Our God is a loving father. And he's anxiously longing and waiting for people to return. Not a god through storing up wrath. A god who storing up love. Hey. Welcome again to the podcast. This next 3 podcast. We're gonna be hearing again from Floyd mc clan. As he gave through Soon and cross.
We're delving back into the arc archives. And these these 3 sons we dive into the motivation of the what drives us as we look at movements as we look at being workers for the movement, disciples we go and make more disciples In this first 1, we're gonna be looking at the father heart of blood. And Floyd expresses beautifully with stories and and great hearts.
How we to view people. And this is really important as we start to look at movement not being a thing of methodology, but also of god's driving heartbeat for all humanity. Hey. Enjoy floyd as I have done over the years we give thanks to God for Floyd. As he gave his life for the Great commission as a great model for us all. Enjoy. And Good morning. This is the early crowd a. Are you the most alert or are you the little still waking up crowd? Been a little bit of both. Okay.
It's great to be back at Cross. I was here 2 years ago for the missions conference or with it 3 years ago, 3 years ago. My wife Sally was with me at that time. We're still married. I just wanna say that. We've been married 44 years. We've got 2 wonderful kids and 2, grandchildren, 9 and 8 years old. Boy when grandkids come along, my wife went it kind of into grandparent orbit. And She hasn't come back down. We love our grandkids. They live in the states, and Sally and I have lived in South
Africa for the last 5 years. Our journey has taken us Well, somebody summarized it is 4 different a's. We've lived in Afghanistan for a number of years until the Taliban came in and they kind of invited us to leave Basically said if we see you around here more than 30 days, we'll see your blood in the street, so they made the message really clear.
Then we moved to Amsterdam Holland. We spent almost 20 years living in Amsterdam working in the inner city, making disciples of people who had broken lives and planting churches and sending people out all over the world, then we were back in the Usa, America for almost 15 years, planning churches. And now we're in Africa. Sending So we're just excited to be there.
We've got somebody who's helping named joyce in the cafe and I brought along some jewelry that some of the ladies that we work with have made, if you'd like to stop by, buying a piece of jewelry can actually employ, an African woman for a day. It's really beautiful jewelry semi precious stones and and beautiful beads. And so, yeah. If you just take it out, I know that you'll enjoy, maybe give a gift to somebody, and to invest in their lives.
So, we are looking at, if we can get this slide up. 3 reasons to die for Jesus. Everybody repeat after me. Someday, I will die. I will die. I just keep saying that over and over again. You, I will die. I will die. Because it's gonna happen. Right? That's kind of inevitable. I'm wanna give you 3 reasons. 3 good reasons to today die. Actually, we're gonna kinda spread this over all the services this morning. We're gonna focus on 1 of the reasons.
If we look at this slide, actually, we could talk about more than just 3 reasons. We could talk about almost 5000000000 reasons. The total human population of our planet has now just hit 7000000000 people. And most of those people are living in this box that you see here in the map. We call that the 10:40 window. If you've not heard that expression, because that map that window spreads between 10 degrees and 40 degrees latitude. That's why it's
called that. And it stretches right apart, crossed the part of the globe where you see mostly Muslims living and Hindu and buddhist and a lot of animating people. And interestingly about 85 percent for the world's poorest people. So we could say 12000000000 reasons. We could say 85 percent of the world's population reason of the poor. We could talk about the un people groups, every distinct language and culture that has never heard the good news of Jesus is right there.
We could talk about the the children who don't have care. But I'd like to focus on 3 if I could say it more proactive reasons. Now, I could also give you a list I'll kinda compiled through the years a list of reasons not to get involved in missions. Anybody here or maybe you don't wanna put up your hand. But if you would like a list, come and see me, I can give you all the reasons why not to go, because
I've heard most of them. Like, when I got married to Sally, her parents, her mother said, God's just testing you to see if you're willing to go. Right? So he's really calling you to America. And actually, the first question was when we got engaged. Is you're not taking my daughter away from Texas. Are you? Now how do you answer that? When in your mind you're thinking as fast as I can get out of town. I'm getting out of Texas. A bunch of Redneck neck Americans. God bless her family, I love them.
Yeah. A lot of people said to me American needs missionaries too have you ever heard that 1 Australia needs missionaries too. There's all kinds of reasons, not to go. But I'd like to give you 3 if I can say really positive reasons that really have minister to me. And actually, I'm gonna... I just... I'll list the 3, but I'm gonna focus in on 1 of them. Here's the 3 and then we'll come back to number 1.
First of all, a God is a loving father, and he's anxiously longing and waiting for people to return to him. The spirit of God, second reason is moving in our planet in the most awesome and unusual way right now in our lifetime, right while we're alive. The spirit is moving. And thirdly, 1 of my favorite and I'll focus on that in the third service is the lamb of God is worthy. Let's go back to the first 1.
The father is waiting. There's a beautiful picture that is painted for us, and the luke chapter 15 Jesus tells 3 stories actually back to back, and he tells 3 3 stories about 3 things that are lost. There was a lost son. There was a lost pearl There was a lost sheep. And Jesus though focuses in and tells the longest story about a son was lost. And then he talks in that story about a father, waiting father. I'm How many of you've heard that story called
the prod son? Do you heard that? Do you know what the word prod means? Anybody know what that word means? Means prolific, without any boundaries, without boundaries without measure, without any restraint? Without any can we say holding back. So In 1 sense you could say it's the sun whose prod go because he just lets go. And he just lives a wildlife. You know the story that Jesus told how the younger son completely contrary to the culture, went to his father and demanded his inheritance before
his father died. My kids actually did this to me. I'd like to confess this. When my wife and I were getting ready to move from the states, And we were selling off a bunch of stuff and so my adult children came to visit us they're in their thirties. And they walked through our house. This is really like makes you feel warm and fuzzy. And they said, I want that piece when you're die. No. I get this piece. So they went through
a house, claiming all the stuff. So we had to kinda call a time out and say hey, You know, we're still here. And if you keep that up, you don't get anything. The word or prod, sorry actually could be applied to the father as well. Tim keller written a book called the prod Father.
Because the love of the father in this story to a son who embarrass the father and takes demands his inheritance, shame his older brother, not respecting the culture, and how that worked and ran away and he spent the father's inheritance or his portion of it. And living wild living. And the father responds to him with prod love. Extravagant, une ending, un bounding love. So what we see in this picture the story that Jesus is telling is we see a picture of god's heart
for all of creation. Actually, I don't know if you've noticed this. But it says at the beginning of chapter 15 when Jesus is telling the story that gathered around him were republicans and tax collectors and ph. So there were sinner of 2 kinds. How many of you know there's 2 kinds of sinner. There's like sinner centers and then there's the sinner that go to church. So Jesus was to And how many of you know it's easier to love the other kind.
So Jesus paces picture of some, of sin in terms of rebellion and running away from home, and then he paints a picture of sin in terms of the people who stay home. And get kind of all religious and up tight and condemning and pointing the finger. The father responds an incredible way to the shame and the rebellion of the sun. And I I live this picture of the father going to the end of the road, waiting every day. This is how I pictured it. Jesus doesn't actually say it in this
way. But couldn't couldn't you picture this father who does when his son comes home, he's there waiting for him? So, you know, I've kind of think he's going out every day. It's like a parent whose son has run away from home. It's like a broken heart parent who knows somewhere my daughter he's out living in prostitution. My son is on drugs. And they may not walk outside the house and walk up and down the street been in their heart, they're pacing the living room floor. They're up at night.
They're anxiously longing and waiting. They're feeling all the pain of the 1 they raised and put their life into and they're longing for them. To come back home. And so we see this in my minds, I see the picture of the father walking out of his of his house and walking to the end of the lane and looking down the road. And 1 day, You know, He's probably seen several times somebody he thought there was a son coming home and kinda looked and maybe kinda just walked out a little ways, and then
No. It's not my son. But 1 day, he saw his son coming back home, and he couldn't see his face so far away, but there was a certain gate If you ever noticed that people walk in a certain way and you kinda recognize them that might my walk. My wife says, you know, when I see you from behind, we don't wanna carry this too far. She's She says, I can always recognize your walk. How you're walking? Yep, he recognized him and he ran to him. Covered in pig filth.
The s of his rebellion still covered him. And the father just throws his arms around him. That's should just love this. And then he shouts with great joy and passion. This my son who was lost is found. This is a picture of god the father waiting and longing for our world. Not a god who's storing up wrath, a god who's storing up love, a god who's broken hearted.
We see a picture of that in the book of Genesis in chapter 6 verse 5 and 6 when it says that God looked down on his creation and he saw that the thoughts of men's hearts were evil continually, and it grieve god in his heart that he had made man. Doesn't say he was filled with wrath and anger it says his heart was broken. It was said was grieve. The response of God over our broken world is grief and sadness. The response of god over our world is longing for people to return to him.
The response of God to the planet to the buddhist and the hindu and the muslims to the un people groups, the little children, the people caught up and all the pain broken ness of sin. It's too long for them to come back home.
You know, in my personal journey as a young man, when I started getting involved in missions, I can remember getting so excited when I read 1 day, they had great commission when Jesus said to go teach baptized and make disciples, And then he said to his disciples and go and teach others what I command you. So pass it on in other words. I command you to go and now teach it to everybody else. And it hit me. Well, that's me.
And then you know how it is when you get a revelation, how you you you think that revelation is not only for you, but for everybody else and you kinda go tell them whether they really wanna hear it or not. You ever had that happened to you. Well, I I was 1 of those guys. I went around telling all my friends. I went to Agnes pop. You you have to go. We are commanded. I got this picture of God through Jesus commissioning in it. It's like a general army go, and I was so like, yes. We
on a little bay. You. What's your name? You're the? Julian. Julian. Julian. I was the guy that Julian would run away and hide from. Know, I was going around at our university, grabbing everybody. I remember 1 day, agnes said to me. No. Leave me alone back off. I'm not going. Then I found that, well, this motivation of, like, just pure obedience needed a little addition of of called love,
compassion 1 time. I was working in Afghanistan and we were working with dropped out western kids, who are traveling through Afghanistan on the way to India, getting into eastern religions. And a young hip long haired guy sent me down 1 day and look me in the face. He said, you know, you may be telling the truth, but you're pretty un loving. I don't know if you know that. He said, So I took getting to Afghanistan for God to get the message into my heart, hey, it's not just about obeying.
But it's about loving people. And respecting people and seeing people the right way. And then my motivation was like compassion for people. And then I begin to see, wow. What God is doing in the world I begin to see all the opportunities to change our planet, not just me as a missionary, but I saw how business are involved in changing the world and house wise and just how the whole church has a role to play, and I'm so excited about that.
But, you know, I've landed on these 3 motivations that I'm sharing with you this morning. They seem to me to be the purest of them all that if we can connect with God's heart, that when when then when we go to other people, when we send other people, they go representing the love of god who is longing, the love of a god who cares deeply for the broken ness that's in people's life. The love of a god who's saying, I'm waiting for you to come home. I when selling and I lived in amsterdam.
We lived right in the middle of the red light district. And 1 day, there was a bridge. There's a lot of canals in Amsterdam. I don't know if you've ever kind of heard about how it's built, but there's Canal. This is how the city grew. They built... The... There's a little village and they built a Canal connecting to the Ams river I'm still dumb. And then the city grew beyond the canal. So they built another little canal and a half circle. And so the city expanded
in these half concentric circles. Did you look down, it looks like a spider win. And we lived right in the center of that and we lived across the street from a bridge that went across a Canal And 1 day, we found the guy living under the bridge. His name was Keith. Keith, was from the Midwest in the United States. Very conservative farm town, and Keith was a male prostitute. And when I talked to Keith, 1 day, I said, Keith, why did you end up doing what you're doing? I'm just
I'm intrigued by your story. Why did you end up selling yourself like this. Can you tell me how you how you got there? You know what he said to me? He said, Floyd, I'm not gay. I'm not homosexual, but he said, I got so low, and there was so much pain in my life, I couldn't stand to be sober. Because when I was sober, I just felt all the pain. He said, my father and I have such a broken relationship. And every time I was not on drugs or I was not drunk said, I would
just... All I could feel is the pain. And he said, I ran out of money, and I did Well, he said he was so desperate that he sold his body just so he wouldn't feel the pain. Can you imagine? I mean, it's it's hard for me to understand that. But when Keith realized that there was father who was not angry at him. I mean, that word father was a hard word for first for Keith. But when he began to hear, that father was actually waiting for him, that father would take that shame off of his life.
Something cut hold of Keith life and just turned him upside down. And Keith became crazy. He couldn't wait to go and tell all of his friends About the love of the father. Father is longing and waiting for people. At 1 time we were administering in the Red Light district and came across a lady, a young lady, but 30 years of age, 28 years of age She was involved in prostitution. She had 2 little kids. And and we did something kind of fun at Christmas time. We threw a Christmas party for Jesus.
You ever been to a Christmas party for Jesus like it's like, it's his birthday. Right? So instead of giving presence to each other. What we would do is we'd get together and we would give gifts to Jesus that we would actually have a whole day and we would say to people, think of something you you can give to Jesus.
And so... We'd say you, and if you wanna paint a picture, you wanna you wanna wanna write a poem, you wanna sing a song, you wanna make something with your hands, some people bake things, and then I received them on behalf of Jesus for help judge Jesus out these cookies. We it was an awesome kind of time. We would just sit to whole day, take it easy and people would share. And as our community grew this took more and more time and we got up to 60, 70, 80 people. So it was an all day
kind of thing. People And 1 day when we were doing this very relaxed, just enjoying each other's gifts to Jesus, 1 young man came forward, it was very moving. A young Filipino, and he said, you know A long to go back home to the Philippines. And then he just he just knelt on his knees and he said, you know, but god's really calling me to Answer amsterdam, the gift I wanna give to Jesus is my passport. And my right to go home, and he latest passport down, and it's his way of saying,
I just give my life to Jesus. Well while this was all going on, this young lady who was a prostitute we'd been to came in and slipped in, and she was watching all this and she just trying to figure out what's going on. She had her 2 kids in tow. And she looked pretty wild. She had, you know, a sequin clothes on and platinum hair kind of piled way up and heavy makeup and she watched this for a little while. And then all of a sudden after about
45 minutes an hour. She comes forward with her 2 kids and tow. She was not not yet a Christian. And she stood and she said, I wanna give something to Jesus but I don't have anything. And then she started crying. It just kind of unfolded, like, this drama. And she said there is something I can give, but it's so hard for me. And then she just she just collapsed on the floor, and she said, I I can give myself to Jesus. And then she looked up and she said, but please don't kick me while I'm down.
It's kind of the overflow of the pain of her life, a feeling beat down by people. And you know what? Jesus does not kick people while down. The father loves to receive people. In whatever state they are. So the motivation for sending people into the world. The motivation forgiving of your money We had the opportunity today, you can respond to it today or next week. Is we can give of our prayers, we can give of our finance, perhaps you won't go and you'll invest and
what was the lady young lady's name? On the screen that from La Karen, I I... Even I can tell she has a pretty broad accent doesn't see you. It's kind of fun to hear her accent. She's gone from, right here in Australia, so some people are gonna go. But we can all be involved because it's extending god's heart as a father. Showing his love to people. I I worked in South Africa now for the last 5 years, we work in very poor communities.
When I say poor people live in check homes, the average check is about 3 meters by 4 meters. If that, it's 1 room, outdoor plumbing and and toilets. People be lucky if they have, water or electricity, an area that is about 2 and a half square kilometers has 30000 people squeezed in, and just intense population, 25, 27 percent Hiv rate extreme poverty be people, maybe somewhere around 40 percent unemployment.
People moving there, coming to the cape, beautiful Cape town, 1 of the major tourist destinations in the world looking desperately for a job. So we get a lot of economic refugees coming from all over Africa. And, some of those coming up from Malawi. So I met a young malawi and named James. And so we tried to help James out and we gave a job and he helped us in our garden. So I sat down with James the first day or 2 that we were talking together. And I just began to hear his story. And James
didn't really have his father. His father died when he was young. James you know, in fact, it's kinda of fun because when I started des recycling James. I I believe in a holistic kind of form of disciples ships. So I not only started des James, spiritually, but I just disciple him practically. So I asked James, I said James. Have you ever heard the word budget. Now he knew about 30, 40 words of English 50 words of English. She said budget. Now he didn't know what the word budget went.
So we started talking about budget before he could speak English. Really? I wish you could have heard that conversation. That was a lot of fun. But I asked him and we kinda... I got the message. I asked him what his dream was, why did he come to South Africa? He wanted to own 3 houses? That I got that clear. Wanted to go back to malawi here 1 to have 1 house to live in, 1 house to rent to make extra income.
And he wanted to have another house to run as a shop, but he didn't have a wife and he had an arranged marriage And so, he sent... He he he actually said to me, would you pray for me? Would you bless, me and Lydia she'd just come to live with him, and they weren't married. And so I said, I didn't know that. So I said James, what do you mean? And bless. I got a little suspicious. You know when somebody said, bless my relationship. Found out they weren't married. So I got to lead James to Jesus. I
got to marry them. And now James is leading a house church. And, I remember saying to James, just before he could to speak about English. I said James. And he's got a beautiful smile. And so I'm the white guy, you know, 60 some years old, speaking to a young guy, 20 some years old, and I'm saying, James. You're gonna be the apostle to Malawi. He didn't have a clue with that meant. But it really felt good. He sounded pretty
good. You know? And the white guy is smiling, and I'm very happy, so he was happy. You know what? I believed in my heart that though James came from great poverty that father was longing to capture James heart. Father was longing to release James to be all that he was created to be. Amen? Father longs to show is love to people. Father longs to breathe blessing on people. So the reason we can go it's not out of guilt or out of obligation. The reason
we can go into that 10:40 window. Is because father longs to receive people. You know, I used to think of evan as like trying to sell Jesus to people. You ever seen 1 of these big family bibles? Do you have those in Australia like the really big 10 kilo bibles? I used to carry 1 of those around? Yeah know, That's was pretty intimidating if you see a big guy with a big bible. That... You ever heard the expression Bible bang, Yeah. I was I was a dangerous weapon.
Out of control sometimes with Z. But you know, evan, mission is not about something on somebody. It's about welcoming and receiving and opening our arms to.