2 Timothy 4: Deathbed Priorities – Sermon Audio 2617

Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, Go, therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to Go Teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through Australian and international speakers. . And here is today's presenter, Johnny Wong. SPEAKER B My study today is based on a passage in 2 Timothy chapter 4. 2 Timothy chapter 4. The title of the topic is called Deathbed Priorities, or you can say Death Row Priorities. If you're on the death row, if you're in the deathbed, what is your priorities? And there's much things to learn from 2 Timothy chapter 4. It is often true that a person's final words are often his best words. By then, his life and his time has distilled the most significant thoughts in his life. Wisdom has been tempered with knowledge. Experience has been shaped by discernment. It is at this time we must listen closely. It is at this time we must open our ears to the final counsel that is imparted by a dying man or a man on death row. And this is the story of 2 Timothy chapter 4. John and Naomi were there in Rome a few years ago and my wife and I went to Rome as well and the dungeon that Paul wrote this writing tells us that he is in his final moments. And he has now— is doing an Elijah to Elisha moment where he's passing the mantle to young Pastor Timothy to take over his ministry. He gives us priorities. He gives us important things. A couple years ago, my university classmate— same year as me in university, we went to the same care group in university together. A couple years ago, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and I went to visit him in his hospice. As I see him deteriorate, and I see the changes and the pain that he goes through, I look at his face and he, he said to me, "Johnny, it is different when you come to visit compared to my wife and my two girls because I need to be strong for them." I need to make sure that they don't see me in this state of despair. They are emotional. They are struggling. I said, I understand it's emotional and struggling. And I said to him, brother, are you at peace with the Lord Jesus Christ? He said, I am, but I'm more concerned that my wife and my children are at peace with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's more important for me. I said to him, "What do you want to say in your funeral?" Because he said, "Yes, I cannot discuss this with my wife because she's not ready to talk about the funeral service." I said, "I will be there for you, brother. I will organize whatever it takes that you want to convey in that funeral service." We sat down. I listened to the hymns that he chose. I played on YouTube some music on hymns. I said, "Is that the one you want to play?" I listened to him intensely and I carefully took down notes in my mind what he really wanted in his final wish. He said, "My wife and my children have not committed their life to Jesus Christ. I want this to be a message to them." I said, "Okay, so what else? What kind of— who do you want to say the eulogy? Who do you want?" He said, "I know, Johnny, I can talk to you about this because the moment I bring this up, they begin to cry." So I sat down. I said, "Brother, I will work with them on it, but tell me what your wishes are." And I wrote down all the things that he wanted in my mind. I recorded some of his voice of what he wished. My heart actually was quite emotionally challenged, because we grew up through school together. We went to university together. We went through life together. And he's not that far from my age. To see him struggle and depart was a challenging thing. Final priorities spoken in final moments. And Paul, in this way, was facing it. When you read a Bible passage like 2 Timothy 4, a teacher taught me one thing. Put yourself in the passage. Imagine the darkness of the room that you're in. Imagine the smell of the dungeon. Imagine the dampness of the wall. Feel and sense the coldness of the room as winter comes along. See the little flickering light through the gap of the brick walls that you may see brightness occasionally. Imagine yourself smelling sitting in the cold, and comes a man. Perhaps you are helping him to write this passage. Perhaps you are hearing him coughing and sneezing and shivering in his cold. Perhaps you can even hear him sigh about those that betrayed him that he had named in 2 Timothy. It is vital when you read Scripture to put yourself in the story. Only then when you put yourself in the story, you see the magnitude, you see the significance, you see the importance of the passage. And today there are 3 vital priorities Paul gives to us today. Not to us only individually because he's speaking to young Timothy because through Timothy he's speaking to all the churches that he has planted. And that He is raised up. So, this is not just a priority for individuals but it's also priority for the church. Amen? So, there will be 3 priorities that we'll be looking at. How many did I say? 3. Let's come to 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 1. I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort, ...with all longsuffering and teaching. The first thing you notice, he says, preach the Word. The first priority is the Word. He said, be ready to give the Word of God to others. You know, my friends, I have people come and talk to me and say, Uncle Johnny, you know, I'm thinking about this financial issue. Or, Uncle Johnny, I'm thinking about this relationship issue. Uncle Johnny, I'm thinking of marrying this guy. And I say to them, You know, they come for wisdom and I said to them, I have no wisdom compared to the Word of God. If you are in the Word of God, the Spirit of God can speak to you that very morning and tell you what to do. But a few of us experience this. We rely on— we go around shopping for opinions. We rely on ungodly counsel. But my friends, my godly counsel is zero in power compared to the Word of God. Because if you come to 2 Timothy You want to read this in chapter 1. Scan back to chapter 1. Notice verse 13. He says, "Hold fast the pattern of sound words." Hold fast the pattern of sound words. How do you hold fast the pattern of sound words? It is something that I talked about in sermon before. We need to memorize scripture. It is not an option in a Christian life. It is— and Jesus did it. So we are to hold fast to sound words, "which you have heard from me in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus." that good thing that was committed to you, kept, kept by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. You see, my friends, when the Word of God is held fast in our mind, the Spirit of God is incarnated in it because Christ in you, the hope of glory. The Word became flesh and dwelt among men. The Word needs to be incarnated in us. Amen. And the Spirit brings to remembrance the things that I have taught of you. The second thing you notice if you go to chapter 2 of Timothy, chapter 2 verse 15 says, "Study to show thyself approved unto the Lord, a workman neither be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." You see how important increasing the word of God is in our lives is? That we can rightly divide the word of truth. Now, too often we say, "Oh, my friend is asking me a Bible question." or, "Pastor, can you answer this one?" "Can you give them Bible study?" You know, we handball to somebody else, whereas God wants us as believers of Jesus Christ to not only be able to answer it but to rightly divide the Word of Truth. But to rightly divide the Word of Truth means we need the skills to divide the Word of God. We need to be trained. It doesn't happen by chance. It comes by systematic training. And notice chapter 3, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, the Bible says, "All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be—" what? "Thoroughly equipped." Do you want to be thoroughly equipped? Thoroughly equipped to deal with financial issues, with relationship issues, with health issues. Do you want to be thoroughly equipped? It's in Scripture. It's in Scripture. There's no shortcut in this, but Scripture says we are equipped to do what? Good work. You see, it's not just for ourselves. It's not just for ourselves. When we study Scripture, we can be a blessing to other people in providing good works to them. No wonder, coming back to chapter 4, Paul says to Timothy, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, convincing Doesn't that sound familiar? It's profitable for doctrine, convincing, for rebuke. 2 Timothy 3:16 say, "For reproof." Exhort. In chapter 4 verse 2 say, "Exhort." 2 Timothy 16 say, "For correction." Did you notice the parallel between chapter 4 verse 2 and chapter 3 verse 16? There's a lot of parallel between those two verses. Paul is saying to us, Scripture is there not only for doctrine but for reproof, to know what's right and what's wrong, for exhortation, to encourage. That's why we send Bible verse to one another. We claim on Bible promises. It encourages us. That's the power of the Word. Amen. Yeah. Verse 3 of chapter 4 says, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, But according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. What is Paul referring to? You look at chapter 3, verse 1, it says, But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers. Can you see what's happening? Paul is saying the time will come, the world will move to a point where people are lovers of themselves, where they are self-centered, where they desire to be very secular and very worldly. But yet Paul is also saying that even in the religious system, listen carefully, even in the religious system, they are not enduring sound doctrine. You know, we live in a world that's very complicated. If I preach from the Word of God, I can be claimed I can be accused of hate speech. That's the world we're living in. If I preach the Word of God about certain lifestyle that is not according to Scripture, like in Romans chapter 1, I can be accused of hate speech because people do not endure sound doctrine. In fact, they want their own desires. They want their own way of doing things. And yet again, within the religious system, you see churches like this. They don't want to preach on the Word. They want to preach the feel-good message. They want people to like the community and just stay on the surface. And God says we are to preach all of Scripture, not part of Scripture. We have to preach all of Scripture. And that's why you come to a church like Gateway you get all of Scripture, the unadulterated Word of God. Amen? I don't want to go to a church that just dumb it down. I don't want to go to a church that just give me all the niceties and all the feel-good sermons. I want a church that teach me for doctrine, for correction, for rebuke, and instruction of righteousness, that we can be thoroughly equipped for good works. Amen? So to do that, we need training. It doesn't happen by chance. You learn some skills. You know William Tyndale? How many of you know William Tyndale? Have you heard of this guy? Okay, William Tyndale was a reformer. In 1853, he was imprisoned as well. And while he was in prison, a Latin letter was found after he died. He died in 1536. He died a year later after this letter. And he wrote in this letter, and he quoted 2 Timothy, chapter 4 as well. And William Tyndale, as you know, he's the one that translated the Bible to English. And he wrote to the prison warden, so to speak, the Lord Commissioner, he's called. "I beseech you, Lordship, even by the Lord Jesus, that if I am to pass the winter here, to urge upon the Lord Commissioner if he would deny to send of me my goods in keeping for for a warmer cap. Alright, this sounds like Paul, doesn't it? He says, "And also give me a warmer coat." And that's exactly what Paul asked in verse 13 of chapter 4. "Bring the coat that I left in Carpus in Troas," right? He wrote almost the same thing as what Paul wrote here. Give me a warmer cap, a warmer coat. But yet, look at the end. "But above all, I beg and entreat your clemency earnestly to intercede with the Lord Commissary that he would be kind to me to allow me to use my Hebrew Bible." Hebrew grammar, Hebrew lexicon, that I might employ my time with that study. He's in prison and he's asking for a Hebrew Bible. And that's the same as Paul when he says, "Please bring the parchment to me," in verse 13 of chapter 4. "Please bring the parchment. These are scriptures." My friends, in that adversity, in that un-nice experience, in the bad smell, in the darkness, in the dampness of the room, What kept Paul going is the Word of God. What got Tyndale going is the Word of God. Did you know that Tyndale translated the Bible to English, but yet he was martyred the next year in 1536? When he was martyred, you know what was his final statement? 'Lord, open the eyes of the King of England. Open the eyes to the King of England.' Brothers and sisters, friends, this Word of God that's translated English in your very hand today did not come cheaply. It cost the life of people like William Tyndale, and yet we don't treat it With that regard, the priority for our church has to be the Word of God. You know, this afternoon Tina and I are doing some training about, you know, people say, "Yeah, I know I need to get to the Word, but I'm so time poor." Well, come this afternoon, you see there's some tools to help you. Some tools. It's not just Sabbath morning, not just Saturday morning you can learn. There are places you can learn by yourselves online. They're great tools. Now we've set up to make you a possibility. Second thing you notice, come with me to chapter 4 of 2 Timothy again. Second priority. First priority is the Word, and you understand why we make such a big emphasis of this. And one of the reasons why as a church we set this direction of getting people into the Word, that's why we have discipleship teams to teach you skills on meditating. We teach you skills to memorize. We teach you skills to how to do devotion. Why do we go through this process rather than you just being a consumer? I mean, you can be a consumer and come to Sabbath school and don't do nothing and listen to the teacher. You can be a consumer and come to church and listen to the sermon. But my friends, that will not going to help you to go far. And you've been to many of those churches out there, and we're not that kind of church. We are the kind of church that says we want to give you skills. Skills of how to meditate, skills of how to memorize, skills of how to do devotional life, skills of how to do inductive Bible studies, skills on how to use tools like Bible lexicon and how to use tools like that so that you can understand what the Bible really say. Teach a boy to fish, he fish every day. Give a boy fish, he will have one day only. So that's the reason why we invested that time. And that's one of the reason why we made that change last year. Why we move worship first and Sabbath school second? Because we want an hour for study of the Word. Amen? Too often sometimes we come late. If Sabbath school was first, you only get 30 minutes. That's not enough time. We want to come to church on time to study the Word of God. Amen? We want to come on time. Come for the sermon, come to the study. And we make those changes by introducing more Sabbath school classes. Did you notice that? We have Revelation class. We have Pastor Chris running Revelation class in Chinese in the weekdays. We got Revelation class running here on Sabbath school. We have classes like Genesis class. The reason why we do all that is because not to spoon-feed you, but to give you tools that you can study for yourself. Amen? That's what we want to do. Second priority. Come with me to 2 Timothy chapter 4. Second priority of 2 Timothy 4, you notice something interesting between verse 9 and 22. You can read that. It says, "Be diligent to come to me quickly." Paul really said to Timothy, "I need to see you. Come to me quickly." Timothy was in Ephesus at the time and he was leading. Now if you study the New Testament, Ephesus was the training center church that trained disciples to plant churches throughout the whole Asia Minor. Ephesus was like the Jerusalem, like the Antioch. There were 3 training center churches in the New Testament church. Jerusalem was a training center. Antioch was the training center, Ephesus was the training center, and from there multiply the work to the different parts of the world. So, he wanted Timothy to come, but he was tied up with Ephesus. No wonder he said, you keep reading in verse 12, "Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus," because he wanted to say to him, "Look, you can come when Pastor Tychicus go over there. You come over and spend time with me." But you notice that "for Demas have forsaken me," verse 10, "having loved this present world and departed to Thessalonica." "Cretian has been in Galatia, Titus in Dalmatia." Only Luke is with me. Luke is a physician. Paul obviously was not in good health and Dr. Luke was with him. "And get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful for me in ministry." So Mark is serving in Ephesus in this training center together with Timothy at that time. And then verse 13, "Bring the cloak which I left and of course the books, especially the parchment." You read on and on and on. Did you notice that there were 17 names there? 15 were positive and 2 was negative in this passage. What does that speak to me? That spoke to me a lot that as Paul makes his final charge to us, besides increasing the word, he said increase the corps, increase the team. It is vital in ministry that we serve in a team, whether it be Sabbath school team, whether it be service team, whether it be worship team, whether it be care group team, We serve in teams. We need teams to operate together. Come with me, if you look at Colossians 4:7-18, you notice the final greetings in Colossians are the same. He mentioned Tychicus, he mentioned Onesimus, Aristarchus, Mark, Barnabas, Justus. Can you see he's mentioned 10 names there? If you go to Romans 16 and you read that, there are 35 names that he mentioned. Paul does not do ministry as a solo superman. Amen. He don't do ministry like that. His ministry is based on serving and building up teams. That's his ministry. You know, when I work in corporate life, I remember working for Oracle, we have many KPIs. You guys know what KPIs are? Yeah, some of you in corporate life know what it is. Key Performance Indicators, right? So we got a lot of KPIs to meet, whether it be revenue targets, profitable targets, and, you know, retention of staff targets and all. We got lots of targets, and, and this is just after your head as a leader. And one of my KPIs that impacted my bonus is a very important KPI, which is to make sure I have a second in command. As a director of the firm, if I don't have a second in command, and I was looking after the business in Asia Pacific from Korea to New Zealand, Pakistan to the Philippines, 23 countries in there. And when I'm running that business, I go to very interesting places and some interesting places are not very safe. And so, and they said to us, every director, you better have a second in command, because if you get run over by a truck, then who's going to run the business? So for us, is that it's very clear. My KPI is that I better know somebody that is going to take over my job. I better be training somebody else. If I don't, I don't get that bonus. You see, in the workplace, we can set targets like that to make sure behavior happens, right? But in church, we don't have that mindset. We are the solo worker. We are the one that is constantly doing the things that we like to do because we like the way we do it. Do you understand? But God is telling me in this passage in 2 Timothy 4 that we cannot work like that. We have to work in teams. Amen? We have to build up teams. We have to invest in people. We disciple them, equip them, resource them, empower them. And this is the art of leadership. When I have a second-in-command in my workplace, and I know who that person is, my boss always asks me, "What happens to you if you get hit over?" I said, "Well, this guy is my second-in-command." I said, "So how are you training him?" Well, I have to invest time in him. Does that make sense? I have to go, I have to bring him to business meeting, to partners meeting, to show him how I do my work. So this is vital. It's giving him projects and so on. So the same in ministry. But when you look at the writings of 2 Timothy 4, you see Paul naturally has so many people he connects with. He had placed leaders, Timothy and Mark, in Ephesus. He has placed leaders in different cities, in Dalmatia. Titus is in Dalmatia. He has placed leaders everywhere, and that's the power of building teams. You know, how did he learn it? He learned it from Jesus. Jesus did not need anybody, but he had 12 disciples. He was quite intentional to build the teams. Even among his 12, 3 were very close to him, remember? And what were their names? Peter, James, and John. They were very close to Him. So Jesus built it that way. No wonder 2 Timothy 2:2 was another charge to Timothy where he says, "And these things that you heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who are able to teach others." You see the multiplication? Paul to Timothy, Timothy faithful man, faithful man to others. You see the multiplication process. And that's the reason why, that's the reason why I thoroughly believe in care groups. You come to this church, this Seventh-day Adventist church, this church here in Gateway, it is different from other Seventh-day Adventist churches. Why is it different? Because we have a strong emphasis on care group leadership. In many other churches, it's based on departments, organized by departments. Because when you organize by department, you end up having programs. But when you organize by care groups, you have what we call people-based ministry rather than a program-based ministry. Because the department is always just organized programs. I know some of you transfer from other churches. You come to this church, you say, how come there's no youth department? How come there's no health department? How come there's no AY department? How come there's no "Ah, personal ministry department." We don't operate that way. We don't want to operate that way. Churches that operate like that don't grow. We choose to operate a people-based ministry because Paul is all about teams. Jesus is all about teams. It's about teams that we grow in spiritual faith together. Amen? We grow together, we serve together. Amen? Because if you just— if you operate by department, you just want to come to one program after another. Oh, what's the next program, Health Department, that you're organizing? Oh, what's the next program that— do you understand? You come from one program to— no, we're here to invest in the Word of God in you. Amen. We're here to invest you into groups so that there is support and encouragement for you. Even people do studies on mental health shows that if you belong to a support group, it makes a big difference to your own mental well-being. So that's why I love this about Jesus. You know, if you look at the history of Gateway, there was a group of young people in 1998 that wanted to run more programs. They were running an Easter camp, they were reaching out to their friends in the universities, the young adults and so on. They wanted to run more programs to reach out to their friends. But the problem was that this group of young people, some of you could recognize their faces, only 3 of them are still in Gateway today, right? The rest have moved on to other cities, other parts of the world and so on. You can see all these faces. This is 1998 picture of young people. They were busy organizing program to reach their friends. They think that organizing programs will reach their friends. But you know what I noticed? They themselves don't even have a devotional life. Mercy. They have no devotional life. They want to look spiritual by running spiritual programs. We think that running programs is actually a proxy of spirituality. God wants us to build the Word of God in our young people. Amen? God wants us to build the Word of God in our lives. And we built that in teams. So we decided to do— no, nope, nope, nope, nope, that's not the priority, just running program. We need to get them into discipleship. So we begin to write a discipleship curriculum and we begin to train them every Thursday night. And then we decided to put them into groups. We used to— they used to worship on Friday night, a big Vesper program, 40 young people Friday night on a Vesper program, like a typical Seventh-day Adventist church with lots of young people come and they feel good. But you know what? It's self-serving. It's not winning souls. It's not doing mission. So we said, no, we're gonna train small group leaders out of this. And we begin to put them into small groups. So we start off by doing revival, getting them into the Word. We did Daniel and Revelation. We did this, teach them to do devotional life. There's no point preaching, running so-called church program or youth program if you yourself are struggling spiritually. Because it needs to be the outflow of our grace of Jesus Christ in our life. It needs to be outflow from the love of Jesus that we do something for Jesus Christ. Otherwise, it's just a duty. God doesn't want that dutiful service. God wants your heart. That's the priority. So a few of us got together. I thank God to bring Peter into our ministry. Peter is the far left here. Peter was such a scholar in Bible studies in the book of Daniel and Revelation, and he really built the foundation of the Word of God. I thank God for people like Auntie Judy. She came from Pentecostal background and she learned about small groups. She knows about groups and she taught us about that. And Tina and I, we just tagged along. We learned as they taught us, you understand? And we had the blessing of learning that. And what a blessing to see them now begin to start groups in 2000 in the city of Melbourne. We started one group, two groups, and groups begin to grow. And we keep asking them, we keep them help— keep helping them to be accountable. That's why we have training groups, discipleship group, and we begin to ask them, how is your life with Jesus? How's your prayer life? How's your devotional life? We don't want you to just run groups because you're doing it for the church. We want you to do it because you love Jesus. Amen. And so from there, the group began to grow. And by 2002, we actually, we gathered people. We had 36 people gathered in various care groups and we started a church planting process with the mother church. And by 2003, March 2003, we launched the first gateway church in the city. It started by building ongoing discipleship in there. And in August, we ran our first evangelistic meeting. Pastor Juden came in 2003 and I think I met John then and Naomi after that very soon. You know, friends, the foundation to do this is these two elements: to increase the word and to increase the call. If we didn't do this, that church wouldn't have planted. It wouldn't have multiplied. And that, I think, is a priority that Paul has taught us in 2 Timothy 4, and it's a vital thing that we continue to do as a church. Amen? We need to do this. Yeah. All right, notice something with me as well. Come with me quickly to Colossians chapter 4. Remember I talked about Colossians 4? There are many names there. Let me show it to you. Colossians chapter 4. I want you to read something interesting. Colossians chapter 4 verse 14. The Bible says this about Luke and Demas. Luke the beloved physician and Demas greet you. Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea, or Laodicea as the Greeks would say, and Nymphas and the church that is in his house. Do you notice the concept of house here? The church that's in his house. Come with me to Romans chapter 16. Romans 16. So you can see the way the work of God works in growing His work. The concept of house to house, the concept of a house group is really important. Romans 16:3-5, the Bible says, "Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their own neck for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles." Likewise greet the church that is in their house. Greet my beloved and so on, right? So many names. Look, scan down the whole 16, 35 names in there. Paul is a team builder. If you work in corporate life and you want to learn to build teams and you haven't studied team building skills from the Bible and you read all the Harvard Business Review and all the leadership magazines and you don't learn this, You're reading the wrong book. You got to come back to the Bible. The Bible teaches us how to build teams. In fact, the world is using Bible methods in discipleship. Did you know that? They're adopting those methods because Scripture has already given us the formula how we build teams. And Paul does that. He built that into home groups. So friends, if you come to Gateway and you haven't belonged to a care group yet and you just come for Saturday morning you're missing out on what Gateway is all about. Yeah, and we welcome you, by the way, on Saturday morning, no problems. But we believe that your spiritual life will grow dramatically and hugely when you're part of a community of believers, because you not only learn the word together, but you learn to serve together. And in giving, we receive. Amen. If we're just consumers to feed me, teach me, give me all the stuff, we fail to see the calling of a disciple. A disciple of Jesus Christ is to go and make disciples. Isn't that true? Don't cut off that opportunity. Train and get to the point where you can belong to community, belong to a care group. We want to have more care groups here. There's no reason why Gateway West cannot double its care group number. There's no reason why it cannot. We challenged a church last year. One of the Gateway churches was stagnant for so many years. We challenged them and said, think outside the box. How can you double? And they did this year. They doubled the care groups in their church this year. But it requires us to give up and willing to think outside the box, willing to challenge the basics that we have. Finally, let's go back to 2 Timothy chapter 4. 2 Timothy chapter 4, quickly going there. You see the third priority. First priority is to increase the work. Second priority is to increase the core, the core team. The third priority is to increase the impact. Notice the way Paul operates here. Coming down here, did you notice from verse 10, he mentioned Thessalonica, mentioned Galatia, mentioned Dalmatia, mentioned Ephesus, mentioned Carpus, mentioned Corinth in verse 20, mentioned Miletus in verse 20. Can you see what's happening here? You're seeing here in this passage not just the work in one city. You see the work throughout all of Asia Minor. In fact, the scripture reading makes it very clear. Chapter 4, verse 17, "And the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that the message might be preached fully through me that all the Gentiles might hear. How many? All the Gentiles. Paul had a great calling. He was the Apostle to the Gentiles. And he not only impacted one city, he created training centers not only in Antioch but also in Ephesus. And from this training center and discipleship and do evangelism, the whole of all of Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't do it by himself. He increased the word. He built teams and the impact was the work of the Holy Spirit. Amen. And finally, did you notice it says there verse 21, "Do your utmost to come before winter. Elabus greets you as well as Prudence, Linus, Claudia, and all the brethren." By the way, that group of people that he mentioned in verse 21, most Commentator tells us that this is his care group in Rome. This is his group in Rome actually. That's his support group. In fact, they greet you because they are with him at this moment. You know, people like in verse 20, Erastus stayed in Corinth. Erastus, if you study him, he's actually one of the city treasurers. He is a man of influence in Corinth and that's why you have the Corinthians, you have the book of Corinthians. You have the book of Galatians. You have the book of Thessalonians. You see all these books because they were leaders that continued the work that what God is doing through Paul. You know, I like this quotation in Christ's Object Lesson. In fact, I was teaching this week about a parable and this quotation came out. Many today claim to obey the commands of God, but they do not, they have not the love of God in their hearts to flow forth to others. Christ called them to unite with Him in His work for the saving of the world, but they contend with saying, "I go, Sir," but they do not go. They do not cooperate with those who are doing God's service. They are idolaters. Like the unfaithful son, they make false promises to God. Haven't you done it before? I've done it many times. "God, if you help me pass this exam, I'll serve you more." Have you heard this sound? "Oh God, if you find me a boyfriend or girlfriend, I'll go to church more regularly," right? You know, we make all these promises to God. But she says they make false promises to God. In taking upon themselves the solemn covenant of the church, they have pledged themselves to receive and obey the word of God, to give themselves to God's service, but they do not do this. In profession, they claim to be the sons of God, but in life and character, they deny the relationship. They do not surrender the will to God. They are living a lie. It's very strong words, isn't it? I was like that for many years. I was busy doing my own corporate career. I was busy chasing, uh, success in this world. I was like that. I come to church, I keep the Sabbath, I do my routine, but I was just a nice consumer that comes in Sabbath school, didn't study my lesson, just listen to the teacher teach. And I wait there and I wait for the sermon. I say, "You better preach a good sermon today. I didn't eat for the whole 6 days, so you better preach good, preacher." And then the preacher don't preach good, "Oh man, this church is boring. Yeah, I will go find another church. I'll go shop around, go shopping for another church." Do you understand? I came with a consumer mentality. That's me. I'm a living lie. I know what it's like. I know how to fake it to be a Christian in church. The Lord rebuked me when I read this today. That God doesn't want us to be a disciple that's just a consumer. God wants us to be a disciple that once we learn all of Scripture, that you're thoroughly equipped for good works. And we do good works in teams, in care groups, in small groups. We do that together because we can't do it on our own, and it's vital that we do that so that we have a saving relationship. Satan uses the listless the sleepy indolence of professed Christians to strengthen his forces and win souls to his side. Did you know that? It is the very professed Christians that do not serve God that Satan uses, and in fact, it strengthens his side of the battle. Oh, have mercy on me, God. I did that for so many years. Have mercy. I just want the Lord to know that I repent from that. I realize that I can't do it because out of my own strength. I need the Holy Spirit. I need to experience the grace of God. When I need to experience God's love, when I truly see how miserable I am as a sinner that doesn't— can't overcome my own sins and need the forgiveness of God, when I receive the grace of God, I begin to realize I'm so unworthy, but thank you, Lord Jesus, for receiving me. When Jesus receives me, there's no other choice but to receive other people. Do you understand what I'm saying? But if I don't experience that grace, I don't experience that love of Jesus, serving becomes very hard. It wears out after a while. It gets very tiring. But when you receive it daily, this power, no wonder in 2 Timothy 2:1, You therefore, my son, be strong in what? In the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Amen. Friends, strengthen the grace of Jesus in your life that we may be into the Word. If I think about Gateway West here, this is the picture of the location of Seventh-day Adventist churches throughout Melbourne metropolitan area. We have over 38. There are 38 churches in the eastern suburbs. And did you notice the tick? Those are where the gateway churches are. These are 38 churches in the eastern suburbs. But look at the western suburbs. There are only 11 churches in the western suburbs. And of the 11 churches, only 6 are English-speaking. The others are ethnic-speaking churches. And look at that gap there. That gap is a mission field. And that's where we are located. God has called us to do this work here in the West. Gateway West is 12 years old, 13 years old this year. By August, I think it'll be 13 years old. We should have, we should plan to grow and plant a Gateway West in the middle and get West in the outer. There should be 2 other Gateway West churches here at least. That should be what it should be. God has a mission field for us to work together on, and I believe God will empower us to do so. I love the fact that Gateway West is a strong family church. Amen? I love the strong family feel and the dedication, and this is a very important thing. But you know, it's also very important that we increase the Word, to grow the spirituality and deepen in the Word of God. We cannot operate on a low spiritual level. We need to grow in our discipleship. And then once that happens, we can increase the core. We can move from person-dependent leadership to more commitment in core groups serving together. We can move from centralized decision-making to more empowered decision-making in groups, and that all the groups are empowered to reach out their areas and make it work. And we move from a single fishing pond— yes, Gateway West grew because we had a beautiful fishing pond called VU, Victoria University, but that is gone now. We need to operate in multiple fishing ponds close to all the various care groups. That's the way we have to operate because— but to do that, we need to increase our core in our team. And finally, God will increase the impact, not us. The Spirit of God will increase the impact. The Spirit of God will change from a church-driven mission to a care group-driven mission. It will change from one gateway in the West to multiple gateways in the West. Amen? Do you believe it? Do you receive it that Jesus can give us power to do the work that He wants us to do? I believe He can. I believe in can. God has given us great foundation. God has given great opportunity to do so. This is a picture of a lady that impacted my life. It's my mom's sister, my Auntie Susan. This lady studied the Word of God on the ship traveling from Penang to Sabah. 3-day boat ride back then. She received a card to invite her to do Bible study, and she began to do the Bible studies correspondently. And she will, she will study one lesson, next lesson, next lesson, to systematically study the Bible. As she began to study the Bible, she began to study the love of Jesus, begin to study the salvation message, begin to study the law of God, begin to study the Sabbath, begin to study the sanctuary, begin to study the prophecy. As she began to study that, The joy for her to study Scripture became so enormous that she wanted to study more. And so, praise the Lord, after she finished her course, The Voice of Prophecy in Singapore sent her a leather Bible. Do you know how expensive a leather Bible back then is? Man, that was an expensive Bible. They sent her Bible and I still have this Bible. Notice the date, 30th of July 1965. Some of you were not even born yet, right? She got this Bible, and I have, I've got this beautiful Bible that she wrote. She's— this is a picture of her baptism. She was baptized in 1966 in this church up on the high hill overlooking the city, the town of Kota Kinabalu. She was looking, and she was baptized there. When I was a child, my siblings— I have two older sisters, myself, and a younger sister, four of us. My auntie had no kids, but my mom had 4 of us. And my mom says, "Oh, can you take them sometime? Give me a break." So she will take them. She'll take all 4 of us, and she will bring me and my sisters to her house, and she'll tell us Bible stories. And auntie is the type that can really make stories come alive. You know, she'll make the sound effects like the horses trotting away. She'll make the sound effects like the army charging, you know, with Joshua. She'll make the trumpet sound. She'll get us all engrossed in story, and she was a great storyteller. And what a blessing, she began to bring us up. You can see a picture of me there in the middle of that. She began to bring it up and begin to teach us this Bible. And then one day she said to us, would you like to learn more Bible story? Come to children's Sabbath school, come and learn more. So that's where we came. So, uh, but then my auntie had to depart overseas, and so she handed my spiritual discipleship and growth to another lady, and this is Miss Kong. She is my Sabbath school teacher. She's the one that took spiritual interest in my life besides my parents. My parents— I was brought up in a Catholic home. My mom is more from ancestors worshiping, but she became a spiritual mom to me and began to teach me the Word of God. What a blessing! My auntie continued to correspond to keep us in the Word. And keep us studying. If you see my library of spirit prophecy books, this is all from my auntie because she has read every single spirit prophecy book that exists. And she's read the Bible plenty of time, over and over. She's memorized portions of scripture. I remember one day when she was here, and that's the reason why we came to Australia, because my auntie said to my, my mom, if you want your children to have further education, send them to me and they can stay in my house and they can get university education. That's how we all came over to Australia. I remember as my auntie got older, one day we had to take her to emergency, and in the rush of taking her to emergency, we forgot to bring her— we packed her toiletries and the clothes and the toothbrush and everything, but we forgot to pack her Bible. I remember in the emergency room, I said, "Auntie, we packed everything. I'm so sorry, I forgot to bring your Bible." And my auntie said, "It doesn't matter. I'm reciting Psalms 91 at the moment in my mind." She would walk around in her neighborhood and the neighbors, she sees some of the other ladies are very downcast and she'll be sharing Bible promises to them. And gradually she had a Bible study group on her street and she was 70, 80 years old at that time. That's the power of increasing the Word of God. It gives us courage. It gives us strength in adversity. It gives us even in the trials of the emergency ward, she had the Word of God in her mind. Amen. You know, my auntie got older and gradually she moved into aged care, in an award-winning aged care. And during the early days of COVID unfortunately she passed away. But 6 months before she passed away, I came to visit her because I brought a group of Korean pastors. They came to visit Gateway to see the work that we do. Different church from every other church, a CAGroup-based church. These 13 pastors came to visit, and we were visiting the conference office next door, and then they say, oh, we need to go to the restroom. I go like, oh man. So I said, all right, I know where the closest restroom is, is in the aged care. Let's go to the next door aged care. So I know the code to get in, and because I visit my auntie often, so they went to there. And then they say, oh, you know how to get into this place? I said, yeah, because my auntie lives here. Oh great, can we see the room? Can we see what the aged care room is like in Australia compared to Korea? I said, sure, let me check with my auntie. So I knock on the door. Auntie, I got a bunch of people want to come and check out. Would you like to meet them? Oh, my auntie loves pastors. She prays for pastors regularly, right? So she said, bring them in. So they came in, 13 pastors. Can you imagine 13 pastors in the aged care room? And they hardly speak a lot of English, but some of them do. And my auntie was She was so happy to meet them. And then she, before they left, my auntie prayed for them. If you hear my auntie's prayer, it's not cursory prayer. My auntie's prayer is so touching, it feels like she's shaking the gates of heaven when she prays. You know, like when she's pleading, besieging God. You know, when you hear my auntie prayer, you don't hear like those cliché words. You hear such a connection with God. And so when she left, she wrote shorthand. My auntie used to work as a secretary. She wrote shorthand in her favorite book, "Desire of Ages." She wrote on a piece of paper there. My auntie was found passed away 5 o'clock in the morning in the aged care, sitting where she normally do her devotion. And the page that she looked at was the chapter in "Desire of Ages" that says, "Jesus rested." I found her shorthand notes. I was going through to pack up the room and I found the notes. You know what the notes say? It is as if like she said, "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the Lord." That's what the note said. She says, "All these years I've been impacting my nephew, teaching him the Word of God." That's me. "And now I see him impacting career by having all these pastors come." The note said, "Today Johnny brought 13 pastors to visit me." It's almost as she said, "My eyes have seen the glory of the Lord because I've seen the work multiply in this man that I invested in." I don't want to live in this world just to invest in properties, portfolios, careers, investments, bank accounts. You can't take that to heaven. God has given each one of us precious time. Jesus is coming soon. He gives you that invested precious time. He's given us the Holy Spirit. He's given us the Word of God. We can make an impact for the Lord Jesus Christ, not because we are worthy, far from it. Jesus alone is worthy, but He uses you and me that we can see the glory of the Lord. You have a story to tell to the world. My auntie passed away passing the baton to me. I am not going to let that flame die. We will pass the baton. Young and old in this church, God has a calling for us to increase the word, increase our team so the Spirit of God will increase the impact in the western suburb of Melbourne. Do you believe that? I believe it can be done, but every spiritual gift, every talent here, God needs because you are going to be involved in it so that your spiritual life will have such a joy, with such an experience. How many of you say, Lord, I want to have a special journey with you? You want to have a special journey with the Lord moving forward? Amen. SPEAKER A This message was made available by the Gateway Seventh-day Adventist Church. For more resources like this, visit their YouTube page, Gateway Adventist Center, Melbourne, Australia. SPEAKER B This program has been brought to you by 3ABN Australia Radio. SPEAKER A Missed part of an Australian program? Listen anytime on demand at 3abnaustralia.org.au and click on the listen button.