Can God use me

Beautiful.

You know, while we know that God does not call everybody to the

mission field, he does not call everybody to pastor a church.

He does call some.

And I believe that he wants to call more than those who are answering.

And I have literally seen him call 15 year olds, 9 year olds, 17

year olds, 18 year olds.

I've seen him call.

I have literally seen him call 50 year olds.

I've seen people who are midway into their careers answer

the call of God to go to the mission field or to enter into full

time ministry of some kind.

God is not a respecter of persons.

He's not a respecter of age.

I wonder if you'd be willing to listen to God tonight.

I wonder if he's calling somebody in our church.

I wonder if he's calling a teenager to Scotland.

I wonder if he's calling a young adult, a single adult.

I wonder if he's calling a young mom and dad.

I wonder if he's calling a middle age.

I wonder if he's calling a senior citizen.

I've seen people retired from their job and get called to the mission

field and God used them in a tremendous way because they were

obedient.

Boy, it'd be a wonderful thing if someone stood up tonight and said,

God's been dealing with me and I'm going to be obedient to that

call tonight.

Brother Brinkley, you come play your video and then preach right

after.

All right, brother, thank you.

Thanks, sir.

Thank you.

So my name is Russell Brinkley.

My wife Janet is here with me, our daughter Danielle, and we have

two other kids, Taylor and Dylan, who are back in Scotland.

Dylan is filling in for me, preaching at our church services.

So appreciate your prayers for them.

We have been now in Perth, Scotland for just a little over 17

years.

God has blessed.

And we'll show the video in just a moment.

Kind of what's going on there in the ministry.

But God has blessed us and beyond really what we had expected.

You know, you go through life and you have certain ideas about

how things are going to be.

And we went to Scotland believing, well, we're going to reach

Scottish people.

But God has done so much more than that.

And I want to say all of the things that you'll see on the video

tonight, none of that would be possible if it wasn't for churches

like this that are faithful to not only support us financially,

but even more importantly to be praying for your missionaries

around the world.

We need those prayers.

They are truly a lifeline and a communication to God to give us

strength to Be able to make it in the difficult times, to be able

to do the work that God's called us to do.

But it's fruit to your account when you are praying for us and supporting

missionaries.

So we do thank you for that.

Being faithful to our family for all these years.

This is the first time when we came, when we came here, probably

2006 or 2007 when we were on deputation, that's the last time

we've been here and we have been on the field and we've tried

to do furlough again.

You'll see on the video kind of some hindrances that have come

up to keep us from doing furlough.

But man, this place is a different building since we were

here.

So we drove up and my wife says she remembers it was a gravel

driveway when we came.

I think so lots changed but God's blessing you.

And so we're thankful to see that, to see churches that are still

sticking with the stuff and doing what God.

Same work we're doing, just giving the gospel, preaching the

word of God, reaching people and growing.

So we'll go ahead and show the video just now.

The land of Scotland is home to 5 million people and has been

called one of the most beautiful countries in the world.

From the Highlands to the borders, from the lochs to the beaches,

the beauty is simply breathtaking.

Right in the heart of Scotland, along the shores of the

beautiful River Tay, is the bustling fair city of Perth.

Just a short stroll from the water's edge brings you to the blue

doors of a special church building dating back to 1843.

Seventeen years ago, in January 2008, the Brinkley family

arrived in Perth to begin their missionary work.

In just five short months, they officially started the Bible

Baptist Church of Perth, which would meet in rented halls for the

next 10 years.

The Brinkleys quickly became accustomed to setting up and tearing

down.

For each service held, many sacrifices were made and and slowly

but surely the seeds began to fill.

God blessed the humble church plant through the years and there

have been many souls sin saved, baptized and trained in discipleship.

Youth groups on missions trips came to help canvass all of Perth

with gospel tracts.

But in the summer of 2017, God worked a miracle to allow Bible Baptist

Church to purchase the charming old building with the blue

doors on Canol Street.

Today, the church has grown abundantly with people of all ages,

races and cultures.

And because of their faith promise giving the church now supports

three foreign missionaries.

In January 2018, Bible Baptist Church began holding Chinese services

led by Chinese pastor Peter Scheck, who grew up in Perth as a

child.

This new ministry took off quickly and has already seen a few

come to know Christ and follow in baptism.

Bible Baptist Church offers ministries in nursery, youth activities,

teen impact nights, ladies meetings, men's prayer meetings,

church dinners, a van route gospel tract outreach, special music

events, Christmas caroling and holiday Bible club for children.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the church, a special

group of pastors and families traveled to Scotland to attend the

Livestream service for the building dedication and the signing

of the charter.

The Brinkleys were showered with love and encouragement which

would help them through the dark days ahead.

That same year, Janet spent one week in the ICU with pneumonia

and almost died from septic shock.

God spared her life, but it would take a full year to recover

from the trauma.

Now she has chronic liver disease and fibromyalgia, but still

enjoys working in all areas of ministry.

In February of 2020, while Russell and Janet were in the States

on furlough, they received an emergency call from Scotland that

their 19 year old son Dylan, who is diagn diabetic, was in the

ICU with kidney failure.

Because of the COVID pandemic, he was at greater risk for complications,

but God kept him safe until he went home.

Dylan would need to start attending the dialysis clinic three

times a week until he could have a kidney transplant.

The Brinkleys canceled their furlough and hurried back to Scotland

before lockdown so Russell could start testing to be a donor

for Dylan.

Their story was shared in the local newspaper to encourage others

to become organ donors too.

But during this testing process, it was discovered that Russell

had prostate cancer.

Thankfully, because it was found early enough, he had a successful

surgery and is now cancer free.

Finally, in April 2021, a donor match was found and Dylan received

a new kidney from Kent Gossmeier, a missionary friend in

England.

Today, both men are healthy and still serving the Lord faithfully.

While Danielle was already dealing with the emotional stress

of her brother's health, her close friend from church died unexpectedly,

which had a profound impact on her.

After a season of healing, she started singing again and teaching

in the youth class.

This year, she completed her senior year of homeschooling and

is seeking God's will for her future.

In the spring of 2019, Taylor completed one year at Heartland Baptist

Bible College.

Upon returning to Scotland, she continued working in the ministry

and began her corporate career.

But in 2022, at the age of 23, she received the devastating diagnosis

of multiple sclerosis.

Please pray for her as this disability causes chronic pain and

limited mobility every day.

In the midst of these burdens, God has been faithful and provided

many blessings.

Last September, the Global Independent Baptist Fellowship of

Churches collected the first ever missionary project offering

and it was designated for Bible Baptist Church in Perth.

The building loan was paid off and renovations were made.

They repaired the leaky roof and flooded basements, added new

carpets, lights, heaters and electrical panel.

Additionally, they built raised platforms for the auditoriums

and repainted all the interior walls.

As the church enters its 17th year debt free and with a beautifully

restored building, they are grateful and excited to see what

God has in store for the English and Chinese ministries.

Thank you for supporting the Brinkleys to Scotland.

Can I ask you before we get started tonight just to I was looking

around the building as we got started.

What do you see when you look at the flags around the walls here?

It's just fabric and cool designs and representation of some

country that you'll never get to go to.

But there's people.

There's people, each one of those countries that need the Lord,

that need to hear about God.

And as I prepared to come back on this furlough, you know, I sat

around and came up with all these real clever titles and thoughts

for messages.

But I was praying, God, what do you want me to say to the churches

that I'm going to?

What would you have me preach to the churches?

And it kind of echoes what you've already heard, that there's

work to be done and there's people to be reached and souls to

be saved.

And I wonder what could happen if everybody sitting in this church

tonight were to get on fire for God and say, God, can you use

me?

Can you do something with me?

What could happen in this church, in this community, in the

lives of people that are outside these walls, that represent

all of these flags, the souls of people?

What could actually happen if everyone just quit worrying and waiting

for someone else to do the job and said, what can I do, God?

Can you do something with my life?

That's the title of the message that God gave me kind of

for this trip coming back.

Can God use me?

Can God use me?

And it is a disturbing trend that I'm hearing from other pastors

here and that I'm seeing as I'm out on the mission field and

other missionaries that I know and have watched that have spent

their time going on deputation, getting over to the field

and then leaving the field and coming back home, and missionaries

that have surrendered to go to the field and they present themselves

as something here to you as churches, as fundamental independent

Baptist churches and get over on the field and are not what they

say and don't believe in the King James version, Bible.

I know of a missionary that is over in Scotland that presented himself

as a fundamental independent Baptist missionary, King James only,

and not only is he not, but he believes in his teaching that the

King James version is the corrupt version.

But that doesn't just happen over in the mission field.

We got some preachers, men that have surrendered to preach,

that are going to our colleges, our independent Baptist

colleges that are graduating and finding out it's too difficult

to get a church going, sticking with the stuff.

And they're watering down the message and they're changing the

method that God gave us and saying, hey, let's do it the convenient

way, let's do it the fun way, let's do it the way that can pack

people in the church.

And we have preachers that are quitting, leaving the pulpit.

Why?

Why should we have that?

Because they don't see that God can use them.

Because they have given up on God doing something powerful through

our life if we'll just step out of the way and allow him to do

it.

The question tonight is, can God use me?

And so the message is a little bit different.

Tonight we're going to read a passage of scripture, but I'm really

gonna kinda take you through a journey of my life, what God's done

with my life.

And the reason for that is because sometimes I think as churches,

when missionaries come, we kind of get put up on a pedestal

like we're something special and we're not.

We're just people.

There's nothing special about any missionary that will come here

and stand in this pulpit and preach.

We are not superhumans.

This is super, super.

What is it?

Super Mission, Super Mission Sunday.

I'm super Mission, super missionary Russell Brinkley.

No, I'm not.

And so I want to share my testimony with you tonight because

I want you to see that there's really nothing special about me.

And I want to answer that question for you at the end of the

message.

Can God use me?

Give you a definitive way that you can know whether God can do something

In Jeremiah, chapter 29, verse 11 through 13.

Jeremiah 29:11–13

We'll look there this evening.

Jeremiah 29, 11, 13.

My glasses are in there somewhere.

Jeremiah 29, 11, 13.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord,

thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

Then shall ye call upon Me.

And ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.

Ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with

all your heart.

Heavenly Father, we love you tonight.

And thank you for just the wonderful God that you are.

That you have love towards us, Lord, that you have a desire to use

us, to work with us, to allow us to be part of your plan not only

for the world and the salvation of mankind, but Lord, a

plan for our life, to work again with us, to take us, to be

able to do more with our life than we ever would on our own.

We are so thankful that you, Lord, have not left us.

That you, Lord, we believe tonight that your presence is here.

And I just ask that you would help me to present the message as

you've laid it upon my heart, that it would be a challenge to those

listening here tonight to seek your will for their life.

Lord, we love you.

Thank you for all that you've done.

Your many blessings.

In Christ's name I pray.

Amen.

So as a young boy, I was a little bit crazy.

I was always getting in trouble.

My mom gave her fits because I was always doing stupid stuff.

And I remember as probably about an 8 year old boy, I remember

my sisters watching Disney.

Mary Poppins was on.

And so I could care less about Mary Poppins.

But on one of the scenes there she comes floating in with the umbrella.

And I thought, hey, that looks like something that needs to be tried.

So I'm on a scientific research mission to see can the umbrella

support me floating through the air.

So I go through the house, digging around the house, find the

umbrella.

My room is up on the second floor.

I go climb out the window of my room and get on the roof of the

house, open the umbrella, run and jump off the roof.

And you can guess what happened.

It just like that.

And I dropped to the ground and fortunately didn't break anything.

But hey, I had a good intention.

I'm trying to prove that Disney was right, you know.

But that was a bad plan, wasn't it?

That's not good planning.

I should have got my brother or somebody else to try that out.

That's good planning, but not do it myself and hurt myself.

But you know what?

God has plans for us.

And the thing is that God's plans are never going to be wrong.

It's never going to lead you to jump off of a roof with no real

support.

God's plans are always going to be the right plans.

He has something that he wants you to do, but it's not going to

be a bad thing.

So I want to start tonight with kind of a testimony of my childhood.

I was the youngest of four children.

My youngest sister was still five years older than me.

So there was a little bit of a gap between us.

And I drove them crazy.

But in my home, my father was a drunk, he was an alcoholic.

My mother, drunk, alcoholic.

My brother, both sisters all drank, all did drugs.

I am the only one in my family that graduated from high school.

My brother and two sisters all ran away from home.

They were doing drugs.

By the time I was eight years old, I was taking, stealing drugs

for my brother.

And that's the first time I used drugs.

Eight years old.

Not only were we in that atmosphere, but my father was an

abusive man.

And so I grew up with seeing him abuse my mother and brother and

one of my sisters and me.

So it's not really any surprise that I was headed down that

same path.

I graduate from high school and I am going down that same road

and I am living wild and crazy, life out of control.

And I really do believe, had I not come to Christ, that I would

be dead or in jail.

That's where my life was headed to.

No surprise.

And we can ask, well, what's God's plan in that?

How could God allow something like that to happen in the lives

of young children?

And we get that question all the time, don't we?

Well, if God's so good, how can he allow these bad things to

happen?

How can he let the world be like it is?

Well, it's not his fault.

He's warned us what is going to happen if we live in sin.

And you know, my dad, I remember hearing him, he had some

strong beliefs about God, but not strong enough for him to actually

live for God.

I remember hearing about religious ideas and things about

God, but I never saw it in my life.

And so as I grew up, I just had no place for God in my life.

If there was a God out there, I just did not see how it could affect

me, what need I had of that God, because I never saw it do anything

good in my life.

And so what is it that God could do through that?

You know, we don't always understand God's plans.

He is far greater than we are.

But you know what?

I can look back and I can see now, God would never have wanted

for my family to live like they did.

But you know what he's done?

He took my life and he sent me to Scotland where, you know what?

There's children over There that grow up in homes that are full

of alcohol.

You know that the parents over there that they can take their children

to a restaurant the age of 5 years old and they can order alcoholic

drinks and give it to their children.

Homes that are wrecked with sin and abuse and families that are

broken.

So God took that broken life that I had growing up, and he said,

hey, I'm going to put you in a place where you can understand what

they're going through, where you can look at their life and be

able to minister to them.

So God could even take something bad and terrible and be

able to use that in the ministry.

So don't let whatever it is that you're going through, don't

let that stop you from being an excuse for not doing what God

wants.

Don't say, my life is so broken that God can't use me through

that.

God will use you in spite of that.

He will do great things in your life and in the lives of other

people if you'll just give him the chance.

You know, there's something that I noticed as I read through

this passage again in preparation for this message, that

it's not just that God has a plan for us.

He has a plan with us.

He doesn't just say, hey, I want to take you and I'm going to

just force you to do all this stuff.

He says, hey, I have a plan for you.

Will you take my hand and walk with me?

Will you join with me and do these things?

It's been the most incredible journey I would never have expected

myself.

I am.

I grew up in Joshua, Texas.

We had one stoplight in Joshua when I was there.

Not nothing great, just this little Podunk city that was everybody's

homecoming game.

Because we get beat every game.

We were the easy win.

I'm an introvert by nature.

I do not like being in front of people.

I don't like talking to people.

And you may say I don't believe that because of the way I

am now, but God did that.

When God called me to preach, listen, I tried to make the same

excuses.

I'm like, God, you got the wrong person.

You must have been talking to somebody else.

The first time I preached at Boulevard Baptist Church, it was

just like this.

I had my Bible, had about 12 pages of notes.

And I stood there and I held the pulpit just like this, white

knuckling the pulpit.

And I kept my head down and I read my notes.

I never looked at anybody out there.

No eye contact.

In about five to seven minutes, I was done, picked up my

notes, closed my Bible and walked off the stage.

That's it.

That was my first message because I was like, God, there's

no way I can do this.

And you may say, well, I wish that seven minute message was back,

but where is that?

We take that tonight.

But listen, God can do great things with you if you'll just get

out of the way and let him do something.

Just say, hey, God, I know that I'm not capable.

I know I have limitations, but I believe you can turn that around

and do something great with it.

He wants to work with you and, you know, because he loves us.

His plan for your life isn't something that you should fear because

everything he does will be the best for you.

So the journey to his expected end.

The journey to his expected end.

So a little bit later in my testimony, how did I start going

to church?

What was the great thing that happened in my life that brought

me to church?

So everybody, if you would direct your attention to the woman

sitting here on the front row.

That's why I started going to church, because she was there.

I had the wrong motivation.

I wasn't at church because I cared about God.

I wasn't at church because I wanted to get saved.

I wasn't at church because I wanted to fix my life.

I was there because there was a girl there.

And just be honest.

I was going to get what I was after and be on my way out the door.

Had no intention to stick around church.

Wrong motivation.

But God had other plans.

He had other plans.

I made a confession of faith, but it wasn't real.

About six months into going to church, I made a profession of faith

and went through the motions.

So we're now talking about marriage.

I've talked to her dad and we've got a date set.

And here I think I'm married and I'm doing stuff in the church

and I'm not saved.

I go to junior camp, Lake Texoma Baptist Youth Camp.

I'm a sponsor there for the little kids.

And I'm supposed to be helping them get their life right.

Sitting there hearing the message.

Brother Dick Webster preaching the message that night.

And I understand.

I'm lost.

So the oldest, ugliest camper, I get saved at Lake Texoma Youth

Camp, Junior camp, finally get my life right.

Shortly after that, we submit to go to Bible college.

And we're not even married a year.

I'm not even saved a year.

Hardly.

Off to Bible college we go.

But you know what?

Satan knew who I was.

He knew all the things that would just wreck my world.

I'm going to tell you.

He battled me hard at Baptist Bible College and he won that battle.

We struggled and we had a hard time, and we wound up coming back

home.

I'm going to tell you, I was broken.

All those things that I believed about myself, were they

true?

That I'm worthless, That I can't be used, that God can't do

anything with me, that it's just a waste of time?

And it was proven to be true.

Can God use me?

And through continuing on there at church and training and

teaching and listening to the word of God, well, God began to minister

to my heart and to let me see that, yes, he can still use me.

He can still do great things.

And in my life.

And so I truly got saved.

We went off to Bible College and had some trouble, but we came

home and started working there in the church.

And God began to bless and to do things in our ministry and began

to challenge where he would then call me into missions.

And it happened at a missions conference.

And I was up in the balcony at our church and I surrendered to the

call.

We had a missionary that was going to Scotland.

His video played, and God broke my heart there in the balcony.

He said, this is what I want for you to do with your life.

And that night I just got on my knees up in the balcony and I

prayed and I told God, whatever it is you want me to do,

I'll go.

I surrender to you, God.

Still unsure, still worried about whether I could be able to

do it or not.

But I just trusted that God knew what he was doing.

It's not always an easy journey, but God is in control.

You know, when I met Janet, there was a just kind of a trail

of life that I see as I look back at my life now and I journey

through.

Way back when I was a kid, I see this thread of life that's just

kind of weaved through my journey.

I go all the way back to when I was a boy there.

Growing up out in the country, we had maybe about 10 people that

were in the area that I grew up in.

And so we're in a house here.

There's a house next to us, and a little girl moves in there.

There's another girl across the street.

So growing up, we were really kind of the only kids, and so we

hung out together.

But the girl that lived in the house right here, her name was Sheila

Williams.

Now, for some of you, you might know the significance of that,

because my wife is formerly Janet Williams, and Her mother and

father is Terry and Sheila Williams.

And so my neighbor girl was Sheila Williams.

I tried to start looking for the movement of God in my life.

The little things, you know what the Bible says.

And we know that all things work together for good.

To them that love God.

Do we believe that all things, even the little things, is God working

behind the scenes trying to do little things and we just take for

granted.

Man, I was really fortunate that that happened that way.

Wow, man, it was just good.

Fortune just smiled on me.

What luck I have.

It's not luck.

It is God trying to work behind the scenes to keep our life

going the direction that he wants it to go.

And even when I was unsaved, even when I was trying to find my

way and living in a horrible lifestyle, God was weaving that thread

of life.

So that one day when I would meet Janet's mother, she has been

a major influence in my life.

One of the greatest women that I know.

And I love her because she is probably as much responsible for

me being here as anybody alive.

Sheila Williams.

So when I met her that first time and I heard Sheila Williams,

man, that just was a familiar name, something that I associated

with Good.

When I met Janet, I said I had the wrong motive.

When I started going to church, I felt the Holy Spirit began

to move and challenge me.

And I knew that this is something I need to do.

And so in my man brain, I said it wasn't just that.

It was Satan telling me, hey, if you're going to do this, remember

what your dad used to say?

My dad believed in the Church of Christ.

And if any of you are familiar with that, they used to have a saying,

if you're not a member of the Church of Christ, you're going to

hell.

And so that began to just echo in my head.

And I was like, well, my dad can't be wrong.

So what genius thing did I do?

Well, I started going to the Church of Christ one week and, and

talk to the preacher over there.

And the next week I go to the Baptist church and her dad's the

pastor there and talk to him and back to the Church of Christ,

talk to the pastor there, back to the Baptist church, talk to pastor

there.

And so it's just a mess.

But you know what my motivation was?

Here I am in church for five minutes and I've got everything figured

out.

I know what's right and what's wrong, what the Bible says about

everything.

I was going to prove that her dad was wrong, that the Baptist church

was wrong, and her Dad's going to hell, and all those other people

at church are going to hell.

So you can imagine how our dates went.

We had some interesting dates.

There were times Janet will tell you, she went home and she's

like, I am done with him.

Her mom, Sheila Williams, just give him a chance.

There's something there, Janet, she reminded me.

She's like.

She said to her mom, if you like him so much, you marry him.

That thread.

Sheila Williams, my neighbor girl next door, there was a little

church, Maristown Baptist Church.

And she would.

She would.

Every summer, they'd have vacation Bible school.

And she'd say, hey, you want to go to vacation Bible school?

So we would go down to this little church, just a tiny, tiny

little church.

But I would hear the gospel, that thread of life, God just sowing

some truth in my life.

Later, I'd have friends that would invite me to Baptist Youth

Camp.

I went to Baptist youth camp, about 16 years old.

There were some guys there, and we got into kind of a scuffle,

and I got mad.

I punched a tree and broke my hand.

At Baptist Youth Camp.

There was a sponsor there, and he sat me down in the dorm.

He talked to me, calmed me down, told me about Jesus and how

Jesus loved me and if I would just submit my life to him, that

he would save my soul later.

I have other friends that would invite me to Baptist activities

at church there in Joshua.

And I would go and I would hear Bible stories.

Later, I would get a job at a restaurant called K Bob's there in

Burleson.

And I started working there.

And there was a girl, one of the waitresses there, her name was

Kim Muller, now Kim Mueller, she went to Boulevard Baptist Church,

which is where she was.

So that was my first introduction to Boulevard Baptist

Church.

And so through that, another one of my friends that worked there

at the restaurant, he started going to Boulevard Baptist Church.

He then invited another one of my friends at the restaurant to go

to Boulevard Baptist Church.

That friend met a girl at the church.

They started going out.

That girl had a sister.

So my friend called me and said, hey, would you like to go out

on a double date?

Sure.

So he sets it up.

We're supposed to go out.

Well, that sister best friend was Janet.

She invited Janet to come along.

Didn't tell her it was a double date.

We go out on that date, and me and the girl that I'm set up, we

hated each other from the outset and didn't like her at all.

I didn't like her.

She didn't like Me and I didn't want to even be in the same

area that she was.

Just didn't like her.

But I like Janet.

She wink at me and she smiled and like obviously she sees how wonderful

I am.

So I said, hey, would you like to go out?

And her response, she said, if we're going to go out, you have to

come to church.

So that brought me to Boulevard Baptist Church and there's

an old fashioned preacher standing in the pulpit preaching

the word of God, telling me about hell, telling me that I'm a

sinner because of that man, because of that thread of life that

God just kept on moving through my life, bringing people

in.

And I want to ask you, where are you on that thread of life for

somebody?

You see God's weaving that thread through somebody's life right

now.

Somebody that you know, he is weaving their story and he's trying

to bring you into their path that you can tell them about Jesus

and we're fighting against it.

Can God use me?

I told you I would give you the answer to the question.

There's nothing special about me as a missionary or any other missionary

or your pastor or any other person that's in full time service.

There's nothing special about us.

There's really only one thing that makes us any different.

We just said yes, that is it.

That is the key.

Just say yes.

When God calls you find a place to serve.

Say yes.

I can promise you that your pastor here, if you come to him and

say I want a job to do in the church, that he's going to say, we've

got everything full and don't need anybody else.

Listen, you saw our video and I'll finish with this.

You saw our video and we've had a lot of things happen in our

ministry and some difficult things.

It's hard to watch your children go through the things that

my kids have gone through.

My son, 9 years old, diagnosed with diabetes, he had alopecia, so

he lost all of his hair.

Nine years old, that's hard to watch.

Hard to see him go through that later.

He both kidneys at the same time, just shut down.

We're over here and he's at the point of death.

And what do you do?

That could have been an opportunity to say, okay, well listen,

we've got problems, maybe we need to pack it up and take care

of our family.

But that wasn't our heart.

We just kept saying yes to God.

God, I know you're not done yet.

We're going to continue to stay on the field.

And do what you've called us to do.

And Janet gets sick and she has her health problems, she is in

intensive care and she almost died.

But rather than say, hey, let's pack it up, let's get back

to where we can get some good health care, we just said, yes, we'll

keep going.

When I found out I had cancer, just keep saying yes.

None of the circumstances that we've gone through is any reason

to stop serving God.

We are over there in the UK and they have national health care

system and they all say, well, it's free health care, it still has

to be paid for.

And it's not the greatest healthcare, honestly.

But when God's on your side, when he's the administer of national

healthcare, it's great.

We have had her intensive care, my cancer surgery, all of Dylan's

diabetic medication.

If you have any idea that that stuff's expensive, kidney transplant,

you know how much we spent for all of that?

Zero.

Not a dime have we spent on medical treatment.

And you know what I say about that?

God, I had this discussion with my daughter, my oldest daughter

now with multiple sclerosis, and she's going through.

She went through a rough time and she's struggling a little bit

with God.

How's this fair?

I told her, hey, let's maybe try to look at it from a different

perspective.

God, because as we saw in that passage, says he has an expected

end for us.

He knows the journey that we're going to be on.

So when he called me to go to Scotland, he knew that she was going

to have problems with her liver.

He knew that my son was going to have diabetes.

He knew that his kidneys were going to shut down.

He knew that I was going to have cancer.

He knew that she was going to have multiple sclerosis.

So what did he do?

He sent us to a field where we could get the medical treatment that

we need.

What would have happened if we would have packed up and came home

because of circumstances and we would have come back here and

not been able to get the treatment that God provided for us

over there?

Just say yes.

I stand here before you tonight to try to encourage you that

when you say yes, it doesn't mean that everything is going to

be wonderful, but it does mean that you'll get to watch some incredible

things that God's going to do.

Buckle up and enjoy the journey, because God will do some

things that you can stand back and say, wow, look at what God has

done.

How many Christians live a life that they never experience the

life of faith truly and see God do amazing, wonderful things

in their life.

What a shame.

Can God use me?

I hope that this will be a challenge to you tonight, that God

will speak to your heart about service, getting out there, reaching

people, asking God, what do you want me to do?

Where can I fit in?

Where can I get in and work?

Is there a job for me?

Start praying about it.

Start seeking God.

And tonight I ask you to stand with me.