Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / December 9, 2018 | Discover The Wonder - Special Guest Barry Feaker

Transcript

December 9, 2018 | Discover The Wonder - Special Guest Barry Feaker · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Good morning, T Pete Bible.
0:03
SPEAKER_02: How are you today?
0:06
SPEAKER_02: Okay, good.
0:09
SPEAKER_02: Great to see you in the College Avenue and Melvane buildings this morning.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: Discover the Wonder is our theme for the month, as you can tell.
0:18
SPEAKER_02: I love that graphic that they've come up with, and we really exploded our Discover the Wonder thing this last week with L-O-L.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: We had uh a lot of people, as you already heard, under 2,000 probably women here.
0:35
SPEAKER_02: And uh light show coming up next week.
0:38
SPEAKER_02: Today we have a special thing for our second of our four Sundays in the Discover the Wonder German time.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: And it really ties in with our Christmas project this year.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: We introduced our Christmas project two weeks ago when you were not here because we had a horrible blizzard.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: Remember that?
1:02
SPEAKER_02: 9:30, that blizzard hit on Sunday morning, and and maybe 30 of you are here because that's about how many were in this room two weeks ago.
1:10
SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna revisit that this morning.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: And so we're all about community transformation this year in Topeka.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna hear about that from Barry Faker in just a moment and uh providing transportation safe housing for victims of human trafficking with uh rescue mission.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: By the way, uh it's at times a PG-13, and Barry's really good about this, he's really careful.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: But if you're concerned about uh what human trafficking is about in your kids, feel free to um you know get them out of here.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: First, though, I want to show you community transformation in Haiti.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: This will be the other half our project.
1:46
SPEAKER_02: We transform communities by putting wells or cisterns in these villages with a goal of doing this in, I think, 25 of these in 10 years.
1:55
SPEAKER_02: And uh Topeka Bible Church has been on the ground floor.
1:58
SPEAKER_02: We've already done this with a half a dozen of these villages.
2:01
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna see in just a moment, a three-minute video of some of us, myself included, who went down a little over a month ago and helped do this.
2:09
SPEAKER_02: So we transformed communities by digging wells and building these really cool multi-purpose buildings that are used for churches in these remote villages.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: Watch this three-minute video, then I'll call Barry up.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: We want to transform communities in Haiti both spiritually and physically.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: We are part of the one body of Christ with the Christians in Haiti, and so just as we care for our own bodies physically, we have the responsibility, but also the privilege, the joy, the honor to use some of what God has given us to build up the body of Christ.
3:15
SPEAKER_01: The first way that we are transforming communities in Haiti is by building churches.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: Many communities in Haiti don't have church buildings, they just make rough, stick structures with holes in the roof and dirt floors.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: In October, we were able to interview some of the pastors who we have already built churches for and asked them what difference has this church made.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: One of them smiled and told us, well, his average attendance has gone up every week.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: We asked, why is that?
3:43
SPEAKER_01: Because now, if it rains or if it's too hot, the people know that when they come to church, their new building will actually protect them from the elements.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: And so more people are in church in his community on Sundays just because they have a new building.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: For just$30,000, we transform a community in Haiti by building a church.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: As we talked to the pastors in these communities, they told us of another great need, and that was the need for clean water.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: Some of the pastors we've interviewed told us that the people in their community walked as far as three and a half hours each way just to drop water from a spring that was clean that they could drink.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: We believe every person deserves to have easy access to clean water right there in their community.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: And so for just$5,000, we're putting a well or a cistern in every one of these communities, transforming the lives of their people.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: We believe we can transform these communities spiritually by building into their spiritual leaders, the pastors of all of these communities.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: And so we go down once a year to encourage and teach and lead these pastors in a conference with teachings from discipleship to church leadership and giving them resources like Bible dictionaries and commentaries and hymnals just so that they can do their ministry better in their communities.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: This is what the One Body Project is all about.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: We want to transform communities in Haiti.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: Our goal is 25 communities in 10 years.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: We've already completed seven churches, and we're finishing three more in January.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: We've already completed eight wells, and a ninth is under construction right now.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: God is doing a great work in Haiti, and we hope that you'll be a part of it.
5:40
SPEAKER_02: With your help, we're doing uh we are changing lives and changing whole communities in Haiti.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: But man, what we're doing in Topeka about a year ago, a little over a year ago, Barry and I had talked about this incredible ministry getting off the ground to stop human trafficking.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: And so we were we gave generously last year.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's this whole ministry is taking another step up, and Barry's gonna tell you about that today as he brings us the message uh from God's Word.
6:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, would you give him a hand and welcome him, please?
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jim.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Teka Bible Church.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: It's great to be here and Merry Christmas.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, I've said this uh in the second service.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: We'll say it to you as well.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: I just love coming to Topeka Bible Church because of all the smiles.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: So if you hadn't had a chance to smile at me yet, please do now.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: I feel really good.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Now I tell you, uh, this is just uh always such a thrill to be here.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: I always feel so welcome uh at Topeka Bible Church.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: And uh last year, you guys did some amazing things to encourage us, not just for financially giving, but just uh just by the encouragement.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna talk a little bit about that today.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: But speaking of Christmas, we have an opportunity for volunteering uh for you.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's uh gonna be on the screen eventually.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but the volunteering is with our Christmas store.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: There it is.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: And uh we have uh this big, huge uh Christmas warehouse that we put on every year to help provide Christmas gifts for over 4,000 people.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: That's people in need in our community.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: So the gifts come in.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh we set it up just like this incredible store.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: Children come in, parents come in, people in need in our community, lots of volunteers helping us do this.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Next week, we're kind of short on volunteers.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: And so if you are interested, we need help Monday through Friday, 8:30 to 12 or 12:30 to 3 or both, one day, all days, whatever the case might be, as we get towards Christmas itself.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: And so uh we have some sign-up sheets uh in this uh auditorium or in the back here, as well as over at the main building if you're interested in that.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Also, there's information at both of our tables there that are going to talk to you or help you to understand a little more what I'm talking about today, if you're interested in signing up.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Today we have the director of community stabilization, Terry Hund, here with us.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: She's also the director of Restore Hope.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: That's our anti-human trafficking ministry.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: We also have uh Miriam Crable, who is Director of Supportive Services, and Kim Turley and other helpers here.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh Kim is the director of our volunteers, uh helping over facilitate over 1,600 volunteers every month at the rescue mission.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: And so just join us if you can.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Um we are just uh pleased.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: Last year, uh you just blessed our socks off, uh to say the least with uh the giving.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh it was amazing.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: It helped us to propel uh the Restore Hope Ministry uh to really help individuals in our community understand that they are noticed, that they're counted, that they are people of value.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And so uh we were able to take further uh safe houses.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: We were able to take further uh the uh transportation needs that we had, and I'm gonna talk more about this as we go forward.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: But your encouragement also created um last October, a year ago, October, when I was here, your encouragement created me to think bigger and to pray because of the people who came up afterwards and said, we need to look at this issue of human trafficking, not just at what's happening in Topeka, but what's happening with the state of Kansas and beyond.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: And so we began to ask the Lord, what do you want us to do?
9:16
SPEAKER_00: And we begin to look at our history and look at what Kansas' role has been in freeing people who have been captivated by this issue of slavery historically.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: What you see there is an 1850 map of the United States, and the pink uh regions there are the free states, the gray are the slave states, the green are the territories that were undecided at this point, and right in the middle you see that kind of um other color there, brown, that is Kansas.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: We weren't a state yet, it was a territory.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: But we became known for this.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: We said no to slavery, going through Kansas and becoming further out west.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: If Kansas would not have become what's known as bleeding Kansas, an abolitionist place, a free state, if it would have not fought Missouri, have you heard of border war before?
10:09
SPEAKER_00: It didn't start out because the Jayhawks and the Tigers were playing football or basketball.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: It started out because Contrell tried to come into Lawrence and wipe them out.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: And he almost wiped Lawrence out.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: Many people died to say no to slavery.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, Topeka, Kansas, was uh battling some other communities like Lecompton who thought we ought to be slave.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: And they wanted to be the capital, and Topeka said, no, we're gonna be the capital, and people fought each other in that regard.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: John Brown, so forth, a lot of safe houses.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh we are privileged uh to have one of the members of Freedom Now USA, which I'll talk about in a moment, uh, who is our vice president, whose ancestors came from New York to settle in Kansas, leaving their wealth, leaving their jobs, leaving their homes, to start underground railroads.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: And that person's name is Pete Bostwick, and he is a member of this church, and I think he's manning one of the tables.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh there's rich resources of the body of Christ in this church.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: But we said, okay, we have uh something that happened in 1865, five or uh 15 years later from that map, that Abraham Lincoln signed on February 1st.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: It's called the third the Papers for the Thirteenth Amendment.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: Congress gave Abraham Lincoln, both the House and the Senate, uh verbiage to sign to begin the abolishment of slavery in the United States of America.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Now, this was in the during the Civil War.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: The things were still going on.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Things were rough.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: More American citizens died by the hands of American citizens than all other wars combined until recently.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Up through Vietnam, more Americans killed each other than foreigners killed us because of this issue of slavery.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: So it's been an important issue before us before.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: So Abraham Lincoln signed the 13th Amendment papers that were ratified by the states later.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: It says, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: In other words, what would happen later that year in 1865, this was the predecessor, February 1st.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: And we said, you know what we need to do?
12:15
SPEAKER_00: We need to go to the Kansas legislature.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: We got two and a half weeks to do it, and let's ask them to revisit this thing.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to the legislature and let's ask them to do something very specific, and that is look at the atrocities of human trafficking and declare war on it.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty big thing to ask a Kansas legislature to do.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Ask any body of government leaders to do is to declare war on something.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: But when you hear what I'm gonna say, if you don't already know about this, you're gonna understand why.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: And so there was no way the Kansas legislature is going to do anything in two and a half weeks.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: It's just not gonna happen.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: But people began to pray into this, and we saw doors open, amazing doors open.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: And partly because some of the encouragement, some of the people in this church, because you know people.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: And so I walked in and sat down with this majority leader and this minority leader and this person in charge of the judiciary and the governor's office and so forth.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: On February 1st, the House of Representatives unanimously stood up, 125 members, and not only said yes, but they applauded, we're declaring war on human trafficking, modern-day slavery.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: In the afternoon, the Senate did the same thing to declare war.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: All 40 members stood up, making Kansas the first state in the nation.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: This is historical.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, some people say, well, you know, we don't even know this exists.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna know it exists when I talk to you today, to understand the magnitude of this problem, and they began to understand it like they never had before.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: And they said, and I said to them, We made history before your ancestors made history.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: The Bostwicks made history before they left their comfort to go and do something because God called them to do the underground railroad in Kansas.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Can't we step up to the plate now?
13:52
SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, both bodies in two and a half weeks declared war on this.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: So we went to the local leaders here and we said, Kansas has become the first state.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Why don't we make Topeka and Shawnee County the first city and county in the United States to do that?
14:07
SPEAKER_00: And so they came together on April 5th, had all the representations from both bodies elected: chief of police, the sheriff, district attorney, the uh federal marshal, Ron Miller, heads of the DCF, Secretary of DCF, State Attorney General, all came together and said we're declaring war on human trafficking, making Topeka and Shawnee County the first ones to declare war.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you didn't know we were at war.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh you will, as we unfold this as we go forward.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now we got two remarkable historic events that occurred, but you have to have a game plan.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: And so that game plan would come as we begin to formulate and talking to some of the people in this church, including uh Colonel Dan Skoda, who is an elder here at Topeka Bible Church, and he is in charge of the services called the armed sector services.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: And he is um working with a major Nate Bukowski and working with other military leaders in one of 20 sectors.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Probably can't see a whole lot of it up there, but we have law enforcement and judicial and corrections, social services.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: We have uh a sector called demand that Kim Borchers is in charge of, who is here this morning.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Working to bring people of expertise around multiple different areas to examine what trafficking looks like.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: Right now we're working with intelligence folks who are working to combat the drug cartel on the southern border, who are working with us here in Topeka to take the model that we have because they like it, and they say this is applicable to the same things that we've done to fight the cartel on the southern border.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna bring it to Topeka.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: That's where uh Colonel Skoda and others are meeting at this point, and we're gonna have meetings going forward.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: They believe that we have the first opportunity in the United States to do something uh to combat human trafficking in a way that we never have before because the people are coming together.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: That's why Freedom Now was created.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: It's another organization.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: So, Topeka Rescue Mission, make it clear, has a division called Restore Hope.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk mainly about that today.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: That's what you're helping to support, what you did last year.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to give you the 30,000-foot view, because we can do all of the rescue in the world.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: We can do all the intervention.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: And we do it in three ways.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: We intervene, we stabilize, we restore.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
16:17
SPEAKER_00: And we're way behind the eight ball on this because the traffickers are winning.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: But we need somebody to come against the systems of trafficking.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: When you learn what I've learned, and some other people have learned about what's going on within walking distance of this building right now.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: You want to do something.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: But we don't want to hurt anybody, but we want to hurt their system.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're doing.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: There are three words in the number I would like for you to think about today.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: The first one is the word no.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: The second one is the word yes, the third is value, and the number after no, yes, and value is 1820.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
16:56
SPEAKER_00: So don't rack your brain on the 1820.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna explain that in a minute.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: It's not a year, it's a number.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we have to say no to things.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: We don't like to be told no, but uh I think no is important, and sometimes we have to muster up all that we can to be able to attack an atrocity that is doing something so vile against people that we care about.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: And nobody's immune to this, believe me.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Nobody in this room is immune to what I'm gonna talk about today.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: No matter how long you've been in church, what a good Christian you are, no matter where your kids go to school, nobody's immune because our country is in trouble.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: I want to kind of uh give you an illustration.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: In 1974 and 75, um, the Oklahoma Sooners were national champs in football that year.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: They had a lot of reasons that they were, but uh part of it was because they had the Selman brothers on the football team.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Lucius, Dewey, and Leroy.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: Now, I was playing college football at that time.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: I'd never got a chance to play against these guys, and I'm really glad.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: They were defensive linemen, I was an offensive lineman.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you would hit guys like that, you would hurt.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And people have said, Why are you working in a rescue mission today?
18:03
SPEAKER_00: I said, probably because I got brain damage hitting guys like that.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: But what Lucius, Dewey, and Leroy, they came off of a farm in Oklahoma, and Coach Barry Switzer went out and was recruiting and doing his thing, and he said, I want to find people who are really committed, really strong, and can hold the line.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: In other words, guys like me would not have a chance against them if they were that good, and they were that good.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: And so they would allegedly, um, which I believe is true, um, they lived on the hog farm, and they had competition of who could carry the largest hog in each arm and walk the furthest.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: That was what these brothers did for fun.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
18:37
SPEAKER_00: This was before TV, I guess.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: And so Switzer saw that and he goes, we need them to hold the line.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: And so, as we understand it, is they would come up to the front line and they would say, Hi, I'm Lucius, I'm Dewey, I'm Leroy.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this line belongs to us, and you may not cross it.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And they meant it.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: And by virtue of that stance that they took, that they won national championship football games, and then they went on to the pros later.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh, when you would run into them and running down the field, uh, they would just wipe people out.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: I did get a chance to play against some guys in the pros that went to the pros later, and I'll tell you what, they mean business.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we need to do today is we need to be miss mean business in the word of no to say no more of this.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to talk about yes for a moment.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: If we look at the scripture uh out of Genesis 128, first book of the Bible.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: God blessed them and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and every living thing that moves on the earth.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: How awesome that must have been for that creation and those special people to be in this garden.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: And so basically, he said, You got three things you need to do here.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: You need to multiply.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Must have been plenty of room in the garden.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: So he's gonna create little Adam and Eve.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna have belly buttons, mom and dad don't.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh we're gonna subdue, and then we're going to have dominion.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: That's to kind of be in charge.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: They're the greatest of all creation.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: They're created in God's image, so they're gonna have dominion over the rest of this.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: What's always puzzled me a little bit is that word subdue.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: What subdue means is to overcome, to quieten, to bring under control, to bring order to it.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: Now, wait a minute, this is a perfect garden.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Why do you need to do that kind of stuff?
20:19
SPEAKER_00: And so we're not exactly sure, but that's what God said.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: I want you to subdue it, bring it under control.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: It's a perfect garden.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: What's the deal?
20:26
SPEAKER_00: And so Adam and Eve are kind of walking around in this perfect garden and uh just uh looking at everything and enjoying everything, but God had a no.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: No, you may not do what?
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Go over there, don't go around it, don't touch it.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: In other words, subdue, get control of yourself so that you don't go do that thing.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: And we know what the serpent did.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: He deceived them, and they found themselves being banished from the Garden of Eden.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: They didn't adhere to the no.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: I can only imagine what it was like as they departed the garden.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: And for the first time ever, they realized what imperfection really was.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: They realized what sin really was.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: They realized that first mosquito bite, what that felt like.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: They realized that first head cold that they got.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: And as they went through everything, they probably got into this denial sense and they looked around and they began to realize that this isn't working really well.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: So they may have gone back if I was Adam.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: I may have gone back and talked to the cherubim and said, Hey, you know what, cherubim, put your swords down.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm Adam.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm the first of God's creation.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: I belong in there.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm entitled to be back where I was.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: You owe it to me, get out of my way.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: And the cherubim was saying, No, I don't think so.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: And so they were not.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: You know what God did not do?
21:44
SPEAKER_00: He did not free them up from the command to subdue out in the wilderness.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say, Don't multiply anymore.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say you're off the dominion thing.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say you're off the now, you have to subdue in a broken world.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: The world that you and I live in, with the disease and the sadness.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And the sorrow and the loss and the death.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: The world that we struggle with all the time, and we we cry out and we we ask for God to help us navigate through this, and He is saying, 'I'm gonna help you,' but I've called you to do something else.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: I want you to be overcomers.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: I want you to be people to take charge and subdue.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, the church in America was so incredibly important.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: What we were able to do is because of our faith as believers, our ancestors were able to change the world.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: And at one time the church was the hub of everything.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: It was where the school was, it's where the county courthouse was, it's where all the decisions were made, it's where sometimes the hospital was.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Everything was in that church.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: And over many, many, many, many years, something has changed.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the church today, in many situations, has much room in it.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Not to speak Bible church, fortunately.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: There's always God is going to have his remnant, but many churches are closing down today.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: In fact, organized religion today is scoffed at.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Christians are scoffed at.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: All you got to do is watch to see what people are saying about you on the media, and you will understand that this is not a popular thing to be today.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, in some situations, churches are just museums and relics.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: That's what that used to be.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: And all statistics indicate it's not getting better.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: We are not overcoming this.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: What we are seeing is more and more people are saying we don't need church, we don't need religion.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: What we want is real.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: In other words, folks, we're not the home team anymore.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: We're the visiting team.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: The home team is the world.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: And it is swallowing up the body of Christ.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: This is the bad news.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: But the good news is when you're the visiting team in a broken world that we live in, in a fallen world, in a world that is desperate for answers, as the body of Christ, here's what you get to be.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: You get to be the missionaries.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: As I look out through this room today, I work at a rescue mission.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: So some people say you're a home missionary.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: I look out across this room and I say you're all missionaries.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Because we're on a mission.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: The question is: do you know you're on a mission?
24:13
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand the mission that God has called you to?
24:16
SPEAKER_00: And the good news is that the mission that God has called us to has value.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: There's that other word.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: No, the yes, the value that we have to present.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: How do we present that value?
24:27
SPEAKER_00: We do it in Matthew 5.16, Jesus said, in the same way, let your light so shine before others that they may hear your really cool message about God?
24:36
SPEAKER_00: No.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: That they may see your good works and give your Father glory.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: Glory to your Father who is in heaven.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: In other words, God has got a system here.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has got a system.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit's got a system.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit have a system to work through you and I to go to a broken world as the visiting team and to say, you know what?
24:57
SPEAKER_00: We're going to get involved.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: We're going to help you.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Today, because of homelessness, because of crime, because of abortion, because of sadness, because of separation of families, because of human trafficking.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: The world is asking for answers and they're not finding them.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Just out in Seattle for the second time in two years.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: They have 45,000 people on the streets of Seattle right now.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: 45,000.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: They don't know what to do.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: I can tell you what they've tried to do and it's not working.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Portland's worst.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: San Francisco's shot.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: I just talked to people in the in the Paradise, California that burnt down, totally crisped, they're gone.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Two weeks before they burnt down, population about 35,000.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: Pastor called me and he says, Barry, we need some help out here.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: Homelessness is bursting forth.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: We even have our own issues here in Topeka.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: But the good news is that we have an opportunity because of what God has called us to do, to take the good news to the poor, to the broken.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: But not just in a message, but in our actual action.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Show the picture of the little girl here that represents vulnerability.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is where we're going to start getting deep.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: This is where I'm going to be very careful if I can.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Is that today there are 7,500 children in foster care in Kansas.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: 7,500 children have been removed from their homes.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not here to blame the state of Kansas and the Department of Children and Families for that.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to say what's gone wrong with the system.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: The system starts in the home, not with DCF.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: But the resources that have not been fully allocated and the systems figured out, there's only 25% of the needed foster care homes in Kansas.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: In other words, three-quarters of those kids are bounced and bounced and bounced and bounced.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Some children have been placed 50 times in different homes.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: Some have each actually hit the number of 100.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: So if I'm one of those kids, I'm 10 years old and I've gone around 50 plus times to different homes, one of two things is going to speak to me.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: One is uh, boy, but a lot of people like me and want to see me.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Or nobody likes me.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: And they don't want to see me at all.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: Statistics tell us that 88% nationally of the children who are in foster care who leave foster care without a good placement, either ahead of their scheduled time to foster out, or if they don't have someplace adequate to go, will end up being victims of human trafficking, both boys and girls.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Why?
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Because traffickers with their system look for the vulnerability of these kind of children.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: An official within our own public school district the other day said this.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: It was their understanding that 30% of the children in Topeka Public Schools have been sexually exploited.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Wait a minute.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: 30 percent?
27:54
SPEAKER_00: 14,000, 30 percent, what's that?
27:56
SPEAKER_00: That's 4,200.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: 4,200 felony crimes have been committed, supposedly, against children in our own community.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Where do you hear about that?
28:06
SPEAKER_00: What has happened to that?
28:07
SPEAKER_00: We have systems in place, both at our state level, our national level, our local level, of people who are given the responsibility to help other people, and those systems are suffering greatly.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: Thank God to Pika Bible Church is one of those bodies of people that have stepped off of the boat of safety and stepped onto the battleship to say that we're going to do something about it.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: And I know you have a foster program in this church and many other things, but there needs to be more and more and more.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Human trafficking is what we're talking about today in specific.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: What is trafficking?
28:40
SPEAKER_00: You can't read this, but the the middle part there says basically it's manipulating people through the force, fraud, or coercion.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: To use them for nefarious reasons to make you something.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you own them.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: Forcing them to do it, you're gonna hurt them if they don't.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Defrauding them, making them think that everything was okay, like, hey, you're really beautiful, and I'd like to get you into a modeling program, and hey, you just come with us and you just go to New York for a little bit, and this, that, and the other thing, and two years later they don't know who they are or where they are.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: Or coercion.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, if you don't do what I tell you to do, I'm going to expose something about you, or I'm going to hurt somebody that you care about.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: That's coercion.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: Today, like never before, kids that go to school, school-age kids, are being exposed to horrendous things on the internet.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, what are traffickers doing with all this?
29:41
SPEAKER_00: And why are they doing it?
29:42
SPEAKER_00: The same reason that they always have done it, profit.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: It's about money.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: This chart shows that this is human trafficking around the world that shows that the sexual exploitation aspect of this is bringing in about$99 billion a year.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: I talked with one of your members today who has done interdiction on this particular area, and he says those numbers are way low.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: That's probably what's going on in the United States, not globally, because we just don't see what we need to see yet.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: We begin to look at our own community and we begin to realize in Topeka, Kansas, we're not seeing everything.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: And so we looked at this statement and we begin to embrace it.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: Our eyes cannot see what our mind does not understand or comprehend.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Our eyes cannot see what our mind does not understand or comprehend.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: I've been working with the homeless now for almost 33 years.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Before that, I worked in the mental health arena.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: And today I see things really different with people who come to us, who are broken, who are shattered, because I begin to understand something differently that I'll explain a little bit more in a minute, in regards to who I'm actually working with and realize that some of the behaviors that they had might be because might be because they are victims of human trafficking.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: And when we begin to see that, we begin to shift things and do things differently.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: Right here in our own community, there are houses, like I said, within walking distance.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: There are people in our community today that are waiting for you and I to come get them.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: There are people in our community today that are wondering if anybody cares.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: That's where Restore Hope has come in, to be able to lead the charge on this and work with other organizations, whether it's the police or hospitals or whatever.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: If you look at our numbers, uh in 2014, we worked with four victims of human trafficking.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: We got a little smarter by 2015 and we worked with 45 victims of human trafficking.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: In 2016, it was 92.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: Last year it was 131.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: And this year so far it's over 200.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: These are separate individuals.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: And I want to tell you the truth today, we have not understood the magnitude of just in this community.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we talk with individuals who understand this issue, it becomes very clear of the why.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: You've got 78% of the children in just a pika public schools that are eligible for free or reduced lunches.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: 78%.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: That means their families are struggling.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: That means a whole lot more than they might be hungry.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: They are vulnerable kids.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: And when traffickers in their system, because they're about making money, learn that kind of information, this makes this a hotbed of recruitment and production to be able to get kids.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: 1820.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: 1820 is the number that the average victim in Topeka, Kansas, the average victim of human trafficking experiences in regards to forced sexual violation annually.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: This is why this is war.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: This is why we cannot know this and not do something.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: This is truth.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: Domestic violence, shelter professionals, sexual assault professionals will tell you that if a victim of forced sexual activity happens one time, it changes their life forever.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: One time.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: I've already talked to some people here this morning.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: Deeply sorry.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: What I want to say to you is we're not going to ignore this anymore.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Imagine two times.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: Imagine ten.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Can't imagine 1,820.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: And that probably, comparatively to some situations on the national level, is low.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Who is going to come forward and say we're here for you?
34:13
SPEAKER_00: Who is not only going to come forward to say we're here for you with that kind of brokenness, but who's going to go upstream to say we're not going to let it happen to the next one?
34:21
SPEAKER_00: We're going to stop it.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: We're going to say no.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: We're going to get a Lucius Dewey and Leroy.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't care if they carry hogs or they carry cars.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: We need some people that are going to say no.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about violence.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about traffickers have a system and we need to stop their system.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: They're destroying people.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: This is war.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: And instead of destroying the person, we need to destroy their system.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: And it does start out with the young.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: With the young.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: There's too many young people in here today for me to talk anymore about that part today.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: I want to show you this map.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: This is a data map in regards to the internet activity that happens in a one-year period.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: In regards to people being sold, not pornography, but being sold through the internet.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: All across the world.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: What do you see right there?
35:18
SPEAKER_00: It's us.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: We are the largest distributor of internet buying and selling of people anywhere in the world.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Now, some people say, well, you got some places in the dark there that don't have electricity and Cambodia, Thailand.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: They have their issues, but as far as the internet goes, this is us.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean everybody is sold and bought here.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: What it means is that the trafficking of it is occurring here.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: I want to do talk just a little bit about this thing called pornography.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: Speaking to a lot of young men about this.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: Guys, you need to know this.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: Here's your brain on the left, what it's supposed to look like.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Here's the brain in the middle that is a heroin addict.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: Here's the brain on the right that is a porn addict.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: See much difference in the two slides?
36:14
SPEAKER_00: In other words, at different levels in different stages of a person's life, if a young boy, the average age of a kid looking at porn for the first time is six years old now, boys, is that does something chemically to the brain that God didn't intend for it to happen.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: He didn't intend for it to happen.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: And so when that happens, and now they see something else and something else and something else, their brain reshapes.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: It's called trauma.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Trauma affects the brain, just like a chemical drug would come in to affect it on heroin, so do other forms of trauma, like being beaten or violence or not being cared for as a child or whatever the case might be.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: But this specifically is what happens to the brain.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: And the problem with that is that brain gets shaped for certain responses.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: And some of those responses are that I cannot be satisfied anymore with what I see, now I gotta go do it.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: So we're creating, by virtue of our submissiveness to saying no, we're creating a future culture of more of the same with little hope.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: Now, how does the government deal with this in a free society?
37:27
SPEAKER_00: Kim's over here working on the demand issue of this thing, and this is mind-boggling, right?
37:31
SPEAKER_00: It's just it'd blow your mind.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: But here's what will really blow your mind Statistics will say that 68% of Christian men view pornography on a regular basis.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: Amen, if that's happening, just know this that you are participating in human trafficking.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: You are actually part of the problem.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: Because most of the people that you will see on that image are not doing that of free will.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Visited with a former porn star a number of months ago.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: Her name is Jessica Neely, she's very public.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: She was a pastor's kid.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: She was a Sunday school teacher.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: And she walked out to her car one day and was assaulted.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: And it happened.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: It one time, not 1820, one time destroyed her view of God, destroyed her view of ministry, destroyed her view of life, and now traffickers begin to look for her.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we got one there.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: She went into the life, that's what they call it, of internet recruiting, and recruited over 300 other women in a period of 10 years, as she was a well-known poor star in the United States.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: And she told me in my office, she said, nobody's doing it because they want to.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: Nobody.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: They're all forced to do it.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: She got out of it, fortunately.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: And today, I asked Jessica, I said, Jessica, where's God now?
39:13
SPEAKER_00: She cried in tearsfulness.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: She said, I finally realize He's always been there.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: She said, I finally realize that in spite of all this, that I'm forgiven.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: What is the message that we have in the church?
39:30
SPEAKER_00: We got some no.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: Can't do that anymore.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: But the yes of reaching out and not doing it just because of a national crisis, but doing it because God has called us.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: That's our heritage.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: We're called to subdue, to overcome, to quiet, to bring under control.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: Remember the yes?
39:47
SPEAKER_00: Topeka Rescue Mission has embraced, and we're going to ask you to consider embracing what's called the Ministry of Yes.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: What in the world does that mean?
39:58
SPEAKER_00: We're going to model after a program in Wyandotte County that has successfully reduced the number of kids who are going to school who are homeless by 50% in four years.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: Our goal, and that's the poorest county in Kansas, by the way, if they can do it, we can do it.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: Next year we're launching an initiative to go out and find the children who are homeless within our school district and get them housing with their parents and address drug addiction and mental illness and unemployment and housing issues altogether with what we call in the Ministry of Yes.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: So, what is the Ministry of Yes?
40:32
SPEAKER_00: It is simply this you exemplify solutions.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Many people today will tell people who suffer and who struggle and the victims of human trafficking, sorry, we can't do it that way.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: Sorry we don't have any rules that fit that.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, we don't have enough resources.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Sorry we don't have enough time.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: Sorry we don't understand your situation.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: So, no, no, no, no.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: But the ministry of yes is we're going to find the people that have solutions.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have one, sorry, we don't need you.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: In other words, if we're going to bring people together around this issue of helping kids to break free of the cycle of homelessness, we're going to be asking people to come to the table, and the only word on their tongue is yes, we can do that.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: Does that sound unrealistic?
41:17
SPEAKER_00: It's working in Wyanduck County.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: They had 80 collaborators come with them to start this initiative to reduce the childhood homelessness, and they had a bunch of people that wanted to come because it's a really cool idea to get kids housing and their families' housing, and now they have 30.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: Because everybody else that came with them, sorry, we can't do it that way.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, go home, stay home, we don't want you anymore.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: God has called us to subdue, not a little bit, not in part, or not find his excuses to not subdue, but he's called us to be subduers.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: The question I have for you today is are you a solution person or a no person?
41:52
SPEAKER_00: Are you a person that can grab a hold of what it is that God's called you to do and trust him by faith to do it?
42:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's scary.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we can fail, but the question is, what does God really want us to be about?
42:08
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to be men and women of yes.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: In conclusion, here I just want to bring this home to you just a little bit.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: Mary and I had known each other for about 20 years.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: She was a frequent person in and out of the rescue mission.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: She was a person who worked our programs, failed in our programs, go back on the streets.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: We'd end up missing for a long time, but it wasn't until 20 years later I began to see things differently, and I realized part of her big issue is she's been a victim of trafficking.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: And here's what she told me.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: She said, I remember when I was 12 years old, everything seemed to be going fine at home until my uncle walked in my room one night and closed the door.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: She said, That changed my life forever.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: Uncle kept coming back, family never knew.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to say anything.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: She said, I've spent the last 20 plus years being used.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: She said, but there was this one day in central Topeka, Kansas.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: I was in a garage working towards number twelve of the day.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: I hated myself.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: I hated life.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to die.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: And there's no God.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: Not that.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: She said somebody came in the room.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, number twelve was there.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: Said Mary.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: Mary.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: I was there when you were twelve.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: Mary, I've been in this situation all these years.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: I've never left you.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: She said in seam.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: I didn't really hear him.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: I thought I was going nuts.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: But then he said, I'm going to take everything that's happened to you and I'm going to empower you because of what's happened to you to reach out to other people with my love.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: Mary's a different person today.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: Mary's still on a journey.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: If we got a God that takes this that serious, that can go into a stench place of the darkest sin and not go, oh, I can't see that because I'm God.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: Can't we go there too?
44:42
SPEAKER_00: If he leads us to go there.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: Timothy.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: Started looking at the internet the wrong way when he was six.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: Today he's a trafficker.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: His brain began to reshape.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: First he became a buyer, John, and then he had to go further to actually be in the life of the other side.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't like traffickers.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: I really don't.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't want them to exist.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: But I have to come to the realization they're victims too.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: Kids today, even in high school, junior high, maybe even gray school, are being sexploited, forced fraud or coercion because of something they put on their whatever Instagram.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: And other people found it, and they start using that against them and start forcing them to do some things that they wouldn't do.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Our eyes cannot see what our mind does not understand or comprehend.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: He's a victim too.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: And finally, Sally.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: Sally's the one that really got my attention.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: Sally'd been kept coming into the rescue mission over and over and over again.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: She was a meth addict, she was always out of her mind, and she was always promiscuous and homeless.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: And so she'd come in so methed out, so crazy out of her mind, so can't follow the rules, so traumatized that we would get her in the hospital.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: And of course, here comes that homeless, crazy Sally again, who's a meth addict.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll patch her up and we'll send her on her way.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: Send her on her way.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: And she'll come back again, but one day she won't come back again.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: Until we started to ask the question, why is Sally always on meth?
46:34
SPEAKER_00: What kind of pain is she going through?
46:39
SPEAKER_00: Why is she always out of her mind?
46:40
SPEAKER_00: Who wouldn't be?
46:42
SPEAKER_00: 1,820 a year?
46:47
SPEAKER_00: Times two, times three, times four.
46:50
SPEAKER_00: In her case, it was times 11.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: Who would be normal?
46:57
SPEAKER_00: And we began to say, let's walk with her differently.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: No more excuses, no more no's, no more nothing.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: Just yes.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: I got this from Jim, your pastor, years ago.
47:15
SPEAKER_00: The question is when we stand before the King of Kings, and we say, God, we're really glad to be here.
47:22
SPEAKER_00: This is awesome.
47:24
SPEAKER_00: And then he cross-examines us and he said, Okay, what did you do with what I gave you?
47:28
SPEAKER_00: If we have the opportunity to say, man, we just had this great church and this great pastor that we got to listen to, and we did a great home and a great job and a great family.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: Man, God, thanks for helping us cruise on through this thing.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: And he will say, Did you know what I'd really called you to?
47:45
SPEAKER_00: And he might ask us if TBC was a ministry of yes.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: And was I a ministry of yes?
47:52
SPEAKER_00: And if you are, you're not on a cruise ship, you're on a battleship.
47:56
SPEAKER_00: This is a broken, cursed world.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: It's a dark world.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: And what I've shared with you today is not the half of it.
48:02
SPEAKER_00: What I've shared with you today is just enough, hopefully, that you will understand.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: We are called to subdue, but we are not alone in this fight.
48:13
SPEAKER_00: There's an armada that God has brought together, but here's the coolest scripture of all.
48:17
SPEAKER_00: Comes out of 2 Corinthians 1, 19 and 20.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among Eusylanius and Timothy and I was not yes and no.
48:33
SPEAKER_00: But in him, it is always yes.
48:37
SPEAKER_00: For all the promises of God find their yes in him.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: We've got a God that is a yes God.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: He said, you know what, Barry?
48:49
SPEAKER_00: You're a sinner.
48:52
SPEAKER_00: There's no hope outside of my son.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm saying yes to you.
49:01
SPEAKER_00: He's saying yes to Mary in the garage.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: He's saying yes to all the broken.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: And I leave you with this today.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: Just to ask yourself this question Is Golly calling you to help restore and bring hope with being people of yes to people in our community?
49:21
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: God bless you.
49:33
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Barry, for that challenge.
49:35
SPEAKER_03: We need to hear that.
49:37
SPEAKER_03: You know, TBC, we have a great responsibility, don't we?
49:41
SPEAKER_03: But we have a great privilege as well.
49:43
SPEAKER_03: Let us be a church of yes, and that what that takes is for each one of us individually to be people of yes.
49:50
SPEAKER_03: Will you pray with me, please?
49:52
SPEAKER_03: Father God, thank you for this life you've given to us.
49:57
SPEAKER_03: And you didn't give this to us to just for us to be comfortable, for us to have as much fun as we can, for us to accumulate as many things as we can.
50:09
SPEAKER_03: No, you gave us to work here on earth to advance your kingdom.
50:13
SPEAKER_03: Now may we leave here and may we respond to your call to be people, to be a church of the ethics.
50:19
SPEAKER_03: In your sentences, amen.
50:22
SPEAKER_03: Have a great week.