Missionary Presentation Eddie Ziss

Well, at this time, we're going to have a video that is going to be shown. We have a missionary, Eddie, and Sarah Zist. They're just a wonderful family, so thankful for them. They are missionaries to the Philippines.

Been there for three years. God's doing a great work there, and after the video, He's going to come and bring the Word for us, and you'll be blessed by His message. At this time, we can go ahead and turn the lights down and have that video. It seems like only yesterday that our family have surrendered to God's call to pursue planting a local church in Tognum City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . You know, every time I watch that video, I just kind of shake my head, because some of the things God's done is just unbelievable. You know, that thing that God's done in your life, it's unbelievable. Salvation, that's unbelievable.

But God, with God, nothing's impossible. So we want to praise God. We want to thank you, Lighthouse Baptist Church, Pastor Josh, for allowing us to come back. This is our first furlough in three years. Oh my, Atlanta, it went fast. We were here for your conference, and then we raised our support in about 20 months during COVID to get to the Philippines, and we got right to work. You saw in the video, we started, we landed in November, and we had church the first week of December. We started meeting. There was no, like, well, we'll get adjusted.

No, I think we just jet-lagged our way through it. But I mean, that's what God honors. When you just get out of the way and let Him move, there is just things that you cannot believe. And so tonight, I'm Pastor Eddie, I've got my wife Sarah, we've got Tyler, Zach, and Elena's back there with the kids, and what a journey this last three years has been. And you guys have been along for that journey. I was talking to one of the ladies, and since we left, she would send me text messages occasionally. And she's like, well, I didn't want to bother you.

And I said, no, no, there's no bother. Whether I get it at 2 a.m. or 8 p.m., just knowing that people are thinking about us and praying for us, you have no idea what that means. The mission feels lonely. Now, again, missionaries come up and they want to, Hi, I'm Eddie, and everything's perfect, my life's perfect, my children are perfect. That's not ministry. Ministry is the work of the Lord. And the work of the Lord is hard work. That's why it's called work, did you know that?

It's not called the vacation of the Lord or the sabbatical of the Lord. I wish it was, right? Don't you wish it was? But in all seriousness, tonight I'm going to share something with you that's very personal to us, because when you're in a country that is desperately struggling to find their identity, desperately trying to find a purpose, the one thing that everyone needs to know is that they have freedom. Freedom. Something that our country was founded on, something that every person should have, because freedom does not mean you just get to do what you want. Freedom means you get to choose.

And without a choice, you're a slave. So tonight the message is titled Finding Freedom. I'm going to go ahead and pray and we're going to get into our message. Father, let's come to you with humble and open hearts and open ears.

We want to hear from you and your word and all the things that you've done in our life, Lord. You can do that in anyone's life. You can transform anyone.

You can equip anyone. And you truly can send anyone to do whatever it is you have for them. So Father, tonight I pray if anyone's here, they would listen to your words, not just mine, that your Spirit would burden us and draw us nearer tonight than yesterday. And Father, as we just prepare to hear from you, I pray our hearts and minds would be stilled from this busy day and prepare to hear from you. Lord, we love you and thank you in Jesus' name.

Amen. So a very common question people ask Sarah and I is, well, why did you choose the Philippines? And I've said this before, we did not choose the Philippines. God chose the Philippines for us.

And that process started in 2016. So do not be frustrated if you feel like God's moving in your heart if you don't end up on the other side of the world tomorrow. If you're not a pastor tomorrow, if you're not a pastor's wife, if you're not a missionary, tomorrow is maybe not the time.

It might be a while. And it takes a process. So for us, it started with us arriving in the Philippines in November of 2021 and seeing God be faithful, seeing God have partners like you guys that prayed for us and helped us to construct a fantastic building that people are now coming and being discipled in and hearing the Word because we are the only English-speaking, English-preaching church within about 100 miles.

English is the predominant language of the Philippines and most of the known world. So what a great advantage we have to take a book that's written in a language that everybody can understand and tell them the truth about Jesus Christ, amen? And that's what we're doing. And God called me to be the pastor there at Freedom Baptist Church, and it's a great privilege tonight just to open His Word and talk with you for just a little while. Everyone here, and I want you to hear when I say everyone, right? Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. What's that word whosoever mean?

What's it mean? Anyone, whosoever. So listen, everyone here tonight can do their part to fulfill God's plan because of three biblical freedoms that you'll find in our ministry. So freedom number one is freedom over sin. Lead the lost to Christ.

Lead the lost to Christ. This is the purpose of the Freedom Baptist Church. This is the purpose of our ministry because we have to have a why, right? You have to have a why do you do, why do you go to church? Why do you love your wife? Why do you love your children?

You have to have a why in order to excel the how and the what you do. Because without a why, people show up with Bibles and suits on and they just wander around and they don't know what they're doing. But when you really know that you're leading people to Jesus, when you really have a purpose, then you understand why we went to the Philippines and this church has been here for 15 years next week. Praise the Lord. Please open your Bibles to the Gospel of John chapter 8. I'll give you some words from Jesus himself. John chapter 8 and verse 32.

I'm going to read John chapter 8 verse 32 through 36. Jesus said, And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And they answered, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man. How sayest thou, ye shall be made free? And Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant, which abideth not in the house forever, but the Son abideth forever.

This is a very interesting two-letter word. If, if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Amen?

You may be seated. You see, that passage tells us that Jesus Christ is saying you can be free. You can be free to make a decision. You can be free to do the right thing, but you cannot do it on your own. You can't muster up enough fortitude, enough hard work to be free. You cannot free yourself. You need Jesus to make you free.

And that's why it is freedom over sin. You lead the lost to Christ. This is the message. No matter where you are in the world, the message is Jesus.

He's the only way. Acts chapter 4 verse 12 on the screen. It says, neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be what? Saved. You need to be saved. Listen, you tell people around the corner.

You tell them at the gas station, hey, listen, you need to be saved. That's a good Bible word. You know what that means? That means, hey, you're in trouble, buddy. You're going to hell.

I don't have to tell you and judge you. You're already on your way there. The Bible says you're condemned already and you need to be saved. And we need to open our mouth and tell people, hey, listen, there's somebody that can save you and it ain't me. It's not your pastor. It's Jesus. Romans chapter 8 verse 2 on the screen. It says, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus have made me free from the law of sin and death. Did you know there's a law even in sin? Like some people think, well, I'll just do what I want to do.

Well, guess what? You are serving the law of sin. No matter what you do, no matter who you are, you breathe God's air. And when you serve sin, you're not serving Jesus. But when you serve Jesus, you don't serve sin.

You see that choice? That's only because Jesus gave you that choice. He didn't make you get saved. You said, yes, I understand that I can't make it on my own. I need Jesus.

I need to be free. And when he did that moment, you're free. And then the rest of your life, you know what you get to decide? Which law are you following?

The law of sin and death or the law of the spirit, love, and freedom in Jesus Christ? So many people around the world, around Xenia, have never even heard the gospel one time. Can you even believe that?

It's a fact. And you know, sometimes we like to sit at home and scroll, the death scroll, endless scroll, just looking at stuff that doesn't matter, TV. But sometimes you've got to get up. And you know what? In our church, in this church, too, maybe you guys get up. This next picture just shows, how do people get saved? Well, guess what? You've got to get up and you've got to go out and find people.

Right? You've got to go ask people to come to church. Because the answer to Jesus is no, unless you ask. No! No one's going to come running through the door and say, hey, I'm a sinner. I broke the law. No speeding person.

No person speeding goes looking for the police station. You need to stop them in their life. You need to intersect their life and gently, yet firmly, go out of your way and into their way and look for people that will respond. Willing people. Because when willing people hear, they will respond. And we take kids, we take adults, and we just go talk to people about Jesus, invite them to church. Hey, you should come and check out our church. Hey, you should understand what the Bible says. And when you do that, things happen, right? I mean, I'm looking at a church that when we were here is just growing like crazy.

Why? You're here, most of you, other than the pastor and his family. You're here because someone invited you to church. If you're newer, praise the Lord.

If you're older, praise the Lord. Now get out there and go invite people. Because then when you invite people, things happen, right? The next picture, we have events.

You have a service, you have an anniversary, and people come in. And they sit in seats, and then all you need to do, all you need to do is ask. Just ask.

And people show up. People come to church, listen, oh no, I've asked already. Then ask again. Never give up.

If I had given up the first time I asked my wife to date me, oh man, I'd be single my whole life. I was persistent. And I was persistent when I was calling and raising funds for our church. Ask your pastor.

Ask any pastor that you know. I was persistent, and if the answer was not right now or no, I waited. I kept asking. That's how we ended up in the Philippines, that's how we ended up with the church, that's how we ended up back here with you folks. And we didn't, listen, we didn't travel 8500 miles across the world to make people look like me.

We're not trying to make people have uniformity in how they look. We're trying to give them unity in Christ. And unity comes from this book. You get outside this book, left or right, and you've got trouble on each side.

And some of you come from either side. But you go back to the book, man, there's freedom in there. Because Jesus is the author of freedom. He gives you freedom to choose.

Do what's right, not what's wrong. Jesus Christ says he can make you free and save you today. Did you hear me? Maybe you're here today and you've come to church and you're like, yeah, yeah, I get it.

In the Philippines they say, siggy, siggy. Okay, okay. Maybe you've been listening to pastor or other people, yeah, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh. Someday. Well, someday's today. Because today's God's day. Tomorrow's Satan's day.

Because no one's promised tomorrow. So what about you? Do you know Jesus is your personal savior? Do you have freedom in Christ? Have you applied this to your life and not just shown up because mom and dad or grandma and grandpa show up at church? Maybe tonight you need freedom number one, freedom over sin.

Maybe you need lead to Christ. Freedom number two is freedom to worship. Live a life that glorifies God.

You see, this is the plan of Freedom Baptist Church and I will tell you this. If you have no plan, you can plan to fail. Write stuff down, make goals, right? Everybody has goals in here. At least the stuff's important. You've got schedules, you've got kids, you've got life. What about your Christian life?

What about how you serve God and worship God and are gods of order and all these things. Listen, we traveled in 2019 and 2020 during COVID about 100,000 miles, 95,000 miles. We met about 158 churches to present our ministry during COVID. So listen, I understand it's hard to get up and go do it.

But there's no excuse not to. Jesus is worth it. He's worth our worship. And so once a person's born again, they say, yes, I need Jesus.

Well, praise the Lord, right? But listen, someone that's been made free is like someone that's in the prison cell. The shackles are off and the gates open and they're still standing in the cell.

100% free. But still in captivity because they don't know what to do next. What do I do next? What do I do?

How do I do this? I only know my old life. I got saved in March of 2009. I had a horrible old life that was a lot of trouble.

And I needed somebody to help me get out of that cell. Because if it was up to me, man, I would have just been glad to be saved. Listen, you're not going to high-five Jesus and kick and... No, no.

No, no, no. You're going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, the Bible says, and give an account of the stupid things you did when you were saved. How about we minimize that by worshiping God? By living a life that glorifies God?

Because when you're born again, you have the Spirit of God living in you. I can't. Well, not with that attitude. It's hard.

Duh. If it was easy, everybody would be saved. Everybody would be, praise the Lord, churches would be filled. But it's not like that.

That's not real world. And you need to worship God in everything you do. You're in John chapter 8, go back to John chapter 4. Let's look at some other words of Jesus. John chapter 4.

John chapter 4, verse 23 and 24. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to what? Worship Him, for God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Listen, there is a desire in this world for us to worship. We are created to worship. Not just singing on Sunday or Wednesday or in the car when nobody's listening.

I'm glad nobody listens to them. But I worship God when I'm singing, right? Worship songs, that's what we call it. But worship doesn't stop when the radio's off or the singers get down. Worship starts when you go out the door.

When you go get your kids and you're driving home and they're crying and they made a stain in your new car and you get home and they haven't showered. That's your life, man. That's the real ministry of worship. How's your worship life at home? You bringing glory to God in all things or you just showing up at church and saying, amen, amen?

You see, spirit and truth is only for believers that are flowing and following the Word of God. Worship's not just songs and church service. It's not just Bible studies and serving while you're here at church. Your entire life is worship.

Entire life. Jesus is your owner. He is your Lord. And He deserves and desires worship. Anyone in this room can have a relationship with God. And after that, you choose to worship God through your life, at work, your family, at the store. Worship is everything and everywhere we go. Ministry, right?

We seek ministries to help people really know the truth and the Word and you have to couple that with the Spirit. Because listen, I know a lot of people that know the Bible. Do you hear me? You know them too. They know it up here, but man, their hands and their heart.

Whoo-wee! Hard hammers. That's not what Jesus talked about. Let your light shine. Be compassionate. Love. That's the Spirit of God, not... You know them!

You know them! I would like for those types to observe these next two verses because 1 Corinthians 10 verse 31 on the screen says, Whether therefore ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. All means all. Whatever means whatever. Paul echoes that in Colossians chapter 3 verse 23 and 24 on the screen. It says, And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ. Do you serve the Lord Christ tonight? Do you do it heartily? Okay, I love that word.

It's like I'm not the smartest guy. But the Bible will self-explain if you just believe it and study it. And the word heartily means with all your heart.

The word's even in there! Do it heartily, as unto Pastor Josh. Do it heartily, as unto your missionary.

Do it heartily, as unto the Lord. Because that's who gets the glory. We're just the spokesmen. We're the ambassadors. We're the representatives for local churches to help you guys along the way. So when someone knows Jesus as their Savior, and they're stuck in their prison cell, the first thing we want to do is help them walk out of that prison cell. And as born-again believers in a Baptist church, the first step of obedience for a born-again Christian is what? Baptism!

Right? Helping someone understand why they need to be baptized and what baptism means is something that we're going to be preaching on for the rest of our lives, because most people get it wrong. They want to make it do something. Well, you do this, brother, and it gives you that.

I'm like, what? No, I already have the Holy Spirit. I don't need to go down in your basement and get the Holy Spirit.

That's weird. I have the Spirit of God in me from the moment of salvation. I don't need to get put into something. I'm already in Christ, and He's in me.

But if you don't know that, you'll get tricked. So we take people aside, and we've had people get baptized. Young people, old people, baptism, right? The next picture shows some people in our ministry that got baptized. They said yes to Jesus. They wanted to know they were saved, and they wanted to show that publicly.

Yeah, I did that. And then that's the first step of obedience, and that growth leads to other things. Now, as a pastor and as a missionary, I'm accountable for people. I'm accountable for funds and ministry. And so I always like to take just a second to give you guys some statistics of our ministry.

And being that we're talking about worship, this fits very well. The next slide gives you some statistics about our ministry. So currently, the current fruit from our ministry, we had 1,000 Bibles, and we've given out 709 of them. Those are 709 people that got a Bible, a Gospel presentation, something else. It wasn't just, hey, here's some Bibles, come on, y'all, and pick them up. Everything we do in our ministry is purpose-driven because it's on purpose. We have 150 known professions of faith.

That means someone sat down or engaged in a real one-on-one conversation and clearly gave the Gospel, and they clearly said, yes, I want to be born again. Baptisms, we have 30 baptisms. Right now, we have a total adult covenant membership of 42 adults. Our average main service attendance is between 80 to 100 with kids. Our most attended service was 263 at our grand opening.

And this last one for me is probably the most meaningful because this will live on long past me. Active in adult and youth one-on-one discipleship, 30. 30 people right now without me making them or without any kind of prodding are meeting one-on-one to help another person know the Bible because that's what Jesus did. He invested in people. He didn't just preach and feed people.

He spent time with people. Life on life. That's what Jesus did, and those aren't just numbers. Those are lives represented in those statistics.

Those are people. Those are souls, and God cares about souls. These are transformed lives, not religious works and traditions that I'm telling you about.

This isn't just an outward series of information, but this is inward transformation. And only the Spirit of God can do that, and that is why people need to learn how to glorify God from the Scriptures, and they follow a Biblical pattern that was set by Jesus Christ himself. Listen, there are two things that are not in the Bible, your opinion and my opinion.

All right? Praise the Lord. And so we take Jesus' word for it, and only God can do that. Only God can help us live a life that glorifies Him. So freedom number two is live a life that glorifies God. Are you living that life today? Or is it only on Sunday? Or I'm talking to Wednesday nighters, so now you've got two days out of the week covered. Good job. But what about when you leave here?

Go to the gas station. You meet that person that you're always like, I don't want to see them. Come on. Jesus had them in his ministry too. Don't ever forget that. Jesus had that person in his ministry. And you know the person. Everything from the Bible you can replicate and say, I know that guy.

I know that lady. And you know what that guy or that lady needs? They need Jesus. And they need you to help them.

Maybe, just maybe, the only reason that person is in your life is you're the only one that can help them. Come on. God's not up there like, ooh, let's see how this goes. Freedom number two. Freedom to worship, live a life that glorifies God.

Our last one, freedom number three. This is freedom to minister. Freedom to minister. Leave a biblical legacy. You see, the product or result of our ministry of the Freedom Baptist Church, that's what remains. Salvation, discipleship, and then remaining. Continuing. Just like Jesus and the church and us today. We've been given the baton, so to speak. What are you doing with it?

Sitting on the sideline watching everybody else eating Cheetos? John chapter 15, verse 16, on the screen. It says, ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit. Now, most churches stop there. Does the Bible stop there? Is there a period there? No, I do know that that's a comma. That means something's coming after that. And that your fruit should remain.

That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name he may give it you. That is the reproduction that Jesus did. That the early church did. They produced fruit, the fruit remained, and we're a part of that fruit, and we need to just keep doing that. Right, what happens to a species when they stop reproducing? They die out and they go extinct. And listen, last time I checked, there's more people in the world now than there was when Jesus was around. About 8 billion people?

Come on! We should be reaching out more than they did back in the 1900s, but sadly we don't. We got technology, we got Facebook, you got apps, you got this, you got that, but yet you're still just not getting plugged in.

Why? What's got you so busy and consumed that you can't spend time with Jesus? The Lord of your life, your Savior, you can't spend time with Him? Now listen, God could have done it anyway. I think of that sometimes, I wonder if He'd have done it this way.

You ever have those thoughts with yourself? I'm glad those thoughts are just thoughts because I'm like, you know, we know that God was manifested in the flesh and He came and He died for the sins of the world and He rose on the third day. We know that, right?

Basic church doctrine. But before He died on that cross, do you know what He did? He did something very unique. I mean, He could have gathered everyone in the world in a big field and said, okay, everybody raise your hand and you'll get to come to heaven. Did He do that?

No. He spent three and a half years with people. Some of the same people that would be the ones saying, crucify Him, crucify Him. Then a little before that, they were like, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna. Does that sound familiar? You know somebody like that? You know how you know somebody like that? Because you see them every morning in the mirror. That's me. I wake up in the morning and there He is.

Oh, worst enemy. And I got to let Jesus take control of that. I need to take what I've learned and not just put it up here. I got to go out and do something with it.

Listen, you ever filled up a kettle with water and just let that thing steam and cap that? You know what you turn that into? A bomb.

You got to have a vent. Outreach, discipleship. Kids' ministry. Something. You have to take something you've been given and give it back. To whom much is given, much is required. And to whom men have given that much more.

Wow. Sounds like Jesus is like, hey, you got a lot of accountability. You want to wear my name?

You want to wear the Jesus badge? Well, it has a cost. Cost Him His life. It might not physically cost you your life, but Jesus Christ wants your life.

Did you know that? He doesn't, listen, He doesn't want more than you have. But He does want all that you have.

He won't ask you for any more or any less, just everything. And so we're not just here. Listen, I'm not here to put this Baptist church. It's not about me. It's not about my name. You know, I grew up with a dad that had a business and it was a family name, right? A family name.

It's cool. I get it. We're responsible for a family name. We have a heritage.

I get it. But what about the heritage you have in Jesus? The name above all names.

How do you worship Him in spirit and truth? How do you reproduce yourself? How do you help other people? Generation after generation can go on with Jesus Christ. But it only goes on if you reproduce yourself.

Have someone help you help someone else. Do that till you die or Jesus comes back. Amen. That's it. I love ministry and outreach.

I love all that stuff. But if you stripped everything down and said, Pastor Eddie, what would you do if you had to get rid of everything? I said, I would disciple people one-on-one. We did it during COVID because you could still meet one person.

Yeah? Everything else shut down, but man, you could video call somebody. You could sit down one-on-one in your basement hidden with the lights down. We all felt like we were living in communist countries in COVID. But seriously, you can do something for God.

You can do this. And Jesus left his ministry in the hands of 12 very uncapable people. Just like us. But they were very capable because of him. Because they changed their mind, they changed their heart, and they got busy doing the work. And they stopped worrying about the fishing nets.

And they stopped worrying about the extra coin in their pocket. And they started doing the things he did, and they started giving their life to other people. And that's what we're supposed to do. You see, when we arrived in Tagum City, this first picture, you'll notice it's us. It's us investing in people, right?

My wife, me, my son. And we'd sit down and we'd spend time one-on-one about a year just giving our life to people. And then the next picture is very interesting. You're going to notice other people are doing it. I mean, we're still doing it. I'll do it until we die. But these are people we invested in that are investing in other people that are continuing the ministry because that's how you get fruit that remains. Reproducing, multiplication.

Listen, addition's great. People getting saved, fantastic. People need to get saved. Because discipleship is part evangelism, part life. Because you learn how to evangelize and go tell people, and then you help them walk with God. Then you help them with basic fundamentals in the Christian faith.

So we started with us investing in people, and then they began to invest in other people. The question is, are you doing that? Are you doing anything like that?

If not, why? The greatest joy that you can have in ministry is doing what Jesus Christ actually did. Now, I can't raise dead people. I certainly am not going to die on a cross for the sins of the world because he didn't leave us to do that. He left us to reproduce disciples that would reproduce disciples. And while you're doing that, if you're a pastor and you have a ministry, you have to train people, right? This isn't just my ministry. It's not about me. As a leader, I have to reproduce myself.

So you have to train other people. Right now, this next picture, I've got a youth pastor, an intern youth pastor. His name's Rod. That's his wife, Grace. He's 31.

She's 26. And Rod has a servant's heart like you wouldn't believe. He's listening. He's learning. He's growing. And he's working with teenagers. Pray for Rod. It's his internship challenge.

Teens, if you can minister to teens, you can minister to anybody. But he does it with joy. He does it with joy.

He's excited. He's moldable. He believes this book. And he wants to do the right thing and reproduce himself. And you have to do that. You have to train people. So the question is, is there anybody here that actually wants to fulfill God's mission in their life?

Anybody? Because if there is, then these things are not just a good message. Brother, pat on the back. They are an application in your life, and they become standard operating procedure. Ministry is your life, and life is ministry.

I do not mean you're in your chair every day. You are the church. You go out to reach people. You take the church with you. You take Christ with you, right?

Do you just leave him in? Like, well, you know, it was a good service. Pastor, that was a great service, brother.

I really like that service. I'll see you next week. Jesus is there. You just leave Jesus at the door at the Lighthouse Baptist Church, or do you take him with you everywhere you go? Because he's there.

And he's always like, come on, let's go talk to him. I'll talk to a lady at the gas station. I don't know why. I'm pumping gas. This woman's changing the trash.

We're having a joke. And she walked away, and I'm like, I need a track. I got a track. Now she's not there anymore. I had to walk all the way across the parking lot to the garbage can.

And you know what? At first I'm like, no, that's far. But it wasn't far enough. And I just walked up, and I had a track from our church on the other side of the world. So if she goes on Facebook, she's going to be like, that guy's from the Philippines.

Yeah? Yeah, maybe God sent me 8,500 miles back here to tell her about Jesus. Stop playing Jesus games.

Just open your mouth. Because listen, if the adults don't get it, if adults don't get it, I mean this respectfully, but if adults don't get it, we'll go to the generation before them. We'll go to kids. I mean, I'll start with five, six-year-old, 10-year-old, 12-year-old.

I don't care. This next picture is going to show you some people that are in our life that are so dear to us. They just come. They want to serve.

They want to sing. They've got smiles on their face because some of them are starting to really understand. They're not saved yet. Pray for them. But they know that we love them like Jesus loves them.

And when people know that and they know it's real and it's not a religion, they're just that step away. And if we've got to reach them to keep going and bear fruit that remains, we will. But right now our church is just getting started. Three years, right? Not even three and a half years like Jesus yet. And God's provided so much.

People, opportunities after opportunities. Because these kids, you know what I believe, I believe the Bible with my whole heart and soul. It's the only thing I believe with my whole heart and soul. John chapter 17, verse 20 through 21 on the screen, it says, Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou has sent me. Do you know when you really believe the Bible, that prayer he prayed in John 17 was a prayer for those kids you just saw in that picture? Those that shall believe. You know, you're a those that shall believe if you've believed in Christ. But Jesus prayed for you then. He's outside of time. He's God.

He can do whatever he wants. And he decided, he decided to pray for you and me? Man, we should be like, thank you, Jesus.

But sometimes we're like, hmm. Now, if you, if you never come across the world, I want to invite, this is a personal invitation from a missionary, if you ever want to come across the world and see the work, you have an invitation. If you want to come breathe the hot, wet, fiery air, if you want to minister to people that live in a very strange and dangerous place, but you want to do it because Jesus wants you to do it, there's your invitation.

But most of you in this room, you know what you can do? You can pray and you can keep giving because there's more people in that area and we've got to keep growing our ministry. But if you never come, if you never land there and you never walk through the doors of our church, I took a picture and the three freedoms that I gave you in that picture are represented when you walk through our church. So let's bring up that last one. Those three freedoms that I just told you and preached to you are the mission statement of the Freedom Baptist Church at Togum City.

Freedom from sin, lead the lost to Christ, freedom in worship, live a life that glorifies God, and freedom to minister, lead a biblical legacy. That is the mission. You may not have it at the door here, but it's the same. It's the same.

This is the heartbeat of God to do what we're doing over there, to do what you're doing here, to celebrate 15 years and hopefully 15 more years of Jesus, Terry's. But you can't just sit there and wait for someone else to do it. You've got to chase people down. You've got to ask them. You've got to disciple them. You've got to get in people's lives. And guess what?

That's where it gets kind of messy. But that's what Jesus did. And he gave you the same spirit that he gave to Paul and all the other superstar, awesome Christians.

You know what? You can be a superstar, awesome Christian. Well, I want to be like Daniel. I don't. I want to be like David. I don't. I want to be like Moses. I don't. I want to be like Joshua. I don't. You know who I want to be?

Me. I want to be like me because they didn't have the spirit that lives in me. And if you have that, you should be that. You don't need to be Daniel or anybody like that. Be you. Be the best God.

Be the best you God made you to be. And do that and help somebody else. Lead them to Christ. Help them worship and leave a legacy. That's what we're here to do.

And that's what we're going to do. So the questions I want to ask you tonight. Are you leading the lost to Christ? Are you living a life that glorifies God? And are you willing? Are you willing to leave a biblical legacy?