Scripture referenced 3 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
-
Psalm 81:16 quoted as God speaking to Israel about feeding them with finest wheat and satisfying them with wild honey from the rock, explaining the song lyrics
16 But he would have also fed them with the finest of the wheat. I will satisfy you with honey out of the rock.”
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Keep this verse
2 Corinthians 9
cited as the basis for giving cheerfully and from the heart, not under compulsion
1 It is indeed unnecessary for me to write to you concerning the service to the saints,
2 for I know your readiness, of which I boast on your behalf to them of Macedonia, that Achaia has been prepared for a year past. Your zeal has stirred up very many of them.
3 But I have sent the brothers that our boasting on your behalf may not be in vain in this respect, that, just as I said, you may be prepared,
4 lest by any means, if anyone from Macedonia comes there with me and finds you unprepared, we (to say nothing of you) would be disappointed in this confident boasting.
5 I thought it necessary therefore to entreat the brothers that they would go before to you, and arrange ahead of time the generous gift that you promised before, that the same might be ready as a matter of generosity, and not of greediness.
6 Remember this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
7 Let each man give according as he has determined in his heart; not grudgingly, or under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver.
8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that you, always having all sufficiency in everything, may abound to every good work.
9 As it is written, “He has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor. His righteousness remains forever.”
10 Now may he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, supply and multiply your seed for sowing, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;
11 you being enriched in everything to all generosity, which produces through us thanksgiving to God.
12 For this service of giving that you perform not only makes up for lack among the saints, but abounds also through much giving of thanks to God;
13 seeing that through the proof given by this service, they glorify God for the obedience of your confession to the Good News of Christ, and for the generosity of your contribution to them and to all;
14 while they themselves also, with supplication on your behalf, yearn for you by reason of the exceeding grace of God in you.
15 Now thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Ezekiel 47:1-5
read aloud in full as the passage Anders used to illustrate surrender and going deeper with God, likening the rising river to the Holy Spirit
1 He brought me back to the door of the house; and behold, waters flowed out from under the threshold of the house eastward, for the front of the house faced toward the east. The waters came down from underneath, from the right side of the house, on the south of the altar.
2 Then he brought me out by the way of the gate northward, and led me around by the way outside to the outer gate, by the way of the gate that looks toward the east. Behold, waters ran out on the right side.
3 When the man went out eastward with the line in his hand, he measured one thousand cubits, and he caused me to pass through the waters, waters that were to the ankles.
4 Again he measured one thousand, and caused me to pass through the waters, waters that were to the knees. Again he measured one thousand, and caused me to pass through waters that were to the waist.
5 Afterward he measured one thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass through; for the waters had risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be walked through.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This Sunday's message came from Anders and Brooke, missionaries with J Zone in Livingston, Zambia, who are preparing to return to the field in early April. Rather than a traditional sermon, they shared stories from their ministry and Anders offered a personal testimony about surrender and going deeper with God. The morning closed with a love offering for their work.
What was said
Anders and Brooke walked through their current ministries in Zambia: a primary school program they are now handing off to local teachers, a village school where they helped repair the building and began building community roots, a Saturday kids program that picks up around 60 children a week by bus, a food pantry that expanded significantly during a historic forty-year drought, a mothers' bag ministry for expecting women who cannot afford hospital delivery supplies, and a week-long leadership camp for eighth graders from eight schools. Each ministry came with a story, including a headmaster named Violet who had dreamed the night before they arrived that people would come in a truck to tell her students about Jesus.
The centerpiece of Anders's message was a dream he had during a month when the team committed to writing fresh Bible study lessons for every village they visited. In the dream, everyone was wearing white, he felt prompted to lead a salvation prayer for the first time, he was scared, but he did it anyway. Weeks later, at a Church of Zion meeting in a village called Dundka, everything unfolded exactly as he had dreamed it, down to the white clothing and his own nervousness. He described sitting down afterward and realizing in that moment that close pursuit of God is what produces those kinds of experiences.
Anders then shared that before any of that happened, he had been struggling. Moving to Zambia full time had surfaced anxiety and fear he could not name at first, and he had been relying on the energy of ministry moments and the encouragement of friends to carry him rather than drawing from God's word himself. Brooke told him plainly that he had been letting his friends spoon-feed him his encouragement instead of picking up the spoon himself.
The turning point came through a leader named Rick, who spoke at their leadership camp and read from Ezekiel 47, where a river flows from the temple and rises from ankle depth to knee depth to waist depth to a depth too great to walk through. Anders said that passage showed him he had been surrendering only up to his head, leaving just enough room to stay in control, and that God was calling him to let go entirely and fall into the current.
Anders brought that same challenge to the congregation. He described a man at a village Bible study who was consumed with questions about judgment but had not yet given his life to Christ, and how Anders told him that now is the time of salvation, not judgment, and that they were not leaving that place unchanged. He asked the room to think about whatever causes wrestling or friction in their own hearts and to surrender it to God in that moment, not later in the week.
He closed by saying that surrender is not a one-time event. In his own experience, he would feel free, stop praying, and drift back into old patterns. The daily practice, he said, is returning to God each morning and saying, here I am, do what you want with me.
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.
- Anders described a period where he was relying on friendships, outdoor pursuits, and fellowship to fill his soul rather than going to the Lord directly. What are the things in your own life that you tend to lean on for encouragement or identity before you turn to God?
- Brooke shared the story of headmaster Violet, who had dreamed the night before that people would arrive in a truck to tell her students about Jesus. How does that story affect the way you think about the moments in your own life that seemed like coincidence?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 7,826 words
Yeah. Pretty simple. Good morning, everybody.
How are we doing? That's
fantastic. Yeah. I love the energy here on a wintery, blustery morning. Hey, would you stand with me? And I would love to sing the Lord's prayer together.
Father, let your kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as in heaven right here in our
heaven right
here in my heart. Let's sing that again.
Father, that your kingdom come. Father, that your will be done. Under a thousand heaven right
Amen. That's a great prayer and a song to start with. You can have a seat here for a moment. We've got just a couple announcements for you.
Hey. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to First Baptist Church. So glad you made it in somehow. We all remembered how to shovel.
Right? We haven't forgotten just yet. Iwana is on for tomorrow. Yes.
Beach
night. It's beach night.
Yeah. Dress dress up like you're going to the beach.
Yeah. Perfect. Perfect weather for that kind of thing. You don't have to be dressed like a beach until you get here. Yeah.
Until you're ready for the beach, till you get here. So don't worry about that. But then they'll be off for two weeks after that. Right? So heads up on that one.
VBS has been announced. The dates are on there. It's also on the website. So if you have any more questions, let us know. We have a missions moment.
Yeah. Carl?
Yeah. Well, I just got just some small updates from Ray and Tanya. There they are with the the Ravenolds there, missionaries in Tanzania. They were meeting in Nairobi. There might be another picture there too.
And yep. There there they are. And this is in Kenya. And so can we just take a a moment and continue to pray for for Ray and Tanya here? God, we're thankful so thankful for our pastor.
Thank you, God, that he is such a great shepherd, and we're following after your lead, the greatest shepherd. Thank you, Lord. And and this was meant to be a missionary encouragement tour, and that is exactly what it's been. God, thank you for the encouragement that it's been to Ray and Tanya, but also the missionaries that they have visited and will continue to visit. God, would you bless every connection, every divine intervention that you give them, God?
Would they be full of your love and your joy and your peace and a good word for your for your pastors in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. That's great. We also have the church website too has all the information that you might need to know. And we started doing in the weekly email some service projects. So if you're looking to get involved, well, just sign up for the weekly email and check out there.
If you have any questions, you can also come see me. I work in the church office. Back to the band.
Awesome. Hey. Would you stand up and, introvert's worst nightmare, are you ready? Say hello to the people around you. And God, we do make that our prayer and our song.
God, you are everywhere. That is one of the the characteristics, the qualities, the attributes of you. You are everywhere. But, God, would you give us an awareness? May our hearts be open to you this morning to hear from you, to experience you, to learn, God, from from the scriptures, from the word, to hear your voice.
We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
And I believe I believe you gave sight to the blind. I believe that the dead came to light. I believe there were wonders and signs, and you're still the same. I believe every word that you say. I believe there's scars in hands, I that your goodness is good without it, and you'll never change.
And I will tell. I will tell of your wonders, sing of your Yesterday, now and always, always. I believe you're calm in the clouds. I believe you're here now. Where you are.
You were. And you are. You always will be God. You were. And you are.
You always will be God. There's only in the rock, water and stone, manna on the ground no matter where I go. And I don't need to worry now that I know. Everything I need you've got that's only in the rock. Praying for a miracle.
Thirsty for the living will. Only you can satisfy sweetness at the mercy seat. Sweetness at the Mercy Sea. Tasty, it's not hard to see. Only you can satisfy.
There's honey in the rock. There's honey in the rock, water and stone, There's honey in the rock.
And, oh, how sweet.
Oh, how sweet. How sweet it is to trust in you, Jesus. Oh, how sweet. How sweet it is to trust in you, Jesus. And oh, how sweet, how sweet it is to trust in you, Jesus.
Wanna go back to that verse.
There's honey in the rock, water in stone, manna on the ground no matter where I go. And I don't need to worry now that I know. Everything I need, you got.
This is from Psalm 81. It's God speaking to Israel as their provider and deliverer. In spite of all of their wanderings, we can easily put ourselves in this place. He says, but I'd feed you with the finest wheat. I would satisfy you with wild honey from the rock.
This is a metaphor there about the abundance and sweetness of God's blessing. That's why we sing these songs, because God is our great provider. And speaking of which, you can have a seat here for a moment. This is the worship through giving part of the service. And today we're gonna take up two offerings, and and it's not because you didn't give enough the first time.
I wanna be clear about that. The first one, this one right now, this is for the general fund. Okay? The second will be at the end of the service. That will be a love offering for Anders and Brooke as they prepare to go back to Zambia.
If you only brought one, we would encourage you to give it to Anders and Brook, their mission in Zambia at the end of the service. This one now is just the general fund, but not under compulsion. We say this a lot, not under compulsion, but like in second Corinthians nine, cheerfully and from the heart. That's the posture of giving, cheerfully and from the heart. Before we pass plates, may
I ask you, this is one of our elders. Hello.
Killer boots, man.
Oh, there you go.
I forgot to change before church. So, Lord God, we are so thankful and blessed by the gifts you've lavished on us, Lord. Our talents, those around us, Lord, and our treasures. And it is such a joy to join with you in your work, Lord. So as we as we give to you today and as we give to you this week, Lord, from the blessings you've given us.
We just are are so thankful to participate with you, and I pray that it would be a joy to participate with you today. So and again, thank you so much for Brooke and Anders and their work and for the offering that we'll have for them later today. Amen.
Well, all comes down to this where you require of me. Love my neighbor as my And years from now, we'll see the fruit our hands
Alright. It's time for children's church. Everybody just listen into that sound right now. You hear that? Isn't that a wonderful sound?
The pitter patter of little feet? It is. I am so grateful for our children's ministry here at First Bee. Can we just let our kids know that we love them? And Anders and Brook, would you guys come on up?
So a little fun fact about Anders. When I came here almost fifteen years ago, this guy was a little punk in youth group. And now look at you. And I I am so proud of you too. I really am.
And may I just pray for you before before you share? God, I'm so grateful for how you can take heart and draw it to yourself and do the good work that you do and that you save us by faith grace through faith. And then, Lord, you you you call us. You call us to something. And and, God, for what you have called Anders and and Brooke to, Lord, this is a God sized task.
And Lord, we as a church want to love and support and encourage and fan the flame. And so Lord, may they experience not just your love, but our love as a church family to their mission in Zambia. So, Lord, we ask your blessing that we would listen in, to listen close, to hear what you're doing, and to participate however however it is, God, that you lead us. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Thanks, Carl. Take take take take.
Check. Oh, I'm on. Well, it's great to be here this morning. Like Carl said, I'm Brooke. This is my husband Anders.
We are missionaries in Livingston, Zambia, which is in Southern Africa, geography wise, if you wanna wrap your head around all of that. I'm not originally from here. I'm from California, but my husband is from here, and this is his home church. So it always feels so special to be able to speak with you guys in the mornings, especially before we head back the first week of April. So I'm gonna pass it on now.
Good morning. Good morning. When we first met with Ray and Tonya, we we said, hey. We're going back to Zambia. We'd love to speak in front of the church.
Ray said, great. Can you preach? We were like, yeah. I think we could preach. And you might be thinking, oh, these are missionaries.
Like, of course, they can preach. But usually, we have a a translator next to us. We have, like, a moment to think about what we wanna say. We are usually if we're doing kids ministry, we're paying more attention to the kid that's, you know, distracting everyone or someone that's taking notes or reading their Bible. So it's a little bit different today.
But one thing is the same. We're here today to to spread the good news of Jesus that God loved us so much, he gave us his son, Jesus, to die for us that we might have everlasting life. Nothing's changed. And we want to encourage you guys and to share this incredible journey that God has a son. In typical Zambian fashion, I have everything I need to say written down, and Brooke is freestyling.
So
That's not a 100% true. Look. I have some bullet points, but that's mostly because I get the privilege to give you guys a recap in our ministry and tell you some stories about our favorite people in Zambia. So if you wanna go to the next slide, maybe. Oh.
Oh. Oh. Preview. Close your eyes. Oh, there it is.
Alright. Our first ministry I wanna highlight is our school ministry at Sunset Christian Academy. So this is a primary school, so baby class or kindergarten through fifth grade. These are just a few of the students. This was actually on our way to the airport when we were leaving, are saying goodbye to our kids.
And so we've been at this school. I've been there personally since 02/19. J Zone has been there for over ten years. And while we love these kids and watching them grow up, we have decided to graduate this school, hand it over to the teachers to continue spreading the gospel so that we can go and visit some other schools in town and in the villages. So the next slide highlights kinda what we focused on this year, which was memory verses.
Each kid, we did fruits of the spirit for our curriculum, And these weren't just like short memory verses. Some of them were like half of the chapter. And so these kids memorized the most verses, which was all of them. Zindaba is holding that keyboard. Memory has the watch on, and then Frank won the skateboard.
And they were very excited and motivated and came up to me after the curriculum was over and said, I memorized the whole book of Mark. It's like, okay, great. I don't have a prize for you but you did a great job. So our next school to highlight is our Woodlands School. Oh, maybe.
Is there an order?
It's in here somewhere. There
you go. There it is. This is our village school that we go to every Tuesday. They actually are our neighbors for the future home of our J Zone Camp property. So it's been really great to start setting down some roots in this community and kinda just get to know who our neighbors will be once we're out there full time.
This year at the school, we were able to help them redo their school. We Anders asked the teachers, what can we do besides bring snacks and do our normal normal program to help you guys be able to educate these learners? And they said, we've been asking our PTA to fix our school. Is there anything you can do to help? And so we helped them fix the roof, get some weatherproofing, and get a fresh coat of paint on that outside of the school.
We were able to use that as a lesson for the kids on how to take care of your community and how to care for your school and the things you have. And so they all put their handprints on the side of the school to signify their commitment to take care of their community and their friends. Also, have a mural on there. We weren't gonna paint that of Jaystone, but the teachers are like, please, please, please. They wanna be able to tell people who helped them and it's just part of the culture.
And so yeah. Another fun story about Woodlands is when we showed up there two years ago, we didn't really know if there was a school back on this bush road. We kinda just heard a rumor there was a school back there and drove back a couple kilometers and found them and sat down with the headmaster, Violet, who's the woman standing next to me in this photo. And she welcomed us in with open arms, and we said this is kinda what we do. Would we be able to come maybe do a camp or start a school program?
And she pulled out her calendar. She's like, hey. How many days a week can you come? And so that was really exciting to be welcomed in. And as we were leaving, she was thanking us and said, thank you for doing what the Lord told you to do.
And we're like, oh, of course. She's like, I had a dream that people would show up in a truck tomorrow and wanna tell my students about Jesus. And the next day we showed up. And so God has been in our program at Woodlands the whole time, and it's just such a special place for us. Up next, we have J Kids, which is our Saturday school pro our play program at our park.
It's just a bunch of neighborhood kids who come and hang out, play soccer, learn about Jesus, things like that. A a beautiful thing that has happened at JKIDS is a teacher named miss Fitus has started bringing her students, and she teaches a school in a neighborhood in town that is for kids who can't afford to go to school, Whether that be they can't afford uniforms or books or even they don't have a birth certificate, so they wouldn't be accepted into a government school, she takes them in and educates all of them. She is a certified educated teacher who had been teaching at those government schools and felt like the Lord was calling her to serve her community in a deeper way. So it's been super special to get to know her and get to know her kids. And then we also were blessed with this school bus this year for JKIDS, And we're able to drive around, and we pick up about 60 kids a week and fit them in there and take them to our park.
Anders is our resident school bus driver, or in Zambia, we call him our Chinyante driver, which is crazy driver. And it it is quite the time in that bus every Saturday. Next ministry to highlight is our pantry. So the first picture with the food is us just doing our monthly buying of beans and rice and all of those types of things. This year, Zambia experienced a historic forty year drought where where it rains for three months, it rained three times.
And so we were in a pretty desperate situation which affected our power, how much running water this town had, and then obviously who was able to grow food and then sell that food. So our food budget definitely went up in our pantry this year, and we were very thankful to help where we could. But the most important thing was Ruth who's buying the beans right there. She's a full time staff member with us, and she's a psycho social counselor in Zambia. So when we're giving them these food parcels, she sat and counseled them on what can we do to get you a job?
How can we make this sustainable so that you're not just coming to us for food every month, and we you can provide for your own family and do social work through that, which was amazing. The next picture is baby Nyla and then her mom is also named Ruth, which is a very common name in Zambia. She is our latest recipient of our mother's bags, which are bags we pack so that expecting mothers can deliver safely in hospitals or clinics. In order to deliver in a hospital or clinic, you have to provide all of your own materials like surgical blades and gloves for the doctors to wear and all of those types of things. We provide those for mothers who can't afford to buy them on our own.
Ruth had to have a scheduled c section at thirty two weeks due to preeclampsia and also had a hysterectomy during that operation and was down and out for a little bit, but we were able to hang out with her and help her and just love on baby Nyla wherever we could, so that was super special highlight from that ministry this year. Next, we have our International Leadership Academy. This was the only camp we did this year, but we decided to focus very hard on it because it was a week long camp where we went to eight schools and asked for their 10 most influential eighth graders, whether that be good influences, bad influence, whoever really carries the culture of that school. We wanted to hang out with them and teach them what it means to be a good leader and a good Christian leader at that. And so we will continue to have a camp with them every year until they finish grade 12, and we meet with them every month to do studies and check-in on them and things like that.
In this photo is during our last worship time of camp and we brought in a local Zambian gospel artist that was really fun and all the kids got his autograph and things like that. But during this worship time, the Holy Spirit rushed into the room and it was like something I'd never seen. The kids were speaking in tongues and bowing down unable to get up and the Holy Spirit really took over. And they have continued to carry that fire through. Every month we meet with them, and they're just so hungry for the word and so hungry to learn more and telling us what they how they prayed for their parents and how they were able to do all of these things at home.
And so we're really excited that as soon as we get back, like four days after we get back is their year two camp, so we get to spend another week with them. Great. Can you go to the next slide? Oh, you have it, Anders. There it is.
There it is. Okay. Our last ministry for me to highlight is our rural Bible studies. So this year in the month of August, instead of doing camps because we had put all of our budget into that one camp and kids weren't in school, we were kinda like, well, what are we gonna do for an entire month without kids in school and no camps to do? And so we decided to help our rural discipleship team and we just asked them, hey.
What can we do to help you guys this month? And they asked us to take them to some of the farther away villages that are about 15 to 20 kilometers off the main road, which they would have to walk there and back every day to visit them. And so we drove them out and got to really dive deep into what God wanted us to say to these Zambian people, and we're able to provide about 80 local language bibles to give to them so that they can have their own Bible at home and just encourage our team, but really turned into encouraging ourselves on what God wanted us to learn through this time where we thought we had no ministry. I think there's a video if it worked.
We'll see. No. It's okay. There was
a video showing you an example of one of their worship songs in their local language that's super fun. But with that being said, while we were diving in trying to come up with a new word at all these Bible studies we would go to every day, The Lord was revealing some pretty miraculous things to us and Anders has an amazing story about what he learned through that. Yeah.
K. This is a Bible study in Dunkirk. As we started doing these Bible studies, I would reuse lessons that I had wrote multiple times. And after the second, third time, it really started to feel stale for me, like I had lost its punch and its power. So I asked everyone on our team to write a new lesson for each village that we went to.
Thus, all of us were intentionally seeking to hear from God. Day in and day out, looking, striving to hear from him. And I've never had a dream or a vision or an moment where I felt like God was speaking to me. But one day I woke up, and I remembered this dream. And my dream was that everyone was wearing white, and when it was my turn to preach, I I felt like I should do the salvation prayer, but I had never done the salvation prayer, and I was scared, and I was nervous.
But I trusted, and I did it anyway. And then my dream ended. I don't know how many people raised their hands. I don't think it really mattered. Weeks go on, and we have this amazing experience at our Leadership Academy where kids are just bowing down to the Holy Spirit.
And it's like, okay. Maybe this could be my dream. I don't really think it is. Because I feel like if God gave me a vision, that it would line up to a tee. And so we go to this Bible study in Dundka.
We originally show up to the church, and no one's there. And it's not, you know, out of the ordinary that no one's there. Slowly, start trickling in, but we waited for an hour. No one was there. So I go, pastor, where are all the people?
He goes, oh, there's another meeting over there in the bush. Okay. Take us there. And we didn't know that it was a Church of Zion meeting, which has a little history behind it.
Yeah. So the Church of Zion is a denomination in Zambia or in Southern Africa. I'm not sure where else it is. They are Christian. However, they also practice some traditional ancestral things like wearing bracelets to ward off spirits and some pretty interesting practices.
You can't read your Bible on your own. The pastor has to read the Bible to you. Things like that that aren't quite the true gospel. And then the most interesting thing for us at least is that you have to remove your shoes every time you enter one of their places of worship. And so when we showed up, they're like, okay.
Take your shoes off. And we just slid our sandals off and we're like, okay. And they were shocked that we were willing to take our shoes off and stand in the dirt with them to tell them about Jesus. And we were like, if all it takes is taking our shoes off for you to know the true gospel, we will never wear shoes again. It's not that deep.
And so, yeah, the fact that they let us in, they let me, a woman preach, which women are only allowed to sing songs at their church, was pretty amazing. And definitely, God had his hand in that all the way.
So the the pastors go out. They say, you stay here in the car. We're gonna go check and make sure that it's okay that you can preach. And so we're scrambling. We're like, oh, this is new.
What do we do? We're brainstorming what to preach on. We settle on Romans Road that we are sinners saved by God's grace. Christ took our punishment, and now we have salvation in him by believing and confessing it in Christ. Pastors come back.
Oh, yeah. We're good to go. Okay. Let's go. Brooke starts preaching.
It's amazing. This is where this picture is from. I get up on the closer, and I I get a prompting. I get a thought that says, oh, I should do the salvation prayer. I'm like, oh, man.
That's I've never really done the salvation prayer before. I don't know how to say it right. I'm nervous. But I trust. I do it anyway.
And then I finish it, and a bunch of people raise their hands. I'm like, yes. Thank you, Lord. This is amazing. I sit down, and immediately as my butt hits the seat, it's like that was my dream.
And it was if I just like sat there in amazement that everything was exactly how I dreamed of it, that everyone was wearing white, that I was scared, that I was nervous, but I trusted, and I did it anyway. And I was just so at peace and amazed at God that he would show me what it's like to be in close pursuit of him, that when we are in close pursuit with him, that he gives us these visions and he gives us wonders of who he is. Another cool thing that happened during this time of searching for God's voice was committing to full time ministry. Previously, we had been doing six months on, six months off. But now we are committed to move there for the foreseeable future.
Where we are now, I I felt like we were at a mature place in our faith where we could distinguish Holy Spirit thoughts from our normal conscious thoughts. And we'd be driving down the road, and this happened for about a week or so, where I'm thinking about trucks or I'm thinking about whatever, and all of a sudden it's the thought of, oh, I think we should stay here longer, and then I go about my day. Oh, I think we should stay here longer. I'm like, oh, that's I think that's the Holy Spirit saying something to us. So I bring it up to Brooke.
She's like, I've been having the same thoughts too. And we're like, okay. Well, I guess we should stay here longer then. So it's pretty simple. But I do have an encouragement for all of you.
I just wanted to share kind of my testimony about moving to Zambia. When I first moved to Zambia, it was hard. And it was this, like, fun, fresh, new experience that I think anyone should be excited for. But deep down, there was something lingering that was causing like wrestling or friction in my heart. It was something I couldn't name yet and nothing like I had experienced in my life.
And through walking with God in prayer, I was able to name it as anxiety and fear. Fear of leaving my life behind, fear of the unknown, and fear of leaving comfort. The anxiety was coming from feeling that fear. I didn't know if I was ready to surrender my life to what felt like God's calling. And it was hard to figure out my role in j zone.
Brooke has her thing, she's the boss, what do I do? Every time we were abroad, I got this feeling of being homesick or missing my sports and outdoor pursuits, which I think is pretty normal. But those were the things that I thought defined me. But God always reminded me why why I'm here for a reason when we'd be doing ministry and a kid would come up to me and say, oh, this is the best part of my week when you get to play play and share with him, or when we're praying for a person to get saved and they finally do get saved. And that was amazing, and that carried me through that burden.
But it didn't cure the root of the wound. In a way, it felt like slapping a band aid on a bullet wound. You might stop the bleeding for a little bit, but you'll you'll feel the pain. And then last year about two and a half months in, I start I really started to feel the lack of passion that it takes to do this job. And Brooke started to see it.
And Brooke said, can I be blunt for a second? All of your life, you've been relying on these superficial joys of the outdoors, sports, and even good things like Bible studies with your boys to fill your soul. And this is a direct quote. You've been relying on your friends in Christ to spoon feed you your encouragement instead of picking up the spoon yourself. I was like, dang girl.
But I just wanna clarify, I my boys are the reason, like, this is amazing. But in a way, I was relying on the friendship and the fellowship to sustain me instead of actually sitting down and pulling something from the word myself. And and Brooks says, but right now, I need you to rely on the Lord as your strength. And not to say that it got easier after that, it certainly did got get harder. I had to dig deep and question, how do I find the Lord's strength in this situation, and how do I make my identity in God's joy?
A few weeks later, we had a team from America come to help us with the camp. And one of the leaders, Rick, gave a freestyle message, and it's just what I needed. So we're gonna do a little exercise in Zambian fashion. Everyone can get out their Bibles or their phones. Don't open it yet.
This is what we do in the village with people that we are giving Bibles to or they're borrowing Bibles. It's a race to find the verse. And if you win, you get a sticker, a Jay zone sticker. Okay? The verse is everyone ready?
The verse is Ezekiel forty seven one through five. Go. Raise your hand when you get it. Oh, these two right here. These two.
Nice. Good job. That's always fun. Okay. Yeah.
Ezekiel forty seven one through five. In my vision, the man brought me back to the entrance of the temple. There I saw a stream flowing east from beneath the door of the temple and passing to the right of the altar on its south side. The man brought me outside the wall and through the north gateway and led me around to the eastern entrance. There, I could see the water flowing through the south side of the east gateway.
Measuring as he went, he took me along the stream for 1,700 feet and then led me across. The water was up to my ankles. He measured off another 1,700 feet and led me across again. This time, the water was up to my knees. After another 1,700 feet, it was up to my waist.
Then he measured another 1,700 feet, and the river is too deep too deep to walk across. It was deep enough to swim in, but too deep to walk through. Now, the rest of that passage, there's a lot more meat on that bone that Rick was talking to, but those five verses was enough for me. As the river of the Holy Spirit rises, our surrender becomes greater and greater. I think about it as walking across the snake.
As you start to walk across, it might be up to your ankles, you're splashing around. But then as you start walking deeper into the current and deeper into the current and maybe it gets up to your waist, it's gonna be really hard to not fall into the current of the river. I had been surrendering up to my head, leaving just enough room for me to breathe. Without knowing, I hadn't been giving myself fully to God. I was leaving just enough room to be in control.
At that moment at that moment, I knew that God was telling me to let go. To surrender to the mercy of the current, to surrender to the mercy and movement of Christ in my life. I just had to let go. And so I have some encouragement for you. But I want it to be more than encouragement.
I want to apply it just like I did. That day, Rick told us to not leave camp unchanged. So in his words, we're not gonna leave church unchanged. I want to tell you that whatever situation you have in your life right now, that God sees you. Financially, family, infertility, miscarriages, marriage issues.
God sees you there and he loves you and he has a plan for you and he has not stopped loving you. God will continue to sprinkle love in your life to let you know that he loves you. But in a way, you have to let him. You have to open your heart and seek him through prayer, worship, and reading your Bible. You have to surrender to his ways and fall into the current of Christ.
Even if you feel like you don't have a wall in front of you instead, are you prepared to give up your whole life to God? Do you want to go deeper? The mercy of God never leaves us, never abandons us, but it's us to us but it's us to us It's up to us to go deeper with him. We can't expect God to do anything of our in our lives if we can't give up something of ourselves. Is it time, money, addiction, social media, friends, some sort of hurt or wound.
If we truly want God to be glorified, what in our life isn't glorifying God? We went to a Bible study in a village and for some reason, a guy there got caught up on judgment. He was so concerned about judgment. What's gonna happen? What are the steps?
What is God gonna say to me? But he wasn't saved. I said, this doesn't make sense. You're not saved yet, but you're thinking about judgment. So let's talk about the issue.
I said, now is the time of salvation, not the time of judgment. And he said, ah, boss, boss, boss. When you come back, we'll talk about salvation. I said, no. I don't know when we're going to be back.
We might never be back. But we're yeah. We're never gonna be back. So we're talking about salvation now. We're not going to leave this place unchanged.
So now is the time to give something up. Not this afternoon, not tomorrow, not next Sunday when someone else is preaching. Now is the time for surrender. So I want everyone to close your eyes and let's just think about something. Let's think about maybe you're already thinking about something that causes wrestling or friction in your heart.
That's the Holy Spirit prompting you. Where you don't necessarily want to give it up, but you kinda know you should, now is the time for surrender. So I want you to pray in your own words because you're going to surrender this. This is between you and God. Whatever you feel like in your life is preventing you from going deeper, would you just ask God to take it away?
Maybe it's these superficial joys we keep giving ourselves. Maybe it's the time you spend on social media when you could be reading your Bible. Maybe it's the excuse of hanging out with your friends instead of spending time with your family. Whatever it is, I want you to say, God, I give it to you. In my words, it looked like it looks like this, and you can pray this with me.
I surrender all that I am to you, so that you can make something fresh in me and glorify yourself. Thank you for surrendering your body Jesus to die on a cross, so that we can have new life through you and we don't have to live in shame and punishment anymore. Thank you that you bring life and life to the full, that you reign on the throne and you will never leave that throne. Father, would you out of this surrender of every person here, would you work a miracle in their lives? Would you speak to them?
Would you give them visions? Would you give them dreams of who you are? Would you show your love to them and shower them with your spirit? Would you reveal your spirit to them in a new way? We entrust our lives to you.
Everything we are is yours. We ask that you would use us, Jesus. Use us to spread your love to those around us. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.
And so I just wanna say, whatever it is, I know what it is for me. I I don't know what it is for you. But whatever it is, leave it here. Don't walk home with it. Leave it in God's hands.
God can God's power is perfect in your weakness. Leave this place unchanged. In my case, it's a daily continuous thing. God used my life. Here it is.
Do what you want with me. Live in freedom. Sometimes, or at least in in my testimony, something happens and I say,
oh, I'm free. I'm free. I'm free.
And then I don't pray about it anymore, and then I'd fall back into my old ways. It's a daily ritual to to pray, God, here I am. No matter where you are, God can use your surrender for big things. And I look at my life and I say, I was a ski bum, now I'm a missionary. So it must it worked for me.
Okay.
Let's move on to what we have in the future of J future of J Zone youth camps. For a long time, this has been a dream of ours to have a camp just like the camp that we met at in Northern California. Have a camp that Zambian kids can come to to experience Jesus in new ways. And so this is our site plan for our youth camp. We have everything from a pool to a dining hall to an office space and storage area, to a team house where maybe a future first B team can come.
We have sports fields, football, basketball, volleyball, and our big dreams are maybe a ropes course and archery and a bike track. We'll leave those dreams there. But we just wanted it to be legit. It's a very African thing to say, oh, we've got the bricks. We got the money.
Here's the land. Let's build it right now. And But we want it to be legit. And so last August, we hired a Zambian architect to design everything from camp layout to the buildings. And, yeah, this is this is what we have.
The the total estimate for all of these things is 512,000, which is lower than I was estimating, but it's still amazing. The first house that's going to be built is the team house, which is in the top left corner. And then we have
It's the top right corner.
Top left. And then clockwise, we have our office space and then our dining hall and then our cabins. And so, yeah, the first building that's gonna be built is our team house. We can host camps out of there. We can host teams.
We can start building from there.
Alright. So our current needs are, of course, that 81,000 to start that team house and then our monthly budget of 5,100. And that provides things like the Bibles we bought and fixing up the school, things like that, not just for us to gallivant around Africa in with. And then our prayer requests are always that kids can encounter Jesus in their life and change from that, and then safe travel as we travel back April 6 back to Zambia. So thank you guys so much for letting us speak.
It was really a privilege and an honor. In the back, there's a blue table that has some cards that say pray for Zambia and then some reminders about our info on the back. Put them on your fridge. Put them on your kitchen counters wherever you see them so that you can remember to pray for Zambia in the upcoming months. So I will pray, and then we're good.
Alright. Oh, there's a song. I forgot. Dear God, thank you so much for the opportunity to gather together as believers. We know it's such a privilege to be able to speak your name so openly.
We thank you for all of these beautiful people and that you are doing changing things in their life and that you are working through them. Thank you for the snow, for some last few powder days before the season ends, and may you bless us as we leave this place. Amen.
Before you go, we wanna bless them, pray for them. Just want to reiterate, this church supports these guys monthly. So every time you put money into the offering plate, portions of it go to you guys. You've got the property. Maybe you said this, but I want to just bullet point a couple of things.
You've got the property. You've got a fence around it. You've got some security. You've got a road. So they've got their infrastructure started.
I we do support them monthly, but they've got extra visions and plans. And so if anybody wants to give to that, you can always give to the through the offering in the church towards those funds, and we'll make sure it gets to them. And the funds that you're gonna put in right now, 100% will go to blessing them this way. Lord Jesus, I just wanna say thank you for Anders and for Brooke and their willingness to go, their willingness to listen. An example for us, Lord, that you are the relentless creator, eternal God who pursues each one of us individually.
And you love us completely. And I pray, lord, that you will bless them as they go forward. We pray that you'll bless them financially in provisions, Lord, for going full time. And there's so many other things, Lord, that need to happen for that. We just pray that you'll provide for them in in all of those ways.
We're so grateful to be willing and able to to give of what you've given us, and we pray that you'll take it and multiply it and bless them, bless their ministry, bless the team that they work with there through the J Zone in Zambia. And, lord, bring the funds in for this infrastructure for this camp. And most importantly, lord, with every penny that goes into this plate, we pray that you will attach the gospel of Jesus Christ to these dear folks, lord, our brothers and sisters yet to be in Zambia, that they many, many, many people would come to know you and and just have make peace with you, Lord, in their hearts. And I pray that for each one of us here this morning as well, that every day we would come to you as our loving heavenly father and to have that relationship with you. We thank you, bless them, and bless these funds in Jesus name.
Amen.
Amen. I will sing, sing, sing to my God and my king. And all else fades away. And I will love love with this argy man you've been good always I will sing saints Would you stand and join
us for this last chorus?
Oh, I will sing, say, saint to my
Lord, as we go from here, we take your words to heart, to love you with our heart, soul, mind, strength, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. God, would you empower us? You're giving us the desire and the power to do what pleases you. Thank you, Lord, for our missionaries that that go afar. Lord, thank you for the mission right here in Jackson.
As we go out from from here, Lord, we take you and your message with us in Jesus name. Amen. Exact
Share this message
Every word on these came out of the message. Download one and post it anywhere.
