Recharge | The Global Church: God's Heart for the Nations

All right.

Good evening.

Happy Wednesday to you.

This crowd looks amazing.

My only job is to keep you awake as you digest your food.

And you can do it because it's like a 10-minute sermon, okay?

You can stick with me.

If you are a guest with us, we're really grateful that you're here.

Let me introduce myself.

My name is Jason Smith.

I have the awesome privilege of being the pastor here.

Welcome to Wednesday Night Recharge.

We um last semester in the spring, we walked through uh kind of a detailed look at the church, uh kind of the local church, the importance of the church, who the church is, and um uh and and the the importance of uh us thinking well about the church.

And so this semester, uh Pastor Chad and I wanna take it to want to take the next step because I want us to start thinking about the global church.

Okay, so that's where we're gonna be uh this semester, thinking about the global church, what we can learn about what God is doing to the ends of the earth.

That the way that that church, right?

There are believers.

Anywhere believers exist, they exist in the local church.

So really excited about where we're going.

Glad that you're with us.

I want to start.

Here's a picture of uh a man and his family that we met in India.

This guy was the most jovial.

I mean, like, right, the beard, he looks like Santa Claus, and that was his personality.

You could not be around him and not smile.

It was just, it was just infectious.

And we had the awesome privilege.

We we traveled out of a city called uh Amistar, and we traveled out into uh the rural, okay?

We drove for about an hour to go to a village, a village where uh prior to this family there had been no gospel witness.

Okay, and uh we we enter into this family's home, and they were so excited to have us there as guests, and uh his family and others uh had gathered, they they are meeting in this home as church.

Okay, so think about this.

Way out in India, in the middle of nowhere, okay, this family has received the gospel of Jesus Christ, and there's there's a church meeting in their home.

So we were so privileged to come in.

They they they had bought a bunch of flowers and spelled out welcome on the floor and and all of this.

They were so excited to host us, okay.

And um while we were there, we we asked that this, he's kind of the patriarch of the family.

We asked him um how he came to faith.

And so go to the next slide.

He began to tell a story of this is his son and his his son's family, but he began to tell a story of his son.

They were Hindu, had never heard the name of Jesus.

So imagine living your entire life, and all all you've ever been taught is Hindu gods, that that whole system, the system of karma, reincarnation, all of that.

And he was in an accident.

If if he lifted up his shirt, there would be a scar from below his belly button all the way up to his sternum.

You see, he got caught underneath a truck and it ripped him open.

And the doctors sewed him up, they did everything they could, and they looked at mom and dad and they said, he has a 0% chance of living.

He is going to die.

We have done all we can do.

It happened to be that a Christian pastor came and said, Would you mind if I prayed for him in the name of Jesus?

And this guy got healed.

And now the whole family, look at this next, look at this next picture.

This is this is the entire family.

Believers in the name of Jesus Christ, because God moved in power and in might in the name of Jesus.

Now, here's what I want you to understand.

That's four generations that are sitting there, okay?

His his mom is there.

I think I think she was in her upper 90s, okay?

Um four generations right there.

Every person you're looking at, here's what I want you to realize.

Up to that point, they had never heard the name of Jesus.

But Jesus from eternity past, he knew them.

He knew them.

And when Jesus was dying on the cross, he knew them.

I want you to understand that.

Okay.

The first uh lesson that I want us to take away tonight is that God has a heart for the nations.

God has a heart for the nations.

That is that God's plan always has been and always will be for the nations to come uh to saving faith in his son and for for God to redeem from all the nations.

Let me show that for uh begin in Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 3.

Genesis 12:1–3

It's on the screen.

Now, let's do a little Bible trivia quiz.

Where is the book of Genesis in your Bible?

It's the very front.

It's the very front.

12 chapters.

We're pretty much in the beginning, aren't we?

All that's happened so far, you've got the fall, and then you have the flood with Noah.

Very next thing, chapter 12.

God calls Abraham.

Okay?

God calls Abraham.

He tells him, I'm going to make a great nation of you.

Now, when we read that, we think, what?

Israel.

This is the beginning.

This is the beginning of the promise.

This is where God is going.

But I want you to look in that exact same promise.

Where does that promise end?

It says, and all the families of the earth will be blessed.

Here's what I want you to know and understand.

That from the very beginning, God calls one man, one family, one nation.

But the end, the purpose of, from the very beginning of our Bible is so that all the nations of the planet, of the earth, will be blessed.

Okay?

I want you to imagine in school, you probably saw this a lot.

A teacher chooses one student to come up and to perform a math problem on the board.

Okay.

Who who is that who is that problem for?

It's for everybody, isn't it?

Right?

It's for everybody.

The teacher is interacting with the one student, but it is so everyone can see and hear and learn.

Now, maybe you've been like me, and you've read the Old Testament, and maybe there have been points where you thought, I wish God loved me the way that he loves Israel.

And friend, you know what the answer is?

He does.

In his son Jesus Christ.

And he did from the beginning tell us that the plan has always been for the nations.

For the nations.

God's choice of Abraham was never about abandoning the nations, but it was for the sake of the nations.

So what I want you to see from the very beginning is the promise that God gave at the start to save the nations.

Next, Psalm 67.

Okay, I put the first four verses on your screen.

Okay?

Let me read it to you.

God be gracious to us and bless us.

Cause his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known on the earth.

Your salvation among all nations.

Let the peoples praise you, O God.

Let all peoples praise you.

Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.

Here's what you can't miss.

This psalm is God's people praying for what?

For the nations.

For the nations to see the character and the joy of God.

That God, that your way may be known.

And God's people are pleading for it.

They're singing about it.

Okay?

Because it is the natural desire, right?

That God's people are saying, the nations, all people need to praise you, God.

One, because you are worthy.

You are so worthy to be praised.

And God, all people need to know you.

But two, because that lost person over there that does not know you, they need to experience the joy and the satisfaction that my heart gets to experience.

They need to experience it too.

This is too good.

You see, what you when you read Psalm 67, you come to the conclusion, this must, it must overflow to the people around me.

It must.

There must be a call.

And God's people with their head up and looking around and saying, saying, God is worthy.

Jesus is, He did that for me on the cross?

He did that.

And then when you drink that in the depth of your soul, you can't help but say, I want their heart to have the joy and the satisfaction that I have.

So remember at the beginning, right?

Jesus purchased with his blood every tribe, a tongue, and nation.

And now I want you to see a picture of the very end.

The fulfillment.

Revelation chapter seven.

I want us to read this.

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb.

They are clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hand, and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.

You see, that which God promised in the very beginning, and that which God's people prayed for and hungered for and searched for, God accomplishes it.

There will be people from every tribe, tongue, and nation before the throne of God and before the Lamb.

There will be, it is guaranteed.

God has established it will be so.

I have purchased them unto myself, and there is no plan B.

There is no plan B.

It is this, this will occur.

So I start off this way because church family, it is so easy for us to get small-minded in our own view and our own worlds.

Everything's about my life and my family and my church and my city and my problems.

And there there certainly are times when crisis demands that it sucks all the air out of the room.

But you and I, as believers, right?

The scripture calls us to pick our head up and to look and to behold what God is doing, what God has been doing from the beginning of time, and what God will accomplish, and what is happening in our time.

What is happening in our time?

You will be thrilled.

You will be ecstatic to know that right in India right now, over the last decade, that that the gospel has been spreading like wildfire through through miracles, through signs and healings.

I probably came across 50 people that gave a testimony like that.

And the gospel is spreading, and God is calling.

So that's where we're going.

Pick your head up and look and see what God is doing so that all the nations will praise his name.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you.

We thank you for this evening.

We thank you for your word.

We thank you for what you were doing.

Help us to pick up our eyes and to see and to behold your magnificence.

Uh, teach our heart to sing your praises.

Uh, one, because you are worthy, and two, because we deeply desire for others to experience the joy that is found in you, Jesus Christ.

We love you.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Real quick, let me show you the schedule.

Obviously, things are all turned around all over the place.

We good in the children's building, Daniel?

All right.

The FLB has been flipped.

You can check your kids in.

Uh, that is now a kids' building.

All doors are locked, you have to have proper entrance, all the safety protocols are in place.

You can see on the screen, right?

Youth are in the youth building.

Uh the the other three uh, well, there's a women's study and an uh adoptive foster care, those are in the office building, okay?

It's blocked off this way.

You got to walk around this way.

Those two are in the office building.

The threads uh study uh that Pastor Daniel and I are doing is right here in the worship center.

And then choir is starting right now back behind me.

If you're a guest visitor, you you go on either of those sides.

Pastor Mark will lead the way.

Uh we'll be down here in front to answer any questions that you have.

God bless you.