You really are. God initiates the call. And it is a call of grace. Look with me down again in verses 12 and 13.

Jesus said, It's not the healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. Quoting Hosea 6.6, he says, I desire compassion rather than sacrifice.

We know this passage was important to Matthew because Matthew repeated this Hosea passage in chapter 12 of his gospel. The very heart of God's call is a call of grace.

You might have a skill set. You might be a moral person. Or you may have no skills and be an immoral person. God's call is a call of grace. God's call is a person.

God's call is a person. Throughout Scripture, we see that God calls the most unlikely people. Moses, after being beckoned at the burning bush, said, Who am I that I should go?

Isaiah, when he had this incredible vision and God asked, Who shall go for us? Isaiah said, I'm a person of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.

I'm not qualified. Peter, in that dramatic passage in the beginning of Luke's gospel, just flat out fell before Jesus and said, You've got to go away from me.

I am a sinful man. Paul said to his church in Corinth, he said, Not many of you are wise. Not many of you are skilled. This idea of God's call of grace is throughout Scripture.

This should encourage us. This should really encourage us. If God is nudging you to serve him, that is an act of grace. He calls us to repentance.

He calls us to reform our lives. But he first calls us. And he calls us to himself. I think of Jeremiah, where he even linked his call to creation.

Have you ever thought of that? That your call in life, your call before God, is really rooted in your creation. He said to Jeremiah, Before, you know, you were in the womb, I knew you.

And I called you, Jeremiah, to be a prophet to the nations. Before you were even born. So there's this sense that the divine call is placed on you even before you're born.

It's not based on your merit. It's based on God's grace. There was an Italian Baroque artist around, Caravaggio was his name. And around 1600,

he painted a portrait of this Bible verse, The Calling of St. Matthew. And in this verse, or in this painting, he paints a picture of the Lord pointing to Matthew, calling him.

And it's pretty interesting because about 80 or 90 years before Caravaggio painted that painting, Michelangelo made that famous painting of the creation of Adam.

And if you remember in that painting, the finger of God and the finger of Adam touch. And most art scholars see that Caravaggio was imitating Michelangelo, that the creator's hand was pointing towards Matthew.

And he said, Come, follow me. I want you to see mission in your life as that profound. Your God, your creator, has fashioned you for many purposes in this life.

Many ways to serve people. But might possibly one of those ways be to go to the mission field. Whether the mission field is in Chicago, whether the mission field is here in town, you know, crossing those cultural lines, whether it's overseas.

Might God be calling you to serve him. And that call maybe has been haunting you your whole life because it is embedded in your creation. The God who gave you life has given you a purpose.

And that can actually be encouraging. It's not based on your merit. It's based on his grace. In missions, not only does Jesus initiate the call, but he really transforms us through the call.

If we look back in verse 9, Matthew heard the call, follow me. At the end of the verse, it reads, and he got up and followed him. Christ's call required a decision by Matthew.

With all respect to those who might differ, I'm not reformed. I believe in free will. We need God's grace. But Matthew had to decide. Will I follow Christ?

He rose, really rose, and followed him. But it's also a symbol of him repenting and leaving off. Leaving off his old ways. It was immediate.

Matthew didn't hesitate. At least there's no gap here. As soon as the Lord calls him, it reads, he got up and followed him. He left a lot behind.

I'm sure he left a lot of money behind. He left a lucrative position and security that comes with that behind. And Jesus' call to Matthew was personal, wasn't it?

He said, follow me. He didn't say, come join my school. He didn't call him to follow a principal, but he called him to follow Christ personally.

The call of God in your life and my life is personal. And we see this double meaning to the phrase, follow me. And this leads to mission.

Yes, it's a following of Christ to salvation, definitely. But flowing out of that engagement with Jesus is where missions is born. So we're talking about the beginning of the call to missions,

and it begins right here. It begins with our personal relationship with Jesus. We cannot truly serve others without first following Jesus personally.

But we cannot truly follow Jesus without eventually being sent to serve others. Jesus never called us just to go to a mountaintop and meditate on him.

But he always calls us eventually to serve others. And so I see that missions flows from our relationship with Jesus. It flows from our devotion to Christ, that personal impact.

There's a woman that we've served at Oasis for several years, and I'll call her Fatima. That's what I'll name her. She is from the Hazara people in Afghanistan.

Grew up, I believe, near Kabul. And years ago, through the wars and Taliban, etc., she fled to Iran and lived near Tehran. A Shia Muslim, that's one branch of Islam, she's Shia Muslim.

Never really had heard the gospel. And she never really knew anything about Christianity. She and her husband, they now have three children, but at that time they had one boy.

And at this time he was about eight or nine years old when they were living in Tehran. And Fatima's son got cancer, and it was spreading. And the best doctors in Tehran could not help him.

And she told me that they just sent him home to die. And she's crying out to God, to doctors, everybody help my son, and no one could help her.

And this woman who didn't have a Bible, who didn't have a Christian witness, had a vision. And in this vision to Fatima, this man that she later found out was Jesus, appeared to her in a vision and said,

I'm going to heal your son. This happened just a dozen years ago when she was in Iran. And her son, in time, was miraculously healed. And through the political situations in Iran,

her people, the Hazara people, even though they also are Muslims like the Iranians, they're maltreated in Iran. And so she fled across the mountains with her husband and son.

And they fled towards Turkey. And then from Turkey, they would come to America. And she recounts hiding in the cliffs, you know, hiding in the rocks from, you know, soldiers.

It's illegal to flee the country. They want to control you. And so she went to Turkey, and she told her story to a lady that became a friend.

And this lady's a Christian. And the woman knew that she was going to become a refugee to America. And she told her, when you go to America, find Christians, and you'll learn about this Jesus.

So Fatima came to our neighborhood, to Devon Oasis. She came to our English class. And we explained, it took time with language and translation, but we explained Christ to her.

And I still remember the night after English. Our English ends about eight o'clock. She stayed on for about an hour, and she came to Christ.

She finally met this Jesus. And there was an aspect I didn't mention. When she was traveling through the mountainous area of Iran, going towards Turkey, she had another vision of this one who healed her son.

And this one said, I am Jesus, and I want you to follow me. That's all he said. I am Jesus, and I want you to follow me. She didn't know Christianity.

And her friend said, go find Christians in America, and they'll explain it. She came to Christ. And in all transparency, whenever you're working with someone who comes out of either another world religion, a life addiction, you have to expect relapse.

So she's kind of gone back and forth. She's struggled. But God met her. And we have ladies now who are regularly reaching into her life, trying to disciple her.

That is an illustration of personal impact. When Jesus calls you, he calls you personally. And he impacts you. And out of that, you want to serve him.

You want to know him. Matthew's life was changed. Do you know Matthew's gospel? I love Matthew's gospel. I believe four different times in his gospel, it says the people worshipped Jesus.

You see that when the Magi came. They didn't just honor him. They worshipped him as God. When the Magi came, they worshipped him. Jesus walked on the water.

The disciples worshipped him. Twice after the resurrection, the disciples worshipped him. It was Matthew, the greedy tax collector, who especially gave us this teaching of Jesus.

give to the one who asks of you. Go sell your possessions and give to the poor. His life was transformed through this encounter with Jesus. And Christ's call will transform you.

You will have to give something up. It was about maybe 12, 13 years ago. I was in a rigorous academic program and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, you know, finishing my program.

And I had hoped to teach and serve the Lord after that. This would be like 2013-ish, 2012. And I had no time. Jason, you know, you sleep like three hours a day.

And I was working several jobs to take care of my family and doing this ministry. And it was very hard. And I was at risk of not finishing on time.

So the emotional, psychological pressure was just, I was ready to blow up. And this refugee mom, new from Burma, brought her fifth grade son to me and his seventh grade brother.

These kids were Rohingya. They were not allowed by the government to attend school. So they were illiterate in their own language. They had never, they don't, they didn't have any formation with how language works, written language.

They just were uneducated, no crime of their own. And she brings them to me. And in her gruff way, she said, you teach them to read. You teach them to read.

And I said, I'm sorry, I can't. I'm really busy with the ministry already. I'm working. I'm trying to finish this academic program. And it's like sinking of the Titanic if I don't graduate this program.

She said, teach my son to read. And it broke me. It broke me. Because I felt that God was calling me through that mom. And I remember beginning with Dr. Seuss to teach her son letters.

I remember trying to help young Tahir, is his name, learn to read. And it was hard. But he got it. And then he had some great teachers in his life.

And just a couple of years ago, he actually graduated high school, which was a victory because of the other teachers in his life. But the call of God transformed Bob.

And I needed that. It was good that I was pursuing another degree. degree, and I was fortunate enough to pass that degree. We made it. But I had to first die to myself.

And I first had to be willing to teach an illiterate fifth grade boy who had never been to school how to read English letters before God would allow me to finish my own pursuit.

And I want to tell you, I don't know where God is going to call you, but not only will he initiate the call, he will transform you through the call.

He will change your heart in the most beautiful way. And like springtime, he will bring life out of barren soil in your life if you'll pursue that call.

Christ transformed Matthew and he will transform us. I want to encourage you very specifically, some of you will be coming on June 23rd, but wow, we are just two hours away

from you, the most diverse neighborhood in America. I encourage you to consider come, serve, hear the call of God. We had a great experience maybe 15 years ago.

I had an intern from Indiana Westland. He was a business major, and he had his subheading was nonprofit ministry. So he did an internship with us to hone his business skills working with a nonprofit, got our website

going, et cetera. He's a great guy. But after he had served with us, he was so moved. He's a Christian. He was so moved that he decided to give his life to missions, and he went to live in an unreached people group area in the Middle East, and he was there

for many years. God changed his plans because he went through Oasis. Then a couple years after that, another young man, wonderful young Christian man from Bethel, Bethel College, came to Oasis, and he was sure he was going to Burma.

He was sure of it. And he came, and he lived with us for about four months, and he did his internship, and he left. He loved it, but God opened his eyes that, no, he was called elsewhere.

And so I just want to encourage you, if you're looking for the call of God, get busy. Get busy, and allow God to direct you, allow God to lead you, and I want to encourage you, Devon Oasis is a great place.

Jesus to serve. Jesus saw in Matthew what others didn't see. People saw a traitor, a sinner. Jesus saw a disciple, an apostle, and one who would write one of our sacred gospels.

Christ called Matthew publicly, and I want to call you, young men and young women, consider the call of God. You'll have to give up a pound of your flesh, but it will be worth it.

God will bless you and direct you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for Redeemer Church. Thank you so much, Father, for their love, their passion for missions, Lord.

Not only do they support Oasis, but they support others. Lord, I just pray that you would move among the hearts and minds of the young adults here, even those who are in middle school, not yet ready to launch, God, that you will speak to them as only their creator can, God.

Call them to missions, Lord. The opportunities are endless, Lord, to bring the gospel to those who have never heard. Oh, Father, won't you burn the call in their hearts, Father?

use Pastor Jason and Matt and the men and women in this church to fan the flame, Lord, to not just support missions, but to send missionaries from here.

Bless your name, Father. Thank you so much for this day to worship you. In Jesus' name, amen. Will you stand? Lord, that's little hand. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen.