Hope In Times of Crisis (Habakkuk, Craig Weyandt)

Good morning, well good stuff.

It's great to worship and it's great to, it's great to be remembered, yeah.

I was a little, little kid when this church started and then an adult when this building was constructed.

It's wonderful to come back, so many good memories and it's still great to see some of the old timers.

We have this kind of infamous or famous picture of our youth group when

I was 15 and it's up in the Pocono Mountains and I was about 15 at that time, so now you can tell by my hair.

Many, many, many years have gone by and there were, there are still people here that were there then, so they're older than I am actually, but I won't say

Rick Thompson exactly how old that is, but I have very warm memories coming here and I was here for seven years as an adult helping with worship and very, very special times.

I was ordained through this church with the Evangelical Free Church and sent out from here, so it's great to come back and Jeffrey, it's great to meet you and thank you for sharing your pulpit here and an opportunity to share.

I was a little bit of a slow starter and I was 45 years old when

I got married and some of you saw my wife. She just left because the baby saw the kids go out and she needed to go out with those kids, so, but Alessandra came with me.

We got married eight years ago, so there was much rejoicing in the church when the single guy finally got married and 51 years old when the

Lord blessed us with a child, so we have two -year -old Alicia and so I hope you'll rejoice with us again, so finally we have both ladies here on this visit and they just snuck out to the nursery, but I hope you'll have a chance to say hello to both

Alessandra and Alicia. We have our updated prayer card. They keep getting updated.

For a long time it was just me, then my wife and I, then my wife and I and our dog and that was very important to us, and a little

Juju and now the dog and the baby, the whole clan is there, so they're at the back of the table.

You can sign up for our prayer letter if you'd like. If you're not getting that, you'd like to get that and take a prayer card as well, so we live and work in the city of Rio de

Janeiro, Brazil, and more than ever Rio's been in the news, and why is that?

The Olympics, so people always ask us, hey, how'd the Olympics go, you know, and unfortunately we were not in Rio while the

Olympics were there. Reach Global, the EFCA, had this big conference in Panama, which we needed to be at.

At the same time, we were kind of ready to get out of Rio, because it's a

Rio that everybody wants you to see, and we love that Rio too.

Many of you saw my proposal to my wife, that special time that we shared at the

Christ statue. That's one of the modern wonders of the world, and so that was a glorious moment, and when people come visit us, we always take people there, because it's part of Rio you want people to see.

The politicians want people to see, and many people at the Olympics got to see the

Christ statue and many other beautiful things about Rio, but there's also a side of Rio that they don't want you to see.

Recently, you can go to the next slide here, recently I was just in Louisville with the

Evangelical Free Church Youth Conference Challenge, so every two years they have this, and there was over 4 ,000 students from around America there, and this year's mission focus was

Love Moves Brazil. Now the theme of the focus was Live Cent, so they were challenging these 15 year olds and high school kids to live as one cent, and that was a great message, but then they allowed us, there was 80 people, we had 40 from Brazil, 40 students from Brazil, and 40 from the

EFCA crisis response team, which is down in Louisiana, which is very busy right now responding to this hurricane, and we have a ministry in Haiti, so they're all over the place, but it's a very dynamic ministry from EFCA, so 40 of the crisis response folks and 40 of the

Brazilians that came up, our team, we constructed a coffee house big enough to sit five to eight hundred kids, that's a big coffee house, at the second floor of the

Expo Center, and on both ends of that coffee house there was a tour, and the kids came in and they saw

Rio Olympics, and they saw the Christ statue, and they saw the hippie fair, and they saw

Maracana Stadium, but then they came out and they saw another part of Rio, the

Rio favelas, there are 1 ,000 slums in Rio de Janeiro called favelas, and they began to see another side of the city that most people don't get to see.

When they passed through that they were quite emotional, and then the question was asked, but isn't it that way with us, because they were a little indignant with the leaders of Rio that they would hide this, but isn't it true too that each of us have a side we want people to see that we put on Facebook, but maybe there's something hidden or lies that we believe ourselves, and those kids came out of there broken, and they wrote down lies they believed about themselves, and then they smashed them, and they received prayer, freedom from that bondage, and then they came into another room, and they wrote truths about themselves, and it was really beautiful.

The Brazilians, see this Christ behind, now go to the next slide, that Christ statue, and all of this here, that's the arcs down in the city, all that's made of a mosaic of the broken tiles, of the, there was about 3 ,500 kids that went through that, so it was a really neat experience, and I had the opportunity to share with half those kids the transition from the beautiful side of Rio to the hidden side of Rio.

Come to the next slide here. So to do that they came out of Manacana, and they were just kids from middle

America going through a tour, but then we asked them, before you come into this side, the hidden side of Rio, this is kind of graffiti that was painted on a wall outside of a favela in Rio, and we asked them, what do you see?

What do you feel when you see this painting? What do you understand?

What was the artist trying to convey? And they begin to give their answers, and they were quite frank.

Some said, well it's obvious, Brazilians love to play soccer more than they love to work.

Others said, I believe that Brazilians like to watch soccer more than give their own kids food.

Others said, they're really mad that they lost to the Germans in the World Cup, and they're really hungry for an

Olympic victory, which they did get. That was one of the things we cheered about in the Olympics. So we got these responses.

What do you see? What do you understand? What do you feel?

How much does it cost for a city to throw a party big enough for the whole world?

They had the World Cup and the Olympics. What does it cost a city to throw a party that size?

12 billion dollars to build 12 stadiums around Brazil, and then the

Olympics just focused in Rio. So where do you get the money to build those stadiums?

Investments, right? People invest, and it's going to be great for the city. Well, maybe you heard, maybe you didn't hear of the

Petrobras scandal. So in the last two years, the largest scandal in the history of a democratic nation, any nation in all time, was revealed in Rio de

Janeiro. It was the largest scandal in any democratic nation in the history of time.

They stole more than 6 billion of the 12 billion to do the Olympics and the World Cup.

So then where do you get the money? Where do you make up that money? All that money went to personal bank accounts. So where do you come up with the rest of the money?

Where would you do it? Taxes, right? What do taxes pay for?

Well, in a socialized medicine country like Rio, hospitals and doctors in the slums.

So if we not close the hospitals, but we just won't pay doctors, and when the medicine runs out, we won't put new medicine in, and when the x -ray machine breaks, we won't fix it.

Hey, there's enough money for a stadium. One of the stadiums was built up in the

Amazon, and another in the Pantanal, which is like our Everglades.

The fan base at both of those places, 3 ,500 people for the local teams. The stadium seats 65 ,000.

How will they support those stadiums? They won't. Close in the hospitals, 1 billion spent to build these stadiums that will never be used again.

So Rio de Janeiro is now hosting the Olympics, just hosted, and a month before the Olympics came, a month before the party started,

Rio declared bankruptcy. Do you cancel the party? No.

Where do you get the money? What do school teachers make? School teachers in Rio make $800 a month.

Not a bad salary, considering Rio is about the 12th most expensive city in the world to live.

What do you think teachers were making right before the Olympics when Rio declared bankruptcy?

$20 a month. So how do you put food as a teacher on your kid's plate, making $20 a month?

Some say, well, they stole it. They sell drugs. Would you do that?

Probably not. What would you do? What would I do? What do we do? We use our credit cards, right?

What do we pay for a credit card annually if you can't make your monthly statement? What do we pay in the

United States? Maybe some 12, some 21, some 25 % per year.

What do you think they pay in Brazil? 200%.

If your credit's good, 400 % if your credit's not so good.

So if you spend $1 ,000 on food that month and other things, within three to five years, you have a $50 ,000 debt and multiply.

So you need to cancel that and make an amount you can pay the manager for the rest of your life in debt.

What do you see? What do you feel? What do you understand? Rio had a party for the world.

The poor paid. The world danced, but the poor weren't invited to the party.

If you ever see the ticket to one of those events. God, how long do

I have to cry out for help before you listen? How many times do

I have to yell, help! Murder! Police! You know in Rio, they don't have enough money to pay the police either.

That comes out of taxes. You know how many murders? How many murders were there last year in Chicago?

It's pretty alarming, right? Somewhere around 1 ,000. I think New York and these other big cities are around 400 or 500.

How many murders in the streets of Rio de Janeiro? Just the city of Rio, Olympic City.

The first three months, January, February, and March, 2 ,000 murders in the streets of Rio, the host city of the

Olympics. How many times do I have to yell, help! Murder! Police!

Before you come to the rescue? Why do you force me to look at evil?

Stare trouble in the face day after day. Anarchy and violence break out. Quarrels and fights all over the place.

Law and order fall to pieces. Justice is a joke. The wicked have the righteous hamstrung and stand justice on its head.

Now a city leader wrote that prayer. Who do you think that was?

This is from the prophet Habakkuk, thousands of years ago when he looked at his

Jerusalem. If you want to turn your Bibles to Habakkuk, we're going to look at that book as a source for hope.

Where do we get hope in the face of crises? Where do we find hope in times of crises?

And we heard the answer here today, Pastor Jeff. He just admonished our family and us as a church.

The answer is, but we're going to see how we can get there and how Habakkuk, the prophet, got there.

So this is Jerusalem in the seventh century before Christ.

The Assyrians had been raised up and they took the northern tribes. And that northern tribes of Israel no longer exist.

And now Habakkuk, God's prophet, he's tired of doing his job, right?

Because he's lost faith. He looks at Jerusalem and he sees a perversion of justice and violence.

And he's dismayed about his country, his city. But he's even more dismayed about what?

His God. Let's read it again. Habakkuk 1, verses 1 through 5.

How long, Lord, must I call for help? But you do not listen. The inventor of the ear doesn't hear or cry out to you violence.

But you do not save a Savior who doesn't save.

Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? So here's the first complaint.

Why do you tolerate evil? And that's a question that keeps going around.

We always ask that. Destruction and violence are before me.

There is strife and conflict abounds. Therefore, the law is paralyzed. Justice never prevails. The wicked hemming the righteous so that justice is perverted.

And then the Lord gives his response. So the Lord is not as silent as it would seem.

The Lord says in verse 5, look at the nations and watch and be utterly amazed.

For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.

Isn't this God's way? Listen, I'm not deaf. I'm not blind.

I see. And I am working in your midst. I will do it. But even if I told you what

I'm doing, you won't believe it. And what's he doing?

I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people.

And he's raising up the Babylonians to do what? As a tool of correction for Israel.

These people, what are they like? These people, these next verses, they are feared and dreaded, ruthless, impetuous, law to themselves, like horses and leopards, they're swift, like fierce wolves at dusk, like eagles swooping to devour.

They come with the intent on violence. They mock kings, they scoff rulers, they laugh at fortified cities.

A guilty people whose own strength is their God. All the things that Jesus taught against, right?

We know what's got on God's heart. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn.

Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the pure in heart.

The peacemakers. The Babylonians are nothing like this. They told me in Sunday school,

God can't use a dirty vessel. Did you ever hear that? God is now using a filthy vessel.

And Habakkuk has a second complaint. Verse 12, Lord, are you not everlasting from everlasting?

Are you not the Holy One? And then we skip down to 13. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?

Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

So now the crisis, the faith crisis that Habakkuk has is that God is going against his own character.

How can you look upon an evil people reproving a people who are more godly than them?

We're in a dilemma. And when we look at our current enemies, we might wonder the same thing.

God, what are you doing? The prophet says this to the

Lord. I will stand at my watch, my station. I will look to see what he will say to me and what answer

I am to give this complaint. So now he's waiting for this response.

And the Lord says this right down the revelation and make it plain on the tablets so that a herald may run with it.

For the revelation awaits an appointed time. It speaks of the end and will not prove false.

Though it linger, wait for it. It will certainly come and not delay. So God's being very specific.

Write this down. This is what I'm going to do. And he talks about the condemnation on this evil people.

And Habakkuk finds his hope in what? That God is faithful and God will condemn the unjust.

So God says five woes to this evil nation. And it's good for us to pay attention to what

God condemns. So in verse six, he says this.

Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion.

In verse nine, woe to him who builds his household by unjust gain.

In verse 12, woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed. So it's basically the same thing, but it keeps increasing.

Woe to him who makes himself wealthy by extortion. Woe to him who makes his family wealthy by unjust means.

And woe to him who builds a city. He will be judged. He will be condemned. And then we turn the page.

I turn the page on verse 15. Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors, pouring it from the wineskin till they are drunk.

So they can gaze on their naked bodies. Exploitation. Woe to the one who would take advantage of the weak.

In this case, the person's in a drunken stupor. He gave them the wine and now it looks like an abuse, a sexual abuse thing.

And this is, God condemns it. In verse 19, woe to him who says to wood, come to life or to lifeless stone, wake up.

Can it give guidance? So woe to him who worships the created rather than the creator.

In the midst of all these woes and combinations, God gives three declarations of hope for the faithful, for us.

Three things while we wait for this condemnation to come. Three declarations.

The first one's in chapter 2, verse 4. See, the enemy is puffed up.

His desires are not upright. But what? What does it say?

2, verse 4. The righteous shall live by faith.

Have you ever heard that before? Have you ever memorized a verse from Habakkuk, the book of Habakkuk? Maybe you have and didn't know it.

The righteous shall live by faith. The righteous shall live by his faithfulness. Faithfulness to what?

Faith in what? To his country? To his city? Is our faith in Clinton? Hillary Clinton?

Is our faith in Trump? Probably not. Is our faith in the Democrats?

Is our faith in Republicans? Probably not. We get so dismayed. But our faith is in who?

The one who's faithful. God, Jesus, the one who does what he says.

He's faithful to his word. Write it down. I will do it. I will do it.

What will he do? 2, verse 14. Let's look at it.

Who would read that for us? Habakkuk 2, verse 14. This is what the

Lord is doing for his glory. One day, the whole earth, as water covers the sea, and we get a good picture of that during these hurricanes, the whole earth will be filled with what?

The knowledge of the glory of God. Habakkuk was looking for a specific promise to Israel.

And God is working in and through Israel. He is. But he's working beyond the geographical boundaries of Israel.

He's working beyond the political figure in Israel. Right now, he's bringing his glory to the ends of the earth.

Exodus 34, 5. From the beginning of the

Old Testament scriptures, God pronounces who he is. Moses says,

God, show me your glory. Remember, the glory shall fill the earth. Show me your glory.

And what does God do to Moses? Remember, he said, you can't see my face, but I will pass before you and I'll put you in the cleft of my hand.

And when he passes and he says, this is my glory, he proclaims his name. Remember the name of the

Lord that he proclaims the glory of the Lord. Remember, this is

I am, he says, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love, faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, forgiving rebellion, forgiving sin.

Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of their parents to the third and fourth generation.

And Moses falls down on his face. But the prophets say, God, I don't understand. We say,

God, we don't understand. How can you do it? How can you forgive some of their rebellion and sin and disobedience and judge others?

We pray for our sons and daughters who are wayward, don't we, Lord? Have mercy on them.

And we pray as a group. Have mercy. We pray for sons and daughters in this church.

We pray for wayward husbands. Lord, have mercy. Forgive him, Lord. Bring him back.

But for our enemies, what do we pray? Condemn them, Lord. Send the shock and all the hell fire.

So how can God be both just and loving? How can

God both show mercy and yet condemn the sinful? Answers in the very first chapter.

Those first verses. I am doing something, God said. And when

I tell you what it is, you won't believe it. And at a certain point in time, after 400 years of silence, he broke that silence with what?

The cry of an infant. That baby grew up before man.

At first, they didn't believe it. But by the end of his life, they said, truly, you are the son of God.

And then they said, you got it. Now come in closer. Because what I'm about to tell you, you're not going to believe.

What did he tell them? The minute they said, truly, you are the son of God. What did Jesus tell them?

I must die. No, Lord, not you. So on that garden that night, the

Lord said, not my will, not yours. But let this cup pass. He swept blood. Why? Because at that one point in time, he was about to take all the condemnation, all the wrath of God from the

Assyrians to the Babylonians. To Isis, to your rebellious son or daughter, for my sin and my rebellion,

Jesus took the wrath of God upon him. And all of God's wrath, all the hostility that lay before God, a man was gone, absorbed in this perfect sacrifice.

The good news of the gospel is God is not angry. He is compassionate and loving, and he can be, because he put that condemnation on his son.

But the disciples, even when Jesus rose in glory, right, he rose up and he said he walked with them and he ate with them.

And he said, now go and wait in Jerusalem and you will receive the promise.

Is that when you'll do it, Lord? Is that where you're going to come and restore Israel with power?

And then we'll give it to the Romans. And he said, no, not yet. No, but you will receive power.

Right? He's going to pour out his Holy Spirit. You will receive power to do what?

It's not going to be military power. You will receive power to be my witnesses, to be witness of the risen

Jesus, the Son of God, not only in Jerusalem, but to Judea, Samaria, and the very utter ends of this earth.

The righteous shall live by faith, and that's what we're doing in trying times, in times of crisis.

God will do it. He wins in the end. The third chapter is a praise song by Habakkuk.

I heard my heart pounding, my lips quivered at the sound of decay crept in my bones, my legs trembled.

Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation of the nations invading us, though the tree, the fig tree does not bud, though there are no grapes in the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen, no cattle in the stalls.

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God my Savior, because God really does save.

The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes me feel my feet like the feet of a deer.

He enables me to tread on the heights. He is rejoicing. God will be faithful to his word.

He will lift up Israel. He will condemn the nations invading them. But looking through the cross, we have a much broader view of that.

The victory is much deeper than that. It's not only one day restoring

Israel, but it's transforming our hearts. Those who could not love God now can love

God. Those who could not love their enemies now can love their enemies. I just wanted to close with what

God is doing in the midst of crises in Brazil. We saw

I painted kind of a dismal picture. Bring those slides up.

OK. We work with a lot of partners in Brazil, fishermen, surfers, children in at risk situations in the favelas, and then also church planters.

This story I've told you about in the past. This is the same group of people that we walked the streets at midnight with where the drug traffickers had their drugs.

When the special police came in and it was gunfire, we were running through the streets and really thought we would die that night.

We left singing. We left singing in the backdrop of fire, people opening up their doors.

What the world, what were we singing? Greater things are still to come. Greater things. Now this church years later are still doing it.

Go to the next one. This is the Kaju Life Church in the neighborhood of Kaju.

These are the kids that stand guard there. The police stay outside the neighborhood. Even though it was pacified, there's no more money to keep that neighborhood safe.

So the drug traffickers have come back in force. Go to the next one. These are pictures that I've taken or someone next to me has taken.

Go ahead. I meet weekly with the young pastor,

Pastor Fabio, and our discussions go like this. Pastor Fabio, how are you this week? Okay.

He's a nonch. He's kind of plays everything down. He planted the church when he was 23.

He's 36 now. Started with two people. They just started to do discipleship on the streets.

Today they have 400 young people in discipleship, more than 40 small groups throughout the city.

And Pastor Fabio says this. Oh, we lost our building this week. You lost your building?

Yeah, the rent went from $5 ,000 a month to $20 ,000 a month, and we have three months to get out.

What are you going to do? 400 people? No church?

They do discipleship. They have a seminary, in -house seminary that they teach.

Oh, I think there's some land down the street about 200 meters from us that I can get.

Really? What's that about? A group of athletes built this facility. They were soccer players, and they started an organization to help kids read.

But the drug traffickers came in, and they took it over. So the athletes just built 20 -foot walls, and they kept part of their property and abandoned this.

Fabio went to the landowner and said, we need a church. We need some land. He said, well,

Fabio, I can give you a lease for the life of your church, but you've got to get it from the drug traffickers.

So he went to the athletes and said, you know, that's really your lease, but the owner's willing to give it to me.

They said, if you can get the drug traffickers out of there, you can have it. We don't want anything to do with that part of the land.

So the next week I met with them. Hey, how's that? How's it going with the church? Any news on the land?

Oh, yeah, we got the land. How'd you get the land? Well, I sent a message that we were interested in the land, and they said they wanted to meet me there at 10 p .m.

So I was here in the middle of way off the road at 10 p .m. He went, and I said, you went by yourself?

I went. He said, they offered to drive me, but I decided I would drive my own car, and he meets the drug traffickers there.

Now, we have known the drug traffickers. They have known Pastor Fabio, but drug traffickers, they have a boss, and every two years you have a new one because they're either killed or on their own to run.

And so right now they're kind of in a new cycle with all this Olympics and the policing going on.

So they didn't know Fabio personally, but of course, the reputation of the church is there.

And they said, Fabio, we've heard of you. We know that the church and the fact that you came down here to meet with us, the fact you're not offering us anything, you know, to get part of our deal.

Sometimes evangelical pastors will want to get in on what we're doing here. We see that you're a serious guy.

We're going to move out. We're going to give you that land. So now, go ahead. Oh, down the other way, yeah.

So here they are on the, just after they got the news, they got these groups out doing a clean up.

Keep going. We'll go quickly. Here they are. And you look at the faces of these kids.

All these kids have come to know the Lord through this church. Through one leading another to Christ, that person leading another to Christ, and they're in discipleship.

Go ahead. Maybe not what you would expect to see in a slum in Rio, but there's great life there.

This is the first worship service. I happened to be there right before coming back to Brazil.

Over 400 people, no building, but underneath that canopy. Go ahead.

Go ahead. So this is Pastor Fabio and Lia. Elisa is our little girl's hero.

Of course, she's four and our girl's two. They have matching pajamas. They do the sleepovers and all that stuff.

Go ahead. Michael and Iris. Michael, he was suicidal when he was a teenager.

His older brother was killed as a young man. Iris never left the house.

She was so withdrawn and introverted. Today, he's Fabio's right -hand man.

He disciples and cares for 20, supervisor of 20 disciples who are responsible for small groups of the rest of the 400.

They feel called to go in December to the next state over, Minas Gerais, to plant a disciple -making movement, planting a church.

It's interesting to know that that state, Minas Gerais, it's a farming state.

It's one of the two states in Brazil where there's a high rate of teenage suicide.

Go ahead. Daniel was sent down when he was 15 to Rio de

Janeiro from the northeast of Brazil, about 2 ,000 miles away, when there was a famine in the land.

He was sent to live with his older sister. He lived in the favelas. He got to know Pastor Fabio, came to know the

Lord, was discipling. He came so he could go to school. He went to school. He's in law school now.

He got an internship at a law firm. He led the senior partner to Christ. There's 150 lawyers at that firm, and now the senior partner prays every day to start the day with those 150.

Go ahead. Marcão and Mayara. Marcão, since three years old, grew up in a samba school.

You ever see Carnival in Rio? They're basically naked ladies that are just painted, and they go down.

He grew up in this environment without a dad, had a lot of sexual identity issues, came to know the

Lord. He's been discipled for a number of years. Married Mayara, who was kind of a party girl living in the inner city.

Tried it all, did it all. Came to know the Lord. They've been discipling people. They're planting another church that came alongside of an existing church without a pastor.

And Mayara has a disciple in the northeast of Brazil that went back there. She went with her for one year until that girl was firmly rooted in a church.

Now this church has a partnership with that church, and they're sending people to help them make disciples.

Go ahead. These two guys, they're going to the next state over. This is 2 ,000 miles up.

They met another pastor that called them to help them make disciples in their church. A Gilson, he was always the tech guy.

What is your name? Jason. He was Jason. Every day he was there like faithfully working on the stuff.

One day they told me, no, Jason's going to Piauí as a missionary to plant churches and work with a pastor that are making disciples.

And I said, Jason's not ready for that. Look at him. He's Jason. We love him, but he's our kid.

We can't send him. This was at Gilson. That night at Gilson, it was just before I came back.

Gilson was sharing his testimony. And I've known him for a number of years, but I never heard his conversion story.

So he got up, and he said this. He said, you guys remember when I came here to Kaiju? My cousins brought me here, and then they abandoned the faith.

When I got baptized, my family abandoned me. But you became my family.

He said, tonight, after many, many years, I want to call my family back up.

And go to the next slide. And 20 of these people of his blood family stood up.

Now they're all in the church, and they're in discipleship in small groups. And when

I saw that, I said, wow, Jason needs to be making disciples up in the northeast of Brazil.

Gilson has to go. That's the kind of thing we're seeing happening even in a place like Kaiju, the

Nazareth of Rio de Janeiro. God is at work. And you think things are scary here.

Come with me and walk Kaiju with me at nighttime. You'll want to flee back here.

In all that crisis, in all that corruption, there's a light.

And God is doing amazing things for those, the righteous, who live by faith.

Those who are committed, knowing that God will do it. That God is doing. His glory will go to the very utter ends of the earth.

And that God is holy. And he sits in his temple. And one day, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he is

Lord. Amen? Just in closing, what do we do as a church?

Well, go ahead. That's kind of a map of Brazil, where they're going. That's where that church is impacting the city of Rio and all the different neighborhoods.

See if there's one more on there. Okay. You know, missionaries always talk about this.

Pray. Pray. We need to be praying, especially in time of election.

We need to be praying for Israel when we see all those scary things happening. We need to come alongside.

We need to pray. Give. We need to continue to give.

Not only to world missions, but to your local church to bless your communities here.

And you saw all the opportunities to do that. And then go. I'm on the field partially because of short -term missions.

I led a group from this church to England back in 1996.

I was already a youth pastor, but it was when I led this particular trip,

I just felt a divine call, an irresistible call to missions.

Soon after, my folks went to missions. Sue Plum from this church went to missions. Many people that had gone through some sort of a short -term trip, it impacts our lives.

The Dementors went to missions from here. And so I would challenge you to think of those three things.

It doesn't mean coming to Rio. We have an opportunity to do that. We're going to be here through the end of the year.

So we want to talk to Jeff and we can come back more in an informal setting and talk to you about some of the opportunities to serve in Rio de

Janeiro. We won't put you in the most dangerous place. There's many safe places to do ministry, but impacting the same people.

And we can talk more about that. My wife and I are personally raising $1 ,000 a month.

We have to do that to be able to go back in January. That's part of the reason why we extended our stay.

My wife has a job, but because of the fall of the economy, it affected our family and she has not worked this whole year.

She accounts for 30 % of our support package. So we've been living off our life savings to stay on the field.

So we are raising personal support. We are investing in the mission house.

We have an apartment in the back and we're raising $13 ,000 for that project and bringing teams down to help with that project so we can host.

We host interns and short -term teams and it's a wonderful place to host. So I want to leave you with those thoughts, some practical things as well as inspirational things.

In the time of crisis, we place our hope in Jesus. The faithful one who is faithful at the cross.

He will be faithful to come back and restore all things. Amen? Lord, we just thank you for your goodness.

We thank you for your word that it's timeless. We thank you for this church and the faithful who are here.

Inspire us this day to live by faith. Faith in you that you are in the midst of all this crisis happening around us.

Show us how we can be light and as we proclaim in the power of the Holy Spirit, witness of the resurrected

Christ, the hope of the nations. Give them strength and power. In Jesus' name, amen.