Live - Apologia and the Kingdom of Christ

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Jeff Durbin preaches at Apologia Church live.

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You can't open your Bibles to Isaiah 42, Isaiah chapter 42.
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Hear now the words of the living and true God. Behold my servant whom
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I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him, and he will bring forth justice to the nations.
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He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.
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He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law.
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Let's pray. Father, I want to thank you so much for your word. First and foremost, God, you've given to us,
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Lord, unworthy as we are sinners. We fall short of your glory.
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Lord, in ourselves we are the rebels. We are those who are enemies.
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Lord, your word says we are children of wrath, dead in our sins and trespasses, but God made us alive together with him.
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And though we are in ourselves deserving of judgment and wrath,
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God, you've loved us before the world began, and you, Lord, condescended, and you've spoken.
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You've spoken in your word. You've spoken in creation. You shout to us at every moment, at every turn.
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And, Lord, you've spoken to us supremely in your son, Father. We thank you,
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God, that you've given to us your word that contains, Lord, your story of the world and history.
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We thank you, God, that you have not left us in the dark about who you are. We thank you that you reach down into our lives at every turn,
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Lord, displaying your covenant faithfulness and your blessings, your love, your fatherly care for us.
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We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you will never, ever forsake us, that we are in your hands, and nothing can snatch us from your hand.
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And I pray, God, that you'd bless today as we contemplate,
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Lord, your promises. I pray that you would, Lord, energize us, empower us to keep fighting, to keep pursuing your pleasure and pursuing pleasure in you.
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I pray, God, that you would bless this church, put your hand on us, help us to understand your plan for the world, and help us to understand our part in that.
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I pray that you put your hand of blessing upon us and our labors here and also our labors on the island of Kauai.
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I pray that, God, you would give to us as a church eyes that see. And, Lord, give to us hope, secure, guaranteed, fixed hope.
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In Jesus' name, amen. So today will be a little bit different as a church, as a family.
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We want to get together today, and I want you guys to hear about all that God is doing. But before we do that,
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I want to provide for us all, brothers and sisters, as a pastor of this body that God has called me to care for,
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I want to provide for us a foundation, some reasoning, biblical reasoning as to why we do what we do as a church, why sacrifice so much, why invest so much of our lives, why give so much of ourselves up for the work of the kingdom of God.
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So Isaiah 42 is one passage among so many passages that we can draw from that display for us what
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God's plans are for the future. And the glory in it is that it doesn't just provide for us this vision forward as a church of what
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God is doing in the world and what He will do in the world. It's guaranteed assurance. But it provides for us this moment of great excitement,
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I think, and joy as a church because as you see these texts, and these are all over the
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Bible, it not only tells you what's coming, it's not simply prophetic that this is what we have to anticipate ahead of us, but it also does something.
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It gives to you and me a moment of deep worship and joy in God because contained in these promises for the future of the world is you.
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If you have turned from sin to trust in Jesus Christ, if you are in Christ and you're forgiven, if you've been redeemed and indwelt by God's Spirit, that means that these promises really speak to what
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God has done already in your life and is doing in your life. So Isaiah 42 is a passage that may actually cause some confusion for people because that promise seems so grand.
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I mean, think about it. This is not a promise of the Messiah coming. And as I often say, starting a
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Bible study in a basement only. This is a promise that actually contains the whole world.
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If you think back to the narrative that where it all begins, creation, the fall, and then the promise comes to Abraham.
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And what does God say to Abraham, the father of our faith? What does he say to him? He says that in you shall all the nations, all the nations, all the peoples of the earth be blessed in Abraham.
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That you're going to have descendants as numerous as the stars. And the promise continues to move through Genesis. You get to Genesis 49, 10, and it says that to Shiloh is going to be the obedience of the nations.
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That all the nations are going to actually come into obedience of this Messiah who's coming.
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That's the story before. The promise is that the Messiah is coming, and He's going to bring salvation, redemption, justification, and reconciliation to the ends of the earth.
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That all the nations are going to come to know God. Psalm 22, the passion of the Messiah. It says His hands and His feet are going to be pierced,
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His heart like wax melted within Him. It says that He's going to be laid in the dust of death, but then it says that He will tell of His name to His brothers.
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And it says that all the families of the earth will return to worship God. And Isaiah comes along in this majestic book of the
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Bible, tells us these beautiful images of Messiah. You have suffering servants.
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The one who's going to die and rise again, Isaiah 53. The one who would be counted among the rebels and be pierced through for our transgressions.
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But then it says more. It says things like in Isaiah 2, that all the nations are going to stream up to the mountain of God.
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And that the law will go forth from Zion, the center of the place of the people of God.
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And it says in Isaiah chapter 11, once again that He will stand as a signal for all the nations, and all the nations are going to return.
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And you continue to move through Isaiah, and you see more powerful testimony to what
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God is doing in the world to bring about this new creation. The old creation falls, sin, decay, death, and Messiah is going to come and bring about a new creation.
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He's going to be the beginning of the new creation. God is doing something new in the world and the
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Messiah that means salvation, it means forgiveness, but it also means things like Isaiah 42, justice.
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What does it say about the Messiah? I want to just point you to a particular part of this passage here. Not only the humility of the
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Messiah, that's obviously testified to right there in Isaiah 42, but it says this. It says in verse 4,
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Look, He will not grow faint or be discouraged till He has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for His law.
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There's more. Continue looking. It says in verse 5, There's God's reminder.
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I am Yahweh. I'm the Lord. He says, I have called you in righteousness.
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I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.
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I'm the Lord. There's God's reminder, His testimony to who He is and what He does.
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I am the Lord. That is my name. My glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.
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Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare. Before they spring forth,
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I tell you of them. That's kind of the emphasis I wanted to give to you right now as a church.
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God says here, this is what I'm going to do in the world. I've called you to be the light to the nations.
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Sounds kind of like what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, which is our study right now at Apologia Church. What's He say in the
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Sermon on the Mount? He says what about the church? He says, you are the salt of the earth.
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You're the light of the world. You're the city set on a hill. That's the mission.
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That's the vocation of the people of God now because Christ has come. The Messiah has come and brought about redemption.
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Our mission now is to be light to the world, to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus Christ to the world, to bring
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God's sheep, His people, out of darkness into light. Jesus says, I am the good shepherd.
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The good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep. He says, I have other sheep which are not of this fold.
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Them I must also bring, and they will be one flock under one shepherd.
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This is the promise of God. Jesus has broken into the world and brought about salvation, and the rest of history is a mopping up project.
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And God calls us into that with Him, and I want to encourage us with this very, very simple but powerful truth.
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It says that He will not grow faint or weary. I've got to tell you, there's so much ahead of us as a church.
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We talk about the very, very destructive and ugly things that we're involved in as a church.
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We go to the abortion mill on a Saturday in the desert, and it is brutal, just the heat alone.
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I mean, it will remind you about sin and death in the world, right? You just read, yeah, this world has fallen, Arizona in the summertime, right?
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But you stand outside the gates of hell where mothers and fathers are destroying their own children.
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You think, the world we live in right now is so difficult. There's so much of a task ahead of us as a church, so much we have to do, so much labor.
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And you might be tempted to stand outside of an abortion clinic in Arizona on a Saturday where mothers and fathers are going in to destroy their own children, and you might be tempted to grow faint and to grow weary.
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You might be tempted as a church to grow faint and be weary when you think about the task ahead of us as a church and all the work that God is calling us to, to bring
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His gospel to where we're at and, of course, around the world, but in particular to Kauai.
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You're going to hear today as we bring everybody up about the difficulties ahead of us. So I wanted to say this to you. God has raised this up.
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By God's grace, we're going. We're done investigating. We're done figuring things out in terms of where, how, what, should we, could we.
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And now we're in the stages, the difficult stages of sacrifice. We're in the difficult stages of putting everything into place to send people that we love dearly out to lay their lives down for the sake of the lost on an island that desperately needs the gospel.
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And I want to just encourage us all as a church. Over and over and over again, we get this testimony from God.
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Look, I told you what has happened. It's come about, and now I'm telling you of new things, and I've set you to be the light to the nations, to bring people out of darkness, to open the eyes of the blind, to take them out of their prisons.
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That's your vocation. I am Yahweh. I will do it. And this
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Messiah who's come, He will not grow faint or weary. He will not stop
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His mission until He's established justice in the earth. How does that happen?
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Salvation. That's the beginning of it, salvation. And what does the Bible say in the same book,
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Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7? It says, One is coming. Long before He comes, it says, a son, a child,
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He's one of us. And it says what? He will be called Wonderful Counselor, El Gabor, the
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Mighty God, the Father of eternity. And it says what? Of the increase of His government and of peace, there will be no end.
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There will be no end. On the throne of David, to establish it, He says, with righteousness and justice forevermore.
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And if you want to know how Apologia Church will ever accomplish these unbelievably huge tasks ahead of us, if you want to know how, if you want to know how we're going to have strength, if you want to know how we're going to have the ability, money, funds, whatever it takes to do the work that God has called us to, whether it's back here at home or in this place that desperately needs the gospel, it says in Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7, it says very clearly, the zeal of the
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Lord of hosts will accomplish this. It's God. It's God.
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And sometimes, you know, I'm going to just say this. Sometimes you think about, I mean, it's crazy. We have someone here from New Zealand today, by the way, that found us online, and now they're visiting from New Zealand.
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You think about, like, the things that God does through this church. And it's funny because, like, people, like, they'll watch, like, on a live stream, and they'll see, like, where they're watching right now.
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Hi. And they'll see, like, they'll see this, right? Like up here, and they're like, oh, like Apologia Church.
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And they know the great things that God is doing through Apologia Church. But, like, if you could turn the camera around, and you could see, like, the size of this church, you'd wonder, like, how in the world does that happen?
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How does God, how does it happen? How does a church of this size, with the kinds of people that we are, how does
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God use a church like this to do the sorts of things that we're doing, that he's doing?
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And I've got to say, like, when you really, like, put before us, we actually talked about it, all the things that God is calling us to do as a church, and the unique individual gifts he's given each and every one of us, all that he's doing, and you were to put it all out on paper, it would be overwhelming, and you'd have to ask the question, how in the world is that ever going to happen?
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It's been, let me just say this, you can ask people that have been here since the beginning, it has been that way since day one.
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It has been, that seems like an impossible task, how could anybody ever accomplish it?
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We don't have the giftings, we don't have the means, we don't have the money, we don't have these unique abilities.
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Contrary to popular opinion, we're not super cool, right? And when you put it all together, like, how is it going to happen?
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The truth is, it's all God, and he's doing it all, and he will continue his work because he's made covenant promises, and he's the covenant -keeping
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God. And so as we talk as a church, I want to say this to you.
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We're going to bring up the team from Kauai that went on the last leg, so you guys can hear as a church what happened.
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I want you to know something that we all talked about as a team. It's very, very important for us, for those that went, that for those who are part of our body that happened to stay here and may never actually set foot in Kauai, this is not the
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Apologia team, Kauai thing, their own thing. This mission is the mission of our church, and so each and every one of us are called in some way to serve on this mission.
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This is not a division of the church where we take a segment and say, well, that's your mission, but not ours. I want to say that it seems like an overwhelming task to say
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God's calling you to stay focused here and focused there, right? But the point is he's given to us one another to accomplish this massive, massive work, both at home and in Kauai, and the hope that we have is that God is the one who accomplishes the entire thing, all of it.
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This is a unique service today, so if you're visiting, I want you to know just how unique it is. We're going to bring the team up just one moment.
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I'd love for you to be asking questions like, how can
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I be used by God at home to serve the ministry of Jesus Christ in this church here, and how could
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I possibly be used by Jesus Christ to further his kingdom in Kauai, whether that means short -term missions back and forth with the team, or if it means financially investing in the work that needs to be done there, or prayer, or whatever kind of support needs to happen to build what's going to be built out there.
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So just be praying about that. How can God use you and your giftings to be a part of this, because it is a massive task, and it's going to take really all of us to do so.
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So let's go ahead and bring up the team from Kauai. Come on up.
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So as the team comes up, let me give you guys a little bit of a history.
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Many of you guys know that it was about a year ago that I did a top -secret little covert mission for Rod and Rebecca.
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Rebecca didn't know. Candy and I initially were not going to go. Rod asked us, would you guys be willing to come to renew our vows?
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And again, Rebecca didn't know. And so Candy initially said no, and it was just a long distance between us and our kids, and it just seemed like we're just too busy, we can't do it.
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But we decided to go ahead and do it. And so when I got to Kauai, now
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I want to say ahead of time, I have to always make sure I say this before. I'm not investing everything in this.
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I just want to tell you it was weird. When I got to Kauai with Candy, we landed, we're in this little airport in Lihue, and we'd never been there before, and we're waiting for our bags, and some strange man walks up to me, puts his hand on me, never seen him before, and he says to me, he says, you think you know
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God's plans for you and your ministry? And he says, but God has plans for you to bring the gospel to the young people on this island.
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And so he turned around and walked away, and Candy said, who was that? What did he say?
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I said, I don't know, he was just some weirdo. That's what I said. And so I forgot about it, left it alone, didn't think anything of it, and so we got in Kauai and started, like, driving around, getting ready for Rod and Rebecca's wedding vow renewal.
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And while we were there, we started seeing one cult after another. It was
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Mormonism, the Watchtower. It was the New Age. It was Buddhism. It was
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Shinto temples. It was all this stuff all over the island from north to south, just the cults dominating,
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Roman Catholicism. And we started asking, where's the churches? Where are the churches on the island?
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So we started doing some research. We were like, where's the Reformed church on this island? Found one Reformed church, had, like, ten people in it.
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And so I got home, and God had put this almost oppressive weight on my mind.
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I couldn't get rid of it. Why aren't there any solid churches there? Why isn't anyone doing evangelism?
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And I'm leaving a lot of stuff out, but let me just say, we were approached by Christians on that island, just dropping stuff on us that we didn't solicit.
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Saying things like, there's no outreach being done by the churches, there's no expository preaching through the
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Bible, the church out here is hungry and starving, and they're just giving this information without me asking. I get home, and this overwhelming weight
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God puts on me. I can't get it out of my mind, and I'm begging God, God, why can't I forget this? Leave me alone about this.
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So basically I put something before the Lord. I said, Lord, if you want us to go out, if you want us to investigate planting a church in Kauai, then here's what
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I'm asking of you to do. Send us back immediately and drop the money on us to go back.
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For Luke and I to go back so I can show Luke, so he can pray about it, and we can present this if you want.
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That was midnight. Candy and I prayed. The next day at 3 p .m., less than 24 hours later,
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I got a phone call, and somebody donated $10 ,000 to me to go back to Kauai. And so we were back within a week.
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So we went to Kauai. Pastor Luke saw it. And without me trying to feed very much into it, he saw the need.
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So from that time till now, we've been back a few times. We have families that are committed to lay their lives down and to uproot their families, to leave and to go and permanently set up there to bring the gospel out there in a really meaningful way.
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Since we've been there, the Reformed church that was there is now done. They're gone.
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They're closed, and that's it. It's the weirdest thing. I'm going to just announce this before I turn the mic to them.
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Weirdest thing. Church that we knew that was out there that was Reformed, shut down, gone, over. And I don't get all my messages.
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I get a lot of messages throughout the week. There must be thousands in there in my other folder that just don't get to me and I never really pay attention to because I can't get to them all.
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But it was real weird. A couple days ago, I get a message. It pops up in my messenger. I don't know the name. And it was weird.
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I just saw it. I said, what's that? So I clicked on it, and it went into my other folder, and it was the pastor of the
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Reformed church that was in Kauai, the one who actually, it was his vision to start it. He has been keeping up with us, and he said, hey,
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I want to talk to you guys and tell you about how we failed and what happened and what we learned so that you guys can overcome those things before you get out there.
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And so I have a conversation with him happening, I believe, tomorrow. But just really crazy things that God is doing.
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But here's the – is this everybody? Okay, here's the team. All right. So you guys, grab microphones. And that's a brief history, and I'll let you guys know just quickly what we did.
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We went out this time. I spent a week out in Oahu and Maui. I preached, I think, nine times in five days.
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I did outreach and evangelism teaching on two different islands, Oahu and Maui. We literally were in the jungle.
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It was really a brutal experience, I think, for us.
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We had one towel to share between six of us, and no air conditioning, and I don't want to seem like a crybaby, but it hurt.
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So it was awesome. The church got brought together in Oahu and Maui.
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Work is being done today in Oahu. Street evangelism and outreach is happening now as a result of our event.
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Churches got together that are big fans of our ministry on Oahu. Lots of people showed up.
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They are now connected, and they're out doing evangelism actively now to the Mormons in Oahu because of the event.
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So praise God for that. You guys should get to see a lot of the stuff that happened.
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But when we got to Kauai this time, our job was to introduce the island to some of the people that hadn't seen it yet that are going to move out there possibly, to do some outreach, to connect to church, to figure out last -minute questions, to meet with building companies, to find out costs for building stuff, to find a location to do worship at, and that's essentially what we got done.
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I can tell you to summarize, we're done now. We're done with the introductions.
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Now we have to build and send. That's it. So, yeah, so I'll turn it over to you guys.
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Tell everybody. Let's start with this. Why Kauai? Why Kauai?
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Okay. This one's working. Because God said so.
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Amen. Are you going to say more things? I was going to say because God said so, but you heard me.
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We saw that on the island. I think Danny brought it up earlier that it's not like we asked to do this.
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It's not like we sought to God and said, please send us to Kauai. Kauai fell in our laps, and as we're driving around Kauai, we get a real sense of just lukewarm, not this
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Luke, but lukewarm as far as just there's not any churches that are doing anything. We talked to a
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Christian there on the island and said the churches there go unnoticed. And something that hit me this past week was if somebody had ripped this church, out of Tempe, it should hurt.
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It should hurt Tempe. It should hurt the Mormons in the neighborhood that are being pulled out of Mormonism.
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It should hurt the abortion ministry that we seek to do every Saturday and throughout the week. It hurts.
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It would hurt if a church is gone. But there, even the Christians are saying the churches go unnoticed, and we feel like that's not the way it should be.
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The church should be the heart of a community. It should be the heart of that island. So, I should have kept a diary or something about all the doors
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God has just been opening up this whole time. I mean, from the first time
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Jeff took Luke over there, and then after that, like, you just start moving towards it like, okay, is this a possibility?
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Is God leading our church to go here? And then doors just keep opening. Like, it's amazing, and people just are put directly in our path, especially this last or the first trip.
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Well, even this last trip, people are just where they need to be when we are there, and we are wondering something, and somebody shows up and gives us the answer to something we haven't even vocalized yet, or we have.
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But someone's there answering the question to what we were just thinking. And it's just been amazing how
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God is completely leading and just meeting us at a door and opening it. Opening? Okay.
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Okay. It's obvious. It's painfully obvious. Like, I've told my parents and Katie's parents, it would almost be a sin to not go because the leading has been so obvious to Kauai.
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And I've been asked why Kauai myself, and say, well, God hasn't led me to Africa that I've prayed about.
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God hasn't led me to Kosovo like I've prayed about. God hasn't led me to Haiti like I've prayed about.
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But Kauai, which my parents and Katie's parents are very thrilled because it's still
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America. It's not Africa. I think Chip wants to say things.
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Sure. Yeah. One of the aspects of the island that we're particularly excited about is the culture that's already there.
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They have strong family ties. We were talking to one lady, and she said that, you know, there are no secrets.
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When we come and, you know, start speaking of God and talk to the Mormons, the
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Jehovah's Witness, it's going to filter through. Everybody's going to know. So we're excited.
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There doesn't seem to be, A, any outreach toward the Mormons, toward the Jehovah's Witness.
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Jeff had some conversations with Jehovah's Witness, and they were kind of startled that he started preaching the word, and they quickly, you know, made up an excuse why they had to leave because it startled them so much.
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So we're excited to, you know, bring that to the island.
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The family atmosphere also lends itself toward a ministry opportunity there.
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You know, the community literally meets on the beach for meals and hanging out together.
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So that's going to be one of the things that we really, you know, will strive to fit in and to impact is literally going to the beach for ministry, having meals on the beach, sharing our food.
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That really will impact the community in that we're not just there to preach
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God's word and leave. We're going to be there living life with them. So that's one aspect that we're excited about.
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So next, I think we can talk about is some of the ministry opportunities that are big, as Chip brings up the fact that they're very focused in upon family and there's no secrets.
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The amazing thing about this island is that there are about 68 ,000 permanent residents, over a million people a year that come in to visit, visitors.
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The tourism industry is huge there, but they have a lot of people that live there, and they're a network.
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So no secrets means when you preach the gospel in this area and it starts trouble, right, and people come to Christ, it starts to spread like wildfire quickly.
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That's how the culture works out there. We were told by numerous Christians on the island, literally from the north side to the south side, that the
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Christian church out in Kauai is not involved in a lot of active outreach, open -air outreach, on -the -street outreach, getting involved in their lives.
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They go unnoticed in many respects. And a lot of that has to do with the culture of the island.
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It's very much don't offend, don't use a serrated edge, don't cut, don't confront. And that's just the culture of the
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United States right now, right, particularly Christian culture. Well, there hasn't been, it appears, any breaking out of that right now in Kauai, so there is just a fantastic opportunity to bring the gospel there.
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Now, just a quick history about the islands. The Hawaiian kingdom at one time could have been called
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Christian. The Puritans made their way there. They brought the gospel there, and it spread like crazy.
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And that's how it works there. It's very tribal. When one tribe comes to Christ, they spread quickly to the next tribe.
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The queen of Hawaii was professing Christian at a particular point. There has been, obviously, some degradation.
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Some stuff fell apart, right? But the culture is the same in the terms of how it connects and how you can communicate so quickly.
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Here's the thing. They aren't like us right now. If I go out, I try to redeem my driving time and redeem my time in a grocery store.
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I'm listening to podcasts and to sermons and trying to learn constantly and sharpen and worship.
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The island there, one of the guys we talked to, bring up Internet. He says, no, if I need something, I call out the window.
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Like, you know, that's how they live life there. The radio stations there, people actually listen to the radio there, and there's limited stations.
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The ability to communicate with the entire island all at once is amazing. I mean, if we had a station in Kauai, people would hear us, and we could start trouble in an amazing way.
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You could do two weeks of solid teaching on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. You could air debates.
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You could air solid teaching for two weeks, and it would be heard, and it would create a righteous, godly controversy where conversations can happen.
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That's the kind of stuff that can happen out there that can't quite happen right here in Phoenix because of how you can hide out here.
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You can sort of avoid. So those are some opportunities. But another opportunity right now on all the islands, but in particular where we want to go, is drug and alcohol addiction.
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And contrary to recent popular opinion in Christian media, it's kind of our specialty.
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Drug and alcohol addiction, that's where we came from as a church. And it's a big part of a problem on the islands.
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Methamphetamines and alcohol addiction is huge. And we have people that are uniquely fit for it to do that ministry.
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Claudia and Shelley are ready to go, and they're dedicated to that ministry. It's what they do all the time now.
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It's our specialty as a church. We're going to start a ministry out there for drug and alcohol addiction. We believe that word will spread quickly because the people need a lot of help out there.
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There's a huge education deficit on the island of Kauai. Education out there is in shambles.
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It is very, very bad. People can't get to school. The transportation is bad. The education system itself is poor out there.
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We want to educate the entire island, all the youth on the island. We want to give them the gospel and a biblical worldview.
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And so we have an entire education ministry. We want to start on the island to educate the island for free, if need be, in a biblical worldview so that a generation from now, all the youth in Kauai have already been given the gospel and have a biblical worldview a generation from now simply because we slip into what is a gaping hole right now in Kauai in the area of education.
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There are kids that don't do school, people who have quit school, can't make it to school. And that is an opportunity for us as a church to get in there and preach the gospel and reach all those families just through education.
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So that's one of the big areas of ministry. So I'll let you guys maybe talk to that. One of the things, just to add to what
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Jeff is saying right now, is that this island and what we're talking about, this isn't just a pipe dream.
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This is very doable. You have a culture who, which, and this is part of, if there's one thing that I think really excites me, there's a part of the culture there on the island that very much so wants sovereignty.
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And they want it in a way where we can speak to that. And it could literally be done where you have an island like this that is completely sovereign to the glory of God.
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And the vision that's there within a generation to be able to see that island completely come to, under the authority of God, is very real.
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It's very, very real. And I think we and our families have seen that. We see that it's a attainable goal.
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The drug and alcohol part, as Shelly and I will be involved with, along with the homeless ministry, that's something that's easy to do right off the bat, get things going.
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But I think in the long run, what excites me is the sovereignty and the speaking of it and the desire of it from the people.
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Yeah, you can speak to that issue consistently from a Christian worldview and address the hurt.
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Yeah, that's a big part. There are pockets on the island that are still very angry over what happened.
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And as a church, you could speak to it from a biblical perspective and actually address the issue in a way that's meaningful and point people to Christ and His ultimate authority.
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So there's just ways that, as a church, you could, Isaiah 42, address the issue of justice in that area.
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So let me tell you a couple of... Well, let's talk about this. Let's talk about the obstacles.
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Okay, here's the thing. Are you ready? This is big, and I really want to stress this. I didn't expect it.
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I did not expect this. When Candy and I got back from Kauai the first time and we started talking about this, and Pastor Luke started talking about it,
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I didn't anticipate the sinful... That's what it is.
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I just got to speak straight to it. The sinful jealousy that we encountered, and I know we've all encountered by now.
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When you announce, we're doing a church plan in Kauai, and you see people say, well, yeah, you're really suffering for Jesus in Kauai, right?
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We didn't anticipate the difficulty where you would see people actually responding with vitriol to you posting a picture of, like, you're out to do mission that day, and you see a picture of a beautiful mountain, and people go, oh, yeah, you're really suffering for...
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I know why you're going to Kauai. I didn't expect it. And then I started reading some testimonies from pastors in Hawaii, like in Oahu and Maui, saying we get that all the time.
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People in the mainland go, oh, yeah, they really need Jesus in Hawaii, right? Well, here's the thing.
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I've sort of created this. I won't be able to remember it. Just because they're living in paradise doesn't mean they're going to paradise.
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And they need Jesus desperately on those islands. Desperately.
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And we have not accomplished our work on those islands. We have not.
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We have a long way to go. But I will say this. We're at the stage now where we're talking about how much hurt it's going to cause to go to Kauai.
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So obstacles. Let me just go ahead and announce obstacles. Financially, this is hard.
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It is really difficult. Families out there in Hawaii are struggling.
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We had a woman who gave us a lot of encouragement in Oahu. Her response to Candy about us planning a church in Kauai was, don't.
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Don't ever move your family here. Don't come here. It is too expensive. You've got to work like three jobs just to survive.
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People never see each other. You're working around the clock just to basically get by to pay your bills.
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Don't move to Hawaii. So it was really encouraging. But you hear that, that it's very expensive.
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It's amazing, right? They said the median income was $50 ,000. Somewhere around there, $50 ,000? $55 ,000.
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And the average home price is somewhere around $400 ,000 to $500 ,000? It is $500 ,000. $500 ,000. So average income, $55 ,000.
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Average home price, half a million dollars, right? So that's kind of, it's just flipped completely.
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It's hard to live there. So where we're at now in obstacles, we're talking about financially. It's extremely difficult.
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We have to raise money for individual families. We've got to raise money, location. So let's talk about the obstacles financially.
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Well, I mean, there's not a whole lot else to say other than it's expensive. Housing is expensive.
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Food is expensive. I went to Home Depot while I was there, and the lumber and drywall was double what it is here.
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Like, everything is expensive. And so that really is the biggest obstacle. I mean, did you want to say something?
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Yeah. So, I mean, and then plus people that are going are leaving their families.
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You know, it's not like you're going across the country. You know, it's a six -hour flight.
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It's over water. There's no driving there. Like, you have to fly. Like, there is that aspect, you know, of being isolated.
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I was just telling Cheryl, I forget. I saw a fact yesterday that Hawaii is the most isolated people group in the world.
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Think about that. Because there's no other group of people anywhere near, you know, a six -hour flight in any direction, essentially, to get to any other people.
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So that's another obstacle. We're trying to do due diligence while we're there, too, and look at properties and how can we best house all the families as well.
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So we were looking at properties beforehand, and we had already arranged meetings with a realtor to go look at these properties.
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And this one property in particular, Luke and I were really excited about. It was 2 .61 acres.
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It was zoned for our six. That's just the code. And when we met with the realtor, she says, our six is you can build six residential homes per acre.
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So on 2 .6, we could theoretically build around 15 homes. So we were meeting with the architect and talking to him, mainly with this property in mind.
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But then we met with a developer at one of his other properties and said, you can't do that on that property anymore.
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And the property is only $349 ,000. You know, very, very doable, and then just building homes.
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But then he says, we can only build two homes because of a water shortage.
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The wettest place on earth has a water shortage. That whole system needs reformed on that island.
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And I'm praying with education, these kids will strive to want to learn how to do things and can figure out problems.
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Like, we have all this rain falling from the sky, and it lands on the ground and goes up to the ocean. How do we stop that and put it into homes?
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Like, there's got to be something somewhere that we can figure out. So, sorry.
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I have a little high -pitched laugh. But with, anyway, serious note again, that property is not going to be able to work.
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Like, our idea of all of us kind of being in community in the same, like, little cul -de -sac area is probably not going to work out.
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So we're going to have to be spread out a little bit just so we can afford properties with a home and a water meter already on it because they just don't give them out anymore.
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Well, they give out some, but basically a house to an acre, two acre, one of them was like four acres.
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You can only put one home, one water meter on it. So that just makes everything a little more expensive now in just living.
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The good news, though, commercial properties, like for the church where we're going to meet, is two bucks a square foot.
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Yeah, that was incredible. Yeah, yeah, that was an encouragement, was we need a place in Kapa 'a.
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So if you could think of the island of Kauai, really it's only this side of the island that's really where you could have homes and live because this side is what you see in the movies like Pirates of the
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Caribbean. It's uninhabitable. Indiana Jones and Raiders of the
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Lost Ark, that opening scene where Indiana Jones is getting in the airplane and flying off and the airplane has the snake in his seat.
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No, that was all filmed in Kauai. That's the territory around there. Well, north is like Princeville, Hanalei.
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The south side is all sugar plantation, old sugar plantation, a lot of cults down there. We're going to be planted right here in Kapa 'a, right by Lihue, which is where over 50 % of the population on the island is.
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So you can get to us from north and south right here. Well, we were concerned with finding a property to actually meet in where we can do our drug and alcohol addiction program, where we can minister to the homeless, where we can hold worship and do all that we do as a church, but we were concerned with price because to live out there is extraordinarily expensive, but we did discover that the leasing rates out there are really, really, really good.
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So it's $2. We found a location that's perfect. It's ready. We could really start renting it tomorrow.
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It's $2 per square foot. It's 7 ,500 square feet. That is really, really cheap, just so you know.
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That's really cheap. Right now, in Arizona right now, the average price you're looking at just for basic stuff to lease is somewhere around $13 to $15 per square foot.
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Then you've got to pay for triple net charges and cam charges, and so it just gets really expensive. So basically, property out there to worship at is we can do it.
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So that's a big blessing. So unless you guys have anything else I want to say,
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I want to tell them about what are some of our goals. Anything else? I was just going to tell a couple stories. Dustin mentioned just how there's been clear moments where God has ordained us meeting people.
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So one was we looked all week to find a stinking Mormon. We couldn't find him anywhere.
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There's wards everywhere. We could not find a Mormon. Jeff, actually, he found the Jehovah's Witness because he went to the
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Kingdom Hall. Yeah, he went to the Kingdom Hall, and they were standing outside, and I walked up to him. Like the wards, there's never anybody at the wards.
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We see them all over the place. So we looked all week, couldn't find any. And then
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I was sitting there at a restaurant eating dinner with my family, and minding my own business, and two
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Mormon elders walked by. So just like God saw me. In that moment, I snatched him up. I was able to get in the meeting and all that.
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Another thing was, so this is kind of a funny story. So in the condo we were staying in, next to us, there was a lady that had a pet rooster.
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Now, Kauai has chickens everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. They're like, you can't go anywhere without getting attacked by roosters.
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They're everywhere. This lady was like, and we're laughing.
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I actually took a video. Some of you may have saw. We're laughing because there's a lady carrying a rooster around, petting it, cleaning up rooster poop and stuff.
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And it was hilarious. And that rooster did not like us. He was taunting us.
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True, he did. I'm not even making that up. Anyways, so we laughed about the whole week. And then as everybody was leaving, the guy comes over and he's like, hey, who are you guys?
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I've been watching you. You all look the same except for Chip. And I think he thought
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Chip was maybe one of our kids. But he's like, I saw somebody had an apology shirt on.
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I looked it up. And I've been watching Jeff's sermons. I come to find out this guy has a house church in the condo next to us.
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And he's reformed. And he's published stuff on American Vision in the past.
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We're like, what is happening? Unfortunately, we found that out the last day. And he has my number.
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So I'm hoping to contact him. But just like that whole thing, I was like, oh.
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And I was like, do you live on this street? And he goes, yeah, that's my house. I'm the one with the rooster. So just moments like that just were like, it was clear
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God's ordaining us, meeting certain people when we weren't even trying to. Anybody else?
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I'll just say for the financial need, we talked to a pastor who tried to bring a church to the island.
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And it just completely fell apart. And one of the reasons was because to make ends meet, the couples were working two or three jobs.
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And so there's 16 to 20 hours of work being done every day. And they're just so burnt out.
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They didn't have time for their families. They didn't even have time for ministry at that point. And so that's one of the things where we're so thankful that God has talked to this guy so that we can prepare and not get in that situation where we're all being spent just for the daily necessities.
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Yeah. So it would be good to tell you guys some of our goals and things you can be praying about, things you guys can maybe get involved in.
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We are going to send families out there. And some are going to open businesses, food trucks, those sorts of things.
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So they're in the process right now of trying to figure out what, how, creatively doing something out there to really put our roots down and start businesses out there to the glory of God.
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We need to start planning for the families that are going out to raise some of their income, at least half of their income, as missionary funding so they can have time to go out and do ministry and do evangelism as part of their labor out there rather than working two or three jobs just to make ends meet.
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We do really want to get Apologia Radio as its own radio station out there where we're going to have solid sermons.
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Can you imagine a radio station that had like R .C. Sproul, Dr. James White, right, as the sermon on every hour and then have some
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Apologia Radio in there as well? We want to be able to do that out there. So pray that God would bless us with our own channel in Kauai.
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That would be a way for us to immediately communicate with the entire island all the time. So that's a big goal for us right now is to get a radio station out there and get busy with that right away.
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Pray for us as we negotiate this lease with this location in Kapa 'a. It is perfect for us.
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It is exactly where we want it to be. It is visible. It couldn't be better.
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And we met with the landlord who went into the space. It is super cheap. We could do it.
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Pray that we get it. And pray for us as we finish up Redeemed Rebels, the film, and the program so we can start implementing all that out there and here.
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And, yeah, that's kind of the big parts and pieces right now, right? We do want to start an education ministry out there.
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So if you are interested in helping to build that, we are literally going to go door -to -door in Kauai, knock on doors, and to let people know that we are aware of the education deficit out there.
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And we want to, as a church, bless them with an education. We want to provide what they need.
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If they can give towards it, that would be great. If they can't, we're going to raise money worldwide for the mission of educating the children of Kauai with a biblical worldview.
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So we'll be able to give them materials. We'll start co -ops. But here's the thing. In principle, we know what
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God says about education and educating our kids. But in terms of implementation for educating an entire island, we can be creative.
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There's not like a first book of education, right?
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Chapter 1, here's how you start education on an island in the middle of the ocean. So we do need help. And so if you guys want to participate in that area, if you have skills in that area, we would love your help.
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Another thing I want to announce is the team we're going to send out is not going to be a massive team of 15 to 20 families.
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It can't be. It has to be a limited number of families. However, we need your help.
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So having short -term missionaries that are committed to this work that will go out on occasion to do missions work out there with a team that is there is going to be absolutely essential.
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We need your help. I want to make sure I can communicate this in a way that makes sense.
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It's important for us to recognize that Apologia Church, our mission and ministry, we're all working together, right?
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So if you can't go to the abortion mill, you can pray. You can make blessing bags for moms.
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You can give stuff. You can give financially towards it even if you don't go. If you don't live in Kauai, you can still be a big part of this mission.
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Trust me, we need help, a lot of help. And so I want to invite you all to be a part of this mission and ministry.
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Whether you set feet on the ground in Kauai or not, we need your help. And so I'd love for you guys to join with us in praying a lot about this and investing in any way that you can into this work.
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So if it comes to businesses, if you have skills in this area and you want to bless in that, please come talk to us.
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If it comes to the education aspect, please come talk to us. Drug and alcohol addiction ministry, please come talk to us.
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Anything you feel like you can serve in, please come and let us know. We want you guys all to be a part of this mission. Our hope is that not only would
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God continue to do damage to the kingdom of darkness through what we do here in Phoenix, but He would deliver a death blow to that island in Kauai.
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It really can be done, guys. If you get out there, I know you guys haven't been there, but if you can get out there and you can just drive one day from north to south and spend one day in Kauai and see, you would know.
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This island needs Jesus, and it can be done. The question I've asked, and I know we've all asked, is why in the world isn't it being done?
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Why? Why? Why is it not being done? And I don't really know all the answers to that. All I know is we're ready to do it.
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So if you want in, you are welcome. The water is warm. Literally.
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Literally. So did anything funny happen while we were there? Did Dustin do anything weird?
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I'm sure there was something. We almost saw some tourists die. That was kind of neat.
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We did our first worship service on the beach. The Sunday we were going to leave, we were like, well, we're here, let's do worship service.
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And that day, there was tropical storms, crazy stuff and everything, and the riptides were coming in.
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It was the first time we were ever near the beach, and the lifeguards actually said, don't get in the water today.
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It's very dangerous. Don't you dare. And lifeguards went and told us, obviously, they call them
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Howleys. That's what they call us, by the way. But we're past that now. These tourists, getting it right where the riptides were, like rip currents pulling out, very dangerous.
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We're trying to do worship, and I'm looking up at everybody while we're doing worship, and everybody, not paying attention to the message, they're watching the couple just perverse -like waiting for them to get sucked out, right?
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So that was kind of cool. And the chicken, he was really cocky.
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He was, um... I stole it. I stole it. That's my joke, just for the record.
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This weird chicken is up there walking around in this woman's house, and it's gorgeous.
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It's like a million -dollar condo. It's gorgeous, hanging off of a cliff. It's scary and beautiful.
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This chick is walking around, and we're staring at it, and it came out just staring at us, like, looked down at us, and started, like, cock -a -doodle -doo, like, yelling at us.
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Crazy. And the woman, we looked at her, like, why do you have a chicken in your house? She's like, isn't it great? It's great.
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It's chicken in my house. It's weird. It's chicken everywhere. Chicken's everywhere. We did see people get hellevacked. That was kind of cool.
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We did. We saw, um... Hopefully Marcus got that. Yeah, tourists getting lifted out of the jungle, hanging off of a string, like, you know, like...
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And they did it several times, because get up there and break their ankles, and, yeah, it was cool.
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So, yeah, that's what's up. So that's all. So let's stand together as a church, and let's pray.
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Let's pray over what God's doing. Father, I want to thank you so much for giving us the grace to serve you.
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Thank you, Lord, for every bit of ministry you give us to do, whether it's moms raising up children, educating them, fathers providing for our families and raising up our children, whether it means those of us who go out and do street ministry, whether we're going to Kauai or staying home, thank you for using us.
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And we just pray you continue to give to us as a church humility, give to us,
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Lord, compassion, give to us love for you and one another. Lord, I pray that you would squash pride within our body and allow us,
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Lord, to seek first your kingdom and to glorify you. I pray for this mission. I pray that you put your hand on it.
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We pray for your blessing financially upon it. And I pray, Lord, you prepare the families that are going to give everything up to go out there and to make your name known.
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We pray that you continue to give them courage and strength and that as a church you would allow us to support them with love around the clock.
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In Jesus' name, amen. You guys can be seated. Thank you, guys. Okay, we're going to do communion.
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Hey, by the way, how cool is that? R .C. Sproul Jr. taught an apology at church. Was that great or what? That was awesome.
58:34
I missed all kinds of great stuff. R .C. Sproul Jr. vilified in the media.