Scripture referenced 4 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Romans 13 cited as the biblical basis for why God institutes government and what role government is meant to play
1 Let every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are ordained by God.
2 Therefore he who resists the authority, withstands the ordinance of God; and those who withstand will receive to themselves judgment.
3 For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Do you desire to have no fear of the authority? Do that which is good, and you will have praise from the same,
4 for he is a servant of God to you for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he doesn’t bear the sword in vain; for he is a servant of God, an avenger for wrath to him who does evil.
5 Therefore you need to be in subjection, not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.
6 For this reason you also pay taxes, for they are servants of God’s service, attending continually on this very thing.
7 Therefore give everyone what you owe: if you owe taxes, pay taxes; if customs, then customs; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other commandments there are, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
10 Love doesn’t harm a neighbor. Love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.
11 Do this, knowing the time, that it is already time for you to awaken out of sleep, for salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed.
12 The night is far gone, and the day is near. Let’s therefore throw off the deeds of darkness, and let’s put on the armor of light.
13 Let us walk properly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and lustful acts, and not in strife and jealousy.
14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, for its lusts.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Keep this verse
John 15
quoted to explain pruning: every branch that does not bear fruit is taken away, and every branch that bears fruit is pruned so it will bear more fruit
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer.
2 Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 You are already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
4 Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me.
5 I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
6 If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you.
8 “In this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so you will be my disciples.
9 Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love.
10 If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and remain in his love.
11 I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you.
15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
16 You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
17 “I command these things to you, that you may love one another.
18 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
21 But all these things will they do to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23 He who hates me, hates my Father also.
24 If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now have they seen and also hated both me and my Father.
25 But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’
26 “When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.
27 You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Luke 15:8
cited as the passage Norris referenced about the Father being glorified when disciples bear much fruit
8 Or what woman, if she had ten drachma coins, if she lost one drachma coin, wouldn’t light a lamp, sweep the house, and seek diligently until she found it?
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Romans 12:1-2
read at the close of the sermon urging the congregation to present their bodies as a living and holy sacrifice and be transformed by the renewing of their minds
1 Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
2 Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Norris Williams, a missionary who grew up connected to First B Jackson, spoke about the disciple-making movement his organization, Accelerate, is seeing across the Middle East, Africa, and beyond. He described how ordinary believers in some of the world's most dangerous places are multiplying disciples through simple, obedient engagement with Scripture. The offering taken was to support Norris and his wife Lori in that work.
What was said
Norris opened by grounding everything in something his father told him when he and Lori first went to the mission field: people are sacrificing their own money to send you, so there is no room for laziness, and you have to produce something that shows a return on their investment. That accountability has shaped how he thinks about the entire enterprise of missions. It is not enough to go somewhere and live an ordinary Christian life and call it missions.
He then walked through what the work actually looks like on the ground, sharing stories and photographs from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Nigeria, and elsewhere. He described how an insurance salesman named Bassam has seen over a thousand Syrian refugee families come to faith. He described women-led churches formed because husbands have been killed or are absent, and how the cultural structure of Muslim homes, where men leave when a woman visitor arrives, is being used to bring the gospel from woman to woman. He described a former Hezbollah fighter who is now leading Bible studies in areas Norris himself cannot enter.
Running through all of it is a method called Discovery Bible Study, which was also shown in a short video before Norris spoke. A small group reads a passage, asks what it says, what it means, what they will do in response, and who they can tell so another group can start. The homework is immediate obedience and replication. Norris said this mirrors how the gospel spread in the first century, ordinary people sharing with their own social networks.
He illustrated discipleship using his own cherry and apricot orchard. Trees left alone grow tall, leafy, and nearly fruitless. To produce fruit, you bend branches past ninety degrees, anchor them, prune the ends, and cut away the suckers that drain energy without producing anything. He said the same is true in spiritual life and in missionary work: John 15 is not just a metaphor but a farming reality he lives out every season.
He described how Accelerate selects leaders: they look for humility, willingness to prune away what is not working, and a genuine desire to grow God's kingdom rather than their own. He said one of the clearest tests is money. When his team makes clear they are not bringing outside funding to prop people up, those who were only interested in resources disappear, and the ones who remain are the ones willing to work. Resources follow fruit; they do not precede it.
He closed with current numbers: 35,000 new churches across West, East, and North Africa, and roughly 500,000 to 600,000 people who have come to faith through the partnerships Accelerate has built. He said a prophecy spoken over him by an Egyptian policeman about twelve years ago, that he would be a voice to nations and that a movement would spread across nations, was too large for him to even share with Lori for five years. He shared it now because he said it is no longer something he hopes will happen. It is already happening.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Norris's father told him there is no room for laziness in mission work and that supporters deserve a return on their investment. How does that standard challenge the way you think about your own Christian life and what you are producing for the kingdom?
- Norris drew a clear distinction between a personal response and a national response to neighbors in need, saying his personal call is simply to love whoever becomes his neighbor. How do you navigate that tension in your own thinking and conversations?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 8,524 words
0:00
Good morning, everybody. Can you hear me now? Yes. So, the slides that you see up here are from the women's retreat from last year and Anne's gonna come up and do an announcement in just a minute but we're having a little bit of technical difficulty in the back. I think that the songs that are in the hymnal, y'all could actually reach in front of you and grab a hymnal.
0:20
So, it'll give him a minute. If y'all wanna sing victory in Jesus from the hymnal, it'll be great. That's hymn number three fifty three. So, the navy blue book that's in front of you and one of the pews there. Hymn number three fifty three and I'm gonna coax our piano player and Scott Humphrey both to come forward and we'll try to get started.
0:40
How are you doing this morning? You're here wonderful, I heard. Very good. Would you stand with us as we gather to sing? Hymn number three fifty three.
0:50
Yeah. Three fifty three is victory in Jesus and he said, he's gonna play chords not melody. You're gonna have to sing the melody if you wanna hear it, okay?
0:59
Yeah. Alright. I heard an old old story how a savior came from glory how he gave his life on Calvary to save a wretch like me I heard about his groaning of his precious blood atoning then I repented of my sin and won the victory. Oh victory in Jesus, my savior forever. He sought me and bought me with his redeeming blood.
1:51
He loved me air I knew him and all my love is to him. He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood I heard about his healing of his cleansing power revealing how he made the lame to walk again and caused the blind to see and then I cried dear Jesus come and heal my broken spirit and I'm how Jesus came and brought to me the victory oh victory in Jesus my savior forever he sought me and bought me with his redeeming blood he loved me air I knew him and all my love is to him He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood. About a mansion he has built for me in glory. And I heard about the streets of gold beyond the crystal sea about the angels singing and the old redemption story and some sweet day I'll sing up there the song of victory oh victory in Jesus my savior forever he sought me and bought me with his redeeming blood he loved me air I knew him and all my love is to him. He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood.
4:08
Amen. Whoo. Ripping them keys over here. Yeah. Played
4:13
every one
4:13
of em. Hit em all, I think. Absolutely. Good morning.
4:17
Hymn number five seventy two is blessed assurance. You can look at the wall or you can look it up and find your part. Blessed assurance.
4:27
Blessed assurance Jesus is mine oh what a foretaste of glory divine this is my story this is my song praising my savior this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long this is my song praising my savior this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long perfect submission all is at rest I am my savior I'm happy and blessed heaven looking above again filled with his goodness lost in his love. Amen. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my savior this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the Amen.
7:13
Y'all can have a seat. Have a few announcements this morning. Thank you, Florrie. Awana is happening. It happens right in this room.
7:23
You see the game circle is back. We're not landing helicopters in here. The game circle means Awana is on. We are here. 06:00 on Monday nights.
7:32
It started a couple of weeks ago and so this will be the third session of Awana. Bring the kids. It's a fun time. We get scripture into their heads. They get to play a lot of games, council time.
7:42
It's a fun, fun group. So, that's Awana for the kids, little kids up through fifth or sixth grade. Sixth grade. Okay. And middle school starts in sixth grade.
7:52
A hand off Thursdays at 06:30PM is middle school youth group. Renzi does that. Usually starts out in the fellowship hall but it's expands into the rest of the church and sometimes there are surrounding community. It's fun. Six 06:30 on Thursday evenings.
8:08
The high school breakfast happens. This is our high school Solid Rock High School Student Ministry happens Friday mornings and that is right, 07:45 in the morning. So, he he makes breakfast for them and then we're having lots of kids show up for a blessing before the weekend and that's been going well. Today, from ten to eleven, there's a girl. So, that's middle school and high school girls study downstairs in the library that meets between services from ten to eleven and there's a guy study that happens at 09:30 to 10:30 and that happens downstairs in Rinsey's office and Chris, Darren, and Richard Largie are leading that.
8:46
That's fun. Peak Children's Church happened today. That only happens in the 09:00 service but we had a little cavalcade of kids leaving out. It's a great time. And Monday nights at first B happen every Monday night at 06:00.
8:59
Carl is preaching through Luke right now but tomorrow night, Norris Williams who's going to speak right here in just a few minutes. He's going to be speaking to the Monday night crowd but Carl's working with his way through Luke. We're working our way through Romans but you get a special treat this morning and hear some applied theology. Anne, would you come up and make this announcement?
9:23
Morning you all. My name is Ann Stalker and I have the privilege of being part of a women's retreat planning committee and we are putting together a really outstanding, fun, thought provoking weekend. So, in each of your bulletins there's a flyer with lots of information. So, I hope you take a moment to take a look at it. So, today marks the first of three Sundays that we are going to use to give you the opportunity to sign up.
9:53
So, in the back there is a table, there's a registration form, there is an envelope for checks. And so, you can sign up. You can also sign up online or you can call the church office. And if you can't commit to a whole weekend up at Heart six, which is in Buffalo Valley about fifty minutes north of here, you could just come for Saturday. So we would love for you to come.
10:17
And ladies, look, let's widen and deepen our friendships and our community. Let's focus on intentional Christian living in the light of the knowledge of biblical truths of heaven. And it provides us an opportunity to move closer to victorious living in Jesus. So listen to me. At the conclusion of the upcoming retreat, you just may find your joy a little bit fuller, your hope bigger, your gratitude deeper, and your compassion increased.
10:56
For you see, heaven changes everything. So please sign up in the back because you know what? Without you, the weekend will not be complete. Thank you.
11:14
You very much, Anne. So, for everything else, I think that everything else is written in your bulletin. That's the reason we have the bulletins. Y'all know that, right? This service is really good about taking the bulletins and paying attention to em.
11:27
I know that. Would you all stand and greet one another and we'll bring you back together with a song.
11:33
Leads me I will follow I can hear my savior calling I can hear my savior calling take thy cross and follow follow me where he leads me I will follow where he leads me I will follow where he leads me I will follow I'll go with him with him all the way I'll go with him through the judgment I'll go with him through the judgment I'll go
12:34
through the judgment I'll go
12:38
with with him with him Amen.
12:49
That's fine. Where he leads me, I'll follow. That's very good and Florine actually, I think, are we gonna sing near the cross now? Okay. Did you not know this song at all?
12:58
No. So, I have I'm not saying this so that I'll get inundated with email request, but somebody said, I have been here all summer. I've only missed one Sunday. I haven't heard these three songs. So I said, oh, we can do that.
13:09
I just shot him over to Florine and he's, oh, these are beautiful songs. They're all beautiful songs. So we just got it up on the wall. So near the cross. If you know it, please sing out because the piano player is following you.
13:23
Okay?
13:24
I love you. Okay. Jesus keep me near the cross bear a precious fountain free to all healing stream till my restless soul shall find rest beyond the on the last near the cross I watch and wait hoping trusting ever till I reach the golden strand just beyond the river in the cross in the cross be my glory till my restless soul shall find rest beyond the river
16:22
Amen. Y'all can have a seat. I'm gonna invite the frontline team to come forward and I want to explain something. As they're coming forward, we have scheduled a pretty good percentage of the church budget is for missionaries. Y'all I'll think a lot of y'all know that.
16:40
If you're not home folks, we have a very active missions committee and so, a lot of the church budget does go towards missionaries but we also invite our missionaries, our people that we have been supporting. We invite them to come here one time every four years. So, they get a chance every four years to come in and we do that four times a year. So, we get four different sets of our missionaries to come through here and on those four Sundays, we do a dual offering. So, you'll see the plates pass right now and you'll see the plates pass toward the end of the service.
17:12
It's not because you didn't put enough in the first time. We're doing this by design and we do it four times a year. It happens to be that this year, all of ours are stacking up right here. So, we have about three of em in a row coming up but it's because that's when worked on the schedules of our missionaries. Norris and Lori Williams are here this morning.
17:32
Norris is going to speak. So, after he gets a chance, y'all y'all will get a chance to support them but if you brought just one check today and it's prepared and it's already folding, you're going to drop it in the plate. Drop it in their plate, alright? This one is for the church's general office. So, would you pray for me?
17:48
Please do that too. Actually, don't ever stop doing that. Pray without ceasing for me. But would you pray with me right now? Lord Jesus, I thank you that you have given your all, lord.
17:59
I thank you that you gave your perfect life in our stead. I thank you that you gave your precious blood to pay. Lord, the ransom for many, for those of us undeserving, but willing to listen, willing to obey, willing to allow your sacrifice to stand on on our behalf, lord. Trust in you. For those of us, lord, who have felt what it's like to enter your kingdom and be at peace spiritually.
18:27
Though we may struggle physically. Lord God, I pray that you would take your people who are called by your name and you do mighty works through them and with them so that your kingdom would advance. Lord, I thank you for Norris that he's here today and he's going to share with us but God, I, right now, we just want to acknowledge you and we want to show you that we trust you, giving back a portion of what you've given to see your kingdom advance. So, lord, would you take these tithes and offerings and multiply them in advance the gospel here in Jackson, in Wyoming, in this Western United States but lord, ultimately, expand into the very ends of the earth, every tribe, tongue, and nation. Would you do it?
19:11
In Jesus name, lord, we say, we trust you. Amen. But before Norris comes up, there's a short video that we're going to show. And when I first got here, I talked about the ministry multiplication cycle and it would come up fairly regularly. MMC, the ministry multiplication cycle or you might have read a book a while back called Church Planning Movement, CPM.
21:46
And in this video, it's going to be called DMM, right? DMM, not MDD. It's DMM. But this video, I'll show and then Norris will come forward and share.
22:04
The last thing Jesus told his disciples to do was to go everywhere and teach everyone to obey everything he asked them to do. But how? How were 11 uneducated and unsophisticated Jewish men supposed to make disciples in all the different cultures and languages of the world? They had no money, no power, no organization, and no leader. And to make matters worse, they were outcasts in their own society and religion.
22:36
The disciples didn't seem to have anything and yet they changed everything. What they did have was a life changing experience with Jesus, a willingness to simply obey, the power of the Holy Spirit. Oh yes, and lots of contacts. What we call today a social network. Here's what happened.
22:58
Everything started with prayer. Then came the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. After Pentecost, people visiting Jerusalem from faraway places went home and told their friends and family what God had done. And when those people passed on what they had experienced, the good news about Jesus spread like wildfire. Post Pentecost social networking is how the gospel went viral.
23:23
That was over two thousand years ago. So how are we doing today? There is some good news and some not so good news. The good news, the number of Christians is increasing. The not so good news, the percentage of Christians is stuck.
23:39
So what's the problem and how can we solve it? The biggest issue seems to be that not all believers in Jesus are actually obedient followers of Jesus. The main job of being a disciple of Jesus is to make more disciples. But not many people are doing that today. In the first century what created a spiritual revolution was disciples making disciples who made disciples.
24:03
Dozens became hundreds. Hundreds became thousands. And before too long, thousands had multiplied to millions. All because ordinary people simply obeyed what Jesus told them to do and taught those who responded to do the same. We think this is an idea whose time has come again.
24:22
We call it disciple making movements or DMM for short. It's a movement because it can multiply naturally. So how do you start a disciple making movement? It's actually very simple. The engine is what we call a discovery Bible study.
24:38
Here's how a discovery Bible study works. As God reveals a leader within a community, a disciple making coach helps them to form a group from among their friends and family. The group starts a process of direct interaction with God's Word. The format is simple. What does the passage say?
24:56
What does it mean? What will I do in response? And finally, who can I tell so another group can start? Personal discovery, immediate obedience and consistent replication are the launching pad for new movements. Every individual has a unique circle of influence.
25:13
No two are exactly alike but everybody's circle overlaps with many others. The intersection points are where movements take off. No matter what country, language, or culture, people share what is important to them with those they care about. Normally, when we dream about the future, we want to leave behind the old and embrace the new. But perhaps as we reimagine how to complete the great commission, we need to go back to how it all began.
25:41
The early followers of Jesus turned the world upside down through simple obedience and natural networking. We're watching the same thing happen today for a million new followers of Jesus who joined the mosaic of nations, tribes, and tongues around the throne through our DMM process. That's a lot of disciples. Over 400,000 of these are Muslims who fell in love with Jesus. We believe that this is just the start of what God wants to do through unleashing the power of disciple making movements.
26:13
As it was in the beginning, it will be until the end. Ordinary people multiplying disciples in their natural networks is God's plan to complete the great commission. Disciple making movements, an idea whose time has come again.
26:34
Good morning, everyone. Good morning. It's really good to be here, and always feels like coming home for us. My wife, Lori, who's here with me and and I, we have four children and many of you bought cherries from our children. We used to have the roadside stand down there.
26:54
We used to sell cherries and peaches and that's how my kids used to, that's how they made money for college. Now, they're all married. We have grandchildren. So, and Lane Brown is my sister. Norris is my brother now by marriage and so it's always good to come back here and we got to go see Gracie the other day.
27:13
She's headed to Denver, I think, by by way of the desert hunting somewhere. I'm not sure. But it's it's good to get home. This is this is my wife, Lori and I. We've been married thirty six years now.
27:26
We have four children and now we have five grandchildren and we have one more on the way. So, this is what keeps us busy. I'm a I'm a real goal oriented person. I like to set goals for things and what I actually realize is I now have a new role that I have to set goals for and that's being a grandpa because I wanna be intentional about my life and and make sure that I have time to do the right things and these, I I tell you, I knew something was different about grandkids because I actually let them interrupt me and I I never let my own kids interrupt me if I was working on something. My grandkids can interrupt interrupt me anytime and I somehow I have the wherewithal to stop what I'm doing.
28:11
Laura and I have been missionaries now for thirty three years. Some of you knew my father. One of the last times was the the privilege of having you sing at his funeral, his memorial service. We're saying when angry storm clouds fly. I don't know if you remember that.
28:25
So, being gone ten years now but he was my greatest mentor as a leader and he told me when we became missionaries, he said, Norris, there's people that are work working really hard and they're going to take some of their money and they're going to send it to you. There's no room for laziness in the mission field. It's not okay for you to go live an ordinary Christian life somewhere and call it missions. So, you gotta produce something. You gotta produce something that demonstrates that there's a return on the investment that that people are making in you.
28:57
So, we've always had that in our mind and you know, growing up in that family anyway, there was no room for laziness at all in our family anyway. So, my wife and I, we like to work and we enjoy the work that we're doing and we're seeing fruit and we're gonna talk talk a little bit about what that fruit looks like. We have had the privilege for the last fourteen years of spending a lot of time in The Middle East and working with folks from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, few of them now, and and some from Northern North Africa as well. And some people wanna know, well, where do these refugees come from? Well, here's here's here's where some of them come from right here.
29:41
Here's one city in Syria that was under siege and when the siege finally broke, the people were living in those bombed out buildings in hiding and then they just gather whatever they can and scatter because there's no home left and and I want to stop and talk about this very very clearly. There's there's a a national response and a personal response. Both are biblical. There's a biblical reason that God appoints government and you can read about it in the passage of scripture. One of them is Romans chapter 13.
30:19
Why God institutes government? And there's there's something that's there for the government to do. Now, I don't have a government position and I don't know if some of you do, some of you might. That's not, I don't take the national response and make it my personal response because my personal response is love your neighbor. Bless those who persecute you.
30:42
Pray for them. That's what Jesus commanded us to do. So, my job who no matter who becomes my neighbor is to love that neighbor. That's my personal response and so we make the mistake when we take our personal response and then say that's what the government's supposed to have. That's equally not justified biblically.
31:02
You gotta have both. Now, some people have a national position and they have to make decisions for a large group of people. Then, they have to go home and live out their personal response to love their neighbor and I hope you can see the distinction there. So, when we're we're working with the idea that as a missionary, our job is to love our neighbors and who are our neighbors, right? And these are some of our neighbors.
31:31
So we spent a lot of time working with these folks. Some of them are bad characters. Absolutely. But let me show you a picture of some of the others. Here's some children.
31:41
This is in the Beqaa Valley. All Sunnis fleeing from Syria. The head of this Sunni tribe is named Jabal. That means the mountain. And he's a Christian and he leads 13,000 Sunnis who are Bedouins.
31:55
He now has over a thousand more children in his school this year. And he's teaching them how to do discovery Bible study. Which is the what you just saw in that video. This discovery Bible. Well, what's the homework assignment in the discovery Bible study?
32:11
Go and tell someone today what you learned about God. As a result of working with these young Bedouin children, we're seeing thousands of families come to know Christ because they're moving back out into these homes and telling them about what they're learning about Jesus. Here's what some of the churches look like. Many of them are all are are are all women because their husbands have been killed or their husbands are somewhere else working trying to send them so many. So, the churches are led by women.
32:41
And they're we're empowering these people because they're the ones that can reach the other women. If you're in a Muslim home and if a a woman comes to your house to have coffee, the husband has to he can't be in the same room. Well, we're using that structure to our advantage. So, we're we're appointing women to go and make disciples of other women. They go and they knock on the door and they have coffee.
33:08
The man leaves. The woman has a little discovery Bible study with the woman. She becomes a follower of Jesus then she starts winning her family to Christ. So, we're using the structure that is and this is what a lot of these churches are looking like. This is a group of men.
33:22
They're all Hezbollah fighters for the for the Shiite militia. Shia, those are the ones that produce Hezbollah. Sunni produce Hamas. Sunnis are Al Qaeda. Sunnis are Boko Haram.
33:36
The only group that is Shia is the Hezbollah warriors and these guys are all from Southern Lebanon, Iran supports Hezbollah. Well, the guy in the striped shirt, he's our missionary to Hezbollah. He's he was a former Hezbollah fighter. Now, he's this is one of the Bible studies he's doing in Downtown Baylor. We don't go visit him because we can't.
34:02
We can't get to these places but he can and this is what we mean by you have a social network. Everybody has one. And this is where he is now serving the Lord. These are some of the the Syrian women I was with recently. This picture was actually taken last October.
34:21
Last October, no, no, yeah, it was October, end of October. The week before I went, I was hunting with my son in in Oregon. Came off a horse, dislocated my right shoulder. My humerus bone was down here. All the muscle, the the bicep had detached, all the tendons had torn loose.
34:44
I couldn't reach out and and pick up this remote. I couldn't lift my arm off my back and so I went to see my surgeon. We're on a first name basis. He's he both my knees are steel, both my hips are fake, and I have steel rods in my back. So, really am a man of steel.
35:01
I I mean, I I make friends with airport security in every country I go to. So, I was visiting with him and he's not a Christian and he said, he took MRI and he said, Norris, we're gonna have to well, he said, you can't live like that. We're gonna have to go in and reattach your bicep and all those tendons that are torn loose. So I was disappointed, you know, another surgery, another I hate it. It's it's like God that's how God gets me to rest somehow.
35:30
He makes me have a surgery, and then I slow down for a bit. So I go to Lebanon. These women, one of them comes up to me and says, Norris, I think I'm supposed to pray for your shoulder. And I said, well, let's do it. She puts her hand on my shoulder, feels like a block of ice.
35:48
She starts praying and my arm just starts moving. The bicep reattaches, the tendons reattach, and instantly, I'm healed. I can move my arm back and forth. So I come I I come home and I'm I'm visiting with my I had my appointment for surgery. So I'm sitting with Mark and he says, well, tell me about your trip because he always likes to hear what's going on.
36:12
He's not a Christian and I tell him, well, I was with these Syrian women again and they were praying for each other and I saw people get healed right before my eyes and then I said, and Mark, I think God healed me and he looked at me. He said, woah, you you shouldn't be able to do that and so he started examining me and he said, well, he said, I don't know what happened but something happened and you're hanging around the right people, he said. But we don't have to do surgery and God, you know, heal healed me up and these
36:45
are
36:45
the kinds of things that are happening right on the ground. I don't know why God healed me then. I prayed for healing for every part of my body but he chose to heal me this time. It's just what God's doing. He's doing these kinds of miracles and this guy here, Bassam, he's an insurance salesman and I started training him twelve years ago and he now has over a thousand Syrian refugee families that have come to come to the Lord.
37:11
Families, a thousand families who are, I mean, that's that's at least 20,000 people. All because of this insurance salesman being obedient and starting to reach out and starting this discovery. And this gal here was at one of our meetings. She's comes from a family that they're all ISIS fighters. She's become a follower of Jesus and she and we were praying for her brother and her brothers in law that they would also become followers of Jesus.
37:38
She just, these are people of a lot of courage. These all four of these folks were in Jordan. Two of them are already have already been killed. The woman has was divorced. So, there's a lot of risk involved but when you get around these folks, they're willing to lay down their lives for Christ and because of that, God is producing a lot of fruit because when you're willing to die for what you believe, it people take notice.
38:07
And yeah. This is how we do baptisms. We're they're mobile. Take a pool somewhere and fill it up and and, people are baptizing themselves, these groups. And it's it's happening in house to house to house.
38:27
This is a group of folks that are all, disabled in some way or another, either physically, emotionally. And this is all this is in Cairo. We now have an entire movement happening amongst this group of people, which are outcast in this society. If you're disabled in some way, you're you're you're an outcast. One of the men that has a child here is a Muslim man.
38:57
He and his wife had a little girl. She was from birth, had never had never moved, had never spoken. She was just this little mass of flesh and bone crumpled up into a heap and they would feed her. She was hidden because it's a shame to have a a a girl like that in that society. They would throw a blanket over her when visitors would come so nobody would know she was there.
39:26
And this man, very angry man and every every night, he would beat his wife every night. He meets one of our disciple makers in Cairo. They they start going through a Bible study. Well, his first obedience statement, right? You know, when obedience statement, when you saw a a discovery Bible study, what does it mean?
39:48
What what am I going to do? How will I obey this passage? Well, his first obedience statement, well, I guess I won't beat my wife tonight. So the guy discipled him, so that's probably a good idea. It's all done in Arabic.
40:03
This is all just Arabs leading Arabs. He goes home. His wife's waiting to get whacked around. It doesn't happen. For a week.
40:12
So then she asked him, what what happened? What changed? He said, well, I met this guy and we're starting to do this. I'm actually reading the Bible. So, then, he leads her through the same Bible studies that he's being led to by this guy who's discipling him.
40:26
That's how it starts to multiply. She becomes a follower of Jesus. Then, they start inviting their neighbors. Our lives have changed and they're studying the scriptures one night. Now, their little girl, they've taken the cup blanket off of her.
40:41
She still hasn't spoken a word ever in seven years of life. They're in the middle of a Bible study one night. They weren't even praying that she would be healed and behind him, he hears papa in Arabic and here she stands up. Amen. Completely healed and whole.
40:58
Rises to her feet, walks across the room, and can talk. Now, he takes this little girl and he walks around his neighborhood. Look what Jesus can do. You need to find out about this guy. And then, we're seeing movements amongst these disabled people.
41:14
They're now leading Bible studies. Hundreds of them. This whole group is all women. They've all been abused, discarded. When you get divorced in Islamic culture, you you have no recourse.
41:34
There's no social network to pick you up and your families won't take you back. So many of them have been forced into prostitution. And now we have entire churches led by these former prostitutes leading other prostitutes back to know Christ. Little girls being rescued off the streets. I'm just telling you, you get around folks like this, you you you stop taking pride in your stuff.
42:06
I have no more pride left in accomplishments or education because I get around people like this and and I see as Ray said, applied theology. These people take the little things that they've learned about Jesus and they start obeying them and God starts showing up and doing miracles. This is in, Southern Africa. We now have a movement that's going global. We've got teams up in Northern Nigeria with the Boko Haram.
42:41
In this room, we had Kenyans, Nigerians, Madagascar, Zambia, So to, Mozambique, right north of of there. All these people are now joining our team, and we're just seeing lots of work. These these are two of our leaders from Nigeria. The young man on the right in the green jacket or maybe he's your, yeah, you're right. His name is Ephesians.
43:11
He's in his twenties and he gets it. You know, he sees movements like I do. I see movements in my head. I don't see dead people in my head. I see movements, right?
43:21
Wasn't that a movie? I see dead people. Some little kids said that. Right? I see movements.
43:27
I see when I look at a city, I start looking at all the different neighborhoods, all the different cultures, and I start thinking, Lord, we need somebody in every one of these places. Who is it? Who are you raising up? Who are you speaking to that I can send somebody to talk to? So during the week, Eshaka would walk by me and he'd go, movements, and he just walked by.
43:52
Movements. And he's one of my key leaders now, this young guy. He gets it. He sees it. This this cat here, Danzagi, in the red shirt with the wheels on it.
44:05
He's my age. He's 58 years old. When he was 19, he came from a Muslim family, came to know the Lord for a reward. His parents poured boiling oil on him. He's he's scarred from the waist down.
44:19
Hoping they would kill him. He didn't die. They throw him in prison. Hoping the the the thugs there would kill him because he was a convert to Christianity. Instead, the guys protected him, got oil, put balm on him, became his guardian angels, these Islamic thugs.
44:38
And now, he has this house in Joss, Nigeria and all these folks being rescued from the Boko Haram. He just has them there. And you and you go into this little compound which is kind of a secret place and here's here's hundreds of young men and women that have been rescued. Learning scripture, learning how to go make disciples, and then they get sent out. That's the kind of leaders that are on our team.
45:06
This this was couple weeks ago. The gal on the left far left, Miram, Syrian refugee, came to know lord. She's one of the most apostolic leaders I've been around. You can see Bassem there on the left. He, it's one of his disciples.
45:24
That the start of this year, her team of women had a goal that they would start 50 discovery Bible studies in 2016 with new new discover in in these apartments. Well, they achieved that goal before March. So, then, they set a goal. Hey, we're going to start one every week and they're reaching that goal. She's amazing, amazing leader.
45:47
This guy here, Cesar, he's from Northern Syria. I was just with him. This was two and a half weeks ago in Beirut. He's he's Armenian, and it's a whole culture that we're now starting to work with. And they'd driven all the way from Northern Iraq to be to Beirut for this time.
46:04
He's an apple farmer. And I'm a cherry farmer. Laurie and I farm cherries. I I actually do it for therapy because the trees don't argue with you. They don't produce fruit.
46:18
We jerk them out and plant another one. And, we had a lot of good communication, Cesar and I. And I wanna talk to you today, you know, the passage in Luke fifteen eight. By this is my father glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples and the things that we've learned in our orchard have translated right into all the work that we do. These are young cherry trees.
46:51
You have to train a cherry tree to grow fruit. They just don't do it on their own. They just wanna grow really tall and grow lots of leaves, get really bushy, and have really small tasteless fruit that are all filled with worms. That's what they would like to do. You have to train them.
47:07
So, what you do is you you can see those branches are stressed. You take the branch that wants to grow up and you turn, you you bend it past the 90 and then you anchor it to the base of the tree and then you you prune off the end of it. What it does, it it stresses that branch and it exposes the top of the branch to the sun. You're doing that so that that branch will produce fruit the following year. This is what I mean you train.
47:33
You actually produce fruit wood in your orchard and so we have 400 trees. So, it's it's a lot of work. You you can't just expect your orchard to produce without work. That's what discipleship is. Discipleship is hard work.
47:48
It's a relational process because the trees don't prune themselves. We can't prune ourselves. Everyone of the other branches, you take off with the loppers because those branches are suckers. They're going to suck energy out of that tree and don't and they don't produce anything but leaves. Well, as a farmer, you can't afford to produce leaves, right?
48:13
There's a bottom line. You gotta produce fruit. Every businessman has a bottom line. In our lives, what's the bottom line? As a missionary, what's the bottom line?
48:23
What we're doing has to produce new disciples or we're going to stop doing it. We're going to prune it away. Because we don't have the time, energy, and resources to waste. So, this is when you look across the orchard, all those trees had to be tied and now, we're up to the third tier. This is this was the first the first the second year.
48:44
This is one of our apricot trees. You see all those branches that are on the ground? Those are all suckers. You know how long it took them to grow? One year.
48:55
I do this to this tree every year. And in our lives, it's the same way and in that passage in John 15, every branch that does not bear fruit, he takes it away. And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes it so that it will bear more fruit. Amen. This is what these are the principles that I'm seeing lived out before me and if we allow suckers to grow in our life, pretty soon they're sucking up all our energy, all of our time, all of our resources.
49:30
But when you prune correctly, that's the kind of apricot you get, size of your hand. My wife is the one I I I take all the credit, but she does all the work. I'm telling you. She picked up over a 160 pounds of raspberries off our little raspberry field. I mean, it's just two rows because she every year, she prunes out all the old canes and all the new canes.
49:55
She prunes them so that they bear more fruit, and they're filled with fruit. Everywhere that we prune and made fruit wood in those cherry trees is now they're just filled with fruit, filled with cherries because the end in mind is fruit. It's we're not we're not orchardists because we wanna grow trees. We're orchardists because we wanna produce fruit. And the bottom line as a missionary on my team and I lead the accelerate team is we catalyze movements of the gospel around the world.
50:30
We look for the national leaders and we expect them and require them to bear fruit. That one picture you saw where that I told you about that girl, Miram and Bassam was there. There were others that were in the training. They are required within thirty days. They have to replicate the training with five new leaders.
50:52
So there's high accountability. We expect people to work. So leadership selection. Somebody will ask me, how do you find these leaders? This is this is kind of the criteria for us.
51:08
Number one, we look for humble people. People that are filled with pride, they're not good at making fruit because they're more concerned about themselves. So there's a level of humility. They're willing to prune away the suckers. So they're willing to start a relationship and say, what's working and what's not working?
51:30
We we as our team will never become so enamored with our stuff that we're not willing to prune it away if it stops working. And everything has to be simple and replicable so that everybody that comes can leave there and go and do it and if they can't and this is what we do when we're going in, we're looking, can these people go and do this? If not, what do I cut away? When I'm in those places, I I never use PowerPoint. The reason is, if if there's one thing that they look at and they say, oh, I can't do that and they may look at you and say, oh, this is awesome.
52:09
Thanks for coming. They won't go and do it. There are there are some groups I will never go to that are meeting because my very presence will disempower the the natural leader because he will compare himself, right? If I go to Scott's group and Scott then says, well, I don't know as much as Norris, right? He'll stop.
52:35
So, for when I say leadership selection, I'm looking for people that are willing to let other people shine and produce and you don't have to be the guy. That's the next. You don't have to be the man that everybody comes and listens to. If you do, you won't start a movement. You'll start a nice big group and they'll all become dependent upon you but you won't see it replicate.
52:56
Our challenge to all the leaders is, how many people in your group should be out leading new groups rather than coming to yours? They have to be able to multiply and give away leadership. Now, some people have to be trained to do this because it's a human problem around the world. Everybody wants to be the man. Everybody wants to be the woman.
53:18
They all like it when people listen to em. So, it's a mentoring process with these leaders to say, how are you giving it away? They want to grow the kingdom of God more than they want to grow their own kingdom. When people will ask us, hey, can you help us plant a church? I'll say, no, there's lots of people that help you plant a church.
53:35
That's that's kind of a small vision But if you want to grow a movement, if you want to see the kingdom expand, we can help you do that. And guess what? Churches are going to happen. And even your church will grow. It'll grow as a result of you focusing on growing the kingdom because people are going to show up.
53:54
It's a natural byproduct. They're willing to pay to see the kingdom grow. This was a key thing that my my dad told me when we went to the mission field. He said, money will be the litmus test and he was exactly right. When they know that we're not bringing money and resources, they they disappear.
54:16
And who are you left with? Those who wanna grow the kingdom. Because we ask we ask the question this way, what are you willing to to give up? What are you willing to pay to see this movement happen? Now, we will provide resources but it's after we see somebody who produces fruit.
54:35
You understand what I'm saying? I mean, we have a team and we're raising money to to to fund this team but these, we've never hired one person to do a job. They've all created their own job descriptions by becoming indispensable to the movement. They're they're actually producing so much fruit. They will go, hey, Scott.
54:53
Can we help you with the gas? Next time you go out to do training, would you, can we help you that way? Right? We start building relationship and that we only provide resources to people that produce because we don't have them to spare. And we're gonna get a return on our investment.
55:13
And they gotta be willing to die. In that part of the world, it's a reality. Are you willing to die for what you what you believe? And to be honest, they're quicker to make that call because you know why? They're already willing to die for a lousy cause.
55:31
They've made that decision already. And then are you willing to pray? You're willing to pray a minimum of an hour a day for movements? Because without prayer, nothing's gonna happen. These are some of the things and and others and so I lead it.
55:50
I lead a team and as of 2016, these are some of those results that we're seeing. 35,000 new churches across West, East, and North Africa. Southern Africa, Eurasia, 34, 2,800 in The Middle East. This represents between five hundred and six hundred thousand people that have come to the Lord. Just in the partnerships that we have.
56:17
And it's growing. And years ago when I was in Egypt, I had a Egyptian policeman as big as Ray came walking up to me. It was out of training training house church planters. This is probably twelve years ago And he came up and he had his big hand. He put it on my chest, and he started to prophesy into my life in Arabic, which I didn't understand.
56:47
So Wim, my interpreter, he's telling me in my ear what he's saying. And it was too big. I couldn't I couldn't contain it. I didn't tell anybody, not even my wife, Lori, for for five years because it it scared me. How could something like this happen?
57:04
And it was all about what's happening now. And the and the the prophecy was you're gonna be a voice to nations, and there'll be a movement across nations. And now it's happening. When we ask people to support this, we're not asking to support something that we hope is going to happen. It exists and it's growing, and it's happening right now.
57:26
And now it's starting to happen in The US. We have teams that we that we're empowering across United States because it's time. And I want you to know, I'm a church boy. Next week when I'm home, I'll be in church just like you. And I love all the I grew up on all these songs that victory and Jesus crying out loud.
57:47
I've I know it by heart. And I love the church but I also am a strategist. I love strategy. I love to think and I know that it's an impossible strategy to duplicate this and reach the world. You understand what I'm saying?
58:07
So I'm not trying to I'm not trying to tear down anything that exist. I love it and I want it to continue. But I know that the great commission is go and make disciples of all nations. Right? That's our job.
58:23
Those are our marching orders. So, how are we going to do that? And this disciple making movements is how we're doing it. That's our Email. If you'd like to get where I send out a monthly letter, I also have in the back there, there's a card, my business card, and then there's some brochures about Accelerate.
58:41
You can put your name and email and address there, and I can send it to you either in the mail or by email. But this is this is who we are. This is what we do as leaders of Accelerate. And thank you so much for your kind attention and for allowing me to speak to you this morning.
1:00:06
It says, I urge you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the very mercies of God, that you would present yourselves or present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God which is your reasonable act of service. So, I've been sitting here and looking around the room and thinking about all of us that are at different places in our lives. Transition points for some of you and you feel like whatever you've been doing is kind of come to a close. Whatever you are going to be doing, you don't know what it is yet and so, I want to go back to that. That you present yourselves as a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God which is your spiritual and reasonable service of worship and not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may be able to prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
1:01:03
So, lord, would you do that this week? As we stand, would you do this this week and have your way? Amen. We're going to sing one, just one verse of have thine own way.
1:01:24
Have thine own way after thy will still have thine own way have thine own way search me and try
1:02:35
Amen. So, thine own way was two verses, sorry. Thank you, lord. Would you spread your love through this community, through these, your people in Jesus name. Amen.
1:02:47
Amen.
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