Honoring God

Thank you for the opportunity for me to share again from God’s word today. It is always a privilege to be able to share with you, and a privilege to be part of this church.

Today also is a special day because it is our last service in this room. I don’t know if there is anything prophetic with this being our last service in here and me being up here. I think we can be very thankful how God has provided this place for us, and at the same time being thankful for our new place. I know we will continue what we have always been doing as a church; honoring God and making disciples.

I was very privileged to go to EN 2010. I might also add that I made 2 trips to the Philippines on my vacation; the first for Badet’s wedding and the second one for the conference and trip to Dagupan and Baguio.

I’m really getting to feel like a Filipino more and more. For example I stayed in 3 different Filipino homes on my last trip. I’m real good now at taking a Filipino bath. What do you call it? And I’ve picked up a few more words and phrases in Tagalog like “Load Na Dito.” So now I know more than “picture picture.” I learned the importance of a marienda. I was told not to eat too much sisig. And of course a lot of “1 2 3.”

The conference was special in many ways. The worship experience was blessed and I’m not just talking about when we sang my favorite song. I made lots of new friends. And I met people from different parts of the world.

The conference was a blessing because we had a time of worship, fellowship and we were blessed with many different speakers. All of them had something to share with us.

We got to visit Ptr Jonas’ former church Victory Dagupan and hear him preach there. And we also saw the place where he proposed to Janice.

I really loved Baguio City. It was up in the mountains and really beautiful. And we didn’t need air conditioning there. We had God’s air conditioning instead. And it was a good time to reflect on what we learned and heard at the conference.

When we were on our way back to Manila Ptr Jonas brought up the idea of doing this series on the conference, or better yet, as he refers to it; EN 2010 Remix. There are a lot of things we want to share with you.

Before I continue I want to share something with those of you who didn’t go to the conference. I know many of you wanted to go but for whatever reason you couldn’t go. We prayed for you when we were in Manila. And as I’m sharing with you, I want to share from one of the messages and what I learned. I feel very strongly that this is not to make you feel bad if you couldn’t go. Rather, it is to encourage you with what I learned. And hopefully it will pique your interest in coming to EN 2013. I have heard it will be in the United States.

Also, let me direct you to the conference website; www.en2010.com. There you will find a lot about the conference. And you can also listen to podcasts of each of the speakers. I think you will be blessed if you do.

For the last session of the conference, Ptr Steve Murrell shared. Steve, as you may or may not know is the founder of Every Nation. He tells us his story in this book, Accidental Missionary. He and his wife went to Manila for a summer mission trip in 1984. They had only intended to stay for a month. However, there was work that needed to be done after the group left for Seoul, Korea, so Ptr Steve and his wife stayed in Manila. They had only intended to be there for a summer. They’ve been there for 26 years. Does everyone know the mission statement of Every Nation? Honor God and Make Disciples. This book focuses on the second part of our mission statement in making disciples. However if you read it you will see how Every Nation got started and grew from making disciples. I understand there are over 40,000 Filipinos attending Victory in the Philippines.

Steve’s last message was on the first part of our mission statement; to honor God. This is what I would like to talk about with you today. Friends, in everything we do we must honor God. Unless we understand what it means to honor God and unless we honor Him we will not experience the whole reason we are here; to honor God.