Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "Lessons Learned from Nigeria" by Hiram Kemp

Transcript

"Lessons Learned from Nigeria" by Hiram Kemp · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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Nigeria boasts a population of some 234 million people, making it the sixth most populated
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country in the entire world.
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In the southern region of Nigeria, there are about a million members of the Lord's Church,
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a million Christians in Nigeria, at least in the southern part, which means there are
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more Christians in just southern Nigeria, more members of the Lord's Church in southern
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Nigeria than all of the United States combined.
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Many of you know that my family and I went to Nigeria on a mission trip a week ago from
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March 23rd through March 31st, and while we were there, primarily our job was to work
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with a group of 10 Americans.
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And this group was comprised of the president of World Bible School, his name is Brian Davis,
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his wife's name is Sondra Davis, and they do work with World Bible School, going around
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teaching other individuals how to use that curriculum to teach the gospel.
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Daniel Gaines, many of you are familiar with him and the work he's done in and around Tanzania.
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And there was also on this trip a man by the name of Keefka Sargent, probably the most
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well-traveled missionary that I know and perhaps in our generation.
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He directs all of the Bible programs that are the extension schools for Bear Valley
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throughout the world.
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And then there was Bill Pennell, who had made this trip to Nigeria some eight times.
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This was his ninth trip.
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And last but not least is Chad Wagner, who was leading the group, and he's been a missionary
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to Nigeria for some 20 years overseas and helps to direct the two colleges that we worked
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with over there primarily.
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And so we were the 10 Americans, all of us pictured in this picture, that were there
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to work with these schools and to teach in these schools in Nigeria.
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And every morning, the breakfast conversations were pretty interesting as everybody talked
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about their various work.
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Also was Bob Burkert and the work that he's doing, Brad Burkert, excuse me, the work he's
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done previously in Peru, and he came on this trip as well.
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Around the table, Brian and Sondra Davis talked about being missionaries decades before they
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worked with World Bible School in South Africa.
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And Daniel and his continued work in Tanzania and Chad and all of the adventures that he
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had taken in and around Nigeria, not just where we had labored, but even in the bush
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country and all of the work that's been done in Peru in various places.
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But most importantly, the work that we came to help with the Nigerians in order to teach
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them in a project known as the Great Workshop.
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The Great Workshop is a workshop where Nigerian preachers come together, some 400 to 600.
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This year there was about 450 of them.
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And this year, the theme of the Great Workshop was making the mission work or evangelism
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a priority.
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And these 450 preachers gathered at what's known there as WNCC, Western Nigeria Christian
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College, to be trained by those of us who spoke in how to better reach those people
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in their country.
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Not only Americans spoke, but other Nigerians and individuals in and around Ghana and other
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parts of Africa.
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These men, many of them had earned doctorate degrees, knew their Bibles well, were well
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studied and were trying to help their countrymen learn the Bible in an efficient way.
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So we were able to teach there and to help out.
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During the workshop, there was a pause and we went to a prison.
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WNCC, this Christian College in Nigeria, they have a relationship with a local prison there.
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At this local prison, you can be locked up there from ages 10 to 17.
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Some of them are there because their parents have sent them for misbehavior or for rehab
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due to substance abuse.
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But WNCC has a relationship with this prison or this jail, and they're able to go in and
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teach and teach Bible classes throughout the week.
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Between 12 of the people that they had previously been studying with, young men decided to obey
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the gospel and be baptized.
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And we were able to pause in the middle of the workshop and many of us to go over and
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witness them obeying the gospel.
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The man in this picture, his name is Dr. Biotin.
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He was trained in the States to preach the gospel, went to grad school at Harding in
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Memphis and has gone back to his home country to direct WNCC.
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Brittany taught a lesson to the ladies on how to flourish as a Christian woman in a
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busy world.
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Here's some of the men as we taught outside on this occasion on how to mobilize young
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people for the mission.
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We taught in some of their primary schools.
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These Christian schools are run by members of the church and they allow us to go in and
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teach their primary schools, go from elementary all the way up to what's known to us as our
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high school.
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And here's a picture with all of us with them.
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Midway through the week, though, there was a pause and we jumped on a plane and went
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to another state of Nigeria known as Uyo.
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And when we went there, we went to work with the Two Towns congregation in another part
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of Nigeria, the Two Towns Church of Christ.
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This was the only time in the trip that I had to have a translator as I preached and
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taught.
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They speak several different dialects there.
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Andre knows the name of it.
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I'm not going to butcher it, but see him after the lesson, OK?
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But they speak English for the most part, but they speak several different dialects.
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And in the Bible class, we, and in the worship service, we use the translator so that we
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could communicate and preach the gospel there.
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Taught the Bible class there on Sunday morning.
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There was also the preaching of the lesson.
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And then we went to another Christian college.
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This Christian college is NCBC.
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Everything in Nigeria is an acronym, OK?
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So this stands for Nigerian Christian Bible College.
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And this is their campus.
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There's two aspects to this campus.
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There's the preaching school side, and then there's the college side.
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Both WNCC and NCBC, both of these are credited Bible degrees by the Nigerian government.
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And this is a bit of their campus.
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Some of these buildings are named after American missionaries, Willie Cato and others, who have
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spent their resources, money, and lives trying to make sure that the gospel makes its way
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to Nigeria.
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Here's a working house where they're doing things to revamp the school there and repair
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some things that need to be repaired.
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Here's one of their instructors in the extension program, teaching young men in their schools
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and instructing them.
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I believe this was New Testament epistles or something to that degree.
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I was able, at this school, to teach first a lesson to the staff there, a lesson from
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Second Timothy on how those that preach the Bible ought to be impacted by the Bible.
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And then they brought in the entire student body for a second lesson.
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The preaching school and the college side, and we were able to preach a lesson there
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and instruct them.
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And then, finally, we went to another school, one of the primary schools, and taught a lesson
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to the students that were there.
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Some cultural things.
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Some people tried jollof rice and spicy chicken.
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Other people set up for fine dining cheese pizza.
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And I'll let you figure out who did what.
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We also saw some people eating what's called, they pronounce things and write things out
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the way they say them.
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We say burger, they say bulga, and so they pronounce it B-O-G-A.
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What is on that burger?
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What do you think that is?
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I don't know either.
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And I didn't eat it, okay?
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I got one, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
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But I don't know what's on that, but Brittany took a picture of it, and I ate ravioli that
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day or something, we packed.
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But here's some of their fine dining cuisine.
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These are women that are outside and using pan fruit to make olive oil that they use
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to cook with.
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It's also sometimes found in many of our soaps.
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They show Brittany and Nadia how they use a tool to make this and how they go about
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producing that.
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People asked us what kind of animals we saw.
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We didn't see any exotic animals.
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This is a malnourished cow of some sort.
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That's about as exotic as it got for us, aside from the two pig farms that we saw while we
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were there.
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Initially, I was worried about the 12 hours on the flight over.
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That went fine.
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But I thought I would die in the traffic.
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They don't have any stop signs.
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They don't have street lights.
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And they drive pretty aggressively.
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They beat their horns, not out of anger and frustration like we would in the States, but
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to let other people know that they are there.
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And here's just some pictures of outside the church building there at Two Towns.
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Here's what I call my machete friend.
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I just saw him carrying this machete on our way to worship.
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I'm sure he had a good reason for it, maybe working purposes.
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But there we go.
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Another picture outside of the church building.
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Everything in Nigeria that they do, at least where we were, there are shops set outside
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so that people can make money and support themselves.
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And they'll sell anything and do anything to make an honest living and to work.
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Here's a picture of their downtown scene as we were on our way to the airport to go home.
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What I want to do in the rest of our time tonight, I wanted to just introduce you to
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some of what we saw, some of what we did.
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But the bulk of the lesson tonight, I want to draw lessons from Nigeria.
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And this will be a simple lesson, and it'll go fast from here, is simply to let every
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one of the points stand for one of the letters in the name Nigeria.
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So it'll be an acrostic, and every one of these points tonight will be something that
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I learned from Nigeria in keeping with the letters of the country name.
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Before I start, though, I want to just give two preemptive points of something I hope
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to avoid that I think sometimes happens when people give mission reports like this one.
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The first one, the first pitfall I hope to avoid is sometimes people make all of their
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mission reports about how impoverished the other country is, and how blessed we are to
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be first world people to live in America, and you should go on a mission trip to see
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how bad other people have it, and it'll make you more appreciative of the material things
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you have.
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And I think that's true.
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I think it's right.
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I just think when it comes to mission work, that's a peripheral lesson at best.
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The most important thing isn't really their financial or material status, but it's their
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spiritual status.
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And so while you can go on a foreign mission trip and learn some things about the abject
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poverty seen throughout the world, that's not the main point.
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And then here's the second one.
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It's a note about comparison.
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Sometimes when people give a mission report, it all turns into, look at how great they
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are, and look at how terrible we are, and we'd be a lot better as Christians if we were
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like them or vice versa.
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And while the New Testament does use other congregations, in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, Paul
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does this with the Christians in Macedonia and in Achaia to spur one another on to greater
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faithfulness, I want us to see tonight we're both serving the same Lord.
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And what we can learn from the Nigerians to be encouraged in our faithfulness, let us
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do that.
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And in the areas where we are doing good to the glory of God, let us be encouraged to
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do the same and notice that our brethren throughout the world are engaged in the same spiritual
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work that we are.
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Here are the lessons that I learned while in Nigeria tonight.
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Number one, you're never alone.
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In Acts 2, verses 42 through 45, Christianity starts with people obeying the gospel, and
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then Luke says, they continue steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, and the fellowship,
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the breaking of bread, and the prayers.
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They all were together.
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They sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to anybody as every individual
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had need.
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In the first century church, there was this rich and deep togetherness, this camaraderie.
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And when I was in Nigeria, I learned this lesson.
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As a Christian, you're never alone.
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There are people across the world that believe the same things, preach the same things, sing
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the same truths, and are trying to glorify the very same God that we are trying to glorify.
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When Peter says in 1 Peter 5 and verse 9, the same types of conflict are being accomplished
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by your brotherhood throughout the world, this is exactly what he means.
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When you get together in an auditorium with 400 other preachers that are trying to preach
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the same gospel, that have the same sort of congregational issues that we face in the
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United States, it's uplifting, it's encouraging, it's a reminder.
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It's not just us.
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Elijah almost lost his way as a prophet of God in the northern kingdom behind this reality.
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In 1 Kings 19 and verse 4 and in verse 10, you remember Elijah says, I'm the only one
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left serving you, God.
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It's me and me alone.
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And God tells him in 1 Kings 19, 18, there are 7,000 other prophets that haven't bowed
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the knee to Baal.
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Elijah, you're not alone.
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And maybe when we think about Christianity, sometimes we think, of course, there are a
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few sound churches in the Bible, Baal, and maybe a few we don't know much about in the
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Northeast and in other parts of North America.
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And that's probably about it.
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Trips like this just remind you, it's not just us.
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There are other people that when you sing and they sing, this world is not my home,
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they mean it as much as you do.
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And our citizenship collectively is in heaven, Philippians 3 and verse 20.
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And it's not all us.
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Other people are doing the very same thing to the good and glory of God.
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You know, a lot of people, when they heard we were going on this trip, were concerned.
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Not just because we were going halfway around the world, but specifically because of where
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we were going.
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We were going to Nigeria.
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And people weren't just concerned because we were going halfway around the world.
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The concern was because a large part of Nigeria, and if you look at the blue part of that map,
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that's states throughout Nigeria where Sharia law has been accepted and enacted.
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Boko Haram and the radical Muslim influence of persecution specifically toward Christians
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has taken place.
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And a lot of people, some here, sent me articles letting me know about what's going on in Nigeria.
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I read a lot of those articles and sent a lot of questions to the group we were going
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with trying to ensure what part of Nigeria are we going to.
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We went to the southwest part of Lagos and in and around up above there, Uyo, and we
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were in a relatively safe place as far as safe can be on the mission field.
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One of the men that went on the trip with us was so concerned and wanted to make sure
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we were safe that he paid money to have extra armed security on the grounds at WNCC throughout
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the duration of the workshop.
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And so as we were preaching and walking from sessions and breakout sessions, there were
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these men, armed security guards with rifles and shotguns all around the premises doing
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the best that they could to secure our safety.
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And thankfully, nothing happened.
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There weren't any kidnappings and all the things that people worry about in the north.
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But here's what I learned when we were on the trip.
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There were Nigerian preachers there on the scene that do live in the north and they can't
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just not show up for Jesus if it's hot in the north or things aren't going their way
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if there's the potential for persecution.
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They don't have armed security 24-7, 365.
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So how do they do it?
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Or better yet, why would they continue to do it?
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It has to be because they know and believe they're not alone.
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When he says as Neil preached this morning from Hebrews 13, 5 and 6, I'll never leave
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you, nor abandon you.
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They must believe that.
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Matthew 28 and verse 20, I'm with you always, even until the end of the age.
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Yes, they have their fellow brethren with them throughout the world, but their elder
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brother in heaven, Jesus Christ, and it's because of that, that reality that they believe
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no matter what happens to us, we're not alone.
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They can hold fast in their faith.
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Here's lesson number two.
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The Nigerians taught me a lesson about infectious joy.
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Paul says in Philippians 4 and verse 4, rejoice in the Lord always and again I'll say rejoice.
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In 1 Thessalonians 5, 16, Paul says rejoice evermore.
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Even in the face of hardship, 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 10, Paul says you can be sorrowful
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and yet always rejoicing.
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You know that.
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You know that.
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Christians are supposed to be joyous.
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When we went to Nigeria though, I saw it in a new light, in a refreshing light.
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I checked this before I was getting ready to preach this, and in just about every picture
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I took with the Nigerians, they were always smiling.
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Not smiling like you're supposed to smile because somebody's taking a picture of you
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and they might post it, a genuine and true smile of happiness.
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They'll come up to you and they'll often say this.
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This is their way of saying, hey, can we snap?
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It's a shorthand way of saying, can we take a picture?
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And they get like right up in your face with their cameras.
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They take a picture.
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They did this to me one time and Daniel Gaines took a picture and he said, I'm going to send
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this to you, Hiram, so you never forget what it was like to be in Nigeria.
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You can be preaching and they'll walk right up on the pulpit and take a picture right
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in your face because they're happy to see you.
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They're excited.
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Their joy is infectious.
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I guess one of the most heartwarming stories we heard while we were over there was the
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story about a man, a preacher by the name of Vincent.
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Vincent was in one of Bear Valley's extension schools in Cameroon.
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There had been a crime committed outside of where he lived while he was in school, and
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the next day the police rounded him up and a few other young men who happened to look
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like him and fit the description for this crime and he was put in jail.
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He had done nothing wrong, but they were just trying to be safe, rather safe than sorry.
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Vincent was incarcerated as a result.
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He didn't worry.
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He figured he'd be released immediately because he had done nothing wrong, but he ended up
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being incarcerated for three months.
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While he was in jail for three months, he said, I did the only thing I knew to do.
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I just started teaching people the Bible.
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He started teaching people the Bible and in those three months he baptized 19 different
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people.
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Eventually, he's released from prison.
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He finishes preaching school at the Bear Valley Extension School in Cameroon and he becomes
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this gospel preacher and he's at the great workshop.
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Today though, he's involved in jail ministry in six different jails and that congregation
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that was started at the jail that Vincent was initially incarcerated in is still going
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to this day and they've had about 60 different baptisms to date.
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Keith Kasarjan was there standing with Vincent telling us this story with tears in his eyes
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of joy, but also of sorrow, but not Vincent.
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Vincent just stood there smiling the entire time.
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Later on in the workshop, I called him one-on-one off to the side and I said, Vincent, I know
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Keith told us your story, but let me ask you, when you went to jail, you knew you had done
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nothing wrong.
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Were you sad?
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Were you mad?
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Were you angry, frustrated?
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What were you thinking?
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And he just continued smiling.
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He said, oh no, not at all.
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I knew evidently God wanted a church in the jail and so he sent me.
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It had to be what Paul was thinking in Philippians 1, 12 through 14 when he says, brethren,
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the things that happened to me have actually led to the furtherance of the gospel or Joseph
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in Genesis 45 when he tells his brothers, God sent me before you to preserve you.
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There was nothing you could do to dampen Vincent's spirit, nothing that happened to him.
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He really believed, Romans 8 and verse 28, all things work together for the good of those
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that love God to those that are the called according to his purpose.
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Their singing was joy filled.
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The lessons were convicting and piercing, but the whole time there was this atmosphere
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of joy.
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Christianity is serious business, but it's also a joyful business and the Nigerians wouldn't
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let you forget that.
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They were happy and excited.
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They wanted to be present.
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Many of the Nigerians normally come to this conference and there's some 600 preachers.
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This time it was 450 because the gas prices there are high just like they're high here,
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but the ones that were able to make it, they had the spirit of Psalm 122 in verse one.
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I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord.
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They were glad to be present and to learn.
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Here's number three.
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The gospel works everywhere.
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The gospel isn't Nigerian.
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It's not American.
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It's not even Palestinian.
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The gospel is for everybody.
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The song I have feel lead before we started the lesson tonight.
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It was written by a brother in Christ, brother JM Caleb, and he was a missionary before every
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session at the great workshop.
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We sung that song.
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The gospel is for all, and in that college WNCC, the auditorium is lined with flags,
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not of Nigeria, but of every nation that they could think of around the world that they
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could fit in the auditorium.
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And I think every speaker at the workshop made mention of this reality.
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The gospel is for everybody.
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Jesus says, go and disciple all of the nations.
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Matthew 28 in verse 19, preach the gospel to every creature.
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March 16 in verse 15.
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And not only should we preach it everywhere, but the gospel, it works everywhere.
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By midway through the first century, Paul says in Colossians 1, 23, that every creature
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under heaven had heard the gospel.
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Acts 8 in verse 4, those that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.
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And in this workshop, and in our time in Nigeria, there was just this reminder.
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The same gospel that was preached in the first century, the same gospel that we preach here
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at the Cumberland Trace Church of Christ every week, it does.
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It works everywhere.
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In a day of AI, and of Google, and of social media, and of all, even in this day of great
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technology, you know what still works?
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The gospel of Jesus Christ, because Jesus still saves.
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Paul says in Romans 1, 16, it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes
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it, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
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And as you work in and around Nigeria, you learn the gospel is still working.
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And people are still becoming Christians.
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In Nigeria, we saw some of every different sort of religion.
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They've got Jehovah's Witness Kingdom halls lined in their streets, their Mormon tabernacles,
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a great deal of mega churches.
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But above all, their greatest religious competition in this world of abject poverty is Pentecostalism.
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Because these people, they really want some healing, or to hear something about a miraculous
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message from God that their financial status will improve.
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The drivers that we were with, and the preachers that traveled with us, they described Nigeria
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as southern, southwest Nigeria, where we labored, not as under threat of physical persecution
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like in the northeast and in the north part of Nigeria that we saw on the map earlier.
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They said, Hiram, this part of Nigeria is very liberal.
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You can just believe whatever you want.
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People don't really have any issues here.
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They're just caught up in the world, and you can do whatever you want.
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And in the midst of all of that noise, the gospel's breaking through and disrupting things
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as people are giving their lives over to Jesus.
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1 Corinthians 9, 16, Paul says, necessity is laid on me.
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It's woe unto me if I preach not the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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It's interesting.
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People sometimes say in the western part of the world, the only reason why you're a Christian
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is because you were born in America and somebody taught you this.
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But if you lived in a different place, you believe something different.
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And that's not true.
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I met people over there who had family members that were Muslim, who were taught all sorts
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of different doctrines.
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And you know what they said?
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It just never really had the ring of truth.
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But when they finally heard the truth, they latched onto it like the Thessalonians.
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1 Thessalonians 1, 8 through 10, and they gave up everything and gave their lives over
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to it.
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And you know why they did it?
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It's because the gospel works everywhere.
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Here's number four.
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They were eager for the word.
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The Nigerians showed an eagerness for God's word and God's message.
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Acts 17, 11, Paul compares the Bereans to the Jews in Thessalonica, and he says that
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these were more noble than those in Thessalonica.
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They received the word with all readiness of mind, and they searched the scriptures every
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day to see whether or not these things are true.
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They really wanted to learn.
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I stood there preaching on several occasions, and I told you, I'm standing before men that
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have earned doctorate degrees.
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Many of them preach far longer than maybe I've been alive.
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And I thought many times I should be learning from them, and yet they're learning from me.
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And yet there they sat on the edge of their seats, leaning forward, notebooks out, wanting
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to learn, desiring the sincere milk of the word, 1 Peter 2 and verse 2.
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Because in their mind, it wasn't about who was teaching.
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It was about what was being taught.
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And they wanted to learn it.
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Chad Wagner, the guy that directed this trip and the leader that took us on the trip, when
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we were at WNCC for the first part of the week, we stayed in these, you could just call
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them this apartment housing that the college offers.
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It wasn't first world, but it's as good as you could get for some uppity Americans, okay?
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We had running water.
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It was as good as you could get.
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Many of the Nigerians that came, though, they spent nearly all the money that they had to
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get to this workshop.
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When they came, they didn't stay in the apartments we stayed in.
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Many of them slept right outside under the trees on the ground.
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They stayed there all night.
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Every morning, the workshop started at 9 o'clock.
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When the workshop was over, sometimes 8, 10 o'clock at night, they went to sleep under
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those trees.
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They woke up and beat us to the auditorium the next morning because they just simply
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had to know.
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They wanted to learn.
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They wanted to develop.
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They wanted to grow.
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They were eager for the word.
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They desired to know it.
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Many nights, they'd meet after the workshop and talk with Brian Davis of World Bible School
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for hours about how to properly use the World Bible School material that many of them were
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using to further their studies or to continue to reach their converts with this material.
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Daniel Gaines did a lesson on how to properly use this material methodically and how to
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train other people to do the very same thing.
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They were eager for the word and eager to share it.
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Chad Wagner, in the first lesson in the workshop, talked about the fact that, yes, there's persecution
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in northern Nigeria, but Nigerians, get this in your mind.
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It's your responsibility to win the north for Jesus because it doesn't belong to the
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Muslims.
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They're in bondage under a false prophet by the name of Muhammad, and we need to take
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the north for Christ.
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And though many of those men sat there fearful, knowing the reality of that great persecution,
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there was a readiness of mind that says, we need to do this, and they wanted to.
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The 12 men that were baptized at the jail, you should have seen them march out of the
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jail in the open air where all the other prisoners were, hanging out or playing games, and just
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boldly before all of these individuals, allowing themselves to be immersed in Christ for the
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forgiveness of sins, with the other prisoners onlooking, unashamed, fully committed to what
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they had done.
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They were eager for the word.
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Number five, there was radical hospitality.
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This is embedded in what it means to be a Christian.
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Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper around a table, Matthew 26 and Mark 14.
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Romans 12, 13, Paul says a part of being a living sacrifice is being given to hospitality,
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distributing to the needs of the saints.
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1 Peter 4 and verse 9, Peter says, use hospitality to each other without grudging.
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And again, as Neil preached this morning, Hebrews 13 too, don't forget to show hospitality
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to strangers.
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When we were in Nigeria, no matter what it was, whether it was their oatmeal, foo-foo,
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their red stew, whether it was their rice, whatever it was, they gave us the very best
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that they had.
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We couldn't have starved if we wanted to.
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They fed us and they would ask us, what else can we give you?
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What else can we provide for you?
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But it wasn't just food.
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These were love feasts in which the love from the Nigerians traveled through the food to
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our hearts because they believe Proverbs 3.27, which says, do good to your neighbor when
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it's near you to do it.
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Don't delay, give your very best.
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When we left from the school at WMCC, we went to Uyo and worked with the Two Towns congregation.
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Let me see if this pointer will work.
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This is a woman by the name of Nerissa and the man in the brown outfit is her husband,
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Monday John.
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We stayed in their home.
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They gave us the two upstairs bedrooms in their home and they just treated us the best.
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She cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
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One time when we were having a meal, she brought out this book near the end of the trip and
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she said, okay, you've got to sign the book.
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It wasn't a fancy book.
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It was a pretty beat up and old and dirty looking composition book.
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She said, you've got to sign the book.
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And we start flipping through the book and in this book, it's just filled with names
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of people, American missionaries, Africans, and people that had been at their table down
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through the years.
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And they signed a note of some sort saying, thank you, Monday John.
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Thank you, Nerissa, for your hospitality down through the years.
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Some of the people that traveled with us flipped through the pages some 20 years prior and
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found the first time they had been there and signed that same book.
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Missionaries names I'd heard, people I've never heard of, and there they were.
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They were in the book.
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It was a legacy of hospitality, kindness, and faithfulness that stretches far back into
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the past and past the past, way deep into the future because they believe Jesus' words.
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In Matthew 25, 31 through 46, what you've done for the least of these, my brethren,
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you've done it for me.
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I learned in Nigeria something about radical hospitality and that is sometimes you just
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need to do it.
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We really could stand far more unscheduled times and meetings without fancy food and
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planned meals and just getting involved in one another's lives because when you're family,
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you just want to.
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One day when we were at their house, the local preacher from Two Towns came by to talk to
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me.
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They called me.
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I went downstairs, and he wanted to talk Bible and ministry, and we talked for about an hour.
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At the end of the conversation, just about the time he was getting ready to leave, Nerissa
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said, all right, dinner's ready, and nameskates his name.
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He was getting ready to leave and to depart, and she said, oh, no, now you're here.
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You've got to stay for dinner.
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She didn't plan on him coming, but once he was there, she didn't plan on him leaving,
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and he didn't.
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He ate, and he was satisfied, and they practiced the radical hospitality, which says essentially
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you're my family, we're family, and we're going to do life together.
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I'm going to confess to you.
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When I travel to preach, it's just my preference.
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I like to stay in hotels.
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I kind of have it in my mind, listen, when I show up to preach, I've got studying to
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do, writing, reading, other things, and if I'm being honest, the introverted in me just
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sometimes wants to be by my lonesome.
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This trip reminded me.
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You know, there was a time in the United States when preachers traveled.
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They didn't stay in hotels.
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They stayed in the homes of the members, and this trip was a reminder.
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If we're doing Christianity right, the people in our lives, the people of God, they're not
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an interruption to the ministry.
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They are the ministry.
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Jesus says in John 13, 34, and 35, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as
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I've loved you.
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By this, all people will know you're my disciples.
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If you have love one toward another, you don't have to have a lot.
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You just have to have an open heart, and that's what we saw displayed.
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It's what Lydia told Paul, Silas, and Timothy, stay at my house and dine with me, Acts 16
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and verse 15, and there was a degree of radical hospitality.
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Here's number six, immediate obedience.
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One of the lessons I learned in Nigeria was about immediate obedience.
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As soon as these individuals heard the word, there was this desire to just do what they
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had heard.
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The Bible was meant to be studied, meant to be read, meant to be preached, but above all,
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it was meant to be obeyed.
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John 13 and verse 17, Jesus says, if you know these things, happy are you if you do them.
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One way to read through the book of Acts is to read the 28 chapters and look for this
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phrase.
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Highlight this phrase repeatedly, however your translation renders it.
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Straightway or immediately they obeyed.
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It happens in Acts chapter 2, Acts 16 and verse 33 with the Philippian jailer.
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Straightway he washed their stripes, and he and all of his were baptized right away, and
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we saw this regularly in Nigeria.
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On one occasion, I was outside teaching about 100 men or so, maybe 200 men, and there were
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several things as I was doing this lesson that I didn't know.
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Chad had assigned me the lesson of mobilizing young people for evangelism, and I did a basic
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lesson on Timothy, how Paul worked with Timothy, and the way that we ought to do the same thing,
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getting young people involved in evangelism.
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Here are the things I didn't know.
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Number one, I didn't know at the time, it was pretty unusual for somebody a lot younger
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than many of these men to be teaching them.
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There were two breakout sessions, and I was assigned the men 55 years up and older, and
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it was unusual for them to be learning like that, but secondly, one of the things I didn't
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know during this lesson was a lot of the congregations in Nigeria, they don't involve their young
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people, young men and young women in the work of the church for various reasons.
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They wait for you to mature and to develop and to grow up.
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When I finished the lesson, it wasn't impressively delivered, there was nothing special about
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the lesson.
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One of the men, Dr. Udom, who was also directing the workshop, he stood up and he said, I've
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got a confession to make and I need to repent.
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He said, for years, my young son has wanted to lead singing and be involved in the work
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of the local congregation, and I've held him back.
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And according to these passages, I had done wrong.
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He looked out and one of his co-workers, a minister of the congregation was there,
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and he said, you've been trying to tell me to do better for years, and I should have,
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and I'm sorry.
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And it seemed like just the water broke out, and one after another, like a game of heads
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up, seven up, they all started standing up and repenting.
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This wasn't an invitation, this wasn't planned.
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One after another, these men were saying either in the past they had been deeply involved
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in training young people, and at some point they had dropped the ball on this, or they
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had never done it at all, and every one of them was vowing publicly that day, we're going
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to do something different, and we're going to do better.
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The churches in Nigeria aren't perfect.
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Many of the congregations don't have elderships.
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Brad Burkert, one of the men that was with us who preaches in Cookville, he preached
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on this lovingly, but directly, and they received it and said, we need to do our best to identify
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qualified men to serve in the eldership, and not make it hard for people to do this work,
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because God wants us to do it.
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There was just this immediate desire to obey.
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At the Two Towns congregation on Sunday morning after the Bible class, right in the middle
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of the lesson, the translator said, OK, that's enough, you have to stop now, because there's
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about to be a question and answer session.
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And in this congregation of about 200, one of the men just stood up at the back, and
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he said, I've got a question.
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You talked about forgiveness, and he just told this story in front of his entire congregation.
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He said, my dad years ago stole some property from a guy, and I inherited it at his death.
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Is God going to forgive me for that, or am I responsible for providing some restitution
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and giving this property back?
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I'm thinking I'm supposed to answer this on the spot for him right now.
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Well, let's go to Luke 19, and let's look at what Zacchaeus had to do when he had cheated
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other people.
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And let's look at what the Bible says about, yes, God's forgiveness, but about how much
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repentance involves restitution.
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And he received it, and decided and desired, I've got to make this right.
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This property really doesn't belong to me.
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I need to rightly obey right away.
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And I think it's right to acknowledge this faithful obedience and this desire to
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immediately obey the word.
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And I want to commend the congregation here at Cumberland Trace because recently I was
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talking to an elder of the congregation here, and there's just been a congregational shift.
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I don't know if you've noticed it, but there's been this desire and this openness that, hey,
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if I'm struggling, if I've messed up, if I'm not all that I need to be, not for show, not
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responding to every sermon because we feel guilted and like we have to, but there's a
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fresh openness that's saying the word of God is living and active and sharper than any
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two-edged sword, Hebrews 4 and verse 12.
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And if the word pricks me, and if I'm struggling in my life, I need to respond.
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And that was ignited afresh in me in Nigeria as I saw individuals immediately respond to
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the word, and where they saw themselves falling short, they wanted to make amends.
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Here's the last thing, number seven, an act of faith.
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James 2 and verse 17, James 2 and verse 20, really all of James chapter 2 is about faith
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and works.
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And James says things like, will you not know, O vain man, that faith, divorce from
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works, is dead, being alone.
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The Nigerians have this act of faith where they're engaged and so in the seed of the
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gospel and seeing it bring forth fruit.
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In every one of their preaching schools, there's not just preaching,
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there's training in a trade.
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Many of the Nigerian preachers live on about $10 a month.
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They need about $150 to live a decent life.
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Chad said to me when we were walking around NCBC, $250 a month in American money
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would mean they're living above like middle class over there.
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But many of the preachers live on $10 a month.
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So you got to be asking yourself, if you know that going in, why would you go
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into preaching?
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It's because they want to serve the Lord and they feel like they can contribute to
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the work of the kingdom and so all their preaching schools, every one of them,
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there's not just training in preaching.
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There's some additional training in farming and tailoring and welding of some
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sort so that they can have another trade in addition to preaching and so that they
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can give themselves over to fully preaching the gospel and self-supporting
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themselves where they can.
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This is the grave of a man by the name of John Beckloff.
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And in the back of one of the houses at the last school we went to, NCBC,
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Chad told me his story.
33:49
This is his grave.
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He's an American missionary that went over there and lived in the house.
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And as an elderly man, he was well off and he could have flown back to the States and
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lived a nice retired life.
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But he gave his whole life to the mission work over there and he became sick and he
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died and his widow buried him right there in the backyard.
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And Chad said to me, who's given his life over to mission work,
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there's something about the mission work in Nigeria.
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It gets in your bloodstream.
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And he said, every time I come to this place, it's a reminder to me of what it
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really means to give it all.
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And the Nigerians are an example.
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Faith is not just intellectual.
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It's not just about knowing the Bible in your head.
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It's about living it in your life and being willing, if called upon,
34:27
to serve and for...
34:28
We sing that song, if I should die upon a foreign field one day, well,
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here's what it looks like to literally give all for the one who did that for you.
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I want to end tonight with a story and then we'll extend the invitation.
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It's a story about a man who was a successful lawyer in Chicago.
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He had made a lot of money, millions of dollars.
34:50
Richard Nixon wanted him to work for him at one time, but he didn't choose to do
34:54
that, but he did succeed and he did a lot of great things as a successful lawyer.
34:58
He was also an elder in the church.
35:00
He was the kind of man that, according to those that knew him,
35:03
he would wake up early in the morning and catch the earliest train into his job in
35:07
Chicago to beat all the other attorneys there and work at 5 and 6 o'clock in the
35:10
morning so that he could get off in time to be the umpire at his son's
35:14
baseball games.
35:16
He was a faithful and dedicated Christian.
35:17
Somebody told him about the work in Nigeria and he just started throwing money,
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hundreds of thousands, perhaps by now millions of dollars,
35:24
into the work in Nigeria.
35:25
He and his wife had three children, two of them unfaithful.
35:29
One was nominally faithful.
35:31
This man, and as I was working on this lesson in the hotel in Lads,
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I thought, it just occurred to me,
35:36
I don't even know his name, this man died in 2003 and his son,
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who was nominally faithful, went to college.
35:43
He went to church some, on again, off again.
35:46
His dad died in 2003.
35:47
In 2005, he by now was a successful businessman himself, an accountant.
35:52
He had been to school, gone to graduate school, business school,
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served in the Vietnam War, built a successful career.
35:58
But in 2005, he was between jobs.
36:00
His dad had died.
36:01
His mom, who her whole life was a homemaker,
36:04
was in charge of his dad's estate.
36:06
And he said, I want to know why y'all are sending all this money to Nigeria.
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Have y'all ever been?
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They hadn't.
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He said, I'm going over there.
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I just want to make sure you're handling the money rightly.
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He went, and it changed his life.
36:17
He stayed with Monday, John and Nerissa, and he signed the book.
36:22
He changed his whole life.
36:23
He became a dedicated and faithful Christian.
36:26
He said, I've got to make more trips.
36:27
And this time around, it was his ninth trip to Nigeria.
36:31
His name's Bill Pennell.
36:33
And last year in 2025, I went to Connect at Creeve Hall.
36:37
And right before I got to speak in the day session,
36:39
Bill Pennell, who I'd never met before, shoved an envelope in my chest
36:42
and said, Hiram, I heard you speak at Freed, heard you speak here before.
36:45
You've got to come to Nigeria.
36:47
And I just shoved the envelope in my book bag
36:50
and said, I'll call you in a month or so, in a week or so.
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And the rest is history.
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I tell you that story to tell you, you never
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know where the gospel is going to take you.
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You never know where your faithfulness is going to lead you
37:04
or who is going to lead long after you.
37:07
Surely, his dad couldn't have known.
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This is a building in Nigeria with his mom's name on it
37:11
because they had donated to this cause.
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And they couldn't have known that they're
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sowing the seed of the gospel for years in a place
37:18
they had never been before would be the very seed that would draw their son back
37:24
to the Heavenly Father.
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It's just a lesson to say, keep sowing the seed, keep watering the seed,
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and trust you serve a God that will ultimately give the increase.
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Tonight, if you need to obey the gospel, the same gospel that
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works in Nigeria, works over here, and works all around the world,
37:40
if you believe Jesus is the Son of God, you can turn from your sins,
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confess him before this auditorium, and be baptized in water
37:46
for the forgiveness of your sins, Acts 2 and verse 38.
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We'd be happy to witness you doing that and assist you in any way.
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If we can pray with you or pray for you,
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if you need to respond, Phil's going to lead us in a song.
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Come now, as together we stand and as we sing.