Missions Sunday

Take your bibles up, wave them around.

I'm just gonna preach just for a little bit.

Say, heavenly Father, I'm here today intentionally, on purpose.

I have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to me.

Today I'm participating in kingdom business.

I'm not sitting on the sidelines wishing and hoping, begging and crying, but I'm appropriating the promises of God through faith.

Thank you for using me to be part of something greater than just myself, in Jesus' name.

All right, well, let's turn in John 3,.

You can all quote this verse.

You see it at all the football games John 3, 16.

For God so loved the world, listen to the language of the Holy Ghost.

God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that whosoever should believe on Him should have everlasting life, should not perish but have everlasting life.

For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through Him, might be saved.

Think about the love of God that, while we were yet sinners, christ died for us.

And then in 1 John 3, 16.

It's John 3, 16, and then 1 John 3, 16.

It says hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

But whoso hath this world's good and seeeth his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him.

My little children, let us not love only in word, neither only in tongue, but indeed and in truth.

So with that idea, we're celebrating today what God is doing through Glorious Way Church.

To make you aware of the scope of our involvement over three broad categories, and this, lumped under missions, missions is a big word, but in our definition it's three things.

Number one evangelism and Bible teaching.

Number two we're celebrating the day of the Lord.

Number two community aid or humanitarian aid, but mainly community, mainly, you know, in our sphere of influence.

Well, we can help others overseas, and we do, but we can't forget about at home.

And then the third area is advocacy.

Advocacy we have to speak up and speak against.

We're in the mess in this country because the church has not spoken up and has not spoken against for too long and we're suffering because of it.

So in Matthew 28, it's worth looking at that one.

Let's get that in front of us.

Matthew 28, jesus is talking to the disciples.

He's about to ascend into heaven, he's leaving the earth.

How many of you think that it was important what he said on his way out?

Matthew 28, verse 18,.

Matthew 28:18

Jesus came and spake of them saying all power.

That word power is the Greek word exoseo, which means authority.

All authority in heaven and on earth is given unto me.

Go ye, therefore, delegated that authority to the church.

Go, we have authority to go.

Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations.

In my margin, in the King James, my study Bible, it says make disciples.

Isn't that interesting?

It didn't say go into a place and have a healing campaign and report how many thousand people got saved.

You said make disciples.

It's gonna take more than just getting a bunch of people quote unquote saved.

You know the Billy Graham Crusade used to call people that would come up.

You know, have you ever watched it on television?

Or maybe you've been to one?

But I mean he'd say now come.

And then those people would stream out of those bleachers all over the.

He'd be in a big old football stadium, there'd be a hundred thousand people watching him and they'd come out of those stands by the tens of thousands and gather.

Well, you know what they called them.

They didn't count them as saved, they called them inquirers, because there was only a small percentage of those people.

I hate to bust your bubble, but only a small percentage of those people ever showed up in church, much less were baptized and began to become disciples.

Their heart was to see that process all the way through.

Otherwise they didn't feel like they had done their job.

They were good at it and that's our heart.

I mean, we don't.

We're not just trying to get a bunch of numbers on a page and impress people with a bunch of numbers.

I was up on the platform for eight years at Glorious Way Church yeah, I've been up here too for 26,.

And at Lakewood, I was there for eight years, up on the platform, when Brother Osteen would pray over the altar call On a Sunday morning, it wasn't uncused.

So I have 150, close to 200 people standing in front of him saying this in his prayer Sunday night, you'd have another group.

Wednesday night, you'd have another group.

Didn't matter what he preached on, he always gave an altar call and people always gathered in front of him.

He and I would talk about this on a number of occasions.

I said where are they?

What happened to them?

They all went out.

They all had a prayer partner.

They were all prayed with.

They all gave their phone number and their address.

Where did they go?

If they all got really saved, they'd all be back in this church and we wouldn't be able to hold them.

So it takes more than just answering an altar call.

So Jesus gave us authority to go into all the nations, and he so loved those unlovable people, sinners.

He loved him so much that he empowered you and I to make a difference.

One of the men in my life that made a lot of difference in my life was brother Bill Deerman, who was director of missions at Lakewood for many years, and I got to know him very well, and he would like to say this.

He said you know, we can't do everything, but we can do something, and we must do something lest we do nothing.

And so that's my message to you today you can't do everything, but you can do something If you really lay your life down for your brethren.

That's what the love of God demands.

It demands that we reallocate our resources in favor of reaching the lost, in favor of showing people the love of God and how much God loves them, and I believe, as you catch the vision of what we're doing that.

It's going to enable us to do even more than what we've done, because God always gives seed to the sower.

He gives seed to the sower and we're going on a quest to obey God.

We're obeying God by updating and upgrading this campus.

We're going to work on the inside.

We've got a little bit more to do in here.

We're going to work on the outside, but we're never going to forget about world mission, because Jesus is coming soon.

We ought to be found doing what he said to do.

Amen.

In 2005,.

January 2005,.

I made a journey out to California to interview Dr Oral Roberts in July of 04.

He had a visitation and he told me about that and when I heard about it I heard about it on Christian television I wasn't satisfied with the questions that were answered.

I thought I think I can ask better questions.

I mean, I know enough about a visitation that you've got to have inquiry and a lot of it gets locked up and it can't be exposed.

It's like a surgeon going in and cutting open and delving into the tissues.

It's very similar to that and so I said, god, you just give me a chance, I'll go interview him, because what I heard about this visitation that he had.

It was confirmation of what God told me in 1999 to wake up the church, that the church was asleep.

That's been 22 years ago last month, and I've spent a good bit of my time doing that.

That's part of advocacy, by the way, waking up the church to do what it's supposed to do.

And so God did open the door and we went out and we took a crew with us, 12 people and we went to his home and he showed me where the visitation took place in this little hallway between his bedroom and the kitchen.

Evelyn had picked him a sandwich.

He wasn't feeling spiritual that day.

He hadn't been fasting and praying, he hadn't been seeking God.

I mean, he's basically retired and was living out there.

He turned over O R U to his son, richard, and he's in California and he said I was walking out of the bedroom headed to the kitchen, it's noon, I'm going to get a sandwich and suddenly I heard a sound from heaven.

It was so loud that it blew my sweater open, just like the space shuttle.

If you went to see the space shuttle take off, you would feel the sound waves from those huge jet of the rocket engines and it would.

You would feel the impact against you.

He felt that and he heard God say the church is not ready for the second coming of my son and he began to speak in that loud voice.

He said I saw Acts chapter two.

I saw a huge blood and fire and vapor of smoke, a cloud that went over New York city and over the Eastern seaboard and across the United States and all around the world.

He said it reminded me of Acts chapter two, while God was speaking that loud voice Church is not ready More.

When I heard that, I knew it was confirmation of what I had already heard a few years before.

I needed to hear what God said to a major general of this church, of the church, not this church, the church.

And so it was an amazing interview.

I've got it out there in the media center.

If you ever want to watch the DVD, it's just as fresh right now as it was 16 years ago.

It's necessary for us to get ahold of what he's saying.

God said and there's been a wasting of power.

In my church we talked about power, wasting of power, see, I began to meditate on that.

What does he mean?

Well, a wasting of power could mean that power has been given and yet not received, or it could mean that power has been given and it's been misused, and I fear that the last part is even more so.

We've misused our resources.

We've misused God's money in a lot of ways.

Are you with me now?

Cause power and money are kind of they kind of go together.

I mean, you can talk about the gospel, but you've got to send people.

It takes money, and so the main concern that God communicated to brother Roberts at that time is I so love people and I do not want later on, when people see the rapture, the rapture, I'm coming soon I'm going to come, and people aren't ready and they're going to cry and say I thought you said you love me.

Why didn't you tell me?

Why didn't you warn me?

I can't have that happen.

I can't have that.

Listen to the heart of God, his love, his love for the sinner, because even though he loves them, he can't send them to heaven unless they're born again.

We're going to put that on God.

We're going to, we're going to force him to have to decide to throw people that he bought and paid for with the blood of his son because they didn't hear and he, you know, and God told him I'm going about to do such great things that every man, woman and child on the face of the planet is going to know.

We better be in position, folks.

This is 16 years ago and the clock is running down.

Clock is running down.

I'm so glad for today.

I'm so glad for today.

I want to let you know what we're doing in response to what we heard all those years ago.

We've been doing these things all along.

It's just I've been derelict in my duty to keep you wired in and in the in the loop.

How many of you want to be in the loop?

I'm so glad.

So we've got to be his voice.

We've got to wake people up.

We've got to.

We've got to show people the love of God, not condemn them.

Love them.

And so we've got to be his voice.

When you know, warn people that he's coming soon.

Repent, accept Jesus, he loves you, get him healed, get him delivered.

They don't know he loves them.

And we can just speak words.

Oh Jesus, how many of you know?

I had people tell me that when I was lost.

Well, god loves you.

Well, yeah, I know that, but I don't necessarily feel it.

I'm hearing the words.

I don't disagree, but I don't have any warm and fuzzy feelings.

That's because I didn't know God.

I didn't know how he really was.

Then, when I got saved, I felt the love of God.

Why?

Because it was shed a broad in my heart by the Holy God.

And so we've got to prove to people that he loves them by getting them healed or getting them delivered or whatever.

You know, sometimes people get healed and then they get saved.

And then sometimes we got to meet their practical needs.

I mean, when they're hungry, we got to feed them.

When they're, you know, hurting, we've got to help them.

And so we're involved with food and clothing and even shelter.

And it's just so vital, especially right now, because, how many of you know, jesus is coming soon.

I mean, listen, he is coming soon.

All the signs are out there.

I believe there's going to be a mighty revival, but there's got to be the love in the church for the sinner before that's going to happen.

Are y'all with me now?

So I want to give you a brief rundown of what we're doing in different ministries that we're supporting.

Some are weekly, some are monthly and some are on project basis.

So the first one that I want to share about this morning.

You're getting anything out of this today.

See, the kingdom of God is our priority.

Let's just say that.

To say that the kingdom of God is my priority.

His assignment is my pleasure.

It's not a hard thing.

It's not a hard thing.

I mean His assignment.

He's given each one of us a part, an assignment, and it's our pleasure to do that.

And every one of the ones I'm going to talk about, every one of them, is a divine association that God put together.

It is a supernatural relationship, every one of them.

And that's vital because it's, you know, listen, there's a lot of need, there's a lot of people asking for the resources.

You can just give, give, give, give, give and not connect to the one that God has assigned you.

And God has assigned us to these different ministries that I'm going to talk about.

The first one I'll talk about under evangelism and Bible teaching.

The following ones are evangelism, bible teaching, mark Hankins Ministries.

And that was absolutely I had when I had that visitation about, you know, going to war.

What soldier goes to war at his own expense?

And I owned it.

I repented.

God had me adjust where we were putting money in missions and it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, because I had to end a long-term partnership.

They didn't understand.

I had to trust God.

I had to tell them, I had to apologize the best I could, but I had to stop.

And when I stopped, god hooked me up with Mark and Trent Hankins.

When one ended, he hooked me up supernaturally.

I mean the first, jay and I went to our first meeting, pastor Perfetto's church up in Fort Worth.

We walked in the room and there was an instant.

He took my hand, I took his hand.

Of course, when you take his hand he doesn't have a thumb.

It's funny when you shake hands with him he jokes about it all the time, but it was instant, the Holy Ghost.

And so we're monthly partners.

But then also we give over and above that on a regular basis.

I mean we go to meetings that he's in.

We'll give both personally and with the church we shared.

He was just here in January.

We told you we gave over and above what came in.

And so Mark has a network of churches.

He has world missions.

He goes himself, he and Trinidad fly all over the world.

They are busy all the time.

When the pandemic hit, he found a way to just have a Bible school online.

So he started every day of the week for an hour every morning.

At eight o'clock in the morning he gets up and he teaches in a Bible school.

They just created a Bible school online, gave away $300,000 worth of books.

I mean, he's got a huge impact all over the world the Isles of the Sea, asia, africa, you'd name it.

He's been there.

He goes again and so books, tapes, television.

Now that Brother Copeland got his own victory network, he's on TV now every day.

It's amazing and we're partners.

What he does accrues to our account.

It's a huge thing.

I mean, I want you to understand that.

Another one is Victory Christian Children's Home in Malawi.

I'm going to save the brother Royce is going to talk more about that, but again it's.

It goes back to a divine association.

How we even knew about it.

Brother Lonnie knew the former director who started it and was associated with him and we were looking for partners and boom, it just all went together all those years ago, 2008.

We have Kenneth Copeland Ministries.

Anybody ever heard of Kenneth Copeland?

I'm so proud of Copeland Ministries because during the run up to the election, they, they, they took bad news.

They were Christian television said we're a parting company.

We just don't feel like that.

Your ministry is what we want on our network.

I just thought, wow.

And he didn't fuss, he didn't fume.

God opened the door and he, he just took off on direct TV and his victory, victory network.

He's bigger now than he ever would have been if he had stuck with that other group and he gives away all of his TV time.

So, brother, mark Scott, some brother, all of his partners, they, they all got free television time and they have a political advocacy program.

It's been excellent.

They, they kept up with the news.

They still do.

I watch it from time to time.

They're sharp, they're good.

I'm so proud to be partnering with brother Copeland, of course.

For years Gladys and I partnered with them, back before we started the church.

You know, years ago we started part partner with him, partner with brother Hagan.

We have another group that probably none of you know about Christian relief ministries in a madam Bougie little, a little village called madam Bougie and Haiti, and I can't remember if it was after the earthquake or after my ache, one of the two.

They were found.

The children in that place, well, the adults too.

They would gather the mud.

They had no food.

They would gather mud and have it baking on stones in the sun and salt it and eat it.

Yeah, so we got involved.

Brother Max Manning and others that are connected with brother Max again have brother Royce talk about him, but you remain safe.

Royce and James went there.

They built a school, put a roof on and outfitted it, turned a building into a school and we have paid for three teacher salaries ever since.

It's been about how long 10 years or 12 years they're abouts.

Did you know we were paying teacher salaries in Haiti?

Some of you know that, but most of you don't, because what I never talk about it.

It's kind of ridiculous.

What does that have to do with the gospel?

I'll tell you what it has to do with the gospel.

Once we even did anything in that little place that I call it God-versaic and because it was God-versaic and it was a pit, and now they have paved road going to it and they have electricity and they have a school and they're busing students in there and they're here in the gospel, they're here in the Word of God and they're getting educated, which is the only hope the Haitians have is to get educated and especially to get the gospel.

You know, it's one thing to have the gospel, but you need to have a way to know what to do in this world.

Amen, ignorance is a curse, and this church had something.

Could we do everything?

No.

Could we transform Haiti?

No, but we did something.

And look what God did.

As soon as we took a little step, god just transformed the whole thing.

Now we've got two more that are here today, that I can't mention their names.

I can just say one is working in the Isles Pacific Islands, I'll put it that way, and one is working in Asia, I'll put it that way.

I'm not going to get specific, I'm not going to use their names, I just want you to know.

They're here today.

You, what live stream?

You won't be able to see them because they're working discreetly, and so they.

They are in places that are enemies of the gospel.

They're enemies of Christianity, and that's more and more.

By the way, it's getting worse and worse all across the world, and it's getting worse right here in America.

Okay, y'all getting anything out of this.

A little while later, we're going to have to unplug and then we'll introduce them and they'll be able to share with you what they're doing, but both of them are divine associations.

Both of them All right.

Global missions.

Max manning Again, I'll I'll leave it to brother Royce to talk about that.

In Haiti, that was an absolute.

How many of you were here when I interviewed max manning?

We still got his book out there in the media center.

You ought to pick up his book.

It's amazing.

All right, so now then we come to community aid.

So the first one is global aid partnership, and global aid partnership is a subsidiary of glorious way.

Church.

It is a separate corporation, nonprofit corporation.

It was formed in 2008 so that we could take advantage of multiplying people to give.

You know, a lot of people, even if they're Christians, they hesitate to give to another church.

They're members of XYZ church, and here you come along and say, hey, would you help us feed somebody here, would you help us do something there?

Well, they're hesitant to write a check to another church.

They feel a little guilty, and so, and then the other thing is that corporations we found out out this one time we had somebody working for a major corporation.

They had a bunch of, you know, laser printers and laptops and compute main frame, all kinds of stuff, and they were looking for nonprofit corporations to give it to.

So brought us some application.

We filled out we're a nonprofit corporation.

When they found out we were a church, they denied it.

They didn't want to give to a church.

But if we had had global aid partnership, we would have received no telling how many dollars worth of electronic equipment.

Are you with me now?

So we formed it in 2008.

And kids against hunger we found out about kids against hunger, which is a national organization.

The guy that started it did research and researched all the ideal, brought in experts and nutrition, and they created rice meals.

Rice is eaten in almost all the world's population, so we centered on rice and so they concocted the rice.

All we have to do is buy the rice and we buy the secret mix from them and put it all together.

How many of you have been part of a packing event?

So that's what we do.

It costs money to do that, and we have stockpile of rice meals that we ship, some to Haiti, some to Malawi.

After we started shipping these meals to Malawi, it changed their whole lives.

I mean, they were malnourished until Glorious Way Church got involved Again.

Ross will tell you more about it.

So now Houston, kids Against Hunger is a project of global aid partnership.

Global aid partnership is our mission's organization.

So when you give the missions, the missions, money flows from Glorious Way Church into global aid partnership.

We don't want you to give the global aid partnership.

Why?

Because you've already got a method to give.

We already have the computer program to keep up with your giving and all that.

Global aid partnership is not designed to be heavy on your side.

We're able to take in gifts and kind and other things easier than when we just have a donor.

The idea is global aid partnership is to multiply our intake.

Amen, all right, and Ross will talk to you more about the Malawi challenge and why we ask you to do it the way we do it.

You'll get a vision of it.

Some of you say well, I don't like to ask people for money on behalf of a starving kid.

Just think you represent a starving child.

Would that child, if you had an opportunity, would he ask for some food?

That's all you're doing.

You're the intermediary and we all know people, even our own families, our own friends, our own Employers, that help and they give the United Way.

They give to this, they give to that.

They'll give to Houston kids against hunger if you ask them and that money can come in and sponsor the feeding of a child.

Hundred twenty dollars feeds a child for one year, one year.

For a hundred and twenty dollars One year, a child gets fed food one year, nourishing food.

So that's what we do, all right.

Then we have Cyprus assistance ministries.

Joseph Davis is working with them and since he went to work over there we got hooked up with cam and there are local man.

They're a powerful outfit.

They've got churches involved with them too.

So it's a great network and I hope to get on a monthly basis with them soon.

We're not going to go to war at our own expense, but we're giving as we can on, project by project.

But I'd like to get on a regular let regular giving with them.

Stand up for kids is another that's over in the high school right Street kids okay, stand up for kids, street kids.

So we're involved with that.

Again, it's not monthly.

There's some things that we could.

If we get enough coming in, we could start to convert to monthly.

I want monthly because monthly gives you a floor.

If you're a, if you're somebody that's helping poor people, you need a floor that you can, that you can depend on you.

Know somebody that?

For we're gonna commit to you for a year to give you this amount every month and they can count on that and Helps them to do their job better.

Depelchin Children's home honey I mean, I've heard of that place forever.

It's over a hundred years old here in Houston, but that's for foster kids.

You know, if we're praying to overturn Roe v Wade and get rid of abortion and we don't do anything about foster kids, what have we done?

We haven't done anything.

And there are foster kids right now and they need help, so we're helping them.

Circles of care is another one that we help.

Are y'all getting blessed by hearing all these?

How many of you learned something already?

All right, the last one is advocacy.

So again, 1999, god told me to wake up the church or sleeping their beds with the covers pulled over their heads.

When I call talk to them, they think it's a devil.

That's exactly what God told me, and it's taken between two years to really find the fullness of it.

But I think we really hit our stride last March when the government shut the churches down and we opened back up on April, the 6th, and when we announced it it was going to be illegal.

But by the time we opened it was not illegal and the governor repented and and and and.

But I was written up in the New York Post as a renegade pastor.

I guess that I fit the.

I guess I fit the, I Fit the bill renegade.

I know, james is a renegade, jay's a renegade, so we're renegades.

I mean we just don't Get along to go along.

I mean, you know, or go along to get along, we're gonna stand up for the rights.

And so a few months after that, you know, we had some input from Ryan Rex Royce's son, bonnie Betty's grandson, and he is, his expertise is PR.

And he, he said, look, you could turn this into something.

So we, we formed an advocacy Advacy group, my god votes, dot-com.

We built a website.

Then we built a personal website, john, pastor John Griner, dot-com.

That Funds that flows into a Facebook page, our Facebook page.

Now, pastor John Griner, pay Facebook slash.

Pastor John Griner's got the last I looked, almost 4,000 followers.

I Mean we just started in September.

And so what's the purpose of it?

Wake up the church to advocate for the church, speaking up and speaking out.

And specifically, I mean I've rebuked Different leaders.

I, church leaders, political leaders.

I don't care.

I mean if they deserve or be buke, I rebuke them.

I don't do that all the time, but I I put some spice in there.

I mean people need to wake up.

We're in the mess we are because we let it happen.

Jesus is coming soon.

What's he gonna find the church?

It's just asleep and Just do it, just going along, drifting along, letting all this evil no, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil also.

Pride, arrogance, see in the evil way, that's what we're seeing every day.

So we hate that and Along with those.

That situation.

Houston area pastors council.

We've given thousands of dollars into that.

A pastor, dave Welch, and we're like-minded pastors that have awakened.

We speak out for a whole wide range of issues.

In some cases we sort of overlap, but we're in constant communication with Dave.

We don't ever want to step on his efforts and vice versa.

We're working together.

He's really for us.

He loves what we're doing, we love what he's doing and we give to his ministry.

Texas values action Jonathan signs.

Anybody ever heard of Jonathan signs?

He's a lawyer.

I mean.

They bail people out here in the state of Texas that are under threat of having their rights trampled on by government and others.

The freedom of religion is under attack and Jonathan is doing a lot.

So we again, we don't do it monthly, but we do give annually at First Liberty, kelly Shackleburg, another similar one, and there's others that I'd like to support frankly, but we just can't do everything.

But we can do something, and we've done something.

Lest we do nothing, amen.

But can you see where we're headed?

We're talking about being a regional center, we're talking about having influence.

And then the last one is Christians United for Israel, and I'm proud to say that we were charter members.

We were there at the original meeting in 2006, february 2006.

Billy Brim got me on the list of invitees and I went to San Antonio and Cornerstone Church as Pastor John Hage's ministry and it's a powerful, powerful outfit.

I mean, they've got millions of members now across the country and as a block.

This is the church supporting the nation of Israel, and I can't think of any way to get blessed than when you advocate for Israel, because the anti-Semitism is rising to a fever pitch in our colleges and our universities.

It's going all the way down to high school and grade school.

The anti-Semitism is in the Congress.

It is the lies or being at the blood libel.

Oh, they're Christ killers.

All of that stuff, this stuff that Hitler used and others before him.

It's an ancient libel, because the devil that is anti-Semitic is the same devil he's always been.

He has no new tricks and we're standing up politically for them.

So Christian United for Israel is a monthly donation that we send and I hope as time goes on, somebody in this church will become a delegate.

I've gone to one.

They have a big convention every year in Washington.

I went the first time, but I just, you know anymore I just can't take four days of my time and go sit somewhere and basically hear what I already know.

But this church needs somebody to represent it, to go, and I'm hoping God will raise somebody up to go and start being more out front.

On behalf of Glorious Way Church for CUFI.

I mean, they keep reaching out to me, they tried to get me to do this, sign up to do that, and it just when you add everything up.

I just don't have enough hours in the day to do it.

I'm doing something lest I do nothing.

Amen, are you excited about what God's doing?

Come on, let's give the Lord a shout tonight.

Praise God, all right, amen.