Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 12, 2021 | Then.Now.Next - Celebrating God's Grace Over the Past 40 Years

Transcript

September 12, 2021 | Then.Now.Next - Celebrating God's Grace Over the Past 40 Years · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: So here we are.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's 40 years later, and we're still all here.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that went really fast.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: It did, right?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: 40 years on the flash.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: So Jim, we came in uh you came in 78.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you came in 76, we got married, 78.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hank and Ann, you got here in 80, youth pastor, now 82-ish, is part-time music guy and part-time everything else, jack of all trades.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: So um, man, we were all young, uh fresh out of school, Bible college, uh seminary, we had no kids.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we hit TBC with a storm, and uh we were who would have thought we'd have still been here all these years later.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, back then, no kids, we did everything.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: We had a lot of events that we uh created and fostered and kicked off.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone have any memories of your favorite?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_05: Tons of them.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_05: Tons of them.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_05: Well, Valentine's Banquet was one of the first.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_05: In uh 77, we started uh Val Evangelistic Valentine's Banquet.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_05: We would rent the Ramada and we'd have hundreds of people and we'd bite in a special speaker, have special entertainment.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_05: It was a lot of work, and and we did decorations, right, and everything.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_05: Do you remember that?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember who thought it was a great idea for us to dress up as famous love couples?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: No, I don't.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know whose idea it was, but who were you guys?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: We were Rhett, Butler, and Scarlet.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: We were Romeo and Juliet Hank and Ann.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: We were Cleopatra and Mark Anthony.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we have a picture of that too.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was my hairdresser's nightmare.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because he he had to cut my bangs really short, and he just it was a nightmare to him.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So what other events?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: We did the welcome, I mean the the appreciation banquet for our workers.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: And uh we did the cooking, we did the decorating, we did the skits and the program, and it was a crazy night, but it was well worth it.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_04: And where Fred Phelps would make a special appearance every year.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_04: And he would find something that God hates, whether it was camp out or cookouts or it's a joke.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_04: We just had a lot of fun with it.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: Hank would be Fred Phelps.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_04: I was Fred Phelps dressed up as Freddie would walk in and carrying signs and yeah.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: One of my favorite worker appreciation banquets was when we did the cruise and we dressed up like the the crew for the the ship, but we also were the entertainment and we made we did show tunes and made up all these words to the to the different show tunes, and that was a blast.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: We were brilliant.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: We were amazing.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: We really went all out, and uh yeah, I loved the song things because we would always change the words and and then everybody sing together.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of my favorites was Treasures of the Bazaar.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so and we made we kind of mocked the treasures of the Czars thing.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: We always we always went way over because we wanted it to be a good time for everybody, and and I think everybody came.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_04: Fabra Mache A.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes, Babra Mache.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Those are in those are in the artifacts downstairs in the lobby.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to see one of those, they will be there.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know all of our great.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: I've kept it in the archives all these years.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_05: One of the things I remember is I was always picking up the Norm Geisler.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_05: We had a lot of famous speakers that we'd bring in.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_05: And they would come downstairs in our church, 150 people, and one of the first things that is I've never been to a to a church banquet before that had steak, real steak and baked potatoes.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you know, just a word.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_05: We really put on the uh put on the spread.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, any other memories?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_05: One thing we need to include is family camp.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_05: Because in 1980, one of the reasons I really, really fought to get you, and and and you really you were in demand by other places was because you'd written your master's thesis, I think, on family camping, and we were having a lot of children born, and we wanted to have a family camp and wanted to start one.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_05: And even though you came in like June, UNN came in June, I said, we want a family camp by August or whatever, and you had to do one right away, and then it's just never stopped.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you had a vision for that that was unique.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_04: Well, the uh the yeah, the schedule is still the same.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_04: Actually, we got here in in the middle of July, and then the first part of August was when family camp was.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_04: I was petrified because I don't think you told me anything about it until I got to Topeka.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_04: And then and then the day I got there, you said, Oh, by the way, the first part of August we have a family camp.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_04: But it it it it's it's just been something that you know, kids and grandkids, you know, there's been generation, three generations going to to family camp.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_04: And um we don't need to really say memories about it because everybody and there's probably uh hundreds of people in the church that have their own memories of when they went to family camp.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_04: So it was just a a neat thing that just became something special and still is special.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Still is Okay, but we did have themes.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, my favorite visual, one of my very favorite visual memories of family camp was synchronized swimming by the men in the creek.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was an Olympic year.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we're waiting.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_03: So just hear that men's synchronized swimming.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it makes you laugh.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: It was epic.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was on the team.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Matt, you were amazing.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: He was amazing.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Matt was the coach and they won.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, hands down.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: It was epic.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, there's stuff that's still going on that um, you know, we started way back, like baptisms, right?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: At Al and Frank's and the boat rides with the kids afterwards.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_05: And outdoor baptism.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Outdoor baptisms.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_05: That's when we we had gotten rid of the uh we used to have uh, what do you call it, the the baptismal font in the church, and you know, in the back end when we renovated because we needed more room, we had to get rid of that.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_05: So outdoors we went.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: We've weathered a lot of renovations too.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my that uh that that also included moving to Ramada for five weeks.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: We had a whole service, we had two services in the in the big uh um uh ballroom there uh for five weeks.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: We had to meet there.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: So and set up and tear down every week.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_05: Well, remember uh another time we moved, I think before that, we actually got Highland Park High School to loan us their auditorium one summer, and we met at Highland Park High School when we were renovating.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_04: And when we were at both of those places, I think we still had Sunday school in the building, and then you drive over to the Ramada or to Highland Park High School.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, now it just seems like a long walk to walk across the street.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_04: Well, but even and even thinking about that, all the renovation that's gone on in the College Avenue building.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's the last 20 years.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_04: We've been since uh 2003, we've been uh changing that building and adding that to our campus.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_04: And wow.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's still a lot of room for all the artifacts from all the banquets that we've had, obviously.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: The curse of too much storage.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know that we have seen um a lot of staff come and go and secretaries and uh man, we've had the privilege of serving alongside some great people over the years.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And um now we're on, I think it's like our third generation, right?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Of TBCers.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing those great grandchildren, even of some of those.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the ones that were you married them, now they have babies, and now their babies are babies, and we're in that third generation.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what do you think, guys?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Why are we still here?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Why why why are we still here 40 years later?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_03: We um we adapted and kept growing with one another, growing with our people.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: It makes me think of how when we first got here, our worship style was one way it was uh reflecting the um the uh hard held worship of one generation and idea when we began to introduce the newer songs and reflected the hard worship of the next generation.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: I think we're together.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I puzzled over this for years and came to the conclusion that we have a core of people that really pray for TBC, they pray for the leadership.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um because I think it's it's really miraculous that um considering all the terrible things that have happened in churches, evangelical churches in the US and um it really you know, here we are, we're still there.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's it's um it's such a a blessing and a testimony, I think, of the people praying for us, praying for our leadership, praying for um hearts, praying for um just uh God's blessing on us, and and and we really have been blessed by it.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know, and patient.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_05: They're not only prayer prayerful, but they've been patient with us.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_05: We haven't always been, you know, uh the best, you know, of people, I am sure.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_05: And and other things come to mind uh for us staying together.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_05: I think friendship.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you remember when you came, we used to just out of friendship get together almost every night.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_05: It we drove each other crazy playing all these games.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, Hank and I, you know, we couldn't find anywhere else to go, right?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I I guess I can say this now, can't I?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_04: At my age, I can say this that I've got a file of 257 resumes that I sent out to churches in the first five years I was at TBC, and not one of them would accept me.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_04: And so I'm here only because I've got nowhere else to go.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Still.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_04: Still.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: And now you work five hours a week.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: So there you go.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_04: That's all the love you work.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, the uh I mean, the other thing truly, Jim, has been your preaching and your integrity with the word.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: And how um how powerful that's been has really kept people here and involved and moving forward and all of the great things that a good, great pastor can do.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_05: So here is a great transition to, you know, this is a Sunday where we're celebrating what God has done over the last four decades.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_05: And truly, we were talking about the buildings.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_05: Uh every time that we uh merged the two buildings, uh, you know, uh on Mulvain, we merged them together and put in the welcome center, or when we met at these other places or came over to CAB, we praised the Lord because it's been God who has just blessed us.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_05: It's God who's, I think, kept us together.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_05: It's God who has us here and has blessed the church through COVID.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_05: And and while a lot of other, like Nan said, so many other churches who who have more gifted leaders, more people have have crumbled and we've watched that.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, we can't really take credit or stand up and say, well, it's because we're cool, right?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing I think is we have the best congregation in the world.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean we all agree with that.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: We just have all the best people.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: They they come to TBC, so there's that.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Slay of duck, mic drop.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think the thing that I've appreciated about us um is that uh I think we've all encouraged one another to use our gifts.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I I mean, I think we would every one of us say um as staff members that we have very different gifts and talents, but we use them in different ways.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been fun to watch and grow and mature and have a congregation that again that's always supported us in our gifts.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um that's uh that's been a real, real, real privilege.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, we really do sound like the old people now sitting here.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: I never thought we would gr we would be in one place all of these years and have our have all of our kids grow up together, which was a blast.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but also, you know, that they're still here and they're still friends and their children are here.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, it's been a great ride, guys.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: It has.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I did reserve our rooms at Aldersgate.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we we will all be moving up within the next yeah, that was after that.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: We will have our reception over there.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: So no.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh I think we would all say um thank you, congregation.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, thank you to our friends, and thank you to the Lord.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, thank you to the Lord.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: All praise to him.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_05: So the rule is you're not supposed to go longer than three minutes on a video, but we just didn't know where to cut that one.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_05: So you got 14 minutes.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_05: And I hope, so when I was walking up this morning, somebody yelled out, you know, thanks for staying, thanks for being here, and I hope uh you'll say the same thing to the Nelsons and the Dilabertos.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I I think that really is that that's really rare, you know, uh to have three of us.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_05: And I want to say thank you for coming.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_05: I see a number of people this morning who, you know, don't normally uh come to TBC on a Sunday morning, and I really appreciate that.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_05: You some of you told me you were gonna be here, and that's that's really cool.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so celebrating God's grace over the past 40 years is the sort of the title of my talk.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_05: Not a typical expository message, but I really want to focus on that, and that is God's grace, and not just over 40 years, but recently, in I was just thinking, in the timing of this transition and in the smoothness of it this year.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um in the timing, because it was 10 years ago in January of 2011, that uh uh I asked the elders to start working on this, and we one of them said, you know, we need to set a goal, and so we set January 2021 as the goal for the transition, and and we almost nailed it right on.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_05: That that's remarkable.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_05: And then the smoothness, I'm not gonna stand here and and lie to you and say that it was smooth all 10 years.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_05: There are a number, uh, you know, it's a difficult, it's a difficult thing, and uh, but this year has been remarkable for its smoothness.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_05: I was on a Zoom call this week with a half a dozen Christian leaders uh who are connected with the Jews for Jesus, and as I was sharing with them what we're doing and so forth, one of them said, Jim, do you realize?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_05: I hope you realize how rare this is.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_05: And the person who was speaking uh uh had his own transition uh from the pulpit two years ago this month.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_05: He was pastor of one of the largest evangelical churches in our country, easily ten times the size of ours.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_05: And uh his transition turned into a bitter and acrimonious divorce, so that they're looking for a home church and so forth.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_05: And he said, This is this is so rare uh that a transition in a significant church happens with this kind of smoothness.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_05: And and uh I was reminded that uh C.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_05: S.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_05: Lewis, uh, when he finished the Narnia, this when he announced the seventh book of the Narnia uh Tales, Last Battle, was going to be his last book.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_05: There was an uproar on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean saying, we want more.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_05: We want more, we don't want you to stop.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_05: And C.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_05: S.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_05: Lewis came out with a famous saying in which he said, There are two times when you can stop.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_05: One is when people want you to write more, and one is when people wish you had written less.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_05: And uh and the same is true, I think, I think, for for pastoring.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_05: And and uh so I uh um so I hope I'm leaving when people want more.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_05: Although last week was interesting.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_05: You know, we had Doug's uh 20th, he didn't know about it, so we staff were just trembling in the so excited because we're gonna surprise him.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_05: He was gonna do the announcements, there's a slide gonna pop up behind him saying, let's all celebrate Doug's 20 years uh uh pastoral staff at TBC.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_05: And when it came up, uh we got the response we wanted, people started cheering, people started clapping.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_05: But the interesting thing is the line that David, that Doug had just spoken before that was, and now this month is the month that we're transitioning from Jim to Connor as lead pastor.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_05: And suddenly there's this yell and this uproar and there's this clapping.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_05: I'm standing right back there, and I saw this look flash across Doug's face, and I thought I probably knew what he was thinking, and sure enough, he told us in staff meeting that that he was horrified.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_05: He thought, he said, Yeah, I know a lot of people are really happy about this move, but really uh this is kind of disrespectful to Jim.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_05: So so um, so anyway, it's it's been smooth and and we're celebrating God for that.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_05: So the question was how how to celebrate the God of the past 40 years, and a lot of options occurred to me over uh the last few months.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_05: But I decided that the real way to celebrate God would be to celebrate uh what he has given us out of his richest storehouse in the past 40 years.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_05: That is the ideas and the themes that set us apart in many ways from other churches.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_05: And so I would like to share those with you, and because even when I started uh writing little notes to myself years ago, uh I found that I always came up with five, and and actually these are almost the identical five that I wrote down uh some years ago when I first started just sitting at my desk and writing down what sets us apart.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_05: So I want to celebrate God for these five ideas.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_05: I'm calling them five smooth stones, stones that that we use to resist uh the great Goliath of the world, the flesh, and the devil around us.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_05: And the first of these is God.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_05: Is God and what I mean by that is to us here at TBC, God's sovereignty is not a line of theology, it's a life of trust.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you will hear a number of churches, denominations for whom God's sovereignty and the sovereignty of God has been a way of saying we're not like them, we're better than them, we believe this, everybody needs to memorize this and so forth.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_05: But but for us, uh God's sovereignty is not a line that we must memorize.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_05: It's mainly the way we look at life and the way we handle crises in our life.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_05: So just a couple subpoints of that, and this comes right out of a names of God series that I preached.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_05: God is the Elohim we worship.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_05: Elohim, remember, is the mighty God who created the earth, Genesis 1.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_05: He's the Adonai, this is the Lord, the King whom we obey.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_05: He is the Yahweh, and this is his personal name, which turns into Yesus Jesus, he's the Yahweh that we love.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_05: That's who God is.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_05: He's a very, he's the person we worship, he's the person we obey, but he's also the person we love, and we raise our hands to him in the worship singing, How great thou art, how great thou art.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_05: The other thing I would say is that our Papa, and that's the best translation of the word Abba, Abba Father, our Papa gives us all we need.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_05: That's what sovereignty is all about.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_05: It's all about the Lord as our shepherd, and so I have all I want, all I need.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_05: I don't lack for anything.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_05: It's that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_05: This last week, um, of course, we've been uh honoring the uh heroes of 9-11.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_05: And um and one of the heroes of 9-11, of course, was uh Robert Keyes' Sweet and College roommate Todd Beamer, who was on flight 93 uh over Pennsylvania.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_05: And uh, and by the way, if you want to relive that, uh, Matt Vinson has posted the entire several pages of phone call between Todd Beamer and an operator on the ground uh on his Facebook page yesterday.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_05: And and Todd Beamer, a Christian, uh uh for him, the sovereignty of God wasn't simply a line of theology.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_05: It was what gave him the courage to do what he did.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_05: Uh uh Oh dear God, he said to the operator, oh dear God, as he's finding out what's happened elsewhere about the Twin Towers.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_05: Lisa, will you do something for me?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_05: Lisa, I'll try.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_05: I'll try if I can.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I will.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_05: Todd, I want you to call my wife and my kids for me and tell them what's happened.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_05: Promise me you'll call.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_05: Lisa, I promise.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_05: Todd, here's our home number.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_05: Here, yeah, the same name as my wife, Lisa.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_05: We've been married 10 years.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_05: She's pregnant with our third child.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_05: Tell her I love her.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_05: And then he chokes up.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_05: I'll always love her.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_05: We have two boys.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_05: David, he's three.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_05: Andrew, he's one.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_05: Tell them choking up again.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_05: Tell them their daddy loves them.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_05: He's so proud of them.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_05: He starts crying.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_05: Our baby is due January 12th.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, you know, and so she promises she'll tell them.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_05: And he says, uh, Lisa, uh, there's a group of us who've decided to rush the terrorists.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_05: We're unarmed, uh, but we're gonna do that because we don't want the plane to go into the White House or the Capitol.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_05: Will you pray with me first?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_05: And Lisa says, Yes.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_05: And so Todd prays the Lord's prayer, and then he prays, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_05: He makes me to lie down in green pastures, leads me beside the still waters, restores my soul, leads me in paths of righteousness.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yea, though I walk to the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, and then says, God help me.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_05: Jesus help me.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_05: Are you guys ready?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_05: Let's roll.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_05: For Todd Beamer, the sovereignty of God was how he knew that he could that he could do what he was going to do, and he would be okay, and he would live forever.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_05: And to us, the sovereignty of God is not a line of theology, it's a it's a it's a promise from our Papa that he'll give us all we need, and so we can live a life of trust.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_05: The second of the smooth stones is, of course, the Bible.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_05: We're Topeka Bible church, and we don't just go back to the Bible.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_05: I love the back to the Bible program, but but uh but we try to bring the Bible to today.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_05: We bring it to life, daily life.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_05: Uh the some points I'd have under that are first, if you want Bible, you want TBC.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_05: I grew up uh uh uh with a father who taught as a professor in a school called Multnomah School of the Bible, Portland, Oregon, whose motto was very famous in those days.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_05: If you want Bible, you want Multnomah, and it was really true.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_05: They were great Bible teachers.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_05: And the truth is, I think it's fair to say that in Northeast Kansas that's true of Topeka Bible Church.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_05: We we show that in our Sunday morning adult classes, we show that in our pulpit preaching, we show that in our in our weekly teachings and in the women's ministry classes and so forth, that if you really want the Bible, then you can get it here.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_05: Second motto is is we recognize that it's easy to just be biblical without being relevant.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_05: You go back to the Bible and you stay back there and you simply teach it out of the Bible and you never come into application.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_05: It's also easy to go the opposite route.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you you just simply talk about today and you're always relevant, and you only make passing reference to the Bible.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_05: We're committed to going back to the world of the Bible, uh, back to the original languages and the geography and the backgrounds and so forth, but then bringing that, not stopping, but bringing it up into today.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_05: You oftentimes hear people, people who don't know any better, who say you can make the Bible say anything you want.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_05: As if the Bible is uh is a picnic to which the authors bring the words, and we readers bring the meaning, and you can make it mean anything you want, but it's not true.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_05: The Bible brings its words and its meaning, and the question is, will you study it hard enough?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_05: Will you be the diggers into the word so that you can find out what it means?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_05: And something I've discovered just in the last five years more than ever before, uh, this African proverb that if you want to go fast, go alone.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_05: If you want to go far, you go together.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_05: So in the last four years, some of you will know that in January, February, and March, you've taken a large book of the Bible, and I've begged this, pled with you, and so forth.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_05: Let's all read this book together and let's study it together.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_05: First was Ezekiel, then came Isaiah, then came Jeremiah.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_05: This last January through March it was Exodus.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_05: And I've realized that, you know, people can sit underneath great teaching week after week, but they'll do far better and grow far more if they will actually themselves read the Bible.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_05: Actually, just open the Bible and read it and do a little study.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_05: Amen?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like as a church, we moved a lot farther by doing it together.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_05: So that's um that's that's the Bible.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_05: The first uh first was God, and now we go to the Bible, we don't just go back to it, we bring it to life.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_05: Third is gospel.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_05: Now, gospel is one of the most popular and overused words these days in church life.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_05: Every church, even churches that that don't believe in the gospel of the gospel, use the word gospel constantly.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_05: It's the most popular word, and I say, well, we don't just chime the word, we make the gospel crystal clear.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_05: We make the gospel crystal clear.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_05: And so what I mean by that is three things.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_05: First of all, we're saved by faith plus nothing.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_05: We really wring the changes on that.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_05: That it's by grace you've been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_05: Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_05: We're saved by faith plus nothing.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_05: Faith alone in Christ is what opens heaven's door.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_05: Secondly, that we can have assurance of salvation.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_05: And some of you have come from places and from churches that said you can't know that you know that you're going to heaven until after death and till you get there and that door actually opens.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_05: But certainly, certainly, the New Testament says differently.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_05: Paul says, I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which I've committed to him against that day.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_05: It's one of many verses that say you can know that you know that you know that you have assurance of salvation.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_05: If salvation's apart from works, then so is assurance.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_05: And third, good works count.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_05: Good works matter.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_05: They matter to God, they matter to other people, they matter now, they matter eternally with rewards, but they only count if you keep them in third place.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_05: If you move them in second place so that you have no assurance unless you're living a great Christian life, then you'll never have assurance.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_05: If you move them up before salvation, then you don't even have salvation.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_05: So you keep them third, but then you do them.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_05: And you do them as much as you can.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um by the way, there's a video that's just gone viral here in the last few weeks on YouTube.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_05: 17-year-old Haley Morinico is in her backyard in Southern California, and suddenly the camera from the house shows this huge bear comes right out of the uh uh the little bit of woods behind her house, and this huge bear, followed by her three cubs, appears walking along the short wall which surrounds her yard.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_05: And Haley's dog is barking just crazy, running at the bear, and the scared cubs run back.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_05: But Mama Bear leans down and begins to swat the dog with her huge paw.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_05: And he's the dog's young and the dog flies in the air and so forth.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_05: And Haley sees this from her back screen door, and she jams open the door and runs at this 700-pound bear or whatever, and she gives it with all of her might, she gives it this angry shove right in the belly.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_05: And the bear is so surprised it loses its balance and falls off the wall on the other side.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_05: And Haley scoops up her dog and races back to the house just as the bear jumps back up on the wall.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_05: And you look at that and you go, we're crazy.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_05: That's what all of the underneath on the YouTube goes, you're crazy, you're crazy, you're crazy.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_05: Let the dog die.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, that's what you that's what you do when you love your dog, right?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_05: And that's, and I can't help thinking, in fact, I use that on a radio talk.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_05: That's what you do.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_05: If you're Jesus and you love people enough, you come at the bear, you come at the earth, you come to the earth, and you resist, and you you give your life because of love.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_05: And that's that's the gospel.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_05: And that's why we're saved by faith.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, we don't just chime it, we make it crystal clear.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, next fourth out of five, Israel.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_05: You go, Israel?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_05: What's Israel doing there?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I gotta tell you, Israel's not just a country to us, it's home.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_05: And what I mean by that is it really is the true home of everyone who's trusted Christ because of this unique statement by God in Psalm 86, should be Psalm 87, I believe, 4.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_05: I will record Rahab and Babylon, these are enemies of God, among those who, and this is not Rahab the woman, this is Rahab Leviathan, uh God's enemy.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Rahab and Babylon among those who acknowledge me.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_05: What?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_05: Philistia II and Tyre along with Cush, and will say, This one was born in Zion.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_05: In other words, anybody from around the world who trusts Christ as their Savior, who comes to God, who relinquishes their past confusion and says, Yes, I see him.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_05: There he is, hanging on the cross.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_05: He's my savior too.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_05: And God says, you know what?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you've become a citizen of my favorite city, Jerusalem.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_05: I'm putting you in the books.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_05: You are a naturalized citizen of Jerusalem.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_05: You're one of my people.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_05: That's why I say Israel to us is not just a country in the Mideast that causes a lot of problems.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_05: Israel is our home.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_05: And that's just amazing, isn't it?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_05: That Israel is a tenth the size, a tenth the size of Kansas.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_05: But there's just something special about it.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_05: That Jerusalem is the only city that God says that he loves, the only city that he says he's wept for.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_05: I've been to Israel 25 times or more, and and I it's like it's like a second home to me, but it's a second home to all of us.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_05: The Bible mentions Jerusalem over 800 times, and he invites you to become a citizen of his favorite city.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_05: And it's not to say, by the way, I'm just gonna throw this in, it's not to say that it's the most wonderful place.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_05: Now a lot of the people who are ethnic Israel uh would say it's because we're so, you know, noble.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_05: Uh but I think it's a little bit more like the story that's making the rounds right now of the employees uh at the dump yard in Pompano Beach, Florida.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_05: And a guy named Brian McQuinn, Brian McGuinn came up to them and said, I've lost the custom designed ring that I gave my wife.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_05: I accidentally tossed it in my trash at home, and and they said, Welcome.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_05: Uh we've got nine tons here, ten foot high trash, rotten eggs, dirty diapers, other garbage.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_05: You're free to look, but you stand no chance of finding it.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_05: He found it within 30 minutes, vomiting all the while, but he found the ring, and it strikes me that God does not love Israel because she's beautiful.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_05: She's a trash dump, to be honest, and always has been.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_05: God says so in Jeremiah.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_05: But he loves Israel because his plan, which is custom designed to include Israel, is a beautiful plan, and he's going to remain faithful to it.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_05: And that's why I love Israel and why I love Jerusalem, and I hope you will too.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_05: And we're we're that's why we're connected with it, because we believe God's not done with Israel, like many people believe.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_05: It's the center of the world, it's the epicenter, as Joel Rosenberg says, of world politics and biblical prophecy.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_05: And the gospel is still to the Jew first, which is at our church, uh means we are really supportive of the organization Jews for Jesus.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_05: And finally, life change.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_05: Life change is the fifth smooth stone.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_05: And what I mean by that is that TBC, we don't just dream of life change.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_05: It's our great goal and passion.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_05: It's what we talk about.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_05: Nearly every week in staff meeting.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_05: And Doug will always, he's right now, he's got us saying, you know, I want stories of life change in your ministry.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_05: I want testimonies.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_05: We love hearing those stories.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_05: It's our goal and it's our passion.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_05: Because Grace invites each one of us and says to us, start over.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, this is the prodigal son story, right?
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_05: This is the whole story of Israel.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_05: God gives them chance after chance because he's the God of the second chance.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_05: And uh, and by the way, this so we've been watching 9-11 Reminders all week, and that was yesterday.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_05: This is 9-12.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_05: Two years after 9-11, 2001, 2003, on September 12th, Johnny Cash died.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_05: Why do they call they called him the king of the comebacks?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, really, really true.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_05: And by the way, my radio talk at 106.9 today, four times, uh, will uh it'll be a talk about Johnny Cash and his comebacks.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_05: It's they're called Just Thinking Out Loud for those of you that don't know.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_05: But I'm reminding today, country music listeners, that Johnny Cash spent his life coming back from addictions and from mistakes that nearly ruined him.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_05: And ruined his marriage.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_05: And he had career comebacks too, returning from nowhere to the top of the country charts and rock charts and so forth.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_05: And in his final months, when Johnny Cash was blind, disabled, and his beloved June had died.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_05: Johnny came back and recorded 60 more songs, even did a surprise concert announcing it was in honor of his Savior Jesus Christ and his wife, and he sang Ring of Fire, and then he stepped out of his personal ring of fire and into the arms of his Savior Jesus.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_05: His final comeback, that happened 2003 on this day.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_05: And I say we could all use a comeback, a second chance at life, and we all can have one because the God who brought Johnny Cash back can bring anyone back.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_05: And it happens in two ways.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_05: Lost people get new life in Christ, right?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_05: Has that happened to you?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_05: I hope it has.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_05: If it hasn't, it's hanging out there just waiting for you.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_05: And second, you know, you know, if you don't know the verse, if anyone's in Christ, he's a new creation.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_05: The old is gone, the new has come.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_05: You can have a new life in Christ.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_05: But saved people get new life in Christ, and saved people need new life in Christ.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_05: And that's a big part of the reason that TBC exists.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_05: We love the stories of how people who've gone prodigal come back to God, how marriages get redeemed.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_05: People do a 180 and come back.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_05: Saved people get new life in Christ.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_05: And that's why the theme verse of our church is I've come so they might have life.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_05: And have it to the full.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_05: They might have life when they trust Christ as their Savior, might have it to the full.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_05: By moving on to that full life that God offers to those who love and who live in Jesus Christ.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_05: John chapter 10, verse 10.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_05: Let me end this way.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_05: It's another recent story.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_05: This one from the Philippines about Joshua.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_05: Can't even pronounce his, I can pronounce it, but it's a weird name.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_05: Huta Galung.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_05: Joshua is a carpenter, aged 33, and he lives on the island of Sumatra, actually, in the area of the Philippines.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_05: And a year ago, almost exactly to the day, a year ago from now, he got a big surprise from heaven.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_05: A five-pound meteorite crashed through his roof and passed right next to him where he was working in his garden outside his house.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_05: And he said the stone was still warm when I picked it up.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_05: And it turned out, as he sent it in to the experts, that the rock is a rare and valuable kind of meteorite.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_05: And just recently, Joshua has sold his rock to an American meteor expert for well over a million dollars.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_05: In that moment, his life changed forever.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_05: Something like that happens to over two million people in the world every year, according to surveys, according to the Pew Research Center.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_05: They hear the story of Jesus, they hear the story of heaven, they hear the story of God's love, and they accept Jesus as their personal savior.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_05: And that surprise from heaven changes everything.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_05: And all of a sudden, they, whether they know it or not, they are hooked into the God, into God, and into the gospel, and into the Bible, and into Israel, and they have received life change.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_05: Those five things are the things that I celebrate God for this morning.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_05: Those are five verities, fundamental things that He's given us over the past 40 years.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_05: As the song in Casablanca goes, a kiss is still a kiss.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_05: A sigh is still a sigh.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_05: The fundamental things apply as life goes by.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_05: Let's pray.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_05: Father, we're so grateful for you and what you've done for us and how you've kept us centered all these years and taught us these lessons which have powered us down the path decade after decade.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_05: It's to you that we give the honor and the glory.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_05: And all God's people said, Amen.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_05: Again, thank you for coming.