MISSIONS MONTH l Bless the City l Pastor Jamie Kemp

Welcome to IS Jakarta.

I'm Pastor Jamie, and I'm excited that you're joining us for this week's message.

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Thanks for listening.

I warned you you weren't going to escape missions.

Actually, I heard an old missionary story, a story a while back that a successful uh American pastor who moved to Indonesia to become a missionary, and um and he had great charisma and incredible leadership.

Uh and he was able to establish a powerful ministry here in Indonesia, preaching and teaching all over the country.

Um but uh but after living in Indonesia for a few years, he he still couldn't speak the language.

And so so frustrated and and somewhat embarrassed, he he moved back to America uh to continue his ministry there.

One Sunday while preaching at one of his friends' churches, um uh he was sharing some of the incredible testimonies of his ministry there in Indonesia.

And uh and uh uh after he was finished preaching, his friend, the pastor, comes up and says, Hey, would you close our service today by praying in the language of the Indonesian people?

Too proud to tell his friend that he never learned the language, this quick-thinking missionary asked everyone to bow their heads and close their eyes.

And he thought of the only words he knew in Bahasa, and he said very somberly and spiritually, Father in heaven, Satu, Dua, Tiga Umpat, Oh Lord, Lima, we need Lima Anab to ju more, to ju Lord, Dalapan Sambilan, Sapulu, Lord, Sapulu, Amen, Amen.

Well, his friend, the pastor, he comes back to the stage with tears in his eyes and thanked him for that powerful and beautiful prayer.

And so uh so after the service, now the missionary is standing by the door and greeting people as they leave the service, and people are shaking his hand and thanking him for being here, and one of the congregants as he's leaving shakes his hand and says to him, Sablas.

Do a blast, do a blast.

Aren't you glad I'm preaching in English today?

All right, well, salam al-datam ka bulan misidian di I S.

Welcome to Missions Month, uh IS uh.

This whole month, uh, we're gonna be talking about missions.

Oftentimes when we talk about missions, we we think of some other place, you know, another country, another language, another culture.

And that's certainly true.

And that's why next week we're gonna take a week to talk about how IS can can bless the nations, all right?

Uh but before we get there, we need to talk about something much closer to home and talk about how do we bless the city.

Last week I tried to give us a foundation for our missiology here at IS, and I and I talked about bless the Lord, and and uh at the end of the month, we'll take some time to talk about bless the generations.

That we want to be a church that always has its eye on reaching the next generation.

But for today, I want us to see that that IS is not called just to be a church in Jakarta, we're called to be a church for Jakarta.

Let me say that again.

IS is not called to be a church in Jakarta, we're called to be a church for Jakarta.

About a year ago, when when when we accepted the invitation to to move to IS and to leave our comfortable life and successful ministry there uh in Jokja, I felt like I needed a word from the Lord, like a confirmation from the Lord.

Have you ever been there when you had a big decision to make?

You know, you're about to make a big move, and you feel like, man, Lord, I need I need a promise from you.

I need a confirmation from you, I need to know that you're speaking to me.

And that's where I was about a year ago.

Because it in Jokja, that's where I had spent 16 years of my life there.

I I love that city.

I I even named my son after the city.

His name is Baniah Jokjah.

Um so I asked the Lord for a burden for the city of Jakarta.

You know, if I was gonna move here, I didn't want just a vision for the church, I wanted a heart for the city.

So I began to pray, Lord, would you give me a vision?

Give me give me a promise, give me a burden for the city of Jakarta.

And this is what the Lord spoke to me.

I'm going to the glasses, that's when you know I'm serious.

Some of you can relate.

Jeremiah 29:7.

Jeremiah 29:7

Jeremiah 29.7 says this.

Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I've carried you into exile.

Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.

Says this in the New Living Translation, and work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile.

Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.

Now, some people have joked with me this week and said, I hope you don't feel like you've been sent into exile.

All right.

Uh I feel like after two hours in traffic, you feel like maybe you have been sent into exile.

But but I yes, this is our calling.

And really, this is our responsibility, our calling as Christians in this city and as a church that Jesus loves Jakarta.

That Jesus loves Jakarta.

So we're called to work for the peace and prosperity of Jakarta and to pray for Jakarta because its prosperity will determine our prosperity.

Let me put it this way.

I believe that God will bless Ies into in proportion to how much we bless the city of Jakarta.

Because I can say with great certainty that Jesus loves Jakarta.

Jesus loves Jakarta so much that he has sent you here and he sent me here.

Jesus loves Jakarta so much that he's put Ies here to be a blessing to this city.

Some of you were uh were with me last Saturday night.

Last Saturday night, about over 300 of us gathered together at Grand U Indonesia at the movie theater there to watch the movie uh Daniel together.

It was a special night.

We rented out the movie theater and um families were there.

It was such a surreal experience because I walked into the movie theater and I knew everybody there.

You know, like usually when you go to the movies, it's full of strange, but I'm like, man, I know you and you and you.

And it's always funny for me to watch how you react when you see me outside of church, right?

Because you're like, what's he doing here?

Like, why isn't he praying or something like that?

You know, shouldn't he be praying and not having lunch or something like that?

So so it's always but what was interesting about the movie is that it set the context for the prophetic words of Jeremiah that we just read.

You see, Daniel and Jeremiah were contemporaries, meaning they lived and prophesied during that same historical time.

So the movie shows uh the Jewish exiles uh uh leaving their home and being exiled to Babylon around 586 BC, when the Babylonian uh Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and deported many of the Jewish people to Babylon.

These people had lost their home, their city, their temple, and their political independence.

For the people of God, those who were exiled, Babylon wasn't their home.

They were exiles.

Now, if you're taking notes, I've got three points, so you can kind of know when I'm finishing up.

Um, you can write them down, and they all begin with the letter E.

You're welcome.

It says this.

Number one, exiles.

Exiles.

We're not from here, but we're sent here.

We're not from here, but we're sent here.

First Peter 2.11, it uses this exact same language when describing us as Christians.

It says, Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to abstain from sinful desires which ways wage war against your soul.

Live and live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits.

Peter intentionally calls Christians exiles, meaning people living somewhere temporarily without a place of being with that without that place being their ultimate home.

Hebrews 11 says that God's people should consider themselves as foreigners and strangers on earth.

Philippians 3 20 says, but our citizenship is in heaven.

You see, we we kind of live in this paradox that we're not from here, but we're sent here.

As Christians, our citizenship is someplace else.

It's like my kids.

They have these American passports, but they live their entire lives here in Indonesia.

What's funny is they know all the words to uh to nonesia raya better than the star-spangled banner of America.

So that's how long they've lived here.

So we live in this tension, right?

That we're citizens of heaven living on earth.

I guess you could put it this way: when you're in Christ, your passport is heaven, not earth, and we're all living on a kitas.

All right.

Fortunately, the immigration process is a lot easier, all right?

Some of you guys know what I'm talking about.

So here's what's important to notice we're not supposed to escape from here.

We're not called to escape from exile.

And that's exactly what the prophet Jeremiah is telling the people of God.

You're in Babylon now, so live there.

Build houses, plant gardens, raise families, work, pray, bless the city.

Here's how Jesus puts it My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but you protect them from the evil one.

Jesus doesn't say to his disciples, hey, we're get out of the world.

He says, live faithfully in the world.

The scriptures call you and I exiles.

This world is not our home.

But while we're here, we have the responsibility to bring the peace and the prosperity of God to the places that we live.

Number two, expectations.

God's plan may not look like your plan.

God's plan might not look like your plan for the exiles in Babylon.

There's this strong temptation to think we're God's people and Babylon is the enemy.

We're just here temporarily.

Let's keep our distance and wait for God to get us out.

And that's the backdrop of Jeremiah 29.

Jeremiah writes his letter to these people in exile, and God's message is surprisingly different than what they expected.

I mean, what do we do when our expectations and God's plan don't line up?

Right?

Like, like what do we do when God when our expectations and God's plan don't line up?

You see, it was when I was 18 years old, I was I was involved with a campus ministry, and and one night at a prayer meeting, I felt the Lord speak to my heart and call me to be a foreign missionary.

That's why I'm gonna spend some time with uh with about a hundred of you this uh this Tuesday night, we're calling it Meal with a missionary, a chance for me to kind of have some interaction, you can kind of hear in a more intimate setting my story and how I ended up here in Indonesia and ultimately here at IS.

But I can remember when I when I graduated seminary last century, um, when I graduated seminary, rather than going straight into foreign missions, I spent eight years as the as a youth pastor serving at my home church in Naperville, Illinois, suburban Chicago.

My pastor always knew that I had a call to foreign missions, and he was always supportive.

But but I can remember the day when I met with him, and I said to him, Pastor, I believe, I believe God is asking me to step out of pastoral ministry and calling me to move to Indonesia.

And my pastor paused, and to my surprise, he said, No.

Wait, what?

Like, are you allowed to do that?

You know, like God's speaking to me, aren't you supposed to say yes?

You know, like like uh like I'm I'm I'm an I'm accountable to God, right?

I'm I'm an ordained minister of the gospel, right?

I'm called by God, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

How can you say no to me?

You see, I believe in spiritual authority when I have the authority, right?

Right?

You know, like but now my pastor, the man of God, the person God had put in my life, he seems to be standing in the way between me and God's calling on my life.

This was not the answer I expected.

But then he explained.

He asked if Tasha and I would commit another year to pastoral ministry.

You know, we're from, my wife and I were from a really big megachurch in America, and and and I was uh quite a popular pastor on the pastoral staff, and and our children's pastor had just left the church to be the children's pastor at Saddleback in California.

And and our teaching pastor, he had just left to go be a missionary in Bulgaria, and and my pastor was worried that losing children's pastor and youth pastor in a short period of time would bring a lot of instability to the church.

So we said, hey, would would you pray about and consider spending another year here at the church?

So Tosh and I, knowing our pastor's heart, we said, okay, we we'll commit another year to serving here.

And let me say that that last year of ministry we had in the States was probably our most fruitful year of ministry we've ever had.

But I can remember at the end of that year, I go into my pastor's office and I'm like, hey, it's been a year, you know, like, what are you thinking?

And I remember his reaction, he kind of hit the table and said, Ah, you remembered.

All right.

Uh but the good thing is that he laid his hands on us, prayed for us, and blessed us.

Now let me give it just a quick side note.

Let me kind of jump over here, just kind of to give a quick um a quick definition between the difference between spiritual authority and spiritual abuse, okay?

I I I could probably spend a lot more time on this topic, okay?

But let me give you a simple definition or a simple difference between spiritual authority and spiritual abuse.

Spiritual authority um will always, when you have a spiritual authority in your life, that that spiritual authority will always have God's best interest for your life, okay?

God's best interest.

Spiritual abuse will always have that leader's best interest for his life, okay, or her life, all right?

So as your pastor, I'll always have God's best interest for your life, not mine.

So here's what I've learned: God's answer might not be what I expected.

God's answer might not always be what you expected.

In Jeremiah's day, there were false prophets telling the exiles, hey, don't worry, you're you're going home soon.

There's an expectation that God was gonna get them out of Babylon.

But Jeremiah comes with a totally different word.

He says, he he says that that others were thinking, hey, you need to uh that that God was gonna get you out, but Jeremiah says, hey, settle in here.

You're gonna be here for a while.

So imagine hearing that.

You thought, oh, God's gonna get us out, and God says, I'm gonna teach you how to live faithfully where you are.

Oh, that's good, Jamie.

Thanks, Jamie.

Sometimes I gotta kind of encourage myself, all right.

Sometimes I gotta remind you guys, like, like this is live, like you're not watching me on YouTube.

Like, like, like I can see you too, all right.

So just so you know, I need to remind you of that today, all right.

So just kidding.

All right.

You want to get out.

God wants to teach you how to live faithfully while you're in.

It's like a marriage, alright?

I tell every couple, when I do their premarital couple, when I do their premarital counseling, I uh I like simply in Anga, they're getting married this Friday in Jokja.

And and I tell them uh in their premarital counsel, I say this the Lord has put in that other person everything needed to produce Christ-likeness in you.

So you need to learn patience.

The person you're gonna be marry is always gonna be late.

All right.

Uh you need to learn grace and forgiveness.

Well, the person you're gonna marry is gonna know how to push you in those ways so that you've learn uh how to show grace and forgiveness.

I mean, that's the miracle of marriage, right?

The Lord knew exactly uh who you needed to produce his character inside of you.

He matches you up with someone that can bring that transformation to your life.

You see, I'm a pretty independent person.

I like to do things on my own.

So, what kind of person did the Lord bring into my life?

Someone whose love language is quality time.

All right.

So uh so I can remember when Tasha and I were dating when we were engaged, and you know, I would drive her home at night and we'd pray together, and then I'd drop her off, and then I'd come home and I'd give her another call.

Everything good, we're good, all right.

I love you, I love you too.

Okay, good night, good night.

All right, so then we'd hang up, and and uh and Tasha would go to bed, uh, and I would go and watch sports for an hour.

All right, and so uh so when we get married, um, and now we're we're living together, everything's great, and so it's time to go to sleep.

I'm like, all right, good night, love you.

All right, and uh she's like, Where are you going?

I'm like, go watch sports for an hour.

Like, that's what I do, and it kind of realized she was like, Were you doing that the whole time we were dating?

And I'm like, Yeah, that's just how I that's what I do, and so she uh so things had to change, let me put it that way.

Sometimes we're praying, God change my spouse, and God is saying, Let's start with you, all right?

So here's what I want you to notice.

God didn't just tell the exiles to endure Babylon, He told them to bless Babylon.

That's an unexpected word from the Lord.

I mean, sometimes God's plan isn't, hey, I'm gonna remove you from the situation.

Sometimes God's plan is I'm gonna use you in that situation.

Number three, engage.

Engage.

Don't just live in the city, bless the city.

Don't just live in the city, bless the city.

The Lord doesn't say to the exiles, bless Jerusalem, where they're from.

He tells them, Bless the city where I've sent you.

They're supposed to seek the prosperity of Babylon, the very people who had conquered them.

That's such an upside-down vision for God's people.

Their relationship with God wasn't supposed to withdraw them from the city, it was supposed to make them a blessing to the city.

I mean, that that's the meaning behind this, that the words peace, prosperity, and welfare in Jeremiah 29:7.

Jeremiah 29:7

It's that Hebrew word shalom, and it means much more than peace or the absence of conflict.

It means wholeness, well-being, flourishing, things being the way God intended them to be.

Ooh, I like that definition.

That this idea that shalom is things being the way God intended them to be.

So missions is much more than merely social work.

It's not just Christians being nice to people who help who help Jakarta.

As the people of God, we are called to work to set things right as God intended them to be.

Shalom happens when when things are the way God intended them to be.

A flourishing school, a child who is loved and cared for, a prisoner who finds hope and restoration, a family that has all that it needs, a community where people are treated with dignity, a city where people can prosper, and ultimately when people are made right with God through Jesus.

That's shalom.

And that's what missions is here at IS.

When we go to under resourced schools, we're not just conducting programs, we're seeking shalom.

Flourishing of that school.

When we serve an orphanage, we're seeking the shalom, the well-being of vulnerable children.

The men's ministry is hosting a or is holding an event, an outreach event called Kurja Bhakti on Saturday, October 24th.

I'm looking for 50 men to sign up.

You can sign up right now, I think.

You can literally get out your phone and sign up now.

We have men's ministry is going to be outside this door waiting for an opportunity to talk to you about how you can get involved, to say to the guys in this church, hey, you don't just have to attend on a weekend.

Man, here's a way for you to get involved and be a part of God's mission to bring shalom to different areas and parts of our city.

When we plant a church, yes, I see the wives like elbowing husbands, they're like, Where's your phone?

It's in Luke 19.

Jesus is approaching Jerusalem and he sees the city, and something happens that we can easily overlook.

It says this.

But as Jesus came closer to Jerusalem, he saw the city ahead, he began to weep.

How I wish today that all that you of all people could understand the way to peace.

He looks at the city and he cries and he says, Man, if you could only understand the way to peace, to shalom, to making things right with God, he looks at the city and cries.

He doesn't say, Oh, I hope you get what you deserve.

Nope.

He weeps over the city.

And then what does Jesus do?

He enters the city, he doesn't run away, he he goes to Jerusalem knowing exactly what's gonna happen, that he's gonna be uh rejected, beaten, crucified, and eventually rise from the dead.

Jesus doesn't merely talk about being a blessing to the city, he gives his life for the city.

So here's what I want us to do: to work for the peace and prosperity of Jakarta.

Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.

To work for the peace and prosperity of Jakarta.

This is our calling and our responsibility.

Jesus loves Jakarta, so should we.

When was the last time your heart broke for your city?

When was the last time you wept for the people of Jakarta?

There's a beautiful order to this thing I want you to see.

It says, work for the city and pray for the city, right?

So you've got both of these things happening.

It's not either or, it's a both and that we work and pray for the prosperity of the city.

I like to put it this way: pray like it all depends on God and work like it all depends on me.

So let's ask the Lord now where He wants you to serve the city.

Would you pray with me?

Father in heaven, we want to take these final moments together and ask you to speak to us.

How can we serve the city where you've placed us?

Speak to our hearts now, if you would, Lord.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

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And until next time, may God bless you and keep you.