Well, good morning, Heist Church. It's very good to be with you. As you just heard, my name is Jay. I'm married to a Prescott native named Caitlin Greer, but she used to be Caitlin Valley. Yes, there is a fan. We have four kids. We've lived in Japan for 16 years now. The Heists has walked with us for many years. It is good to be able to be in front of you and tell you thank you for supporting our ministry in Japan.
As you are making disciples of Jesus in Prescott, you are supporting us to make disciples of Jesus on the other side of the world in Japan. We work for an organization called Mustard Seed Network, and we have a mission as an organization to glorify God by making disciples through planting gospel-centered churches in urban Japan. And you've supported us to do that.
We want to go and make disciples all over the world because Jesus told us to in Matthew 28 and because Jesus is the center of all things. So we've been trying to make disciples in Japan and live for Jesus for the last 16 years of our lives. And Japan is a country of 124 million people. Let me tell you about the millions in just a moment. But for now, I wanted to zoom in on just one. Tell you about a guy I met by the name of Yuma. Yuma I met in the city of Osaka in 2011.
He was in his 20s, and he had just left the Japanese company that he was working for. And in his words, he said, I felt like everyone was on this elevator going up, but no one bothered to ask, hey, where's this elevator going? And I thought, I got to get off this elevator. So he's kind of this deep reflective guy who is in this searching season of his life trying to figure things out, looking for purpose, looking for meaning, looking for hope, and also loving to play the guitar.
He was an atheist and kind of a feisty atheist at that. If asked about Christianity, Yuma would tell you that he thought it was very Western and just frankly irrelevant to his life. That's Yuma. Let me jump back to the millions in Japan. There's 124 million. They all have their own stories, just like Yuma. We live in a city of 37 million, the city of Tokyo, the largest city in the world. We used to live in Nagoya, and then we lived in Osaka. Osaka has 19 million people.
Japan has at least 12 cities of a million or more people. And less than 1% of the population of Japan is Christian. However, only 0.2% are in church every Sunday, meaning about 80% of the Christians in Japan are not active in their faith. It's estimated that 95% of the people in Japan have not heard the gospel, that 88% don't know a Christian. The average church size is 30 people. Here in the United States, there is one church for every 800 people.
In Japan, it's one church for every 16,700 people. Now, I just said a bunch of numbers. Let me try to put it into perspective for you. In the city of Prescott, there are 48,000 people, roughly, so says Google. 48,000 people. If Prescott had the same spiritual condition as Japan, had the same ratio of Christians and non-Christians in churches, et cetera, then in the city of Prescott, you would have three churches. You would have 480 Christians, but only about 90 of them would go to church.
You'd have two churches of 15 people a piece and one megachurch of 70 people. Now, if that was the city and the environment in which you grew up, would you have heard about Jesus? Would you have met a Christian? Would it have seemed compelling to you? Would you have been drawn to the gospel? So I tell you this to tell you that Japan is a place of great need. It's not the only place of great need in the world, but it is a place of great need. It's not a Christian context.
It's not a post-Christian context where they had a Christian heyday, and now they're just moving away from Christianity. No, it is pre-Christian. So we do not pray for revival in Japan. There is no past vitality to revive. We are praying for the first great awakening in Japan, and I ask you to join us in those prayers. How in the world would that happen? We preach the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, because Romans chapter 1, verse 16, tells us that the gospel is the power unto salvation.
The gospel is the power unto salvation. That is very important for us to figure out that it's the good news about what God did through Jesus that is the power that leads people to salvation, not me, not our organization Mustard Seed Network, not our programs, not our character, not showing someone a good marriage, not having a good building or doing good deeds or acts of love or random acts of kindness, though those things are good.
It's the gospel, the message about what God did, that is the power unto salvation. And so we moved to Japan to set up these churches that would be these hubs of gospel proclamation, constantly sharing the message. And after doing that for what's almost been 15 years now, we've been blessed to see God help us to establish eight churches in Japan. In our network, we've been a part of three of them. And every week, we'll have over 900 people gather, and we've seen 330 people baptized in Japan.
We're incredibly thankful. Yes. Let's give them a hand and clap, God is good. The question is, how did that happen, and what's the story of this? That story is actually the same as your story. It's our story. And that story is in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 17 to 21. So if you have a paper or digital Bible, go ahead and go to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And it's going to tell us about the story of reconciliation.
I, J, was reconciled to God. And through faith in Jesus, we can all be reconciled to God because we broke a relationship with God by sinning. We sinned in such a way that reconciliation becomes necessary. And God then had a plan to reconcile us to Himself. And He then, after reconciling us, gives us the opportunity to join Him in that same mission. So here's the main point that you're going to see in 2 Corinthians 5.
It's through Jesus's death and resurrection, we have been reconciled to God and now serve God through leading others to reconciliation with God. That's today's main point. Let's make it shorter, shall we? Through Jesus, we have been reconciled to God to reconcile others to God. Let's make it even shorter. We are reconciled to reconcile others. Main point in three words, reconciled to reconcile. That's the main point. Will you say it with me, those three words? Ready?
1, 2, 3. Reconciled to reconcile. Excellent. That's my story. That's your story. Let's see it in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Verse 17 says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation, a new creation. There is some kind of born-again experience. You don't just go along in life and kind of always consider yourself a Christian. There is some change where it says, the old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.
All this is from God, who through Christ, reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry, the service, the ministry of reconciliation. You see that right there? Reconciled to reconcile. Verse 19, that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself. This tells us God's mission. Earlier I told you our organization's mission statement. Here's God's mission. What's God's mission? Reconciling the world to Himself.
And this is a mission that God has had for a very long time, long before you and I, long before the Heights Church. In fact, long before the global church, before Jesus came to earth as a man, God had this mission of reconciling the world to Himself from the very beginning. God created us to be in relationship with Him. If you're wondering, what am I longing for? What am I living for? What purpose could I possibly have as a human? It's to be with God. And God created us for that relationship.
We sinned against Him. And now we need reconciliation. And so God then began working this plan of reconciling us to Himself. And He said there's going to be a Messiah that comes, a Savior that comes. He's going to come through the line of Abraham. And all nations will be blessed through this person, who will be the seed of Eve, descended from Abraham, who will also be from the line of David. So He will be an eternal King, just like David was a King.
And then the prophet Isaiah comes along and says, ah, this Messiah is going to be born of a virgin. And then chapter 53 says, He's going to be a suffering servant who suffers for our sins and then brings people to God. And after his suffering, sees life again. And He's going to make many people righteous. God has been working this mission of reconciling the world to Himself for ages. Go back to verse 19.
God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting, that is in Christ, God was reconciling the world of not counting their trespasses against them. How? How does God just not count your trespass against you? Just sweep it under the rug, maybe turn a blind eye, just forget about it. No, how does He not count your trespass against Him? Look at verse 21. So skip a verse, go to verse 21.
It says, for our sake, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Who is Him who knew no sin? That's Jesus. He made Him to be sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. So I've brought something with me today for you. This is my crime file. This is a written record of every sinful thing that I've ever done. We have it right here, and listen, you don't want to read this.
But the thing is, you also have one full of thoughts, words, actions that you wouldn't want us to put up on these big screens here. And understand also, this is what we call a sermon prop. This is just an illustration. This is not an actual written record of my sins, because if it were, I would not have one file folder. I would actually have filing cabinets lining the stage full of files of all of my sins. But here's what happens.
If I open up Jesus's folder right here and take a peek inside, in Jesus's folder, we just have pure righteousness. And on the cross, all of my sin and everything that I've done wrong gets taken, and it gets placed in Jesus's account. And he then takes it, and he carries it to the cross. And God's wrath towards my sins and the wrong things that I've done is then poured out on Jesus as he dies the death that I should have died in my place.
And he who knew no sin became Jay's sin, so that I, if I am in him and have faith in him, can then become the righteousness of God, as his righteousness is placed into my account. And now I'm forgiven, and when God looks at me, he doesn't see all the terrible things that I've done, but looks at me and goes, ah, there's my son, my child, the righteousness of Christ. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And that is how our trespasses are not counted against us, so that we can be reconciled to God. Continue on in verse 19. Yes, God is good. It says that in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. OK, so you've got this service. You have this ministry of reconciliation. We're going to give you your tools for the mission. So here's the toolbox. You open the toolbox. There's one tool inside.
And it's a message. That's all you got. The whole thing that we have is this message of reconciliation. That is how you go and reconcile people to God and get involved in this mission. Continue on in verse 20. It says, therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. Silly little people like us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. An ambassador goes carrying the authority of the person they sent them.
And you get to go with the message of reconciliation, with the authority of God, and tell a lost world, be reconciled to God. It's what your heart is looking for. So how is someone reconciled to God? Through faith in Jesus. How does someone come to faith in Jesus? Well, they have to hear.
How do we go to Japan and take someone who says, I'm culturally a Buddhist because my parents have told me I'm a Buddhist and all my ancestors are Buddhists, although they actually are functionally a little more atheist and agnostic, and take them and make them a disciple of Jesus who's bearing the fruits of the Holy Spirit? We share the gospel. You speak the message. How do you take someone born and raised in Prescott and turn them into a disciple of Jesus?
You have to speak the gospel message to that person and let the Holy Spirit do his work. And this is what Romans chapter 10, verse 13 through 15 says. It says, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's good news right there, that it says everyone, not first 1,000 people, limited offer. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? Verse 17, so faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Someone has to hear the gospel message, the events that God did through Jesus in order to come to faith in Jesus. And our mission as ambassadors is to go and take that message to people. So if you look at Romans 15, I'm sorry, 10, 15 one more time, I'm going to ask you to go backwards, 15 to 13 with me. We are sent.
I'm sent to Tokyo, Japan. You are sent to Prescott. And you're thinking, no, actually I was born here. In God's sovereignty, he decided you would be born here. And in that way, you are sent. So we are all sent to then preach. And then back up in verse 14, in preaching, people will hear. And after hearing people, some of them will believe. And in believing, they are saved through coming to faith in Jesus. That's our mission.
Our mission is to speak the gospel with as many people as we possibly can. And now let's try to get really precise on this. Someone says, OK, I was out. I was sharing my faith. I was evangelizing. I was witnessing the other day. I was reaching out. And you say, OK, how? What did you do? What did that look like? What was going on? I say, well, what I did was, at work, I avoided cussing. OK, good. What is sharing your faith? How did that look?
What did it look like when you're evangelizing, making disciples? Well, I was very nice to my neighbors. I tried to control my temper. This is also good. I had a barbecue. And I invited a bunch of people. And we shared life together. Nice, very good, very nice. I picked up trash. I volunteered at a nursing home. Listen, these are all amazing things. And I prefer that you do all of them. They're all very good. Understand that none of those things will save someone.
None of those will bring them to faith in Jesus because they have to actually hear the message in order for them to believe they have to hear the gospel message. Yes, go and shine your light. Go and shine the light of Jesus. Go and love your neighbor. But someone has to hear a message to which they can respond. They must hear the gospel from your lips. You say, OK, what's the gospel? I'm supposed to speak this gospel thing. What is it?
Someone might say, OK, well, what you should do is you should go to your neighborhood. And I want you to live the gospel. Or go be the gospel. So someone said, I'm going to go be the gospel to my friends. Here's the problem with that. Gospel means good news, news. News is, by definition, a report on events that have happened in time and place, in history. Something happened. I have to tell you the content of what happened. So I can't go and live that. I can't be that.
It would be like if someone said, hey, Jay, tell me your email address. And I said, well, instead of telling you my email address, I'm going to be my email address. I'm going to live my email address for you. At some point, I have to actually open my mouth or write something or do something to communicate content. You can live in light of the gospel. You can live out the implications of the gospel. But you cannot live the gospel message because it is news. We sinned. That's news.
Prophecies were made. That's news. A baby was born. His name was Jesus. He lived a perfect life. He died on a cross. These are news events. Now let's make it good news. It's good news. It's gospel. It's good news if we say, when he died, he died for your sins. He rose and offers forgiveness and eternal life by grace through faith in him. Now that's good news. That's the message that we are to go and take to everyone that we know.
And friends, when you join God's mission of reconciling the world to himself, he gets behind your efforts. And I have been humbled to the floor to see the way that the Holy Spirit has empowered our efforts in Japan. We moved to Japan in 2008. And we began a year and a half of language and culture learning and just studying. It was then in December of 2009 that we decided we're going to plant a church in the city of Nagoya, a city of 9 million people.
And what we were thinking was, OK, we need some center of gospel proclamation. We need to share this message. So how do we get people to sit down and just give Jesus a hearing? So we launched this church in Nagoya. And we're looking to rent some venue. And no one would rent us a venue because we hadn't done anything and we weren't established. Finally, we found people who would rent us a venue as two Indian Muslim guys who owned a sports bar. And so we started the church there.
And so we invited people to come and hear the message. And we know that after the first year of just sharing the gospel, every year we know 230 people came and heard the gospel at least one time. OK, how many of them were Christians? I don't know. How many of them came twice? I don't know. However, we know that 230 people heard. And after the first year, seven people were baptized. And so we said, ah, we should continue to do this more.
We were told by several other missionaries and different people, hey, for the first seven years that you're in Japan, you're just going to be an impediment. Get ready to see nothing happen. It was on the third or fourth Sunday that a friend of ours brought a friend named Kyoko. And she was this Japanese woman studying to be a beautician. And she said, I'm actually in my studies. I need someone to practice gluing eyelash extensions onto. Is there anyone who'd like to volunteer?
Prescott native Caitlin, my wife, raised her hand and said, yes, you can glue eyelash extensions on me. So they then had this long conversation this far away from one another while she was gluing eyelashes on her. And they talked about Jesus. The next Sunday, she shows up to church and says, I would like to follow Jesus. And we were floored because we've been doing this for five weeks. And we're not supposed to see anything happen. So I'm thinking, oh, no, I don't even know how to ask you.
We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son, and the living God. But it is written in Matthew 16. So here, open the Japanese Bible. And it says, yes. Great. That's wonderful. Now we need to know how to say, I need to know how to say, I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I don't know how to say that yet because we just got here. Ah, but it is written in Matthew 28. So we'll just flip over there and find that. And then say that. OK, now we're ready to baptize you.
And Kyoko came to faith in Jesus. The church in Nagoya continued to grow. And it graduated from the sports bar to a dance studio. Things were looking up. And we then moved our family from Nagoya to the city of Osaka to start a church there in 2011. And at the very first service, there is a young man there playing guitar for us in the band who didn't yet believe named Yuma, who you met earlier.
Yuma told us after he'd been going to church for six months, because he's playing the guitar, he's hearing the gospel every week. But he then called one of my teammates and said, hey, can we do dinner? They sat down for dinner. And over dinner, Yuma said, hey, I need to let you know. I've decided I am never going to become a Christian. And our teammate Seth said, oh, wow, that's interesting. Well, what are you doing this weekend? You going to church? And he's like, yeah, I'm going to church.
And so he said he left that dinner. And he said, for the first time in my life, I felt I was a sinner. I felt guilty of sin. And he said, before I felt like I was a sinner, the cross just sounded like this Western idea that was just totally weird. And once I realized that I am a sinner, at that point, the cross became life to me. And after telling Seth that he would never become a Christian, that next Sunday, Yuma was baptized and became a Christian. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
There's a few years later, there's a young woman by the name of Sally who came to our church and started coming and hearing the gospel and learning more and more. And then she was baptized and became a Christian. The two of them started dating. And I had the pleasure and joy of then doing their wedding at a park in Osaka. Yuma now writes worship songs in Japanese. He's a preacher. He is now part of our church staff at that church plant in Osaka.
And they have two little boys named Isaiah and Elijah. That's right. Woo. Well, the church in Osaka grew. And after five years, we had 105 people. I have no idea how many of you are in here right now. But when you are only 105 people, you count to the very last digit. So we knew we were 105. We had the city right next to us, Kobe. And we were going to plant a church. We had a lead planter to go there. And we said, let's take these 15 people who are traveling from Kobe into Osaka.
Let's tell them to stay there. So we take 105 minus 15. You're very good at math. That equals 140. Very good. So kingdom math. Immediately, as we multiplied the centers of gospel proclamation, we saw more people worshiping. We're like, it took us five years to get to 100. And now almost instantly, we're at 140 because we multiplied churches. Let's do that again. And so in 2017, the very next year, we sent another team to Kyoto.
And they started that church there in the religious and educational capital of Japan. At that point, our team decided that we would have this goal of planting 12 churches in 12 cities of a million or more, including the city of Tokyo. And so my family and I once again moved to Tokyo in 2019. And we set a launch date for the church in Tokyo of March 1, 2020. Amazingly, God saw fit to grow that church. And we've now been worshiping for over four years.
And we've celebrated over 40 baptisms in Tokyo. And I want you to be encouraged, inspired. And I don't know which one of you needs to hear this. But one of the first people who came to be a part of our church there is a businessman who runs a software company. And it's a software company started by a Christian with a kingdom focus. Tokyo is a city that is the population of New York and LA combined with three times the density of New York. Property is very expensive.
I cannot imagine this space in Tokyo. And we had this idea, and we discussed together and said, what if your software company and the church rented a space together? And he said, that's exactly why I'm living in Japan. How do we do this for the kingdom? And that is how the church in Tokyo has continued to grow to where we're seeing hundreds of people gather to worship there every week. In 2021, we sent a team up north to Sendai from our churches in Kyoto and Kobe.
In 2023, we took seven people from Tokyo and sent them down to Hiroshima. And they launched that church. Earlier this year, 2024, we were able to see the launch of the church in Yokohama. This is why earlier today when the sun came up on the east, your brothers and sisters gathered in eight different churches to worship the god of reconciliation. We now have teams formed for Sapporo, Saitama, and Fukuoka. All of those are set to launch in 2025.
And we are praying that we could plant these 12 churches in these 12 cities, because if God allows us to do that, 62% of Japan will be within reach of the gospel at one of our churches. That's what we're praying for. But I want to ask you what are you praying for for Prescott? And what are you praying for for your neighborhood and for your family? And what are you praying that God will do in your life to shape your character to be more like Jesus? One day, Jesus will return.
And people from all nations will gather before the throne to worship Jesus. And Japanese people will be there. And Americans will be there. And Sudanese and Finnish and Indonesian people will be there. And you will be there if you have faith in Jesus. Why is that? Because you're particularly good? Because you deserve it? Because you earned it? Because you went and decided to be a missionary somewhere? No. Only by God's grace.
Only because Jesus died for our sins so that we could be reconciled to God and made righteous and not have our trespasses counted against us. And then what a joy that we then get to join in God's mission of reconciling the world to himself. For some of you, you are not yet reconciled to God. And maybe you're like Yuma was before. And you're looking for purpose and hope and love and meaning. And I want to tell you to be reconciled to God. There's people who would love to talk with you afterwards.
For those of you who are reconciled to God, you are God's ambassador. Do not be afraid. Carry his message to as many people as you possibly can so that they can hear and believe and then call out in faith and be saved. Let me pray for you. Revelation 15, verse 3. Great and amazing are your deeds, oh Lord God the Almighty. Just and true are your ways, oh King of the nations. Who will not fear, oh Lord, and glorify your name, for you alone are holy?
All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed. God, give us a chance. Give us opportunities to speak about you to other people. We pray for those opportunities and that when they come, you would give us boldness. We pray that you would give us the words to say. Help us to worshipfully and joyfully talk about you so that you will be glorified and that people will know great joy in Jesus. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.