Romanian Mission. REMM - Contemporary
First B Jackson
2019-10-06

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

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From Psalm one zero three, praise the Lord my soul, my inmost being. Praise his holy name. God, as we sing to you, may you tune our hearts to sing your praise. May it be genuine and real. Would you meet us where we're at?

In Jesus' name. Amen. Will sing, awaken my soul. Soul to worship with all. Alright.

You could be seated. Forgive me in advance. So Ray is out of town, and I'm in charge of announcements, and sometimes I am just not fluid. So forgive me if I don't say these in a in a very fluid manner, but, let's go for it anyway. What do we got?

Okay. A Bible study junior and, senior high girls. That happens right here. Can anybody speak to that that is doing that right now? Okay.

It's Judy Wales, and it's happening at? K. Okay. And what time does that happen? At When kids are released to middle school, high school girls.

No. That's available. Okay? Another one. Youth group starts tonight.

Okay. Five to seven. Mike, do wanna speak to that? Yeah. We'll be right here.

Cool. Thank you, Frank. K. Monday nights, can speak to that one. That is tomorrow meal music message Felix and Guadalupe are are cooking, and we are in the last of a series on the power of words.

Encourage one another, build each other up. That's what we've been talking about for eight weeks because it's that important and this will be the last week of that tomorrow night meal music message. At the same time, Awana is happening and here and so that's what Awana is. They're filling the minds of of little ones with the word of God and so that's tomorrow at the same time as Monday nights, community Bible study. Can anybody speak to that that's sitting here?

Right there. K. Yep. K. Yep.

I poked my head in there this week and I heard laughter and it just looked fun. It looked great. Now it's available. Girls Bible study. Tolson's, are you here?

Alright. Is anybody that's in that Bible study here? Fantastic. Alright. Well, there it is.

Listen, the announcements are are in your bulletin. I wanna speak to this one really quick. This is important. Frontline frontline people, if you've ever served in frontline, can we please could you be just raise your hand up real quick? Also, we thank them for doing this?

That is such seriously? We do appreciate you so much for doing frontline so much, and it's a really important job here at first b. It's an extremely important job. And so this is an appreciation for all those who have done it and all those who may be interested. I don't want you to be intimidated because you see a war scene right here.

That was just a joke. Maybe not a tasteful one, but that frontline team is is really, really important, and we could really use more help. And next week, there'll be a meeting for that in the Fellowship hall at 12:30. Okay? So keep that on your radar.

Precept study, that's in motion. Ah, yes. This is an important one right here, the Romanian flag. So we have a missionary REM, Romanian evangelical medical mission. Peter Licaccio is here today, and we're gonna have two offerings today.

K? I wanna give you a heads up about it. The first one is our general offering. That happens just as it always happens. But after Peter speaks, you'll have an opportunity to give to the Romanian evangelical medical mission after at the end of the service.

So would you keep that in mind? If you only brought one offering, we do encourage you to to give to the our missionaries. We believe it's important. I just wanna give you a heads up about that in advance. Okay?

Connect hours between services and everything else is in your bulletins. Please take a look. That being said, I think it is time to well, hello there. You wanna stand and greet one another? We'll say hi.

We'll bring you back at song. God, as we sing that song, was thinking about that song that you knit us together. God, you know that the deepest most inmost parts of of who we are. You created us, but you've created us for you. And so, Lord, as we sing to you, would you remind us again that you are our creator, our maker, our sustainer, that as we sing to you, we sing to the all our almighty living God.

Amen. And I You know, when we sing that, we're not just making scripture. It says, for all God's promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding yes, and through Christ our amen ascends to God for his glory. But may I encourage you church to to claim to the promises that when you read something in scripture, I always say, God, would you help me to understand this as your living true word? And this is true, and I'm gonna stand on this.

I'm gonna carry it out the best that I know how, and I'm gonna stand on your promises here because they are true and he can be trusted. Wanna sing another song. I felt no way you paid it off for me. You have been so, so Amen. You can be seated, and I'd love to pray on that.

Again, this is just the first offering, the general offering, but I would love to to just pause and give thanks here for a moment. Lord, as we sing that song, I think about you as the good shepherd that you lay your life down for the sheep. That is what you have done. That you go to find the one, the stray. That's us.

That's all of us. We've all strayed away. But I thank you God that you are merciful and that you are kind. You are a good and gentle shepherd. You don't beat up the sheep.

You care for us. You love us. And God, let it be our joy to to love you back. We may not agree with everything that with every, with everything that you do. We may not agree with how life goes all the time, but God, would you continue to help us trust you as our good shepherd knowing that you have our best interests.

And God that this gospel truly is true and that it works. Every time it works, the gospel works. So Lord, as we give your way, may, it be on our on our hearts and minds that we're not building a kingdom that's here. We're building toward your kingdom and your purposes. May you use this, God, to, advance the gospel to every nation, tribe, and tongue.

Lord, would you continue to give us a heart that really wants to be a cheerful giver because there truly is joy in it. And so we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Well, our sister church down the way at River Crossing has been taken over by Robert Morris down there, Gateway, I believe it is now, and I heard him give a message one time that he said when when, God cast Satan out of heaven, it's very possible his job was the worship leader. And when he left, he said, now who's gonna praise you? And it said, God he said, God took clay and he put it together and he breathed life into he said they will. So our mission here as the church is is not to just give to missions. Our church wants to be a mission sending church.

We wanna be a mission minded thinking church, and what that means is we won't be happy until all that God has called on the earth will come to know him and worship him. And so that's our goal. We want to give, and the mission team, I thank, God for them. A team of 12 was just down this morning here at 07:30 this morning working hard, working up the 2,020 mission budget. And, thank you all because you gave this morning and in this offering plate.

And so that literally portion of that is gonna go around the world, and some of it has gone to the gentleman who's gonna be speaking this morning, Peter Lacoccio, and he ministers to a the home, land of Florine, and you know Florine because he was just playing the piano, and also the homeland of Ferry and Mundra. And so we're we're grateful to have him here and he does a work there and I'm gonna ask you at least tell us a little bit of what you do there before you get into your message if you'll do that. I know you don't like to do that but if you could do that would help us. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Steve Landis. I'm an elder here and and I head up the missions team.

And, I would just, wanna pray and thank God, and I wanna then read a passage that Peter has asked me to read out of acts one. So if you wanna turn there, you're welcome to while I pray. Heavenly father, we are so grateful that you have died so that we might know you, that we could have a relationship with you. You tore down that wall of separation. Our sin, Lord, our sin separated us from you.

We had we had turned away from you and you tore that wall down and you came and you made a way for us to know you again and Lord we wanna we wanna take that to Jackson, we wanna take it to Wyoming, We wanna take it to North America, and we wanna take it around the world. And we're just grateful that you give us an opportunity to do that. It truly is a blessing, and we wanna just say thank you. Thank you. Thank you for blessing us and allowing us that to have that blessing, and we pray for our missionaries around the world, and we just ask, Lord, this morning that you would empower them, that you would meet their needs, that you would provide for them, Lord, that you would speak through them, bring your word alive through them, both in deed and word, and so that many, many people would come to know you.

You're in the business of transforming lives, of taking dead people and making them alive, and we're grateful for that. And we just ask for your mercy and your grace here in this town and in this in this country and in the countries around the world that you would draw all men to yourself from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation. And we wanna just pray right now and just ask for you to silence the evil one, Lord, in this place. Cast them out. Push them away.

Silence them. All the distractions, Lord. Help us to be laser focused, not on Peter, not because Peter's a great speaker, but, Lord, he's gonna bring us your word, which is alive and active, and it will cut, and it will encourage, and it will tell us life. I pray, Lord, that you will bring it alive in our hearts, we pray. In Jesus' name.

Bless Peter. Give him your words to speak. In Jesus' name, amen. Acts chapter one verse 12. Then they returned to Jerusalem.

Oh, I'm sorry. Kids, good. Thank you for reminding me. Kids, scoot on out, can head downstairs. Acts chapter one verse 12.

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount Of Olives. The Sabbath days walk from the city. And when they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. So this is the upper room. Those present were Peter, John, James, and Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew.

James, the son of Alphesians, and Simon, the zealot, and Judas, son of James. And they were all joined together constantly in prayer along with the women and with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

I remember with great joy the time of fellowship that we had with you in the previous time when I was in your church. Thank you so much. I bring you greetings from Romania. And to Washington DC, we have an ambassador, a Romanian ambassador. But I am so glad that we had the ambassador here.

Ambassadors, and we have a great ambassador in Kara Geek. And I want to thank her for all her great work and partnership and our work in Romania. Thank you so much for your work, for your help, for your love. And, because of your support, we can go with two hands to go on Romanian orphanages in to Romanian politicians, to Romanian Gypsy community, and to bring love of Christ there. You heard this morning a passage from scripture that they said they said in they went upstairs in that upper room and they were praying.

Constantly, are praying. And the text passage gave the name of people there starting with Peter. Another name and another name was Thomas. When you look at these people, they constantly pray together with brothers, Jesus' brother and his mother. When you think about that, just maybe weeks ago before this event, there were same people when Jesus was praying and asked them to pray, they fall asleep.

He was started again. Jesus went again to pray. He came back, and all of this Peter, Thomas, all of them fall asleep. Then something happened. Peter, who said he will go and we're ready to die for Jesus, he denied three times that no Jesus.

And now they are in upper room praying. And if you look at all of them, all the names, starting with Peter. Peter, do you deserve to be in upper room? You're praying now constantly. But what you have done?

You look all of them fail to follow Jesus. If take your commander in chief and the army and suddenly everyone is running away and enemies killed commander in chief. And after that, they come to these people and say, now what you deserve? Well, we have been scared. But when Jesus came to them and he was risen and said, you will be my witnesses.

He said, you will be my witnesses to these people who fail to follow Jesus. And you will have power, power to be my witness. Until now, they didn't have power. And suddenly, they have power. When I came to United States, one of the thing was that I heard about forefathers.

I heard about great awakenings once happened. I heard about great revivals in America. When this happened, how this happened, and everyone started with prayer in Peru. I came from Romania, and I was born in that communist country. And I tried to find out about same thing that is here in United States if we had a revival.

How the gospel and faith, how the prayer came to my house. I have he has some paper, but in Romanian language, I have two people in my family, my son-in-law, Alex, and my daughter, Andrea. So many time they correct me when I pronounce some of the words in English. In English, that you pronounce like this. This is the Romanian what you said.

So I want to present to you several things that is so dear to me. In Romania, before fourth world war, in that part of Romania. We had Romanians in Transylvania, and we had Romanians in Romania, and we have Romanians in, part of Russia. In first World War, Romanians from Transylvania were part of Austro Hungarian Empire. So they, for for a time, fought with or against Romanians from Romania and against Romanians from Russia.

So many times they hurt each other when they kill each other, they heard that they in own language, they are brothers. So forced war war. Romanians from Transylvania had been taken prisoner and among them was my grandfather and they brought him thousands of miles in the cold, cold Siberia. In his village, like many other thought, that he died. So in cemetery of my village, it was a cross with his name.

He died. In fact, he was in a prisoner camp with other prisoner with 18 people from 18 nationalities. And that prisoner camp from 120,000 Romanians from Transylvania, only about 30,000 survived because every morning they collect dead bodies. My grandfather was not a believer. And in one day, several other prisoner came and asked him if he would like to pray, to go in upper room to pray with them.

And many people waiting death were, like my father, very angry What's happened to them? Why they are there? So he used very bad language, and so he cannot pray. After several days, same prisoner came around him, and they saw they are nice people. They have a smile in prisoner camp.

And he said, why I was so nasty with so wonderful people? So I said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I have done. And what they said is, but if even now, it's not too late to pray. Let's pray.

And there when prisoner camp were to the left and to the right people died, there he accepted Jesus Christ in his life. For two years, he spent six years in Russia and Soviet Union. In two years, he came for two years, he walked thousands of miles to come home. Now he arrived home. When he arrived home, everybody in his village were busy with the harvest.

It was the harvest time. So many people in the courtyard and his father at courtyard. And now everybody worked there. And when he opened the gate, he had long hair, patchy clothes, a tall man, and he asked if he's, allowed to stay in that house. His father was looking and said, at this time of year, we don't have time for beggars, for strangers, everybody is working.

And the lady recognized his voice and recognized that is my grandfather. He came home. He came home in prisoner camp. It was several people who spoke in prisoner camps to prisoners. One was Lenin, and my grandfather listened to Lenin.

And Lenin wants to recruit prisoner of war to send them. That was Josep Roszito, the president of Yugoslavia. He was prisoner of war, and he came and brought communism in Yugoslavia. There was Bela Kun, a Hungarian prisoner who started in 1919 when my grandfather came home. He started that communist revolution in Hungary and Hungary was Communist Republic Of Hungary.

If you remember in 1919, it was in Germany, Bavaria. The Communist Republic Of Bavaria. People came from prisoner camp with ideas from Lenin, from Stalin. In 1919, when my grandfather came with his faith. Other people came with ideology.

They bring communism. And now if you look at what's happened with these disciples, when they start prayer in upper womb, something happened there. In the Acts chapter two, it said that Jews that fear God, the God fearing people, Jews, they came from all nation under heaven. That's in chapter two. Acts chapter two.

And then they hear, they heard wonderful things of God and many thought, this is our native language. How can we hear this? And it's very interesting what is written there. People give the ethnic groups, countries, Mesopotamia. I mean, what's that?

Iran, Turkey, Iraq. Then said from Egypt, from Libya, Saudi Arabia. They came to Jerusalem, and they heard all wonderful things from this group who prayed, who were in the upper room. And now had they had power. They don't have a locked door, locked gate like before.

Now they presented wonderful things of God, and everybody was amazed. Now all these people from different nations that brought the message back in their countries and their nations, they heard wonderful word of God. That was prisoner in Siberia. Many came to bring the word of God or communism in their own countries. In 1919, in Romania, and I wanted a quote here, I read from the history of Baptist Union in Romania.

For me, it's amazed. It's because it was a great revival, at least in evangelical churches. And here, they said from it's in Romanian, but from statistic, from our analysis, it's clear between 1920 and 1925, it was planted more Baptist churches than at any time in the history of Baptist. It had been planted 957 churches. And as who are were the preachers?

We had the great evangelist like Moody in Romania and Transylvania, but he died in 1917, one year before fourth war was over. So now the evangelist was gone. We don't have evangelist. Who were evangelists to bring the plan nine fifty seven churches in Romania like never before? We have about less than 2,000 churches, Baptist churches in Romania.

But imagine this. In five years from 1920 to 1925, they planted almost half of all these churches that we planted in one hundred years. Who were these great amazing evangelists? And here, the passage the book said, two facts explain that incredible or the great revival. Coming home of hundreds of prisoner of war that became believer in Russia and coming back of soldiers on front line.

Imagine that. In Romanian Senate, they presented the image and said, look at them. Who are these preachers? When apostles had been brought in front of Sanhedrin and the front of leaders, they looked at them, very bold preachers, and say, wait a minute. They are unschooled ordinary men.

But they understood that all of them, they were with Jesus. They don't have training, theological training, but they all of them, they were with Jesus. But they unschooled. When we look back to my grandfather and to hundreds of other and look, they are unschooled, ordinary men that came in Romania, came in Transylvania, and they came in their own villages, and they preached the gospel. How?

When my grandfather came in his village, in his family, everybody saw that he's risen from death. But when they heard him that he has Jesus in his heart, that he came with the gospel. That they said, wait a minute. And one by one, people turned against him from his father who said it was better for you to be dead in front line than to bring this shame upon our village, upon our people. So the war was over, but another war was starting against prisoner of war and one by one.

One by one these people started a prayer, an upper room in their own house. Alone, then first was the wife, then came the the brothers, and after that, neighbors one by one, after they persecuted the my grandfather one by one said, wow. This this is a witness for Jesus Christ. We understood that only Jesus brought him back at home. When we talk about this and we see all these changes, this was one of the greatest revival in Romania, and this faith came to me through a prisoner of war.

Then second revival in Romania came after pro Nazi regime came in Romania in second world war when I can quote here that the ruler of Romania, Ioann Antonescu, decided give order that all evangelicals so now you have the second generation, my father, my mother, and now they it was ordered all of them to be sent in prisoner camps, in concentration camps in Republic Of Moldova. They were ready to do that when Stalingrad battle happened and then everything collapsed. But all of them were on blacklist. And I asked my mom when my grandfather, the decision or the dictator of Romania at that time, give order that all young people from evangelical to go on the front line first to be sacrificed for the sake of Romania. Secondly, their parents to be deported, that mean extermination, that mean death.

So I asked my mom, so what you have done? Everything was locked. The church was locked. The church was turned in a place that trained military. This what we have done?

Praying. Starting upper room. Praying and praying and to look at the door if the police will come and will pick up you and put on the train and you will be sent to concentration camp. The war, second world war was over and now the soldier came back and again was a great revival, a great revival because we had an upper room in Romania. And they pray and pray and pray.

Now we had we had in Romania, a bloody revolution would be thirty years at Christmas time when dictator, communist dictator was overthrown after forty five years of communism and atheism. And it's amazing what's happened through Rare. When revolution started, when many Romanians was they were killed, only Romania had bloody revolution, People fall on their knees and starting Lord's prayer. We had an upper room right there during revolution, and God gave us victory. And what is our organization, Romanian Evangelistic Medical Mission, all about?

When everything collapsed, when even aspirin was missing in the hospitals, to bring doctors from here in Romania because even aspirin was missing the start medical clinics all over Romania with Christian doctors from here. So that is Romanian evangelistic medical mission. Then after collapse of communism, mass media from here presented, but look what's happened. In Romania, look at the orphanages. Look at the children crawling on the floor, naked children.

So they showed the images. So we started one of the first Christian orphanages in Romania, Casa Joseph, that just we had first group of children, second group of children, the last one, last group of children. Most of them, they are here, and three of them, they are in my family. One of the daughter adopted two girls. My son, who is in Washington DC, adopted another girl.

When we started all of this, God was working. We have a prayer, an upper room, an orphanage. And there we invited policemen. My my pastor was killed by a militiamen, but we had such a circumstance that they invited militiamen, policemen to come to our orphanage and they got a letter here from one of the leader from police association and said, brother Peter, I want to thank you to congratulate you because twenty years ago, you have that initiative. They invite us to Casa Joseph, and we started, we became policemen from different counties of Romania and now we spread the word of God all over Romania and they spread the word of God in Republic Of Moldova and Former Yugoslavia.

And last summer, we started with them a college of prayer international with a man who was pastor in your church, Dan Young. So policemen from all over Romania and from Yugoslavia came, Former Yugoslavia came, and now they go to spread the gospel and to start school of prayer upper room everywhere. So that's all about. I would like to thank you for from bottom of my heart for what for your help, for your love, for your support. God bless you.

Before we close in song here, I do wanna invite the frontline team to come up and and we'll give another chance yet to to give to the Romanian evangelical medical mission, if you'd like. And I'm doing that. Florian, would you pray a little some, play a little something, and and, I'd also like to to pray. God, as Peter was speaking, I I can't help but think about the the power of prayer. That prayer, that's that's where that's where revival happens.

That's where that's where everything starts in prayer. When we come to you humbly and, say, Lord, I I don't have all the answers on my own. I I need you, and you change hearts and lives. So I thank you for how you've been doing this all over the world. I thank you for just thank you for the good gospel, Lord, that it truly changes hearts and minds.

And I think about the unschooled ordinary people doing your good work. Lord, would you continue to do your good work in Romania and all over the world in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks, Lori. And would you stand?

We're going to sing one last song together. Okay, man. I wanna leave you with a little benediction. I think there's one on the screen here. Steve, do you wanna give that one?

Audible. Sure.

I thought it would be great to have this young man pray for us when he's an elder as well, mister Florine. And when he prays, when he really, really prays, he's praying in Romanian, and I want him to just pray for the Romanian people in Romanian this morning.

Shall Lord, thank you for this wonderful church that is willing to invest your good gospel all over the world. I pray and give thanks for everything. In Jesus name I prayed. Amen.