Episode 57: Not of this World

In the name of the glorious Trinity, Father and Son and Holy

Spirit forever. Amen.

Glory be to the everlasting mercies which sent you to us, O

Christ, the Light of the world and the life of all.

Give us wisdom by your law and enlighten our impulses by your

knowledge. Sanctify our souls by your truth

and grant that we may be obedient to your words and may

fulfill your commandments at every hour, O you.

Who enlightens the rational with the knowledge of your greatness?

Do enlight, O my Lord, our thoughts that we may meditate

upon your holy and divine scriptures at all times, O Lord

of all. Father and Son and Holy Spirit

forever. Amen.

What a blessing it has been for the past few episodes coming to

you from the 35th National Youth Conference of the Asian Church

of the East, Northern America, I had the pleasure of being with

the Ravi Kashiki Vargas Rashouk, or Bishop, the president of the

NEC National Executive Committee, and my brother

Deacon. Andrew Aziz and I have another

special guest. No, but on better that guest

dear to the heart. But before I do that.

This episode is live at well, it's not live now, but it was

recorded live before the before an audience at the National

Youth Conference. So I'd like you all to say hello

to the podcast land out there. Excellent, excellent.

Well, great to great to have you guys and we love you enjoying

the conference. Perfect.

Perfect. And this is not scripted, by the

way. I have with me Shamasha Deacon,

Peter as well. Not the first time on the

episode. Second time, second.

And last, no, no second time. Shamasha Azizaro with Sheena.

Welcome and love to have you. I'd love to have you again with

us one more time. Thank you, Robbie.

I appreciate you having me on this podcast.

And again, a nice shout out to our live studio audience today.

Yeah, Give yourself a round of applause.

There you go. Excellent.

Excellent. Look at those dimples.

I love the dimples. Well, here we are at the 31st

Youth at 35th Youth Conference. Shamasha not of the world.

Yes, that was our theme, John, 15/9.

I think you come up with that too.

Yeah, I did. With the help with the NEC, we

put together this conference theme.

We thought it was important to let our youth know that.

Like we will be speaking about today in this podcast that we

are not of this world and as Christians we have to live that

way if we are taking up our crosses and falling Christ.

So this is a commitment we have to take and I think at this age

from 13 to 30, which is our youth ages, it's a very vital

part of our lives that we have to take up this decision

personally and it make this commitment to Christ, the

service church and to serve him. I'm sure everyone has a special

moment, a special message that has touched their heart, their

minds, and maybe brought them to the specific understanding about

their role as Christians. We when it when we say

Christians we mean children of God, we mean Christ.

Like those who have not seen Christ should see him in you and

I and all those who have proclaimed Jesus to be their

Lord and save and baptize the name of the Holy Trinity.

My well, you know, the whole conference was amazing, but

something His Grace Marpolis touched upon in his reflection,

which I'm not going to read the entire passage, but I'd like to

speak about that little it was in from first Peter, chapter 2,

1 Peter 2:11

verses 11, and he went on to, I think 12 And it goes, Beloved, I

beg of you as wayfarers, you know, sojourners.

Masha Harper, Refugees and his His Grace touched up on that.

Refugees and as foreigners, strangers in this world, by the

way, depart from all these desires of the body that make

war against the soul. I want to break this down a

little bit more. I know there was, you know, time

restraints and I I'm sure His Grace would have elaborated even

though but, you know, we had other programs to attend to.

I think we had sessions. Let's talk about the word that

Saint Peter Marshall and Kerpa Peter the Rock Peter Simon uses

here, Wayfarers or Sojourners or Masha Khapa.

And I think this word brings it home with the Assyrian

community. We have, if not thousands or 10s

of 10s of thousands, at least 10s of 10s of thousands of

refugees. That are in the diaspora define

refugee Shamasha. What do you what do you what

comes to your mind when you hear the word refugees.

Masha Khatter, Sojourners, Wayfarers.

I think the first term that comes to mind is displacement

and not being somewhere that you are accustomed to, not being

somewhere that you should call home, being uncomfortable, being

sometimes persecuted. And going through some tough

times. Fleeing hardship, of course.

Persecutions, yes. So Peter using, saying Peter

using this word, he wants to emphasize that, you know let's

let's talk a little bit more about that our people who left

Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, because of ISIS, because of the

wars and the persecutions and and to date Christians are being

persecuted. It is a prayer in the.

In the liturgy of holy matrimony, this is the cross for

which the martyrs shed their blood.

And I dare to also add that and today are shedding their blood,

of course. So they're fleeing persecution,

persecutions, they're fleeing hardship.

And they're they're arriving in these countries in Australia,

Canada, Europe, America. But really?

In the anticipation that they're going to have a safe and calm

and tranquil life in these countries.

However, however, if we were persecuted in the Middle East,

physically there is spiritual persecution and I, some of the

bishops touched up on that. So when we flee these countries

and we come to these in the diaspora, we think I we we've

reached our safe haven, but really not.

Right. And I always wonder if something

happens in the middle in the in the dice work where we're going

to run to from there, right. So really even these countries

that we have arrived at. Are not as safe as we think they

are. They may be physically safe.

You know, we have good life, but spiritually we're not safe.

I think what Saint Peter, and correct me if I'm wrong and to

join in is what Saint Peter is trying to tell us that Listen,

wherever you are in this world, there is you still are a

sojourner. The sojourner.

You are a refugee. You are a Masha heart.

Expect to continue to have hardship.

Financial relationship, families, nation, church,

community, mostly spiritually. However, we have a specific

citizenship of one place where there will be no persecution,

there will be no suffering, and that is the Kingdom of heaven.

You know how many citizens, How many passports do you have?

One. One.

I have two. And I'm applying for another

one, so I'm gonna be a I'm not a diplomat, but I'm applying for

another one. I have 3 passports, 3 hopefully

I'll have 3 citizenships right, but I'm still not safe.

My 4th citizenship, which. I will not be titled and claimed

as sojourner. I cannot claim refugee status.

I claim to be the chill, the child of that place.

I claim to be the heir of that country which is the Jerusalem

about which is the Kingdom of heaven.

So I think this is what Saint Peter is trying to tell us, you

and I, that just because you flee these countries.

It's not the end. There's going to be more

hardship. But wait, there is a greater

place as the Kingdom of heaven. Yeah, I would have to agree with

that. And again, you touched on a

great part, our citizenship in the world to come as a royal

citizenship, because we're sons of the king, so we are by

baptism and by our faith and by our works, we are entitled in a

way to live internally with God in that place forever.

Which is the Kingdom of God. And I think you touched upon a

great point. I'll be that no matter what we

do in this life, no matter where we go, wherever, what country we

end up in, we're never really comfortable, you know, because

our morals, our identity, our faith is constantly being

pressured and persecuted and ridiculed.

Attacked, really. In every place that we live and

in various different means and and now it's unfortunate that

it's being exposed even to younger children and to kind of

it's becoming really, really okay and it's becoming very

normalized in society to persecute religion and

especially Christianity. I think we can agree that

Christianity is the most persecuted religion in this

world and from the beginning and from its inception, even the

Bible says that. The apostles feared for their

lives in the days of Christ, you know, in the days of the

Pentecost, especially when they were awaiting the Holy Spirit

before they gained that strength.

And I think if we look at the Pentecost too, when the apostles

received the Holy Spirit, they were strengthened.

So I think also us as baptized Christians, we have to take

heart that we also do have the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide

us. So we're not alone in this

journey. And I think that's one thing

that's different with this. Migration or with this refugee

status that we have as Christians is that, you know, we

don't need a foreign government to welcome us.

We don't need individuals to help us.

We don't need aid organizations to support us.

What we have is the gift of the Holy Spirit, I mean.

And the Jade us that is always providing for us.

You know the refugees that are in Otlish, Austria and you know

at one stage it was Greece and where else I think it was

Greece, Lebanon. They had to go through a point

system when they were applying for refugees that and this is

refugee status. They had to, they went through a

point system and you had to make a a specific specific criteria.

Many of them were refused the refugee status and they kept on

applying after 5th or. 6th time and whatever.

And there have to be an intervention.

It's the same with our spiritual refugee status on this world.

You know, there is a point system.

We need to meet a criteria, and one of those is that if we think

we are comfortable and at ease in these countries, we're not.

We need to continue to fight the battle.

The battle is everywhere, at every place.

So the criteria is that we live according to the commandments of

our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

We follow Jesus Christ. That's what we were singing.

We will follow Jesus. We continue to obey.

Obedience is the key factor for a Christian, you know.

So the criteria is that if we live a life, a pious life,

according to God's will, according to the statutes of the

Lord. And being a beating to our Jesus

Christ and loving him and loving our fellow neighbor, or our

fellow Christian or just our neighbor.

Then when the visa time arrives, you know, as soon as I remember

when my family was arriving from migrating from Australia to the

United States back in 2013, it was around 12:00 o'clock at

night. I got a message from Melissa and

there was a picture of the visa. And this is about 12/12/30 and I

used to reside with His Grace today, His Holiness 1230 on his

veteran talk. Guess, guess, See, I got the

visa, They got the visa right. I was excited, but they were

migrating from a land of toil and hardship to a bigger land of

toil and a hardship, right? But when that visa?

Is is due when we receive that amazing welcome.

This is what the countries do They welcome you to their

countries and you know those who receive the citizenships.

It's always I got my citizen, I'm America citizen now right

when we receive that citizenship, that calling from

our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we don't need a welcome

from the governments. We don't need to attend any

special ceremony. We will be.

Abiding in the blessings and the bliss of our Lord now Savior

Jesus Christ. Remember, remember, and this is

what we forget sometimes we are Co airs with Jesus Christ.

Mirad Gary, we have a special place that is prepared for you

and I and this is what we've been stressing and this is what

we've been the message we've been giving the youth and you

know obviously the entire world is that we need to live a life

in this world and we're still going to go through the

hardship, but not to be of this world.

Not to have the desires of this world, not to be drawn and

seduced by the desires of this world.

That's some of the difficulties that our youth are engaging and

experiencing, the desires of the world that are seducing them and

and obviously the desires of the world are not desires of

allergies. Christ.

Yeah, I think you touched on a good rate point would all be

that basically you've been saying that citizenship requires

discipline and just as we have citizenships of this world.

We have to pledge loyalty and authority and submission to

authority as well. So just like in this world, we

follow the laws of the land, so we're not judged by them, so

we're not placed into into judgment by them.

And I think one thing we tend to forget because maybe there's no

policeman for heaven roaming the earth that we also have to stay

loyal to the commandments of God and and I think that's a big

part of it because. Sometimes we don't see the the

fear of God and in ourselves and in our youth and our generation

because it seems so distant to people that, you know, Judgment

Day is so far away. I have time.

I have time, I have time. But Robby, you can recall what

does the morning prayer say in the Church of the East, day

after day? I promise that I will repent.

The day goes by and my sins. Still remain.

Yeah. Lord have mercy on me, yeah.

So sometimes we think we have so much time in this world that we

can wait and we can put things off like our faith and like

repentance. But there's no time in the sense

that as Christians, we can't live that lifestyle.

We have to live according to the commandments of God, all the

days of our life. I remember of a story and and it

goes like the head of this demons, the chief Satan came out

and there was a. Satanic come down the Satanic

conference and the chief came out and said, I want one demon

to go down on earth to cause the world to come and join us in

hell. And there was a silence.

One of the demons said, I will, it's what you're going to do.

I'm going to go and tell them relax and enjoy, you know, have

fun. This is amazing.

And this is the world and you know, and I'll try to, you know.

Have them conform to the patterns of the world and the,

the chief said, he said no, no, no, that's not going to work

because when they were in hardship they joined me to God.

And then there was a longer period of silence.

And the second demon said, you know what?

I'll go and and cause wars and and hardship and you know,

brother against brother and mother against sons and

whatever. He said no, even then they tend

to come back to God and you know.

Be obedient And there was a longer silence and the third

demon said I know what I'm going to do.

I'm going to go tell the world You have plenty of time you have

plenty of time And the chief said he said you're going go and

tell them that they have plenty of time.

You know we prepare our life and we it's it's all according to

time we you know I'm sure when you budget.

Financially, you leave a little bit for this and a little bit

for that. You cover everything.

But when we prepare our day, our our months, our weeks, our

years, we never, ever pencil in death, right?

We never even think about death. We don't like to hear about

death. We have an idiom.

Alahala marzilo, Hon khasha. Well, that's not realistic.

But we're going to go through sorrow, right?

But we must pray that. Lord, help me to focus on you

continuously so that when I do have to face hardship, judgment,

times that are trying temptations that I even if I

make fall, I get up and I continue my life with you until

you return. I always say Christianity is not

a click of the finger Finger Repent.

Are you repented? Yeah, today I repented.

I don't know if I'm going to sleep tomorrow.

It's a lifetime commitment. You know, they say Christianity

is not 100 meter race. It's a it's a marathon.

It's a journey. It's a journey, and we're

sojourners. OK, well, you know these.

Do you have anything else you want?

To. OK, well, these episodes are not

too long, and Steven always says 28 minutes, 25 minutes.

By the way, I'd like to acknowledge the producers.

Steven, who's here? Big ground for pause.

Adrina couldn't be with us, Adrina or Shana?

Shout out to her. And Kristen Maria is part time

producer. Thank you and thank you for you,

the audience. A big round of applause for you

guys as well. And you know, I always say.

Thank you to those who have approached myself or Steven

Christen and you know they expressed their their what is it

satisfaction or with the with the podcast Don't tell me what's

good. Come and tell me what you don't

like of the podcast. OK So what is good is God.

Glory to his name. What is not so effective?

That is what I'd like to hear about South that we can correct

and make effective. And this is always everything

that we do. We do for the glory of God first

and foremost and for the salvation of the souls.

God bless you all and it's been great to see you all.

Shamasha, any last words and. Last comments yeah, it'll be.

I don't think we can end this podcast without saying as

members of the Nash the North American executive committee

that. We would love to see all of you

guys next year at our conference, especially if you're

age between the ages of 13 to 30.

We really highly suggest you join your local chapter of these

association so that next year we can see you in person and we can

meet you in person. So that together we can go on

this journey as sojourners and we can work together to build up

our faith and to enjoy our friendships in our church and

with our own people. Anaheim Next to You, Right Is

it? You know Irvine, CA, Yes.

California. Great.

Let's continue gaining all the points that we need so that when

the visa has actually been issued that we will all see each

other in the Kingdom of heaven. I'd like to see everyone in the

Kingdom of heaven. No more preaching.

No more podcast. Hello.

Thank you, Lord. No more podcast, No more Raza,

No more praying. And I always say, if we pray in

the Kingdom of heaven, it will be our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name. That's it.

Because if we ask for the Kingdom to come, the Lord will

say, well, you're in the Kingdom, Papara, you're in the

Kingdom. And if we say your will be done

while my will has been done in your life, that is why you're in

the Kingdom. As in heaven saw on earth.

What earth? Earth is gone, is melted.

All the elements have melted. Forgive our sins.

What? You're a Sinner and you're in

the Kingdom of heaven. You know that's not going to

happen. We will be glorifying God along

with the angels. Amalah.

Fine. We cry out with the Angel.

Holy, holy, holy, are you. Praise and glory be to the name

of our Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ and the Holy

Spirit. Now not all times and forever.

Amen. Thank you, God.

We hope you enjoyed this week's message.

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next time, God bless you all.