Hope Church LV Sermons
Guest Spearker :: Coen Scholtz
Good morning, this morning, well, shall I say an African good morning to you? Although when I looked at the mountains with the white snow, I realized that I'm probably not in Africa. It's just such a privilege for me to be here with you and also to bring the greetings from the church in Africa to you all. You are very special to us and the U.S. is very special because of your servant attitude over many years to all the nations across this globe. So thank you from our side. Thank you for the blessing that you as the church in America and specifically how Baptist have been to all of us for so many, many years. We pray that the Lord will just bless you even more as you are available to His activity in the world. John Hopper came to faith when he was about 13 years of age. After that, when he was 17, he realized that the spirit of God is nudging him into ministry, especially in evangelism. And he submitted to the call of the Lord and at the passion for souls, for people. He just understood the grace of God on his life and on other people's lives. God used him some of his evangelist friends who sometimes visit his home and finding him prostrate on the floor. Busy weeping and crying and saying, "Lord, give me souls, or I die." Yet the clear focus on the activity of the Lord in his life and through his life. Later on, he was used also in the U.S. He came to Chicago, to Moody Church, and the Lord used him for three months with revival and evangelism there. And then John Hopper went back to the UK, where he was from, and I invited him back two years later to come because it was such anointed time that he had in Chicago. One of his elders came to me and said, "I just don't have... "I feel that something will happen if you are going back, please don't go." He said, "I cannot because I know that the Lord have called me." He climbed on his ship, the Titanic, to come over in 1912 to the U.S. And all of you know what happened to the Titanic. The night before the iceberg was struck, John Hopper was seen leading one of the people on the deck to Christ. And he said, "Tomorrow will be a beautiful morning." Not knowing that he's talking very prophetically about himself. The next day, as the iceberg was hit, the people were running. There was too few live boats, as you know. People later on recall how John Hopper was running around, encouraging people that women and children and the unsaved must get preference into the live boats. He called to the Christians and said, "Get out! "Give the unsaved the first chance." He took off his life jacket, he gave it to somebody, and then the ship went down. The last man who saw John Hopper in the waves, he was hanging onto a piece of wood, and John came close to him and asked him, "Are you saved? "Do you know Jesus?" And then the waves took him apart again. After a minute or two, they came close again, and John asked him again, "Are you saved?" And then he disappeared under the water to be with the Lord. The man was the last convert of John Hopper. In Liverpool, back home, in England, there was two lists. One list was people known to be lost. Another list was people known to be saved. Isn't that ironic? And John Hopper's name was on people known to be lost. But we know he wasn't lost. He understood the grace of God. I would like to speak today to you about the preciousness of souls, the preciousness of the world that Jesus so loved, that God so loved that he came down to be crucified on a cross, that we can live. My little daughter, Cara 10 years old, we sit and pray every morning. And then she prayed the other day, "Lord, thank you, "that you don't count us one, two, three, four. "You count us one, one, one, one." And I was just amazed at the insight of a little girl. John Hopper understood this. So today I would like to speak to you about authenticness in our work with Christ. Authentic discipleship, if we are authentic, our lives become the latest of the Lord. We become light and salt. Let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 5. And I'm going to speak really about the whole beat attitudes. I would like to sort of bring the connection that if we are not authentic in our work with the Lord, we cannot really see the kingdom come in power. And you know, the Lord have called us and given us this great privilege. You've given us a great world, lying, waiting for us. From verse 13, "You are the salt of the earth, "but if the salt loses its saltiness, "how can it be made salty again? "It is no longer good for anything "except to be thrown out and trampled by men. "You are the light of the world. "A city on a hill cannot be hidden. "Neither do people light the lamp and put it under a bow. "Instead they put it on a stand, "and it gives light to everyone in the house. "In the same way, let your light shine before men, "that they may see your good deeds "and praise your father in heaven. "Before I go on, I would like to state this "that I believe that it's about the glory of God. "I must firmly believe about this. "I think missions will pass. "This world will pass, but the Lord will never pass, "and we will, for eternity, worshiping him. "You know, if you were a Pentecostal church, "you would have said hallelujah. (audience laughing) "But I feel so strong about this, "that when we are busy doing good works, "it's not about the good works in itself, "it's about the Lord. "People shouldn't see us, they should see him. "You know, I've got a dream that one day I will sit there "and I will see one tribe and nation "after the other coming, bowing the knees, "confessing, Lord, you are Lord, we love you. "Some nights I'm daydreaming about that. "It's such a thought, can you imagine? "Because for us that have tasted the grace of God, "how can we be quiet? "How can we hide this light, this grace, this testimony, "this privilege of knowing Jesus under a bucket? "Our life should proclaim it. "And that's why I would like to speak a little bit "on the authenticness of our walk from the book, "be attitudes. "If you follow with me on the screen, "you would see some quotations there. "First of all, G.K. Chesterton said the following, "Christianity has never been tried and found wanting, "but it has been found difficult and left and tried. "What a pity that so many people "are not finding the excitement in Christ anymore "because they are too afraid. "Fear is stopping them from being that city on the hill, "that light, and they are missing out "on the greatest adventure of this world. "I like to tell young people that if they come "and walk a while with us, "we will destroy them for the ordinary. "Because you see the moment we are touching "the hem of God's garment, "the way we are starting to follow in his activity, "our life becomes great and adventurous." Isn't it wonderful? William Carey said, attempt great things for God, expect great things from God. I believe that if we are falling in with what the Lord is doing, we have got testimonies. We can settle tomorrow and share with one another about the living God. It's not difficult to be the light then because it's natural. I never have to go out to make an effort to evangelize because, I mean, I can just be who I am. In the entities about our deep relationship with the Lord and from there, it flows all things naturally. So the second quote is might McGundie said the following, you Christians have in your keeping a document with enough dynamite in it to blow the holo-civilization to bits, to turn society upside down, to bring peace to this orton world, but you read it as if it were just good literature and nothing else. How tragic. A man that do not know Jesus. How tragic. We need to be authentic. When we are authentic, people will be drawn not to us but to Christ. It will not be a heavy burden to plant a church anymore. People just will come because they will be drawn to the one that loves them so very much and have so much grace to offer. Jesus Christ our Lord. Sometimes I think we are reading the Bible in the mornings just because it's a habit or in the evening. And we are not connecting in a very personal way with the Lord. I sometimes tell people that if you read Matthew 25 in your Bible reading that day, I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. Is it so real to you that you go to the kitchen and you make a sandwich and put it in a wrapping it up and put it in your back with the expectation that God spoke to you that you will find somebody in need that day? Or is it just something that we do? We read the Bible, hey, that's great. Are we authentic to the very core? Are we the light? Are we the salt that is bringing wholeness to people with the context that they see Jesus? Third quote, CT stats it. True religion is like smallpox. If you get it, you give it to others and it spreads. It's as simple as that. Now there's some great dangers to offering a shallow belief system and we are not always aware of this and therefore we need to sit with the Lord and therefore we will have to meet with him that we are not being lulled into a comfortable cultural Christianity. So if you are looking at the next slides, you will see three circles there and this three circles is sort of symbolizing the outer part of the circle is behavior, things that we do with our hands. The second one is beliefs, things knowledge that we have and the third one, the very to the very core is our core beliefs. Those things that we are so absolutely believe. Those things that makes us authentic. True beliefs that comes from the very essence of our being, our hearts. Years ago, being a missionary, I would tell you that I believe God is all powerful, everywhere, very intimately involved in our lives, able to provide wherever we are, even in the deepest bush, but it wasn't tasted yet. I thought I believed that, but it wasn't tasted, it was still shallow in my life and I just didn't know that. So we were in a very deep village and put a course of about 400 kilometers from the closest bank and I would drive out 400 kilometers, get three months of support, drive back and use the three months, so that's the remaining of that three months for the remainder of the time before we went out again. Because it did not make sense to drive so far on roads, where if you go through some of those potholes, the water come over the bonnet of your car onto your windscreen, that's another story for another day. But in any case, when I reach home, one day God spoke to us to start a preschool. Coming from a financial background, I quickly rushed off to my calculator and I did my budget. I wish I could have been immediately obedient, but in any case. So I went there, made my budget and I saw that it's every single cent for the next three months. And I said, Lord, you know, I'm always willing to obey you and please, I had a very, very clear word from the Lord, very much confirmed by some of the Christians around me. So I said, Lord, I'm willing to do this, but you know, it's three months, I will never be able to, how are we going to eat, survive? We are living amongst the poorest of the poor, very few Christians in the area. Lord, how am I going to survive? Then the Lord started off a conversation with me and he spoke to my heart saying, couldn't do you believe that I'm all powerful? That's easy and yes, Lord. Do you believe that I'm intimately involved with you and that I will provide whatever you need when I'm instructing you to? Even if it's not logical. That wasn't so easy. I said, Lord, I do believe you still provide, but through the Christians back in South Africa, you know, you just need to qualify sometimes. I'm actually sad to tell you this, but can you see if you look at those circles that it was just a belief to me? It's so easy to say, Lord, I believe you are the provider. I believe you are the healer, but in the end, I'm not really believing it. And by no means I'm saying that the Lord must always heal or always provide. I'm saying in the context of the spirit's activity and we fall in with what he's doing. But it is a good exercise for you to go and think through some issues in your life. For instance, one time the Lord spoke to me about this whole thing, whose work is it? You see, I thought it's my ministry, where the emphasis on my. Unless the Lord builds the house in Vine, do we labor? And there's many other such stories. In any case, I did not do it. To my shame, I must admit it, I didn't do it. Then a group found through these radios that we had saying, we come on outreach, I ask them, can you get some money together? We want to start the school. They said, yes, and good Pharisee that I am. I was so glad that I could be obedient. I grab all the money, start the school, in expectation that the people will bring the money two weeks later. One person in the outreach, their father died and they couldn't come anymore. And I remember that day when I heard that the outreach is not coming anymore, realizing I've been trapped. I have no money for the next three months to survive, because I was in God's school busy starting to help me to take truth to my very core. I ran to my bed, fell on my knees. I said, Jesus, I believe now, but the Lord first disciplined me a little bit. We had some eggplant in the garden. Unfortunately, only eggplant. And my wife knows how to make eggplant in any way possible. And I would really appreciate if you ever invite me for a meal that you would put some other kinds of vegetables on the table. It was tough, very, very tough. You are scared, stiff. But that's the times when you are in the desert, when you start to realize what's true for you, what's only hit knowledge. And you see, if we want to be salt and light, authentic, we need to deal with these issues in our lives. We need to deal with what we truly believe, not what is easy to say. And in any case, when we were at our last, a guy from a village that in kilometers away, one morning, five o'clock, he was there, he called me, I came outside, so he was standing behind me, no problem, five o'clock to have visitors in African village. But in any case, he said, sorry, I don't want to treat you as a beggar, but it's two weeks, God told me to bring you food. And I don't want you to think I'm rude, but here is a bag of rice, here is a bag of maize, and here is some oil. And I looked around me and my wife was standing weeping behind me, and in the middle of the bush, God provided for us without us saying a word, even fuel, to go out to the bank again. Because you see, our Lord is alive, he lives, he's part of our very being, it's his ministry. But what do we believe? What do we really believe? Next slide, I want to show you the journey of the Israelites going to the promised land. I do firmly believe that there is a calling on each person's life, on each church's life, there's a promised land out there. And you see, sometimes we are just so concentrating on the promised land that we are missing the journey, we are not meeting with God so that things, truths can come to the very core of our being. So in this journey, the people didn't meet Jesus, just back, God just back there in Egypt, they met him every single day. My question to you is, are you still meeting encountering God every day? Are you still reflecting and thinking and holding on to him so that we can become authentic life? They've met him as Savior, delivered later on as protector, later on as provider in the desert, as instructor, he even taught him about leadership and government. And later on, not even later on, but even as the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, do you know the Lord? Are you encountering him every single day? Are you walking like the branch and the vine? Are you so implanted in Christ? That's when we are having that kind of a relationship and I would like to coin a phrase, a childlikeness in our walk with the Lord. You know, we are sometimes having all this mature things, but we are not just simply loving him, like children, simply walking with him like children. And I think this is something that we in the African church would like to contribute to you, simplicity, just childlike faith. So if we are looking at that journey, I would like to say to you, never despise your desert periods, and never waste your pain. Because too often we are wasting our pain. And we don't know that it's actually an encounter with Christ, a defining moment that changes everything, but it's there in the desert that we understand that we shall not live by breath alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. So do not waste it. There's a couple of areas that I quickly would like to highlight with you, that I feel we can encounter the Lord. The first one I went to highlight is love, a great danger for this authentic walk, for being a city on a hill, being a light, is that we are not loving. And of course, we need to unpack love a little bit more, but I do not have time this morning to do that. But if we are looking at our church today, it's characterized by a lack of love. It bothers me greatly, greatly, because I see all the irritations and fights within the church. And I'm part of it, and I'm feeling powerless sometimes, and I'm saying, Lord, have mercy on us, your people. We should be in unity, loving one another. You see, by your love for one another, the Bible says the world will know that you are my disciples. We need to love one another. William McDonald said, as you follow the quote, "He said the disciple can be forgiven "if he does not have great mental ability, "he can be forgiven if he does not display physical power. "But now the disciple can be forgiven "if he does not have zeal. "If his heart is not a flame "with a red heart passion for the Savior, "he stands condemned." Do you love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength? Are you excited about Him still? Or are our hearts growing lukewarm over time? You see, if we want to be authentic salt and light, it's natural that we will overflow with Him because we are loving Him. Sometimes I think that I remember why my wife, I would have walked kilometers before we got married. I will climb, literally I was in the bush. She was in India missionary, I was in Zimbabwe in the bush. I tell you, sometimes the letters, because there was no emails and stuff, when that letter came, I would walk, I take kilometers to a post office. Literally walk to go and see this letter. We need to love the Lord more than that. He is our reason. The Lord helped me to understand something more of His love through a girl called Regina. My wife was busy biking cikes for the school, and their hands was full of dough and stuff, when Odie, outside the Odial knock came, she walked outside, there was this girl looking 13, but actually I was 17, and she was busy, so she was a little bit upset with this girl interrupting her. I was out in the bush somewhere. And then this girl said, I just need a little bit money to go to the clinic. Surya gave her the money, and the girl walked away, and she was busy working again when the Lord spoke to her, and said, is this the way you treat me? This was my appointment for you today. But you have missed me so badly. You've missed me so badly. You think your work is so important. I don't care about the cookies and the stuff, but I cared about that child. My wife ran out, she ran down together with Initi, another one of our girls, and got the hold of Regina, and it changed my life. You see, the evening I started to talk to Regina, she was the head of a child home. When she was 13, her mother died, her father passed away, she was left with a one-year-old sister, a four-year-old brother, and an eight-year-old brother. She worked in other people's fields, but she wasn't strong enough to make enough food, because I pay in food there in the villages. She told me months later to say, I couldn't take it no more when my brothers and sisters were crying themselves to sleep, because they were so hungry. They was mean, that was willing, to give her food at the price. What is it to us all mean in the world? In any case, Regina, it's a death sentence. It's literally a death sentence in Africa. And she got AIDS, and at 17 she was busy dying. My wife was in South Africa due to complications during one of our pregnancies, and I was sitting there because the nurses didn't want to bother anymore. You see, she was literally infecting and antibiotics didn't work anymore, and she was the smell of rotting flesh was around. So the nurses refused to bother, and me and another girl would go and we would bother, and I would sit for sometimes an hour or two just holding her hand. She would never ever lead her eyes one day away from mine. Only 25 kilograms of weight. Not able to lift her. Her head, she was fighting not to die, because she was, for the first time, left. Not because of what I could get from her, but just because I loved her. I went back home, South Africa, because Regina passed to be with the Lord, and then my wife after she greeted me, she asked me, "How is Regina?" And I just started to weep. I couldn't stop for days. I just couldn't stop. I was weeping and weeping. I said, "Lord, what is going on?" And the Lord spoke to me and said, "I'm just encountering you. "Do you remember how many times you prayed? "Lord, give me your heart. "How many times you have prayed? "Father, Father, please, show me your heart." I'm just busy revealing some of it, just some of it. Not just for children who unnecessarily die like Regina, and I tell you it's unnecessary. The Lord must help me. Sometimes I'm getting so upset because of the inaction of millions and millions of Christians all over the world. In any case, it's also for Muslim people, also for people in Las Vegas. I don't mind. When I'm here, I want to stay. Last time when I was here, I walked in the strip. It changed me. I looked at some of those girls walking there, some of them mean. I just went home with a passion for Las Vegas. If I could stop everything and come here, I would. But that's how I feel pretty much in every place I get. You see, somewhere we need to see people again. Somewhere God's love must be birthed within us again. The next area that I would like to highlight is what I call plastic Christianity. Things that's so familiar, but not authentic. Many times we say as Christians to one another, "Hey, brother, I will pray for you." And then we all know we never do that. It's so easy to say. It's such a Christian thing to say, "Hey, I pray for you, but it's not authentic. "It's not real." And somewhere we need to, "Oh, yes, should be, oh, yes." As simple as that. We should have integrity in our hook. And even though nobody knows that you don't pray, you know and you have said, "I will," and you do not do that. We need to be authentic. George Mueller said, "The vigor of our spiritual life "is will be an exact proportion to the place "held by the Bible in our life and in our thoughts." Are you soaking yourself with God's word? Not just reading it, but thinking it through, sitting there with God and saying, "Lord, "how can this word become so part of me "that I can live and be a later of your work?" George Verver said, "Somehow, we have missed "real revolutionary and dynamic Christianity. "Pious words are cheap and easy to use "and get thrown around a great deal in Christian circles." And often this guy's the fact that much of our zeal is borrowed and stopped at the fine phrases. Kefas and Evans, two of our guys, wanted to go to chat to the Darfur area, five rebel groups in that area. No, not one single Christian in this tribe, but they had no money. One day they came to me. They said, "Kun, if we don't find money to fly there, "we are ready to walk. "When can we start?" I said, "Okay, guys, you can walk." First of all, I said, "No, it's too far." They said, "If David Livingston walked "so that we can have the gospel, what's wrong with us?" I said, "No, nothing wrong, let's do it." But the Lord did provide the airplane ticket. They went in, they learned two languages. In in Jameena, before they went to the target group. One morning we switched on the BBC and it was just bombs everywhere in in Jameena. Rebel groups were attacking the city. We got hold of the French embassy and the American embassy. They had the combined flight to evacuate, all the diplomats and so on. And we got two spaces for them. We found them, guys, get to the airport before it locks down. They were quiet. I said, "Thank you for loving us." We really, really treasure that. But we cannot go. Because when we came here, we said to the Muslim people in our neighborhood, "We are here because God loves you "and because we love you." Now in their hour of need, how can we leave them alone? What is remaining of our testimony? What's remaining of our thinkness? So we cannot. I sent us an email, said, "We're just read Gladys Elwood's book." And at one stage, she said, "Lord, if I die today, "please let there be purpose in our death." They said, "This is what we pray. "Let there be purpose in our death." Sent more people, "Don't be discouraged if anything happened, "but we are here to love and to serve." A couple of years later, God protected him. Two years, three years later, he was another skirmish and the rebel group were outside of the city. The government was this side. They were shooting bombs and stuff at one another. This time, Kefas was led to go and prayer hook in between them. And he walked in between and nobody know why the one rebel group just decided they just stopped. There was no reason and they withdrew, but we knew. Because we know the Lord. We need to be authentic. Next area that I think we can go and seek the Lord if we are at that core, or if it's just our head, is the whole area of idols in our hearts. Idols in our hearts. You see, materialism, comfort, orientation, self, busyness, sometimes take away the freshness of God's hook with us. And I would want to qualify. There's no problem if you are comfortable. But if your life exists and the reason for your living is just to be more comfortable, you are missing it so badly. We are here for the kingdom of God. We are here to be available to follow what the Lord is doing. I hope you year me, brothers and sisters. So there's a story that and busyness, busyness steal more from our testimony and from being light and salt than any other thing in the world we are living. It's just one guy the other day I was driving in Florida. He's emailing even while he's driving on his phone. It's just crazy. And we are missing people because we are so busy. We are missing God's activity. There's a story, just a story in Africa that the people talk about. They say at one stage, Jesus was with his disciples and Peter and the rest of the guys was there and Jesus said, let's climb Mount of Olives. Each one of you, please take a rock and carry it for me up the mountain. Peter was, of course, clever because it was hot and he thought, Jesus didn't say how big this rock must be so he took a pebble and he carried it up. When it was time for lunch, when they were on the top, Jesus said, the rock in your hand will turn to bread now and that will be your lunch. And Peter, of course, that day was hungry. The next day they were done at the bottom, Jesus said, pick a rock for me and carry it to the Jordan River. They did, he said, throw it in, they did, it went down to the bottom, nothing happened. So they started to murmur, it's lunch time, what will we eat? And then Jesus in this story said, listen here, for whom did you carry the rock for me or for yourselves? My question is for whom are we here on earth? Is it just for ourselves? Are we having such a fleshly living philosophy these days? Is it just for our own comforts? You see, sometimes I think it's because we do not have eternal perspectives, it's just a temporal perspective. Our whole world, our whole life for us is this 20, 30, 40, 70 years that we are here on earth. Listen here, I'm living and because of the grace of Christ I'm going to live a thousand years from now and ten thousand thousand, because you see, I know him. We cannot be defined by the temporalness of this world. And the last one that I would like to highlight is the lack of prayer in our lives. So you can just skip the next one, please. Thank you. A lack of prayer in our lives. Alan Redpath said the following, we can pray Lord, I kingdom come, we must pray, my kingdom go. And that's tough. I tell you, how many of you have prayed, please, Lord, thrust out more workers, send more workers for the labor field. Be careful, maybe the Lord is going to answer it through you. Will that not be wonderful? Sir Thomas Moore said, those things could, Lord, that we pray for, give us also the grace to labor for. Those things, good Lord, that we pray for, give us also the grace to labor for. They tell the story of Margaret. She was a teacher, not very gifted, not a great speaker, not one of those personalities that inspired or anything, yet she led more of the children in this Christian school to Christ than all of the other teachers put together. Year in and year at the headmaster went to her, he said, Margaret, why you? She said, I don't know. The headmaster had told the story, he said at one stage, he's eight-year-old son, ran into the room saying, Daddy, I made Jesus today. He said, who helped you, Margaret, teacher Margaret? Whoa, why not me? He says that, I don't know, it's just something about Margaret. It was one of those absolute riddles of life, and they later on just said, well, the Lord chooses to use Margaret in this very special way. One morning, he went early to school at five in the morning because he wanted to prepare for a board meeting, and there was one light on, one car in the parking lot. He worked in, he heard somebody speak, and Margaret, at her prayer time, was allowed, she was praying allowed when there was nobody. So, the door was opened, there was nobody at this school. He walked to the classroom door, she was not seeing him, sitting on her knees, clutching her chair of one of the children and praying for that child, and says, Lord, you know this child, you know, you don't know you. Please, Lord, use me, please. And with tears, she shifted to the next chair, she said, Lord, this child is so gifted, he's not using his talents. Lord, use me, please, Lord, use me on her knees to the next one. Jesus, this child is being so neglected, his friends are always saying bad things to him, oh, Lord, please, use me. He said it was no surprise to him anymore, why God used. Margaret, you see, prayer for me is really, really important and special because I believe it is the Lord that's doing the work. I do believe with my whole heart, it's not by power and not by might, but by my spirits, it's the Lord. And therefore, I also believe that we are in the vine. We are the branches. And therefore, we need to understand prayer. We go to the source, to him that we so love. So where to from here, I think you can go to groups, small groups, have small group accountability. So often, we make commitments in church, but we don't do anything because we are not accountable to one another. If the Lord say to you, give more, then go and tell Pastor Vance, or some of the others, Pastor Tom, tell him, listen here, keep me accountable, please. If you have heard, you need to pray every Friday morning for an hour before work, go to a group of men and say, do it with me, help me, please. I want to be faithful and obedient. We are not an island, we are a body of Christ. The second thing is, go and seek the Lord today. Pray and plan, establish mission goals for your life. Seek what is God's activity in your life. It's so important that you do that because sometimes we just go on with life and we never do that. Thirdly, evaluate your growth regularly. Every month to go and sit and to say, how much of these truths have become hate knowledge only again? Because of life that happens. Am I still fresh? Am I still salt and light? And then the last suggestion is, keep the passion alive so that people will see your good deeds and they will praise our Father in heaven. Therefore go be authentic disciples and make disciples of Jesus Christ to his honor. Amen.