Interview with Baseball MVP Dennis Sarfate

Apologia Studios

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So, it is fitting that on our season finale of Next Week with Jeff Durbin, that we would have our biggest guest ever.

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You guys ready for this? Yeah! He is a member of Apologia Church.

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He plays for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. He is called the King of Closers in Japan, and he's broken some amazing records.

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Please welcome Dennis Sarfatti! Alright, brother!

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Alright! This is exciting, man! This is. Great set. Yeah! So, this is

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Dennis, guys. And, man, it's seriously awesome to have you on the show. And there's so much I want to talk about.

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We really could do like an hour -long episode. It could be. So, the hard part is going to be squeezing this together to make sense of what

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God is doing through you. So, just, they call you the King of Closers. So, I don't know much about the baseball.

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Yeah, the baseball. So, what does it mean? You're the King of Closers. It's a big deal right now in Japan.

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Yeah, you know, Japanese are really, they're crazy with their nicknames.

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You know, they call me the Guardian of the Hawks. But, they got King of Closers because you're considered the save king when you lead the league in saves.

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So, two years ago, I got my first title, save title. Last year, I got another one.

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And this last year, I got my third in a row. So, they call me the King of Closers. King of Closers.

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King of Closers. Now, you just have recently gotten back. Yes. You spend, the hard part of what you do is you're spending like half your year out in Japan and then coming back.

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And you live here in Arizona with us. Yeah, I feel like I'm Japanese because I'm only in Arizona for three months.

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Right. So, I really, I spend a lot of time there. You do. And so, you just recently, after you came home, we're all excited to have you home again.

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And then you immediately turned back around, took like a 20 -hour flight back to be in Japan for like, what, 12 hours?

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Yeah. I got home and I was just getting over jet lag. And then they said, well, come on back.

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We got an award ceremony you need to be a part of. And so, I flew 16 hours there. Stayed there for 12 hours and got on a flight and flew 16 hours home.

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So, what's the big deal? There's a lot of talk about what happened this last season with you.

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What was the big thing that was historic? It was crazy. I just broke so many records that have been standing for years.

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I broke the foreign save record. I broke the 200 save mark.

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I broke the single season mark. We won another championship. Right.

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So, it was just, it was a crazy year. And then, to top it all off, at the end of the year, they gave me the league MVP, which is the first foreigner ever to win it, especially a pitcher.

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Wow, praise God. That's awesome. Yeah, crazy. Crazy year. Crazy year. God was definitely watching over it this year for sure.

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So, the thing that I think is so interesting, and we talked a lot about this, Japan's population,

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Christian population, they say is around 1%. 1 % of the Japanese are

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Christian, know the gospel. That's incredible. It's 2017, and 1 % of Japan identifies as Christian.

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And so, God has such a unique place for you. And then, he sends you to Japan with this amazing gift and talent you have.

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You can walk down the streets in Phoenix, Arizona, no big deal. It's the best. Yeah, but when you go to Japan, it's insanity.

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I'm like Justin Bieber. My daughters say I'm Justin Bieber. I'd like to hear you talk about this.

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With Japan being about a 1 % Christian population, I've heard John Piper talk about this, we need to be sending missionaries to Japan.

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But God has one of the most well -known people in Japan, this celebrity status, which you're not asking for, but God's given it to you.

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You get to testify about the grace of God in Christ to people who don't either want anything to do with Christ or have never heard the message of Jesus.

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Talk about that. Yeah, so, first, I wasn't a believer when I got to Japan, so that's the crazy thing.

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I was here in the major leagues, and things happened during the last year of my career here, and ended up going to Japan, getting saved by the end of that first year.

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And what I've seen God do through the last seven years has been crazy, where now I get to go to public schools, and I can share my faith and my testimony.

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I think that's probably the strongest thing, is I get to share the message that not everyone would get to do.

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They love baseball so much. They give me this platform. God's given me this tremendous platform.

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I don't deserve it. But for someone in baseball to be that successful, people will come and listen.

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And that's all I'm asking for, is to come and listen, hear the message. I try to go to as many things as possible, and just share

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God's word. Well, you know, you and I have, yeah, you guys can definitely applaud for that. You and I have talked before about, you know, it's interesting, if people are thinking about being missionaries to Japan, I'm sure there might be people watching this that are.

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They have to learn the language. They have to try to get there, and sort of, you know, enter into the culture, and embrace it, and soak it up, and be a part of the culture, and then start that process of evangelism.

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But it's usually very humble beginnings. It's, you know, one person diving into a culture that's so foreign to them, and trying to reach people for Christ.

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Maybe God, through, you know, 30 years of ministry, gives them, you know, a couple of people to legitimately communicate the gospel to.

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But God has placed you in such a unique position, where you get to testify to all of Japan, if you want to.

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And God's able to open people's eyes through this amazing gift that you have of being a pitcher, a closer.

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Yeah, I've met with Campus Crusaders. I've met with different missionary groups that are there, and they always joke with me.

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They say I'm an overpaid missionary. But I bring the platform, and, you know, they have the hard work.

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They don't have that platform and that status, you know, so to say, right when they get there. But God has given me that platform, and they invite me to go speak at different things, and those are always the biggest turnouts, because people love to hear about baseball.

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Right. And so, whenever I can go and do something, then I love just to be able to help them out, because I'm sure it's tough being over there, and no one wants to hear what you have to say.

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Right, yeah. I grew up, and you know this, I grew up in Japan myself, but I was military. And I do remember,

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I was there for five years, I do remember I wasn't even a Christian then. The hostility that they have in many respects, especially the older people towards Americans and the

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Christian religion, and so it just seeped in sort of idolatry and this old sort of pagan culture is still around.

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And only 1 % are Christian, and you're speaking into that. The best thing that ever happened to me in my second year, one of the ladies in the front office said, you're a

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Christian. And I said, yes. And she said, well, that's just a lot of rules, right? And I said, well, no, it's not a lot of rules.

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I mean, we have rules, but there's a standard of living. And I think that really changed, because a lot of them just think

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Christianity is just rules and you can't have fun. But I said, I've had more fun as a Christian than I was as a regular person.

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Right, right. It's crazy. So this would be really good to talk about.

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Since God has brought us together in our relationship, and I'm your pastor, we're friends,

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I've been able to introduce you to, in a big way, and hopefully an important way, the doctrines of grace, the truth about the sovereignty of God over all things.

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And before that was really, I guess in some sense, in theory, right? God is sovereign. But over the last year,

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God has really been sanctifying you and your family and just blessed you in a tremendous way. And you've been a light to Japan.

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People in Japan know about your family's struggles this last year with health issues. How has the truth about the sovereignty of God impacted you, and how has that been used by God as you testify to the

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Japanese culture as they know about your family's struggles? Wow, yeah, this year was so hard.

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On the field, the accolades and all the awards, they were great, but my teammates knew the struggle with Jada, my wife's health, and being here in Arizona while I'm in Japan 8 ,000 miles away.

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That's tough on anything. I mean, that's really hard with kids too. It's really hard to be that far away.

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And they saw me come to the field every day in joy, and they didn't know the struggle I was going to until it came out where I almost quit five times.

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And every time I wanted to quit, every time I wanted to go home and say, God, I'm done with this, God had a little subtle way to remind me about why

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I was there. And one time it was putting on a shirt that I just grabbed out of my locker real quick, and it was my strong Joshua 1 -9 t -shirt, and I'm like, really,

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God, thank you. And then the next time it was an interview where they asked me why I chose to come back. I had mentioned in an interview where I said

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God has me here for a reason. And every time I got to relive that, I knew that God was doing something.

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He was going to use what was going on at home. And he kept me there, and he gave me the accolades this year for a reason, to have a voice.

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And I'm just blessed by him and just so happy. Dennis, how has this last year, dealing with the health struggles in your family with Jada, how has the truth in Scripture about God's sovereignty impacted you?

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How have you been able to walk through it in light of God's truth about his sovereignty? Well, I know he's in control, and that's the biggest thing, is every time we try to do something that we want to do, it never works out.

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But when we finally just submit and say, God, whatever you're planning on doing in this year or next year, we're going to submit to you, and he is sovereign.

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And before, I never really knew what that meant. I was like, okay, yeah, it's God's sovereign. Okay, great. But now when I meet him, he's in control of everything.

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And we've seen it just with how things have set up in our lives, Jada and I, where her parents moved to the house right behind ours.

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And this past season, if they weren't there, I couldn't be in Japan. I would have came home because I didn't have anyone to take care of her or my kids.

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So just in that alone, I saw that house came available, they moved in there, and next thing you know, we needed them to be there.

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And so from that thing on, I just saw how God has worked, and it's just incredible every time.

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All things work together for good, right? That's right, amen. Next week with Jeff Durbin, The Late Night Show with the