["Pomp and Circumstance"]
All right. Good morning, everybody.
Welcome to Verity Baptist Church.
Take out your bulletin and go through a couple things real quickly.
And our verse of the week is Romans 1, verse 20.
The Bible reads,
For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made,
even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
And that's a great verse there.
We are a family-integrated church,
meaning children and infants are welcome during the services.
We do have a mother-baby room back there for your convenience.
Take note of the mother-baby room rules down there below.
Make use of the mother-baby room if necessary.
On the next page, we have our weekly service times listed.
Our first service is at 10 a.m., then we have a short break,
and then our 11.15 service.
Wednesday evening Bible study at 7 p.m.
Official soul-winning time is listed there in the bulletin.
2 p.m. on Wednesdays, meeting at Marikina Freedom Park.
Saturday afternoon soul-winning,
the time is scheduled to be, or Saturday soul-winning
will be announced every week.
Sunday afternoon, we do have soul-winning around 1.45 here today.
Our salvation and baptisms are listed there down below for the year,
as well as our prior month in June.
On the next page, our Bible memorization challenge is the same as normal.
Under upcoming activities, we do have our monthly Laguna church service coming up in two weeks,
our monthly prayer meeting in three weeks,
and our monthly Cavite church service the first Sunday of August.
That will be in four weeks.
Current and upcoming series, we are in the alphabet of characteristics,
and we're starting a new series here today,
Science Quotations versus the Bible,
so that's going to be a long series that we're going to be starting.
We're in the book of Matthew. We're going to be taking a bit of a break.
Birthdays and anniversaries for the month of July down there below.
On the back, we have basic rules of organization and conduct for our church.
And then you should have an insert in the bulletin for both of the sermons here today.
And the first sermon, I'm going to actually be preaching a sermon about the missions trip in Cebu.
And so if you're curious, I'll be preaching a sermon about it.
But I do want to thank everybody for being faithful to the house of God,
for volunteering and everything in our absence.
And it's not that long of a flight, but maybe us that went to Cebu,
maybe we're still recovering, we're still tired or whatever and everything.
But it's great to be back here in Manila in the house of God.
That will be it for announcements.
We'll have Brother Marlin sing another song for us.
I found a friend who is known to me.
His love is never true.
I love to tell how He lives at me.
And what His faith can do for you.
Save, I aspire divine.
Save to the life of life.
I am now in peace and my joy is gone before I'm saved.
Save me.
Take me from everything and harm.
Picture my soul in sleep.
I'm leaning strong.
What is my fear?
I know He'll guide me.
All the way.
Save, I aspire divine.
Save to the life of life.
I am now in peace and my joy is gone before I'm saved.
Save me.
I am now in peace and my joy is gone before I'm saved.
Save me.
Save me, sir, no need.
Save, I aspire divine.
Save to the life of life.
I am now in peace and my joy is gone before I'm saved.
Save me.
We're gonna sing the chorus, acapella.
Hello? I want everybody to lift up their voices on the chorus.
Everybody sing.
Stay by and far, live I.
Stay in the life of God.
Life now is here and my joy is come before I.
Stay, stay, stay.
Stay in the life of God.
Stay, stay in the life of God.
Stay, stay, stay, stay in the life of God.
Stay, stay.
Stay away from what you fear.
Stay away from what hurts you.
Stay away from what you fear.
Matthew 28, verse 1, in the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn for the first day of
the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to the shepherds, and the order was great
earthly.
For the angel of the Lord ascended from heaven, and came the world back to the throne from
the door, and set upon it.
His countenance was like lightning, and his flame was like snow.
And to hear him, the shepherds was great, and became a dead man.
And the angel answered and set upon him, Fear not, you, for I know that you see
this, and you see why.
He is not here, for he is living.
As he said, Come, to the place where the Lord lay, and go quickly, and shout out to
the shepherds, and their servants and their guests, and behold, they go at the
four years of Galilee.
There, there can be seen, though I have told you.
And they departed quickly from the shepherds, and they went to the shepherds' words,
and if they went to shout out to the shepherds, they will hear the shepherds
saying, O hail!
And they came and held them by their feet, and worshiped them.
Then, as he offended them, Be not afraid, go tell my brother that they go to
Galilee, and therefore be seen.
Now, when they were gone, they always wanted to watch things, and to
see and show them peacefully all the things that were done.
And they would tremble over the elders, and as they were done so,
they gave large money to the shepherds, saying, Say, you,
and the shepherds came by night, and showed them the way while
you slept.
And as it shone through the government's ears, they were persuaded and
superior.
So they took the money, and did as they were taught, and as they
were taught, we would hold them under grief until they were dead.
Then the eleven established one of these yellows into a mountain of
dew that appointed them.
And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted him.
Then they came and showed him to them, saying, All power is given
unto you, heaven and earth.
Go ye there, for it is your nation, that rises unto the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Reaching them to serve all things that do arise from men of you,
and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
Amen.
All right.
We're here in Matthew chapter 28, and the name of the sermon is
Lessons from the 2024 Cebu Missions Trip, or you could say the
recap from the 2024 Cebu Missions Trip.
Now we're here in Matthew chapter 28, and notice what the Bible says
starting in verse 18.
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given
unto me in heaven and in earth.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
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 the Bible says here in Matthew chapter 28, as it concludes,
it's basically a call from Jesus to go out and preach the gospel.
Of course, you see that at the end of the book of Mark.
You see that at the end of all the gospels.
And then in Acts 1, he reiterates that message,
and he's trying to tell them to go everywhere and preach the gospel.
Now, realistically, you cannot preach the gospel all over the world
and to all nations with one church.
I mean, how are we going to reach countries in Africa?
It's not really possible.
You say, Well, some people get saved from the online ministry.
Well, number one, there was no online ministry 2,000 years ago.
And number two, the online ministry reaches a very small number of people, to be honest.
I mean, if you're going to get people saved, you really need to be there in person,
talking to people and giving the gospel.
That is how people get saved.
What he says here is to go and teach all nations.
Now, of course, in the book of Acts, they didn't really obey that.
They didn't really do that.
It took persecution to cause them to go out and spread the gospel to the end of the world.
Now, how do we apply this as a church in 2024?
Well, honestly, in today's world, we do have the opportunity to go.
We can hop on a plane. We can go in a boat. We can go in a car.
We can go to a long distance away from us
and preach to people that we're never going to reach on a daily basis.
And praise the Lord for that.
That's something they could not have done 2,000 years ago.
Imagine if our soul winning every single week was just the same doors right around this area
because we have very limited vehicles to get anywhere.
And we're talking to the same people 50 times.
Whenever we have events at church and we're talking to the nearby people,
we don't expect big salvation results, do we?
Because they've heard the gospel many times.
Many of them are upset that we're there again.
And it is what it is.
In today's world, we do have the opportunity to go to other places
and go and spread the gospel.
Now, I will say this, that when it comes to all nations,
I personally have no interest in ever hosting a missions trip outside the Philippines.
I've had pastors that have asked me about hosting areas in Asia that might be receptive.
You say, why don't you have an interest?
Nobody from our church is going to be able to get a visa probably to go to those countries.
As an American, you can kind of get a visa anywhere, except maybe Mecca or Vatican City or whatever.
You can kind of get a visa to go anywhere, but that's just not really true with most people here.
So it's not really an event that our church could partake in together.
I will say, though, I do have an interest in doing more soloing events in other locations
and missions trips within the Philippines.
And so, of course, Cebu is the same nation as here.
I mean, my kids ask, what country are we in?
It's like, it's still the Philippines.
We hopped on a plane, but it is still within the Philippines.
But in many ways, I would say I felt like I was in a different country this past week.
And one of the main reasons why, when you think of going to all nations,
one of the big things you're going to be expecting is a different language is spoken.
And it's definitely a different language over there in Cebu.
So you're turning your Bible to Acts 21, Acts 21, Acts chapter 21.
I would say this.
Whenever you're doing a missions trip or going soloing in any area that you're not familiar with,
you really just don't know what to expect.
And so it's kind of interesting trying to figure out what's going to happen,
how receptive is it going to be, things that you do expect take place, things that you don't expect take place.
One of the big things you're expecting going to a different place is language.
And it's certainly very dominantly Cebuano.
I mean, Tagalog and English are way down the list.
They definitely prefer to speak Cebuano.
Now notice what it says here in Acts 21, verse 33.
Then the chief captain came near and took him and commanded him to be bound with two chains,
and demanded who he was and what he had done.
And some cried one thing, some another among the multitude,
and when he could not know the certainty for the tumult, he commanded him to be carried into the castle.
And when he came upon the stairs, so it was that he that was born of the soldiers for the violence of the people,
for the multitude of the people followed after, crying away with him.
And as Paul was to be led into the castle, he said unto the chief captain,
May I speak unto thee? Who said, Canst thou speak Greek?
And he's saying, Paul, do you speak the Greek language?
And it says, Art not thou that Egyptian which before these days made us an uproar
and led us out into the wilderness, four thousand men that were murderers?
So you can tell from these verses, they don't really know who Paul is,
because no, Paul did not lead people from Egypt in a rebellion against the government.
They don't really know who he is.
They're like, Do you speak Greek? Aren't you an Egyptian?
And it says here in verse 39,
But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city,
and I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people.
And when he had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs and beckoned with a hand unto the people,
and when there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying,
Obviously if someone's going to speak to a group of people,
the common etiquette is to just give silence, to pay attention, to be quiet.
The Bible says there is a great silence, but notice what it says here in the next verse, in Acts 22.
Verse 1, Men, brethren and fathers, hear ye my defense which I make now unto you.
And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, notice this,
they kept the more silence, and he saith.
So once he's speaking to them in Hebrew, all of a sudden they keep the more silence,
and they're really paying attention.
It's like, Whoa, this is the language I want to hear,
and they're completely willing to listen and pay attention.
Now, I've experienced this many times.
I mean, in the Philippines, people are automatically going to assume that I'm going to speak in English.
When I give the Gospel, I give the Gospel in Tagalog by default at the beginning,
unless they're completely fluent in English.
And when I'm speaking in Tagalog, you can notice a reaction
where they'll take more heed as they realize, Okay, it's not going to be English.
I remember at my mother-in-law's birthday party here in the Philippines a few years ago,
and they live in the United States, so when they came here,
there's like a multitude of Catholic relatives that came, like, I don't know, 80 people or whatever,
and she asked me to give the Gospel to the crowd.
And so I stood up, and I started giving the Gospel,
and people are keeping silence, and then I started speaking in Tagalog.
All of a sudden, people look up, and they're really paying attention.
Now, I will say this, not all of them are paying attention
because just by coincidence, about half the Catholic crowd just had to go inside to the house at that moment
where it's like, Oh, I'm tired, I'm going to take a nap, right?
But you can just tell they were more willing to listen as I was speaking in Tagalog
rather than speaking in English.
Now, the same would certainly be true in any area.
If you're not native to an area, and you're speaking the language,
people immediately are going to want to pay attention because, like, whoa.
I mean, you could probably go to an Arabic country.
If you're fluent in Arabic and you start speaking in Arabic,
there's probably a lot of Muslims that would actually listen to you that never would
because, like, whoa, you know, you learn the language, I'm willing to listen, right?
And so in Cebu, obviously the dominant language is Cebuano,
and we definitely found that there is definitely a major language barrier.
It was a lot bigger than I expected personally.
I'm not sure what everybody expected,
but I personally thought the barrier would be much smaller.
It was much greater than I expected.
There was definitely a lot of people because, you know,
I talked to a lot of people and people kind of said in general
that they're more comfortable with English.
They weren't that comfortable with English in my opinion either.
It's like they definitely preferred Cebuano.
And so I would ask at the beginning, I would say,
and I would show my Bible and say English or Tagalog,
and then they would kind of pick or let me decide,
and I would go back and forth in the languages
because it just seemed like something wasn't clicking a lot of times,
and I'm just oftentimes just like, well,
Salikodong invitation, my Bible way to heaven.
I'd say, I don't know, right?
Now, I do believe they were understanding what we were saying,
but they're not used to speaking in Tagalog or English,
and so they're responding in Cebuano.
And then as they're responding in Cebuano,
it's just kind of like, I don't really know what they're saying.
I mean, you can catch words here and there,
but for someone to get saved,
they have to just clearly understand what you're saying,
and if there's even a bit of a barrier,
it makes it very, very difficult, right?
Go in your Bible to Acts 2, Acts 2, Acts 2.
And, you know, I've seen this reaction a million times
when I start going up and talking to people out soul winning,
and if they're around other people,
oftentimes their friends will laugh because like,
ha ha, you're stuck with speaking in the American.
It's like, you're going to have to speak English or whatever,
and it's like that was kind of the reaction I saw
when they start seeing you speak Tagalog.
It's like all the other people nearby are looking kind of like,
oh, you've got to speak to the person that doesn't speak Cebuano,
because they're not comfortable with it.
There's just a bit of a barrier.
And I'm sure that they understand English pretty well
because they probably watch TV all the time.
I'm sure they understand Tagalog pretty well,
but what they're not used to doing in general,
I mean, there's obviously exceptions,
is speaking Tagalog on a daily basis.
And it's interesting here in the Philippines, it kind of varies.
I will say that in Pampanga, everybody's completely fine with Tagalog
because there are a lot of people that live in Pampanga
that are not native Capampangans that don't even speak Capampangan.
And so by default, often in public, people are speaking in Tagalog,
not in Capampangan.
Obviously there with Cebuano being such a dominant language,
it's like that's pretty much what they're used to speaking.
And so there's not necessarily a need to have an ability to speak
in Tagalog or English.
You could see just hesitancy as Tagalog is being spoken
where they're just not quite as comfortable.
Now obviously there's exceptions to this,
but in general that's what I found.
From talking to other people, it seems like that's what everybody found,
that there's probably a bigger language barrier than we expected.
Now, of course, if you talk to college students,
they're completely comfortable with English.
I mean, I gave the gospel to college students,
and it was just like talking to somebody over here that is in college.
But if you talk to the older crowd
or people that maybe didn't go to college or whatever,
it's like there's often just this big language barrier that is over there.
So I found myself having a much lower percentage
of the people that I talked to getting saved
because I started conversations.
And then it's kind of like in your head after five minutes,
should I continue or am I wasting my time?
And oftentimes I would just kind of move on to the next conversation
because it was just like it's just not clicking.
Go to Acts 2.
Obviously, if somebody was interested in doing mission trips in the future,
you might say, hey, it would be worth it maybe to learn a little bit of Cebuano
because I really felt like if you could kind of just get the icebreaker in there
and make them feel comfortable, you could probably get through the conversation.
So maybe it would be very useful to learn some Cebuano phrases
for just like the small talk, and then you could get into the Gospel.
One thing I'm planning to do is get like a printout of the Gospel in Cebuano
that we can use if we ever do any other missions trips to areas like this.
Not that you're going to read through it word for word
because I don't think that would be that effective,
but you could use it in case there's any hesitancy.
You could kind of have the opening and then just kind of point
if they don't quite get something.
You could tell something's not clicking.
I think that could certainly help in the future.
And I will say it is possible to learn to give the Gospel in a language
you don't really speak fluently.
I used to give the Gospel in Spanish, and I got a lot of people saved
when I lived in the U.S. near areas where there's a lot of Spanish speakers.
And languages are kind of in different categories.
You could become very comfortable with speaking at a restaurant.
There's a lot of people that make YouTube vlogs.
That's what they do for a living.
They just learn a bunch of languages.
But it's not like they're learning it on a very deep level.
It's just for conversational and public.
And so you could certainly learn that for giving the Gospel in Cebuano
if that's something that you're interested in doing.
Acts 2, verse 1.
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come,
they were all with one accord in one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind.
And it filled all the house where they were sitting.
And there appeared unto them clove in tongues like as of fire,
and it sat upon each of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost
and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Now, in our modern day, we have the Pentecostal movement
that started in the early 20th century.
And probably some of you came from Pentecostal churches.
And you go to those churches, and people just start mumbling incoherently.
It's like, shoulda bought a Honda, shoulda bought a Honda,
shoulda bought a Honda, shoulda bought a Honda,
shoulda bought a Honda, shoulda bought a Honda.
And then they pass out or whatever.
That's not what you're seeing in Acts 2.
Because they're actually speaking a real language.
And so God is giving them the ability to speak in languages that they do not natively speak.
It would be like, for example, if we went to the missions trip and we all spoke perfect Sabuano.
We would have had a lot more saved, wouldn't we?
I mean, it would have been definitely a lot better.
But obviously that's not something that's going to take place in our modern day.
That is what we see in Acts 2, though.
Verse 5.
So confounded means great confusion.
They're shocked. They're surprised. They're startled.
They're just like, how are you speaking this language?
It would be like if I walked up and started speaking Mandarin Chinese.
It's like, how did you learn Chinese?
Right? They wouldn't understand it because it's very unexpected.
And they're speaking the language and they're shocked because they're hearing them speak in their own language.
And it says in verse 7,
So in the Bible you see the word tongue is used for language.
Kind of like your native tongue or your mother tongue would be the expression.
Verse number 9.
Verse 9.
Now turn in your Bible to 1 Corinthians 3.
1 Corinthians 3.
Now the reason why Paul the Apostle was so effective throughout the Bible is he had a unique ability to just pick up languages very quickly and very easily.
He was able to start churches in a lot of different areas because he was just able to pick up the languages and speak the languages.
You know, if you have that ability, you know, praise God.
Right? I mean, it's definitely hard for someone to learn a language.
If you have that ability then, you know, by all means use it for the glory of God.
There's definitely a value to it, a benefit to it.
I'll just give you an example of one of my conversations that I had in Cebu.
And, you know, I was talking to this person in the Opon Park Plaza or Resolve Park Plaza, Opon, that's over there in Lapu-Lapu City.
And, you know, I was talking to this person because he's like looking at me talk to other people and he's very curious.
And, you know, it's kind of awkward because I'm just thinking, should I open in English or Tagalog?
I was never really sure, so it was kind of interesting to me.
And I started talking to the guy and I just told him, I said,
Do you prefer English or Tagalog?
I said, I don't speak Cebuano.
And he said,
So I figured he's saying, you choose.
So, I was like, all right.
So, of course, I chose English.
And I'm a couple minutes into the conversation and he's responding, I guess, in Cebuano.
And it was just like, just something was not clicking.
And I was thinking, so I started speaking Tagalog.
I figured out my English Tagalog Bible.
I just started speaking in Tagalog.
And it just still wasn't clicking.
And so it's like, well, it's suddenly called an invitation, my Bible way to heaven.
I don't really know.
Should I keep going?
Because it just doesn't seem like it's quite clicking.
And so it could be he was understanding everything perfectly,
but when he's responding in Cebuano, it's kind of like, well, I don't know.
I really just don't know whether he's getting this or not.
And it's kind of like, well, I guess I'll move on and try to talk to another person.
The last park that my wife and I were at was, as I mentioned in the group chat for Cebu,
it was a very receptive area.
It was really a great area.
It was a park that we could probably have about 15 soul winners when it hits around 4.30.
I mean, when we were there, you could have around eight soul winners.
And right around the park is the central area of town.
So there's a bunch of just souvenir things right by and people selling food.
So even if you got two packed in the park, you could go outside of it.
But it was a very great area, very receptive.
But most of the people we talked to didn't get saved because they're just very hesitant.
And it was hard trying to convince people to listen
because when they realize you don't speak Cebuano, it's kind of like they're not that interested.
So from what I talked to other people here, I mean, that is kind of everybody's experience
that basically there was this barrier and you try to talk to people and they're getting some of it.
At the very least, you're planting a seed.
But probably not enough that they're going to end up getting saved or you really just don't know.
So one thing from Cebu is obviously the language difference.
Obviously, Cebuano is the dominant language over there.
Another thing to keep in mind, though, is how do we get rewarded in heaven for what we do here on earth?
And that's an honest question a lot of people have.
Well, how do we get rewards in heaven?
And honestly, there's not a direct formula in the Bible that says one hour of Bible reading equals 3.7 whatever.
But the Bible does give us a basic guideline in 1 Corinthians 3.
And notice what it says here in verse 5.
"'Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom he believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
I have planted Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.'"
Now, verse 6 is often misunderstood because it's not really in the context of giving the Gospel.
The context is the fact that Paul planted the church of Corinth.
And if you cross-reference with the book of Acts,
Apollos has the desire to go to Corinth, and he basically is the one who is running the show, taking over.
So what Paul is stating is it would be like, for example, somebody starting a church,
and then they move and leave it in the hands of somebody else.
So that's basically what he's saying in verse 6.
And it says in verse 7, "'So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth.'
Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one,
and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor."
The Bible says we get rewarded based on the work or the labor that we do.
So if you went to the missions trip expecting you to get ten salvations a day,
and you only got three, it doesn't change the rewards you're going to get.
You're going to get the same rewards.
And look, I'll be honest, I did not expect there to be as big of a language barrier,
so I expected that we'd get a lot more salvations on the missions trip.
That was my personal opinion. I didn't really know what to expect,
but that was my personal opinion going in,
that we would end up getting a lot more salvations than we got.
And obviously, with the language barrier, it made things hard.
Obviously, I mean, one great thing about Metro Manila is,
compared to other areas, we do have big parks where you can have a lot of people soul winning at the same time,
whereas in other areas around the country, you just don't have that.
And so, yeah, we have the disadvantages of it being very congested with people,
but we also have the huge advantage for soul winning,
that there's just a multitude of people that you could talk to.
Whereas here, you know, you go to parks, you could have like five soul winners here,
six soul winners here.
You can't really say, okay, we're going to send 50 soul winners here.
It just doesn't work that way, right?
And so we're rewarded based on the work that we do,
so look, nobody should be disappointed if you ended up getting less salvations than you expected,
because you did the same amount of work, you preached the gospel,
people got saved, you planted seeds.
It's still just as valuable as a trip, even if you didn't get as many as you expected, right?
It says here in verse number nine,
For we are laborers together with God, year God's husbandry, year God's building.
According to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder,
I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon,
but let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
Throughout the rest of this chapter, it talks about the rewards we get at the judgment seat of Christ,
and based on the rewards that you get, it's going to determine how you rule and reign with Christ.
Go to Matthew chapter 19, Matthew 19.
But there is something else that I think we should take note of,
because I think it's very easy to compare the missions trip in Manila
to the missions trip in Cebu,
because obviously it's like those are the missions trips we've done.
They're big areas.
Obviously we had a lot of soul winners that came to Cebu.
I didn't get an exact count,
but about 30 people came from our church in Manila to the Cebu missions trip.
It's a lot of people.
But there's many reasons why you can't really make this comparison,
and one of the reasons, and I'm not trying to say this to be arrogant,
but honestly it's like I feel like at our church we don't count ridiculous salvation results.
I'll give you an example from the second missions trip we had.
Our first missions trip was in April 2018,
and then after the church started a few months after that we had a missions trip in Manila
after my family was already here and the church had started.
We had people from other countries because people were excited to go to a missions trip.
I remember there was somebody who showed up for the missions trip,
and he came from a country where English was the first language,
but he had a major, major, major accent.
As he would speak to me, I didn't understand a single word that he said.
When someone's talking to you and you don't catch what they say,
it's natural to try to pretend like you do understand.
It's like, oh yeah, I understand.
I don't think anybody understood what he was saying,
but everyone's trying to be polite.
Then somebody else that is not as polite,
he's like, man, I don't understand a single word coming out of your mouth.
He's like, is that English?
He was speaking in English, but he had a major accent,
and honestly I didn't understand anything that he was saying.
I didn't want to be rude.
I wanted to be polite, but I was just thinking, I just don't know.
I'm catching a little bit here and there,
and I just didn't really understand what he was saying.
He had bigger salvation results at the missions trip than anybody else.
I was thinking, if I don't understand,
because we do have Europeans in the U.S.,
so we're used to speaking to people with accents that maybe it takes a little bit.
I was thinking, if I'm really, really struggling with understanding what he's saying,
I just think that the average Filipino is being very polite,
and he thinks they're getting saved, and they're really not.
The other thing you have to keep in mind is this.
Here in the Philippines, here in Manila,
if you're a soul winner, you give the Gospel several times every week.
In the process of giving the Gospel several times every week,
you develop perception.
Perception is not automatic.
It's something that you learn via experience.
You've got to realize, when people are coming from other countries,
they come from countries that are not receptive to the Gospel,
and they are usually not giving the Gospel on a weekly basis.
They're giving the Gospel once a month.
Now, look, when you first start going soul winning, here's the reality.
You're not good.
Neither was I, and I'm not being insulting.
It's just a fact, because you just don't have the perception
of the nonverbal communication, the tone of their voice,
and the reality is that everybody, when they start,
they think they're getting a lot of people saved
that are probably not actually getting saved.
I remember when I first started giving the Gospel,
and I didn't really have any formal training,
so my techniques were very muggle low and not the best,
but I genuinely thought that, you know, I gave the Gospel
seven times in like an hour.
My Gospel was a lot shorter then.
I didn't have any training to really know what I was doing,
but I thought I got eight salvations.
I genuinely thought that they got saved,
but, you know, in process of time, I realized,
wait a minute, it's like they're still confused on eternal security.
I thought they got saved.
Something's not making sense,
and as a result of basically where you think you've got a success
and you see failure or at the end they don't want to pray
or they don't really believe, you start to realize,
okay, maybe I'm doing something wrong,
and you start to develop perception as you're giving the Gospel.
Well, we have a lot of experience
simply because we're able to give the Gospel several times every week,
so what happens is intuitively you develop perception
without having to think about it,
whereas other people, if they're not used to giving the Gospel,
this is not meant to be an insult to them.
It's just a fact.
If they're not given the Gospel on a weekly basis,
it's going to take them a lot longer to develop that perception,
so honestly their soul winning's probably just not going to be as complete
because it's just very common when we do missions trips
that people from other countries often report huge results,
and the results that people from our church would not report.
And the reality is oftentimes people here can be very polite,
so you could pray with a lot of people.
I mean, I'm sure over there in Cebu
I could have kept going on conversations and prayed with people,
but it's just like does that mean they really got it
because I could tell there was obviously a language barrier
where they're not quite getting what I'm saying.
So I would say this.
It's like I think the results,
though they might be lower than people expected,
they're lower than I expected,
I think they're legit though.
I think they're real.
I mean, when it comes to the Manila missions trips,
I count the results that come in,
but in the back of my head I'm just being honest to our church family.
I just don't think they're that high
because when people are reporting like whatever salvations,
I'm just thinking I've never experienced that once in my life,
even when I gave the gospel for six hours.
It's like I want to give the benefit of the doubt.
I mean, I don't want to be like rude or mean or whatever.
It's like, well, I hope it's legit.
I mean, I hope they got that many people saved.
It's like I've just never experienced that,
getting as many as some people get.
And so I do think the results were very legitimate that we did actually get.
And honestly, when we do so many marathons here with our church
and we go to areas, it's like we're not averaging 10 salvations per person.
It's much lower.
And obviously it varies depending on who you talk to.
And obviously you get a conversation of five people
and it goes really well and three get saved.
And some days you get a few big conversations.
You get a big result.
But if you were to balance it out over all the time you go soul winning,
it's like you don't have crazy results.
And so I am very pleased with our church family
that I believe our soul winning is very legitimate.
I don't believe it's just one, two, three, repeat after me.
I think people just do a thorough job.
They do a great job preaching the gospel at our church here.
Matthew 19, verse 27.
Then answered Peter and said unto them,
Behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee.
What shall we have therefore?
Now, somebody can make this statement in a very what's in it for me sort of attitude.
I don't think that's the way that Peter means it though.
I think what he's saying is legitimately what takes place to the person
that dedicates their life to God, what is the end result?
What do we get?
Verse 28.
And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you,
Yea, follow me in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory.
Ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
And everyone that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands,
for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.
But many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first.
And the Bible talks about the great rewards you're going to get if you dedicate your life to serving God.
So look, if you spent your time and your vacation and your money to go on a trip,
it's like maybe you didn't get as many salvations as you were hoping or expecting,
but you're going to get the same rewards.
And it's like when you're dedicating your life to serving God,
it's like, well, what's in it for me?
You're going to get rewarded.
That's what the Bible says.
I mean, you forsake other things in order to serve God,
you're going to get rewarded for the work that you do.
Right?
Now, the first point of this sermon was just talking about the language.
From my experience in Cebu and in the surrounding areas,
Lapu-Lapu City, Mandawe,
there is a much bigger language barrier than I expected.
It seems like as I preach this sermon, everyone's kind of like, yeah,
so if anyone goes on the trip in the future,
just realize if you do not speak Cebuano or you do not understand Cebuano,
it's like there will probably be a lot of people that you could get saved if it was here
and their language was Tagalog that you're not going to get saved.
I thought the people were just as receptive.
I didn't think there was a problem with them being arrogant or anything.
It's just they're shy to speak in Tagalog or English
and there's some things that don't quite click.
Right?
We talked about how do you get rewarded.
You get rewarded based on the work you do.
You don't get rewarded based on the results.
So if you got 100 salvations versus getting 10 salvations
and it's the same amount of work, you get the same amount of rewards.
It's not like we get more rewards than any other people that are soul winners on the planet
simply because we have a receptive area.
People that are zealous to preach the Gospel in a European country that's not receptive,
they get rewarded based on the work that they do,
just like we get rewarded based on the work that we do.
I get a lot more salvations here than I do in the United States,
but it doesn't change the rewards because it's based on the work.
The other thing to realize is this.
It's like, honestly, 464 salvations is not a low number.
I mean, that's a lot of salvations.
I mean, look, if you did a missions trip in the U.S.
and the end result was 464 salvations, people would be jumping for joy.
They wouldn't expect 100.
Right?
So honestly, 464 salvations is a lot of people that got saved.
So I'm just going to give you the stories,
and this is just my experience from being there.
So what I ran into.
And so, you know, starting on Sunday for the first day of the missions trip.
And so the faith in Verity Baptist Church is pastored by Pastor Mancilli,
and they're a new IFP church.
They are as like-minded to us as any church in the Philippines.
And so I thought the church was great.
I love the people.
Pastor Mancilli was very friendly, very hospitable.
They definitely had a feast for lunch.
I mean, they spent a lot of money providing a lot of lechon.
There was a lot of food there for lunch.
And, you know, one of the things that I was really encouraged about with the church
is that the people that were there,
it's like when you heard stories from the people that are members of the church,
it's the same stories that we would tell, wasn't it?
It's like I went to a Bible Baptist church,
and it's just like the doctrine was wrong.
They were teaching repentance of sins.
They were teaching Calvinism.
So now I drive an hour and a half to come to church,
and I'm hoping I can relocate one day.
I mean, the same things that we would say.
I mean, the same exact things coming from a long distance to come to that church.
And it's just like, you know, the thing is there's plenty,
even though Cebu is the most Catholic area of the Philippines,
Mandawi by percentage is the highest percentage of Catholics
of any metropolitan city in the Philippines,
of the any 33 major ones.
But there are still a lot of Baptist churches.
It doesn't mean all Baptists are the same.
And, you know, you could tell that they're a like-minded church
because the stories are the same where it's like,
yeah, you know, I have a Bible Baptist church right down the road.
It's like I drive an hour to come to church because it's not the same.
It's like the doctrine is wrong.
You know, it's like the pastors say, well, if you're really saved,
then you're going to do good works or walk the walk.
It's like, well, that's not what we believe.
That's not the churches that we want to fellowship with.
It's like we believe in salvation by grace through faith, no works,
and works are not a proof of salvation.
Salvation is 100% by grace through faith.
And look, I would not be satisfied going to a church that taught,
if you're really saved, you're going to do good works.
It's like I wouldn't be interested in going to a church like that.
There are plenty of Baptist churches like that.
They're not the same.
Right? And many of you came from churches like that,
and then it's like they'll say, well, you know what, they left church.
They must have never been saved.
It's like, well, do you believe in eternal security or not?
It's either yes, I do no matter what or no, I don't. Right?
And so the church was great because, honestly,
the people had the same stories that we have.
They were very like-minded. It was great to fellowship with them.
They are as like-minded of a church to us
as any church I know of in the Philippines.
And praise God for that.
So the church was great.
And I preached the sermons on the Sunday service.
When we went out soul winning, I was in a group of four.
I went out with Pastor Sam, and Brother JR was in our group.
And for our group of four, it seemed pretty receptive to me.
But one thing I didn't consider is that two of the three salvations were in Cebuano.
And so it was very receptive to me.
I got somebody saved in English.
I thought, wow, three salvations was pretty good.
But I didn't really think about, well, two of them were in Cebuano.
And so if we weren't speaking in Cebuano,
there might have only been the one salvation or whatever.
Now, it is a little bit different over there because, you know,
as we're going there, I was asking Pastor Mancilli,
it's like, so what do you say at the door?
I mean, is it any different? Do you say tao po?
He said, you say ayo.
It's like, ayo?
And so I was like, well, how about you start?
And so we're going, and then Pastor Mancilli's like,
ayo.
And I'm like, I felt like I was on a ship or something.
Ayo.
And so, you know, I let him take the first couple doors.
And then, you know, on the first one that I took,
it's like I was a little bit shy.
And I was like, ayo?
I felt a little bit shy to say ayo.
Now, at the end, it was pretty exciting.
I was like, ayo.
And so there's obviously some differences there,
you know, different language, but just different etiquette
and things that you say and everything.
You know, I think it's very similar for them.
You know, they've done so many in that area plenty of times
because that's right by their church.
But we did have salvation on that Sunday.
For Monday, and for those that are not familiar with the geography of Cebu,
so the three biggest cities in Cebu are Cebu City, number one,
Lapu-Lapu City, number two,
and Mandawai City, number three.
The church is in Mandawai.
The airport is in Lapu-Lapu City, and obviously Cebu City is the big area.
So it's kind of interesting because you fly into Lapu-Lapu City
and then you cross the water to get to the other side.
Now, going into it, we had three main areas for soul winning,
and honestly, two of them ended up just not really working out.
One of them was in the Lapu-Lapu City side where we were,
and then the other two were in Cebu City.
One of them was just not reachable without certain access vehicles.
And so it did make it a lot more difficult.
And we're in the Lapu-Lapu City side,
and we went to the Lapu-Lapu monument with, you know,
where supposedly was the exact spot where Ferdinand Magellan was killed.
They said the water has receded since then,
so the spot where they have the monument
is like the exact spot where Magellan was killed.
Whether that's true or not, I don't know.
But I'll be honest because I find the history of that event very interesting.
I was very disappointed with the monument park that they had.
It was nothing.
I mean, that was one of the things I was very excited about.
I get there, and it's like, is this it?
I wasn't expecting it to be as big as Rizal Park or Kaysan Memorial Circle,
but it was small. It was nothing.
And there was nobody there. We arrived at 12.
We already were deciding to start later.
There's like nobody there, and it's just like, okay.
And then around the area, it's like they've got a few small little souvenir things.
Not much.
We came with our kids. We had our kids,
so we wanted to make sure the kids experienced all of it during the trip.
And it was not a shaded area at all,
so it was very, very hot and difficult for the kids.
My wife went to talk to a group of three people that were there,
and it just didn't click.
I mean, I don't know if they didn't understand.
You know, my wife's given the Gospel in Tagalog.
I don't know if it's just a barrier there or what,
but my wife kind of ended the conversation.
And so then I went to talk to somebody at one of the souvenir places,
and Brother Duncan and James were also there,
and they said they had talked to someone that didn't speak English,
but they spoke Tagalog.
So I went over there to talk to the person,
and I guess they spoke Tagalog.
I mean, it just wasn't clicking.
I just asked them what they thought it took to get to heaven after a few minutes,
and they said, you know, live a good life, be a nice person,
repent of your sins.
They mentioned a bunch of things, and I was like, okay.
So we decided to scramble around,
and we ended up going to Ayala Cebu like last second.
We weren't planning to do that,
but we had heard that there was just like a little park there
where you could talk to people.
And I don't know if somehow Grab knows if you're a tourist or whatever,
but Grab is so expensive in Cebu.
So it was about a 45-minute trip to Ayala Cebu.
It was over 800 pesos.
And I was like, now, we did have a six-seater,
but a four-seater was 701 pesos.
It's not that expensive here.
It's not that expensive in Pampanga either.
It was a lot more expensive.
I mean, honestly, it's like that would be a pretty good career over there.
I mean, they get paid a decent amount of money for driving there.
I was surprised how expensive it was.
And so on that Monday, it started to pour rain once we got there.
My wife got somebody saved on the inside.
We were at the park.
I gave the Gospel to a group of four people.
Three of them got saved.
My wife talked to a group of people.
And we ended up heading back to the hotel
because it had taken a long time to get there,
scrambling around, going to a different place.
And the trip back was 59 minutes.
And it was, if I remember correctly, 1,084 pesos with Grab.
I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
Because the taxis were like the same price as here.
But Grab was so much more expensive.
And so I don't really know what that is.
I don't know if they realize, okay, you're normally booking in Pampanga,
so we're going to charge you like three times as much or something.
I don't really know.
But it's like 1,084 pesos is extremely expensive.
If that's the sort of price,
I don't think that people really cross the water that much.
I think if you live on the Lapu-Lapu city side,
you just kind of stay there, and vice versa.
One thing I was surprised about,
I didn't really see a lot of Japanese there.
I mean, I saw a few, but a lot less.
It really felt, it did not really feel like Metro Manila to me.
I'll be honest, Anjale City is more like Metro Manila than Cebu.
From my experience, it's much more like Metro Manila than it was in Cebu.
I mean, especially on the Lapu-Lapu city side,
you arrive, it feels like you're at the countryside.
I was like, not really what I was expecting.
It was very, very different.
And so that was our experience.
We got back at 8 p.m., so it was like a nine-hour day.
And we did have seven salvations.
I think we were a bit fortunate because we got to talk to a couple groups.
And anyways, on Tuesday,
we didn't want to go back to the same place we went with the Lapu-Lapu monument.
We had heard about the Oppon Plaza Rizal.
And that was a great area for soul winning.
We showed up at 2 p.m.
There was already people there.
It was very shaded.
It's the very central part of the city.
So even if you get overcrowded at the little plaza that they have there,
there's a lot of people just out and around the area.
There's a basketball court.
And honestly, at like 5 p.m., you could have 15 soul winners easy.
I mean, it's very packed.
And it was receptive, but there was definitely a language barrier.
Even for the younger people,
I just felt like there was a much bigger language barrier than I was expecting.
We also had seven people saved there, but we were there for a while.
We talked to a lot of people.
A lot of conversations started.
And we just didn't finish because there just seemed to be a barrier there.
And let's see.
Actually, go to Acts 1, verse 8.
Acts 1, verse 8. We'll just close there.
Acts 1, verse 8.
So from my experience at the Oppon Plaza Rizal,
it's kind of similar to Hardin.
But a little bit nicer.
It's not as big, but I think it gets just as packed.
Just as many people inside because it's more densely populated of an area
once people start coming in.
It's kind of similar to Hardin in Marikina would be the comparison that I would make.
And so anyways, in Acts 1, verse 8, let me turn there myself.
Acts 1, verse 8.
The Bible says in Acts 1, verse 8,
But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you,
and ye shall be witnesses on me, both in Jerusalem and in Al-Judea
and in Samaria and on the uttermost part of the earth.
And this is another verse you can apply to missions.
And I believe that we're really hitting our area very well.
And I think the big application of this is to get churches started everywhere.
I think it's great, though, that we got to partner with the church that's over there.
And honestly, we probably get a little bit more of recognition
because we're probably more known than Faith and Verity Baptist Church.
They're completely like-minded with us, though.
I thought they were a great church.
Pastor Sam's great.
They had a lot of people out soul-winning every single day.
They don't have the same challenge of the language barrier that we do.
So I think they're able to go door-to-door and have great results just in their local area.
But I thought it was a great trip.
My family had an awesome time.
It was definitely different than when we went to Beekle.
We are planning a missions trip to Beekle.
A few things we're planning to do differently for that missions trip.
We're planning to send somebody down on a scouting for a couple days just to scout the area
and just kind of figure out all the questions and anything that might go wrong.
Because it was definitely difficult when two of our three main soul-winning areas just didn't really work out.
It's kind of like, okay, now what do we do?
Because obviously we don't want to go door-to-door.
There's going to be a huge language barrier.
And you don't know where you are.
You can easily get lost or whatever.
So it makes it a lot more challenging, a lot more difficult.
But I thought it was a great experience.
And I do believe that especially when you have children, if you're able to take kids to spots like this,
these are things they can remember their entire lives.
Growing up, I got saved in college.
So growing up, I wasn't really involved in church.
And I have a lot of memories, though, from going on soccer trips and vacations.
I mean, how much better if you can combine that memory with an event where you're going and spreading the gospel and getting people saved?
I think it's a wise thing when you go on events like these, try to plan some vacation in, kind of mix things up.
It's not like you have to just go soul-winning from sunup to sundown or whatever.
But they're very worthwhile experiences, very exciting.
So I highly encourage you in the future when you do mission trips, if you're able, if you have the finances,
if you have the time off work, they're very memorable things that you will not forget.
Let's close in with a prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today.
And just thank you for the opportunity our church had to go to Cebu for the mission trip
and all the souls that did get saved, God.
And I ask you to continue to bless Faith and Verity Baptist Church in Mondawai, God.
Help them to just continue to reach people with the gospel, help their church to grow,
help them get more churches started, God.
And help us try to be a blessing to them and other like-minded churches.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right, my last song is from King to me number 255.
King number 255.
Let's sing the song Chamin' Dyne.
King number 255, Chamin' Dyne.
Everybody on a bird?
King number 255, Chamin' Dyne on a bird.
Jesus has a stable friend.
We're the saints of God our friend.
We invite to know that he was Chamin' Dyne.
With his manna, he's a slave, and to fly for air.
He knows his will to come with Jesus, all the time.
Chamin' Dyne, the master God of Chamin' Dyne.
Who made Jesus, Jesus came home all the time.
He who saddled him to turn the water into wine.
To the hungry one, and now Chamin' Dyne.
God is God, the King to man.
The so big in Christ, the man.
Chamin' Dyne, the master God of Chamin' Dyne.
Who made Jesus, Jesus came home all the time.
He who saddled him to turn the water into wine.
To the hungry one, and now Chamin' Dyne.
He who saddled him to turn the water into wine.
To the hungry one, and now Chamin' Dyne.
To the lamb, who sang goodbye.
To the air, who laughed and cried.
A temple to eat, all to be adored inside.
All the saints, who fought and fought.
And with Jesus, they will be free for the living.
Chamin' Dyne, the master God of Chamin' Dyne.
He who saddled him to turn the water into wine.
To the hungry one, and now Chamin' Dyne.
Chamin' Dyne.
.