Rolland Baker - Iris Minstries "Love Them to Life" Conference

the greatest scholars in the last century spend their lives trying to figure out what's true and not true in the Bible and it's where have you been to a church where they just normally just raise the dead and you know drink water into wine and the difference between church as we've experienced it and the Bible is considerable and I just pretty much had given up well my grandfather saw great things but it's two generations ago and I don't have never met anyone like him since and he's dead you know I knew about speaking in tongues and a few things but mmm it's not like the Bible you know the Holy Spirit came in the Bible just he just blew up the place then a red male second book the gentle breeze of Jesus and that was even more devastating because not only does God do miracles but he makes you feel loved by him a totally new concept in the evangelical were like to stop that just don't be influenced by feelings let your mind stay in control and if you get any feelings and just keep them under check and under control and don't depend on them and oh my gosh you mean the God perhaps might want you to feel as romantic about him as Sangha songs well to make a very long story short I grabbed a big huge pad of legal paper yellow legal paper and just said that's it that's it I quit I'm done this is it I can't live life the way I've been living it anymore I'm drawing a line this is this is it you know this is ridiculous we're totally missing out here we got to have this and I just started writing a letter handwritten 10 pages yellow legal paper had no idea where Mel was and never never thought he could ever I'd ever see him because he was super famous at the time his book was selling all over the world and no idea where he was even but I was so desperate I just wrote 10 pages and just told him how I felt and where to mail it well just melt re so eighty more hope it took a year for it to get to him and I was ready literally ready to swim the ocean machete through the jungle whatever it took to get a taste of real viable in person do whatever it takes express your interest in god how hungry are you for him tell him you're hungry go after him seek him Jeremiah says you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart Hebrews without faith it is impossible to please God for he who comes to god must believe that he exists and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him don't be passive so God sent Mel to California instead and he called me up instead I went to live with him in his house instead and he became the best man in our wedding instead and the first mission failed we went to was Indonesia and what is it 31 years later mails here with you the Bible is just incredible if you believe it and so iris ministries was founded from day one when Heidi and I first went out on the idea that we are going to go for broke we will die for the gospel we would rather have no mission no church no nothing then resort to usual methods and follow the usual procedures and just have the usual expectations and just live the missionary life as usual and we took off Dean Geneva now you see I would never have had the guts to do that all by myself probably but God knew that see the problem with God is that he knows you you can't fool him you can get money to get a hundredfold return but he knows your real motive he knows why you're giving money he knows if you love him or not he knows if you really trust him or not he knows what you need he actually knows how to satisfy you I hear so much teaching today about changing God's will as though he didn't care about your dreams and your visions and your interests in your heart and your desires but guess what he knows you better than you know yourself he knows how to make you happier than you know how to make yourself he knows exactly what's gonna hit the spot and I had all kinds of relationships before Heidi none of them hit the spot I went to this huge church 25 thousand people and they had a 1500 member college and career class with tons of social life I said forget this I'm not here for social life I'm here for the Holy Spirit I'm just leaving I don't care if I never get married nothing I'm just I just want where God shows up and I heard about this place in Dana Point California bruton God was showing up I only had 200 people in that's not very many girls and that's where I met Heidi delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart the best way to get something from God is don't try to get something from God best way to get monies don't try to get money best way the influences don't try to get influenced the best way to climb a mountain is don't try to climb the mountain delight yourself in the Lord he is enough for you David says who do I have in heaven but you and Earth has nothing I desire but you when you get to that point God will give you anything you want so I met this Heidi and she's just ridiculous in one day she becomes more of a Christian than I had in all those years of school Holy Spirit picked her out before she was born her mother was barren she says God if you give me children the first one's yours and Heidi was tagged on God's Facebook page from day one she had this huge hunger for God ever since she was a little girl God where are you I just want to know you just want to be with you oh my gosh then she had a teacher in sixth grade that told her about missions and told her about serving the poor and just what it was like - oh my gosh Heidi was so sensitive about people and specially unpopular people in school and their less attractive and you know the not in cliques and not cheerleaders and not Barbie dolls and in or foreign or a different race or she just had this natural inborn desire to identify and know people that from the inside and then she met this teacher in 6th grade in a public school who defied all the rules and put up missionary displays on the walls and pictures of refugee camps in Hong Kong and just told them all about what it was like to serve the poor in the mission field in Heidi's going god god somebody I gotta help those people she didn't even know Jesus yet so the Holy Spirit hits her when she's an exchange student on an Indian Reservation in Mississippi and she gets caught up into heaven spends three hours with Jesus who tells her to be a missionary and a minister to Asia England and Africa and when she comes out of her vision everybody's gone out of the church the lights are all out the pastor's waiting in the back and and she's never it's the same sense it's turned into instantly into a street preacher into taking teams out on every weekend every holiday every vacation just turned into an instant missionary in a minister and then she's on a mission trip to Mexico City and God tells her you're marrying Ron Baker and here's the day he's gonna ask you she barely knew my last name the day came 10 o'clock at night she said I've been waiting yep thank you and then I introduced her to my mother turns out she was my her 6th grade teacher I'm just telling you that God's sovereign he knows how to satisfy you he knows how to give you the companion you need and he had the kind of faith I was always looking for I never believed a girl could have that sort never met anyone like that she's willing to just go to the airport without a ticket if God says you're going and your testimony's just blew my mind so this is it this is it there's no choice I have no choice in this matter we're gonna do this thing we're gonna be missionaries so iris ministries about we want to get back to the absolute simplicity and purity of the gospel it we're not having discovered anything new I'm actually embarrassed to have a name like iris okay fact you may wonder what on earth does that mean Heidi had been a ballet dancer for nine years her great goal in life was to be a prima ballerina in New York City like mine was for Caltech in science and God just turned that around overnight but he let her dance for the Lord which she loved to do and so we started off by having a ministry called rainbow productions and we did dance drama and she did the dancing and I did a lot of the acting and photography and different things and we took teams around Asia and Joyce was with us and one of those long trips and on those trips we experienced God taking care of us every single day without knowing the next day where we were going to sleep what we were gonna eat where we were gonna go what what church we were going to visit how we would get there what hotel we were going to be in we would sit on the curbs of airports and just have no idea where we're gonna spend the night no money for hotel hungry and God took care of us every day every day every day every day every day and that was one of the ways that God has prepared us for what we've seen in Africa wow that was exciting so we took off to Asia we did dance drama but a lot of people didn't like the word rainbow productions because it sounded new-age well I thought God had it first the rainbow to us meant different colors of the rainbow representing different talents well have different talents and abilities and many of us have creative talents and they've all have different colors and you put them all together and you get a beautiful rainbow when the Sun shines through so we called ourselves rainbow productions but we've got so many objections for that sounding new-age that we chose the Greek for rainbow which is iris and Portuguese arco iris is Portuguese for rainbow and the Mozambicans really love the name so in case any of you are wondering how on earth we've got that name we started off as rainbow of productions we didn't plan on having churches at all we didn't plan on being traditional pastors and evangelists we planned on just doing creative things and films and drama and that kind of thing but soon into our first trips we began to encounter the poor I'll never forget we got to southern Philippines the island of Negros and they were in deep into a recession caused by the collapse of the sugar economy the dictator Marcos had monopolized the sugar economy prices had dropped in they were the streets are just filled with the pores in the starving it was muddy and dirty and miserable and hot and in the rainy and I would watch all these little children in the streets to starving with their parasites and extended stomachs and tearing their little baby brothers and sisters not near having any idea where they're gonna sleep that night or eat and we lived in the house with a rich man who had built the local church and he had his big iron gate and all these kids would come up against the gate and reach inside the through the rails and with her wriggling fingers begging for help and we would have Sunday school with kids coughing up blood from tuberculosis and skin and bones and half the children dying before their five and and I we thought what are we doing just taking around dramas what are we doing just having three day Crusades what are we doing just blowing in and out we would we would come to remote sugar plantations in the Philippines run by communists and they were they were just as ready to shoot us as anything but when they heard the gospel and they saw the power of God I saw the love of God they wept at the dock when we left on her ship and we realized they may never hear the gospel again nobody made ghost see them ever again and they just wept on the dark and we just both realized we can't do this anymore we've got to stop we have to stop I don't care if we just give up Crusades of five ten thousand people in a stadium we're going to stop and take care of at least one person and show at least one person the love of God just one person and that's when Matthew 25 really changed my life I read it all my life but it just I just didn't respond and I want you to hear that verse now Jesus says one day the king is going to divide everybody into sheep and goats the sheep are gonna go on his right side and the goats are going to go on his left how many here interested in what it's gonna turn you into a sheep but not a goat what makes a sheep a sheep and a goat ooh goat and the answer is not that you raised your hand in a meeting or Gabe dedicated your life for whatever it is that people think is their religious duty the answer was in the simplest possible terms that Almighty God could express it jesus said I was thirsty and you gave me a cup of water come and live with me I want you to live with me forever I am going to repay you because you gave me a cup of water I want you to live with me forever you see how God thinks that is ultimate love he responds to the tiniest most basic need that we have now most of big northern Mozambique is very very dry a lot of villages have absolutely no water in the village many villages are so dry that they have to walk hours and hours and hours once a week maybe too far away muddy water hole or muddy river with a jug on their head and that's what they have for the week and one of the most important things we're doing right now is drilling wells we God gave us money to bring in these big well machineries and we got them in there and a well in a village totally transforms the village it becomes the focal point of life and that's where they hear the gospel and that's where they respond because they've been touched at the point of their need if you can't give a thirsty person a cup of water how are you going to communicate the life of heaven to them or the love of God to them in any way it's the most basic thing imaginable and so our idea of pursuing revival and triggering revival catalyzing revival is to find the poorest people we can find the neediest people we can find the lowest the least of these and do absolutely the most basic thing that they need the most I don't care where that takes us in the world and that took us in our case to Mozambique we deliberately researched and found the poorest country we could find with the most devastated infrastructure with the worst medical care the worst half the country would be dead without foreign aid they were held under the heel of five hundred years of colonialism slavery they've had unbelievable natural disasters revolutions 30 years of war total devastation communism collapse of the economy plagues AIDS you name it no law and order no money witchcraft cannibals demon possession that's perfect for the gospel we've been there 15 years and it is so different now it's just unbelievable the president's chief of staff told us we don't want foreign aid and bread and money our people need the love of God and see that country became the most humiliated country in the world absolute bottom rung of the ladder and guess who gets reliable America is the proudest wealthiest most richest influent culturally most influential world country in the world and a lot of it is starving and poor and blind and suffering and lonely struggling miserable lost humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you at the proper time that's what we're seeing so Matthew 25 says because you gave me a drink come live with me he says to the goats I was thirsty and hungry and you didn't give me any water anything to eat I don't really want to live with you forever and that's serious that's really serious so that's when Heidi and I realize it's not a matter of issuing a confession or declaring a statement of faith it really is a matter of doing the most basic simple thing to show somebody the love of God and that starts with little things you don't build big things if you forget the little things we don't have ambitions we never tried to start a lot of churches we never tried to start any churches we didn't try to be a big be a big missionary organization we didn't try to be a people movement we didn't try to have conferences we didn't try to do anything actually except disappear find the least of these and do the most simple basic thing you can for them and ask God to bless it and never try to do big stuff just if God brings the increase in brings a lot of fruit he can do that but the only way we can stay on track is to concentrate on the next little thing in front of you don't try to be impressive don't try to raise a lot of money don't try to organize a huge project just build your life out of absolute humility and purity and simple faith in Jesus just reduce the whole Christian life into just being pure and simple and nice to the next person in front of you you know whatever it is they need whatever help they need however whatever expression they need from God through you do that and the whole world gets built on building blocks like that so the revival in Mozambique is actually not our fault but people were hungry pastors began to demand what the kids were getting and we began to take in just a few kids in the beginning and they right away began to get filled with the holy spirit caught up into heaven dancing around the throne of God on the shoulders of angels and pastors in the area wanted in on it pastors in the bush they insisted they stomp their feet they said we want a Bible School and said we're not we don't have a Bible School he'll make one we dedicated our first kids dorm to pastors from the bush we've got 12 of them after three months we said okay you're free go start praying for every dead person you see and they were still way too uneducated not to do it so they went out and did it and dead people started to get up you know how we pick pastors who can read third grade do you love Jesus yup your pastor they come to school they don't know anything you don't know anything about Moses and Elijah and the Red Dead Sea and crossing the Jordan and nothing coming out of Egypt then no no clue what's Israel had no idea old a New Testament law and grace don't have any clue about anything the Trinity are you kidding me so all they know how to do is raise the dead and our movement is based on God sovereignly coming to totally uneducated ignorant people in the villages many of whom he came to and called long before hide he never got there and this revival is just a display of what God can do but my word to you is don't take that passively don't say well that's what God did for them if he wants to do that for me he can but meanwhile it's back to work tomorrow just don't do that see I don't have a chance to talk this way about money and faith in miracles in a lot of conferences don't have the chance to talk about staying low and humble and not trying to do amazing things and be the great apostle and be the great leader and be there have a great strategy and and you know and just have the whole answer for your life and this conference is just gonna be the most life-changing thing you ever went to it's certainly not gonna be because of me or Heidi or us I want this to conference to be about what God does and what to do when you realize that is to be hungry for him and pursue him come to Mozambique or go to Africa go to China go read testimonies get lay how many of you are not read like a mighty win get it okay just get it I don't care how you have to get it steal it if you have to read testimonies that build you up be hungry stay up I used to get up three o'clock in the morning every morning to read Mel's second book for months and just cry read a little bit at a time and just crying and just just be hungry do something God loves people who love him and who want him above anything and everything and the whole point of your life is to demonstrate the fact that you love God more than anything in this world it is not about how much you can get out of the world and still have God it's about proving that you love him more than this world if anyone loves this world are the things in it the love of the father is not in him first John I hear very few sermons on that and guess what when you love God that much life gets extremely romantic full of joy I'll talk more about this Saturday morning but oh my gosh the joy of the Lord I was not prepared for I resisted it for years I was so serious it scared me Heidi even in ministry to the poor I was so intellectual about it how do you pick your friends the studious librarians that are burdened with the issues of the world or people you enjoy hanging out with same with God exactly I hear some features talk about joy and they they talk about joy very seriously well we all need is more joy Lord give them our joy the joy of the Lord is our strength amen dismiss tears are okay Joy's from the devil so yes this conference these next few days you're gonna hear lots of stories from Heidi and you're gonna be really moved but don't don't get crushed if the joy of the Lord and Eve they romance the being totally in love and faith you see you can't have any of the above without just simple basic faith in Jesus that's the cutting edge of revival it's not the strategies it's not the sociological studies it's not the Seekers sensitivity it's Jesus he has become our wisdom our sanctification our holiness our understanding our patients our peace our fruit our everything everything everything everything he is everything the perfect Express image of the Father if you don't know Jesus you don't know the Father

Channel: The Harvest Sarasota

Views: 31,109

Rating: 4.836431 out of 5

Keywords: Heidi, Baker, Rolland, The, Harvest, Love Them To Life, Iris, Ministries, Stop, For, One, Mel, Tari

Id: 8dDZ2mJKD60

Length: 32min 29sec (1949 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 27 2011