Latest / Your Daily Portion with L. David Harris / 12 02 2023 Mission to the Unreached- Part 1

Transcript

12 02 2023 Mission to the Unreached- Part 1 · Your Daily Portion with L. David Harris

• 0:01
  Most of us eat every day, some of us too much because yesterday's food
• 0:06
  is not enough to supply energy for today's needs. Why then, do some
• 0:10
  of us expect yesterday's portion of heavenly manna the word of God to keep us
• 0:15
  through today's challenges. On this program, we are going to change all of
• 0:20
  that. Let's experience God's words today and receive the power we need to live
• 0:25
  healthy, vibrant lives. Welcome to your Daily Portion with your host, author
• 0:31
  speaker, Elle David Harris. Good morning, Good morning, Good morning.
• 0:34
  It is Sabbath, December two, twenty twenty three. Hello, my name
• 0:39
  is El David Harris. I am your host, and this is your Daily
• 0:42
  Portion where we give you God's Word every single day, and today is no
• 0:46
  exception. We are continuing in our Lesson study series. God's Mission, My
• 0:52
  mission, and our caption for today is Mission to the Unreached, Part one.
• 0:59
  Mission to the Unreached Part one. We'll get into that in just a
• 1:03
  moment, but first I'd like to say welcome to you and ask you to
• 1:06
  go over to your Daily Portion dot com, join our online community, and
• 1:10
  also let us know where you are in the world. Again at your Daily
• 1:14
  Portion dot com this is a way that we build faith and fellowship. Let's
• 1:19
  go ahead and pray, and then we will get underway bother and Heaven.
• 1:23
  Thank you for this Sabbath morning and for the privilege you have entrusted to us
• 1:27
  to be able to connect with you and then connect with others. Please fill
• 1:32
  us with your holy spirit. Teach us not to try to do this on
• 1:36
  our own. Keep ministry simple and powerful through your spirit. In Jesus' name,
• 1:42
  I pray Amen and a man again. Mission to the unreached. There
• 1:49
  are people around the world that just literally don't know God. There are some
• 1:53
  that don't even know what to call God, much less to know and believe
• 1:59
  it him. There are people who have rejected God. I have friends when
• 2:04
  in particular that it just is a burden to me because this friend is so
• 2:10
  belligerent and antagonistic toward the concept of God. And all of our friends are
• 2:21
  who are godly people who love God. So there is a mission to the
• 2:25
  unreached. Some of the people we know, some of the people we don't
• 2:30
  know. But there is a mission. Nonetheless, I'm going to base really,
• 2:35
  I'm using the Lesson study. The Lesson study is based on acts chapter
• 2:40
  seventeen and other passages that will go throughout next week beginning tomorrow, but I
• 2:46
  want you to focus on chapter seventeen of Acts. Okay, and so we
• 2:52
  begin by reading just a couple of verse. Well, let's read verse seventeen
• 2:57
  first. Therefore did he in the synagogue we're talking about Paul Synagogue with the
• 3:05
  Jews and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that
• 3:12
  met him. So what we want to do is make an effort to be
• 3:17
  in various settings. And I know that that sounds simple, but the only
• 3:23
  way we can reach people who don't know God is if we're with them.
• 3:29
  Some of you lives sterile lives. Some of you take it too far where
• 3:36
  it comes to not connecting quote with the ungodly. And it's like no,
• 3:39
  no, no, no, no, no, no, no no no.
• 3:40
  Wherever you happen to be, be it in church or outside of church,
• 3:46
  in temple or outside of temple, right, if it's in your gym
• 3:51
  where you do exercise, if it's on a sports part of me, sports
• 3:55
  field, or some kind of coffee shop where you do your work, right,
• 4:00
  and please don't get caught up on coffee, and don't text me about
• 4:03
  that, because you would be missing the point. In that case. Some
• 4:08
  people go to those places to use the internet and do their work. It's
• 4:13
  better than working from home sometimes, so in those settings, right, and
• 4:17
  so many others that I could cite, God is saying to engage in diverse
• 4:23
  communities, just like Paul did. Also, we can get here in let
• 4:29
  me go through to Romans chapter one and verse sixteen. It's very simple.
• 4:32
  For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. It is the power
• 4:38
  of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. I want you to get outside
• 4:43
  of your comfort zone. We all need to do that. At times.
• 4:46
  There are people who are ashamed of the gospel. They don't want to be
• 4:53
  stigmatized, they don't want to be rejected, they don't want to be seen
• 4:57
  as fill in the blank. Who knows what times we hold back when we
• 5:00
  see somebody who's in need of a blessing, We see somebody who's in need
• 5:05
  of deliverance from some vice of sin or besetting sin, and we are reluctant
• 5:12
  to share because we're like, oh, maybe they'll think we're judging them.
• 5:15
  Well, let me ask you, if you have the kindness of God,
• 5:20
  do you have his spirit and you see somebody who's drowning in the sea and
• 5:26
  you are a swimmer, do you say that same thing? Then? Do
• 5:30
  you say, well, maybe the person that's drowning is going to be offended
• 5:33
  if I go and save their lives. Maybe the person who's drowning who is
• 5:39
  fighting me as I go and attempt to save his or her life, I
• 5:43
  have to knock him out so I can drag him back into shore. Maybe
• 5:47
  they'll be offended. Or do you say, wait a minute, now their
• 5:50
  life is at stake, and since their life is at stake, I will
• 5:55
  stop at nothing to be of a service and assistance to them for their quality
• 6:00
  of life to improve. Yeah, okay, so I think that we get
• 6:04
  the point. The Gospel of Christ is unto salvation. It is the rescue.
• 6:10
  It is the life saver for people who are drowning in their human predicament,
• 6:15
  drowning and addictions, drowning in sin problems, drowning drowning and broken relationships.
• 6:24
  God is saying, please, do not be selfish, expand your comfort
• 6:28
  zone, and do not limit yourself to say that, Well, maybe they'll
• 6:33
  think a certain way about me, so I won't go to them. That's
• 6:38
  what Jonah did, and you see where that got him. All right,
• 6:41
  let's read from Acts, chapter seventeen, verses twenty two and twenty three.
• 6:46
  This is very interesting to me. As I passed by and beheld your devotions,
• 6:53
  this is what Paul is saying on Mars Hill. Mars Hill, Okay,
• 6:59
  held your devotions. I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown
• 7:05
  God. These individuals were polytheists. They worshiped all kinds of different quote and
• 7:13
  unquote gods. Ha. And so Paul was looking for an opportunity. I
• 7:17
  think a couple of days ago I said that we should pray for wisdom and
• 7:21
  an opportunity to reach people. Well, he was looking for an opportunity or
• 7:28
  a basis for discussion or whatever in order to lead these people to God.
• 7:33
  And so, among the hundreds of gods, maybe thousands, I don't remember,
• 7:38
  Ah, among the hundreds of gods that were there, false gods,
• 7:42
  he noticed one that he could capitalize on. He said, okay, well,
• 7:46
  they're not talking about thor or Zeus here. They're not talking about any
• 7:49
  of these others. A this one says unknown. Aha, there is one
• 7:55
  that is not known to you. Remember when Nebuchadnezzar had an encounter with the
• 8:01
  children of God, right three Hebrew boys, in particular Hananiah, Michel Azariah.
• 8:07
  He said, who will this God? Who is this God? That
• 8:09
  he will deliver you from my hands? It's like, yeah, you on
• 8:13
  an introduction, I can give you one of those. And God introduced himself.
• 8:16
  You can read about that in the Fiery Furnace incident. I think it's
• 8:20
  Daniel chapter two. Yeah. And so the Unknown God. This was the
• 8:26
  basis of the common ground connection that Paul was establishing. Since we're talking about
• 8:31
  God, gods, since we are talking about that, I want to capitalize
• 8:37
  on this, maximize it. And then he begins to teach and share about
• 8:45
  the God who created the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that
• 8:48
  in him is. He talked about how they could connect to the one true
• 8:54
  and living God to the exclusion of all of those others that they had fabricated.
• 9:00
  Long story, long story. Also, you can address intellectual curiosities.
• 9:05
  I'm sure as he opened up the understanding and the word concerning the quote unknown
• 9:11
  God, there were people because of where he was who had a higher sense
• 9:16
  of learning and thought and reasoning and wanted to know more. And in this
• 9:20
  case the brother should be available. We should be available to have conversations in
• 9:26
  all times. The Bible says that we should be ready always to give a
• 9:30
  reason for the hope that is within us, with meekness and with fear.
• 9:35
  And we adapt our methods to the situation as God gives us strength of a
• 9:41
  wonderful rest of your sabbath, peace. Thanks for joining us listening. Friends.
• 9:46
  Always remember we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that
• 9:50
  comes from the mouth of God. This has been your daily portion with el
• 9:54
  David Harris, make it a great day. Yeah,