"The Power of the Kingdom Realized Through Weakness" by Marvin

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Strength to Strength. It's a real blessing to be here with each one of you this morning. Thank you for coming and joining. The verse of the day is this out of Psalm 59, verse 16: "But I will sing of your power. Yes, I will sing aloud of your mercy in the morning, for you have been my defense and my refuge in the day of my trouble." And one of the things I've been thinking about lately is how, as we are part of Christ's kingdom, God's kingdom here on earth, it brings us so much hope and joy even in hard, hard circumstances. And isn't that what, as Christ followers, isn't that what we should be bringing to the world?

And even thinking about our churches as kind of corporate proclamations of the kingdom, shouldn't our churches be a place of radical hope? And it's because of Jesus and who he is, and as we get to follow him and participate in the work that he's done in the world. And so this morning, I'm confident that this talk will lead us into that hope. The power of the kingdom relies through weakness. So, Marvin, thank you for joining us this morning from the other side of the pond in Southeast Asia. I had the privilege of working with Marvin there with All Nations Bible Translation. Marvin is sent by his church in Kansas, and they've been working there now for a couple of years in that part of the world, working with a large unreached Muslim people group there.

So doing church planting, and in order to do church planting, they're working at Bible translation into that particular language or getting started on that process. But yeah, Marvin, thank you for coming and joining us here this morning, this evening over there. I think you're exactly 12 hours ahead of us right now, so 6 o'clock in the evening there.

So yeah, thanks for being on here this morning. Looking forward to your talk. And I would just also say, maybe you can do a little introduction of who you are and your family and your team there, either at the beginning here or at the end. So go ahead. So I saw yours.

Actually, before we start, let's just have prayer. Let's just go ahead and have prayer. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this opportunity to come together in this way. Father, I ask that you would pour out your blessing on this talk, on Brother Marvin, as he shares. Father, we're looking at a mystery here, a mystery of this unbelievable idea of the God of the universe coming and showing himself, revealing himself through your son Jesus in a way that was so counter; it is so counter, was and is so counter to our ways as human beings.

But Father, as we dig into this reality, it's explosive in our minds. It inspires us. It inflames our imagination to think of working in this world in ways that are your ways and not our ways. And we can see how that brings hope and change in people's lives and communities. So Father, bless Brother Marvin in a special way because he shares here, Lord. And may your Holy Spirit be among us. And may through this talk, your kingdom be advanced a little further.

And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

So Brother Marvin, it's all yours. And by the way, Marvin is an alias. So just for security purposes, you won't see Marvin on the screen as well. He has his camera off. And so we're just being careful because of the context that Marvin is working in. So all yours.

All right. Thank you, Brian, for that introduction and for that prayer. It's certainly an amazing privilege to be a part of a kingdom where we serve Jesus. And so that's exciting. You asked me to give a brief introduction regarding me and my family and our team. So I will try to do that quickly here.

So this has been a fairly long story for us, I guess. But I have a wonderful wife and four children, all wonderful as well. And we've been here in Asia for approximately three years. So as Brian said, working with All Nations and translation work and church planting. So it's been quite the journey so far, and we're just getting started. But yeah, we're excited about the opportunities that God has been giving us here to do his work. We're working with another family, also from close to our area where we live in the States. And it's been a privilege to work with them. And always a humbling experience to realize that we can't do things alone. We need others.

So it's been a good experience. All right. That's a really short introduction, but we'll leave it at that for now. So with that, we'll get started with the talk here, which is the power of the kingdom realized through weakness. And I'll just say upfront, some of this, especially the latter section, are not necessarily perfectly formulated thoughts as much as musings that I've had over the last few years.

All right. So let's get started. The power of the kingdom realized through weakness.

I think it's easy to come to cross-cultural ministry opportunities with the assumption that we're supposed to have most of the answers, maybe all of the answers, because we are going halfway around the world to reach the unreached. And so we want to make sure that we're prepared and that we know what we're doing.

But I think that sometimes this can come with, and I think this is waning, but I think it still happens sometimes, that we come with the assumption of occupying positions of power and leadership, whether socially or religiously. So my thesis this morning is simple, that we are called to bring the kingdom of God to earth primarily through occupying positions of weakness and vulnerability rather than positions of power and authority.

Actually, let me just go back to the previous slide.

In this talk, I'd like for us to address a number of controlling questions to think about as we go through this, some of which we may touch briefly and some of which we may dive deeper into. So number one, how does scripture portray God's use of power, divine power and authority?

Is God some tyrannical ruler? Is he just a pushover? How does God interact with power? Number two, how does God intend his people to exercise power and influence? And number three, how should we think about power and influence in the context of cross-cultural work?

So as we go on, I think we would all recognize and confess that Jesus' kingdom is an upside-down kingdom. And there are things that from the outside look very strange and sometimes ridiculous. But we realize and confess that we are a part of a kingdom that does not operate with the same paradigm that the world operates by.

So I already went over my thesis. And so let's look at first look at scripture. So this morning we'll be looking at scripture and just a very brief overview of how scripture treats the subject of extending the kingdom through weakness. Then we'll look at a few examples from the early church. And then towards the end, I'll offer a few musings from my personal experience living overseas for a couple of years. So let's start with scripture.

It would take a long time, admittedly, to go over all the ways in which this theme of power through weakness and weakness as being a part of bringing the kingdom of God to earth. And because of that, I will go over, simply offer a brief scope of how God displays his power through voluntary weakness throughout scripture.

So let's talk about creation and covenant. So in the beginning, God creates. He creates a perfect world. He creates men and women, Adam and Eve in his image, whom he loves and desires to receive obedience from. But to accomplish this, God, at least in a way, submits himself to weakness by allowing these beings to choose to love him or to choose to love himself, to choose to love themselves.

And this is significant because to allow someone a choice, specifically to love someone, is to choose vulnerability over control. And yet, God, from the very beginning, set up the world in that way. He set up it as a reflection of his character. This is the way that God interacts with his creation.

But God didn't stop there. He also chose to demonstrate his glory and to fulfill his plan, at least in part, by establishing a covenant with Abraham and his offspring. So Yahweh both severely disciplined Israel for their waywardness, and he also lavished grace and love on his people despite their rebellion and disobedience.

For the one true God who created heaven and earth to lower himself to making a covenant with wretched humans is simply ludicrous, at least if we're looking at it from the outside. For God to choose love over control places him in a position of weakness again.

And we see this throughout the stories of the Old Testament. God constantly allowing his people to mess things up and yet constantly calling them back. There's just a lot of messiness in the Bible. And if we're not okay with that, maybe we're not okay with the God of the Bible.

Now, if we read the Old Testament well, I think in some ways we should not be completely surprised at what God does next. At the same time, this upside-down way in which God chooses to work redemption should never lose its shock value and its wonder for us.

And of course, I'm talking about Jesus.

And the upside-down way in which God chooses to work out his plan of redemption through his very own son.

And I think it's important that we remember that redemption in the New Testament is not just about Jesus' death. It's about Jesus living the perfect life that no one else could live, whether Adam or Israel. Where Israel miserably failed, Jesus succeeded.

Jesus lived the perfect life of complete faithfulness and obedience to the Father. And though Jesus acknowledged that he was the Messiah to his contemporary Jews, he also explained that he was not the Messiah that those Jews were hoping for.

And throughout his life, Jesus modeled the paradigm of suffering as the way to true life, but ultimately as the God-ordained way to establish and grow the kingdom of God in a sinful and broken world.

Let's go down to Mark 10:35-45. This is a familiar story about James and John coming to Jesus asking for positions of power in the future kingdom of God. Jesus replied, "I can't do that for you. That's up to the Father."

The other 10 disciples hear this, and they get really angry at James and John. And so Jesus calls the 12 to him and says, "Look, I know that in the kingdoms of the world, this is how people operate. They vie for power. They vie for control. But that's not how my kingdom works."

And as he says this, he also says, "For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." Jesus didn't come as an earthly king or a powerful ruler. He came as a weak baby living the life of a normal, fragile human. He came to serve.

If Jesus would have come as many of his contemporaries expected the Messiah to come, that is, with military and political might and violence, he would have been agreeing with the Roman Empire's way of accomplishing her ends. But Jesus said, "No, that's not how things work in the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God works and grows through self-sacrifice, through weakness." Recently, one of my Muslim friends showed me a video of a little girl. I say recently is about six months ago. She was reading a Bible story book. And

the gist of it was that the little girl was reading about Jesus growing in knowledge and favor with God. And suddenly, she stopped and asked her daddy, "But daddy, Jesus was God. How could God learn more about himself?"

The father wasn't quite sure what to say. But eventually, he bucked up and offered a bit of a lame response. This, of course, was posted on a Muslim YouTube channel intending to show how absolutely ridiculous Christian belief is.

As I thought more about it, I began to realize that the more I realized that these are parts of the Bible that we often quickly breeze over without giving it a second thought. Presumably, this was taken from a passage like Luke 2:52, where Jesus is said to have grown in favor and stature with God and men.

But these are exactly the kinds of verses that deserve a lifetime of meditation. Jesus was God. Jesus himself was God. Yet he allowed himself to grow physically, mentally, and spiritually. That is astounding. Now, moving on to Philippians 2:5-10. Again, this is a very familiar passage. In this passage, Paul describes Jesus' self-abasement, Jesus taking on weakness. Jesus was God, but he came to earth to minister to human beings as himself a weak human.

God's solution, again, was not through military conquest. It needed something much more, something much more sacrificial. It needed the sacrificial life and death of his only son.

Now, as we think again more about the cross, it's one of the core symbols of Christianity. And one of the things that goes against sinful human nature and conflicts heavily with Muslim belief, I run into it all the time here, is the idea that God could experience weakness and suffering.

As it was in the first century, so it is today in the 21st century. The word of the cross is still folly to those who are perishing. It is still a stumbling block to Jews and a folly to Gentiles.

In the Islamic part of the world, divine weakness is antithetical to the Muslim conception of God. And one of my longings, my deep longings, is to see my Muslim friends here come to realize the overwhelming beauty of the Son of God humbling himself and becoming a man, becoming a real human, suffering a cruel death on a cross as the ultimate expression of divine love. And furthermore, to also see that suffering as the ultimate display of power.

How do I expect them to see that? Well, I hope they at least in part can see that through me as a representative of Christ.

Recently, I've been reading through the Gospels. And something that has really stood out to me are the passages that talk specifically about Jesus' compassionate interactions with the downcast.

Jesus interacted with social outcasts in very intimate and sometimes scandalous ways. For example, Jesus healing the leper. Compassion is, in a way, an admittance of weakness because to show compassion is to allow oneself to be emotionally drawn towards another person, allowing the other person to exercise power over us, thus opening us up to vulnerability.

And it's very similar to loving someone. We are giving that person some degree of control or power over us, which opens us up to vulnerability. Probably none of us truly like being vulnerable. It's scary. But it's what we see throughout the life of Jesus.

In one of my recent interactions with a Muslim friend, this friend had suffered just a tragic loss of one of his friends. And God impressed upon me the importance of entering into the pain of my friend because it's always tempting to offer quick answers like, "Jesus can heal your pain." And I think maybe I did actually tell him something like that. But I don't know that that was the most impactful thing that God had me do that day. I think it was simply listening to the story and feeling the pain and expressing my care and love for him.

Our responsibility as followers of Jesus is to allow ourselves to become vulnerable and to show the love and compassion that Jesus himself feels for the lost and hurting. Again, that's difficult. It's hard. It's unpleasant. But I believe it's what we are called to.

Right now, we looked at a few places in Scripture where we see the theme of building the kingdom through weakness. We see God, Father. We see Jesus living a life of sacrificial love. And so now we're going to move on to a few examples from the early church. The first example is actually from the New Testament, but I'm just putting it in here to make things a little bit smoother.

So the first example is of sacrificial living. This is from the Apostle Paul, 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12. I'm going to take time to read the passage. But the question of power is something I believe that Paul wrestled with in his dealings with recalcitrant churches. Paul had to deal with the question of what it should look like to be in a position of spiritual power and authority while operating within the kingdom of God. We know how Paul used his power before Jesus got a hold of him. He was a violent, hate-filled man. And yet Jesus got a hold of him and turned him around. And what we see in his letters are very different than he was before.

So in 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12, Paul states that although he could have exercised his apostolic authority and made the Thessalonian church do what he wants them to do, he instead accepted suffering and labored day and night and, in fact, gave his own life for them. He uses language from Isaiah 66 where he talks about in which Yahweh is described as a mother caring for her children. Paul uses very similar language here.

So Paul gave of himself. He lived a life of sacrifice so that these churches could grow and mature.

Second example is from Ignatius of Antioch, specifically from his letter to the Romans as he was on his way to Rome to be tried and martyred for his faith in Jesus Christ. So Ignatius says a lot of shocking and incredible things throughout this letter.

But I'm going to just pull out a sentence from here that I think illustrates what we're getting at and make a few comments on it. So Ignatius says this in his letter to the Romans. He says, "It is better for me to die on behalf of Jesus Christ than to reign over all the ends of the earth."

Now, that is outrageous. How does that even make sense unless you have an insider's view of what is really going on in God's kingdom? And I think it made perfect sense to Ignatius because he understood the character of God and how he works in the world through his people. Weakness is not an enemy of God. It is a tool. And just for a minute, just for fun, let's think a little bit about the irony of the statement.

Ignatius is on his way to Rome. Rome is a center of the Roman Empire, of course, the symbol of political and military might, control, and just bloody brutality. It seems to me highly unlikely that Ignatius could have written this without a little smirk on his face, without some polemical intentions. It's like he's giving us this huge beast, a slight prick in the ribs, saying, "Rome, you think you are really something, but I have something much better." So it is better for me to die on behalf of Jesus Christ than to reign over all the ends of the earth.

Third and final one is from Origen, a late third and early fourth-century Christian theologian, biblical scholar, and philosopher. In his work against Celsus, Origen responds to the pagan critic Celsus, who thinks it's ridiculous if Christians not to fight in the Roman army.

So Origen's first line of reasoning, line of response, is that living a life of piety is of more help to the emperor and his empire than waging war. Second, Origen states that prayer is more effective than joining the ranks of the Roman Empire or of the empire's army. He states, "We who by our prayers destroy all demons which stir up wars, violate oaths, and disturb the peace are of more help to the emperors than those who seem to be doing the fighting."

Again, what a crazy statement. Origen is saying, "Look, you might be out there fighting, and you might think you're accomplishing a lot. But let me tell you, we Christians who stay at home and pray for you, for the empire, for the kingdom of God, we're actually accomplishing much more than you are."

Perhaps prayer is the single most important tool in our efforts to bring the kingdom of God to earth through weakness rather than power and control. Prayer is not merely an act of piety, a much-needed spiritual discipline. It's a statement of our utter reliance on the king. It is an admittance of our helplessness and our weakness. And paradoxically, it is by that acknowledgment of weakness through prayer we are given access to unimaginable power.

So the kingdom of God is not about becoming weak beings that don't accomplish anything. The kingdom of God is full of power. But it's not a power that is accomplished through the means of the world, through might and violence and control. It's a power that shows itself through obedience to the king.

All right. Now, we'll keep moving along here to the third section. So we've looked at some theme throughout Scripture of weakness as a way of extending the kingdom of God as a part of God's character, the way that he interacts with the world. And then we also looked at a few examples from the early church. Now, let's move on to a few of my musings that have come to me as I've lived in Asia for a couple of years. I don't have a lot of experience, but these are just some things that I think about. And so I hope and pray that they can be helpful to you, whether you're overseas in ministry, whether you're in the States in ministry, whether you're thinking about going overseas, wherever you are.

I hope these musings can be helpful, even though they're more from the perspective of someone who's living overseas.

So thinking specifically about going overseas, what kind of principle or paradigm should guide the first months and years that we spend in a particular context? Often, we have presuppositions. We always have presuppositions. And often, these presuppositions operate under the radar. Sometimes we refer to them as our worldview.

And the importance of being able to identify our presuppositions regarding cross-cultural work and the play between power and weakness and all of those things, it's just as important to know to be able to articulate those as we get ready to go or as we are currently in cross-cultural ministry.

This morning, I'll be talking, covering a couple of areas, three areas specifically: language and culture learning relating to the national church and interacting with unbelievers.

How does the above paradigm that we've seen, extending the kingdom through weakness, how does that look? How could that look possibly in a different setting in cross-cultural ministry? I'm not here to offer a step-by-step guide to success in cross-cultural ministry. I hope that's not what you're expecting.

But what I can offer are just a few thoughts based on musings, based on some experiences I've had here living in a Muslim country, trying to live out a life of obedience to Jesus.

All right. Let's look at language and culture learning. So obviously, language and culture learning is one of the most obvious parts of living overseas. It stares you in the face. You get off the plane, and you are confronted with a language that you can't speak, a culture that doesn't make sense to you initially.

And yet, as we think about this, it's important to think, how is language and culture learning a way to spread the kingdom through weakness? So we're going to explore that just a little bit. And so I think one way of looking at it, at least, is

as we establish ourselves in a community, we are given the opportunity to walk the path of Jesus by becoming a child again. So Jesus was a child. We're adults. But when we enter into another culture, it's as though we're becoming a child again. And we have to learn all over. So when we are thrust into cross-cultural situations, there are times when I have looked absolutely foolish and ignorant and incompetent.

But it's something that I've needed to get used to on some level. And my desire is to be able to make the most of those opportunities to mature, to grow, to learn to live life gracefully as I receive grace from God. I certainly don't always do that, but that's my goal.

And really, it is an amazing opportunity to enter a culture, to grow, and specifically to encounter situations and spend years of your life looking foolish and ignorant and ridiculous because this is a way that God uses to help me to grow in grace and in humility.

But further to the point, it's important that we consider these awkward situations as a way to establish ourselves, establish ourselves in the communities where God has called us to, as someone who is weak and yet easy to approach because people feel threatened by displays of power and control. On the other hand, they feel assured by displays of weakness and dependence.

And I'll be the first to admit this is easier said than done. This is difficult. Possibly, one reason is that we assume that if we can't communicate well, we can't share the gospel of this, can't fulfill our purpose for being here. And I understand that.

There's certainly some truth to that. But that's just part of the story. I think the other side is that sometimes we too narrowly define the gospel. The gospel is Jesus Christ himself, his life, death, resurrection, and current reign. That is the good news.

The gospel is embedded in the person and work of Jesus. And part of Jesus' person and work was his childhood. Jesus' time as a hopeless child learning and growing was integral to fulfilling his purpose on earth. Jesus simply could not have been the perfect sacrifice if he had not lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father. The cross could not have happened without the cradle.

In many ways, cross-cultural ministry opens us up to unique opportunities to walk the way of Jesus in weakness. Again, we're entering another culture as an adult and yet as someone who knows almost nothing about how to live and operate in that specific culture. And so we get to be children again. Hooray.

I admit I wake up some mornings and do not feel like saying hooray. But it is truly a privilege to be able to, in a small way, walk the way of Jesus, becoming a child again and growing and maturing.

So yeah, living overseas for me has been a way that God has worked in my life. And I would say if you're thinking about going overseas, don't be surprised if God works in you as much as he works on those around you.

Before we can give to others, we first need to receive from Jesus. And it's from a position of weakness that God is able to work in our hearts as we prepare to reach out to others.

All right. Second, let's talk about gaining respect by asking for help. Asking for help is an important part of being human. It's an important part of living in the kingdom. We all need help. And specifically, thinking about living overseas, asking for help has a way of positioning ourselves within a social context in a non-threatening way.

It communicates that, "Look, we are real humans. We're not perfect. We need help." Again, this is hard because I came to the cross-cultural context in which I am currently to help others. But I have to remember that Jesus, even though he was God, he took on human flesh. He became a human. He needed to be nursed and potty trained and taught how to speak. He needed human assistance.

Why should I expect anything different for myself?

All right. Let's continue moving on. Let's talk a little bit now about relating to the national church. This is, I think, a topic that has a lot of tensions in it as we think about it. And for me, it's easy to come into a cross-cultural context and have tensions relating to the national church. I don't have good stats on this, but I've heard enough people talk about it that it seems like it's a fairly normal thing to face.

It's easy to go overseas with our minds full of ideas about the best ways to do things. However, after we arrive, we quickly begin to understand that this is not how the national church does things. We have a way of doing things where we're from. We go overseas, and they just have a different way of doing things. So how do we relate to that? I think probably the biggest tension that I have felt so far in relating to the local churches in our area is simply the tension between partnering with the local churches and learning from them, while on the other hand, offering another way and hopefully a more biblical way of living a life of devotion to Jesus.

When we are in that tension, I think there are at least two ditches that we can fall into. The one is to establish ourselves in the local church and to seek the power and authority, the religious authority that we need to affect change in that church.

Perhaps the other ditch is to just ignore the local church, to separate ourselves from it, and to do our own thing. And I suggest that, at least in most cases, we should avoid both of these extremes and should look to find a middle ground, which allows us to both engage to some extent with what God is doing through the local church, as well as to allow God to do something new.

Again, these are musings. These are ideals that I have. I'm certainly a long way from realizing my ideals.

One thing our team has done as we've related to the local church that has been a blessing for us, and I think for the local church as well, is to simply show interest in what God has been doing, is doing through the local church.

So when we do that, it positions ourselves as learners in a culture and a context that, admittedly, in many ways, is still foreign to us. Because even though we come to a cross-cultural setting with big plans in our heads, I think we should, at the same time, assume that God has already been working in that context. And as a result, we should be willing to allow God to reshape our plans accordingly. Of course, this doesn't mean that we should just approve of everything that local churches do. But I think what it does mean is that we should seek to become experts at seeing how God is working within the local churches as well as outside the churches.

When we came to Asia about three years ago, it was quite obvious that we were entering a place of deep spiritual darkness. And as we entered the country, somehow the task of seeing locals come to know Jesus suddenly became harder to visualize and have the faith to expect as we're just confronted with the spiritual darkness.

But as we've lived in this area and as we've interacted with both Christians and unbelievers, I think a fuzzy picture has begun to form in our minds of what God has been doing here all along. And part of what we see God doing is giving locals, local believers, a greater vision for the kingdom of God.

Another thing that we have done to show interest in what God is doing through the local church is simply by taking time to spend with local church leaders, listening to them, hearing from them, and showing interest and celebrating what God is doing through their churches to bring the kingdom of God into their context.

In the last year, our team has had a number of interactions with a local pastor who has shown a fairly significant desire for the local Muslim people to come to know the Father. And we've just been really encouraged and challenged by the energy and vision that he has for Muslims coming to Jesus. As a result of this energy and vision, this church consists nearly of 50% former Muslims, which is incredible and something that we think we're celebrating. So we praise God for that.

Again, I'm going to wear this one out by the time we're done, but ask for advice and help. I don't think I can say this too many times. As an example, to start off here, a number of years ago, my teammate started discipling a young teenager. Through these interactions, the teenager decided to follow Jesus. And not surprisingly, because of that, he faced a lot of pushback from his family. His family was quite angry.

So as this was developing, our team realized that we needed help discipling this friend of ours. So as a result, we went to a local pastor. We asked him for advice. And specifically, we asked him if he would be willing to seek out a young fellow in his congregation who would be willing to spend significant time with this person and just show him the love of Jesus.

So unfortunately, this fell through due to a number of factors, but we at least made the effort. And I think whether or not we see the fruit, God honors attempts like that. And so that's one thing we have done.

And I think this is really important. I will say this again, to ask for advice and help because, again, we are foreigners. There will be some things that we will never be able to offer in the way of discipleship.

The most obvious is simply the language and cultural barriers that will always be there. Hopefully, we can start breaking those down, but there will always be rubble in the way as we try to communicate the love of Jesus to others.

So when we run up against these barriers, it's important that we have the humility to realize our weakness and ask local believers to help us walk, to walk with us through some of these difficult things.

All right. The third and final section here is relating to unbelievers.

And the specific question I want us to think about as we talk about this is, how do we approach our relationships with unbelievers with the paradigm of weakness, as we've discussed before, as we've looked at before? In other words, we are the ones who are in the kingdom of God. We are the ones who enjoy freedom in Christ, who have been given the Spirit, who are being continually sanctified and redeemed. So how do we approach unbelievers' weakness if we are the ones who are inheritors of the kingdom?

I think one way, perhaps, is by emphasizing presence over pat answers. Being present is more important than offering pat answers. And I think of Paul's words in 1 Thessalonians 2:8.

I alluded to the passage before and gave a brief summary of it. But in that verse, he states something like, "We came, we gave you the gospel. We not only gave you the gospel, we gave you our very lives." So Paul was, in a very way, present with the Thessalonian church, and he gave his life to see churches started.

So presence over pat answers and just being okay with saying, "I don't know." If you enter a cross-cultural situation, and even if you don't, but especially if you enter a cross-cultural situation, you will encounter questions that you simply don't have answers to.

And I think we need to be okay saying, "I don't know, but I'm willing to look into that."

So also, entering into people's pain, showing love and care to them, admitting our own weaknesses. I'm reminded of something that N.T. Wright says. He says that, "We are cracked vessels full of glory. We are wounded healers." And I connect with that very deeply. We are being redeemed, but we are still broken. And it is through recognizing and acknowledging our brokenness that we are able to receive healing and to extend healing to others.

Number two, we have found here that it is important to allow people to participate in our family life. This is not always pleasant. Sometimes family life is less than perfect, and it's just not always pleasant to allow people to see the broken parts of our lives, but I think it's necessary. I also think, yeah, this is just difficult for me. I just admit that I like to have things in order: my personal life, my family life. And when things are not in order, I just don't want people to see. I really don't.

Yet I think sometimes this is exactly what unbelieving friends need to be able to see. They need to be able to see, yes, we are wounded healers. We are real people who have issues, personal issues, family issues, and yet we have been touched by the Spirit, and we have been given power as God slowly works his work of sanctification and redemption in our lives.

And I think allowing people to in on our family life is especially important in cultures that have high divorce rates. And here in our context, the divorce rate is astonishingly high. I know it's high in the States, but pretty sure it doesn't hold a candle to where we are here.

There are just so many broken homes, so many stepmothers, stepfathers, steps, this and that. There's just so much brokenness, so many broken homes. And so in a context like that, we actually have a friend here or two friends who come from very broken homes. One has been divorced four times and wants somebody to love him, and he's just really struggling. And when he sees our family, he just says, "Over and over, this is what I wish I had."

And again, I'm not going to apologize for this, but ask for help. Ask your unbelieving friends for help. Show them that you really need them. I think this is important because when we go overseas, again, we go with a plan. We go with an NGO or whatever it is. And we have big plans to help other people economically and spiritually. But I wonder sometimes if we don't need to give more time to thinking of ways of how we can allow ourselves to receive both economically and spiritually from the local people that we love among.

Here's just a brief example.

Six, eight months ago, my teammate was wanting to buy a motorbike here, but he didn't currently have the money to do so. And his Muslim friend caught on, and he said, "Hey, you know what? Let me buy it for you, and I'll pay you back." And so my teammate was thinking about this, praying about this. He talked to me about it. I was like, "Boy, I don't know.

That's not really a textbook thing to do."

I was struggling with it a little bit, but he went ahead and did it, and it turned out to be a really positive gesture, and our friend really appreciated it. So I frankly admire my teammate for doing that. It took some humility. It took some trust, but it was a way of building bridges rather than tearing bridges down.

So this brings us about to the end of the talk here. And we've looked at the theme of extending the kingdom through weakness. We've considered this theme through looking at the broad storyline of Scripture as well as touching on a few examples from the early church. Now we finished up by me offering a few musings on how this paradigm of growing the kingdom of weakness could look in a cross-cultural setting. So I hope this has been helpful to all of you, and I hope it can be a blessing and encouragement as we together continue pushing forward and as we continue spreading the good news and the kingdom of God. So blessings to each one of you.

Thanks for listening. Thank you, Marvin, for taking us on that journey. And I know it's a deeply personal journey for you as well, going from the safe Midwest to, yeah, part of the world where everything is foreign. And obviously, you're also in part of the world too where you realize that this is not your home.

And I just couldn't help but think, as you were sharing that, even though this talk was kind of it's kind of couched with the idea of foreign work and being a foreign worker and what that should look like, I just couldn't help but think how many things that you were sharing just apply to my context over and over again. And isn't it because we should all have the understanding that we're expatriates here, that this is not that we are to be representing heaven here on Earth?

Example, bringing another culture, another way, representing the ambassadors. Our citizenship is in heaven. We're ambassadors for Christ, and we see that just taught all through the New Testament and lived out in many powerful ways. And of course, a question that you kept or a statement that you kept saying over and over again is that this idea of weakness and shoe leather of being willing to ask for help for those around us. And I struggle with that on this side of the pond, how I can do that with the ones around me, but definitely pushing through there in that part of the world and just realizing that you need help and being willing to ask instead of, yeah, having all the answers, I'm sure has spoken to you're going to work with in many, many ways.

So you mentioned I'll open up for questions here right shortly, but you mentioned how you see a growing desire for the kingdom of God there. So I know that obviously you're in that town. There. Actually, I think you're some of the only expatriates in that town. And of course, you're seeing some of the church work that has been done by other people there, and maybe a lot of it has more of a Western kind of Protestant-type mindset framework.

But you mentioned how you're seeing some hope or a growing desire for the kingdom of God. I know. Would you mind sharing what that looks like? Sure. I'll do my best. So one of the ways that I see it is a willingness for local pastors to listen to our vision and to say, "Thank you for coming and for reviving in us a desire to see local people come to know Jesus."

So that's part of it. But the other part is also seeing living here long enough to be able to see that, you know what, there are people who are being intentional about how they live and intentionally seeking ways to spread the kingdom through speaking with their neighbors, talking with their neighbors, and having extended prayer meetings for the lost in our area. So there's a few examples, things that we've come to see as we've lived here for a couple of years that we wouldn't necessarily see right away.

Sure. And I clearly remember as you went there that both of you had this burning desire to see what is God up to in this part of the world. Even just from your travels there, it looked like a desert in many, many ways.

But yet you still had that confidence that God was ahead of you. And I think that that hope has really equipped you to not only see it, but also partner with what God is doing there. Maybe I have a couple more questions here shortly for you, but I'd like to open it up. Does anybody here have a question for Marvin?

Maybe nobody wants to be weak for Christ.

Thank you, Patrick.

I kind of get what he's saying.

I don't know. I'm confused, and I enjoyed listening to you.

It's definitely not a popular subject because everybody feels that Christ is empowering and we should be on top of the hill. And recently, I've been talking about, "No, no, no. I think we're supposed to be at the bottom of the hill." And it's not accepted readily. But I really thank you for your thoughts.

And working ministry is not textbook, and you found that out with the motorcycle. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Patrick. You're an example through, yeah, through following Christ. Of what not to do.

Thanks for being an example. I'm willing to admit where you have failed or whatever. So yeah.

Appreciate that.

So go ahead. Who talked here? I guess on the subject of weakness, I look at it I cut it a couple different ways. I guess when you're looking towards Jesus or God, I look at that. I mean, yeah, you should have strength, but you also have submission to God. But I think Jesus calls us to be stronger with him or whatever.