Guest - Characteristics That Missionaries Need Heb 10 Vs 36-39

Thank you for this day given us. Thank you for allowing us to be here, Lord, to fellowship and also to worship in your name. I pray, Lord, that you basically help us prepare our hearts to hear the word of which is going to be preached here today and also prepare our hearts to be ready to worship you here, Lord, also so that we can better understand your word that is going to be preached today and understanding your character here, Lord.

Allow us to receive what's happening here today and also to take that forward into our lives and also to help impact others who may not know about Christ as well. In your name we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.

Stand together with me, if you would, as we sing, He Will Hold Me Fast. Good morning. Today I'm going to be reading Habakkuk 2, 2 through 4. Habakkuk 2, 2 through 4.

And I'm reading ESV. And the Lord answered me, write the vision, make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time. It hastens to the end, it will not lie.

If it seems slow, wait for it. It will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his.

Faith. Thank the Lord for his word. You may be seated. And at this time we're going to ask our guest, Brother John Knox, to come and bring his word and also give a testimony of whatever is.

Laid on his heart. In 1984, which was 40 years ago this summer, my wife and I flew to Sacramento and the mission headquarters was in Sacramento at that time. So we've had a long connection with Sacramento and the Faith Bible Church, which started supporting us shortly after that and has continued to give us monthly financial gifts and prayer support, I know.

And we've had contact, especially with Arnett's through the years and stayed in their home. They've been very gracious to us and we appreciate their hospitality and the others in church. We've gotten to know a little bit, not too much since we're not here very often, but it's been a blessing to be able to be back today and to meet your, well, new to us pastor and his family.

And we look forward to more time together in the future. So it's good to see how God is working in your midst. And we know that no matter where you are, that we have to remain faithful to the Lord and keep our eyes on the Lord.

It's so easy to look to men, isn't it? You know, churches come and go and they rise and fall. And I hear of churches that close and churches that open and churches that are big and then they split and they're small.

All kinds of things happen. But I think one problem is that people don't have their eyes on the Lord. They're just looking around to men and seeing what's going on and not really having their trust and faith in Christ alone.

We're going to sing a song in Japanese and in English, but day by day. And it says that each passing moment, how can we live each day? We have to trust in the Lord's strength. Strength I find to meet my trials here.

This world has trials. And I heard a pastor one time and he would say, you know, when you have trials, you can put our trust in the Lord. And then later on, he said, like, I guess I should say that if you have trials, like, well, you might have trials, but, you know, it doesn't always happen.

But then he said, you know, he realized that everybody has trials. It's not just a few people here and there. We all face trials. But our trust and faith has to be in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And so we don't have cause for worry or for fear because we know that God is going to give us perfect rest and peace in our hearts. And that's the message we have to proclaim to the people in Japan. It's not what we say.

It's what God says in his word. And the people there often are looking for peace and for happiness, and they don't have it, even though they're prosperous and they're educated and they have all the electronic gadgets you want.

But that doesn't give any satisfaction. And we pray that they would recognize even more that they need to put their faith and trust in our Lord Jesus Christ. We always use music in our ministry in Japan.

We would sing, of course, and play instruments. And then I would use it as a means of outreach to other people by teaching. Sometimes I would teach piano lessons or even guitar lessons or trombone lessons.

I'll play the trombone some. Then I think I showed in our slides this morning that we would have a Christmas program. So we would prepare special music for that time and maybe choir singing parts. And a lot of times they would ask me, you know, teach us to sing parts.

So it was kind of like they didn't really know what to do, but they wanted to learn. And they were very eager and did a great job. We're thankful for the progress that was made. And it was a means of reaching unsaved people for Christ, especially Christmas.

The Japanese are interested in Christmas. And they like to know, you know, it's kind of a fun thing. They don't really know about Christ and why he came and so on. But they know about Santa Claus and Christmas trees and lights and illumination.

And it's kind of a tradition to have a Christmas cake on Christmas Eve. So in the stores they will sell these real fancy decorated cakes that have strawberries on top and say Merry Christmas or something like that.

But whenever we had our Christmas program, of course, our emphasis would be the reason why we celebrate that time of year, remembering how Christ came to give his life and also the message of the cross, that he came to die for our sins.

And to be a substitute for the punishment that we face instead of having to bear that penalty ourselves, Christ bore it for us. And that concept is somewhat hard to grasp for people that have never heard it before.

You know, probably most of you have heard about Christ coming to die for our sins and how that we can receive forgiveness when we trust in him and receive the gift of eternal life and so on. But when you hear it the first time, they might think, oh, that's really strange.

I don't know if I really want to think about that anymore. I've had people kind of say that. Oh, read the Bible. That's just too hard for me. And they don't want to listen to it. But we're thankful for those who have listened and who have received Christ and are going on to serve the Lord.

And we appreciate your part in that ministry as missionaries. You know, missionaries means someone who is sent. And in order for us to go to be able to tell people in Japan about Jesus Christ, we have to be sent.

Now, I know that this church is not really the main church that has sent us. We have a church in South Carolina that we were part of and that sent us. But it's also been kind of like a part of what we would call faith missions to visit other churches.

And other churches will pray for us and support us and help us to send us to another country where we can proclaim God's word. And you have definitely had a part in that. And we appreciate it very much.

As some of you have heard already, I think most of you were in the Sunday school time. Some maybe were not. But I showed pictures of the ministry in Japan. And also, I mentioned that we have returned from Japan earlier this year.

So in a sense, we're kind of retired from living full time in Japan. But that doesn't mean we've retired from mission work. We want to continue to represent missions and Japan and to work with Japanese people here in the United States.

We are, I guess, 68 years old, which is kind of, you know, kind of a retirement age in a sense. But that doesn't mean we want to just sit back and twiddle our thumbs the rest of our lives. You know, you can do that.

So missionaries, you know, when they come back, some people say, well, what are you going to do? Well, you know, you can have two main choices. One can be that, well, we'll just, we've been missionaries and we'll just resign.

And we'll just go and do other things or whatever in our retirement years and maybe take cruises or whatever. I don't know. I don't think most people, missionaries like, want to do that. It feels kind of boring after all the other things we've been doing.

But anyway, we could do that. Or you can just say, we will continue to represent missions, work with people, witness for Christ, and whatever opportunities God gives us. And that's what we feel that the Lord is leading us to at this time.

And we want to especially work with Japanese people in our community. Or even as we travel, sometimes we see some Japanese, we can give them a gospel tract and try to be a witness to them. And the Lord has already given us some opportunities in that way even in the past few weeks.

And so we're thankful for that. And then continue to have contact with the Japanese in Japan as we write them and encourage them, those who are believers. And some may have expressed a desire to come and visit here in the States.

So we would have them in our home and have an extended time of contact with them and read the Bible. And if they're Christians, to really encourage them. Or if they don't know the Lord, maybe to really challenge them concerning putting their faith and trust in Christ.

And also our mission has given us some responsibility of what they would call caring for retired missionaries. Trying to maintain contact, visit, and pray with them, and try to help encourage some of the retired missionaries that are a part of our mission.

So that's kind of just the beginning ministry right now, but we hope that will continue to increase in the days ahead. So those are some of the things that we're planning to do in the coming months and years.

And we still are visiting our supporting churches right now, those who have been part of our missionary support here in California, as well as back east. So that's what we're doing right now in the next few months.

I want to have us turn to Hebrews chapter 10. And I'd like to speak on a topic of characteristics that missionaries need. What are some characteristics that we need as missionaries? Now, there are many characteristics, and they're not all included in the message today.

But there are some things here that I think are very important that I want to emphasize. And as we think about missionaries, I don't want to just think, well, this is only something that those who are specifically missionaries need.

But this is something that all of us need. We all need to make sure that we have the characteristics that God wants in our lives. And I think we can find some of these things here. Let's just read these verses in Hebrews 10, 36 through 39.

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised. For yet a little while, and the coming one will come, and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and persevere—I'm sorry—and preserve their souls. Why don't we just look to the Lord in prayer before we continue the message today?

Our Lord and heavenly Father, I pray that you will help us to know more of your Word as we look at it today. Not only to see it in front of our eyes, but also to apply it to our lives. And that as we are challenged about these various characteristics that we all need to have, that it would be something that would be an encouragement and blessing that we might be able to help us to draw closer to you.

If there's someone here who has not yet even made that first step of receiving Christ, that you would challenge their hearts today, that they would humble themselves before you, and know that Christ Jesus can be their own Savior from sin.

That we can have the hope of eternal life. Lord, I pray that this would be a time of encouragement and blessing in each one of our lives, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we know that we have many needs. When I talk about the things that missionaries need, we can all, you know, think of a lot of things.

I won't even bother mentioning them right now, because I don't want to sidetrack this right now. But, you know, as we go to Japan, we need to adjust to culture. We need to make contacts with people so they can hear about the gospel.

We need to learn the language. Sometimes there are children's needs of education and health issues that we face. These are all needs that we have. And we need co-workers or Japanese pastors and people who can continue the ministry that has been established.

So the first thing we need, I think—let's just look at another verse, and we'll come back to Hebrews 11—I'm sorry, Hebrews 10, but just look at another verse in Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 16. It says for—I'm sorry, I have a long verse here.

Verse 16. Okay, Hebrews 4, 16. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So here we have this mention of a need. So what is it that we need?

Here is the first thing I want to point out. And sometimes this verse is referred to as prayer, drawing with confidence or boldly before the throne of grace. Our relationship with God is something that is of vital importance.

And specifically, being able to have that communication with God that we might call prayer. That's one thing that we need. And it's something that's mentioned many times in the Bible, and I could preach the entire message about prayer.

I'm sure you can understand that because prayer is so important. But the first step to really becoming a missionary is prayer, not just, well, I like to be a missionary and let me see, where do I want to go?

Oh, maybe Japan would be a good place to go. Those people there need the gospel, and so I'll try to get support and join a mission organization and then go to Japan. Well, those are good ideas, but there's one thing lacking.

We need to pray. We need to pray that God will lead, and that's one thing that we did. I mean, I won't ever say that we prayed too much. Often, it's like we haven't prayed enough. But it is important to spend time in prayer.

And we said, as we believe God is leading us to Japan, Lord, we're not able to get there on our own. You have to open doors. You have to provide and make it possible and to let your will be made known clearly in that way.

So prayer is very important. Then you might say, well, I prayed about this a lot, and God has provided. Now we're here in Japan, and so I can just work. Prayer is not important. No, we still need prayer, even more prayer.

Can you imagine trying to go to a country where you don't know the language, and everything is different, and people are not coming on, hey, would you tell me about the Bible? No, they'd rather not talk to you, especially if it has something to do with religious things.

Right now, religious things in general are very much opposed in Japan. There's been a number of kind of quirky religious groups that have caused lots of trouble in Japan. And just recently, there was an assassination of the former prime minister by some religious group, and so they have been suppressing religious groups to a greater extent than they did before.

So it's not, you know, you talk about religion, oh, that's the last thing we want to talk about. But we need to have lots of prayer, that God would open the hearts of the people, that they would look beyond the barriers that are there, whatever it may be.

They would recognize that they have a need of eternal life and a relationship with a true and living God. There are so many verses, I can't turn to them all, but you can look at one verse where Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 1, just a little bit before Hebrews, he says, Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored as happened among you, and so on, that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not all have faith, and so on.

So Paul recognized the importance of prayer, and he asked the people here in Thessalonica to pray for him, and very specific things here as well. The word of the Lord may speed ahead, that it might go out and be able to be received and believed and followed, and that we would be delivered from those people who would oppose it.

Now in Japan, we don't really have people who might persecute or actively oppose, but you know, the spiritual warfare is very real. The work of Satan is very real, even though it may not be as obvious as in some countries.

The government doesn't come and close down your church and take away your Bibles, no, we don't have that in Japan. But there's a lot of opposition, because there are many things there that keep people from wanting to follow Christ, and they think that, you know, going to church, that's really strange, and that keeps you from being involved in the community, because they do all their community activities on Sunday, so if you're a good Japanese, you have to be involved in those things, you don't have time for church, and so on.

And so those are ways that Satan works to try to hinder people from really following God. Or if you have a job, very often, people in Japan, as you've heard, are extremely busy, they work late at night.

I had an English class with a man several years ago, and then eventually he had to stop, because he said, I get home so late at night, like on the last train at midnight, and then I leave early in the morning, I don't have time to do anything else.

So Sunday is a time to sleep and maybe do something else, go to church, oh, that's really hard. So all those are things that are barriers, but we need prayer that God will overcome and break down those barriers.

Well, there's many more things that I can mention about prayer, but I think we all recognize that prayer is vital, it's a very important part of ministry, and that's true here in this church also, I'm sure.

Now, look back at Hebrews chapter 10 that we read at the beginning, in verse 36. Right here it says something we need. We have need of endurance right here from the very beginning. You can see that clearly.

It's easy to give up. It's easy to think that it's too hard to continue, but we need to endure. What are things that we need to endure? Well, we need to endure the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ to continue in that, not to give up.

We need to endure when it's tough and difficult. I'm not saying that there never is a time that something might happen that a missionary might need to leave the field. Maybe someone in their family gets very sick and they can't continue for whatever reason, but I know a lot of times missionaries leave just for what I would call maybe petty things, you know, little things.

Oh, it's just been really tough for us, and one missionary family, they told me that, well, I was thinking about where to work in Japan. They'd been in Japan for a few years, and then they said, well, we thought about going back to the states, and then, oh, that felt so good, and so they went back to the states.

You know, it's easy to give up and not to endure and not to continue, but God says that we need to continue and endure, and also not only to endure maybe in our ministry there, but also we need to pray that the people there will endure in their faith, because it's very easy for some people to, we've had this happen, they come to church, and they seem like they're real excited, and then they just kind of drift away, and they don't really endure in following God.

So he says here we need endurance, and then the third thing I want to point out here that we need is to do the will of God, because what does it say here? That when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised.

So here in verse 36, it points out the fact that not only do we need to endure, but also to do God's will. Now, there are many verses in the Bible that talk about doing God's will. One of my favorite verses, you can look at this, is Romans 12 .2, and Romans 12 .2 talks about the will of God as well.

He says here, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good, what is acceptable, what is perfect, so that we need to discern the will of God in our lives.

I think this is one of the biggest problems that people face today, is because we want to do what we want to do. It's all about ourselves, isn't it? And I want to do this, and I think this is true, and I want this kind of thing to take place, and we don't really think about what does God want?

What is pleasing and acceptable to God? What is God's will? Now sometimes we might say, well, I'm thinking about God's will for my life, and what kind of work I should do, or what kind of ministry I should do, and you might say, well, I want to be a missionary, I want to go to Japan, for example.

So then you might say, well, we've gotten to Japan, and we are doing God's will, but you know, that's not the end. Every single day, even now, we have to think, what is God's will for our daily lives, and how we can live a way that pleases Him, and be a testimony to God, every day.

We have to make decisions. Sometimes situations and circumstances change, and so we're always having the need to pray and trust God, to know His will. What about Jesus Christ? John 4, 24. You can look at that, because I think it's a very important verse.

He was our example that we need to follow. The Lord Jesus says in John 4, 24, and this is the famous story of the woman at the well, but after that, Jesus was talking to His disciples, and then in verse 24, He says, let's see, I wrote down 24, but I think I wrote down the wrong verse.

Okay, it's verse 34, not 24, I'm sorry, verse 34. Jesus said, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to accomplish His work. Remember the disciples brought some food to Jesus, and He said, this isn't what's most important.

My food, what's really important, is to do the will of Him who sent me. That means God's will. Not only to just do it, but to accomplish it, to finish it, to continue until the end. So as we do God's will, it's not like, a little bit I've followed God's will, but then I can go and do what I want.

No, it's that all that we have in our lives, all that's important to us, all the things in our lives that really mean much to us in every aspect of our lives, our family, and our work, and our church, all needs to be controlled under the will of God.

And then, what does it say here, go back to Hebrews chapter 10, in verse 36, that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised, or you might receive the reward. You might say, you know, it seems better that, for me, it's more interesting and more fun to do my own will, to do what I want, isn't it?

Why should I think about what God wants? I mean, that's kind of, can be kind of tough, isn't it? Well, we always look at the result, and the consequences, and the future, not just what is here right now.

Maybe for five minutes it might seem fun to do my own will, but it will never bring lasting satisfaction. What really satisfies, and what really is worthwhile, is doing God's will, because it brings eternal reward.

It's laying up treasure in heaven, and not here on earth. You can have the most beautiful house, and swimming pool, and a big boat to go out on the lake, and you can fly around the world, and tours, but whenever you die, every bit of that will be gone.

It will mean nothing. Only what's done for Christ will last. In fact, there was a poem, I don't have it right in front of me here, but written by a former missionary, C .T. Studd, and just the title of it was, Only One Life, It Will Soon Be Past.

Only what's done for Christ will last. I remember hearing that when I was young, and I thought, how true it is. This life we live will soon be past, but what will last is what we do for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

That will have eternal reward. And we think about the goal, because when you see here in the next verse, verse 37, for yet a little while, and the coming one will come, it will not delay. Now this is referring to the return of Christ, he will come.

Now this was written back during New Testament times, you might say, oh, Christ said he's gonna come, and he hasn't come yet, so maybe he's not gonna come. You know, that's in the Bible as well. You know, oh where is Christ coming?

We've seen, we don't see him coming. He will come. We know that's true. Exactly when he will come, the Bible says, no man knows, Jesus said, no man knows the day nor the hour, the time when Christ will return.

We have to be ready for that. But, basically, I think when you look at this and saying that we know that Christ will one day return and not delay, that we're looking towards the future, the goal, what really matters, the return of Jesus Christ.

Or one day, even if we die before that time, we'll beat Christ, and the Bible says every one of us will give an account of ourselves, whether it's good or bad, before Christ. And that's kind of scary, isn't it?

That maybe we haven't done what we ought to do, but that it's not ever too late to say, Lord, maybe I've wasted my life before, but from now on, I'm gonna make my life count for Christ. For me to live as Christ, that's what really is gonna matter in my life.

Not just living for myself and doing what I want to do, but to make sure that I do what God's word says that I should do. How do we know what God's will is and all these things? By reading his word and filling our minds with his word.

And then, we can receive reward. And then there's something else here that we need to do in verse 38. But my righteous one shall live by faith, or sometimes it's translated the just, it's the same thing, shall live by faith.

In fact, it was read this morning earlier, that the just shall live by faith. The ones who have put their faith and trust in Christ, we don't live according to just what we have, or our own methods, or by works.

We live by faith. The missionary life is very often a life of faith. And we know, when we, like we knew, we went to Japan, we said, we have to have faith. We have to trust that God is going to work. We don't see everything.

You know, what is faith? At nighttime, whenever you turn on the car lights and drive home, do you see every single road and obstacle before you get home? No, you just see what's in front of you. And then if you turn the corner, you can see what's down that street, so that you can drive safely.

Maybe somewhere down the street, there's a tree that fell over the road or something. You don't see that till you get close to it. But you don't know what might happen. You just have to live by faith.

And trust that God will help you and take care of your needs. You know, there are different philosophies of missions. There are some denominations. I'll just mention, maybe a Southern Baptist denomination, or Methodist, or Presbyterian.

They send out some missionaries, and they basically pay their salary, they say, that will pay what you need, and you can go and do missionary work. And then, in our situation, we would have more of what we would call faith missions, in the sense that we say, well, we don't receive a salary, but we're going to visit different churches and tell them about our work, and trust that God will provide through these churches that help in our support, which is what you have been doing for us, and other churches as well.

So sometimes that's called living by faith and faith missions. I'm not saying that if you receive a salary, you don't have any faith. That doesn't mean that. But, you know, we don't know what's going to happen from day to day, or month to month, or year to year.

And God has provided, no matter what the circumstances have been, financially and otherwise. There was a time when the Japanese yen rose to a very high value, meaning the American dollar was very low.

So we were running a big deficit in our income. It wasn't that we lost support, it's just that it was like almost double. So it was like we lost half of our support. So I said, well, there's only two options.

Either I have to come back to the States and maybe try to get more support, or maybe I can get some work in Japan. So at that time, I was able to get a permanent residence visa in Japan, which meant that we could work and do things in Japan like any other Japanese.

So I went to elementary school, and I began to teach English in elementary school. We continued our work. Of course, I was busier with teaching during the day in elementary school, but that gave us some extra income until that gap was remedied, and later on it was okay.

But there were many opportunities in the elementary school. In fact, even before we left Japan, there were people that we had contact with from that time that we still maintain contact. And people would come to church and heard the gospel, or come to camp, or English classes as a result.

So, and I remember more than once a teacher would say, you know, we want to know about American culture. And we've seen, you know, you might look at a movie or someone somewhere, and they see people praying before they eat.

You know, not every movie does that, but once in a while, like Little House on the Prairie or something like that, you know. And they liked that in Japan in the past. So they said, well, would you pray before we eat?

Well, that's a great opportunity to, you know, to give the gospel, you know. And they don't normally do that, but, you know, those kind of opportunities the Lord gives. Or sometimes people say, well, why are you here in Japan?

What do you do? And I talk about our church ministry and teaching the Bible, and we invite them to church or to a program or something like that that we have. So that was an opportunity, even though I had to do some work in that sense.

For about five years, I did that. But it gave opportunities of reaching to people that I didn't have otherwise. And one more thing that it helped us in particular is that it gave us some acceptance in the community.

You might say, what do you mean? Well, it was like, well, we're doing something to contribute to the community. We're helping to teach in the school and so on. If you just kind of do your own thing and have a church, they say, what's that?

You know, you're wasting your time or, you know, what's that all about? They don't understand. But if you can do something in the community to help and to contribute or to teach English classes or to so on, then they accept people who say, well, you're here for a good reason.

And then you might have an opportunity to talk to them more about God's Word. But all these things take faith. When we started in Japan, we had no idea, you know, where are we going to work? How is it going to work out?

Are we going to we want to start a church ministry, but we didn't know anyone. We had to pray and trust God to work to bring us into contact with people. So when we first started, after learning language to some extent, there was always more to learn, but we were at the point we wanted to start a church ministry.

And Becky's mother was still there. And we went to this area we were looking at, maybe in this area we could start something. And there was a small I showed some pictures of the small camp that was in that area.

So I thought, well, the camp is close by. Maybe we can use that and be able to minister in this town, about 35 ,000 people. It's a suburb of Tokyo, so of course the metropolitan area is much greater, but in that town there are about 35 ,000 people.

And so Becky's mom had just before that gotten a phone call because someone had gone by the camp property that had a phone number and had seen the phone number and called her because it had the church's phone number on it.

And this was a son of a family who were Christians and so had ridden the bicycle and seen his phone number and called. And so the mother had said, oh, well, if you ever come out our way, you know, just come stop by and visit.

So Becky's mom said, well, I got this phone call and I have this phone number. And someone said, you know, come and visit, so I'll give them a call. And we were in the town and she went to the public telephone at that time and didn't have cell phones.

And she called and the lady said, oh, yeah, I'm very close by. Just wait a minute, I'll come. And she came pedaling on her bicycle, you know, and met us and said, come to our house. And so just to make a long story short, they were a Christian family who had moved there, but they didn't have a good church to go to.

They said, we want to attend your church. So right from the very beginning, we had some contacts with people that we could have to start a church ministry. And then others' time went on. But, you know, before that, what's going to happen?

How are you going to be able to do that? I just a few years ago talked to a pastor in Japan and he had started a new church and he was discouraged. He said, the only ones who come to my church are myself and my family.

So it's not easy because people aren't eager to come to church. But as time went on, we were able to have contacts with people. And then about 10 years ago, Becky was giving, I had gone to the States because my parents were not well and I just was visiting there a short time.

And Becky was giving out some church announcements and tracts or whatever in the community. And she saw these two girls that were playing outside, young girls, kindergarten age. And she talked to them and said, go talk to your mother or whatever.