This sermon emphasizes the importance of obedience to God's calling, sharing personal testimonies of facing challenges, imprisonment, and encountering Jesus in times of despair. It encourages believers to have a face-to-face encounter with Jesus, be obedient to His commands, and trust in His love and provision, even in the midst of trials and persecution.

Tsemmeichu Hallelujah! oh Tsemmeichu Hallelujah! hallelujah hallelujah Tsemmeichu Hallelujah! S bracebook Please, please sit. Welcome. Hallelujah. Thank you. So my father asked me to share just for a few minutes testimony. This is a great honor for me to spend a few hours with Pastor Mark during the lunch and after lunch. And we spend sometimes a few hours in a shopping mall and while my wife was a little bit shopping, buying new shoes. Raise guns. I paid attention what Pastor Mark said. Every second sentence, he spoke about the Holy Ghost. I remember many, many years ago, an old pastor would come to me and say, young man, remember this in your life. Either you go with the Holy Spirit, or you are going to die. Thank you, Pastor Mark, to love the Holy Spirit so well, to modeling a life of a servant of God so well for me. Just these few hours this afternoon impact my life deeply. Thank you. And this man of God is so passionate, so on fire. You know this. But at the same time, his heart is so tender, so tender, so soft. I'm really so blessed to get to know you and know your heart. And at the same time, my father is a great man of God. He's a great friend. He always said, oh, my son, I'm not so good a father for you. And I can't play so much with you. I spent over 10 years in prison. But God takes care of me. And from father, I learned how to pray. From father, I learned how to be bold. Father always told me, my son, listen to me. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Last night, he told me again, my son, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear of the Lord means not to have fear of him. But at the same time, it's fear. The fear of the Lord means you are bold. You are bold in his calling. You are bold in his love. You are bold in your identity as son of God in him. Fear of the Lord means you are bold to know. I know who he is. I know who I am. And I know who the evil is. I want to encourage you, dear brother and sister, to have fear of the Lord. To be bold in everything you do for the Lord. Be encouraged. And I know you are the daughter. You are the son of the living God. Just one single small testimony. My father got married. He was preaching in the neighbor village. And he was very young. And there was a young lady. And after father preached, this young lady come to the foreword and received Christ. And this was my mom. And the first day, the policemen come to the meeting. The first meeting. And years later, my mom asked my father, darling, tell me. No, my father asked my mom, darling, tell me. Did they preach so well, so good, so you come to Christ? My mom said, you want to hear the truth? I understood nothing. Nothing good thing. In China, we say father had a half-town. So he speaks very unclear. But father asked mom, why you come to Christ? Mom said, because I saw you. Inside of you, there's something I can't describe, but I can feel. Your voice, your speech, I can understand. But there's a voice in your voice. There's a voice of the living God. There's a voice of the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. And father told mom, you won't really marry me? I'm a preacher. I'm a Chinese preacher. He didn't know he would come to prison. My mom said, yes, I will follow you. Not because you're a rich man. Not because you have many different giftings. Because I saw something in you, inside of you. This is the love to Christ. And my mom got pregnant in seven months with me. And my father got arrested again. And the police man, the police office heard about this. They come to our house. They tell my mom, we have to kill this baby. I was already seven months in the stomach of my mom. He told my mom, we have to kill this baby because his father is a preacher. Appointment for abortion was set for two days later. There's no hope. If my mom will not come, they will come and pick her up. My mom started crying for the Lord. So Lord, children are gifting from you. Don't let this child die. Let this child alive. I will give him for you to preach your gospel. One day later, one day later, I was born at home. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Like Pastor Mark's granddaughter. Yeah, you're here. You're so beautiful. And I was a sermon man. I was born. After I was born, I was just less one kilo, just like this. In China, in the middle of China, in the farmland, there's no hospital, nothing. And in our village, there was 600 people. And all the women come to our house. They want to see this little child. And as they saw this little child, they start laughing. They start to mocking. They start to sing by saying, this child is going to die. And your Jesus cannot help him. My grandma, a lady of prayer, she said, just wait and see. My grandson is going to preach the gospel. So next month, next month, I will turn 32. I've been doing very well. I want to encourage you. Dear fathers, dear mothers, you have your children. They are now not in the right position you wished. The living God in heaven will never forsake your prayer, your tears to your children, to your grandchildren, to your family member. Jesus Christ, a living God, he has the keys of death and life in his hand. Thank you, Lord. Don't fear of the future. No fear of sickness, no fear of anything but the fear of the Lord. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Hallelujah. No turning back. No turning back. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And now say to one another aloud, don't be afraid. Follow Jesus. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. Please be seated in peace, like we say in China. I thank God. I hope my son and daughter-in-law can live together I hope my son and daughter-in-law can live together I am so blessed to have this opportunity to have my own brother, my son, and his wife to work together with me and give testimony about Jesus. He has so many wonderful testimonies about how great God has been, things doing in their lives, and maybe one day he will come back and continue sharing all this, you know. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Amen. And before I preach, I want to introduce this dear sister to all of you. Hallelujah. Amen. Amen. Amen. I am so grateful to her family because 1997, when God opened the possibility for me to leave to China, her father and some other co-workers, they were the ones who took me to the airport in Beijing. I had never exited from China. I had never even seen a passport in my life. But the Lord has spoken to me already earlier that I, you have to, I'm going to move you to new circumstances in your life, and you're going to, you're going to see people with a different face. And these were the words I heard with my own ears early one morning the Lord spoke to me. And I immediately responded, Lord, I'm willing and I'm ready. You called me to be a witness to west and south. I'm ready to move. I'm ready to go. But suddenly their face expression of Jesus was changed and he became like he would be my father and say, by the way, when you get to these new circumstances, you don't understand one word about what they are saying. But then the Lord said to me that he looked right into my eyes with great love and he said, when you go there, because I was asking, what can I do there? And the Lord said, you are to deliver the words I give to you and greet my people in the west. A few days later, another brother, Brother Liu called me and said, the Lord will bring you back to that purpose and vision in your life from the past and it will come about right now. And I said, I am ready to go, but I don't know anything about anything. And the brother said to me, that is enough if you agree to do this. I was a wanted criminal in China. I had just walked out a few months earlier from the security prison. My wife was grateful to the Lord that I had been set free, but she didn't have guts to travel with me to the airport and see what is going to happen when I exit from China. Somebody contacted the father of this dear sister and some other workers and they said, we are not afraid, we can take you to the airport. And they said to me, that the Lord, your God, is going to give you an opportunity. Don't be afraid. Hallelujah. And this is the manner when I walked to the airport. And the first reflection of the immigration officer at the airport was that this picture on your passport, this is not you because there was an old man with no hair and I was standing there with a lot of hair in front of him. And we were shaking and looking again and again into the passport. And the Lord said to me that I have to keep my mouth shut and not say anything and that is the wisdom of the moment. So I did not say anything to their questions. And this officer, he said that it is impossible, this is not you. If I would allow you to go to Germany tonight, tomorrow morning you are back in here because they will send you back. This is not your passport. And people were getting upset behind me in the queue. It became longer and longer and I was just stuck in front of this immigration officer. And finally he just said something amazing. He said, OK, I give you a chance. You can go and try if you get Germany. And he stamped this for me and exited. Hallelujah. That's why I always say the passport is not important but the heavenly calling is very important. Amen. I recognize that these two young people are really sincerely following the Lord in their lives. How many of you have the same desire like I have? I don't only want to believe in Jesus, I want to follow my whole life Jesus. Hallelujah. Now, I tell you brothers and sisters, it's not really enough that you only raise your hand and you wave. You have to take some action. Amen. As we are following Jesus on this way or road of... But the first most important thing, you have to make up your mind. You have to make a decision, I will follow Jesus. And I was sharing earlier today how I responded to that calling of God in my life when I was 60 years old and I started to take action. I will follow Jesus. But on this road to follow Jesus, numerous times I was just let down and I was so weak and there was no hope for my survival in many occasions of my life. But by God's grace, I had again and again these personal encounters with Jesus face to face and He made me stronger and I received something from Him that made it possible for me to carry on my calling. And as I was sharing earlier today, that when I was in the prison in handcuffs and shackles in my leg, I said, Lord, if you only give me your power to carry on my calling, I will Bible that I can study and memorize your word. I am willing to follow you. It was the human way of seeing it was totally impossible situation. They were talking about lifetime imprisonment or them to execute me. So in this impossible situation, I challenged the Lord and I said, if you only give me my Bible. And a couple of weeks later, my prayers were answered and I received a Bible. This was the first time in my life that I received a Bible delivery into my cell, into a Chinese prison. Hallelujah. And in this impossible situation, I memorized the book of Revelation and I memorized the Gospels again. My circumstances were unchanged. And when they came to pick me up from my cell and they were about to release me from prison, my reaction was, I haven't yet finished reading through the whole Bible. It's too early to leave the prison. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I didn't have a clue what they were doing. They just picked up the little stuff that I had in my solitary confinement. They released me from handcuffs and the chain and they brought me into police car and they started to try me and I thought we were on the way to another prison. And it was only a long time after they said, you are actually now set free. You can go peacefully back home. You are free. And I experienced, I did understand the word of God and the spirit of the word of God. But then I was arrested again for third time and thrown into prison. And I experienced when I was third time in the prison, how important is the obedience to the Lord and what happened and the Lord spoke to me through Luke chapter 5 and then John 21. I knew it is true that Jesus said, I know my sheep and my sheep recognize my voice. Brothers and sisters. And when I was in the prison this time, I was really low in my spirit. I was really suffering a lot. Now that time my wife also been arrested and thrown to another prison for female prisoners. And my both legs been crushed by a sledgehammer so I couldn't stand up, I couldn't walk. And this happened when my son Isaac was 11, 12 years old. And my daughter was about six years old. And my both children, because both of us now were in the prison, they were taking care of other mother and other father, which they called mother and father. And as I was in that prison that time, I really was so much suffering in my spirit and my body. I'm not a 24-7 super believer, iron man of faith. But there's something important I want to mention tonight. It's how important it is, no matter what, to continue to follow Jesus in your life. How many of you have this desire that when I'm low and I'm about to lose my faith, that I would have a visit of Jesus, that He will come and appear to me so that I can get a new strength, a new faith to Him. Hallelujah. Now the Jesus disciples, Peter and John and Jacob and Andrew, they had heard the calling and they had responded to the calling of Jesus in their lives. But a few weeks later, they decided to go back fishing. Now, like John 21, when it was recorded, the disciples had heard the wonderful teachings of Jesus. They have believed. They have seen how He was crucified, how He was buried into the grave, and how He was resurrected. And Jesus had appeared to them already. They knew everything. And they have, God's calling, Jesus' calling upon their lives were very clear to them. And they have seen so many miracles, been eyewitnesses to those miracles. And they have heard Jesus saying before the arrest and crucifixion, when they were gathered together, He said that the king of the world, the prince of the world is going to hit the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered and I will die on the cross. And then I will rise up from the dead on the third day. And after I have been raised from the dead, I want you to go to that mountain in Galilee and I will appear to you on that mountain. And Jesus still wanted to remind after His resurrection at the grave when He met with Mary, He said to Mary, go and tell my brothers to go to that mountain. I will meet them there. I will come to them there. They knew all this. But still they went to the Galilee for fishing. They did not go to that mountain that God has told them, Jesus has told them. Peter said, I'm going to go fishing. And the other disciples said, if you go, we will join you. Let's go together. It was quite a strange situation. Jesus was on the mountain waiting for them to come and He discovered they have no intention to come. They actually have gone fishing. Now my brothers and sisters, if you are a truly disciple of Jesus, I tell you, if you don't go looking for Jesus, He will come looking for you. Hallelujah. How many pastors or home group leaders or ministers we have here tonight? Can you raise up your hands? God bless you all. Hallelujah. Now I tell you the secrets for success in your ministry. Make it happen that you are as like Jesus as possible. Be like Jesus. So when the little sheep that you are shepherding, when they don't come to meeting and they don't want to come to listen to you, you go and look for them and you bring them together. Hallelujah. Don't sit in your office and wait for them to come. Go and look for them. I'm one of those. Jesus relocated. He found me. He rescued me. When they had crossed my both legs, I was really wounded. I was suffering. I was so low in my spirit with no faith. And I started to cry out aloud with a strong voice. I was certain that my God has forsaken me and forgotten me. And I said I'm not the 24-7 super believer. But I learned a lesson that our God is merciful and compassionate even the days when we are unfaithful to him. And you say that the pastor is supposed to behave really and never be upset and never be angry and lose his peace. The disciples of Jesus, we go through many different kind of emotions in our lives. When I was under this pressure of circumstances and pain in my body, I could not keep silent anymore. I was crying out the agony and disappointment on my heart. And I would great voice and I shouted, my God, where in the world are you? Don't you see? I reminded Lord you told me many years ago that my help will arrive in the morning. And where is that morning? And I said, Lord, you said to me, be a good and faithful servant. I have been a good and faithful servant, but when is this night going to pass by and a new day is coming like you promised? It was in the middle of the night. I could not sleep at all that night. And I was thinking that God is not even aware of the wave of persecution that was coming upon us and what was happening with us, that he didn't have information about it. I was shouting out aloud. I did not hear Jesus saying anything. The guards, warden, they rushed to my cell and they started to speak to me. And they surrounded the door and the wall of my cell. And they were mocking my God and said, we have told you long ago, your Jesus does not exist. Your God does not exist. It's for no use. You are crying out to your God. And then they were saying to one another, look at this preacher. He has gone crazy. He has lost his mind. Now, the Chinese prisoners may be a little bit different from the prisoners in this country. One thing is you are never allowed to speak aloud and you are never allowed to sing when you are in prison. And when they saw me despise these rules, I was shouting out with loud voice, oh, this man has lost his mind. He's crazy. And at that moment, there was a voice that came to me. Brother Yun, turn around and fix your eyes upon me. It was a voice behind me calling me to turn around and fix my eyes upon him. I was crawling on the floor of my solitary cell. So I turned around on the floor and I started to look away from the cars who were standing on the other side of my cell door. Now, from the time I had been in the prison until that day, nobody ever have called me Brother Yun. They only called me crazy man or cripple man, but nobody has called me Brother Yun. But there was this voice behind me saying, Brother Yun. When this word Brother entered into my heart and my soul, I immediately know this is Jesus speaking to me. It's only Jesus who will address me like a Brother Yun. Hallelujah. And he wanted me to turn around and look away from my opposition. And as I turned around, I continued to pour out agony on my heart. And I had so many disappointments. I was pouring out everything to the Lord. And suddenly my complaint and agony was changed and through the same channel from my inner being, a song started to come forward and I started to sing. You God are my fortress. You are the glory of my life. And you will raise me up from my bed and I will stand my head up straight. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And I knew this is the voice of my Lord. Your problems are very real. All the problems as difficult as your life are real. But the Lord, He is your fortress and He is the one who can change your situation. And when the guards saw the change from my complaint that I started to sing a worship song to God, they said, now this is the evidence. He is totally have lost his mind. And he's mixed up. Why am I sharing again? Only one reason why I'm sharing this part of my life story. And that is how life important is again and again for you and me to have a face-to-face meeting with Jesus in our lives. And after Jesus came to his disciples, he said to them, throw your nets on the right hand side of the boat. You know all of this story. And when the disciples were obedient and they throw their nets into the water, they catch 153 big fishes. The net was filled with big fish. But it did not break. Many people have been trying to figure out what was the secret of the number 153. I know something for sure. When you are obedient to the Lord in your life, your net will be filled with fish. So filled that you cannot get one more fish and the net will not still break. If you would get one more fish into that filled net, it may break. But it's just that amount that the Lord will give you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I experienced how important it is to be obedient to the Lord. And not only that the Lord provided them 153 big fishes, he had already some other fishes on the campfire and ready for them to eat. And after they have all been eating enough, the Lord said something to them. He asked Simon Peter, do you love me? I know that there are many theological ideas what really happened that morning. But from my own experience, I want to tell you this. The Lord is looking for you personally, telling to him that by your free will, you love him and you want to follow him. When we sing, I have decided to follow Jesus. Everybody is joining and singing along the song. But in your private place, the Lord wants to hear you saying to him, Lord, I love you and I will follow you the rest of my life. And the Lord asked Peter, do you love me more than these others? This is my own experience. And so, in obedience to the command from the Lord, I took the first step. And I was shown a video that was recorded when I was here with Peter Hsu and we were sharing the testimony together. And it is real what we said that time and I say to them, my both legs were totally destroyed. So, the Lord told me as I was complaining to him about my situation, to turn around and fix my eyes upon him. And when I turned up towards him, this song started to flow out from my inner being. And the Lord said, don't care about him, he has lost his mind. Now, because I was in solitary confinement, there was no other prisoners in that cell. So, I decided I will behave the whole night like a crazy man. I was just praising the God with fullness of my soul. And the guards, they left me alone and they departed. Don't care about him, he's crazy. But I heard the Lord saying to me, I love you. And I said to the guards, you may say that you don't love me, but my Jesus loves me. And that's why always when I share in my own testimony, I really want to make this clear. That no matter where you are and what you are experiencing, make sure that every cell of your body understands that Jesus loves you with eternal love. And he never changes. Hallelujah. And then after. And when I got this understanding, he loves me. And I said, Lord, when you love me, when is the new day going to dawn for you? And I understood the truth from the Bible that the angels are serving those who are faithful to the Lord. And then the Lord said to me, the new day has dawned for you. It was very clear, he said to me. The new day is now dawning. It's a new day. And the doors have been opened for you. Just walk out. When the Lord said to me this, my whole soul and my spirit was shaken. It wasn't a dream. I knew that I was in the deepest part of the prison, in the solitary confinement. And I understood that the Lord knows us better than we know ourselves. My prison was real, but it had nothing to do with the truth. And the Lord said to me, stand up and walk out. I wasn't filled with supernatural faith. I was still considering the offer to leave the prison. I knew that I'm a handicap. My legs have been destroyed. I'm not able to walk. But I learned a lesson that the Lord knows our weaknesses better than we know ourselves. And the Lord encouraged me with the person's appearance who have the strongest impact in my life. Suddenly I saw in the vision that my wife ran towards me and stopped outside my cellar and said, Why in the world have you allowed them to lock you in a prison? Come out. And I wanted to ask her, have they released you? And she disappeared without answer. The doors have been opened for you. Why in the world are you still inside the cell? Come out. And when I stood up in obedience to that God's calling that morning, and I started to walk towards my cell door, all the doors of the prison were reversed and they were open for me to walk out from my solitary cell. Hallelujah. This is the truth of the story, what happened that day. I walked out from a security prison in China. And my prayer for you tonight is that the Lord will speak his own message into your life and security. Brother Theist has been sharing with us what's going on in North Korea, in Iran, in Iraq. You have brought offerings so that we are able to produce the Bibles and produce this equipment that will proclaim the good news of Jesus in this country. But I believe that God has even another calling upon your life and for this city. I believe, Brother Mark, that you are right as you said. People, the refugees are coming from different countries and they are even settling among you. They come from the Middle East and from many countries. And they have to be reached by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. And as the same way as Jesus used the boat of Simon people, he will use the ark of this church. Hallelujah. Those people who come as refugees, they need to have, somebody has to help them with food and many things. Teach them English. They have so many needs. Somebody has to come and demonstrate the love of God in Jesus. Those people in the future may become wonderful witnesses of Jesus and they are willing to go back to their home countries and even die for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. How many of you have this prayer? I want that Jesus will use my net and my boat and my home for his purposes. Hallelujah. It is so important that we will respond to God's calling upon us. I'm not going to even invite you to come forward. I only ask you like Jesus was asking Simon Peter. Peter, do you love me more than anyone of these others? And you don't need to answer to any and have a competition with anybody around you. You have to personally address your words and your heart. Because if you don't do this, to be a shepherd of a home cell or prayer group or any ministry is almost impossible. I really want you all now kneel down before the Lord. Just kneel down on your seat. You say to the Lord, yes Lord. Mark, come forward. You can lead Mark. I know the Lord is speaking to you tonight. He is not only using the money in your bank account,