I says to clean them in minutes it really is that easy don't risk your health car so clean dot com now to try and risk free for 30 days call 180-960-4646 this offer Won't Last Call now 809604646809604646. It's habit forming. Should. Be an infringement of service of Salem media. Welcome to the k. Afaics Ministry of the week each week we highlight a local ministry that is impacting the community in Jesus' name our hope is to connect you to a ministry in which you can grow and serve in Christ's Kingdom and now your host for the ministry of the week Greg Roberts. We are told that we should go out and share the gospel the good news of Jesus Christ too should be Samarium the uttermost parts of the earth and if you're a young reliever a new believe you may be wonder what is actually does that mean Well essentially it says to share initially in your your local neighborhood in your immediate sphere of influence your friends your family the people that you work with your next door neighbors things of that sort then a little bit further beyond that a little broader realm of influence and then also to have that sense of passion and burden and prayerful as for people in other parts of the world to perhaps don't look like us don't speak like us don't think like us but nevertheless for whom Christ died and that's the World Evangelism aspect of that uttermost parts of the earth one bay area church they kind of has that down pat is our friends over in Redwood City at Grace Bible Church and with us today in studios Pastor Steve converse He is also by the way the speaker on graceful truth heard on k f a x. Sunday afternoons at 3 30 pm a pastor Steve good to see you again good to be here Craig I just got out of prison I was in prison for a week. When I caught up with the way they caught up with me now I play the Apostle Paul so I was chained to a Roman guard all last week for every b.s. For her family there was a for it good to be here Radio City free once again and and and the whole. On the straight and narrow. Let's talk a bit about that sense that burden that your church in particular has a lot of churches focus on the the Judea and scenario part of their ministry and rightfully so they have been called to minister to an area a neighborhood and reach that area help grow the body of believers there provide shepherding discipleship so on and so forth but that greater vision of the uttermost parts of the earth some churches do a great job at it some churches don't quite have it on the radar screen at all I'm curious in your case specifically related to Grace Bible why is that on your radar screen Well it it always has been as far as the inception of the church the church was actually founded as a missions church it was started by a group of businessmen back in 1988 I think and they were attending a local church in Redwood City and one of them had a I think a relative who was of a missionary with some Morgan is Asian in the church they were going to as an American Baptist Church and when they brought up the subject of bringing their nephew on and supporting him as a missionary. The nomination would allow it so these businessmen quietly left that church and started Grace Bible Church of the non-denominational Bible Church in which they could support whoever missionary they wanted and so it's always had that missions flavor but it's be honest it's always been about. Sending a check. And very good at supporting the missionaries that came up through or as they went out we even support the retired missionary still even though they're retired we still issue them checks every month and we just feel that's part of our our commitment to them but it was probably. 10 years ago we had a individual story coming to our church he was from India and he was working here in the Bay Area and eventually I was married in his it is him and his wife began coming to our church and he brought up the idea of Have you ever thought of going actually on a mission strip to some of these places you support and I thought sure I'd be great you want to organize it and he agreed to do that and so the 1st trip that we went on was back and the 2014 went to go to Thailand 1st and then India but there was a lot of political unrest in Thailand so we couldn't go so we ended up just going to India and he knew growing up there a ministry that. He was able to validate and there's a lot of needs over there and sometimes you don't know who to support and so it was very gracious of him the kind of point in the right direction and so we went over and 2014 my wife and I and him basically from our church and just kind of an exploratory mission to meet these folks and we did and they have a home there that ministers to about 18250 children and a lot of these children are orphaned they have no parents at all and. Almost immediately my wife and I. Fell in Love these these 2 sisters who had lost their parents and so we agreed to kind of bring them on and help support them and when we came back and we kind of shared this vision with the church. It was amazing to us to realize that while people really responded to that and within a matter of months we had our church through individuals in our church. Were supporting up to 20 of these children who had literally no support at all and so it was a very I openly experience and. I remember coming back in realizing that while they have so many needs over there. One of the 1st things I had to deal with when I came back was we were remodeling a playground and we had to spend $50000.00 on this playground and I thought I can't do this you know this is this is not right but you know the elders you know we all kind of got together prayed about this and reminded us that we have to have a strong base from which to send And that's you know you have to strike that balance you can't you can't. You have to minister to people locally as well and so our church has always had a history of doing that but radical was the impact in terms of the difference between simply sending the check versus going and seeing well I guess I'll say this when I came back and we gave her a little presentation before the church about our trip. My wife got up and shared you know her view of what she saw and everything and it was very emotional. And I got up as a pastor and I'm not very much an emotional guy at all and I don't cry very easily things like that but I was weeping in front of my car ation I couldn't control myself as I was telling them about the needs over there and that that spoke so much to their hearts that wow this really affected you and it really it helps you grow in your appreciation for what you have here the blessings the running water the the toilets that all those things and yet you realise that it's not all about that into these these folks that we minister over there who have little or nothing. Material things don't mean anything to them they really don't they don't have a affinity for such things the 2 gals that we started helping we took them to the mall one day and were trying to buy him some clothes or we don't need that we don't we yeah you do you hear shoes are bad shape you know it. Almost you had to force stuff on them and they were very grateful but they just live in a whole different. World you know and it affects your ministry here because it causes you to falter you need to be grateful for you know the church that you do have in and all the facilities and in the technology and everything that's just your fingertips is it fair to say then that it breaks your heart. For what you see going on with a need and the opportunity from the overseas perspective and then gives you a whole different viewpoint in terms of what you have here what you do here how enormously blessed you are here yes yeah it does it really does and it 1st when you go over there and you see these needs you want to help. Especially if you're a fixer like me you want to fix if you want to help everything you can the need is so great you know. For every child you help there's 50 standing in line that aren't going to get any help you know and it's it's a really retching process that you go through when you are trying to figure out Ok where do we put these resources because you know you could have all the resources to approach and dump that over there and it would still probably wouldn't be enough because the need is so great but you know like I said what what is more important is you realize that you know what you have there they're lacking in material goods and maybe basic things for everyday living but the one thing they're lacking the most is the gospel the truth and and when they connect with that and when they come to understand that nothing else matters they just want to be taught the truth is there is that sense of a tremendous spiritual hunger a mouth and we talked about this and it off the air that notion that while they might not be able to identify how to satisfy that spiritual hunger. They might not in terms of we would understand from a scriptural viewpoint. Acknowledge sin salvation sanctification all of that nevertheless there is a thirst to be connected with God The the difference is. Whether we understand that God came down in the form of Jesus Christ and became man and Walt among us and suffered eventually on the cross for the fulfillment of Scripture that through that suffering that shed blood we might be reconciled might obtain forgiveness and walk in fellowship with very God himself and yet for. A 1000000000 Hindus in India most of it is about trying to reach up to right multiple gods and in many respects try to appease God I recall one time in India. Complimenting a little boy in front of his father and I was quickly scolded in Seoul don't do that and I thought well gee he's just a cute kid what a cute little boy no don't do that because you might make the gods shell is right complimenting the young boy and not complimenting the God this has been a perspective and it's a spiritual need that is I mean you have a physical the material need is there. Food all those things but the spiritual need far outweighs that because if you get the Spiritual right God will take care of his children no matter where they are at in once they once one of these young children comes to Christ and they understand who their Savior is and they understand who the god who created them was and they realize that hey you know what he is a father to the fatherless and he is a provider for those that don't have sustenance and what happens is everything else fades away they're just they're hungering after the word they're so hungry for the Word of God. Over there and your heart breaks because you know I was a youth pastor for several years before we got into. Pastor at church and I remember going on the youth. Mission trips and you know it was all about painting rooms and building it whatever and those things are great but one thing that was lacking was the message of you know the Gospel that could change these folks' lives and yet maybe they had a new building when we left but. It was definitely lacking is far as the message and in the spiritual nature of those trips and festive converse with us today in studio senior pastor of Grace Bible Church and also host of race will truth heard Sunday afternoons at 3 30 pm right here on k. Afaics information about both the broadcast ministry as well as the church in Redwood City on line a Grace Bible Online dot au argy That's Grace Bible online oh argy interesting that passage we are all sinners and fall short the glory of God and yet sometimes you think well that means that all of us who live in America or all centers or all of those people over there that are prostitutes are sinners now God doesn't differentiate doesn't know he does it's all of us is no exceptions to that list is there ice you're the folks off it on Sunday morning the only difference between me standing up you up here platform and you sitting down there is I'm facing north and you're facing south. We're all sinners we're all 'd in this together and I think that you know it's unfortunate I think today in our churches a lot of we adopted this celebrity mentality you know what's a pastor you know and I always remind our folks look you know that's a title Ok I mean it's a calling granted but you know I'm emirate on. Same plain with you Paul and we're all working together for the common good of the gospel and you know except by the grace of God there go I So you know it's that it's that it's that reality of I think being transparent with people in being willing even as my my wife and I sometimes with other couples and you know you hear these heart wrenching stories sometimes they share with you and they say they're kind of surprised when they hear back from us well yeah we've dealt with that too in our relationship you know it and still do sometimes so it's it's that transparency I think that unfortunately this is lost a lot of Haitian history and part of the problem too that we tend to and this is just the human condition and sin nature of focused so much on our selves and our needs and our wants with you know capitalized underline italicize and bold and that we sometimes fall short of the recognition that at the end of the day it's really about him and what he did on the cross and and God's willingness to come down and meet us at our level I mean when you think about the notion of of Jesus taking on sin. A holy pure righteous God. It's mind boggling and so it should be I don't think it's anything on this side of the veil will ever going to fully begun to comprehend and if anybody said that they fully did understand God's grace and God's love I'm going to call you face a liar. You know now we see through a doubt a glass darkly but that idea that maybe we need to as the lever's. Put more of the focus on him and that's the wonder of the gospel isn't the God would save me not only that God would save me that God would choose to use me in any way because he doesn't need me he doesn't need you or the many of us but he. She chooses in his grace in his love he uses for his glory see that's the key it's for his glorious not it's not for ours you know I. Walked away a long time ago from the idea of building a huge church with lots of people I said you know I just want to do it God wants me to do and if that's 50 people that's 100 people that I'm good with that you know I don't I don't have a problem with that because that's that's his calling on my life you know and the measurement of the end of the day really is about once faithful This is a new exactly in that's where you know my heart is is to stay faithful to what God as a as individual as a car geisha as a church is called us to do this the church become less effective because sometimes I mean the church both as an institution as well as the body of believers because we tend to be focused on the numbers game well your church only has 500 list guy over here has got 1500 so what is he doing right that you're doing wrong or you know I only make so much money and somebody else makes a lot more so I must be doing something wrong in that sense that we tend to want to use. The humanistic yardsticks to measure our success in life or the nature of our relationship with God when in fact God if anything issues the notion of using any of those worlds yardsticks to measure who we are I mean it kind of gets back to Ok Jesus when you get up there who's going to get a chance to sit at the right have the right yeah and we forget that Jesus said Maril is this way broad you're not going to have hordes of people you know that to a message that's true to the Gospel. You know and we try to as I try to is a pastor to stay true to the Word of God I mean we're not the only church on the block I don't have a corner on the truth you know I have the same Holy Spirit every other Christian as the. I just am on willing to compromise what God's word says even when I don't understand it completely I think all the folks that I don't get this but this is what it says in you know and that is so I think important to have that commitment to truth because either God's Word is what he says it is and declares it is or it's not in if it is then we have no business setting that aside and using the music as the preference for the church or the youth ministry or no it's what happens with the Word of God the life is every Sunday and that's the bottom line and you can put on a great show and get a lot of people show up on Sunday mornings and I've argued that well yeah maybe you can do that but if that's the yards that they were going to measure then I think it can be reasonably argued that Mr Davis does a far better job because he fills his auditorium a lot quicker and a lot faster and they actually pay to get in yes on the average Sunday morning Oakland aired to the average church in the Bay area so it all comes back to where is the focus going to be and how central to what we are doing in the preaching from the pulpit the reading from the Pew the living of life is God's word to who we are right and the majority of churches in America are under 100 people I mean we fail to understand this you know that that most of the churches are not making churches and funny I work in the human farcical raise about mega churches there are a century church there are not yeah and that's what I often tell people your we forget they met from house to house you know you can fit a couple 1000 people in a house so it goes back to the idea of you know what just being faithful to what God has called you to do not just as a pastor but as a Sunday school teacher as a youth ministry leader as someone who's greeting at the do. Or folding bullets and helping in the kitchen wherever you're serving just be faithful to what God has called you to do I learned that early on when I was a youth pastor we planned these big events you know expect 200 kids and 5 kids would show up for whatever reason and we had all the stuff and I remember the youth workers asked will cure we cancel it's like no there's there's 10 kids here we're going to do the best we're doing same thing we did with 10 kids as we did with 200 and you know God God really appreciates that kind of faithfulness you know that commitment it's not about how many are in your congregation it's just being faithful to what God has called you to do so and never knowing within that realm of influence who might be there I mean Christ poured out his life continuously for 3 and a half years to a rag tag group of 12. Most of whom couldn't get an interview let alone a job at a Fortune 501 of our. And yet there they were and they carried on the legacy spiritual legacy that his influence the lives of every one of us to this very day and so this is not to suggest that a church that's been successful and seen numerical success is Sam how doing something nefarious to achieve that or something wrong not to say that at all but to suggest that at the end of the day the yardstick the measure is not based on what's going on numerically in the pews but what's going on in the hearts of individuals exactly and what they're doing with the Word of God precisely so if it's thinking of the Word of God to tell us briefly what's going on with over to God over at Grace Well we've been in our study through Romans So we're we just started going to be there forever and where this is our 116th message. The world my boy they were you know Romans Chapter 12 so we just got out of Romans 91011 which was new to Egypt wellmost a Dr McGee approach to this is version of a verse I did. Methodically I love it very basis take my time I you know I was nervous at 1st when we went through the Gospel Matt Matthew years ago because I thought I'd mention a few for get restless or whatever and kind of took a little you should try the Book of Leviticus Yeah yeah rest ask you questions or no no this is good so we just