From Faith to Faith - Pastor George Odero

[Music] pastor george odero all away from kenya it's so great appreciate you man are you turned on and i i mean the microphone here we go turned on for jesus um so you know here's can we can we just say within about 60 seconds how the two of you met and then it came to be about how we're standing here now i'll say this you know when we start so we sarah and i moved to huntsville in 2000 to go to bible college at impact ministries with dr jim richards to specifically to be there we planned to be there for about five years we were there for about six to come home and start a church and we did and we've just been walking that path you know all along and we met someone in huntsville a lady named teresa her it was theresa june webb now theresa june estes if you're watching hello and she has desert rose ministries well she has had always done short-term missions and turned into long-term missions in kenya she just sold everything she had and moved there and ultimately lived there for 10 years doing full-time ministry and she was doing some great work over there still she's connected with um and the crane's daughter caitlyn crane is now working with desert rose ministries so just one is the organization that's partnered with um desert rose ministries this has a focus on girls who undergo they call it female circumcision but it's not there shouldn't ever be such a thing and if you want to know more about that you can go to justwand.org or desertroseministries.com but that started so teresa was sitting in the living room of our house and she told me this story about having gone to kenya met some people and then she ended up on this mountain in this very very remote area that we all know as mount poca with the villagers and you know there's more to tell about that but we do that and then we come back down and we i preach at a couple of different little churches and so i'm sitting there getting ready to go up in this pack packed pack is probably a little bit smaller than this room but i mean it was this wall to wall people and it was lively i mean it was a kenyan african church and they were having some fun in there let me just tell you it was a blast and so so i'm sitting there and i'm getting ready to get up to preach and this guy comes up to me and he's kind of leaning down in front of me with a big smile on his face and he taps me on the shoulder and he hands me his phone and it's a message from sarah between the two of them so i'll i'll give it to you from there i don't remember exactly even how we even connected but um it might have been through theresa or whatever but so we were messaging and just talking about the message and um i said i said you should go see i was finding out where he lived and kind of the area that he was and i said you should go see my husband he's in town preaching and i think i named where where he was or something and he said uh i can't i'm going to see an assistant the old assistant pastor to jim richards was me that's my husband you remember that your mic is on dude yeah i do so i think i i think we planned for him to kind of go up and be like you need to go mess with my husband like so she he walk he walks up and shows me this message and i'm thinking what is happening here you know my mind i'm being all spiritual and everything getting ready to preach you know anyways that's how it all started yeah what's your you remember what do you remember that day um just as sarah said she sends me this message and saying hey you need to go to nakuru to see my husband he's going to preach there and i say um sorry i cannot go to see your husband but i'm actually going to nakuru to see another preacher from jim richard's church and it's like that's the one that i'm i'm sending you to yeah so yeah holy spirit led yeah that's right so he has lots of pictures here kind of telling that story and memories i'm super excited to watch this and i i didn't show you because we were meeting so many people but out in the hallway we have oh yeah one of your pictures okay uh and if y'all seen it i'm gonna stick i'm gonna jump ahead a little bit but if you've seen this particular picture it's it's in our hallway out there the mcdaniels printed it for us on one of their wood signs and so i need to make sure you see that you can get a picture of that on your way out but if you can see can you can you spot where the americans are and there's george and that's kind of jumping forward a little bit but that's you know that there's a very special day tracy and katelyn are there courtney's there but here we go you all ready to hear oh i was just gonna say to you this is my first time uh meeting george and all this oh that's right i forgot so that was that was kind of cool but you know it's a lifetime ahead we know you know we talk about going over there and as a family but we don't want to go both parents going over there without the kids so i know someday i'll get there but um we'll see yeah pastor george thank you so much for being with us we love you yeah bless us thank you thank you so much good morning yeah so just as clint has introduced me and many of you already know me my name is george odero i'm coming from kenya in a place called homa bay homa bay is just at the lake victoria um so that's where we are at so i just want to take time here and bring the word of god and i trust that we will all be blessed amen so shall we pray father we thank you for your love god thank you for giving us your son who bore all sins of all people of all ages upon his own body and made a satisfactory payment by his death was buried he rose again on the third day and now he lives forever to give eternal life for free to everyone who will come to god through him father i thank you for this wonderful message thank you for the blessing of being born again and also the blessing of being a message bearer that we can share this message that you have chosen lord through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe so here we are to share this word with our brethren here and those who are watching online sweet spirit of the living god i thank you that you are always present whenever we speak the words i pray today will you give me boldness to share and may you help me to speak your word as clearly as i ought to and i pray that your word will come forth with respect to god and i pray that you will use this word sweet spirit of god to convict people and do your work lord we thank you we honor you for the privilege of sharing your amazing word may your name be praised our god use us as you will for we pray in jesus name amen okay so um just to give you a little story about myself i was born in kisumu town my parents lived in a slum as i was growing up my we were sitting on stones in our house and my parents used to fight from the time that i began knowing things i would see them fight almost every day so one day when i was 11 years old as we were coming from school and kids were saying hey we are going to see his parents fighting and they will fight and i will see my mom bleeding so that day i said i'm getting out of this house and i'm not going back to school and i'm not coming back to this home so from that day i began to live in the streets so living in the streets in kenya what it means is that you sleep in the pavements you eat from the beans that is what people throw there and if you don't find anything you steal and if you steal and you are caught you are beaten and you can be killed so many things have happened to me i've been tired i've been set on fire i've been thrown in the lake at night and left to die i didn't i did not know the lord but god just saved me from all these things even though i did not know him there were many days that i would hear the gospel being preached by street preachers and wanted to be saved there's this particular day that i went to a hall called offer hall in kisumu some people were having church there and they had guests who came they were whites so um and one somebody was preaching there and i was hearing the gospel from the fence and i decided today i'm going to church and i'm going to get saved i just want to be a child of god and i entered there the ushers stopped me and sent me away it was not just one of them it was the old five of them they said you you are not allowed here go away i was smelling i was bare butts i was dirty and so i just walked away and at that time i said phew i wish god could be just as much half as good as my mom because when i was in the streets my mom would come look for me my mom would even try to be friends with these crazy boys that people fear because they also we had street fights and things like that but my mom would brave all those things to try to reach me or try bring food to me or something like that so my mom loved me so much so i said wow god does not love people like me then later on someday i decided to get my life together again and go back to my family when life was really difficult after some time there so um this day i was walking on the road and thinking of a preaching that i had so i was looking for anything christian so to find someone who could bring me to the lord and i see a church office and i enter inside there and i'm weeping i'm in tears and i tell the pastor i want to be born again and he said are you really sure you want to be saved yes i want to be saved why do you want to be saved i just want to be a child of god are you sure you have not killed someone are you sure so there were so many questions i said oh please just get me saved and so so so i knelt down there and i carried my hand please just get me saved and he prayed for me so i told him you see the way i am now i'm a child of god and you are a pastor i know where your church is um can i go this night sleep at your church he said no no you cannot sleep at our church just go back where you came from so um out of those things i i began feeling like god is good but there are things that are not making sense to me so one day there was this lady who was leaving the town i was in that is called a yogis going to nairobi and then he asks me she asks me can you take care of my whole my house while i go so when i'm in that house i slept in the morning i wake up and i turned on the tv so i turned on the tv and somebody sitted there sitting and talking about god and he was talking about the true nature of god now this there are two things i've never seen in my christian life number one a person preaching while seated you know in kenya we treat we preach in power like right now i'm really trying to control myself you know so so this guy is just he's just seated there and and talking so that was that really struck me then the next thing is what he was preaching about the true nature of god and that is andrew womack watching the gospel truth and he said something that i had been thinking in my mind for so long the scripture that says that can a mother forsake her own cycling that i the lord will never forsake and say wow just what i had been thinking about so this is how god is and then i started going there almost every day monday to friday listening to this message so as i was listening to that message um i'm sorry i quit church i was saying that this this this is just what i want to hear because it was different than what i was hearing in church then something happens i begin to share the gospel and people get saved but i don't direct them to church so i'm called to our village home to go and pray for a woman who is sick i take a friend of mine called ken say can come come and see what jesus does so we go this woman was bed first and then i begin to share healing testimonies with her not healings that have happened through me what i have heard by listening to andrew womack so she hears this mess these testimonies and she says to me george now i don't want healing now i want something bigger than healing so i say what is that she says you know five years ago we were in a bus traveling somewhere and then we got an accident and then a road pierced my womb and i was expected at that time i was taken to the hospital and they removed the womb so from that time i have not been able to give birth to a child because they removed my womb now my in our country there is i mean people are polygamous so my my husband decided to marry another woman who can give birth now the two of them are now despising me so my emotional pain is bigger than my physical pain do you think god can give me a child i say yeah and i remember what andrew wumack says that some people think that if you want to be healed i mean god can heal you from a small thing but if you want this healing and dieseling and that one then it will make the heavens go blackout no he can just he can just do all of that so i say well god can heal you and also create a home for you so let's just pray so we prayed nothing happened that we could see and we left her there still bed first then aft a few weeks later i'm being told that the woman is walking without canes because the days she used to walk she was using canes then after some months my dad calls me and said george do you know what has happened in the village that woman is expected [Applause] the following year i am called to go and dedicate the child so when when she was expectant they gave the child the name they called her jojodaro then the child was born and she happens to be a girl [Laughter] so they said okay this happened because of faith and it is because god has been merciful to me so she is faith mercy so so the child when that happened these people and almost the old village came to my mom's house and church started there so they told me you teach us the word of god i taught them and then we had to move the church from my mother's house we built a church so that's the first church that we built there in the village that's me there and i began to pass a discharge the message was good but life was difficult so i said no i'm leaving you guys i'm going to look for job so i went to nairobi to look for something that i could do so while in nairobi i get connected to sarah now i got into facebook through my girlfriend at that time up to that time i could not operate anything on a computer or i had not touched things like that so she she would i would write a post on a paper and then give her and she goes to post for me on facebook she will also get friends for me on facebook and stuff like that so then we talk with sarah and my wife is like ah somebody wants to meet you somewhere and then we we talk and that's how we went to nakuru and was able to meet pastor clint at the meetings that he was doing there so you see the guy in green there next to clinch so that's me when we attended that meeting and we had a great time of prayer and impartation at pastor towards church it's called freedom fellowship church brother tawet has since gone to be with the lord but this was a very important time for me because at this time god spoke things to me through pastor clint that just starred some things in me so i thank god that with all that life that i was in i was doing the i loved god but even this time i was still in some chaos i mean my girlfriend used to come to my house and the house had nothing no no chair no bed no blanket no no no stove we sit on the bare floor and there are so many holes in in the roof and we look at the light coming in and we are laughing and just having fun but thank god that by the grace of god i got to marry can you imagine and as you can see that girl i'm married up you know yeah so i thank god he has blessed us with three children um xavier who is um uh eight he stands i think he's standing nine now um clint is six um so um when pastor clint came my wife was expectant and we prayed over the baby and we told him that the baby will be called a clinch so yeah so this is supposed to clinch and then yeah actually sometimes he says that you know i'm a pastor i'm pastor clint yeah so while i was in nairobi um i began preaching in nairobi where i began was in the train so how this began was um in this house where i was living sometimes i would go without food and things were difficult so there's a this time that i was lying on the floor i have nothing except a bible and the end rule marks free cds that i could not play unless when i'm going to shave so i go to this place i tell them put that while i shave and i listen so that's how they that's the way that i could listen so i have my bible there and there is this one night that i read psalms chapter one and it just entered my spirit like boom that blessed is the man that does not work in the counsel of the ungodly nor stand on the way of sinners nor sits on the seat of the scornful but his delight is in the law of god that is the word of god and in his law he meditates day and night he will be like a tree planted by the riverside whose leaves shall not wither who also brings forth fruit in its season and whatever he does shall prosper i read i said wow so i shouldn't be little myself because i never went to college i've never been he says whatever he does god tomorrow i will wake up and go out there and do whatever so i woke up and i said god just guide me just lead me to go do whatever and then i enter the train then i feel something like could that whatever be preaching in the train and that's how i began preaching uh in commuter train so we preach in the train moves in in estates taking people to the city center and then they go to work so as i preach in the train sometimes people will make jokes some laugh at me some shout and those kinds of things but god reminded me that his word is like a hammer that destroys a rock into pieces so just keep hitting it so we kept sharing the gospel and we began seeing people getting saved in the train until now it's an organized church courtney olson has preached in that church yeah in the train while the train moves we have people doing present worship sharing testimony someone inviting the preachers from the train now we have decided that um once every week they meet in their different estates and once every month we come up together and just remind ourselves of of the message of grace and sharpen one another and from the train now many of our people have gone back to their villages and planted churches and it's continuing it's a church that goes on monday up to friday every day so i will preach there and then when i reach the city center people go to work i have nowhere to go i go to a place called uhuru pak and i go to cry to god and just pray and i will trust god for literally everything we i taught our guys that we are going to preach and we are not going to collect offerings because there is a mentality that people have with the street preachers and the birth preachers that they are just coming for money so we'll just trust god that times that we will preach and somebody's passing there just squeezes offering in your pocket and god was just providing so as people go to work i go to uhuru back to pray i read a scripture that entered into my heart at the time that things were not working for me life was difficult but the gospel is going forth psalms chapter 34 i will bless the lord at all times his prayers shall continually be in my mouth my soul shall make her boast in the lord the humble shall hear their often be glad this poor man cried and the lord had him and delivered him from all his afflictions oh taste and see that the lord is good blessed is the man who trusts in him all fear the lord you his saints for there is no one to them that fear him the lion may suffer pain and hunger but they that fear the lord shall not lack any good thing am i preaching here so i began i began to feel the goodness of god and to love god and and and just to trust god for little things and then god moved me from the trains we are still going to the streets and he guided me to unga tarangay and i'm sorry to say this i did not like churches so i get to run guy and i go to the slums and in the slums i tell them that i have so good news you just want to hear this and they are like ah no there is nothing good in the gospels i say you just sit down so i would buy them i would i would buy them tea and then they drink i start sharing the gospel just sharing the gospel no praise and worship no prayer nothing just opening the bible and explaining the gospel to them those three people you see behind there god saved in that place right now two of them are the deacons of forward church rongai and as we are preaching in this place it's in in the ghetto and people are smoking weed and all that those kind of things yet friends you remember how paul went to ephesus where they were worshiping diana of ephesus and the bible records that so mightily grew the word of god in ephesus and prevailed so the word of god just grew right here and began to prevail so we when these three people got saved i took them out of that place and brought them to my house so that we started some serious discipleship in my house then they went and brought others who went and brought others until we could not contain them in our house we began to rent a hole so in this hall we started teaching people and discipling them then by some miraculous work of god someone calls me in india that god god is telling us that you come to preach to us do you know me no so it's a long story i find myself in india and we begin in india by doing open air meetings and you may know the stories how that went about so that i withdrew from open air meetings and we started training pastors in india so we you can see the they're carrying some little book there you recognize that is the good news by pastor clinch um so we were training and equipping so we planted a church there this is in a town called tenali where we planted eternal life bible church and they have ended up planting about 15 churches right now that have come from these the pastors there there are those who are pastors already and those who came in there and that's going on so by the power of god i've been able to be going to india and doing that work then this was now in 2013 then 2014 pastor clint talks to me george you are already discipling people don't you think god would want you to plant a church no pasta no [Laughter] i'm excited about the word but i don't like church and more than all i don't want to become a pastor i just want to share the word of god so we talk and then it's like what you're doing is a church already because these people come every week so it's a long story and for the church was planted in ungatarangai so yeah and i want to thank you brothers and sisters because you trusted me a total stranger that you had not seen and sent all these dollars to kenya to a stranger thank you for listening god to god and doing that so i am an ordained pastor that's my ordination right there silly and i and the pastors around there see how courtney was staying the process of god yeah so and then i was commissioned um right there and we started doing discipleship in many places villages even the pokoch that you are supporting there these are people in spokane when we went there at first in porcot um my message was not connecting with people because i preached about jesus christ dying for us on the cross and there was they were like what is a cross oh wow so i had to change my message and begin from the beginning and that started really catching fire so you see me there with pastor john cena who is now serving there and the lord is doing great things so as we move to the villages we began to see a problem in the villages like in our village churches you could go to a village where nobody has a bible including the pastor so in our village my mom had a bible there's a pastor who used to come there to study god's word and cram it many pastors in kenya they master the word and then go preach it but this particular day he comes instead of leaving the bible after finishing he went with it so that on sunday there was no bible so i told people we need to pray that we have bibles in our churches and then we prayed and god supplied some nine bibles you see me then with my son xavier just blessing the lord and just taking that as as jesus took the five loaves and and and fish lifted to the father and he multiplied to feed the multitudes and we were just trusting god for that and god um just did that um last year in january we moved from ongatarongai to the village see my kids there xavier clinton brianna that is the lake victoria where we are now and now we are serving here at forward church runway for the church longer is going on we now have five churches foreign forward church rangwe forward church ubanda forward church canaan and all these churches we we send people who go around encouraging the pastors who are there and you remember us i mean in 2019 when i was here i was raising funds that we can get an suv to help us take the message and visit these churches and go even to parker and other tribal places that are not easily accessed and i thank god for his blessing and for your support you can see the vehicle there i mean being dedicated by the members of ford church runway now having received this we began to take the message i mean in many places and goddess in the village opened so many places i mean we go to catholic schools where there is no christian union and we are allowed to preach there and plant christian union in catholic schools by the grace of god and you see students coming to jesus christ getting saved and what's happening is that we preach we send our people to preach in school once every week just one preaching and then there is something we call a week weekend challenge that goes from friday to sunday where we now teach discipleship and just training the students to be able to pasta in their schools and then in march last year coffee heats and when coffee hits everything is shut down no school no markets and life is difficult now people are dying now not because of covered but because of hunger because the government has shut down everything so a friend talks to me and says george i'm about to take my life but i know you you're the one that can help me please help me with seven dollars please help at that time he has been thrown out of his house him and his wife and children and they're there being rained on in the street and honestly at that time i did not have that we were helping with so many people and there was just nothing so i talked to another friend i talk also to pastor clint and god provides through you dear ones that we were able to help this brother and his family get back to the house and pay his house rent for three months up front and we got him food and we were able to help others and now we started going to our churches to help with the people in our churches but people would come who are not members of our churches because we are going around now because i had this i was allowed to to drive so we buy food and we help people so um we were helping the widows the orphans and some people who will just give some somebody food and then they just begin to cry out there i mean somebody has been not having food and then you just place that in before them and many people are being attracted and then we felt like we are not going to be able to sustain this and god uses some friends here and helps us to begin some doing some project at home where we started the fish farming so what we do with the fish farming is this um we we we we have a land that we are using for demonstration when we are teaching people because we brought some people to help when we were going to the village we did not know these things we didn't have these ideas so we pay some people and they come and they begin to train our people in kitchen gardening so all the time that the markets were locked our people were having their own food because they are planting their own growing their own food now right now markets have been opened but our people are finding out that they have money because they're not buying those things they used to buy but even more than that other people are coming to buy from them and it is also helping the church because the offerings are now beginning to go up yeah because people have something to offer those who don't have money they bring their fruits and vegetables and stuff like that which can also be being used to help other people so from the from the kitchen gardening we began to teach about raring chicken because we have chickens there that are strong but the problem is that they take long to grow so we brought in a breed that grows very fast but its problem is that it doesn't hatch its eggs so we bring them they lay the eggs and we take it we give to our chickens that hatch so they hatch the eggs and we have more chickens so we get we get a lot of eggs people come to buy eggs for food we give them some so that they can start they also take these eggs they give to their their local chickens and they have more chickens so they have chicken for food and even for selling so other people come to buy that so the thing that happens is that the droppings from the chickens we put in a sack and put in the pond and when you bring it out the flies come and it forms worms and that is food for fish so when the fish eat that you can see the color of that water it is um fertilized i mean something like that just because of the the worms and the droppings from the from the fish and then the pond has inlet and outlet the outlet now goes to demonstration farm and the farm has green leafy vegetables all the time even when it's not raining because we have the pond there and the water that goes in it it's just so good so this is really changing our ministry and we are trusting god that we can increase more points because we have people that are really good in the gospel but their life is pathetic i mean they're the ones that their children cannot go to school so somebody somebody can pastor for three months and then stop go to another city to look for job when they are gone the church is disorganized and the family is disorganized so through this we are beginning to move towards our sustainable income for our ministry especially the ministers there and even the village around because what's happening here is now being felt in the whole village and we give god glory for that praise the lord amen so i'm here to share with us a word um that god has placed in in my heart and i just call it from faith to faith i'll be sharing from the book of romans chapter 1 verses 14 all the way to 17 and the bible says i am a debtor both to the greeks and to the barbarians both to the wise and to the unwise so as much as is in me i am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in rome also um i am ready to preach the gospel to you or you know i don't know what the justice is doing there because verse 16 is kind of missing server 16 says okay okay for i am not ashamed of the gospel of christ for it is the power of god to salvation for everyone who believes for the jew first and also for the greek for in it the righteousness of god is revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith so these are the scriptures that we want to look at today as we share this word that i give the title from faith to faith so paul in writing the book of romans he begin in chapter one verse one by saying paul a born servant of jesus christ called to be an apostle separated unto the gospel of god so paul says he is separated and he knows what he has been separated unto unto the gospel of god so i begin by asking a question what is the gospel you know the word gospel comes from a greek word you angelion that simply means good news good news it can be good news of any kind you like when i was coming to kenya i had things i mean there's a time i was i was i mean when i was coming to america live in kenya i had fever and chest congestion and coughing everything was looking like covered and i was told cancer the doctor said cancel your trip to america i said no i'm not counseling so i kept moving forward and you know you cannot travel until they test you so i was like i know i don't want to be found having covered and the coffee is coming i don't want to cough in front of these people you know so they tested me and you know what you angelion i didn't have covered good news so it can be good news from a doctor it is can be good news from your bunker it can be good news from whatever source but this one paul calls the gospel of god good news which comes from god a specific kind of good news now the writers of the new testament used that word for a specific news yet there are many good news that we can have in the world you can have this kind of good news your mother-in-law has canceled a trip to visit you you angelia okay okay okay though i have a good mother-in-law a godly woman of god but you can have good news from any source the writers of the new testament took that word to describe a specific kind of good news that is almost too good to be true as they used it they meant something that is almost too good to be true it could be like atlanta falcon won the super bowl you angelion yeah something that is almost too good to be true [Laughter] so so that's how they began to use this word the gospel referring to this kind of good news so let me ask ourselves a question can we know the gospel is there a specific gospel or everything is just the gospel whatever anybody preaches now paul says i am not ashamed of the definite article a particular one a specific one so he starts in verse 14 and he says i am a debtor both to the barbarians and to the jews both to the wise and to the unwise both to the poor and to the rich to all people groups i am a debtor paul viewed himself as a debtor and his indebtedness was extended to all people groups isn't that what the lord jesus christ said to us freely you have received freely give go to all people groups and preach the gospel so paul felt indebted and then in verse 15 he says therefore as much as is in me i am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in rome also paul says i'm ready and god should be the life of every believer the life of preparedness be ready in season and out of season paul says i am prepared by using the word ready what he's saying is that the gospel is in the forefront of my thinking i am always looking out for an opportunity to share the gospel i am eager to share this good news can we confidently say that about ourselves because paul is kind of saying like when i get a business opportunity when i am in the plane with somebody he sits next to me i am just looking god how can i turn this conversation to the gospel and we should be eager to share this good news because this is the most important message that god has for mankind so what is the gospel it is good news that comes from a holy god to sinful mankind and it is about how they can be saved from a hell they deserve to a heaven they don't deserve and have a wonderful relationship with the creator god of the bible this is the gospel this is the message that god has for people and this is the message that god wants people to know in verse 16 paul says for i am not ashamed of the gospel of christ because it is the power of god that brings salvation to everyone who believes wow in verse verse 15 he said therefore as much as is in me i am ready to preach the gospel dear friends the gospel is a message to be preached not a ritual to be administered you've got to be get baptized go to sign a card you got to join a church you've got to do this and you have to do this no it's the message to be communicated and god wants people to hear it clearly and we need as believers in christ to be clear about the gospel and take this gospel out it is a message to be preached and it saves only a specific kind of people says in verse 16 that i am not ashamed of the gospel of christ because it is the power of god unto salvation for everyone who does what who believes the true good news is whosoever believes gospel not whosoever does something for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes it is whosoever believes gospel it is a message to be preached and it saves those who believe paul says whether it was i or day so we preached and so you believed the response of the gospel is simply faith alone in christ alone not so many things john 3 16 a verse that has five parts god so loved the word that is god doing something that he sent his only begotten son that is god doing something that whosoever believes who is doing something there god or you you shall not perish who is giving that promise god but have everlasting life who is giving that promise god so god does all the four things only one thing is remaining for mankind one thing alone namely to believe why is it difficult for us to preach such a pure gospel peter and john i mean paul and silas they are in prison and they are bound and then the power of god does things there and the jailer wants to kill himself because he thinks this these people have escaped and then pete and john says no don't kill yourself you are all here. then he sees what has happened and he wants what they have he says to them sars what must i do to be saved this is the question the world is asking sars what must i do to be saved brothers and sisters what must i do to be saved and the problem is that the world is full of preachers who are telling them 10 things 7 things 15 things to do to be saved paul and silas told them believe on the lord jesus christ and you shall be saved you and your household what shall i do no it is not about what you do it is believe faith alone in christ alone praise the lord so this is the message of the gospel that god wants people to understand and to respond to in verse 17 someone was helping me there verse 17 he says foreign aid in what in the gospel the righteousness of god is revealed from faith to faith as it is written they just shall live by faith in it the righteousness of god is revealed friends the gospel brings something because humanity has a need and the need of humanity is like a two-sided coin on one side we have something that we don't need we have seen and sin has consequence the wages of sin is death on but that is not the only problem on the other side of the coin we need something that we don't have we need righteousness because even if you could be washed all your sins that you don't have any sin you know you still go to hell because only perfect people can live with the perfect god so you do not only need to have negative sin you also need to have righteousness a righteousness that is acceptable in the presence of a holy god so to share about this i would want to give an illustration with some two volunteers here let's get a couple teenagers back there oh yeah some two guys come on here yeah okay so you just stand facing this direction no yeah here yep okay is this in your way here no it's okay so um you're going to represent god and he will be he will represent mankind so we are going to show here by way of illustration the need that mankind has so when god was creating man god said let us make man in our own image and in our own likeness so i want you to help me preaching here so god created mankind what innocent so hold here so mankind was innocent because he is innocent and god is a holy god by the way when we say god is holy we need to understand what that means holy means he is pure he is clean and not even a dot of darkness or sin can be found in him bible says god is light and in him there is no darkness at all holy also means unique that's why we have holy bible it is just it is just like any other books but it is unique different from any other it is unique book because it talks about a unique god there are many gods in africa the god of the lures the god of the courts the god of the challenging but there is a unique god who is the creator god of the bible namely yahweh so we have to set them apart holy means the unique one the only true god so this god because man was created innocent now god could be what to man a friend of mine and god would visit with man every day they are friends yeah god is a friend of mine but god told man something in genesis chapter 2 verse 16 and 17 you can eat from all the trees in the garden but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat from it because the day you eat from it you shall surely die brothers and sisters the wages of sin is death from the beginning i am afraid in many preaching that i've been hearing from america it be it is becoming uh useless or despised to talk about death in the gospel there are even people who say that we were never separated from god it was just an illusion in our mind there is no hell so man was created and told that the day you ate from that tree you shall surely die so god has given him a word then satan comes in and says did god really say let me tell you something god is hiding something from you i am your friend god is not a true friend in fact if you ate this thing you will be like god and man now has to choose either the word of god or the word of satan sadly they chose the word of saturn and man cast off his innocence when that happened now man has to put on another garment the government of what sin the bible says by one man's disobedience sin entered the world so sin has now entered the world and because sin has entered the world and god is a holy god god now puts off the garment of a friend and he puts on another garment because of his nature remember he is a holy god and he puts on what garment perfect judge and as a perfect judge god now has to judge man whom he loves he loves him but he has become a sinner now as a perfect judge god cannot just overlook his sin god must punish sin but god loves the man who has sinned therefore what will god do second samuel chapter 14 verse 14 the bible says that we shall all die and we are all like water spilled on the ground that cannot be picked up again but god does not kill anyone therefore he divides us away so that the estranged person may not be cast out from him so god has begun to divise away so that he can punish sin without punishing the sinner so this is the story of the bible the story of redemption how god has come up with a way to punish our sins remember when adam and eve sinned in the garden of eden they began to experience death remember god told them the day that you eat it you shall surely die but we see they ate it did they drop dead no they didn't drop dead but they began to feel shame and they began to feel guilt feelings that come with separation and they are hiding and they don't want to meet god who was their friend now where where is certain dear friend now he's like peek-a-boo he has done whatever he did but man is now there feeling all these things so what is death in the bible the word death carries the idea of separation it starts with spiritual death what is spiritual death when the spirit of god is separated from the spirit of man and that's what happened here this separation is a very important component of the gospel that when people don't get it they will not know really what christ did for us from that time that we were separated from god every human being is born in the realm of spiritual death the bible says we were dead in our sins and trespasses we are born spiritually dead we are born spiritually separated from god we are born dead already we are born in the realm of death no wonder we need to be born again because we are born wrong so this is what has happened and when man sinned like that reminds me of the time that i was living in this slum house and one time i went preaching in the village when i came back and opened the house the house was smelling a dead rotten rat smelling so bad and i said hi i know for sure that is not my rat ah where is it coming from so it happens that my neighbor had put poison for rats in his house the rat ate and came and died in my house so it's thinking in my house i begin to search my clothes i search everywhere i look for it and oh my i find it find the rat now let me ask you if that was you and you find that rotten muggled stricken rat how do you dispose of it do you say it is smelling in this corner let me put it in this other corner do you say that what do you do you throw it away like somewhere here no yeah no you throw it very far away now we also who have seen the bible says that even our prayers is like smelling things it's rotten before a holy god therefore god has to take us and throw us away in a place of separation forever from god a place of torment called the lake of fire but god doesn't want that yet remember what i said death means separation just like physical death what happens at physical death the spirit and soul of man is separated from the body we bury the body the spirit and soul goes to god separation but there is another kind of death that the bible calls the second death it calls it the second death because maybe the physical death gives us an illustration a picture of what that second death looks like when somebody dies physically and you go to the funeral what is the mood there somber people are crying it's pain they don't like it now there is a place of the second death where there is that mood and even more than that not for a week but forever and god doesn't want anyone to go there so remember we are sinners you want to hold this as well grab it in a way that you can oh it's going yeah there we go this one's on here oh the wrath [Laughter] so he's representing our sinner he has become all that seen and the rat and god as a perfect judge has to look at this person and hit the gavel condemned to the lake of fire but in his love he looks for a way in which he can restore and bring back to him these people that have sinned john chapter 3 verse 17 the bible says for the son of man did not come into the world to condemn the world why did he not come into the world to condemn the world because the world is already condemned verse 18 he that believes in him is not condemned but he that does not believe does not believe in him is condemned already why because he has not believed in the only begotten son of god so the world is condemned already we are already condemned there is none righteous no not one there is a god between a sinful man and a holy god and that gap is so huge and the gospel wants us to understand that separation when i was coming from kenya i flew to ethiopia then i flew from ethiopia the ticket said it's from ethiopia to chicago and when we began i met seven hours flight okay seven hours let me just wait and then three hours oh yeah we're about to be there one hour 30 minutes we are landing and then we land i've reached chicago but people are not getting out of the plane i say what's wrong what are they waiting for they we stayed in there friends turned out we were not in chicago we were in ireland yeah it's a place called darbane dublin dublin ireland that's where we are so we have to fly again this plane has stopped there nobody getting out it just ain't there to fuel oh and then we now have another six hours from that place to chicago and as we flew from that place we are going i look down and i see a big ocean and this ocean we are flying one hour we are still flying over that ocean two hours three hours four hours how big is this ocean it's not ending i look at the the the computer behind that seat in front of me and i look and we're still flying the ocean man and then i began to think about the gap between mankind and god how vast it is that for example you are in africa and somebody's in chicago and says to you i'm going to give you um 100 billion dollars all the gold and silver in chicago all the houses and all the cars and everything that you can want but this is the condition you have to swim your way from africa to chicago in three hours and then you see people in africa oh yeah yeah let's do it and then they begin to do it and you know as you are looking at these people who are beginning to swim surely one of them will have swam maybe three miles deep another one two miles another one mile another one is just knee knee-deep waters so comparing people there are those who are better than others what about the person waiting to reward them in chicago how many of these people is he seeing none of them so is with our god in heaven we may be righteous than other people but god who looks at his perfect standards sees us and says there is none righteous no not one so it's not about swimming your way it's not about rolling your sleeves it's not about trying as best as you can the best of us cannot even approach the holiness of god the vast between mankind and god is so big him somebody sang at him that said all the love that wrote salvation's plan all the grace that brought it down to man all the mighty gulf that god did spurn at calvary all the mighty girls dear friends that this gulf cannot be crossed over by changing your behavior this gulf cannot be crossed over by joining a church this gulf cannot be crossed over by giving a tithe this gulf cannot be crossed over by making a promise there is nothing that you can do to cross this guard but god in his love decided to do something he decided to calm down himself in the person of the perfect sinless jesus so who is jesus he is god almighty who entered into our world through a miraculous path he is the creator god himself that created everything for in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god and the word became flesh and dwelt among us so why did he come into this world isaiah chapter 5 verse 3-7 the bible says all we like sheep have gone astray each one going his own way but the lord laid on him the iniquity of us all this is the reason why jesus came into this world when he comes into the world hebrews chapter 10 the bible says that when he comes into the world he says sacrifice and offerings you have not desired but how bodhi you have prepared for me therefore i come to do your will oh god this is what he came to do to bear our sins and why am i using this garment thing you know dear friends the bible says in leviticus chapter 17 verse 11 that the life of a living thing is in the blood and i have given you blood upon the altar to make a tournament for your souls for it is the blood that makes a tournament adam did not know that once they had sinned they tried to atone for their sins by fig leaves they did not know that it is the blood that makes atonement what were they doing they were doing outward religion outward appearances and it is a lot in america and in kenya all over the world outward appearances jesus looked at the pharisees and he told them you are like whitewashed tombs that outwards out outside appear as holy and good and neat but inside is full of dead rotten bones so the problem is that god does not look at the outside he looks at the inside so what is it that can clean the inside he says blood then cain and abel come in and cain begins to approach god by own idea for us for the church people we have our idea of how to be saved all ideas cannot save anyone cain did his own idea but he did not bring him salvation so let me rush through this real quick so jesus christ comes and the bible says the lord laid on him all our sins you wanna hold that the lord laid on him all our sins that the saints of the whole world god has taken and laid on jesus the all-knowing god who sees everything took all the saints of all the world and laid on jesus and jesus boyed and what happened the wages of sin is death and dear friend that's what jesus did for you and me he died for our sins so that on the cross there jesus died for our sins and when he died for our sins god took all that and threw it away it's done saying is no longer an issue between god and people sin has been dealt with so god is calling people for something now you see saying has been dealt with but this man still lacks something so that is the one side of the coin where we had something that we don't want we had seen so it has been dealt with but there is another thing that he needs in order to have a relationship with god he needs righteousness so jesus died on the cross i want you to squat and then he was buried the bible tells us in romans chapter 4 verse 25 that he was delivered given to die for our sins and was raised for our justification so on the third day he rose again come up on the third day he rose again now he lives forever to bring forgiveness of sin and righteousness as a gift bible says in the book of acts let it be known to you that through this man forgiveness of sin is preached and through him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law of moses what is the meaning of justified it means to be declared righteous by god romans chapter 1 verse 17 where we read says that in the gospel the righteousness of god is revealed from faith to faith what is the fact the first faith it goes on to say as it is written the just so the first faith is faith that makes you the just that is justified declared righteous by god how does that happen when a sinner comes to jesus christ through faith alone in christ alone now jesus take the this garment and the sin is clothed with it you are now the perfect sin the perfect sinless jesus for he made him who knew no sin to be seen for us that we might become the righteousness of god in christ jesus can we clap for them as they go back thank you so much so dear friends as we close it doesn't end at just being justified it says they just shall live by faith there are many people who have become the just they're justified they're excited about that but they don't know that that is the beginning of a life to believed so there is from faith to faith the first faith declares you righteous before god then the second faith says they just shall live by faith how do we live the christian life the same way we received it colossians 2 verse 6 the bible says as you have therefore received christ jesus the lord so walk in him so there is receiving him and there is walking in him and it's all by faith second corinthians chapter 5 verse 14 the bible says that the love of christ compels us controls us pushes us for we thus judge that if one died for all then all died and he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves is that how is that not how the world lives they live for themselves those who live should no longer live for themselves but live for him who died for them and rose again so we have to live the christian life for jesus christ serving him living for him honoring him there is a life to believe there is a work to be done and it has to be done by faith in christ jesus i tell you the world especially i'm sorry to say america is really struggling with identity issues i mean somebody can wake up and say i feel like i'm a boy what's that what's that i feel like i feel like i feel what do you feel no there is no other identity god only has two identity in adam and in christ and he says for us in adam all die even so in christ all shall live so the christian life is about how you can exit adam and enter into christ once you have entered into christ there is a life to believe and you leave it by first of all knowing who you are in jesus praise the lord because living stems out of being who you are is the basis of what you do my time is gone we have to finish right now and i just want us to rise up just rise up before god and uh and just just thank god for the gospel just thank god for the work of jesus christ that the lord has done for us just thank god for who we are in jesus christ that we have been made ambassadors of christ and god has given us a mission to go there and speak to the world and and and reconcile people back to god and just ask god for boldness and just step out in the anointing to be able to communicate the message of the gospel for god wants to use us hallelujah father i praise you god i thank you thank you loving father for the wonderful message of the gospel thank you for loving us so much my god that you have saved us from so great at death and you will still save us and we believe that at the end you will deliver us from this world my god so thank you my god for this message that gives us my father um a unity with christ as your word says that when that when one is joined with the lord he is one spirit with the lord may we know this oh god and we get out of this place knowing that we are one we have been redeemed from from from sin and from hell and now we have a life that the world needs and we want to be able to share this with the world may your name be glorified father for in jesus name we pray amen thank you [Applause] so there may be somebody watching online or even in the room never accepted christ do you want to you want to just pray for those oh yeah because there may be a year from now somebody may watch this on youtube even just yeah lead them through that um whoever is there that you've listened to this message and you want to become a child of god what of god tells us in john chapter 1 verse 11 and 12 that he came to his own but his own did not receive him and you you are there you want to receive him it says to those who received him even those who believed in him he gave them the right to become children of god you can place your faith in christ right now the word is near you in your heart and in your mouth that if you believe in your heart that jesus christ died for me and you confess with your mouth that jesus is lord then you are saved for everyone who calls on the name of jesus they shall be saved so i want to give you an opportunity to call on the name of jesus right now will you say this with me lord jesus lord jesus i come to you i know that i am a sinner and i cannot save myself but you came to save sinners you took my sins and died in my place you were buried but you defeated death you defeated sin you defeated saturn you rose again and now you have a gift for me and your word tells me that the gift of god is eternal life lord i come to you that i may receive it i confess that you are god and you are my lord i receive you now thank you jesus for making me a child of god i am born again i receive the spirit of god i receive the spirit right now and i'm a child of god amen amen amen amen amen [Applause] so you know we we have been supporting and will continue to support and you know there's lots going on if you want to give today or in the upcoming days or weeks just go to forward.church most of you already know we have a drop down in our fund area for forward church kenya forward church kenya all goes to what he's doing and what he's doing is planting i mean you didn't mention there are five forward churches but there are 24 other churches that have been planted by him or others that are you know that are moving this direction those other 24 churches are not quite ready to kind of be released in this message they still need to grow in their training and become more established in the finished work so you know it's an ongoing process and there's a lot of work to do he's working on a school and then i know the liberators here a lot of you guys don't know chris and brittany liberture you guys watch all the way from lula georgia they are chick-fil-a operators up in that area they have been involved with what george is doing you you are working with them on kind of helping the mindset of the business side of the sustainable income and all of that and you said it's changed the economy of your village so much so that even the chief which is like the mayor is paying attention to what's going on there and you know so i see god raising him up even more so to show other villages how to you know have sustainable uh economies at near churches that draw people to the church and it's it's there's so much going on one pond is about three thousand dollars there are chicken projects going on you know there's number ultimately he's trying to get to about fifty thousand dollars there are other uh churches and ministries and people that are helping you know so praise god for that um but we get to be a part too and we will continue to sew monthly we cover the land lease for forward church i get the roll tongue roller yeah and uh you know so we would love to pay off that property that is a and you know that's a different project that's about 40 000 you know so we just do what we can right we just continue to move forward when we do what we can and we be a blessing as we can and we just trust god to just work all these details out so we are committed to this ministry we're going to continue to sow into um forward church and then also all these other projects that are happening and we just do it together and we watch the kingdom spread amen amen so let's just extend your hand up here let's just pray for george and leah and all of the churches all of the pastors for forward church father we thank you we thank you for this family that has said yes to you we thank you for the work that is happening in kenya although we thank you for kingdom connections and strategies we thank you for incredible abundant financial blessing and i thank you for peace and strength and george and his family as they as all of these people are there's so much need there's so much just humanitarian need the poverty the food the clothing the shelter all the basic needs father i thank you that you are giving him incredible blessing you are blessing abundantly the work of their hands so that everything they put their hand to shall prosper with the farming project and the fish projects and the chicken projects father abundant but we agree with you for that they will be a blessing to their village in the surrounding villages to spread the gospel of the kingdom to point all people back to you lord jesus by the way just thank you thank you that you're strengthening him you're giving life and healing to his physical body as he travels throughout the states ministering in churches and homes and just experiencing the the road travel weariness and missing his family father thank you that you've just given him peace you're helping him settle and you're he knows that you're with him as he goes god father we give you all the glory for all the work that's being done in jesus name amen amen amen yeah so show love george love one more time thank you i just i just heard a clarity of vision and of purpose um and that the same as i said on friday night just darkness will flee in your path and um i also just saw a an increase in the people around you that are serving with you that their belief in healing and how to minister healing to the people because that needs to be like one of the biggest things um so just an increase in their belief in being able to pray for people and heal people and speak this truth amen amen amen well love you guys just stand up on your feet if you would father we thank you for the opportunity to gather thank you we thank you that you are seeking to bless us so that we can be a blessing so we just open our hearts to you to receive all the blessing that you've already given us in christ to walk in that boldness to be ambassadors for your kingdom and be a blessing just say that say i am a blessing i am everywhere i go everywhere amen amen jesus said you must be born again to enter into his kingdom he's done everything to provide eternal life for you and you only receive it by grace through faith and we want to help you be sure in your salvation you know maybe you're new to christianity maybe you're discovering things about god for the first time in your life and you don't really know what it's all about i've been there trust me i wasn't raised in a christian home i didn't know anything about god when i got born again and tried to approach the bible and it didn't make sense to me so we want to help you if you go to forward dot church and click on who is jesus we have a simple article on there that explains salvation everything he did for you how to begin to read the bible and start to live a christian life and incorporate his principles and how to engage the holy spirit for empowerment you know his grace wants to transform you his love wants to make you whole and we want to help you if you've made the decision to be born again today for the first time or maybe even a re-commitment you're just not even sure what to do how to approach the bible reach out to us email us at info forward.church or call our office 770-828-5826 go to our website find the article on who is jesus and get started he loves you he's for you he will lead you and guide you and we want to help you [Music] if you'd like to give today you can give directly at our website forward.church give or you can text any gift amount to 84321 thank you so much for your generosity would you like to stay connected with us then visit forward.church connect and click online guest you'll receive texts and emails with links to free resources and notifications when we're going live on facebook and youtube you are invited to join our facebook group where you can interact with our pastors and our local and online church members visit forward taught church and click online community under the ministries tab or go to facebook.com groups forward church thanks for watching today i hope you got something helpful out of this message that you can apply to your life if you did and you like what you heard we have hundreds of free resources available online at forward.church or on my blog at clintbuyers.com we also have a church youtube channel i have a youtube channel we have soundcloud spotify you name it we have it out there go like and subscribe to our social media platforms and share those you know it's it's really an opportunity for evangelism to get these materials out online and you can help us i would ask you to consider supporting forward church financially but then you can also be a great help by going to these social media platforms follow the accounts like and subscribe to the videos that will drive up our viewership and we will reach more people together thanks again for watching be sure to like our facebook page and subscribe to our youtube channel so you don't miss out on any of our new content we invite you to make the journey experience transformation from the heart through our free discipleship resources available at forward dot church slash the journey there you'll find free online courses recommended reading and other resources for tons of free messages and other great resources go to clintbuyers.com [Music] you

Channel: Forward Church

Views: 76

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: george odero, pastor george odero, from faith to faith, forward church kenya, kenya, clint byars forward church, forward church clint byars, forward church, clint byars, bible study, the body of christ, words of knowledge, conversations with god, core values, kingdom of god, grace church, finished work, mind renewal, finished work of jesus, new creation church, discipleship, new testament, legalism, new covenant church, bible study with me, the new covenant, living by faith

Id: nRtSROGfHao

Length: 84min 33sec (5073 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 28 2021