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.