But Where Is He Going?

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

Hello, Gateway!

Oh well, thank you.

You may be seated.

No pressure there.

It's uh Paul is gonna speak to you today.

We are so excited to be back with you.

And uh, Pastor Robert and Debbie, I just want to honor you for thank you for inviting us, but even more than that, thank you for being amazing world-class people and world-class leaders.

There is a reason why pastors and leaders from all over the world are looking to Pastor Robert and to Gateway for inspiration and encouragement and impartation.

The vision of this church, the global perspective, is second to none.

So thank you so much for taking that place and being such a blessing.

Let's honor our leaders right here.

And also, church, like you heard, I want to extend a special thank you because uh right now, actually, we are working in Afghanistan uh to care for and bring the gospel to the Afghani refugees, but also make sure that our Afghani brothers and sisters are kept safe from the persecutions of the Taliban's.

And thank you again, Pastor, for having contributed so generously to that cause.

We absolutely love you and respect you so much.

Well, friends, as you hear, this one is not from Texas, okay?

The word of God has been brought to you with the Swedish accent today, and I hope you're gonna be all fine with that.

If you didn't know it's Sweden, which is not Switzerland, by the way, two different nations, okay?

So Sweden is a frozen nation right up in the north of Europe.

We're governed by two princesses called Elsa and Anna.

And they, of course, reside in the castle of IKEA.

Maybe you heard about it.

On top of that, Sweden is also one of the most secularized and socialistic nations in the world.

But you know, my Bible says that where sin abounded, grace would abound even more.

Amen.

Grace would abound even more, and by that grace, we've been seeing the Holy Spirit move and do an enormous work in our nation, Sweden, and also out from our nations to Europe, to Central Asia, to former Soviet Union, India, and so many other places.

And actually, that perspective of reaching out is what I want to share with you today.

If you brought brought your Bibles, would you please turn with me to Matthew chapter 4?

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

And we're gonna start out right here and right now with a very well-known passage of Scripture.

Verse 18 in Matthew 4 says, and as Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew.

They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.

Come follow me, Jesus said, and I will send you out to fish for people.

Follow me.

And from that moment, those two words have echoed throughout history.

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So he still calls us using those two words.

Follow me, and of course, we respond.

We pray, yes, Lord, I will follow you for the rest of my life, and we sing, I have decided, and so on and so forth.

But there is one question a lot of times we fail to ask.

But where is he going?

And that's even kind of a relevant question.

Hello?

If you're gonna make a lifelong vow to follow someone, it's quite relevant to know where that person is going.

Because wherever that person is gonna end up, that's where you're gonna end up if you mean business with following that person, right?

I remember the first time I met the beautiful girl that is now my wife, and I was 19 years old at the time, and I came into a Saturday night service in the church, and there was a girl on stage called Maria, and she was leading worship that night.

And the quality of worship that God received from me that night was not very good, to be honest.

I was not so much doing this, I was more doing that.

But you know what?

Even though I saw how beautiful she was, and even though I saw the hand of God upon her, and I saw her love for Jesus just shining out from her, I did not propose to her that night.

Right?

Why?

Because I didn't know where she was going.

Huh?

But then in the coming weeks and months, we talked and we spent time and we shared hearts, and praise God, it turned out we were heading for the same destination.

We wanted to build God's church all over the world to the maximum of our capacity.

So we said, Hey, let's do this thing together.

And we're coming up on our 35th anniversary, and I love you more than anything, honey.

But again, it's all about understanding where he is going.

So is there a scripture that answers that question?

Yes, it is, and it's found in Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 15 contains three parables, all giving us the same spiritual principle.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

This is very unusual.

Normally, in the teaching of Jesus, he would share one parable to illustrate one spiritual truth.

Only a few times in the Gospel of Matthew alone will he share two parables with the same basic point.

But Luke 15 is the only time that he will share three parables to underline the same spiritual truth.

It's like, okay, here you go, one parable.

Now, if you missed it, two parables, and if you're really stupid, here comes the third parable underlining the same truth.

Luke 15, verse 4, parable number one.

Luke 15:4

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

Parable number two, verse eight.

Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one, doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?

Parable number three, a bit longer, so I'm just gonna summarize it.

The prodigal son.

A father had two sons.

One of them left the household, lived in sin for some time, ended up in a pig sty, which is where sin always will lead you.

But then came to his senses and decided to go back to the father's house and applied to become at least a slave or a servant in the father's house.

But when he comes, the father runs up to him and restores him completely.

Three parables.

Okay, let's make a quick anal uh uh anal analysis.

Let's let's look at these three parables and see what they have in common, okay?

If all I'm I'm speaking in my second language here, okay?

I'm doing my best.

If you're annoyed by the dialect, I will ask you to come to preach to me in Swedish in at Word of Life, and the laugh will be on me, okay?

Okay, so all these three parables have a few things in common.

Something is in the wrong place, something is in the right place, and there's a person representing God.

So in the first parable, the person representing God is the shepherd.

Something is in the wrong place, one sheep, and something is in the right place, 99 sheep.

Second parable, the person representing God is a woman.

Something is in the wrong place, one coin, something is in the right place, nine coins.

And in the third parable, God is represented by the father.

Something is in the wrong place, one son, something is in the right place, one son.

Well, he was in his father's house, but his attitudes were all messed up, just like some Christians, but that's another message.

So the big question here now is which one of these two categories, wrong place or right place, gets God's full attention?

Let's back up to the first one.

The shepherd leaves the 99 in the desert and focuses completely on that which is in the wrong side.

I'm so thankful this was not a Swedish shepherd, because a Swedish shepherd would have gone, well, at least I got 99.

Could have been worse, but there was something in the heart of this shepherd that cannot stand the fact that even one single sheep that is his belonging, his possession, is lost in the wilderness somewhere.

Second parable: the woman sweeps the house and searches carefully until she finds it.

The full attention is toward that which is in the wrong place.

And finally, the father, as the son returns, he says that when he was still far away, the father saw him and ran up to him and embraced him and restored him to the point when the other son was even jealous.

The father's attention was turned completely to that which was in the wrong place.

So, what is Jesus trying to tell us?

My friend is sharing the answer to the question, where is he going?

He is focusing completely on that which is in the wrong place.

He is going to find the lost sheep, the lost coin, and welcome back the lost son or daughter.

And on his way, he looks over his shoulder and his eyes meet mine eyes and your eyes, and he says, Follow me.

Not only to church on Sunday, but follow me, even though that's included.

But follow me to find the lost sheep, follow me to find the lost coin, follow me to welcome back the lost son and daughter.

That is what following him is all about.

To change our priorities and change our perspectives till we come to the point where we realize there is no higher or more holy calling as we spend time in this world than finding that lost sheep that might be a neighbor of yours going through a horrible divorce, finding that lost coin that might be an Afghan refugee on his way to Texas right now, hoping that there will be good people here.

And that finding that lost son, there might be somebody lost in the jungles of Africa without having heard the gospel so far.

That is Jesus' calling to you and me.

Follow me to seek and save that which is lost.

And when we start taking him at his word, when we start realizing this is the original version of Christianity, this is the original, original invitation that is given to you and me.

There are no limits to what can happen.

I I want to share a story with you about two guys from back home.

Okay, they these two guys are Marcus and Daniel right there.

Marcus is the one with the glasses, and Daniel is the other guy.

And at the time of this story, Marcus was 16 years old, and he just came to a uh service where I preached basically the same message as I'm sharing with you.

And Marcus, to Marcus, this was kind of a bit of a revolution.

He says, Man, I gotta get my act together.

I need to redefine what it's all about to follow Jesus.

And he made up his mind that weekend that on Monday, when I come back to my high school, I'm gonna open my door to the school and I'm gonna walk up to the first person that I see and invite that person, whoever that might be, to a prayer meeting in my house that night.

This is a huge step for a Swede because you see, Swedes don't talk to one another.

I'm just letting you know because you guys are like world champions of social interaction.

You talk to one another all the time.

A Swede will freak out the first time he's in the US.

He will go into an elevator and there will be an American there, and the American guy will say, Hey, what's up?

And the Swede will think, What do you want from me?

Why are you referring to an app on my phone?

You know why are you what are your intentions here?

So for Marcus to just go up to a random person, inviting that person to a prayer meeting was a huge step.

So Monday morning, Marcus comes to school, opens up the door, and the first person he sees is Daniel.

The two have never met.

Marcus goes straight up to him and invites him to the prayer meeting.

And Daniel accepts because there was one tiny bit of information that Marcus had left out, and that was the fact that it was a prayer meeting.

Daniel was 100% convinced that he was invited to a party.

So that afternoon he puts on nice clothes and puts on some eau de cologne to impress the ladies of the party, and he shows up at the given address, he presses the doorbell, and a mother opens the door.

And Daniel goes, alert, alert, alert.

What is a mother doing at a party?

And he's taken into the living room, and there are ten people around the table.

One has a guitar, one has a tambourine.

Daniel goes, What?

What's going on here?

Because, like most Swedish teenagers, Daniel has zero understanding or experience of church or Christianity.

Nothing.

So anyway, he sits down, and somebody said, Now let's sing.

And everybody sings for a while.

And Daniel goes, Uh-oh, okay, we're doing this.

Okay, yeah, sure.

And then somebody says, Now let's pray.

And people start praying.

And Daniel just goes, What in the world is going on?

He says, I'm not gonna pray.

But then he hears his own mouth start speaking, and he hears him say himself say, Would you please pray for my grandfather who's got cancer and only a few months left to live?

Where did that come from?

And the whole prayer group, of course, jumps at the opportunity and they pray for Daniel's grandfather, and a little bit later the whole thing comes to an end, and Daniel walks home thinking, That was the weirdest party I've ever attended in my life.

One week later, his mother calls him in school, overjoyed.

Daniel, they've taken new x-rays on grandpa, and the cancer that would have killed him within months is completely gone.

Daniel says, When did they take the x-rays?

Turns out it was the day after the prayer meeting.

Daniel calls Marcus, saying, We need to talk.

Marcus brings Daniel to our church, word of life, first time he's ever been in a church building.

He sits on the balcony, he hears the gospel, he lifts his hand, he opens his heart, and he accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

This was some years ago, and since Daniel has attended one year in our Bible school, six months in our mission training, and is now a full-time missionary in the red light district of Bangkok, Thailand.

And Marcus is a full-time missionary in China.

You have no idea, people, what you're setting in motion when you start following Jesus to seek and save that lost sheep, that lost coin, or that lost son.

Let me just share one more story with you.

Then I want to pray for you.

I want to share an experience I had a couple of years back when I felt the Lord, the Spirit of the Lord, ask me to study the story of the Titanic disaster.

And I was a bit confused because I didn't really know what I was about to find.

Many of you will know the basic story.

How this huge ship set out from Southampton in Great Britain in 1912, 2,201 persons on board, heading for the United States.

But in the middle of the night, one of the days during the cruise, it hit an iceberg and it started to sink.

And I read book after book, not really knowing what I was looking for.

But then I came around the story about the life, the lifeboats on board Titanic.

And you see, every one of the lifeboats on board Titanic was built to hold 70 people that could provide salvation for 70 each in a case of an emergency.

But the thing was that the first half of all the lifeboats that were lowered into the ocean throughout the course of the three and a half hours that it took from the impact until the ship disappeared under the surface.

The first half were only half full or less.

They had like 30 people on board, or 35, or even one had 12 people with 70 seats available.

Why was that?

Because people were waking up too late, didn't understand the danger they were in initially, and then when the ship went down, finally, something happened that was later referred to sometimes as the second disaster of the Titanic.

And that was the fact that the lifeboats did not return to pick up the survivors that had ended up in the water.

Even though all over the area there were screams of terror and anguish from those who were left in the water, and there were so many lifeboats in the water with seats available, still they did not return.

They were satisfied with the fact that they were saved, and even though there were seats available in the lifeboats, they rowed away instead of rowing back to pick up another sheep, another coin, or another sun.

And I heard the voice of the spirit in my heart say, This could be one version of end-time Christianity.

If you only focus on yourself and your own stability and security and comfort, if you row away from the scene of the disaster instead of turning around and following Jesus to that which is lost, and my heart was so heavy, and I was so burdened.

And even though we were working one with missions 24-7, I repented.

I said, God, I don't want that mentality in my life, in my movement.

There must be another version in the story somehow.

He was a 42-year-old preacher from Scotland on board the Titanic to go to Chicago and preach at a big crusade and lead people to Christ.

And with him on board, he had his six-year-old daughter Annie Jesse, who was the apple of his eye, his only child.

And we know that John and Annie Jesse were among the very first people on board to realize the danger they were in after the impact.

Because Annie Jesse Harper, six years old, is registered as one of the passengers in one of the first lifeboats.

But her father John was not.

How he held her, kissed her forehead, looked her deep in her eyes, and said, I love you more than anything, honey.

And then gently lifted her into the lifeboat and made sure she was safe.

And then he started running back on the ship.

John Harper ran from door to door of the cabins, pounding the cabin doors, calling out at the top of his voice, if you don't know Jesus, get to the lifeboats now.

If you don't know Jesus, get to the lifeboats now.

And I started to understand his perspective.

He realized that if I die tonight, I know where I'm going.

But if you die tonight without knowing Jesus and the salvation that is found in him and him.

Alone, you might face eternal separation from God.

He was running for hours, screaming at the top of his voice, documented, documented by hundreds of survivors, and lifeboats were going down all around him, and he could have gotten into any one of the lifeboats, and we would not have blamed him, but he didn't.

He ended up being one of the hundreds of people in the water that night after the ship went down.

And as he looked around in the water and seeing the lifeboats disappear, and realizing every single one, including himself, would only have minutes to live in the freezing cold water, he changed his battle cry and he started calling out at the top of his voice believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.

Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.

And hundreds of people later testified that beyond and above the voices of anguish and the screams of terror that night was the voice of one man proclaiming, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved to his final breath.

And God only knows how many people heard the gospel in the very last seconds and minutes of their lives and ended up in heaven rather than in eternal separation from God.

And the Spirit spoke to me and said, I need a whole new generation of John Harpers.

I need a whole new generation of John Harpers, people who will follow to find the lost sheep and the lost coin and the lost son, people who will partner with me even at the expense of their own comfortability and their own security and safety.

And if we can raise up a generation of John Harpers, young and old across the world, Jesus will have exactly what he needs to bring the gospel back stronger than ever in every single nation and on every single continent.

Because we know that there's lifeboats available, people.

And there's still seeds available in that lifeboat.

Praise God.

Praise God.

Now, if there's something in your heart that wants to respond to this, simply saying to God, God, I want to recommit to following you in this brand new perspective.

I would love to pray for you before I close.

Would you please stand to your feet all over the church gateway and let's just lift up our hearts and lift our hands if you want to, and just make a commitment today that we will be a John Harper generation.

We will not row away from the scene of the disaster.

We will follow Jesus to find the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son and daughter.

Lord Jesus, we thank you.

We thank you that you went to seek and save that which was lost.

And Father, as you call us to follow, we will follow to find the lost sheep.

We will follow to find the lost coin, and we will do all we can to welcome back the lost son or daughter.

Father, we pray that in this selfish season, in this individualistic time of history, that we will not be swept away by the spirit of this world and row away in our lifeboats, but that we will turn back and that our battle cry forever will be believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.

Bless every heart recommitting, bless every soul, Father, all of my brothers and sisters, as we look into your loving face, and as we commit our lives yet again to follow you wherever you are going.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.