Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Once you find your place, let's sing it out together.
On that first verse.
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood.
Number 30. Sing it out.
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
For my heart in this I see, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
For my cleansing this I bleed, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Nothing can force in atone, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Not of good that I have done, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This is all my hope and peace, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This is all my righteousness, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Amen.
We're going to start singing tonight.
Let's go a warm prayer for the service,
so if you wouldn't bow your heads together with me.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege
we have to be in church on this Sunday night.
Thank you for the service this morning,
and I pray that you please just have your blessing
upon the service tonight.
Help it to be a blessing to you and also to us
as we lift you up in praise this evening.
I ask that you please prepare our hearts for the preaching
of your word to come, and that you would fill Pastor
or Brother Segura with your Holy Spirit
as he prepares to preach your word.
Help our hearts and ears to be open
to receive the message tonight,
and that everything that's said and done
would give you the honor and glory that you deserve for it.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Number 237 is next.
237, the cleansing wave.
Hymn number 237.
Oh, now I see the crimson wave.
Hymn number 237.
Sing it out.
Oh, now I see the crimson wave,
the banks in deep and wide.
Jesus, my Lord, my King,
to save voices in His womb inside.
The cleansing stream I see, I see,
I'm a gentle, it cleanses me.
Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanses me.
It cleanses me, yes, cleanses me.
I see the new creation rise.
I hear the sweeping flood.
It speaks for loot in me tonight.
It speaks in the cleansing flood.
The cleansing stream I see, I see,
I'm a gentle, it cleanses me.
Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanses me.
It cleanses me, yes, cleanses me.
I rise to walk in there's a light
above the world and sin.
With hearts secure and garments wide
and blessed from within.
The cleansing stream I see, I see,
I'm a gentle, it cleanses me.
Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanses me.
It cleanses me, yes, cleanses me.
Amazing grace, gifts have been loaned
to fill the blood of Christ.
And Jesus, only Jesus knows
why Jesus crucified.
The cleansing stream I see, I see,
I'm a gentle, it cleanses me.
Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanses me.
It cleanses me, yes, cleanses me.
Good singing.
All right, at this time we're going to go to the bulletin,
so please raise your hand.
Raise your hand if you need a bulletin,
and we'll get you one as soon as we possibly can.
So if you have your bulletin, go ahead and open it up.
And on the upper left-hand corner,
it's our service time, Sunday at 10.30 a.m.,
Sunday night at 6 p.m., and Wednesday night at 7 p.m.
Our church-wide and regional soul-winning times
are right there, take a look at those
if you're interested in coming out soul-winning.
And also right below that is our salvation and baptisms
for the year, and if you wish to be baptized,
let me know after the service and we'll make it happen.
Join us next Sunday, August 6, at 10 a.m.
for donuts and coffee in honor of those celebrating
their birthday in the month of August.
Please speak to any of the staff members
if you would like your birthday or wedding anniversary
included in the bulletin.
And thank you to those who participated
in the Navajo Hopi Soul-Winning Trip.
We have seven soul-winners and 10 salvations,
and also please continue to pray for Pastor Anderson.
If you don't know, he was in a hospital,
but he's no longer there.
But he needs to get better before he's able
to travel back to Arizona, so hopefully we can see him
not this Wednesday, but next Sunday,
and if a miracle happens, he'll be here Wednesday night.
Join us for soul-winning on the Navajo Reservation
Friday, September 8 through Saturday, September 9.
The trip will include a visit
to the Petrified National Forest and Painted Desert.
And please continue to pray for the expecting ladies,
and our upcoming events are right there.
Take a look at those when you get a chance.
At this time, we're gonna go with the soul-winning
for the week, so if you got somebody to save on Thursday,
July 27, go ahead and raise your hand
on a number of salvations.
I'll start on this side of the building.
Any salvations for Thursday?
We got one over here, eight down here,
and no salvations, two over here.
So we got two on this side.
Any other salvations for Thursday?
Going once, going twice.
Friday, any salvations for Friday?
And Saturday, salvations for Saturday.
Is that five?
The 10?
Any other salvations?
And what'd I leave at?
Saturday's next, Saturday, salvations for Saturday.
Starting on this side, any salvations?
And today?
Oh, no.
Any other salvations at two?
I like your backup man over there.
He's like, right here, right here.
And you have no clue.
He's got his finger right behind your head.
That's a good wingman, amen?
Any other salvations at 16?
16, is that two?
Two salvations?
Six for the church band.
Any other salvations?
Going once, going twice.
All right, keep up the good work out, Saul winning.
And lead us to the next song.
Find the insert of Psalm 126
in the front of your hymn.
If you don't have an answer, please raise your hand.
Or look with your neighbor if you don't have one.
Psalm 126.
When the Lord turned again, the activity of Zion,
we were like them that dream.
Then was our bow filled with laughter,
and our tongue with singing.
Then said they among the heathen,
the Lord had done great things for them,
the Lord had done great things for us,
to whereof we are glad.
To whereof again our captivity,
O Lord, as it stays in the South,
may the sowing tears shall reap in joy,
may the sowing tears shall reap in joy.
Then said they among the heathen,
the Lord had done great things for them,
the Lord had done great things for us,
to whereof we are glad.
We have voted for the heathen,
their request is seen,
because now let's come again.
So now let's come again,
with great joy strength,
bringing his sheep within.
Then said they among the heathen,
the Lord had done great things for them,
the Lord had done great things for us,
to whereof we are glad.
Hey man, good singing everyone.
Let's go with your song books now to hymn number 95.
Hymn number 95, The Lord is My Shepherd.
Hymn number 95.
Some really good words in this song,
really pay attention to what you're singing.
Let's sing it out.
On that verse, hymn number 95.
The Lord is my shepherd,
what shall I do?
I'm heathen with pastures,
to whom did I rest?
Heathen my soul where,
the still waters flow.
Resourcing when one dream
redeems when oppressed.
Resourcing when one dream
redeems when oppressed.
Through the valley and shadow
of death though I stray,
since thou art my guardian,
no eagle I fear.
Thy heart shall be led me,
thy staff be my stay.
No heart can be fallen,
my comfort earlier.
No heart can be fallen,
my comfort earlier.
In the midst of affliction,
my table is swept
with blessings unmeasured,
like a private board
with perfume and oil.
I loitest my head,
oh what shall I ask of,
my Providence Lord.
Oh what shall I ask of,
my Providence Lord.
Let goodness and mercy
account in hold on,
still follow my steps still,
beneath the above.
I seek by the path
which my forefathers draw,
through the land of their soldier,
the kingdom of God.
Through the land of their soldier,
the kingdom of God.
Thank you.
All right, at this time we're going to pass around the offering plates.
So while the offering plates are being passed around, please turn your Bibles to Acts chapter number one.
Acts chapter number one.
The Acts of the Apostles chapter one.
The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus,
of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
until the day in which he was taken up after that heat, through the Holy Ghost,
had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen,
to whom also he showed himself alive after that day,
to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs,
being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God,
and being assembled together with them,
commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem,
but wait for the promise of the Father, which saith he,
Ye have heard of me.
For John truly baptized with water,
but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence,
and when they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying,
Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again to the kingdom to Israel?
And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons
which the Father hath put in his own power, but ye shall receive power.
After that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me
both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria,
and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
And when he had spoken these things while they beheld,
he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.
And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up,
behold, two men stood by them in white apparel,
which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?
This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven,
shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet,
which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey.
And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room,
where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew,
Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew,
James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes,
and Judas the brother of James.
These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication,
with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus,
and with his brethren.
And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said,
The number of names together were about 120.
Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled,
which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas,
which was guide to them that took Jesus,
for he was numbered with us and had obtained part of this ministry.
Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity,
and falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst,
and all his bowels gushed out.
And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem,
insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue,
a seldoma, that is to say, the field of blood.
For it is written in the book of Psalms,
Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein,
and his bishopric let another take.
Wherefore of these men which have accompanied with us
all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
beginning from the baptism of John,
unto that same day that he was taken up from us,
must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.
And they appointed two,
Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus,
and Matthias.
And they prayed and said, Thou Lord,
which knowest the hearts of all men,
show whether of these two Thou hast chosen,
that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship,
from which Judas by transgression fell,
that he might go to his own place.
And they gave forth their lots,
and the lot fell upon Matthias,
and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
Let's pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for this night.
Lord, I pray just fill Brother Cooper with your spirit,
and may the sermon be edifying to us.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Amen. All right.
Well, I would like to thank Pastor for this opportunity to preach,
and thank everybody for coming out tonight.
And, you know,
my sermon tonight, it's not going to be anything new.
It's going to be something that we all know about.
We've heard a hundred times.
But it's something that is great to be reminded of
and to be motivated about from time to time.
And so tonight I'm going to be preaching about soul winning.
Soul winning once again.
And so, you know, I talk a lot about this,
but, you know, I believe that this is, you know,
one of, if not the most important thing in a Christian's life
is to be telling other people about how to be saved
and to go soul winning and knocking on doors.
And so I talk about it a lot.
And, you know, I heard it said one time,
and I do think that this is, you know, a good saying,
a good thought is that, you know,
if you're alive and you're saved and you're a Christian
and if you're still alive and breathing right now,
then God isn't done with you yet.
And he has somebody else for you to go reach
and for you to go preach the gospel to.
And so, you know, I love to think about that sometimes.
And so the title of my sermon tonight is
Think Global, Act Local.
I heard this so again many years ago.
I think it's a liberal saying, I think.
And it's about, but you know what?
I don't care. I like it.
I'm going to steal their slogan.
I think it's about environmentalism or something.
But anyway, I'm taking it,
and I'm going to make it into a Christian slogan.
Amen?
Because the thing is, you know,
we can totally apply this to soul winning,
where, you know, we have this global mindset
that, you know, we're trying to reach the whole world
with the gospel.
And the way that we act that out in our daily lives
is by going soul winning in our local area.
And so that's kind of what I want to preach about tonight.
And so first and foremost,
I kind of wanted to find this mission
to preach the gospel to every single person
in the entire world,
and show you some verses where the Bible talks about that.
So you're there in Acts chapter 1.
Look down at the very familiar verse in number 8.
It says,
But ye shall receive power.
After that the Holy Ghost has come upon you.
And ye shall be witnesses unto me,
both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea,
and in Samaria,
and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
And so here we see a blueprint,
if you will, that God has given us
for reaching the entire world
with the gospel.
And he talks about four different,
I guess you could say, levels
of soul winning.
And, you know,
obviously Jerusalem is a city, you know,
and it's not telling us to pick up
Faithful Word and go to the Middle East,
to the, you know, modern Jerusalem or whatever.
But what it is saying is we need to start
right here in our local city,
in our local area.
And of course we've done that,
and we've been doing that for many, many years,
long before I've been coming here.
You know, we got that map over there,
and we'll talk more about that tonight.
But, you know, we got to start in our city,
of Phoenix, and then, you know,
the next administration up from that for us
would be Arizona, and then after that
would be the rest of the U.S.,
and then of course the uttermost parts
of the earth.
And so this is kind of the,
this is the way that we are going
to reach the world, really,
is that many churches all over the world
are going to be kind of playing out
this same level.
You know, reach everybody in their city,
and then in their next and next and next
like that.
And so this is kind of, you know,
what God is teaching us here,
what I believe.
And so our church, and I love our church,
and I'm so thankful that we have a church
that is doing all four of these levels
all at the same time as well.
I don't think that it's something
that we have to finish, you know,
we got to knock every single door
in all of Phoenix before we, you know,
start reaching the rest of Arizona
or something like that.
No, we need to do all of them
at the same time.
And that's why I love our church.
You know, we have, you know,
the two zoning times per day, you know,
10.30, 5 o'clock every single day
right here in Phoenix.
Pretty much every single weekend,
we've got weekend trips going to other parts
of Arizona.
You know, if we don't have anything else
going on, you know, we've reached a lot
of the rest of the U.S.
just through our church planting.
You know, we planted, you know,
Pastor Mejia's church in L.A.
and then we got, you know,
Pastor Shelley in Texas and everything
and even to the uttermost parts of the earth.
You know, we've got our Germany church
that Anselm works with and everything.
And so, you know, we are blessed
to be at a church where we're doing
each one of these levels
all at the same time.
We're really working towards this goal
of reaching the entire world
with the gospel.
And so, turn, if you would,
to Matthew chapter 28.
Matthew chapter 28.
I'm going to quote you another verse.
This is probably my favorite verse
out of the entire Bible.
Mark 16, 15, right?
It says,
Go ye into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature.
And I kind of want to break that down
for a minute.
You know, first of all,
it tells us to go.
Go where?
Go into all the world
and preach the gospel.
See, we don't need to just stay here
or stay where we're at.
You know, the thing is,
we need to go bring the gospel to them, right?
You know, we're not relying on,
you know, lifestyle evangelism
or bringing people to church.
Oh, you know, if they want to get saved,
they can come to church.
No, we want to bring it to them.
We want to bring the gospel to them.
We want to have our feet shod
with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
And so, we need to go.
We need to go to them
preaching the gospel.
And it says, into all the world.
You know, I believe that soul owners
should go everywhere in the entire world
and preach in their local areas.
And it says,
preach the gospel to every preacher.
And, you know, call me crazy,
but I think every means every.
You know, our job is to literally preach the gospel
to every single person in the entire world.
And I'm not saying that I'm personally going to do it
or that our church is personally going to do it,
but we're going to work together.
And I believe that over the span
of many different churches all around the world,
we can get that accomplished.
And God is telling us here
that we need to get it accomplished, right?
This is the goal.
This is the great commission given to us.
This is how we're going to do it.
And I believe that, you know,
while God gives us this blueprint for how we do it,
God also gives us two different modes
or two different means
by which we're going to evangelize the world as well.
And what do I mean by that?
Well, in Mark 16 where we were just looking at,
you know, I believe that that is directed
toward every single Christian.
Man, woman, boy, girl, young, old,
rich, poor, every single saved person
should be a sole winner
and going out there trying to get other people saved.
And so, you know, that's kind of directed
towards all of us.
But then in Matthew 28,
it's kind of worded a little bit differently.
It's also the great commission as well,
but it's worded differently.
Let's take a look at it
and you'll see what I'm talking about.
So look down, if you would, at verse number 18.
The Bible reads,
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying,
All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Notice that power there in both verses.
And then it goes on to say,
Go ye therefore, and look at this,
and teach all nations, look at this,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost, and look at this,
teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you,
and lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world. Amen.
And so notice it lists three things here.
It says teaching all nations.
It says baptizing them and teaching them
to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you.
And if you notice, all three of these things
are not what, you know,
just an ordinary soul winner is really doing.
You know what I mean?
But all three of these things
are things that happen at church.
And so what I'm trying to say
is that there's basically two means
or two modes by which we're gonna reach the entire world
and that's with soul winners and with churches.
I believe that both of these working together
is how we're gonna reach the entire world.
And I believe that Matthew 28
is more directed towards churches.
Mark 16 is more directed towards soul winners.
But you know, we need both of these
working together.
You know, a church without soul winners
is, you know, it's a dead church, right?
It's not growing.
It's not bringing in new people.
You can even make the case from Revelation
that it's not even considered a church in God's eyes.
But you know, the thing is that it's just not gonna work.
It's not effective, right?
And in the same way, you know,
soul winners without a church,
they're not gonna be as effective either.
And that's nothing against those soul winners
because I personally know many people, you know,
out there that don't have a good church to go to
and then they go soul winning in their local areas
and I feel for them.
You know, we need more churches.
We need more people, more men to, you know,
basically stand up and be pastors and start churches.
And you know, we definitely need that.
There's a great need out there for churches.
There's a great shortage of good Bible-believing churches
like ours where we preach hard and we go soul winning
and we're doing it strategically, marking off the maps,
trying to reach everybody in our local area.
There's a great shortage of that in the world
and we need more churches like that.
And so I believe that really the only way
that we're gonna reach the entire world of the gospel
is through these two means, right?
Churches, soul winners working together.
I think this is the way that it's gonna be done.
And actually there's another great verse
that we've all heard of that kind of supports that as well.
Acts 542 where it says,
and daily in the temple and in every house
they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.
And so once again, you know, you got the temple,
you got the church and then you got in every house, right?
You got knocking on doors, soul winning.
And so I do believe this is biblical,
this simple plan to reach the entire world.
It's very simple, it's very simple.
I was about to say it's very easy, but it's not easy.
It's gonna be very challenging.
You know, it's gonna take a lot of effort.
You know, it's gonna take tens,
maybe hundreds of thousands of people working together,
you know, save people to reach the entire world.
But I want to prove to you that it is within our grasp.
We actually can do this and we can do it in our lifetime.
Now, you know, kind of, on a more personal note,
I have this personal project
that I've been working on for a while now
and I do it in my off time or whatever.
But basically what I'm doing is I have a big map
where, and it's on the computer,
but I have a big map where I'm basically putting pen drops
and I'm marking every city in the entire world
with over 100,000 people, with over 500,000 people,
with over a million people, with over 10 million people
Why am I doing that? Am I crazy? No.
Because I want to be constantly thinking about
and praying about and talking about
and just constantly having at the forefront of my mind
this goal to reach the entire world with the gospel.
And so, and I'm also trying to figure out, like,
how many churches do we actually need?
Like, what are we trying to do here?
And, you know, I'm not done with the project yet,
but I have it estimated around up to about 5,000 churches.
So let's just go with that number.
Let's say that we need 5,000 churches to reach the entire world,
churches like ours, churches with hard preaching,
aggressive soul winning, you know,
strategically knocking every door in their area.
Well, listen, you know, that sounds like a big goal, and it is,
but it's not impossible.
And I wanted to compare us to other Baptists to show you
that it is not impossible.
You know, a simple Google search will tell you that, you know,
as far as the old IV goes, right,
you know, independent fundamental Baptist churches,
there are about 10,000 independent fundamental Baptist churches
just in America alone.
So what I'm saying is that if we even had half of their amount of churches,
half of their amount of resources,
half of their amount of manpower,
then we could totally turn this whole world upside down.
We could be preaching the gospel to everyone.
And what that also tells me, unfortunately,
is like, you know, about 9,950 of those churches
probably aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing,
and that's really sad.
But then also, too, I compared us to the Southern Baptists,
which were very different from them,
but they're much bigger as well.
And if you look it up, they have roughly 50,000 churches
right here in America.
So, again, if we just had one-tenth of what they had,
then we could reach the whole world.
And so I'm showing you these numbers because I want you to see
that it's very attainable.
You know, we can do this, and we can even do this in our lifetime,
but we need to have the faith that it can be done.
You know, recently, recently I was asked the question,
I'm like, Raymond, you know,
or someone may ask me, you know, Raymond,
why are you always talking about, you know,
all this crazy stuff about preaching the gospel to everybody
in the whole world and, you know,
starting all these churches in Africa,
and then how are we going to get into these crazy countries
in the Middle East or whatever?
Like, why do you always talk about all this stuff?
You know, why do you talk about all this stuff that you can't control?
And, you know, my answer to that is very simple.
I can control it.
And you know what? You can, too.
Through faith, through prayer, we can change things.
And, you know, the simple answer is that I have faith.
I have faith that this can be done.
I have a vision.
You know, it's the same vision that Jesus gave us,
you know, this great commission.
I have a vision, and I can see, you know, basically, you know,
what is faith, right?
It's the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.
It's whenever you can see something that other people can't see.
And I can see in our future, you know,
us having thousands of churches all over the world
and tens of thousands of soul winners
going out and preaching the gospel
and thousands of pastors getting up and preaching it hard,
preaching it as it is, you know,
and thousands of maps on the wall like that one over there
and millions of those little orange highlighters,
you know, marking in those little streets and everything,
you know, I can see that.
And I have that vision, and I want all of us to have that vision as well.
That's why I think that a sermon like this is so important.
So, that's the simple answer.
And so, and here's a little caveat, too.
You know, having this global vision does not mean
that I'm asking you to, you know, drop everything
and go be a missionary to some weird country
that you never heard of like Liechtenstein or something.
Like, I don't even know where that's at.
I mean, it's in Europe. I can't point it out on a map.
You know, I don't, that's not what I'm saying.
You know, what I am saying is that, you know,
by having this global type of mindset,
you can be thinking about, you can be praying about,
you can have this faith because, you know, Jesus said,
hey, according to your faith be it unto you.
And then what else does the Bible say?
It says that the harvest truly is great,
but the laborers are few.
Pray he therefore the Lord of the harvest
that he would send for the laborers and to his harvest.
And so, you know, I do believe that's very important
for all of us to have this same vision
and to be on the same page about how we're trying
to reach the whole world with the gospel.
And here's another great reason to have this mindset
is because what I believe and what I've seen in my own life
and in other people is that if you have this type of mindset
and you're constantly thinking about how, you know,
oh man, we got to reach the whole world with the gospel,
then it's also going to kind of translate
into motivating you to do more soul wanting right here
where you're at.
You know what I mean?
And that's kind of what I believe about that is
and, you know, this is a very motivating thought
that we're trying to reach the entire world.
And I think to myself, hey, you know,
maybe I can't go to Lichtenstein or whatever,
but you know what?
I can go over here, I can go to the Navajo,
I can go to the Hopi, I can go, you know,
just right over here in Scottsdale or Mesa or whatever
and we can go preaching the gospel
and we can make a difference right where we're at.
And so hence the title of the sermon, you know,
Think Global, Act Local, right?
I want us to have this global mindset
and have that translate into us doing more soul wanting
right here where we're at.
Amen?
So that kind of brings me to my second point tonight, right?
I got two points, Think Global, Act Local.
So then the second part of this sermon
is going to be kind of talking about what we're doing
right here in Arizona.
And so, you know, obviously we have this map over here
and, you know, I encourage people
whenever they move to the church
to take a picture of that map
and then check it many years later
and see how much progress that we've done.
And, you know, I took a picture of that
five and a half years ago whenever I moved here
and yeah, it looks way different now.
We've knocked so many doors
and I think it's super encouraging.
It's really great.
And so, but really what I want to talk about tonight
and what I want to kind of give an update about
and an overview about
is what we've been doing on the weekend trips, right?
These weekend trips are awesome and I love them
and we're doing them pretty much every single weekend,
you know, you know what I'm talking about
because, you know, it's awesome.
And, anyway, I've been doing it
for about two and a half years now, you know,
before me, of course, it was Deacon Russell running it
but I've been running it for about two and a half years now
and I have a lot of statistics
and I have a lot of numbers to go through
and hopefully this is going to motivate you
because it motivates me a lot.
And I love these trips
and I do not want to stop doing these trips
but let me kind of explain to you some of our progress
that we've made over the past two and a half years
up on these Indian reservations
and in these counties that we've been doing.
And so, you know, our first trip that we did
where I was running it, we went to Globe
and we went to Globe and it was on February 6th, 2021.
And I remember I was super nervous
because I'd never run a trip like this before
and I remember that it was snowing that day.
It was one of the only times that we've gone snowing in the snow,
you know, and it was pretty cool.
I remember I was partnered up with you, Thomas,
and then we were snowing in over there
and we got four people saved that day
and so that was awesome.
And so we continued doing Globe on our one-day trips
for the next several months until it got too hot outside
and then on June 19th of that same year,
we had our first Payson trip
and we had the biggest turnout that we ever had.
We had 26 people come out, 26 homeowners come out.
I remember Pastor was there.
It was a great trip as well.
And, you know, we just finished Payson, you know,
less than a month ago.
And so, you know, it took a long time
but we got it all done, you know.
Payson had like 15,000 people there
and we're done with it.
We're also done with Globe
and we're done with all the surrounding towns
that's all around it as well.
And both of these, Globe and Payson,
are both in the same county of Gila County.
And, you know, we've been really knocking out Gila County.
We've gotten a lot done
and you're about to see some of those numbers in a second.
But, you know, and then now we have all these very small towns
that we're trying to do in Gila County,
way smaller than Globe, way smaller than Payson.
Just last weekend we went to Hagler Creek
and we knocked all the doors there in like two hours.
It was 40 doors.
It took very, very, very little time to finish it.
And we finished it
and actually I didn't realize this until afterward.
But whenever I came over here to our checklist
and I marked it off,
oh, we're done with Hagler Creek,
I saw that it was the second smallest town in Gila County.
So the first smallest is Bear Flat
and we're going to be going there in a couple of months.
But right now we're going to Young
with a population of about 650.
And so we need two or three more trips to get that done.
And so all together this is all Gila County
and we can knock all of Gila County
just with our one-day trips.
And the population of Gila County is 53,589
and we have already reached roughly 30,000 people in Gila County.
So we've already reached a ton of people out there
and we've got about 20,000 people left.
And let me tell you how many salvations we got
from all those trips put together.
We have gotten 228 people saved in Gila County.
So these one-day trips have been really fruitful.
They've been really great.
And so I'm loving those.
Now, those are just the one-day trips.
Let me talk a little bit about our two-day trips
that we've been doing too
because we do Saturday trips
and then we alternate the next weekend.
We'll do a Friday Saturday trip.
And so back then in February of 2021,
we started going to Graham County.
And so the biggest town there,
the town that we went to was Safford.
And we have finished Safford.
It had about 10,000 people, I should say,
and we finished it.
And Graham County still has a lot more left to do
and there's a lot of other small towns,
but they're all very close together, right?
They're all side by side.
So we finished Safford.
We started working on Thatcher.
We got Pima, Eden, Bryce.
You got Cactus Flats, Artesia.
There's all these little towns
and we can get them all done.
And so that's in Graham County.
So the population of Graham County is 39,000 people
and we've already reached about 11 and a half thousand people.
And so we got about 27 and a half thousand people left
and we have gotten 125 people saved in Graham County as well.
So, you know, lots of salvations.
It's really great.
It's really fruitful.
And then let me move on to Greenlee County.
You know, we've done a couple of trips there.
Not very many.
That was mainly Deacon Russell
that was working on Greenlee County.
That's even farther out from Safford
and it's on the New Mexico border.
But we did finish and knocking every single door
in Morenci earlier this year.
And so that was a big goal accomplished.
We finished that.
And this is also the smallest county in Arizona by population
and it's also the one that we're closest to finishing, right?
We've got very little left to do there
and we're kind of putting it on pause right now.
But we're going to get back to it pretty soon.
And so it has a total population of 9,404
and we've already reached about 5,500 of those people
and we've got about 4,000 people left there.
And so we could just mop that up pretty easily.
Hopefully this upcoming winter we can go back
and we can get that done.
And so, so far since I've been running those trips
at Greenlee County, we've gotten 40 people saved there.
So once again, awesome.
It's really great.
And I'm really happy about all of our progress that we've made.
And then we've also taken some other small trips as well.
And I'll just mention these really quickly.
It's not associated with a county,
but really we've gone to Flagstaff.
We've gone to Show Low.
We've done some soul winning in Winslow, Holbrook, and Heber.
And we're not really working on those counties yet,
but we've kind of just done some sporadic soul winning
in those areas.
And we've gotten 51 people saved in those towns.
So a lot of salvations, a lot of great stuff going on.
Now, I want to talk about our biggest project that we have.
And of course, that's the res, okay.
So we've been knocking out the Indian reservations
for a long time now.
Our church has been doing it for almost a decade.
Long before I got here, they started.
But I've been running the res trips now
for a little over a year, you know.
And so we've been going to the Indian reservations.
All we have left to do is the Hopi Reservation
and the Navajo Nation.
Those are our last two.
And so I want to talk a little bit
about this Hopi Reservation.
So our first trip to the Hopi was April 16th, 2022.
And we went to Kai Kote's Movi.
And the only thing I remember about that trip
is I got super sick on that trip.
I mean, it was bad.
I was super sick.
And I don't want to talk about that really, but anyway.
But we did get nine salvations on that trip.
So that was great.
That was a great first trip.
And you know, there's this perception,
and I want to talk about this a little bit.
There's this perception that the Hopis are very unreceptive.
But you know, I don't find that to be true.
We get a lot of Hopi people saved, you know.
And you know, it's kind of divided geographically.
And I'll talk a little bit about this.
I don't know.
I find this interesting.
You can just tune me out if you don't like this.
But anyway, I'm going to talk about their geography
a little bit.
So you know, the Hopis historically have lived
on top of these mesas, right, these plateaus
that's flat on the top.
And they've lived on top of these mesas.
It's first mesa, second mesa, and third mesa.
They've lived there historically for hundreds of years.
You know, they claim thousands of years.
But you know, whatever.
And anyway, so they've lived up there for a long time,
let's say.
But then about maybe like, let's say 25% of them
still live on top of the mesas.
And like 75% of them have moved down,
and they live at kind of the bottom of the mesas.
So not very far, like maybe half a mile apart from each other.
But then the people on top kind of look down
on the people on the bottom.
As like, you guys left your traditional area or whatever.
So you know, because they moved down to the bottom
so that they could get bigger houses, you know,
running water, better access to electricity,
you know, all those things.
And so they kind of moved down to the bottom.
And what I've noticed, and you know, yeah, hopefully,
I mean, I think other people have noticed this as well,
is that the people on top of the mesas
are much less receptive than the people on the bottom.
Because the people who have stayed on top
are mostly like really old people,
and they're just very into their false like pagan religion,
and they're just really, you know,
doing all their ceremonies and stuff.
And even on top, they still have like all their kivas,
which are these, which is basically their church.
And it's like an underground little thing,
and then you got to climb in through the top through a ladder.
It's weird.
But anyway, they got all that stuff back up on top of the mesa.
And so the people that live on top are very traditional,
very, you know, into their false religion.
And, but then the people on the bottom
still attend all of those ceremonies and stuff.
And man, it is so annoying,
because it seems like every single weekend
that we go to the Hopis, it's like,
oh, you know, nobody's here because they're up on the mesa
doing their ceremony or whatever.
It's like, come on, man. Like, I don't know.
I don't, it does get annoying.
But anyway, you know, it's just the people
that live on top of the mesas that are pretty unreceptive.
We get tons of people say that's now kind of on the lower,
because they're less traditional, I should say.
And so that's great, you know, I like that.
But then the people on the bottom still own
their, like, ancestral homes and houses on top,
and they still take care of that.
But hey, we've knocked all of it, right?
We've knocked all the doors on top,
all the doors at the bottom.
We've knocked it all.
We've done so much on the Hopi reservation already.
Just since I've been running the trips,
I mean, we have knocked every door
in Kai Kote's Movi, in Oraibi, in Hota Villa,
in Bakavi, in Shango Povi, in Second Mesa,
in Mishong Novi, in Sipa Lovi, and Walpai.
And I know that you guys don't know any of those words
and don't care about them, but you know,
each one of those were a little teeny tiny village
that we've knocked, and we've knocked
every single door in those.
And so we've only got two or three little villages left.
We are so close to being done with the Hopi reservation,
it's not even funny.
I think that we're gonna be done,
unless something crazy happens,
or we put these on pause or whatever,
I think for sure we're gonna be done with the Hopis
by the end of this year.
And so I think that's awesome, I think it's great.
And yeah, I've loved going to the Hopis.
And the Hopi population is 9,268,
and we've already reached 6,800 of those,
and we have about 2,500 people left to reach,
and we've gotten 44 salvations since going to the Hopis.
So it's been great, you know,
we've done a lot of good work on the Hopi.
And finally, I just want to talk about the Navajo Nation,
the big guy.
You know, it's gigantic, you know, it's really big.
It's hard to, yeah, it's just really big.
You know, the whole Navajo Nation, you know,
land-wise, is as big as the state of West Virginia.
So it's huge.
And it stretches out into New Mexico and Utah as well,
but we're focused on our part right here in Arizona.
And in Arizona, we have about 55,000 Navajos.
So we have the bulk of the Navajos living right here
in Arizona.
And we've already knocked over half of the Navajo Nation.
But you know, the first half of us knocking the Navajo Nation
went way faster than the second part will.
And let me explain to you why.
Because unlike the Hopis, where they're all living
on these three mesas, and they all live like side by side,
it's very easy to just, you know, knock their door
and move on to the next door.
You know, the Navajos get on my nerves because, you know,
it's kind of part of their culture.
I was reading this in a book just this week, actually.
But it's part of their culture to just kind of want
to stretch out.
You know, they want lots and lots of space around them.
And so what they'll do is they'll find this little canyon
inside of a bigger canyon that's like three miles
from their nearest neighbor, that's like 10 miles
from the nearest paved road, that's like 30 miles
from the nearest town, and they're like,
this is a great place for my house to be put, you know,
or whatever.
So it's so hard to get these houses that's way out there.
And so it's not like I can just drop off a team and be like,
all right, you guys get this house.
And then down the road about a mile, you got another house.
And then I'll just come pick you up in two hours or whatever.
Like, it just takes so long.
So it's been very, it's been a struggle to try
and get all these Navajos knocked.
The first half of the knock of the Navajos,
we did all the big towns.
So we did things like Tuba City, Kayenta, you know, Window Rock,
but then now we're kind of more in the rural areas,
and it's much harder to reach.
But we've been kind of working with some, you know,
different strategies.
So one thing that we did this past weekend,
whenever we got the 10 people saved on the Navajo reservation,
just yesterday and the day before,
is that we had two teams and each team took a separate vehicle.
And so that way we were able to have more autonomy
and we were able to drive from door to door.
And so we're doing little stuff like that to try and make it
a little bit better and get more people saved.
And so, yeah, we got, yeah,
just one of those teams got nine Navajos saved
and then the other one got one.
So we got a ton of people saved by doing it that way.
And so the Navajos, they're super receptive.
And just one more thing about them living out in the middle of nowhere,
I want to tell this story, it's really funny.
So it was me and Anzam, and I think that you remember this too,
but it was our very first Monday-Tuesday trip that we went up there
because I take a lot of Monday-Tuesday trips to the reservation,
just me and one other person or whatever.
We go up there, knock a few more doors just to try and blow through this.
But me and Anzam went up there.
This was our first time doing it.
And so from the paved road,
it was about five miles to these houses that we wanted to reach.
There were about four houses in a little pod where they were living at.
And it was about five miles away and it took us two hours to drive over there
to find those, to get there.
You know, we would go down this road and it would say Indian Route 1189
or something, and I'm like, oh, cool, it's a highway,
it's got the highway sign.
And then it would degenerate into this two tracks with the little grass growing
in the middle, and then it just ended at a cliff.
And I'm just like, oh, man.
And so then we had to backtrack, and we had to backtrack,
and then what we did then was we went down another route
and then it ended at a dry creek bed or whatever.
And then we tried another one, and we tried another one,
and then finally it dead-ended in somebody's front yard.
And then they just walked out there like, what are you guys doing here?
And then we asked them for directions, and then we were able to finally,
two hours later, make it to these four houses that we were trying to do.
And so we pulled up, and I had to slam on the brakes
because their driveway was just totally covered, just full of mud.
It was just mud, mud.
And so I couldn't drive the church van over there.
But I'm just like, you know what, Anselm?
It took us two hours to get here.
We are walking.
We're walking it.
And so it was probably like a mile-long driveway or something like that.
We could just see them off in the distance.
But I thought it would be okay because the thing was that, yeah,
it was super muddy.
It was like a foot of mud, but then at the very top,
it had been like baked by the sun, so it was kind of hard on the top.
So I'm like, well, it won't hold the weight of the van,
but surely it will hold our weight.
And no, it did not.
Within our first two or three steps, we just sank, boom, straight in,
and it went way past our ankles, and we got totally muddy.
But I'm just like, you know what, let's just keep going.
And so we went for like a mile like that.
And I'm just like, no, I'm not giving up on these houses.
It took us so long to get here.
And we got to the end, and so there were about four houses there,
two of them, nobody answered.
One of them, the guy wasn't interested.
But then the last one, there was this old lady that came out,
and she's just like, how did you get here?
I've been stuck here for two weeks.
How did you get here?
And I told her that we walked, and she saw our feet,
because by this point, it looked like we had big brown boots on,
just like way past, and she just died laughing.
She thought it was so funny.
And she heard the gospel.
She wanted to hear what we had to say.
And she got saved, and she was even crying at the end.
She was just so thankful that we brought her the gospel.
And I'm a little bit smarter nowadays, so I don't do that anymore.
I check the route before we go, and then if it's muddy,
then I'm just like, they have to wait until monsoon season is over or whatever.
But if I had done that with this lady, maybe she wouldn't have wanted to hear.
Maybe if she had a good driveway or whatever,
then she wouldn't have been as impressed and wanted to hear what we had to say.
So it was totally worth it just for that one lady.
And she got saved, and it was a really great experience,
but I did learn a lot from that time, so I'm a little bit more careful now.
But, you know, I love going to the Navajo Nation.
We still have a lot to do up there.
It's going to take us a long time, but we're plugging away at it.
Pretty much every other weekend we're going,
and I'd say somewhere between two to four times a month,
I'm going up there with somebody else,
and we're just knocking on some doors on a Monday-Tuesday trip.
And so the Navajo Nation, like I said, is huge.
It has a population of about 55,430 people just here in Arizona,
not even including Utah and New Mexico.
And so we've already reached just barely over half.
We've reached about 28,400 people.
We have about 27,000 people left to reach.
So it's going to take us a while, but we're going to keep plugging away at it.
And our salvation total so far from going to the Navajo Nation has been 84.
We've gotten 84 people saved so far just in the past year alone.
And so it's been great. It's been very receptive.
And now, you know, this is the number that I've been super excited to say.
You know, our grand total for all these weekend trips,
for all the soul winning that we've done over the past two and a half years,
to Gila County, Graham County, Greenlee County, the Hopis and Navajos,
you know, we've gotten 572 people saved since we've been doing these weekend trips.
And so, you know what, I love these trips, and I want to keep on keeping on with them.
And I want, you know, I want more people to get involved,
and I love these trips, and I just want to keep.
You know, I didn't even mention the recreations that are involved, right?
We have so many cool recreations that we do.
You know, we've gone to Monument Valley, we're about to go to the Petrified Forest.
You know, if you haven't gone on one of these trips, hey, sign up.
That's going to be fun.
And then we went to Canyon to Shade, which totally took me off guard.
I've never even heard of it before, but that was like my favorite place I've been in Arizona.
And so I'd love to do like a second trip there or whatever.
But, you know, so these trips have been great, and we have great recreations,
we have great fun, we have great fellowship, great food, great soul winning, of course.
You know, we always try to have a really great hotel to stay at.
Like we do all the whole nine yards, and everybody's welcome to come.
And so I'd like to encourage you guys to come out to those
and just kind of give an update of those,
because I know that not everybody makes it over here to the boards.
And also, too, I never counted up all the salvations that we've gotten over all these trips either.
So I just did this this morning, and I was shocked that it was as many as we did get,
because that's awesome, like I didn't realize that.
And so, you know, we got tons of people saved.
And so I kind of wanted to use this sermon tonight to make those two points
of, you know, how we need to have this global vision to reach everyone in the entire world,
and then that kind of needs to translate into us doing more soul winning locally.
And I wanted to make a special case about these weekend trips,
because they're just so much fun, and I love them and everything.
And so, you know, I have a timeline for when I want to get a lot of this stuff done.
You know, the Hopi's, by the end of this year.
Gila County, I want to get done by the end of next year, hopefully, Lord willing.
And so, you know, we'll see.
But, you know, why did I preach this?
You know, I have a weird title. It's kind of been a weird sermon.
It's like they've been two big points.
How are they even connected?
You know, I think that they're connected because, once again, you know, as I said earlier,
you know, by thinking about the entire world and praying
and just really talking about and thinking about the entire world,
that motivates me to want to go soul winning in our local area.
And I think that that's true with other people as well.
And so, I want us all to kind of have that global vision.
But also, it works the other way around as well.
The more soul winning that you do here in your local area, right here in Arizona,
you know, the more I think that it'll remind you that there is a bigger project involved, you know.
And basically, if you want to think about this like this, this was the analogy that I came up with,
is that, you know, we're basically working on one piece of the puzzle.
We got this huge puzzle with 5,000 pieces or whatever.
And then we just got this one piece that we're working on right here in Arizona.
And so, you know, it motivates me and it should motivate you as well.
And I want to preach this sermon to remind us of what we're working towards, right.
As Christians, you know, the reason that we're even here right now,
the reason that God's not done with us and just calling us up onto home as the expression goes,
is because, you know, he wants us to continue this mission of soul winning,
this mission to reach the entire world with the gospel.
And there's no better way to do it than just starting right here from home and just kind of working out from there.
And so, I hope that you remember this sermon.
I hope that you remember, maybe the slogan will, you know, help you remember, right.
Think global, act local.
So just, I hope that you remember this and I hope that it gets you motivated to do more soul winning in the future.
So let's just pray.
So dear Lord, I just pray that something that I said tonight would have helped somebody, Lord.
And I just pray that we would all get more motivated, Lord, and just do more soul winning
and just reach more people and to serve you more and to love the lost and just reach them with the gospel.
And just please help us all to do that and just please keep us motivated and keep us going strong.
And it's in Christ's name I pray, amen.
Amen.
May I take your hymnals please?
Go to hymn number 277, 277.
Only trust in hymn number 277.
Come every soul by sin oppressed.
There is mercy in the Lord.
Hymn number 277.
Come every soul by sin oppressed.
There is mercy in the Lord.
And he will surely give.
As God trusts me in his word.
Only trust in all who trust him.
And we trust him now.
And he will save you, he will save you.
He will save you now.
For when he is ashamed and his precious blood,
it brings blessing to his soul.
Watch now into the crimson sun and watch his light as dawn.
Only trust in all who trust him.
Only trust him now.
He will save you, he will save you.
He will save you now.
Yes Jesus is the truth, the way that we live to rest.
He will save you now.
Our Lord in heaven.
Only trust him.
Only trust him now.
He will save you, he will save you.
He will save you now.
For when he is ashamed and his precious blood,
it brings blessing to his soul.
Only trust in all who trust him.
Only trust him.
Only trust him now.
He will save you, he will save you.
He will save you now.
Thank you for watching!