In this sermon, the speaker shares about their experience of being part of videos taken in a world city where Jesus was at work. They received letters from people around the world who watched the videos and experienced healing and deliverance. The speaker emphasizes the power of ministering to one person and how the fame of Jesus can spread far and wide. They also talk about their work with the poor and how it may seem slow and ineffective, but in reality, it brings about transformation. The speaker encourages the audience to focus on loving people and not on appearing successful in ministry.

This strange thing about the cross. When you've made the decision, it's a struggle in the heart, you see. When you've made the decision, you know it costs nothing. But before you've made the decision, you know it costs everything. And this is what Jesus struggled with. And it was a genuine agony. And it's genuine. This is nothing that we can take lightly or say quickly. Oh, dying's easy. Jesus went through this the night before he died. And it was a genuine agony. And he said, Father, is there another way? Father, is there another way? Is there another way? I would rather not. Could this cup pass from me? Could I drink another cup? And when he sweated through this to the point of sweat which was like blood, he then came back and said, Yet, not what I will, but what you will. And the struggle was over, but briefly. For when he went to find his disciples who did not accompany him in this struggle, he came back and he had to go through the whole thing again. That's where the struggle is. And before you've made the decision, it's a real struggle. And it may take time. And you know it costs everything. And when you've made the decision, you know it costs nothing. And my prayer for the church, my hope, and my challenge is that we will learn to choose death voluntarily. It's not a popular teaching. Jesus says in John 10, 17, The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father. Jesus says the reason the Father loves him is that he voluntarily lays down his life. Now he's got authority to do this. And authority to take it up again. And I don't know whether you read books on codependency. If you're remotely interested in ministering with the poor, you've probably read some. And I want to tell you that I believe there's a great amount of truth in these books. I also believe that when the church picks up this teaching in the wrong way, it makes anybody who suffers or who gives up their life or who's willing to go through a hard time, it gives them a bad name. Because codependency now teaches that I define my boundaries. I decide what I can stand. I decide what I need. I decide how much sleep I can cope with. I know my limits and I live within these limits. And that's exactly what the Bible does not teach. You see, where this teaching is distorted is where I have decided what I need instead of understanding that my Father knows what I need and trusting that he really knows better. If I decide what I need and how much sleep I can cope with and how many days holiday I must have in order to exist, I am going to be threatened every single time my boundaries are crossed. And this is one of the great problems on the mission field these days. Is that we have a huge number of people who arrive on the mission field with predefined boundaries because they have decided how they can exist. And the shame is that by deciding this, we, as Jonah said, forfeit the grace that could be ours. It's not a popular teaching. People are always coming up to me over the years and they were saying to me because they saw that I looked exhausted. They saw that I looked tired. And they were always saying to me, Jackie, you must take a rest. I want to tell you this. If you go to people that are ministering with the poor, don't say that. There's nothing more exhausting than people who are giving you theoretical advice about holidays when you're tired. And if you are living and working with the poor, you can't walk off the job. It's the people that write about it that can. The people who live with the poor can't. Because the poor are in their hearts and in their homes. And we had so many visitors that came to us. Mostly men. And they'd say, Jackie, do you think you're supposed to be doing this as a woman? And I'd say, you do it. You stay. You love my people. You love God's people. That's all they need. Don't tell me to take a holiday. My people won't understand me taking a holiday. You see, the poor don't understand that Monday is your day off. They only understand you're not there. This is not a popular teaching. But I'm saying that if we are willing to give up our boundaries, our idea, our preconditions, we will receive everything we need from the Father. We will get more holidays than other people. Or at least more Sabbath rest. Because it's what we get from Him that counts. It's not the day off we've demanded. And there's a rest that we enter which is His Sabbath. Which is more refreshing than our allotted holiday. And we are always having people that say, I need time off. And I always want to decide, do you need time off? Or do you need something in your heart? Because the most exhausting thing is this struggle within. And the struggle is to give up my rights. And it's exhausting struggle. And the current teaching these days is when this struggle comes upon us, go and take a holiday. I tell you the people that come back from those holidays are more exhausted. Because they have not faced the struggle. And the struggle is, I will give up my rights. And if we will give up our rights, the struggle is over for a while. We're refreshed like Jesus was by the angels. Now it's very simple, just little things I'm talking about, just little things. Johnny was talking about noodles for breakfast. Just little things, that's it. We have people who come and we say, if you could bear not to eat McDonald's while you're here. Because we have McDonald's of course in Hong Kong. We know you prefer McDonald's. I mean who really wants noodles for breakfast? But if you could bear to stay with our people and eat their breakfast. They would understand that you love them. Better than that they would understand you need McDonald's for breakfast. Those are just little things. Just tiny things. If we say, God I'll work with the poor but this is my bottom line. And some people have a bottom line. I must have a room to myself. Or some people, as long as I can have orange juice every morning I can survive. Or some people, just as long as I can have a quiet time by myself, I can survive. You're going to have to give up this right. Or some people, as long as I can have Tuesdays off to write letters, I shall be fine. Or Wednesdays off for hair washing or whatever. We had somebody who came not long ago and she said, God, I think I can survive Hong Kong as long as you give me a good hairdresser. You know because she got used to the Canadian one. But then she had to give that up too. Alright God, okay, okay, I'll give up my right to a good hairdresser. Of course she got one when she gave up her right. But that's where the struggle is. And it's understanding that God the Father knows we need rest more than we do. He invented it. He invented days off. He invented holidays. The problem is when we have planned when we must have these things, we're angry. When the poor intrude. And if you get to work with the poor, they will intrude all the time. This man that I told you about. The one that banged his forehead on the pavement and drew blood. You know a miracle happened to him. One day I met him and he told me this wonderful story. He said, you sometimes stopped and you told me about Jesus. And he said one day there was a typhoon. And in the typhoon he chose to go into a subway. Underneath the road, it was a road crossing. And it's very rainy and it's very windy in a typhoon. So he stayed down there in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights. And he called upon Jesus. And he got off heroin all by himself. Nobody prayed with him. He just called upon Jesus. And when I met him, he was still sleeping in the streets. He told me, I know Jesus now. He's still very strange. And his toe got all septic. And it started to ooze pus. And he couldn't walk. So I went to see him and found him there. And then I took a couple of friends and we picked him up. And we took him to the hospital and went to visit him there. And he stayed there some time while they took off his toes. And then they needed a place for him to live and there was not a place. So the hospital put him in the street without telling me he was discharged. So we had to go find him again. And then he had nowhere to live. My place was full. I got, you know, about 34 people by that time. So I looked around for somewhere where he could go. By law in Hong Kong, people with no homes are supposed to have one. But you know, it doesn't quite work like that. And you'll find this with the poor. Even if there are supposed rights, they're very often too poor to know how to receive their rights. That's why the scripture says, you uphold the rights of the poor. And so what it meant for us was this. It was getting up at 3 o'clock in the morning to go down to where he was sleeping to make sure that we could wake him up, to make sure that somebody could take him into the public toilet and shower him and dress him, to make sure that he was ready enough in time for us then to take him for a cup of tea and then to go with him on a bus to the place where you get cards to say that you exist because he didn't have one. And if you don't have one of those, nobody gives you a place to live. And then we, this takes several days. And then we take him to another office where people are rude because people are often rude to the poor. And they, this is the housing place. And we go into the housing place, the Hong Kong Housing Authority, and everybody sees me sitting there and the officers give me a cup of tea and leave him because I look important. And I say to them, you should give him the cup of tea. And when we've done this for several weeks, they give him a small money grant but still not a place. And with the small money grant, I have to go up and down staircases finding landlords that will take such a strange man into their home. This takes weeks. It takes months for one man. And even when we found him this place, you know he's so strange. The people don't really like him living there and so they kick him out. And so we do it again. And then we do it again. And then we do it again. And finally he got a proper place to live. But then he quarreled with the man that they put him to live with and so he's out again. Well anyway, the story with this man has gone on for some years. But he's finally somewhere now. And he used to come to church. And he got this awful toy parrot. And this awful toy parrot was one that imitated Juno. If you said good morning, he said good morning. And we used to be having what I called strategy prayer meetings. We were praying about the nation of Hong Kong. We were praying about international strategy. How can we reach the world by the year 2000? We're doing really important stuff, you know. And we're having these international leaders. And we're working out these strategies. And this wretched man comes in all the time. Good morning, Poon Siu Jai. Good morning, Poon Siu Jai. Goes the parrot and he sticks it into my face. And we want to say, Look, Uncle Lam, this is really not an appropriate time to pay a visit. We're having a very important international strategy meeting on how to reach the world. He doesn't understand. And this wretched parrot, he talks to it and it talks back in the middle of the prayer meeting. And then he puts down this thermos of sweet soup. And I hate sweet soup. And he says, Poon Siu Jai, I have made this sweet soup for you. And bananas. And I don't like bananas either. He's always giving me sweet soup and bananas. You see, it's just like Gary's friend. This man is my friend. And he has a place to live. And never mind international strategy for the year 2000. He thinks he can come into my room. My office. And so he can. And so he can. Lest I forget this is what the strategy is about. But you see, the poor will spoil our plans. And as far as I can see by reading Mark's gospel, they spoil Jesus' plans. You see, if you read Mark's gospel, you'll see that Jesus planned days off. He planned times with the Father. Times of refreshing. And sometimes he went up mountains and they found him. And he didn't say, this is my time with the Father, I'm not coming. He said, I will come. And you read that he missed meals. He missed sleep. And so he said to his disciples, well we'll go across the other side of the lake. And we'll have a rest. And when he got to the other side, I have no idea how they knew. But the telephone system must have been wonderful. Because by the time he got to the other side of the lake, there were the crowds. And he ministered to them. This is amazing. Now he must have had his rest at another time. And when I'm saying that we should give up our rights, I'm not saying that we will then miss out on what we need. The key to this is understanding that we have a Father who is more concerned about what we need than we are. And more accurate. Because we think we know what we need. And he made us so he knows what we need. And he has promised to supply all our needs in Christ Jesus. And not only ours but enough to give away. And so we see that Jesus on other times was asleep in the middle of a storm. He got his rest. And for some extraordinary reason he was confident enough in his Father to sleep in the middle of a storm. So he rested. In Hebrews 5 verse 7 it says, During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. And once having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. What does it mean, once having been made perfect? Was Jesus not perfect? It's interesting that it says, Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. What is this? I believe that Jesus had been practicing all his life from very young. What is the suffering? The suffering is simply, Father, your will, not mine. That's the whole key. And he practiced it in little ways. And when he began his ministry and the power of the Spirit was upon him, the enemy came to him. And he was tempted in Matthew 4. Three temptations which I believe are current for us Christians today. And very relevant. The first temptation was, If you are the Christ, command these stones to become bread. The temptation was to use the power that God had given him and the authority for himself. The second temptation was, If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from this tower. The temptation was to use the power that God gave him for effect. And the third temptation, If you will bow down, I will give you all the kingdoms of this world and their splendor. He could have had all that he could see. And I believe that this was a temptation for instant ministry. I was in Taiwan once. And I was speaking to a group of pastors. And I was telling them, When you get involved with the poor, This ministry is the slowest. This is the one that won't look good. And this is what I'm offering you people. The slowest. No, the slowest starting. I actually believe that if we will be involved with the poor, This is the quickest way of reaching the world. But it will not bring instant effect. And what most of us in the church want is instant ministry. If I can receive the power of the Holy Spirit, I can instantly do things. Now, if Jesus had to practice for 33 years, Why would I think I could do it any quicker? As a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. He practiced throughout his life, giving up his will to the will of the Father. So he was ready for the big one. And for many of us, it's easier to say, I'm going to give up my life for the lost, Than it is to die daily. Than it is to give up my right to Wednesdays off. And this is a lot of the problem that we have with Christians. When we say, Would you mind doing this Wednesday? I know it's your day off. And they say, No, this is my day off. I shall die without it. And when you've got people who are dying, Because there's nobody to look after them on Wednesday, They don't understand that this is the Christian's day off. And I will say, Give up your day off. Because in giving up your Wednesday, You'll get many more Sabbaths. You won't lose out. And the disciples were always coming to Jesus and saying, Don't go to Jerusalem, you'll die. Or Peter said, No, no, no, no, Lord, you won't die. And Jesus was very rude. It's not a popular thing to say, Give up your days off these days. Everything that we're taught is the opposite. Look after yourself. Know your boundaries. And when Peter said to Jesus, No, you'll not die. Jesus said, Get behind me, Satan. For he knew that the purpose of him coming was to die. And when he was going towards Jerusalem, In Luke 13, 32, They said, Don't go there because Herod's planning to kill you. And he said, Go and tell that fox, I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow. And on the third day, I will reach my goal. In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow. For no prophet can die outside Jerusalem. They told him not to go. And I'm always having people saying to me, Jackie, you'll burn out if you go on like this. You see, it's really exhausting keeping your limits. That is what is tiring. That's what makes people burn out. When we are doing the will of God, With his fuel, we can't burn out. But we may be exhausted. And there's nothing wrong with being exhausted. Jesus was. Paul was. Paul was shipwrecked. Paul was flogged. Paul was imprisoned. There's nothing wrong with it. In fact, this is Jesus' promise. It's his promise. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ, Jesus will be persecuted. If we haven't come into persecution, maybe we're not living a godly life. This is a normal part of the gospel. You'll be handed over to be persecuted and put to death. You'll be hated by all nations because of me. This is a great blessing from Jesus. He said, if they did that to me, why would they not do that to you? This is part of it. And this is why the gospel in China is so effective. Because the Christians in China know, before they come to Christ, that the probability is that they are going to be killed, if not imprisoned. And so you actually meet Christians there who say, Oh, I have not yet suffered for Christ. I've not yet had this privilege. I've only been in prison five years. Truly. And they mean it. And they're smiling. I met this man once. And he's nearly blind. And he told people about Jesus and he was told not to. So they put him in prison. And they put him in a dark place. And it was like a pigsty. No light. For a couple of years. Which is why he's now nearly blind. And he had to live and eat off the floor that he also used for his toilet. But when I looked at him, he was smiling. And he was shining. And he said, They made a mistake. He said, They won't do that again to me. They really regret it. Because he taught with Jesus in his prison cell. And although it was dark, he was light. And when he came out of prison, he walked through a village. And before he even opened his mouth to tell people about Jesus, people came to Christ and people were healed. There was something about that man. And he said, They regret. They regret putting me in prison. They said, It's had the opposite effect. There is this man. He doesn't even need to preach well. All he needs to do is stand in a village. And because the light of Christ is shining from him, and because, of course, he has forgiven his prison officers. I mean, that's not a hard thing for him to do. He knew that was coming before he came to Christ. His heart is so full of Christ. And his eyes cannot see. But he can see. And men can see Jesus in him. And whole villages turned to Christ. A young girl I knew, I used to visit her every week in China. She was arrested the year before last. And they gave her a sheet of toilet paper every day. And she didn't know how long she was going to be in prison. And so she thought, In case I forget the scriptures, I'll write out all the scriptures I know. So instead of using the toilet paper, she wrote very tiny on her piece of toilet paper all the scriptures she could think of. And she did this for three months. And then they released her. And she would walk into a Christian gathering. She would open her mouth. And out of her mouth would come all these scriptures. That's all happened. Out of her mouth came scriptures. And people turned to the Lord. And people were healed. And villages and village leaders and village communist leaders turned to Christ because scriptures were pouring from her mouth. That's all she did. Just a weak little teenager who used her toilet paper for Christ. Nothing else she has to boast of except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And she knows the power of His resurrection because she shared the fellowship of His suffering. Becoming like Him in death. There is no power without weakness. And many of us in the church these days want it a quicker way. And I can remember one of these many people that used to visit us. And you know, for our first 15 years we always looked awful. We were tired. People had run away. All the miracles that had happened looked as if they got spoiled until I began to understand something. You see, I wrote stories about people who were touched by the power of Christ. And their hearts were changed. And their bodies were changed. And I thought, that's a good testimony. And then this great triad leader who'd come to Christ a few weeks later, just like Gary's man might pull a knife on someone. And I think, oh, that's spoiled his testimony. No, it hasn't. You see, we don't testify to how we've changed. We testify to how He loved. That's the testimony. So the testimony always stands. See? You can always share, He loved anyway. And we don't see the result of the gospel stories, do we? They just end. It says the man was healed. Or it says the man saw. Or it says the woman's back was straightened. We don't know what happened the next day. We don't know. They just finish there. It's us that want to complete the story. But I tell you, with the poor, it looks the opposite most of the time. I saw people come to Christ. This great miracle. And I thought, good, now all I have to do is to walk into drug dens, put my hands on people, and they'll all be changed, you know. Now I've got the secret. We pray in tongues and say in the name of Jesus, walk into drug dens, and everybody's miraculously delivered. And sometimes it almost looks like that. And the first man that it happened to came a couple of weeks later, and he said to me, Jackie, I was in the opium den last night, and somebody offered me free opium, and I really wanted to take it. And I thought, what are you doing in an opium den? You've just come to Christ. And he said, I prayed for strength not to take opium. And I knelt down on the platform, and I sang them a very appropriate song for an opium den, which is give me oil in my lamp. And then he said, praise God. And I said, no, this is not praise God at all. This is very foolish. You can't go into opium dens and pray for strength not to take opium. You're a new person in Christ. You shouldn't be in an opium den. And he said, I live there. And I realized that I had expected him in the moment that he came to Christ. All his problems were over. I didn't expect that of myself. I had a very double standard. And that was why I began to take people into my house, because I couldn't find another place for them to go. And one day, one of these many night knocks on the door from the police. And one night, the policeman said, Jackie, I think I've got one of your men. And he was queuing up at a lorry for an injection. And I said, oh no, no, no, no, no. He couldn't have been queuing up at a lorry for an injection. I'm sure he was preaching the gospel. I was very naive. You see, he was a new man in Christ. And he prophesied last night. Why would he queue up for an injection? But he was. And he was a new man in Christ. And he prophesied. But you see, he was still working through other things. And I began to see, so am I. We had this wonderful friend. He's one of my favorite people. He was a street sleeper. And Gary was talking about the bag lady that had all the bags. Well, this street sleeper wasn't clever enough to ever even have one bag. He was always having his bag stolen. He didn't even have a spare pair of flip flops. And I was introduced to him by his brother who had said to me, I've tried reading the Bible to my brother in the street and he doesn't want to hear. And I said to him, no. Of course he doesn't want to. Why should you read the Bible to a street sleeper? I mean, he can't read. And you've got a home. Let's take him to tea instead. He'll understand that. So we chose this really nice restaurant. And I went with a very fat uncle who had previously been on drugs. He was a police sergeant. And he started on drugs because he used to take the drugs that he got off people. And after he came off drugs, he got very fat. So I sat by him. And my friend came in with his brother that was the messy street sleeper. And he's very thin. And the thin one looked at the fat one and the fat one looked at the thin one. And they both pointed to one another and they both said, you? And it turned out they'd been in prison together. And the thin one came up to the fat one sitting by me and he said, why are you so fat? And the fat one said, it's Jesus. And the thin one said, I'll have him. So we prayed over the teapot. And we didn't explain the gospel. We don't explain the gospel, by the way. We prayed. And he said, I'll have him. You know, the one that makes you fat. And the Holy Spirit came upon him and he spoke in tongues over the teapot. And this all took five minutes. And he was a new man. And I said to him, Laolun, how many convictions have you had? He said, 78. And he said, next time it'll be 79. And I said, how many of them did you do? He said, oh, about half. Because, you know, when you're a messy street sleeper on drugs and he had sores all over his body, you get arrested for things you haven't done. Sort of easy. Anyway, he came to live with us and he was such a sweet man. And he had a new heart. But he had long toenails. Two or three inches long. And I said to him, Laolun, why have you got such long toenails? And he said, it's to gouge people with. Then I understood. Of course you need toenails to gouge people with because they might take your bag in the night. And so he'd come to trust Jesus. He just didn't trust our brothers. And he kept long toenails for about two years. And then he cut his toenails. And I thought, that's pretty good. It only took you two years to cut your toenails. People can't see mine. Or I think they can't. And I think that man had come further in his life than I have in mine. He used to jog every morning around the playground next door to where we lived. We were living in some tin huts. And he got cancer and he still jogged. And every time we worshipped, he was always the first one on his feet. He loved worshipping. And he came to me one day and he said, The doctors can't help me. They can't do anything for me. But I'm putting all my trust in my Jesus. And he said, you know, sometimes at night I can't sleep. And he said, when I can't sleep, Jesus comes into my room and he sits on my bed. I often hear this story. And he said, we spent the night talking about you. And I thought, God, I'm so rich. You know, I don't know anyone that has an intercessor like me. Fancy. Jesus comes and sits in your bed and he spends the whole night talking about me to Jesus. That's amazing. What a friend to have. He can't read at all. It took him two years to cut his toenails, but he talks to Jesus about me. And then he died. And I so miss him. But you know, I suppose Jesus wanted him even more. And I'm longing to see him again. Because he was a great friend. But when the world, or when the church came to see us, it didn't look like that. It looked as if this converted man was still dirty, still swearing, still had long toenails. It looked as if our addicts, who had come off drugs miraculously, one minute praised God, and the next minute ran away. And we had ten people in our house. And then there were eight. And then there were six. And then there were four. And then there were two. And we, they'd all run away. And then you got one, and he stayed for three months, and you thought, oh, there's my next leader. Listen, if you work with the poor, you'll do this. But try not to. Try not to look at one of your initial converts and put leadership on him. Don't. They all disappoint you. And you must not put the future of your ministry on him. It's too hard. I saw this happen so many times. And I thought, well, this one is going to be all right. And then somebody else would come into the house, and they'd both run away. And it looked as if I was going backwards most of the time. And I looked at my friends in England. And I looked at my friends in the States. And they'd got cell groups that were multiplying. They'd got Bible study groups that were increasing. They could count their successes. Their people could fill in the blanks in their books. Our people couldn't read the books. My friends' meetings were getting bigger. Our people forgot it was Wednesday. It is so with the poor. And if you do this to satisfy your successful ministry, you'll be disappointed. I told you I shared this with a Taiwanese pastor. I said, you will look as if you're going backwards. Everybody else's ministry will look as if it's flourishing. And the very ones that you brought to Christ have disappointed you. I said, that's it. He said, I've never heard this ministry before. I've never heard about this. How come we've not heard of this? We hear about church growth. I said, have you not heard of Jesus? Who, when He died, had nothing to show for His ministry. A few women and 11 men in disarray until the breath of the Holy Spirit brought a dead Jesus to life. And in the twinkling of an eye, it was all changed. Ministry with the poor is like this. You will look as if you're going slower than everyone. You will look as if you're going backwards. There's nothing to show except tiredness and grief. And yet suddenly, for us, I don't know how it happened, but suddenly some stayed and grew up a bit and then more. And then suddenly, I don't know how it happened, but round about this time I met Gary. He hadn't seen all our early real tired years. And suddenly there were more people and more people. And suddenly we had 500 or 600 that you could see on a Sunday. Suddenly in our addicts' meetings we had people queuing up to meet Jesus. And people from other countries would come. Now it was different. And they would look. And one of them saw our addicts' meetings, which we have every week. And every week we see probably between 2 to 20 people saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, and ready to get off drugs. At least between 2 to 20 every week. We can't stop them coming. And the visitors come and they say, Jackie, have you thought of exporting this model? Because they only see that meeting. They think somehow this formula of praying in tongues and preaching is a quick one. And I said, well, no, I've not thought of exporting this model. But I have thought we should export the cross. Because what you're seeing is unfair. You see people coming through the door and all our addicts come to Christ within 5 minutes now. They come in through the door. They know Christ within 5 minutes. This is normal. We go out to meet street sleepers. Many of them come to know Christ within 5 minutes. But it's unfair, you see. Because it looks as if it's 5 minutes. But it's actually 30 years. And when you work with the poor, it's that slow. It looks as if you're losing. And then everything else comes in unfairly. And we get many, many for free now. I mean for free. Where we've not labored. People come in and people come up to me and they say, Jackie, I saw your video. People in Canada have no idea what they're talking about. Because I've not made a video. But you see what happened was they were going to pull the world city down a few years ago. So the whole world took videos of the world city. And we got to be in them all. Because we were just part of what was happening. So all these secular people who do it better came and took videos of what Jesus was doing in the world city. And we got to be in them all. And I got letters from people in Australia and Canada and England. And they said, I saw your video. And while I was watching it, I got healed. Or my brother came off drugs while he was watching your video. And I think, God, we got that one for free. That's nothing to do with us, you know. But that's what it is. If you minister to one poor man and lose your life and get exhausted and maybe even die in obscurity, the fame of Jesus goes a long way. It might even go to the four corners of the earth. If we waste our life on one poor man. That's it. That's all. And we will waste our life on him whether he comes to Christ or not. Because that's how they come to Christ. If you minister to them just because they might come to Christ and you can count them in your newsletter, they can smell you coming a mile off. But if you minister to them, whether or not they come to Christ, when they swear at you every day and you still love them, it's irresistible. It will, of course, bring them to Christ. Now, I want to pray about this subject. But just before I pray about this, I want to give a word about discernment. Jesus was sure of what he came into the world to do. And it also says that he was able to humble himself and wash his disciples' feet because he knew from where he came and to where he was going. His security was in the Father. Now, for those of us that work with the poor, it's very important that our security is in the Father. You see, people look at our poor and they say, Oh, Jackie, that must really satisfy you, seeing all these people changed. And I say, No, you're wrong. I was satisfied before. This is just the extra bit when I get to see what I knew he could do. But I was satisfied anyway. I'm satisfied in him. I don't need to do this to satisfy me. I don't need to do this to feel useful. My satisfaction is in knowing him and being loved by him. That's it. That's it. And so, this is a word that's really important. That the reason that Jesus could lay down his life was that he was sure of the Father and trusted him. And we need to be sure of this. Otherwise, it's not laying down our life at all. It's called killing ourselves. And that's not helpful to anyone. And it's not helpful to the Gospel. Laying down our life is saying, Father, your will, not mine. And in the doing of this, Father, your will, not mine, we expect him to reveal his will. And as Gary shared yesterday, clearly the Father revealed to Gary about this man that he was to be patient with for years and years and years and years. And sometimes the Father may reveal to you that there are people who come to you to draw on you and these people have no intention at all of receiving from the Lord. And it's these people that we need to have discernment about. And you can't have it in advance. I often practice conversations in advance. When I'm going to see people, and in my head I say, I'm having this conversation, I'm saying, I've had enough of you. By this time you ought to have shaped up. And when I see them, it's quite different. I hear from the Lord, you may and you must extend more mercy. You can go on. You can be patient. And sometimes it's quite the opposite. Sometimes I'm ready to extend my heart and I see somebody and the Lord clearly says, you must say to this person, no more. And only the Lord can tell you which is which. I did this with one man and I'd been visiting him in prison and out of prison and he just loved this whole thing. And he wasn't going to shape his life up and he wasn't going to come to Christ. And so I said to him, no more. But it only could have been Jesus that said to me, no more. I loved him. And I said, I'm not going to see you anymore because it kills me. And I cannot eat noodles with you while you're going to hell. Now, you know, anytime you really want to shape your life up, you can. You know about Jesus and you know about me and I'll help you to the end. But you have to want this. Until that time, I refuse to see you. And he could only stand it for two days. After two days he rang. He said, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready. You can't tell this in advance. Lest we judge people. And if you're not sure if somebody's deliberately there to waste your time or if there is part of their heart that really wants the Lord, you must have someone else to discern with you. Lest you judge and shut your heart up in hardness or you lay yourself down to be trampled on when that isn't at that time what you should be doing. And some of these people occasionally, I believe, are almost sent from the enemy to stop us from reaching the ones who are actually crying out. This is not simple. But the Lord will reveal his heart the more we know him. And there is such a thing as discernment. And this is what discerning of spirits is for. It's so that we can continue to lay down our lives for the will of the Father and more and more understand what the will of the Father is. So that the cross and the power of the resurrection and the heart of Jesus is demonstrated through us. Please stand. This message is for weak people, not strong people. So the power of the cross is demonstrated through weakness. And I would like to pray for many people here who, like Johnny, are afraid of dying. When we minister with the poor it will kill us and it will invade our privacy, our rights, our boundaries, our organized timetable. And it will mess up our ministry. But it is the Lord's heart. So Lord, we ask now that you will, in mercy, give us a revelation of your heart for us, of your love for us, of your provision for us, of your knowledge of us, that you do understand our needs, that you care about our rest, that you care about our provision. Father, we want to trust you in this. And many of us admit, Father, that we are frightened because we think we know how we can function. We think we know. And we've heard many things about burnout. And we don't want to burn out. So we ask, Lord, that you come with revelation that we might trust you in your will for our lives and be willing to give up what we thought we could cope with. Now, if you'd like us to pray for you about this, please would you walk to the front. This isn't, are you willing to give up your life? This is, can we pray for you to be willing to give up our own idea of what we think we can cope with. You see, it works quite backwards. If we will give up this idea or any boundaries, any preconditions of how we can function or what we must have, whether it's noodles or a private room or Tuesdays off or whatever it is, or God, as long as you give me a husband, I'll go, or whatever it is. If we will trust that He knows what we need, we'll be so much more refreshed. And we are the ones that end up the winners. We are the ones that end up full of grace, full of gratitude, because everything we have is a present. Every day off is a treat, not a right. Every meal is a feast, not a precondition. And there are still two or three people that need to come. The promise for you who are coming is that in the giving up of our own rights, our ministry may not look good. Okay? But this is a great thing to be freed from. You haven't got to look good. You haven't got to appear successful. And we are going to free a whole lot of you from having to send good prayer letters around. You haven't got to report back anything to your church except that your heart is broken and that God gives you grace to love the people. That's the gospel. You don't have to be any more successful than that. But this, you see, is the way to win the world. It's also the quickest. We're going to pray in a moment. Let's have the ministry team people come up. Don't start praying words over people, but it's very important for you to be with them, to come alongside someone. Just place your hand on them. Be quietly interceding for them that the Lord will do the work that He wants to do in them. You're their servants. So come up and be sensitive and be led by the Spirit in them. One of the great challenges in every ministry opportunity is to find that knife edge of the Holy Spirit. You know, the enemy comes along and he loves to use the mallet of fear and condemnation and just grind us into a pulp. The Holy Spirit isn't like that. And so the enemy always confuses and diffuses and the Holy Spirit focuses and brings everything to a point. So Jackie all morning has been talking about two things really. One is the power of the resurrection. We all long for that. We want to see it operating in our lives, through our lives. But as she's pointed out, there is no resurrection without death. It's the key to life is death. And so she's been speaking about the grace to die. And yet one thing she said this morning that I wrote down was this, the key to grace is repentance. Let's not be confused about that at all. This whole issue of dying has everything to do with belief and trust. Everything to do with belief and trust. The issue is does our Heavenly Father know what we need? Does He care? Will He provide for us? That's the issue over and over and over again. And so when we come to this point and we say, Father, I want to give up my life and I know that's where we're at. You've come forward because you want to lay down your life. That is the desire of your heart. And God honors your coming forward to express that. But if we're honest, we realize there's only a small part of us right now that is truly voicing that cry. There's much of us that does not trust. There's much of us that is not willing to believe we are in unbelief. We are saying, I do not believe you'll care for me here. And so I will set my own boundaries. I'll set my own conditions because God helps those who help themselves. And that's the doctrine of demons. It will not survive the test. And yet, that's the dilemma we're in. And there's grace in that process. Your very coming is a statement that's saying, God, at this point, right at this time, I am confessing you are right and I am wrong. You will provide for me. You will care for me. I can entrust my life to your keeping. And then we'll walk out from this place and we'll forget it within an hour. But the grace we're asking for is that in that hour, in that time, God will bring us back to this place in that moment and say, do you trust me here? And every point there's that choice. And so Paul says, we die daily. And there's a place for both. There's a place to say, Lord, I confess with my mouth, this is the desire of my heart, and I also confess I cannot live this. I'm weak and I need your grace to bring me to this point over and over again so I may choose again. Will I trust myself? Will I trust you? And in that place, God's grace will be there. And so what's happening right now is simply what will happen day after day after day. God will come with his convicting presence and say, will you die to trusting yourself? Will you trust me for now? Will you trust me for today? We cannot deal with the rest of our lives. It's much too big, but we can deal with it right now and the question that the Lord brings to us right now. And so my call to you right now is in whatever specific focus the Lord gives you, whether it's whatever friend it may be or whatever circumstance it may be, are you willing right now to allow the Holy Spirit's light and presence to come into that situation and give you the direction and guidance you need? Can you give that over to Him? Can you trust Him and receive His grace in that? That's all you can deal with right now. And then you can also say, Oh God, will you by your mercy bring me to this place every day and give me the grace to choose you? So this is a time of repentance. Don't leave it a broad commitment. Broad commitments we shelve. They don't have any sufficient focus for us to live out. But allow the Holy Spirit to sharpen this to a point and then in that place, it's a call to repentance. Will you turn, relinquish your own control and surrender to His care? And Father, we ask right now that you would do that by your Holy Spirit, that you would bring this to a specific focus. Father, we want in that specific thing that you bring to us, we want to say to you right now, You are right, we are wrong.