And You Were Dead: The Valley Between the Peaks
First B Jackson
2017-06-04

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Okay. We are on. Hey. Good morning, everyone. What a gorgeous morning.

It's beautiful. Would you would you stand up with me and what do you say we start this thing by giving our God praise from Psalm one zero five, give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. God truly is great. Let's sing of it.

Alright. Children up. Children of a living God, come and sing. Sing out loud, children of the living God. Sing to the living God.

Sing to the wonders. Sing to the wonders she has made. Burden fight, falling rain. Sing. The wonders he has made sing to the living God and how he loves.

How he loves us with great love. He who sits enthroned above for our lives spirit is the same spirit like our flood. Children of a living God, sinks the living of his mercy. And Sing of the mercy that he gives. Oh, we sin.

He forgives. Sing of the mercy that he gives. Sing to the living Sing for the morning when he comes on clouds, glorious sun. Sing for the morning when he comes. Sing to the living God.

How he loves us with great God saints the living God Amen.

Welcome this morning. Y'all can have a seat. Glad that y'all are here. We got about 10 pounds of sugar to put in a five pound bag today, alright? We're going to go through these announcements fairly quickly.

Connect hour is still happening even though we're in the middle or the little more than the middle of kitchen remodel project that's happening down at the Fellowship Hall in between services today. So, around ten ish. Monday nights at First B is on this week. Potluck tomorrow. Please bring on a little something to share.

Meal, music, and a message, Monday nights at six. Senior high school senior recognition is next Sunday. So the eleventh, next Sunday, Renzi is going to be recognizing the seniors, and that's next Sunday. June twenty third and twenty fourth in the evening is our vacation Bible school. That is happening.

Liz Owens, where are you? Stand up, would you? Do you need? I actually that never mind. Go ahead.

Yeah, that's good. That's Liz Owens. If you'd like to help out, please talk to Liz. She would be glad to hear from you. We're also having a decorating day for Vacation Bible School at starting at 01:00 on Saturday, June 17.

So, if you can be here, even if you're not volunteering for Vacation Bible School, if you have any kind of an artistic eye or you want to help out, please come. All are welcome to help on that day. There's a volunteer slide there. June 18, Renzi and Kayle, you all know are heading out, so we're going to fare thee well. It also happens to be Father's Day, so we're doing a potluck picnic on the eighteenth.

So that's two weeks from today. It'll happen after the second service right out here in this green space, And you can bring pies and sides, it says, because we're gonna handle the meat and the macaroni and cheese. Is that it? Sorry. Two weeks from today, it'll happen after this

how does that happen?

And you can bring one more time. So there's a relationship seminar with Ken Sandy coming up and we have this little clip.

But we'll need support. Signal the husband.

Oh, she's looking at us. What did she say? What? Oh, sorry sir. No one was listening.

Is it garbage night? We left the toilet seat up.

What? What is it woman? What?

Signal him again.

So Riley, how was school? Finally.

You gotta be kidding me.

This, we gave up that Brazilian helicopter pilot.

So, there will be this seminar happening on June the July 15 from 9AM to 03:30 in the morning. All these little clips are just kind of designed to show you the relationship issues we all face. So from 9AM to 03:30 on July 15, Ken Sandy, who's the author of The Peacemaker, and he's been with Relational Wisdom. That's his ministry these days. It's a great time.

We'd love for you to come, and we're inviting everybody from all around town too, so tell people about it. July 15, nine to 03:30. This afternoon, there's an open house at the Steagues House in Wilson. There's an address in your bulletin or the Steagues are actually here if you need to know how to get there. Today from two to four for the Lilos who Rob is going to Rob and Adrian are going to be speaking this morning.

So there's an open house for them at the Steagues today from two to four. And for all the other announcements, you can check your bulletin. Now, I also have covenant ceremony, so I'm going to invite out one of our elders up here, Mike Mayer. And Mike, I'll let you introduce and invite up folks that are coming to be new members.

Thank you. At this time, Glenn and Liz, would you come up? Grace and Marcus. Is Marcus here? As they're coming up, I'd like to read a little bit out of first Corinthians.

Paul tells us that, God is the one that adds members to the body as it pleases him. He adds them for the common good of the whole body. This is first Corinthians 12 starting at verse 12. For just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit, we were all baptized in one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit.

For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?

But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. As I was preparing for this, I was thinking about why membership and a lot of things came to mind, committed Christians, genuinely connected, serving together, spiritual maturity. The list could go on, and each one of those, we could probably do a sermon on each.

But the best way to do it is to kinda hear hear from these guys as to why they wanted to join First Baptist, so I'm gonna turn it over to them. This is Grace Burnett.

Hi. My name is Grace, and I came here from Moscow, Idaho last summer. When I came here, was just looking for a church that, really preached straight from the Bible and that wanted to grow in maturity in Christ, and serve others while serving each other. So I was really excited to find this church and just when I came in, I was a little bit late. I'm usually a little bit late.

But everybody was singing, and there was so much joy here. And that was just really impressive to me to see people walking in fellowship with the Lord. And the sermons are awesome and community is awesome here. So that's why I wanted to be here.

My name is Glenn Owings, and and we know a lot of you folks out there. This is Caleb and Logan and Timber and my wife Liz. We live in Bondurant. I'm a a range ecologist with University of Wyoming extension by trade. And something that we really appreciate about First Baptist is just the the heart for loving people and the missions heart that's here both locally and and internationally.

That's really important to us that that's an area of our life that we feel like we wanna grow and this is a place where we can do that. And so it it really felt like a good fit for us that way.

As a church body, we'd like to make a covenant with you as an affirmation of God's will that he's placed you here. So some questions here. Do you affirm before this congregation that Jesus Christ is your Lord and savior? Yes. Do you believe that God is adding you to this body of believers?

Will you open your life to allow this congregation to minister to you as we serve Christ together? This part's for the congregation from the response of these new members. Do you believe that God is adding these people to this church? If so, respond by saying we do.

We do.

Will each of you personally open your lives to these people to allow God to work through you to help them to become all that God has purposed them to be? If so, say we will.

We will.

At this time, if there's any elders in the congregation, I'd like to ask you to to come up at this time. Romans twelve four through eight, for as in one body, we have many members and the members do not all have the same function. So we, though many, are one body in Christ. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the blessing of these new members that you have added, and we thank you for this body of believers in this church.

Lord, we thank you also for this congregation. Lord, I I just ask that that we be that city on the hill, that we shine brightly in this community, that we serve one another, that we love one another, that we show this community well what true love means. We thank you so much for grace and the Owings. We thank you for the children's ministry that that Liz is is taken over. We thank you for just the willingness to serve and become committed Christians and for spiritual maturity and all the things, Lord, that you would have us to be on this path.

We thank you and love you in Jesus' name. Amen.

Mike, would y'all stand and y'all can greet one another and the band will bring you back together with a song. How about that?

Alright. Would you be? Would you be free from the burden of sand? There's power in the blood. Power in the blood.

Would precious. In the precious blood of lamb. Amen.

Amen. From Romans one sixteen, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is a power for salvation for everyone who believes. Amen to that? Alright. You are the fullness

and you are the fullness of the beauty I see. You are. You are. You're the healer of the broken and weak, and you are the healer of the broken and weak. You are you are even though few may stand and none like you, and I'm not ashamed of this gospel.

I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of Jesus Christ. I will stand and boldly say, this is my life. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of Jesus Christ.

I will stand and boldly say this Let's sing. You are the author of salvation and faith. You are. You are. You're the victory that conquered the grave.

You are the victory that conquered the grave. You are you are. And even though few may stand and I'm not ashamed of this gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of Jesus Christ.

I'm staying even more fee say. This is my life. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of Jesus Christ. I will stand and both these say.

This is my life.

Amen. Would you pray with me? God, I do thank you for the gospel, this good news unto salvation for everyone who believes. And, God, I pray that it wouldn't just be a part of our lives, but it would be our life that we would be living in it, walking in it, and experience the fullness of joy that you bring. And, so, God, that's my prayer for us as as this church, as this body, all over the world.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Life in one sovereign, one sovereign and far, who speaks the thunder and fire. One God and one king. There's no other. There is no other that compares to you when you are. And you are the one alone in great power, the one who reigns forever.

Jesus, the one true God. Amen.

One man on a cross. Let's sing.

One man on a cross. One light open world. One name and one word, one way to be saved. One lamb who's slain. One above who in power, the one who reigns forever.

Jesus, the one true God. And we've seen the glory of let's sing that part. We've seen the glory of the one anointed son of God. Yes. We've seen the glory of the one anointed the son of God.

Let's sing that part again. And we've seen the glory of the one on the son of God. In power, the one who reigns forever. Jesus is the one true God, the one true God.

Would you bow with me and pray? God, thank you for this beautiful morning. I thank you for, all that you have brought here that are gathered in your name this morning. I thank you for Rob and Adrian, Lillo who are here with us. I just ask you lord during this time that you'd bless each heart, each one here in attendance and lord that you would bless this offering right now to do your kingdom's work to go to the ends of the earth.

In Jesus name, Lord, I ask you to do your work amongst us and through us. Amen. Y'all can have a seat and I have one practical note here before the offering plates pass. We are going to take up two offerings today. We're not going to do it because there's not enough in the first time around.

Okay? We're not sending them back through again. We're doing this twice because the first one will be for the general fund here at First Baptist doing our work here in this valley and to the ends of the earth. And the second offering will be a love offering for some missionaries that are here this morning that will be speaking and we'll do that at the end of the sermon time. So, if you only brought one check and it's already filled out, hold it.

Let these plates pass and give it to them at the end of the service to do the work that Rob and Adrian are doing in Nigeria with Global Scholars but other than that, this first one's for general fund. The second one will be for them and their ministry.

Can't see waters raging at my feet. I can't feel the breath of those surrounding me. I can't hear down this dark and painful road I can't face. Every fear of the unknown I can't hear. All God's children reign out, we will not be overthinking, we will not be overgone.

And the same power that rose Jesus, let's sing. The same power

that rose Jesus from the grave. The same power that commands the dead to awake lives in us, lives in us. The

same same power that moves mountains when he speaks. The same power that can conquer rage and see lives in us. Lives in us. Lives in nothing we can do. Yes, we know.

There are greater things in store. We will not be overtaken. We will not be overcome. The same

So, I'd like to invite y'all up. Just come on up, Rob, if you would. I was talking to him on the phone and telling him about where we would be in scripture in our study, chronological study going forward and he said, oh, oh, yeah. That's great. That'll work right in.

So to begin with, I think he's going to tell you about their ministry. They're going to tell you about their ministry in Nigeria. But then after that, I think he's gonna just pick up where I left off last week.

Thank you, pastor Ray. My name is Robert Lillo. This is my wife, Adrian. We are with Global Scholars. Oh, there's a picture.

Great. Good. So it is just such a pleasure to be back with you again from times that we visited you before. Let's give a little bit idea of what the picture is about here. The the girl with the baby is her name is Delphahin, and she was my student, one of my first students when we first went over to Nigeria in 2005.

She was in the I taught the College of Education in Nigeria, Central Nigeria. We'll show you a picture and map of the of Nigeria and Africa in a few minutes here. But my mission, as I understood it oh, yeah. Great. Thank you, Ray.

Super. Very good. Got it. The way we understood our mission when we went in 2005 was that I would be teaching in a college, a teacher's training college. And since the national language of Nigeria, the the the nationwide language is English because it's a former British colony, Even though Nigeria and especially because Nigeria has about 450 living languages and dialects, four major trade languages that, the 190,000,000 people of Nigeria use to conduct local market business.

English is the language of of education, the military, government, commerce, international trade. And so all education in Nigeria is officially done in English. And so our our work in the colleges, you could work in the university, most public schools, English is required as the teaching language for the entire country, which brings a sense of a greater sense of unity. Anyway, so I started teaching in the College of Education Gindri. Deltigen was enrolled as a as a student there.

And the mission and purpose was to teach in the Christian religious studies department to train teachers who would teach the Christian religious classes that are required as part of public school education from grades one to 10. And then Christian studies are an elective for students in grades eleven and twelve before they graduate from high school. So a tremendous opportunity to teach hundreds of students, many of whom, majority of whom, would go out and look for jobs in the public school sector to teach Christian the official Christian religious studies curriculum in the public school, where they each would have between seventy, eighty, and a 180, a 190 students and teach the very courses that we taught them in their in the teacher's college in our Christian religious studies department. The courses that we taught there were virtually a small Bible college curriculum. Old testament, new testament, little bit of Greek, little bit of Hebrew, gospels, Pauline epistles, all kinds of great biblical classes.

And Deltahin was one of in the one of the first classes we taught. So our mission, as we understood it twelve years ago, has really expanded. God has done things with that that we didn't anticipate when we first went there. Delta Hinn is now the literacy phonics coordinator for the public staff school in Gindri, where we first were, and she's a colleague of my colleague of my wife. My wife supervises and has taught her how to use the phonics literally literary literacy curriculum, and now she's the coordinator for all the, what, five or six grades?

Yes. Kindergarten through sixth grade.

So God has done something. So she's more than a Bible teacher. She's teaching kids how to read the Bible. And, so that is sort of how God has morphed our ministry over time. So that's a little bit of a brief overview.

If we go to the next slide, here we go. So a little bit of retrospect and prospects to give you an overview is that, we have gone really from teaching students to teach others, which was our original mission. And then we moved from this semi rural teacher's college in Gindri, Nigeria to the University of Jos about a two hour drive away. Jos is the state capital of the plateau state, and University of Jos is one of the 35 federal universities in the country of Nigeria. And there, I was given both undergraduate and postgraduate classes to teach in the biblical curriculum there in a in a degree program, both undergraduate and postgraduate.

Once there in Joss, Adrian's began picking up the need and was exposed to the need for literacy work and stories. And so after I've told you a little bit about my role, we're gonna turn it over to her to tell you what this literacy and phonics curriculum, some of the highlights of that in our last trip, and its ongoing work and challenges there in Nigeria. So in a way, my goals have shifted from training students in the college to go out into the public school and teach what I taught them to multiplied hundreds and thousands of other students as the graduating classes would go out into society and teach, the Christian religious curriculum that I trained them to teach along with other faculty members. That has sort of shifted now into a realization that we want to train teachers to take our place, not only in now phonics and literacy, but also in teaching Greek and teaching as a matter of fact, Delta Kim is a tremendous example of that. Once my student, now she's a supervisor of sixth grades in literacy and phonics.

And so right now, we went over in February and March to get the postgraduate degree program started in Greek and New Testament. And right now, one of my graduate students who himself is studying for his doctoral degree there at the University of Jos, he is teaching my Greek classes now until I go back in September to complete the course. He's not a faculty member. I'm a faculty member, so I complete the course. I give the final exam.

I submit the grades to the faculty, and and wrap up the, the coursework for the students in for the courses that I teach in that degree program. So, so we've seen that there's a need for students to take my place. You'll see a student in a moment who when we went twelve years ago, we lived in a row of apartments, eight apartments on the campus. And we were in Apartment Number 8, and, Chinkida and his, sister and cousin and father were in Number 4. And to earn a little extra money money, we were there a few days, few weeks, he knocked on the door and said, well, do you need somebody to wash your car?

You need somebody to help you get water at the borehole. Borehole, pump water, get drinking water. So so he did that three times a week. He'd go fetch water for us, once or twice a week. He'd wash our car.

We give him a little spending money, food money, stuff like that. And and in the course of time, God has raised up donors, not only to put him through a Christian school instead of a the poorly staffed and executed public school system, but other donors were raised up. God raised him up to get him through university, and then through his national service program. And starting this February, he became my student in the master of degree program in New Testament at the University of Joss. And he is already starting last year, the college that I taught at start from 2005 to 2006.

He is teaching some of the very same courses I taught there at that college on a part time basis. So he takes his MA classes up in Joss, Monday through Friday. Then he goes back on the weekend, and Friday afternoon and Saturday, he'll teach these other classes in the Christian religious studies curriculum there. So God is already doing it, which is sort of exciting to see. God is, already sort of like, okay, time for you to retire now.

Yeah. So and putting somebody in our place who is younger, more related to the culture, understands the students better, speaks houses, speaks English, and he'll be a better teacher than I ever could have been in Gindri, and my graduate student, a better teacher. I mean, can feed questions in the Hausa and tribal languages. I would it'd take me twenty years to study to get to that level. He can do it right now.

And so God raising up better teachers than us to take our place is really the goal of how we understand our work at this point in time. So real briefly, for some of you who are new to our work, there's Nigeria in West Africa. There in Nigeria is where Gindri is actually in the Little Plateau area a couple hours from Jos. We usually fly into Abuja, the next day, take a four or five hour car trip to Jos, and Jos is the capital of the state where the university is that we serve in. This is my class in February and March.

Three of these are pastors. Skabia is a both a pastor and a Bible translator. He's studying Greek to facilitate his ability to do better translation work in the Eastern part of Nigeria. There's, oops. Wrong one.

Sorry. Wrong button. Wrong button. Go back. Go back.

Okay. There we are. Okay. Right button. That's Chincada right there.

So he's, he's the guy who used to wash our car and get our water for us. Saul is both a pastor and a Bible teacher in Eastern Nigeria. Sunday is, a high school Bible teacher. Reginald Emisari is a college of education teacher. I'll tell you a little bit more about Ladu.

She is a teacher in a college of education that used to be in the middle of the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency in Northeastern Nigeria. And as the government now the last couple of years has been pushing the Boko Haram further and further back into the woods, Maduguri, the town that she teaches and lives in, has become a refugee center for all the people who have lost their farms, homes, villages, family members. And several of these refugee, college aid students are her students, and we'll tell you a little bit more about her in a moment. Desoro come on. Here we go.

This got got it. Okay. DeSoro is a pastor locally in Joss, and that's everybody. Okay. So Ladoo, second week in class in February, our church in Wisconsin where we spend a better part of the year now, and just maybe to catch you up, the reason we've transferred from full time in Nigeria the last two and a half years to sort of going back just a couple of times a year, Health concerns as we get older have necessitated our this transition.

And so one of the things about this transition, we sort of asked the Lord, well, lord, how can we still serve even though we're back here more than we are over there? What can we do? And so raising funds for both the phonics and literacy program as well as for student aid. And as the country slides deeper and deeper into this oil based recession, I found that of the seven students I had in the graduate program in February and March, five of them needed financial assistance just to stay in school. And a remarkable thing that happened was that we when we got there in the first week of February, our director said, we know you've brought funds over in US dollars to convert into Nigerian currency for the student aid and to help the literacy and so on.

You you'll you'll just be amazed that in the last few weeks, the value of the daughter has just skyrocketed. So now your US dollars are worth more than double what they were six to eight months ago. So we actually brought more funds than what we realized to help these students and a number of other projects. One of them was our church in Wisconsin. So here's an extra dollars extra $100 we raised at Christmas.

Take it over and give it to some needy group of students or a family that you come in contact with that could use the extra help. Well, second week of classes, well, Ladu, where are you from? What's your ministry? What's your work? Discovered that she takes out of her meager salary that she gets at the college and help some of these refugee students that are her own students who come from the refugee camps into the college to try to get a Christian education in her department.

And we said, we we found our person. And so she got that $100 as well as more to take to help her to go back to Maduguri and help these very refugee students that are there in the city of Maduguri. So those are some of the highlights. The timing of our trip, the exchange rates for dollars, printed materials for undergrad Greek was a huge step forward. Even though I've left the undergraduate program, the teacher who took my place had no textbooks to use for the students, so we developed a a, a modification of our current postgraduate Greek textbook to print a shorter version of that for the undergraduate students, so that we could wed the undergraduate Greek program with the postgraduate Greek program, and try to provide some continuity between undergrad and postgrad to fulfill the vision that we have of not just teaching Greek so they can graduate, but teaching Greek so we can instill a vision within the students for being Bible translation consultants when they graduate from the university program.

Nigeria desperately needs academics, Christian academics who are committed to Christ, discipled in Christ, and committed to using their biblical language skills to to check Bible translations. There's 450 living languages and dialects in Nigeria. Only 70 translation projects have been completed or in process. That leaves over 350 left to go, and we may not always have western missionaries who can come over and do the academic language checking work for accurate Bible translations. You know, every Bible you've got out there in this congregation, whether it's an NIV or New American Standard, English version, New King James version, King James version, New Living Translation, whatever translations you got, has been thoroughly rigorously checked by Greek and Hebrew scholars to make sure you're getting what God gave the apostles and the prophets and Moses and Paul and so on.

You know, sometimes Nigerian or African Bible translations, because they lack Greek scholars to check them for accuracy, are checked against the English text. And so and that can cause problems when you're reading your Bible and trying to compare verse with verse and get a thematic understanding gospel of John or the book of Genesis or what have you. Anyway, so great step forward in providing a unified curriculum for these teachers in both the undergrad and postgrad. And now Adrian's gonna tell you more about her work. But oh, yes.

Wanted to show some of you have contributed deeply. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the contributions you have made to helping students complete their undergraduate work, get enrolled in postgraduate work. You have helped students like well, I've already told you about Chincada here.

But anyway, Gambo is one of my PhD students, one of the best students we've had at the university. And he I found out he sold his car so he could pay for the entrance registration fee to get into the PhD program with the confidence that he'd be able to pay the rest of his student fees by, oh, God help me, and God did. So that was part of the exchange rate deal, and we're able to really give him a gift that helps him keep in the program. He's in almost through his thesis work now, and he's all he's for the last six, seven years, he's been a seminary teacher for African pastors. So talk about extending his ministry and deepening it and furthering it.

This has been great. So there's a contribution to Benjamin Jukwe, who is teaching my class right now this as we're as we're, this as we go through the summer. And, there's, more contributions to Ladu and to Lamanna and her brother Ritsaka, who's finally enrolled in school too. So, this is Jukwei, who's teaching my classes now for me, gifted linguist, gifted with languages, gifted as a teacher, and we're just thrilled to see him moving ahead in his doctoral studies. And so we ask for a prayer that he'll be able to finish his thesis.

And my goal is that as I back out of the university faculty position that, because of they they have a need for Greek teachers on the postgraduate level that they will hire him in my place. If they did that now, I would say, the Lord has sent me a message to retire from the mission. I'm gone. He's in. Praise the Lord.

You know? So that's how I'd look at it. And so we're as soon as he finishes his thesis work, he'll become hireable by the university. So pray that it happens as soon in the will of God as possible. Donor funds then come from when we came back in 2015 till till now have have come to over $8,300.

Right there. Okay. Yeah. There's a button. $8,300.

So thank you for your part in that as well as so many others who have contributed as well. Hosea, we have actually completed the funding for Hosea. Hosea is Adrian's colleague in Nigeria who does the teachers training for the phonics curriculum. He's a talent he was also my student first couple of years. I didn't even know who he was until like five, six years later, I saw him show up at a literacy meeting with Adrian and her Canadian colleague.

And Hosea said, sir, I was one of your students. I said, well, you know, I can't remember all 300 names in the class gospel to John class. So glad to know it was you that was there. So just God was doing something I didn't even know about. So but we've been able to raise a full $12,000 tuition for him to be in an online master's degree program in early childhood education, which will advance him further in his ability to do this promotion for the literacy and phonics curriculum in the higher levels of ministers of education and state by state throughout our part of the country in Nigeria.

So just pray that he's able to complete that soon and move ahead with his translation work. So now I'm gonna turn it over to Adrian, and she's gonna tell you more about the things that that she was involved in some of those. Oh, yeah. Okay.

That was just so special to be able to go back after having gotten this curriculum to. And I tried to help her when I was living there, but I really didn't learn about the curriculum until we moved up to Joss. So we would take pieces of it down as we developed it. And to get onto that little compound where the school was, see her running out of the school building and just embracing me with this great big hug that she just wouldn't let me go. It was like a long lost friend that you hadn't seen for a long time, And it was just very emotional.

And to know that she had been, you know, promoted to be the phonics teacher for the whole school. And they did group the older grades into a remedial class so that she wasn't completely exhausted, but it was quite exhausting to start with until they figured that out. So anyway, that was wonderful. She lost her first baby with malaria after he was just a few weeks old. And the Lord has blessed her for the little girl and little boy.

And I we got to I got to go to her wedding too and help adjust her wedding dress. So she was a real sweet, special friend. Okay. The next one.

You're getting Oh.

Did you want to me to talk about the little books? Yep. When we were developing the curriculum, I had met this wonderful Christian missionary when we got to Jaws, who had run her own school, k through 12, and was graduating those those kids with 95% of the credits they needed to get into college. And I went, wow. How do I do that?

So she said she had it all in charts, a 126 charts. So I just started making these charts all by hand, and we introduced it into the school where I was training the teachers, and it worked beautifully. And we just did the lower grades, and then my director came and she said, Let's put it into the higher grades. They don't know how to read either. So we got it in there, and now that director has a school for the children of HIVAIDS parents and the local community.

And then she started a whole another school, K-twelve, all because of that. So to go back that so the second thing that was really notable for me was to be able to go back into she asked me to visit all of the preschools, third graders, fourth three three year olds, four year olds, and five year olds, sit in those classrooms and then do a little teaching training thing at the end of our time there. So that was just really special too to do that. But even the most special and most touching thing of all was to walk up a very dusty road to the top of a hill where there was two little houses that had been developed by our director into a first through sixth grade classes. And a man named Palai was the principal of those classes.

And I had trained him when he was a second grade teacher who he was very skeptical about this method, and he wouldn't use it. And then when he started using it, he just threw out his whole method, which was rote, and he started using it. And then he became the principal of the school. And I got to sit in the remedial class and watch those older children learning to read. The teacher was just so loving to those kids.

And she said, now children, how do we know that God can give us the strength to do this? And they all quoted that Bible verse. Can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Sorry. My memory comes and goes.

So it was just really, really touching to hear them all stand up and say that and to hear them reading really well, and she was just great at teaching it. And I thought, wow, I trained Paul I to do that, and she's training her and many others. So it was just a really rewarding trip this time.

So a couple of slides just to review some of that.

One more When I was teaching the charts, I thought this could become rote because of the drill. So they need and they didn't have any little readers. So why would they want to read anyway? They didn't have anything to read. So we developed these little books.

I

gotta add something here. You know, you guys may have Doctor. Seuss Green Eggs and Ham, but in Nigeria, we've got Sam Has a Yam. So don't forget that. Okay.

That's fun. Okay. Happy Farmer, great little book that that my wife wrote, and she did the illustrations for it too. So okay. Go ahead.

You can talk about it.

That's pretty oh, colleague Marlene saw what I was doing, and she said, why don't we just develop that into a full curriculum? We'll have a teacher's manual and and the workbooks for the children to write in, which has made it more complete. And she had was the one that introduced me to Hosea, who had learned the phonics method. He hated teaching. And then he learned the phonics method.

He started teaching it in his school, and he he would be very sad and commiserate with with my colleague about the lack of literacy in Nigeria, what a shame that was that the government wasn't doing anything about it. And my colleague, Marlene, she is German Mennonite, she just said, well, we'll get to do something about that. So then she did that. And this was just sitting in the classes and listening to the kids read.

This is our last trip in February.

Yeah. February. And there is this is the original charts and pocket charts that Marlene suggested we start using to teach the children, put letters together, form words. And This is all and when I came to this really poor school, 180 students, and saw my original 128 charts all beat up, but being well used. It was just a really touching moment for me too.

Yeah. And this is one of the teachers that I trained originally and got to see her again. Her name is Happy. And these are the, we had to, break the charts down a little smaller for the printing cost, and so they're into 60 charts now, but now they're laminated, so they will not be so easily destroyed.

Yeah. So we've gone from handwritten charts to published laminated charts that, yeah, are more permanent. So yeah. Currently, we ask you to pray for funding needed for, as the publisher runs short of curriculum as new schools are added in to the phonics program. More materials have to be have to be printed to both services schools that are using the curriculum and new new schools that want to adopt it And since our publisher Africa Christian Textbooks does quality work, but they're also a mission publisher organization partly financed through European contributions and North American contributions.

Occasionally, they need additional funds to print materials at an affordable price that the schools can afford. You know? And with the economic downturn and oil problems, the schools can always pay a price that would accurately represent the printing costs, the full printing costs of doing these kind of materials. So from time to time, we raise additional funding. This time, we're looking for funding for a video and audio recording of the letter sounds and, and also for the second edition of the curriculum as the current supplies become exhausted.

So school year starts next September, so the, publishers have said, well, we could use these funds by August. So that's what we're trying to do while we speak to churches and individuals in our support network. So plans for 2017, I turned and I I returned in September to finish the Ephesians Greek course and the Greek grammar course that are being taught by right now. I'll come finish up the courses, give the final exam, and submit the grades for the students so they can move on to their MA thesis work. And, then we'll continue whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop, wrong button.

Okay. I'll continue the, raising funds for student aid and the phonics curriculum. And even by Internet now, I continue to do corrections for chapters and thesis work that my current PhD students are working on. So that's ongoing. Every week, I do something with that.

So, anyway, that's our that's just a little summary of our work. If you have more questions, see us after the service. If you wanna ask ask more questions in-depth, meet us at the Stigs House this afternoon sometime. Thank you, hon. Great.

Yeah. Great. Thank you. So, just maybe a little before I move on to our Ephesians study, and I think I've got about fifteen minutes or so. Or how are we doing for time there, Ray?

We're good? Okay. Okay. That's what we need. So yeah.

You're good. Thank you. So, a little bit of just one quick interesting sidelight. It's interesting how Adrian and her colleague, Canadian colleague Marlene, and Hosea Danjuma Gupar are doing this, training teachers, phonics, literacy work. What I've discovered in teaching both college and university students, both on the undergraduate level and on the postgraduate level is especially in the postgraduate level, all my students can read.

I can ask them to read, a paragraph describing a grammatical function of something. I could ask them to read a portion of scripture. They can all read it. But because Nigeria is not a reading culture and all of this dysfunction to the public schools and lack of curriculum, lack of textbooks, lack of reading, really a reading culture, the problem my students seem to have, especially in the undergraduate level, is the ability to have comprehension from one paragraph to the next. They can get that word out usually, but to understand how one concept in one paragraph relates to another concept in another paragraph is a real struggle for the vast majority of students.

This is where learning how to read at a young age is a crucial issue in education for the entire country of a 190,000,000 people. And so so it's just fascinating how God has through the twelve years we've been there, sort of span the span the gap, you know, from developing a reading culture in the younger students, which is gonna be increasingly crucial as they move through into high school and college work. And the students I'm now trying to train to teach who are both pastors and educators. And it's something like a seminary work where you're studying biblical subjects and theology and Greek and Hebrew language. You've got to be able to have comprehension from one concept to another as you employ those concepts and translation checking and grammatical issues that are required for doing that kind of advanced Christian technical academic work.

So we see hope. We see hope that the younger generation coming up, that God is going to raise up Christian young people who will be able not only to read, but to comprehend on the level that they need to, to advance Christianity where it needs to be throughout the rest of the century. So thank the Lord. We're thankful to God for that. Ephesians is a remarkable book.

I'm just, if you have your Bibles open her up to Ephesians chapter one, when I talked to pastor Ray on the phone, he said, well, I'm just finishing up, Ephesians chapter one, we're going go on in Ephesians chapter two. I said, that's the class I teach. That's great. I'm excited about that. So, and I've been, as I, as I, pondered this lesson, a little thing that is always, as I've been teaching through Ephesians and there's usually never enough time in our class to focus on individual words consistently from one passage to the next is I've always pondered over the very first word of Ephesians chapter two, Very first verse in Ephesians chapter two is, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following a dead trespasses and sins in which you once walked in begins verse two.

I've always wondered why does Ephesians chapter two begin with the word and, especially in view of the end of Ephesians chapter one. I mean, the whole of Ephesians chapter one is a sort of building crescendo from the initial statement. You are blessed with all blessings in this in the heavenly places in Christ. And then he begins enumerating those blessings. You've been elected.

You've been predestined. You're objects of his love. You've been forgiven. You've been redeemed. You've been reconciled.

You've been sealed by the Holy Spirit. You have an eternal inheritance guaranteed by your future redemption and the finished work of Christ. And then he goes on to pray that they will know what is the hope of their calling and what it means to have this inheritance. And they will know the excessive, exceedingly great power that God manifested in raising Christ from the dead. Yeah.

There's no power on earth that can raise a human being from the dead. I mean, we've got the power to level cities with bombs. We've got the power to change the weather. We've got the power to to change the landscape. We got the power to all kinds of power.

None of the power we can exercise physically in the world can raise a human life from the dead and put life into the dead. But Christ's power can. And you know, when you get around my age or something, you start depending on that power a little more, because that's going to come to the test here pretty soon. But we're all facing that. Everybody in this auditorium is facing that desperate situation where that's the only power we can count on through life.

And then Paul says that this power is manifested in Christ who is seated in the heavenlies above all names that are ever named anywhere, anywhere. He's over all things. He fills all in all. And this is sort of Paul summarizing that he's filled you with all these spiritual blessings, whether it's redemption or forgiveness or the inheritance that we have in Christ or all the blessings of salvation. He's filling us all the time with these things as we grow in Christ and discover the wealth that we have in Christ.

This gives us a confidence. It's like being able to stand on a solid cement foundation as opposed to rocking on a raft in a choppy sea. And then he says, so then when he goes into this subject of you were dead in trespasses, you walked in sins, you followed Satan, you were a rebel. We lived for the flesh. We deserve wrath as all others.

That's Ephesians chapter two verses one, two, and three. So you think that when he goes from the heights of the heavens to being blessed with all spiritual things in the heavens and filled with all things like the body of Christ, that when he comes to this dead in sins and trespasses and followed Satan the course of this world, you deserve wrath just like everybody else. You think that the transition word would be, but here you bless you. He's filled. You're the body of Christ, the fullness of him who fills everyone in every way.

But you were dead in sins and trespasses. That sort of makes sense to me. From here, but you were like this, but he doesn't use the word but uses the word and I guess, why does he do that? That's an interpretation issue. And so thank you for asking me to speak on it.

I haven't answered the to the problem yet, but that is the problem. I hope you can see why does he use the word and instead of but, but then he does use the word, but he uses it right here in verse four. And so let's read that. Look at verse four in chapter two, he says, but God, and not really in Greek, it's the word, but, you know, and the word and in Greek is a different word than the word but. So he really does say in verse four, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.

Just read chapter one, blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavens forgiven, reconciled, redeemed, inheritance, and all of this that God has sealed us with by the Holy Spirit because of the great mercy with which He has loved us. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, don't forget that, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him, seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So at the end of chapter one, he's way up here, beginning of chapter two, way down here. Here's what used to be.

By verse four and five, way back up here again, he's seated us in the heavenlies in Christ. So it's sort of like, when you look out at the Tetons over here, the mountains, even your little logo in the church thing, right? One peak to another peak, to another peak, to another peak, all the way from Teton to Moran, right? So like out in Oregon, where we're more familiar with mountains, we don't have mountains like that in Wisconsin, but in Oregon, they've got the three sisters and then these peaks with these big valleys in between. You got the three sisters, there's one here, the Big Valley, another one there, Big Valley.

And there's another one there. That's sort of what this passage is like. The peaks, the valley and the peak again. Why is Paul doing that when he's relating the blessings of salvation to the people in Ephesus that he's writing to that so very much like all of us need to practice these marvelous things in our day to day life? I mean, later on in Ephesians, he's going to say, husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church.

He's going to say to those in messed in conflict, whether it's at home or at work or in family stuff, forgive others, forgive others as God in Christ has forgiven you. So he's getting really practical with our toughest things that we face. Forgiveness. Love in the home. Wives submit to your husbands, children, obey your parents.

Servants, serve your employers like with eye service to God, not to your employer. I mean, so it spans every major category of life on earth, family, work, home, children, forgiveness. So he expects that these things that we learn here are going to be of eminent practicality as Paul moves into chapters four, five, and six. In chapter six, we're battling spiritual enemies in the heavens above. Satan's constantly trying to derail us, ruin our homes, ruin our churches, ruin our families.

So these things in chapters one and two are essential to laying that solid sounds cement foundation that we can have a firm place to stand as we face these storms of life. Right? Okay. So where does the word and fit into that? Well, here's how I think it does.

First of all, let me just lay out the passage again. I did my little copy from my English standard version here. And by the way, can I just add a note? I love having the Bible on my phone and many of you do too, right? So great.

I can pull out my phone. I can read Bible texts. I can read this book. I can read that book. It's wonderful.

Take it with me wherever I go, except when I'm driving. The Bible's wonderful, except when you're driving. Okay. All right. So anyway, you know, when you, and it's great, but when you take your phone to church and you open up your phone, you don't do it like that.

You do it like this. So when you open up your phone, you get a spread of about 10 verses, depending on the size of your phone. Know, it's like that. You get spread of five or six verses or maybe up to 10 or 12 verses. You have very difficult time reading Bible text on your phone and getting the context in which whatever verse you're reading is found.

The value of having a print Bible, especially when you're doing some Bible study and sermons and stuff like that. I can open up. I'm looking right now at about 60 verses. And so I can see how the context flows and understand at any given verse, what has come well before and what comes well after. So I know where I'm at on the playground.

Okay? So this is what happens with Ephesians, where you see in your text here, we're seated at His right hand in the heavenly places. Actually, He's talking about the father seating him at his right hand in the heavenly places. Then you scroll down here to verse four and five, and you have this, we were dead in our trespasses. Remember that?

By grace, you have been saved and he has raised us up with him. So here, father has raised Jesus at his right hand as a testament to Jesus being over every earthly power that could bring us down. And so he mentioned this great power that God exercised in Christ and raising him up to be our victor and savior. Right? But then at the beginning of chapter two, verse four, and remember that there were no chapter divisions in the original text.

So Paul just keeps writing. There was no heading by grace through faith. Nice heading, but we get the sense that chapter one is completely different from chapter two. It's not because look what he says here. Now, not only is he talking about seating Christ up at his right hand, but he says, he has raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Now he says, Jesus has done this for you and you're there too. So if Jesus is raised above every other name that's mentioned in heaven and earth above, you're there with him raised above these names as well. There's no reason why these spiritual powers, evil forces, or the trials and storms and difficulties life will pull you down. They didn't pull Jesus down. And you're seated within in the heavens with him.

And if you trust him, walk by faith and employ these marvelous gifts of grace that has given to us, we can work through these things. Marriage problems don't have to pull your marriage down. A difficult employer or supervisor work doesn't have to ruin your life. You know, if you don't get enough likes on Facebook, that doesn't have to destroy your week. Okay?

So it just I mean, that's why God does these things for us. It doesn't mean automatically, instantly, we have victory over everything right now just because I prayed a 16 word prayer. Okay? But it gives us the means to work through them, to get through the storm, to have a way of thinking, a way of working through with God in me, me in Him above these things so that I can see my way clearly. When I was a pastor in Canada, I taught driver education.

And, you know, so many of the kids, they're so scared about driving a car. And so they so worried about the 10 feet in front of the car, you know, and so when you're looking right down front of the car, your car just bobs from one end of the road to the other. And so, so as we get the kids out on the highway, I just say, now look a quarter mile up ahead. See that truck down there? It's about a quarter mile up.

See those two big oak trees on the other side of the road. Look up there real quick. You can check-in front of your car again. That's okay. But get your eyes up.

Look at the long picture. Get the long view. As soon as they did that, the car straightened out and they were square in the center of their lane. I think that is such a great illustration of what Paul's trying to teach us in Ephesians one and two is that when we get the long view, when we get the heavenly view, when we get the upper view, that begins to put things into perspective that we're struggling with down here from day to day, sometimes hour to hour. And with that perspective in mind, we can work through these things because we know what God thinks of us.

Because we know the grace that has been extended to us in Christ that doesn't change like shifting seas or shadows, doesn't change from one day to the next. God is consistent in the gifts that He has given us. And they're there for us to use, to give us the long view that straightens us out and says, God is with me. And there's no doubt about it. And so that I think is the reason for this word and right here, let's get to the point of things.

So, and is right here in the valley between the two high peaks. And then he reminds us, we've gone from fullness and again. Okay. We've gone from fullness of him to dead in sin from being the fullness of him who fills all filled with every blessing of redemption, forgiveness, inheritance, the Holy Spirit. And then, but here's what Paul's addressing with that word.

At the beginning of verse one in chapter two, sometimes we realize we're filled, especially after a good series of messages on Ephesians one, right pastor? So they're always wonderful to be filled. We've got every spiritual blessing. We got inheritance in Christ. God, the Holy Spirit has sealed me.

I've got inheritance to look forward to. I'm calm going to heaven and what a marvelous path off to glory, you know? And then we get forgetful. So we get whacked on Monday morning, Monday morning when we walk into work or we get conflicts with the kids in school or issues in the family. And then we so quickly forget that we're filled because we forget where we came from.

We forget the abject terribly. Well, I've been a pretty good guy all along. No wonder Jesus saved me. Wrong. It's not been a natural flow of life.

God drastically intervened in our lives because we were headed for wrath just like everybody else. We were following Satan just like your worst neighbors or the other guy at work or the people who say, I don't want my kids to grow up like that. We were headed in the same direction as they were. And when we remember our high and lofty, exalted, filled and blessed position and that where God took us from is a whole lot different than what He made us in Christ through His grace and by faith. When we keep those things evenly balanced as we face the difficulties of life, it's a humbling thing.

And I think the context in which Paul wants us to remember our great blessings and our filling, the fullness of him that fills us in every way, the way that God wants us to remember is it's not as deserving recipients, but as objects of wrath, whom God saved from certain doom by faith in Christ and His grace of selection and complete redemption and the work of the Holy Spirit on our behalf, who did not deserve it ever. As a matter of fact, if we deserved everything, anything, you know what that was. I think that's why Paul says, but you, he doesn't say, but you were dead. He says, and you were dead because we're to keep these things together with us as we go through life. But God being rich mercy, look how he's blessed us as he reminds us of all these blessings.

We have an exalted status in Christ from the depth of sin and depravity, and we're to remember these. And, know, some of our best songs do that for us is a song I love so much. A lot of songs do it. But when I was writing up the notes for this message, I thought, here's a song that really portrayed. You know this song, right?

How deep the father's love for us. Look at the words of that first verse. How deep the father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure that he should give his only son to make a wretch his treasure. Second verse is great too, but that first verse really nails it on the head. Doesn't it?

Pastor Ray, thank you for giving time and privilege to speak here this morning.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm gonna invite the band back up.

And like I said, we're gonna do two offerings today. The band's going to play how deep the father's love for us and as the plates go past you, would you just stand and join us as we sing? Amen. Thank you. And like I said, he was excited when I said exactly where I was and you can see that excitement, right?

So, would you as the plates go past, just stand or stand if you want to now. Whatever whatever you want to do. Stand up and sing with us. Jesus. We're going be Amen.

Amen.