Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / November 20, 2016 | Thanksgiving Service Of Praise

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November 20, 2016 | Thanksgiving Service Of Praise · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: How cool is that, huh?
0:02
SPEAKER_00: And the uh background there?
0:06
SPEAKER_00: That's not the kind of background you can keep up during the Christmas season.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: So uh Psalm 100.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Make joyful noise unto the Lord.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: All ye lands, serve the Lord with gladness.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Come before his presence with singing.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Know ye that the Lord He is God.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: So enter into His gates with and into His courts with praise.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Be thankful unto Him and bless His name, for the Lord His good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this morning, this special morning, this morning of telling you thank you.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: We come back like the tenth leper, and we fall before your feet, and we say, We thank you for all you've given us.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: We bless your name, we honor you this morning in Jesus' name.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: And we do have a lot to be thankful for.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: We can be thankful that the uh turkeys that are warming, 18 of them downstairs, smell good, and that we're not eating outside.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Don't you ever wonder if the if the Indian sheep who got the 395 years ago got the invitation from the pilgrims to come, you know, said you picnic outside, late November, New England?
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
1:25
SPEAKER_00: No.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: So uh our weather has turned cold here as well.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: In case you're uh listening from Dominican Republic or something this morning, and it's nice and warm.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: It's freezing here, and we're eating inside.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Another thing we can be thankful for is this is a holiday that can't be bought, right?
1:43
SPEAKER_00: It's not like Christmas, it's not like Easter.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: You can't buy that.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Although I was in uh the river walk in San Antonio this week at a theological conference, and every single store window seemed to already be full of Christmas lights and Christmas trees.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: So I just shot them all out with my shotgun and said, celebrate Thanksgiving.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Stop that.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: So uh Thanksgiving service of praise, always a special time for us.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: We always, you know, we always uh do some special things.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna do four things this morning.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: We always have a little sermonette, despite the fact that my homiletics professor in seminary said sermonettes are only given by preacherettes.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to do a little 10-50-minute message, and then uh I'm gonna introduce you to a young couple who have uh, you would say, how in the world can they say thank you this morning?
2:38
SPEAKER_00: But in recent years, we've learned that uh in the midst of thorns, some people find the rose of God's sovereignty and God's grace and God's mercy.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: And that's what this amazing couple has done.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Then, third, I want to introduce you to a new couple at TBC.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Just started working here on staff this week, and then fourth, I'm gonna tell you what our Christmas project will be this year.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: So let's start right off with my message, the title of which is not one that I made up.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: It's uh one you perhaps have heard of before.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: Start each day with a grateful heart.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want you to start each day this week with a grateful heart, not just Thursday, but we want to start every day of the year with a grateful heart, right?
3:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's my message, and I want to give you five reasons why you should.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Number one, start each day with a grateful heart, because a grateful heart is a humble heart, while an ungrateful heart is a proud heart.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: You don't want a proud heart.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Pride, the greatest of all vices, humility in the Bible, the greatest of all virtues.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I remember studying Romans, you know, really hard and being stunned.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, the first stunning lesson that I learned from Romans was in chapter one.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Chapters one through four of Romans tell about how the world fell into darkness, the swamp of depravity, and and and in chapter one it tells about the devolution, the down, not evolution up, but the devolution down of mankind.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: And guess what the first step was?
4:07
SPEAKER_00: The first step was ingratitude.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Romans 1.21.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Although they knew God, they looked at the stars, they saw the Grand Canyon, they knew there was a God, yet they did not give thanks to him.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: They didn't honor him or give thanks.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: So ingratitude is the first step toward absolute lostness and evil and pride.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Henry Ward Beecher, a famous man in the 19th century, pride, friend of my great-great-grandfather.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Pride slays Thanksgiving.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: But a humble mind, I love that line, pride slays Thanksgiving.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: What does slays mean?
4:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: I haven't used that word in decades.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: Pride kills Thanksgiving.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: But a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it fun to walk up to somebody, say, how are you doing, and they say, Better than I deserve?
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, people say, I love the people who say that.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Better than I deserve.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: That's humility.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: And it seems to me that, you know, I mentioned the one leper who came back, you know, the ten Jesus said, go to the temple, and on the way they find out they're healed, and only one comes back, and Jesus notices that.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: And you wonder, I'm sure all of them felt a sense of gratitude when they looked down and found they were healed of their leprosy, but I wonder why the others didn't come back.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, was it they were in too much of a hurry?
5:42
SPEAKER_00: I tend to think maybe they felt a little entitled.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: And that sense of entitlement, I deserve more, works against humility, sort of a pride thing, right?
5:54
SPEAKER_00: And think I deserve more.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's the reason.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: But I do know that a contrary example would be Ruth.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Ruth, remember, was this Moabitus who experienced so much trouble?
6:08
SPEAKER_00: She married this good Jewish boy, but then he died after a few years.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: And so she hangs around with her mother-in-law Naomi, who becomes gradually more and more bitter, and then Ruth accompanies Naomi back to the homeland, back to Israel, back to Bethlehem.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: And because they have no way to eat, Ruth goes into the fields and she's gleaning and she's picking up dropped, you know, straws, barley, and so forth in this field.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And Boaz, the extremely wealthy landowner, you know, drops a few extra pieces of barley for her, says, treat her well, and instead of her saying, Well, I deserve this, or I'm having to live with a bitter mother-in-law, my life is just terrible, and you know, you're rich, and I'm entitled to more, what does she do?
6:59
SPEAKER_00: So humble.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: She falls on her face and bows to the ground and gushes with gratitude, saying, Why have I found grace in your eyes that you should take knowledge of me, seeing I'm a stranger?
7:09
SPEAKER_00: So my point is that you and I should start each day with a grateful heart, like apparently Ruth did, because a grateful heart is a humble heart, while an ungrateful heart is a proud heart.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Number two, because a grateful heart is a heart that leans toward God and others, while an ungrateful heart leans inward.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: By leaning toward God and others, I mean that you know that when you run up against somebody who's grateful, they're always thinking of other people, aren't they?
7:40
SPEAKER_00: They're thinking of you.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: They ask you questions.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, they they're interested in your life, and they're interested in things outside themselves, but but ungrateful people are always occupied with my feelings and my rights and and and you know what what I have and who I am.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: And and it's it's kind of an ugly, ugly picture, that self-centeredness.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh Walter Landor wrote it this way.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: We think we suffer.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: Actually, he wrote it uh a long time ago, and his words were actually, we fancy sometimes that we suffer from ingratitude when in reality we suffer from self-love.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting?
8:21
SPEAKER_00: That sometimes the self-love is actually the root sin from which ingratitude comes.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Third, we ought to start each day with a grateful heart, not just because that's the humble way to live, not just because that way we're leaning outward rather than inward, but third, because that kind of a heart is a full heart rather than an empty heart.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: You find that people, there are people who have empty pocketbooks.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: If you've been over to India or Haiti or these places, you find there are a lot of people very poor, have empty houses, empty pocketbooks, empty bellies, but if they're grateful people, they have full hearts.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: Whereas wealthy people, you can come across all kinds of wealthy people, right?
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Who have full pocketbooks, full bank accounts, full houses, but you start to talk to them and you find out their hearts really empty.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: They're like I was just realizing before I came out here, they're like my air compression tank.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: I was trying to fill up tires yesterday, and and somehow while I'm serving God in other parts of the world, rats got into my shed and chewed the little hole in the hose and attaches to my air compression tank.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going, I thought I filled this up.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to fill it up and it's not getting filled up, and then I hear this sound and I see this rat bite.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: And the air is just, no matter how I try to fill it, it's it stays empty because of what a rat did.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: And that's the kind of a heart that some people, if your heart have an ungrateful spirit, that leaves a hole in your heart.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: That means your heart can never be full.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Your heart is empty.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: As verses, let's say, the Apostle Paul.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: You've heard of the prison epistles, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, called the prison epistles, because he wrote them from a prison.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you did get that, right?
10:17
SPEAKER_00: So, and he wrote them from prison in Rome.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Here's a picture, for instance, of what I what I think that prison is still there, the Mamertine prison underground, this tiny little place, and yet he wrote, notice, he wrote, I have all and abound, I am full.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: What do they mean by that?
10:35
SPEAKER_00: Certainly wasn't his belly, wasn't full.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: No, he must have meant that his heart was full.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: His heart was full.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: And the only way your heart can be full is if you have a grateful heart.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: A grateful heart is a full heart.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: And the fourth reason we should start every day with a grateful heart is because a grateful heart is a happy heart.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Whereas an ungrateful heart is a complaining heart.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: My life is so bad.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, life's not going the way I want.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: Whereas people who are grateful are always happy.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Counselors tell us that there's this huge difference between patients who come in, those who are who tend to be ungrateful or unsatisfied, are really difficult, if not impossible, to cure because the resentments and the depression just are brought on themselves.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Whereas those who are grateful, you know, they can work with those people and they become, they they can move from darkness to light.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: And counselors, both modern and ancient, Hans Selwe has written a famous book on stress, you know, say the same thing that the healthiest of all human emotions is gratitude.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Or gratitude is a vaccine, it's an antitoxin, it's an antiseptic, John Jott.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: So that's because it somehow happiness or gratitude is a healing agent.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: A.W.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: Tozer put it in spiritual terms.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Thanksgiving has great curative power.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: The heart that's constantly overflowing with gratitude, he said, will be safe from those attacks of resentfulness and gloom that bother so many religious persons.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: You've noticed, haven't you, that some people complain because God puts thorns next to roses, while others praise him for putting roses among thorns.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: My nine-year-old son Craig was an example of this.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: I, when I was getting my doctorate up, I've been here for 20 some years, and I went up during the summers to get a doctorate up in Chicago, and I'd go up there and I'd take, I was just going up for a week or two weeks at a time, and I'd take one of my kids up there.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And it was kind of boring for them because I was in classes from eight in the morning until about five, and they'd have to entertain themselves and read books or whatever.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, the last year of my doctorate, I took Craig up, my nine-year-old, the youngest, and and and I called it the great Chicago Adventure, and he was so excited to do what his siblings had done, and so forth.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: And he came up, and it wasn't the greatest Chicago adventure it could have been.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the weather wasn't good, it was super hot, and we didn't have air conditioning and so forth.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: Now in the evening, uh, one night I did take him to a Cubs game downtown and so forth.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: So it's not as though we didn't have any fun.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: But uh I was desperate to try to give him a good time.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: So when we left to Chicago to drive back down here to Topeke, I said, and he got on the car, you know, I'm looking at my young, you know, Craig, is there anything you'd like to eat, anything you'd like to do on the way home?
13:28
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Yeah, I'd love a Slurpee.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: I'd like a Slurpee.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: So, which is, you know, you're glad when they're nine years old.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: They're they're not asking for a ribeye.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: So I'm stopping at every 7-Eleven that I can see on the way back, and unbelievably, there's not one of them that where the slurpee machine's working.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, it was on, it was just amazing, you know, it was all always melted or always hotter, it was down, or I'm sorry, and and so forth.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: And finally, you know, we just don't.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: And when now it's dark and it's midnight, and we're driving through Lawrence to Topek, and I look over, and he's still away, sitting on the driver's seat.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: He's been quiet for a long time, but his eyes are open.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking, wow, not much of a great adventure in Chicago for this poor kid.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't even get him a slurpee.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: And we're approaching uh Topeka, he goes, Dad, and I say, What?
14:22
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking he's gonna go, you owe me a slurpee or something.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: But he said, uh, thank you for taking me to Chicago.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, when you have a nine-year-old kid that says something like that, my first thought was, I'm gonna take him on a million trip.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, he's just so so happy about that.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: That when there's a situation where someone could be unhappy, and an ungrateful heart definitely would be unhappy and would be saying, look at all these thorns, it's just not working out.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: That a grateful heart is a happy heart.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: And the fifth reason we should start each day, I think, with a grateful heart is because a grateful heart is, as Proverbs would put it, um, a life-giving spring in the world.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Whereas an ungrateful heart is like a stagnant pool.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: And I uh and I'm just taking those words from a couple of verses in Proverbs, which talk about the words of wise people are like life-giving springs of water.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Words of wisdom like bubbling brooks.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: And you've seen it happen.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: You love being in the presence of certain people.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Why?
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Because they they make the lights come on when they come in a room.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's some people who the lights come on when they leave a room, you know, and those those are the people who are ungrateful or who are always negative.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: The positive people, the people who are grateful for life and happy just to be there.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: They they they spread life-giving water to everyone.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's what you and I want to be like, right?
16:01
SPEAKER_00: We want to be that way.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: We want to be grateful people because grateful people are humble people, grateful people are outward-looking people, people who talk about you or about others rather than themselves.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: And grateful people are like life-giving springs that refresh the world.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: So that's my message today.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Start each day, not just this week, but but but but throughout the year, with a grateful heart.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to introduce to you a couple that illustrates what I've just talked about.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: And when I say what I've just talked about, I mean that part of what I talked about.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: When I talk about the fact that gratitude can transform the worst situations, situations that crush normal people, grateful people, people who know their God and are grateful to Him in a humble way, those situations don't even look the same to those people.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: They're just grateful for that.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: So let me introduce to you a young couple that I've really grown to admire in the last 12 minutes.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: Chris and Jaclyn, would you come on up?
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Let's welcome them on stage, shall we?
17:15
SPEAKER_00: Chris and Jacqueline, uh how many children do you have, by the way?
17:20
SPEAKER_00: We have four.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: Four children.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh, what are their ages?
17:23
SPEAKER_04: Um Mason and Carson are twin boys.
17:26
SPEAKER_04: They're five at Kendall.
17:28
SPEAKER_04: Um, she will turn four the day after Christmas, and Blake will turn two two days before Christmas.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and yeah, I I want to I want to ask them about Blake.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh any of you ever have you seen Blake?
17:43
SPEAKER_00: He's he's memorable because he's so cute, he has this great attitude, but he and his parents have really been through it.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Would you tell us that story?
17:52
SPEAKER_00: It's about a year old, right?
17:54
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, um December 5th, uh Blake had touched a wood burning stove and burnt his hands.
18:01
SPEAKER_04: And uh the following weeks after that, Blake was uh just not the same.
18:06
SPEAKER_04: He was extremely fussy at night, having night sweats.
18:09
SPEAKER_04: Uh it was more, they thought it was an air infection.
18:12
SPEAKER_04: It was more than an ear infection.
18:13
SPEAKER_04: I just knew being a mother that motherly inviting that something was wrong.
18:18
SPEAKER_04: So um the day after Christmas on our daughter's birthday, we brought Blake into the hospital, and two days later they uh informed us that Blake had um cancer.
18:28
SPEAKER_04: It was AML.
18:30
SPEAKER_04: Uh it's a type of leukemia that is um very aggressive.
18:35
SPEAKER_04: So we uh just a second.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: So he burned himself.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: So that was bad enough.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but then this other stuff starts, and you're thinking, is that related to the burn or not?
18:46
SPEAKER_00: But some of them like the bruise and so forth, you go, but that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the burn, and he wasn't, and so you took him to the hospital and you find out he's got something super serious.
18:55
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it was the burn was a blessing in disguise.
18:59
SPEAKER_04: Um so he was diagnosed with cancer, and we immediately started treatment.
19:05
SPEAKER_04: It was supposed to be a uh six-month uh long treatment, and uh during that Blake had relapsed twice, uh, the cancer came back twice, and uh so our only option after that was to do a stem cell transplant, and that fast forwards us to be a little bit of a.
19:25
SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, it's very scary.
19:27
SPEAKER_04: Um we found a donor.
19:30
SPEAKER_04: Um actually there was about 250 donors that were a 10 out of 10 match, which is uh unheard of.
19:38
SPEAKER_04: Um so that was a blessing in itself.
19:42
SPEAKER_04: And uh September 7th is when we started um the chemotherapy, which was extremely aggressive chemo.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: And um how did that affect him?
19:55
SPEAKER_04: Um he actually was a trooper through all of that um and just played and acted like nothing was wrong during all that.
20:03
SPEAKER_04: Um the one that might have made him a little bit sick actually comes from a rabbit, an actual rabbit, and um that kind of uh usually makes him have a fever, but or like maybe felt a little achy, but he was a trooper through all of that.
20:18
SPEAKER_04: So um and then uh September 5th or 14th was the transplant day.
20:26
SPEAKER_04: And um everything was going well, and then Blake had a really difficult time after that.
20:32
SPEAKER_04: He developed a virus that is extremely life-threatening and um immunocompromised to kids like or like um who don't have an immune system.
20:43
SPEAKER_04: So he we started off with that, and then two days after that, Blake developed it's called VOD of the liver.
20:50
SPEAKER_04: It's a venous occlusive disease, and what it uh is is uh the blood vessels in your liver um are occluded or blocked and the blood flow can't go through the liver and it ends up or um or your other organs end up failing and uh essentially you know that's fatal, you know.
21:11
SPEAKER_04: Yes, it is usually fatal.
21:13
SPEAKER_04: Um and they actually have a medication that was just approved in the last six months in the United States and they gave that to Blake.
21:24
SPEAKER_04: It took a while to work, so we were holding our breaths every day as his stomach caught river and he started having renal failure and um so it was showing that his other uh organs were failing.
21:39
SPEAKER_04: And um he actually got through all of that and um we are in remission and we are home.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Really?
21:50
SPEAKER_00: How long is that?
21:58
SPEAKER_00: We've been in the hospital pretty solid.
22:01
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, for almost a year now.
22:02
SPEAKER_04: We've I've been living in the hospital with Blake.
22:06
SPEAKER_04: Chris has been at home working, trying to take care of our other kids.
22:12
SPEAKER_04: Wow.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: And so you when did you bring him home?
22:15
SPEAKER_04: We brought him home last Friday.
22:18
SPEAKER_04: It was late.
22:19
SPEAKER_04: It was like nine o'clock at night, but we didn't care.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, Chris, this is this sounds, I mean, this uh to those of us on the outside, it sounds a little bit like a roller coaster, not the kind you like to take, but you know where, you know.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Um how do you so you're trying to am I right?
22:41
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to balance a job and parent the other three kids and run into the hospital and be a good dad and a good husband and all this stuff.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: What's it been like for you this last year?
22:52
SPEAKER_03: Well, uh, like you said, it's it's definitely been a roller coaster ride.
22:57
SPEAKER_03: Um it's uh I I've definitely felt uh torn where I should be.
23:04
SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, my my kids need me at home.
23:07
SPEAKER_03: Uh I've got to keep keep working so that uh the business can keep going.
23:12
SPEAKER_03: But uh at the same time, my my number one priority was them.
23:15
SPEAKER_03: Um if if there was ever a night she needed me to be there, I would I would I would go down there and and I would be down there on the weekends as well.
23:24
SPEAKER_03: But uh we just kind of had to go wherever was needed.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: So oftentimes this stuff kind of break can break a family apart, but uh but it sounds as though you guys not only stayed together, but it it kind of brought you closer together in some ways.
23:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, most definitely.
23:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:44
SPEAKER_03: Um our really our whole family has has grown not only spiritually, but uh uh we've grown closer together.
23:53
SPEAKER_03: Everybody's uh including the little kids, have um they've they've just really stepped up and Mason stepped up to the plate, huh?
24:02
SPEAKER_03: Yep, yep.
24:04
SPEAKER_03: They they've stepped up and and helped out as much as they can.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, you know, if you've gone in the room, you know, you've you've had a Bible open and these devotional books and so forth, and I I feel like I've watched you guys grow in so many ways.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: Not I mean none of us would want would want to be planted in the kind of soil you've been planted in, but somehow uh, you know, as I talk to you, uh Chris, Jacqueline, it's like you have this just trust in in God, you know, whatever he does.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Am I right about that?
24:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, definitely.
24:44
SPEAKER_03: Um and and we've always I always knew that Blake was a special kid, um, and and I knew that he had uh a special purpose on earth here, and and I and I really feel that um his job on earth is to whether it's through his story here or whether it's later on in life, uh that uh his role is to lead people to Christ.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Would you answer that same question, uh Jacqueline, you know, about uh uh trusting God, how you're able to trust in God and be grateful to him?
25:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, this um I call it a beautiful nightmare because that's what I feel like it's been, um has definitely changed me and brought me closer to Christ.
25:34
SPEAKER_04: And I've uh learned to just uh put all my trust in him and I've learned to pray differently.
25:42
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I remember being in the hospital just uh praying for me to accept whatever will that is that he has for our son, because I know his will is good and God is good, whether it's what we want or not, and there is a purpose for it.
26:02
SPEAKER_04: He's definitely transformed me in the last year, and I'm thankful for that.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Can I pray for you guys?
26:08
SPEAKER_00: I want to pray for them.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Would you join me in praying for them?
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray for this awesome couple, and we know we live in a world where all kinds of people are sick, are hurting, or dying, and and here is a young couple that knows what that's like from personal experience, even though they live here in America.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: And uh Lord, in a world where many people are without health care, we thank you that um that they've gotten health care and they've got they got this special drug.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: That I didn't know about that.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: That's just such a blessing, and we thank you for that.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Lord, in a world where people don't know where to go with their pains and with the thorns, we thank you that Chris and Jacqueline come from the kind of a background where they know to throw themselves, fling themselves upon you.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you have embraced them and brought them to yourself and kept them together and and whispered in the hearts and ears of their children that it's that it's time to step up.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Now we'd ask, Lord, that you shower them with your favor.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: We pray for Blake, this beautiful boy who seems to be special in your eyes, and we pray with his dad that he would become great for you and he would really influence the world.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: But that's gonna take sparing his life.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: So we pray that, Lord, and and with Chris and Jack, and we pray with gratitude in our hearts in Jesus' name.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, gosh.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: And the last thing I want to do is share with you our Christmas project.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Hold it.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: No, I want to introduce to Joe and Rebecca Delfonso.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Hey, uh, would are you guys here?
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Would you grab uh I'll grab this mic for you almost forgot in the last service, I almost forgot uh, you know, what you're doing tonight too, so remind me about that.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: So um Joe started work.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: What day did you start work?
28:09
SPEAKER_00: On Thursday this week.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when uh did when did you guys move up?
28:13
SPEAKER_01: Did you just uh we just arrived in Topeka on Sunday night.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: Now you're having trouble getting into your house, I hear, is that right?
28:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's been you know a a trial.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: It's hot and cold running rats or mold or something like that.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: I forget what it is.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: No, but whatever it is, yeah.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: So um it's great to have you here.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: Your first day was Thursday, right?
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: And what's what's your title?
28:38
SPEAKER_00: Pastor of Young Adults.
28:39
SPEAKER_02: Pastor and Young Adults means uh College all the way up to 35.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm too old.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh college up to 35.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: So that that's that's a great age.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: That we've got a number.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm really glad that you came here to help us with that.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: Glad to be here.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: It's exciting.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: So tell us about your background, where are you each from?
29:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, uh, I grew up in Buffalo, New York.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: 20 years there, I know.
29:04
SPEAKER_02: Uh go bills, right?
29:05
SPEAKER_02: And then I moved to Phoenix.
29:07
unknown: Okay.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: He actually said go bills in this auditorium.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: The stained glass is about to blow out.
29:17
SPEAKER_02: Then I moved to Phoenix, met Rebecca there.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: We got married in 2006, and I spent uh at least uh 12, 13 years working in the corporate world.
29:26
SPEAKER_02: How was the company?
29:27
SPEAKER_02: American Express, and then I was with United Healthcare.
29:30
SPEAKER_02: So uh did a lot of project management and quality improvement.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: Healthcare.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: Healthcare.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: American Express.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, that was financial services, yeah.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, isn't that cool?
29:41
SPEAKER_00: So uh I really love the fact that you've like worked in the real world.
29:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we in the ministry think, mmm, is this the real world?
29:52
SPEAKER_00: Right.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Anyway.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: It's real.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: So but even when you were doing that, you were then you were going to seminary while you were doing that, and you really wanted to do what, you know, to serve in this.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Now you've done this, you've helped with young adults before in some churches, right?
30:06
SPEAKER_02: Yes, we've done a lot of different ministries in the church, children's ministry, junior high ministry, but our heart just keeps coming back to young adults.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: So we've been leading young adult groups for about five to ten years, uh, various capacities, uh teaching the group, organizing outreaches, and that sort of thing.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: So we were doing that together in Phoenix.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's where the Lord's led us is young adults.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: What's uh hand that to Rebecca, what what's your thing with young adults?
30:30
SPEAKER_00: What do you like doing with the with the girls that you spend time with?
30:33
SPEAKER_01: Um I think God has just kind of m molded me over the years to really value and appreciate one-on-one discipleship and just getting uh life on life uh with ladies and um what we're really struggling with and kind of working through that.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: So one-on-one, now you've led Bible studies with young adults women before.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but yeah, it started off as a young adult women's Bible study.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: I love the one-on-one thing.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I noticed, you know, you would list the names of actual people in some of your resumes and stuff that you'd spend time with.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: I I was really I thought that was great.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: I think I think you know, the world has changed one person at a time.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: So I really like that.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: So what are your share with us your grab that mic and share with us what's your visions, dreams, goals, whatever are.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the vision for the group really is to be an encouragement to young married couples.
31:20
SPEAKER_02: Um marriage is a great uh example of our covenantal God.
31:24
SPEAKER_02: Marriage is a covenant.
31:25
SPEAKER_02: So we want to encourage couples in that, um, encourage one another.
31:29
SPEAKER_02: And as for singles, we want to encourage you to make the most of this time in your life.
31:34
SPEAKER_02: And this is a unique opportunity you have to really go all out for the things of the Lord.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: And really, all young adults are making decisions that affect the course of their lives.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: Really important decisions.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: So we want to come around them and encourage them and exhort them in Christ.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: So, how do you what what sort of programming type what what's uh what's your the first thing you're gonna be doing?
31:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, tonight actually at six o'clock in the College Avenue Building Lobby, we're gonna have a hello night.
31:59
SPEAKER_02: It's just gonna be uh games and pizza and just getting to know each other.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: So it's called hello night and six o'clock.
32:06
SPEAKER_02: As well, we're gonna have a Christmas party on December 3rd and a New Year's Eve party, and we have a few other events as well planned in December.
32:12
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna start out with a lot of just getting to know each other.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: And you'd mentioned uh to me that you want to take missions trips and do other things and have a real heart for outreach, right?
32:21
SPEAKER_02: Yes, we are already starting to plan mission trips for 2017, uh, both you know, nationally, there's needs as well as we're looking to do an overseas trip, Lord willing, next year.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: And uh did I read that you've taken some of your young adults in past years, you know, like on just evangelism and just out talking with people and yeah, absolutely.
32:38
SPEAKER_02: So we did a lot of evangelism in Phoenix where we'd go on the city bus or go to the movie theater or to park and just like you guys did in New York this past summer, uh, just sharing the gospel, sharing the truth about Jesus.
32:49
SPEAKER_02: So so many people don't really know the gospel out there.
32:51
SPEAKER_02: So we do that as well as just going overseas.
32:53
SPEAKER_02: So we went to Japan, did kind of the same thing.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: So I was down, uh let me mention I was I was just down in San Antonio with about 1,500 Christian college professors and seminarians and so forth, and I'm about to leave the night before last evening to drive back up here, and a guy grabs me as I'm leaving the elevator.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: He said, Just a second, didn't I hear you talking to some other guy and you mentioned Topeka Bible Church?
33:14
SPEAKER_00: I said, Yeah.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, I'm the registrar at Phoenix Seminary.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh have you heard of a guy in Joe Delphon?
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Is that the same church?
33:20
SPEAKER_00: I've got this guy I really admire, Joe and Rebecca Delfonso.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: I think, are they coming?
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Is that your church?
33:25
SPEAKER_00: I go, yes.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, you guys are so lucky.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, they said some nice things.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: He was lying, I know, but yeah, yeah.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh anyway, that was really cool.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: So thanks.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Small world.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you bet.
33:38
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, if you have any questions, my email is in the bulletin under the Attention Young Adults section.
33:43
SPEAKER_02: It's Joe at discover tbc.com.
33:46
SPEAKER_02: Would love to have young married, young singles, collegians there tonight.
33:49
SPEAKER_02: Bring your kids and we'll have a good time.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Good.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Let's give them a welcome.
33:53
SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
33:55
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're so glad to have Joanna Rebecca here.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Let me share with you.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited about our Christmas project this year.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: This won't take long.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Let me share with you what we're gonna do.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh last year, remember, we raised money, got over$100,000 in to build uh some churches down in Haiti.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh our goal is to build 30 churches down there, and that's part of our Christmas project to follow up on that.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: But we decided to sort of split it between Topeka and overseas.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: And the first half of our Christmas project is Topeka Rescue Mission.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: We love Topeka Rescue.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: We're fans, we already support Topeka Rescue Mission.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: We think Barry Fika's the bomb.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: We love anyway.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: So uh they have, as you know, they've been building and they've been expanding.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: And when you build and expand, you have greater needs.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: They have more people.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: And so they're always really collecting gift items, clothing, and so forth at Christmas.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna have boxes of uh they they they anything you could donate, nice clothing, especially they love jeans, both children and adults, uh moms and dads, gift sets, uh, electronics, things like that.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: We'll be collecting those for the Topeka Rescue Mission, by the way.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: There's a picture of the new children's building that's not yet finished that they're working on.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: So we're excited about that.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and if you just give them, we will also be giving them some of the money that comes in in this Christmas project.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: The other half of the Christmas project is this uh this one village uh in Haiti that we chose to build a church in.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: We've started building the church.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, just to remind you of where Haiti is, it's southeast of Florida, sort of in the middle of the ocean, and it's an island.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: The western side is Haiti, and the right hand side, Dominican Republic, where we also work, as you know, with Trash Mountain Ministries, okay?
35:57
SPEAKER_00: And the city where we have an orphanage that we help with, that we work with, is in Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: And some of you know that in 2010 there was a huge, huge hurricane down there, and uh, earthquake, hurricane, 200,000 people die and so forth.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: And you also know that in October, just a month ago this year, early this year, there was Hurricane Matthew who went through.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: The epicenter was just southwest, about 50 to 100 miles of the capital city where we are, where we have our orphanage.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: And uh, just northeast of the city of Port-au-Prince, there's a little village where we are now building a church, where there is a pastor, and his name is Pastor Lelu of the Bethel Church of God.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: Can you say Pastor Lelu?
36:46
SPEAKER_00: Pastor really humble guy, he's a quiet guy, he's been pastoring there for 20 years.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: He's 41, his wife's 19, they have five children.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: Pastors Bethel Church of God, a church of 270 people, and uh two services on Sunday, have a Wednesday night service and a Friday night prayer service, and the village is very poor.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: Everybody is a sort of a tenant farmer there in the village.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't get paid by the church, they don't have that much money.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: He he uh he has his own garden and uh sells ice sometimes.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: And uh and when we were choosing this place as one of the options to build one of our churches, we had some of our staff go down.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: There's Patty Delaberto there, you can see chairman of our elders, uh Jeff Sorensen, you can see Terry Barker, you can see uh there on the right-hand side Tim Schultz.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: And this is the area, by the way, where they have a well that's been shut down because it was brackish, it was salt water, it wasn't working, so that now the people in that village have to walk four hours a day, two hours there and two hours back to get any water.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: So we want to build them.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh it'll a well will cost about$4,000.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: They'll put it near where we're building sort of their new church, and that'll cost$4,000.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: And uh I would love to do that.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: That will really elevate this church and Pastor Lelu in the in the eyes of his people.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh this was the interview process where Tim and Melissa and others were interviewing uh Lelu and his wife Mary Aline.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: They have five children.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: Here's a picture of two of them.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: And uh just I found him as I read through these resumes, these things of these different uh churches, I was so impressed by this and thought, you know, I think TBC would really love to help.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: So got together with him with an interpreter uh about 10 days ago, and I chatted actually two weeks ago this morning, uh, and chatted with him and and told him through the interpreter we're gonna help him.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: He he didn't understand much.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: I think he thinks we might send him a pair of jeans or something.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: But he's gonna be really thrilled.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, when we send up uh a crew and teams and so forth and start building this well in his village, they also have a family.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: Their church is sort of adopted uh with 10 children, uh, where the father has died, the young father has died, and they're really struggling to survive, and they're in this couple, this family is not Christians yet, but they've started attending, they're trying to lead them to Christ.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: I want to I want us to help maybe uh help that family as well.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: So I'm very excited about this part of the Christmas project, Pastor Lelu and the Bethel Church of God.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: So I would encourage you, as the bulletin says, you know, to either write a check, to bring some stuff for the rescue mission, let's participate in this.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh one guy came up after first service, he said, I love this project.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm gonna I'm gonna donate uh 20 25% of that of that well right now.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: So uh I think I think we're gonna we're gonna really be able to surprise that village and Pastor Lelu.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: So let's pray about that, and uh then I'll let you go.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning for the reminder that you love grateful people.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: And gratitude is where one lifestyle starts.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude is where we become Christians.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: That's the start of becoming believers and heading for heaven and living a very happy and contented life, no matter how many thorns there are in it.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: And we also, Lord, I also together pray for Chris and Jacqueline and their children, the four kids, and especially Blake.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: We pray for him.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: We'll continue to pray for them.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: And and we also pray for the Dalfonsos, that you would put your hand of blessing upon their ministry.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: And we pray for Bethel Church of God and this uh this village of Thomaso this morning, as as he's preaching this morning, and ask that uh that we be able to bless them just as we're going to bless Topeka with what you've given us.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh Heavenly Father, give us grateful hearts this week, especially.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: In Christ's name.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming, folks.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: God bless you.