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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jessica Trinh Weekend

Jessica Trinh

The Desire of Ages

Dear Heavenly Father God, come before you on your blessed Sabbath.

Lord, we are grateful that after a long week, you invite us into your presence in this special time.

That in the entire universe, at the top of your agenda is this speck of dust.

And God, We ask for your Holy Spirit here this morning, that you be the guide, that you be the teacher, you be the speaker, Father God.

May I simply be a faithful witness of the blessings that you have given to me.

And God, we ask that you be in all the work and the details, that this may be a blessing to any person that is here and listening.

And that your angels come close, that your Holy Spirit draws closer to us, Father God.

Lord, may our hearts be open and drawn to you.

Thank you so much for your grace and your mercy.

In the beginning, when God first created humanity, his words, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, were a window into the purpose and heart of God for us.

That Adam and Eve in their rulership were to fill the earth with blessing.

After the fall and the world became so terrible and filled with wickedness, God sent, had to send a flood and restart with Noah and his family.

And the first command God gives to Noah at leaving the ark in Genesis 8, 16 to 17, go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives with you.

Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.

Again, it's this command to go out into the world and be a blessing.

Generations follow and God calls a man by the name of Abraham and calls him from the Ur of the Chaldeans in Genesis 12.1.

Get out of your country, from your family and your father's house, to a land that I will show you.

I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed The promise to Abraham that he would become a nation, but not just any nation but that through Abraham all the families of the earth would be blessed.

In only a few generations, Joseph is sent off to Egypt and God raises him from being a slave to the right hand of Pharaoh and it is in that position he becomes a fountain of life that helps preserve Egypt from famine.

But all the nations and the people that came to Egypt also in that crisis, including Joseph's family, received a blessing.

When the Israelites fall into captivity and bondage in Egypt, God, the I Am, liberates them, not simply to be free, but through their deliverance from Egypt.

Exodus 9, 16, God says, but indeed for this purpose I have raised you, that I may show my power in you, and that my name may be declared in all the earth.

And I'm only in the book of Exodus, my friends.

I'm not going to go through every instance because we would be here for hours, but move on through the books and the heart of God has always been with the purpose that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Written both in Isaiah and Habakkuk.

And never needs to when you are the God eternal.

When Jesus came to earth and says those unforgettable, everlasting words to Nicodemus in the night, for God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son.

The mission of the Son simply carries out the heart of God.

While on earth the ministry of Christ reaches only the Israelites, but He goes to the cross, He goes to the tomb, and the command He gives to His followers upon His resurrection that Sunday morning, go into all the world.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.

And He gifts His young, inexperienced church the Holy Spirit for the purpose that they will be witnesses of Christ into Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the world.

And 1 of my favorite events captured in the early start of the church.

You can turn, we're going to look a little bit there.

In the tail end of Acts chapter 7, going into Acts chapter 8.

All throughout Acts chapter 7, We see Stephen, layman deacon, newly instituted community service staff member, because the Church of Jesus of Nazareth was booming.

Stephen is pulled before the Sanhedrin and he's preaching his heart out, and the people are convicted.

But instead of coming up for an altar call, Stephen is dragged out and made the first martyr of the church.

And it's like things go from bad to worse.

We're going to look at verses 1 to 3, Starting with verse 1.

At that time, a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem.

And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles.

Verse 2, and devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him.

And as for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

You know, I read these verses and it sort of feels like, you know, if you've ever tried to start a fire, Maybe the wind's blowing, you try and strike that match.

You have your hands huddled to protect it from the wind.

And just when it seems like maybe the fire is going to catch and pick up, the devil snuffs it out.

Right when the momentum of the gospel of Jesus is growing.

They were growing by thousands in Pentecost, multitudes joining day after day as they met house to house.

And now as if It wasn't enough that Stephen was stoned.

Saul goes on this rampage throughout Jerusalem, entering house to house to drag Christians from their home churches.

This persecution rages so badly that everyone, except the apostles, maybe the apostles decided they needed to brave the persecution and stand to the ground.

Maybe they felt they needed to stay behind perhaps for anybody who couldn't leave.

But every person of the infant church is pressed to separate and scatter.

And I imagine that if I were in that situation, I'd be asking God the hard questions.

You can send an angel to open the gates of the prison, Lord.

Why aren't you stepping in to change the politics in our favor, Lord.

You've protected the church from the likes of Ananias and Sapphira.

But then you read verse 4 and everything clicks and falls into place.

Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere, preaching the word.

This scattering of the church, This displacement, putting them to be separated, wasn't for the breaking of the church but for the growing of it.

Because of the persecution and the cruel abuse and torture Saul inflicts upon the Christians, chasing them even to foreign cities, They scatter and leave Jerusalem.

When you first read the word scatter, it feels like the devil has shattered and scattered the church into bits and pieces like ashes.

But the word scatter here in the Greek, diaspero, The word means to sow seed, like for planting.

The church was growing and booming, but to God, Jerusalem was too small.

God's eyes and heart have always been set on the whole world, not just 1 city, not just Loma Linda, not just Berrien Springs.

Imagine if we can turn Tokyo, Baghdad, Vientiane, Shanghai, Cairo into the next Loma Linda, friends.

Then Philip, verse 5, then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them.

In spite of the crisis, God was still leading.

It was Christ who tells us in Acts chapter 1, go to Jerusalem, you'll be my witnesses.

It is because of the persecution of Saul that the Church of God finally accomplishes what Christ had commanded them to do, to go into Samaria.

There is never a trial that happens to us, Church, that is beyond the reach and ability of God to use and redeem it, not just for our good, but for a good that cannot be numbered.

When the devil hoped to decimate the church, break its morale, God used it to achieve his overall sovereign will.

And the heart of God is always for the blessing of the world.

I say these words and I read them, but I have a problem because I can't reconcile something that is a reality today, friends.

2000 years after Jesus has commanded those who believe in Him to go into all the world, More than 150 years have passed since the Adventist church has been told, specifically, our church has been entrusted with the last warning for a Persian world.

There is no warning after us, my friends.

And yet still, there remains 41% of the world, more than 3 billion people who are unreached.

When I refer to the unreached, we're talking about without exaggeration, people who grow up, who are born, grow up, and die without hearing the name of Jesus 1 time in their whole life.

They will grow up and live their life without meeting 1 Christian or ever hear that Jesus came and this is why we celebrate at Christmas.

They see Christmas they think Snowmen and Santa Claus.

People will grow up never knowing the true reason why we celebrate Christmas.

That Jesus came to this earth, that he existed and lived and died for them because he loves them.

So Late: Stories From the Field

Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for your beautiful Sabbath day.

We thank you for an opportunity to hear the work that you are doing in many mission fields across the world and especially in Jessica's field you have called her to.

Father, we ask that we can hear what you have to share this afternoon.

Jessica Trinh was born and raised in Southern California.

She grew up in an Adventist church and began her professional relationship with God when he called her into ministry.

God blessed her with a job as the coordinator for bibleinfo.com under the Voice of Prophecy Bible School in 2009.

But in 2014, God called her to overseas ministry in Southeast Asia.

She is now committed to be there until Jesus says otherwise.

She hopes to inspire as many people as possible to become a part of the overseas work as God keeps open the doors for places that have been difficult to reach.

We're looking forward to hearing from you.

Again, it's been such a blessing to be able to share and speak of just the blessings that God has given to me.

You know, when it comes to the work overseas, I know that for myself, like it was something that was in my heart and I was interested in, but there was a large part of me that was just intimidated and sort of like, by scared of this unknown, like, what does that mean?

And that intimidation for someone like me, very homebody, sort of introverted, it kept me.

It kept me from really giving God the chance to ask because it felt like such this unreachable, untouchable kind of just task.

But and so I hope that what I share is able to encourage somebody and to sort of just give a glimpse and a taste of my experience and that to just really give the, I just really want to, to give the feeling that really anybody can do it.

If someone like me can do it, anybody can do it so long as you are willing and that you have a heart to tell people about Jesus because of who he is to you.

I have served a total of 3 years overseas in Southeast Asia.

And so some of the stories I will be sharing will be first from the 1 country first.

They're both closed countries and so I'm trying to tread carefully.

But I served in a small country and also a closed country and then I am now presently and I have done now 2 years, and in a second in another country right next door.

And being in a closed country, it's not like, you know, you can simply just knock on someone's door and hope that by giving them a glow track, the doors of heaven will open.

We have, I know of experiences of people who have, but it's a little more complicated just because of the situation of the society.

And there's definitely a lot of stigma in terms of what a Christian is and who they have been portrayed.

Because for the average person of where I have served, being a Christian looks like what you would turn on the TV.

Sort of the immodest drinking, just very open and brash kind of, that's what they think a Christian is, what they see on TV.

And so you sort of have to work through a stigma.

And then the other aspects of other things that make it very challenging in terms of culture and thinking and being able to bridge that.

And then so you can't just hope that maybe you can give thousands of tracks and hope that it will somehow reach people.

There can be miracles, but really the way to reach people in these places is through relationships, and praise God.

You know, you don't have to be a Doug Bachelor, but if you know how to make friends, you can share Jesus.

The overall title of my message, it's going to be under so late.

As I said, I served in the first country that I served in.

It's a small country of about just 7 million.

They are the type, This picture is actually from a festival that happens yearly, where everyone from the entire country will come and they will be there at 5am.

They are the kind of, it's a devout Buddhism where you are going to see people wake up in the morning to meet.

You will have a line of monks walking down and they will kneel as the monks pass by at 5 in the morning because they are hoping for a blessing from the monks upon their businesses, upon the work that they will do that day.

And outside of every house, you're going to see a little, what looks like a little bird house.

It's actually a spirit house in this country.

And they believe that you need a house for the spirits.

You know, when you think of a country like this where you need time, I think it's amazing that you don't need to be of any kind of special, super professional skill.

How most of the people on the team that I worked with when I was there, we were able to get in the country simply because we were English speakers, we're native English speakers and we were there to teach English.

And you know just to give you an idea of what it looked like to serve in this place, you know we had, we would have, We would teach our classes and then we would be able to connect with our students.

The places where we lived was right next to the English school.

And after class, every time, they'd come over, we'd teach them how to like, that's vegan cheese right there.

We teach them how to make it with nutritional yeast flakes.

And there was a point where they were coming to our house, and they're staying there from like 830 until 1030 until 11.

But the thing is, you make yourself available to them, and you invite them into your lives.

Like, and you do little things like have birthday, you know, celebrate their birthday with them.

And just through those interactions of making friends, they then invite you into their life.

And we would, by being able to talk to them and teach them something better.

You know, this young man in the middle with the birthday cake, I remember when I first met him and I and he had already been studying at this English school for a couple years now and I asked him so like what do you think of the school?

You just it's different just even in the atmosphere and in the area.

When I'm in regular school, you know, it's cutthroat, it's competition.

Everybody's trying to step on each other and, you know, 1 up each other.

But here in the classroom, the teachers, they make us like help each other up.

Something so simple as that, and he could experience the atmosphere of being in a Christian influenced English school.

We were just an English school, but the influence of our principals so permeated the atmosphere of the school that the students could notice.

Just some months after I met him, this would have been probably about 7 months into my term, 6 months into my term there.

He actually, he's over at our house as normal, And he looks to his teacher and he tells her, have you told them yet?

Have you told the other teachers yet that I'm a Christian now?

It turns out, He said that months ago, 1 of the teachers invited me to the church.

And I could only join for the Sabbath school.

But when I came into that Sabbath school and I saw a table surrounded by people who are reading from this book, and that the purpose of why they were reading this book was to become better people.

Because in his culture, for him, when people want something better, you pay money to the monks.

And the monks, they promise a better life, they promise better things.

They say, give us more money and we'll give you better things.

Give us more money and things will become better.

And even this 17 year old, he was able to even distinguish and think, that's not gonna make people better.

And he comes and compares to this Sabbath school of people sitting around and he said, these people are actually wanting to become better people.

You know, we were able to, you know, you invite them into your lives and then we are able to invite them into Bible studies.

And in the, since the time that I have been there, you know, just like Bible studies, when I say it's just simply every Friday night, they have a little gathering where they eat together, they sing songs, and they do a Bible study.

But through that simple Friday night study, This picture on the side, those are all the people that have come through the friendships of English teachers who then invited them to be a part of this little community and they became Christians.

They're all ages from like, They're all in their young 20s.

It blows my mind because this is a country where it costs something to become a Christian.

I Will Bring the Blind

Dear Heavenly Father God, you know I come before you Lord without anything to offer.

And how amazing it is Lord that you would use someone like me Lord to pour forth so many blessings God.

Lord, I ask that I simply be a faithful steward of the blessings that you have given me, that it may be an encouragement to any who watches, Lord, and that your words may be used according to your purpose and to fulfill your will.

Lord, you know what is on my heart, and I simply ask that your Holy Spirit be leading to take out anything that needs to be taken out or add anything that needs to be added, Lord, to be tailor-made for anybody who is watching, God.

Guide my words, guide my thoughts, Father God.

We pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen.

Let me go ahead and share my screen here.

And I simply thought I could, it would be a chance to be able to share just what God has done to bring me to where I am now.

I am presently serving overseas in Southeast Asia with an organization focused on reaching the unreached.

When talking about the unreached, I'm referring to areas where there is less than 2% of Christian presence.

Countries with swaths of people who have never heard of Jesus ever in their life or even met 1 Christian.

Groups of people who don't even have Bibles in their own language.

Most of these Places are found in the 1040 window, which is a region of the world that is, when we say the 1040 window, we're referring to an area of the world that is referring to 10 degrees north of the equator to up to 40 degrees north of the equator, going from Africa to the Pacific Islands.

Now these places are considered hard to reach with the gospel because they have some of the most populous cities in the whole entire world.

You have many of these areas are heavily Muslim, atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, and which makes for an area that is very hostile to the gospel.

Some of the poorest cities are within this region.

We're talking about people living on less than $2 a day.

You take all these factors together, and that has, when you have lots of people, not enough money, an environment hostile to the gospel, you have a great recipe for making areas that are very hard to reach.

Now I share, I'm sure maybe many of you have heard of these things, but I always find that there's always 1 person who's not familiar with this information.

So you know just to give an idea of sort of the situation, okay?

If you were to make, you can see that circle right there.

It says that there are more people living inside the circle than outside of it.

And not just more people in that circle, but specifically more Muslims, more Hindus, more Buddhists, more communists, living inside that circle than outside in the whole entire world.

And so you can just like, I've always liked that map because it gives me just an idea of like, wow, there really is such a dense area to reach for the gospel.

And how is our church doing to reach these places?

Back In 2004, we had 14 countries unreached by the Adventist Church.

According to the most recent numbers I could find, in 2017, that number has changed to 22 countries with 0 Adventists.

That number, as you can notice friends, did not go down as time has gone on, but that number has grown, has increased.

In a country like Afghanistan, we have 32 million people and only 5 Adventists in that country.

In a country like Iran, 78 million people with 0 Adventists.

I have been told that it could be that there are underground members.

But a country like 78 million people, I sure would pray that it's more than 0 Adventists.

And, you know, just talking a little bit more broadly, in a more generic sense, in 2004, we had 5, 000 unreached people groups.

When we're talking about people groups, you can think of, you know, we have 200 countries, but inside many of those countries, there are groups of people that have their own language and their own culture.

5, 000 of those groups unreached in 2004.

Moving forward to 2020, that number, friends, is now 7, 414 unreached people groups.

6, 208 groups of them are in the 1040 window.

You know, typically, you lay these kind of numbers in front of any kind of business.

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Jessica Trinh Weekend

The Desire of Ages

Transcript

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