The Fringes of His Glory

Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA

I’m happy to be home from California.  I had an amazing visit with my sister and brother-in-law and it was an honor and a privilege to be a part of his ordination.  Their church is going through a similar process to the one that our church went through a couple of years ago.  It is exciting to see their vision and the passion with which they are pursuing it.

California is a beautiful place.  If it weren’t for the hordes of other people who share that sentiment, I could probably live there.  But, alas, the traffic is ungodly awful, and I’m pretty satisfied with the beauty of the place that God has chosen for me to live; Grove, Oklahoma.

On our trip from the airport to my sister’s house, we took a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway just as the sun was going down.  During those moments when the traffic was at a standstill, I got to witness some of the most beautiful colors on God’s artist palette.  Bobby tried to get a few pictures, but there was just no way to get an accurate portrayal of the splendor that we were seeing.

As the darkness closed in around us and the traffic thinned out, we made our way on to Ventura in awed silence.  Then Bobby shared a verse of Scripture with me that brought it all home.

He said, “Whenever we witness the most beautiful things here on earth, I always think of Job 26:14.  It says, 'Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways, and how small a whisper we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand?'”

All of this beauty is just the fringe of what God is capable of.  Heaven will be exponentially more beautiful.  What we see now are the remnants of His creation, marred by sin’s curse and man’s foolishness.  But one day, we will see Him face to face and the remnants of sin and its ugly impact will be totally wiped away.  

As the songwriter penned, “What a day that will be, when my Jesus I shall see…”  Nothing on earth compares to the beauty of His glory.  I can’t wait for the day when we are finally home.

Down the road from my house in Grove, OK

Harvest Time!

During the mid-1990’s, while I was pastoring in Oklahoma City, our church went through an 18 month period that was the most fruitful time of my ministry.  We saw over 80 people come to know Christ, most of them between the ages of 12 and 25.  There was constant anticipation of what would happen next, and God poured out His Spirit in an amazing way.

I am beginning to see signs that a similar season may be in store for our church.  We have already seen seven people come to know Christ in the first seven weeks of 2017 and God has given me an appointment to share the Gospel with two more this evening.  Also, it looks like we are going to baptize more people in one day this coming Sunday than we did in all of 2016.  Add to that the fact that we have already seen 26 first-time visitors in our services since the first of the year, it is evident that God is moving.

So the question is, how do we respond?  I believe that Jesus gave us the answer in John 4:35, “…Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest…”  Jesus was encouraging His disciples to take their eyes off of their own circumstances and look around.  There were people all around them who were in need of a Savior.  He told them this after His discussion with the Samaritan woman.  They had completely missed the opportunity for witness because of their own prejudices and concerns.  He wanted them to “look on the fields.”  

The fact that we are seeing people come to Christ should encourage us that the fields are white, they’re ready to be harvested.  It calls for several immediate actions from those of us who already know the Savior.

First, we need to rejoice and thank God for those He is sending our way.  Never underestimate the value of one soul surrendered to Christ.

Second, we need to go out of our way to welcome these new believers into the family and help them feel connected.

Third, we need to pray for them as they navigate the waters of their new life in Christ and as they begin the process of discipleship.  We all know that its not easy.

Fourth, we need to continue the process of sowing and reaping in this fruitful time.  Pray that God would help you to identify friends and loved ones who need Christ, then begin to reach out to them with the Gospel.  Commit yourself to inviting and welcoming them to our church and to do everything within your power to assure that they have the opportunity to be saved.

Fifth, share your enthusiasm about what God is doing with everyone that you meet.  Excitement is contagious.

And above all, pray for God’s hedge of protection around our church, her families, and her leaders.  When God is blessing, Satan is scheming.  He would like nothing more than to destroy what God is doing before it can get off the ground.  So pray.

When I was pastoring in Kansas, one of my favorite things to see was the wheat harvest.  You could stop beside the highway and see the combines lines up three or four wide cutting a swath through the swaying grain.  It was a beautiful sight.  But even more beautiful than that is seeing a lost soul on their knees before God praying for salvation. Lift up your eyes, Grace Harbor, it’s harvest time.

Little Is Much When God Is In It

There is an old gospel chorus that says, “Little is much when God is in it…” That concept is never more true than when we speak about missions.  In my experiences around the world, I have seen any number of illustrations of this point.

A few days ago, I shared the story of Missionary Bob Hughes.  In 1999, I was invited to speak at the church he started in Cebu City, the Philippines.  Dr. Armie Jesalva is still pastoring the church and has had a great impact in the Philippines that stands as a legacy to the work of Bob Hughes.

On the day after I preached at Bible Baptist Cebu, as we were preparing to leave for our trip home, I sat in Dr. Jesalva’s office.  We were interrupted by a phone call from a young preacher that had been sent out of his church to the island of Mindanao.  He had planted a church and they had met under a tree for a few months, but they had grown to almost a hundred people and God was leading them to buy a piece of property and build a building so that the church could finally have a home.  They had found a small, triangular piece of property, just large enough for them to build on for only 35,000 pesos.  The young preacher was asking Dr. Jesalva if he could help them purchase the property.  I asked him how much that was in American dollars and he figured a bit and told me $666.  

I laughed and said, “I don’t think I want to give $666, but I’ll commit our church to send $700 to buy the property. “

I was amazed at how much could be accomplished with such a small amount of money.  I went home and our church raised the money and sent it back to the young preacher and we thought that was the end of it.

Over the next several years, my family took several trips to the Philippines, ministering with Filipino pastors on the island of Luzon.  In 2007, on our last trip there, we had made plans to share the discipleship ministry of our church with the pastors and workers of the island.  55 pastors from all over Luzon came to Rizal for the three-day conference.  It was a tremendous blessing to them and to us.

We were able to give each pastor bibles, books, and discipleship lessons that they could use for personal training and for discipling their people.  During one of the breaks, we sat down with a group of the pastors and they introduced themselves.  There was a young man there who was serving as an assistant pastor for one of the other men and when he introduced himself, he said that he was from the island of Mindanao.  He had been saved in a small church there, gone to Cebu for Bible college training, and had ended up on Luzon working with a tribe of people who just a generation before had been head-hunters.

As it turned out, that young man was saved in the church that we had purchased the property for eight years earlier.  It was a tremendous blessing to me to know that we had played a part in him coming to Christ and that now, he was actively serving God in order to reach others.  The value of that small investment in eternity will only be fully seen when we stand before God.  

You may say, “I can’t give much.”  Maybe not, but neither could the little lad with the sack lunch, but Jesus made it sufficient to feed 5000 people.

Just know, that when we give, even if it is out of our own poverty, God can do great things.  I challenge you to commit yourself to being a part of reaching the world for Jesus Christ through Fatih Promise Missions at Grace Harbor Baptist Church.

Fulfill The Great Commission in Our Generation

Mark 16:15 says, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” 

Let me put that into a little bit of perspective.  In the time of Christ, there were approximately 300 million people on earth according to my internet sources. Today there are around 8 billion.  In Jesus day, the church began with about 120 believers and then exploded to over 3000 on the day of Pentecost.  Still, not a huge number in comparison to those who claim to know Christ today.

Add to that the extreme limitations of their time; worldwide travel was painfully slow and extremely dangerous, there were no means of mass communication, and almost every governmental authority sought to exterminate them from the face of the earth. Yet within a generation, the world had heard of Jesus Christ.

Today, we have the ability to communicate with the entire planet in real time, we can be on the other side of the world in a matter of hours, and Christianity is at least tolerated in the vast majority of nations.  Add to that the fact that Christians, at least American Christians, have vast resources at our disposal in order to spread the Gospel and the case is clear, we have a much easier task than those who originally received this command.

So why are we struggling so to get it done? I see at least three reasons:

1. The "GO YE…Who Me?” Problem – Too many Christians today see their relationship with Jesus Christ as a matter of convenience or a simple necessity in order to avoid hell.  They don’t understand that if Jesus is Lord,   then that demands that we obey him. He said, “If you love me, then keep my commandments.”  If we don’t see ourselves included in the “Go ye” then we won’t have a passion to see the world come to know Christ.

2. The “Preach the Gospel” Problem – Really this is a two-fold problem.  First, most Christians have limited the command to preach to apply only to ‘preachers.’  That allows them to believe that this preaching the Gospel  thing is Brother Marty’s job, not mine.   But the word preach simply means to ‘trumpet abroad.’  Every one of us is responsible to 'trumpet abroad’ the Gospel.  Wherein lies the other part of this problem.  Too many believers are unclear about what the Gospel is.  The Gospel is not convincing someone to go to church.  The Gospel is not helping people overcome the bad things in their lives and turning over a new leaf.  The Gospel is the good news that even though we are broken, fallen creatures, mired in sin, God loved us enough to send His Son, Jesus, to die in our place and pay the price for those sins.  The Gospel calls every individual to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of the Father, to believe that God raised Him from the dead, and to call upon His name for salvation, forgiveness of sins, and a new birth.  Most Christians don’t preach the Gospel because they can’t clearly articulate it.

3. The “Every Creature…Really? Even ___________?” Problem - We have allowed our fears and prejudices to put a barrier between us and those who most need the message that we bring. Whether our problem is the   color of their skin, their political leanings, their immoral choices, or their religious beliefs, we cross people off of our list of those worthy of hearing the Gospel and assume that we are released of our responsibility to share it with them.  This puts us in the same boat(pun intended) with the prophet Jonah, who couldn’t bring himself to go to Ninevah to preach to those wicked, fierce, pagan people.  How did that work out for him?

So how do we win 8 billion people to Christ in a world whose population is growing by 80 million people a year?  It’s simple really; not easy, but simple.  Let’s do the math. Let’s assume that someone who knows and loves Christ could win one person to the Lord and then disciple them for a year until that disciple could win one person to Christ.  And let’s assume that the original believer would continue to be a witness and in the next year he would win another person to Christ and disciple them.  And if this process would continue faithfully for a generation, for the sake of today’s population about 45 years, where that believer and every person that he won and discipled would do the same, and so on, and so on.  In that one generation, over 8 billion people would come to know Christ and be discipled.  So even today, with the world’s population spinning out of control, if believers would just take the Great Commission seriously, we could win the world to Christ in our generation.

But you might say, “Brother Marty that’s just not realistic.”  To which I say, we have the command, and we have His promise that, “Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”  What is possible is not for us to determine.  It’s just time for us to obey.

Here’s a YouTube link to an old song that has a wonderful message to challenge us this morning.  https://youtu.be/jW-QGncTDCs

My Heroes Have Always Been Missionaries

My heroes have always been missionaries.  I was privileged as a child to sit at the dinner table with my heroes and hear them talk and share their passion with my parents and as I sat there, I could imagine seeing them "leap tall buildings in a single bound."

It was especially exciting to me that my all-time favorite missionary shared my last name.  Missionary Bob Hughes was a distant relative, raised in Center, Texas, just down the road from my dad. He was saved while stationed  with the military in the Philippines.  When he got out, he went back to the Philippines as a missionary and God did an amazing work through him in Cebu City.

God used him to encourage the churches of the Baptist Bible Fellowship to give to missions through the Faith Promise Missions method and one of his most famous sermons was called “I Sat Where They Sat.” It was one of the greatest missions sermons of all time.  I have included a YouTube link so that you can hear it if you’d like to.  https://youtu.be/GrDnnFJRWJs

After only 20 years on the field, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and in August of 1976, at the age of 44, the Lord took him Home.

But his impact on world missions was far from done.  I had the privilege of hearing him preach one of his last sermons.  On December 31, 1975, my family and I attended the watch night service at Central Baptist Church in Center, Texas.  Central Baptist was Bob’s home church and also the church that my dad grew up in. Bob had been to Houston earlier in the day and received his chemo treatment.  He was obviously tired and sick, but when he stepped into the pulpit, he was energized in an amazing way.  He preached a powerful message on Ps. 90:12, “So let us number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”  He said that today could be the last day on earth for any of us.  He said that his cancer made that fact more evident to him, but it is no less true for any of us.  He spoke of the urgency of the moment to come to faith in Christ.  He challenged Christians to be a witness to everyone that they meet because you never know when it will be your last chance.  It was a powerful message that touched my heart in a special way.

In August of 1976, at the age of 16, I headed off to Springfield, MO, to attend Baptist Bible College.  On my first day on campus, they held a memorial service for Missionary Bob Hughes in the BBC Fieldhouse.  Thousands of people attended, a number of speakers addressed the impact of the life and ministry of Bob Hughes.  As the service drew close to a conclusion, the pastor of Bob’s sending church said this, “Bob’s passion for souls and his heart for missions challenged us all.  His words still ring in our ears and as Scripture says of faithful Abel, “He being dead yet speaketh…”  At that moment they played an excerpt from “I Sat Where They Sat” of Bob passionately crying out, “Why do you need a call when you have a command? Why do you need to hear a voice when you’ve got a verse?  You want a call, how about this? “There’s a call comes ringing o’er the restless wave, Send the light! Send the light.”

I still get goosebumps just writing this story.  Over 140 people surrendered their lives to the mission field at that memorial service alone and it instilled in me a heart for missions that has never faded.

I have been privileged to preach in the church that Bob started in Cebu City.  On the day that I preached, there were over 4000 people in attendance.  I have been able to visit the Philippines five times and three generations of our family have ministered there.

I pray that as we focus our hearts on the nations over these next few weeks, you will catch just a little bit of the passion that has been handed down to me through these experiences.  

Missions: From Small Beginnings

I started getting an allowance when I was 9 years old.  It came with the understanding that I would clean my room(in response to the EPA declaring it a Superfund Toxic waste site) and fulfill certain other responsibilities around the house.  I believe that the going rate in 1969 was 50c a week and I was happy to have it. I could get a Hostess Suzy-Q for 12c at the White Hen Pantry down the road.  I was rich!

But with my sizable income, my parents also gave me an important lesson.  While I had to work in order to get my allowance, I should always remember that it was God Who made it possible and who provided my needs.  And in order to acknowledge that every penny of that 50 pennies belonged to Him, He asked me to give a portion of it back.  So, at 9 years old, I learned to tithe.  The first nickel of my allowance went in an offering envelope as soon as I got it, and on Sunday I gladly gave it to the Lord.

Two years later, at the age of eleven, we had our first Faith Promise Missions Conference at the church that my dad pastored.  I had always loved missionaries.  When they would come to our church, they would sit at our dinner table and I was in awe.  I remember K.C. Thomas, a native of India, who went back to reach his people for Christ, sitting at our table.  My mother had gone all out and fixed fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans.   The missionary took one chicken leg and a small portion of the other things and began eating.  He completely stripped the chicken leg, gristle, marrow, and all, eating every edible(and a few inedible) part.  My mother was alarmed.  She said, “Bro. Thomas, there is plenty of chicken.  You can have another piece.  You don’t have to do that.”

His reply, “Where I live, it is disrespectful to waste anything.  So many are starving who would long to have what we throw away.” That touched my heart. 

Because I was now old enough to mow the lawn, my income had increased dramatically.  I now received a whole dollar a week in allowance. And when the time came to make a Faith Promise, it was explained to us that we were to pray about what God would have us to give to missions, make a commitment by faith, and then trust God to provide it.

I don’t remember the deliberation process, but I do remember that I was convinced that God would have me give $1.00 per week to Missions.  I’d like to say that I had great faith, but it may just have been that I was bad at math. $1.00 allowance minus .10 tithe minus $1.00 for missions equals…hmmm, how is this going to work?  But I made the promise and I prayed.

I was sure that my parents would see my dilemma and increase my allowance, or that God would let me find nickels and dimes along the road on my way to school, or that Ed McMahon would show up at my door with one of those big cardboard checks.  However He did it, I knew that God would provide.

Later that week, our next door neighbor came for a visit.  He and his wife had an 18-month old son.  He worked 9 to 5 and his wife had to leave for work at about 3:30.  She would put their son down for his nap before she left and they needed someone to be there until he got home.  He asked if I would be interested.  They would pay me the whopping sum of $1.35…A DAY!!!!!!!

I started on Thursday, so by the time Sunday rolled around and it was time to give my Faith Promise, I not only was able to give my tithe that had now increased to $.37, but I was able to give a dollar to missions and still have twice what my allowance had been left over.

It taught me a lesson that I have never forgotten.  God will be a debtor to no one.  He cares about missions and He blesses when we step out in faith.

Please understand, this is not a get-rich-quick scheme.  But it is an assurance that we don’t have to be afraid to step out in faith when God lays it on our heart.  I challenge you to consider what God would have you to do to have a part in Missions through Grace Harbor Baptist Church.

Love Your Neighbor

We are living in strange times.  We have more communication options available to us than any other generation in history.  We can speak in real time to people on the other side of the planet, yet we struggle to communicate with our own family members. We carry around small devices that allow us to express our feelings to the entire world, yet they often isolate us from others who are within arms reach. Thus the paradox, we are more connected than ever before, yet we find ourselves more lonely than Tom Hanks in Castaway.

During Jesus’ earthly ministry, He continually addressed this issue with the Pharisees. NOTE: First world problems find their root in human nature and there is nothing new under the sun.

They asked Him what was the greatest commandment of all and He gave them a profound answer.  You see, the Ten Commandments are basically divided into two distinct parts. The first deals with how we treat God and the second deals with how we treat our friends and neighbors.  The Pharisees spent all of their time focusing on the first part and completely ignored the second.  Jesus told them to love God supremely, but that it was very nearly as important to love their neighbors as well.

Loving our neighbors as ourselves will demand something of us, especially in a culture where we hardly know them.  It will demand that we step outside of our cocoon and interact with those around us.  This may be especially tricky if your neighbors are the kind that do things that irritate you, but that is where the fruit of the Spirit comes in.  It’s easy to be loving, peaceful, joyful, long suffering and gentle when people fit well into your little comfort zone.  When they don’t, it requires supernatural fruit that only comes when we are submissive to God’s Spirit.

So, my challenge today is to decide to be neighborly.  Reach out to your neighbor, meet them if you haven’t, and do something kind for them in the name of Jesus.  You never know what might come of one little act of consideration.