9 Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. 20 But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. 21 And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. 22 The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, 24 for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. 25 So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. (Acts 11:9-26 ESV)
When suffering or pain knock on the front door of our lives, most of us just want to know two things: 1) “How long are you staying?” and 2) “What can I do to make your say shorter?” Simply put, we hate pain. But Luke, the author of this book called Acts, reminds us that sometimes positive things are born from pain.
Here, faith in Jesus stems from suffering. Stephen, mentioned in vs. 9, was a follower of Jesus. He was killed in Jerusalem with the help of an extremist named Saul. This led to a time of persecution against Christians in Jerusalem. Believers in Jesus fled Jerusalem. Some wound up in a city called Antioch.
They shared the message of Jesus there, and, Luke reports, “a great number…believed.” The suffering in Jerusalem led to the birth of a church in Antioch.
The believers in Jerusalem were so excited they sent a leader named Barnabas to see first-hand. And he, believe it or not, brought Saul–the man whose persecution of Christians in Jerusalem gave rise to that church in Antioch. Saul had since converted to Christianity. Pain gave birth to faith and to a very important church.
This morning I’m joined by Hunter Deng.
- For the past 3 years Hunter has served on our staff as an apprentice. He helps lead the Chinese worship service at Highland, assists with the Chinese Sunday School class at Highland, and serves as a liaison with the Chinese Language School that meets here.
- In addition, Hunter serves as a vital member of our China Missions team. In the Fall of 2012, after a period of congregational prayer, the Highland staff/elders launched Vision 2018. It included 9 initiatives. One of those was starting a new mission work in China. For 4 years we have been praying and working on that goal. We have identified 4 key cities and have traveled to them: Beijing, Wuhan, Qing Dao, and Hangzho. Hunter helped coordinate those trips and made those trips with us. We have spoken with dozens of missionaries in China and met with numerous Christians and house church leaders in China. Hunter helped coordinate these conversations.
- And, for the past 2 summers, Hunter has done short-term mission work in China on Highland’s behalf–helping train leaders in house churches and preaching the gospel in China.
- This December Hunter will marry Ruby in his hometown of Wuhan. After he completes his M.Div. at Harding School of Theology, he plans to return to Wuhan and minister there and elsewhere in China.
I’d like you to hear more about Hunter’s story and Hunter’s plans for mission work in China. We begin with a story of a time when suffering gave birth to faith.
Hunter, could you tell us about your parents and especially how your father came to faith?
My parents weren’t Christians when I became one. They never hated Christianity, just know Christianity is a good thing. My family were a typical working class in china, not poor but not quite a middle class yet. A key event I would like to share is about my mom who passed three years ago. My father became a Christian during that time:
- The first time my mom was sick because a spleen problem, doctor recommended to have a surgery which proved was a wrong decision.
- My mom stayed in ICU for 2 weeks after surgery because doctors couldn’t stop the bleeding and didn’t know the cause.
- My father was so sacred to tell me the message because that was my first semester at Harding. But a Christian lady encouraged my father to call me and ask all the Christians to pray for my mom. That lady had suffered cancer for 7 years, basically one major surgery per year. But you never saw sorrow in her face, she was always smiling and encouraging, never heard any cursing from her.
- A major disease could easily cause a middle class family’s all the savings, the cost was about $700 dollars each day, and hospital stops treating you if you did pay deposit beforehand. My family almost lost everything during that time.
- But my father never lost faith, I remembered that we were reading Psalms together in the hospital every day. Churches in Searcy even raised some money for us. Long story short, my mom woke up at the end of the second week, the day that doctor said “die or live”. I am not a guy like to talk about miracle often, but I really want to call that was a miracle. My dad became a Christian and faith being deepened during that time.
- Two years later, my mom was in hospital again because the liver failure. She couldn’t see and hear, but she enjoyed when church came to visit and prayed with her. My dad said: “it’s impossible to communicate with your mom, but she could hear the pray, she followed along and said ‘Amen’ or ‘thank Lord’ at the perfect moment.” My mom became a follower right before her pass.
- The funeral was another testimony; funeral was always about the sadness. But my mom’s was a blessing to that community:
- It was the first Christian funeral in a public place.
- No tears but joy and hope. A preacher flew overnight to Zhengzhou preached the sermon “there is a hope”
- All 50 copies of the Bible took by neighbors. They were asking more when they saw my dad in the following week.
How did you come to faith?
- I grew up in five provinces, I was the only child, my parents’ job was to build bridges over the longest river – Yangzi River. So they moved around frequently. My education experience was a typical Chinese education, learning “there is no God since I was five years old, start memorizing Maoism (believe only what you see, he had a famous saying “it’s fun fighting with people, with earth, with heaven”) since I was a fourth grader. In short, there is no God is what most Chinese believe.
- The top 10% people controls 90% wealth. Majority are working class. Leaving home before 7am; spent an hour on the bus or subway; working for extended hours; work on Saturday.
- Relationship/connection is a key to whoever live in China. (example: two house churches in a same community, one closed by government but another one remains open, because the second one knows the undercover cop.) (another example: parking ticket – my college classmate logs in the ticket in the bureau. He told me just call him whenever I got one, he won’t log in my ticket into the system in order to avoid the fine)
- I never thought about become a Christian when I was studying Bible. (I just wanted to study English with China Now teachers in the beginning, not Bible. I read gospel in English, they corrected my pronunciation. I became a Christian because I love the community, the loving environment, people always encourage each other. Nothing else. Missionaries plant the seeds, God is the one to make it happen, it doesn’t matter what tool or method one uses, we are all instruments of God)
- I never thought about study in a Preaching School after I became a Christian. (It is a English teaching school, my focus was learning English, not Bible)
Earlier in Acts 11 we heard about Antioch, a key city in the ancient world. It was 300 miles north of Jerusalem. It became the capital of the Roman province in Asia. It ranked third, after Rome and Alexandria, in importance. And so it was very significant that this church was planted in Antioch by Christians from Jerusalem.
You lived in a city called Wuhan, a key city in China. You preached there after studying in the Preaching School. And, as we’ll hear in a moment, it’s your intent to return there to do mission work. Could you tell us about Wuhan? Why is it an important city?
Wuhan:
- It is located in the center of China; I can reach to most major cities within 5 hours by the bullet train (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou).
- Wuhan has the most college students in the world (1,190,000); it has 82 colleges and universities. This advantage makes Wuhan a great place for campus ministry.
- My father lives in Wuhan and heavily involved in ministry with Three-Self Church now.
- I preached in Wuhan for two years, some of the members I used to minister have become a vital part of some house churches, this lays a good foundation for my future work.
- For many years, China Now has based in Wuhan and brought many American Christians/missionaries. But churches closed after they left, I want to help them to plant a self-sustainable church.
- Lastly, Wuhan is my hometown. Setting the base in my hometown is a commitment to work and live there for a long time.
In Acts 11-13, Barnabas and Saul work with the church in Antioch, strengthening it, and then they launch from there, helping to start and grow churches in other important cities in the ancient world. Could you share what your plans are as you return to Wuhan in the summer of 2018?
- One Church, multi sites: why? (pictures about house churches here)
- Keep one location under 25 people to avoid problems.
- Reduce the cost of hiring a preacher or intern in the future.
- All sites will share resources. (including finance)
- Each site covers different area of Wuhan. (keep in mind, not everyone owns a car, and Wuhan is a large city)
- All the leaders share the responsibilities together.
- Provide more training opportunities for brothers. (may form a preaching group, to preach in rotation)
- Create a leadership network. (training leaders and provide support for leaders)
- There is no leadership network in our fellowship right now.
- Some cities have had 1st generation leaders for a few years, but they need a channel to communicate and encourage each other. (leaders are often facing judgments and blame when things not going well)
- Leaders are the key for church growth. I’m not saying preacher is not important, but house churches in China may never grow up to the size like Highland. What they need are leaders or shepherds to love and care about them, they need to learn the skills of love and care, how to do the counseling, how to teach a class, how to organize a worship, how to prepare a sermon, more important, they need to figure out what’s the next for the church, tools like Team Dimension, DISC Profile, will be super helpful … therefore, they need education…
- Bring good education to China: Harding, HST, Oster, counseling, youth ministry.
- For example: churches are facing high divorce rate, but most of them don’t know what to do, because there are no decent premarital counseling services provided.
- Some people do not want to attend church because they don’t know what to do with the kids…Youth are the future, it is easier to teach youth about Christian value than adult. A good youth program or camp will not only attract teenagers, but also adults. (LST could be a helpful tool as well)
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. (Acts 13:1-3 ESV)
The church in Antioch was a church of prayer. Similarly, We, Hunter and many others have been in prayer as he approaches his graduation in the summer of 2018 and finalizes his plans to re-enter China as a full time missionary. We are surrounding Hunter in prayer and we ask you to do the same. We are excited about what God may do through Hunter. Just as Antioch proved to be a base for Barnabas and Saul to do important work all over the ancient world, so we believe Wuhan may be an important base for Hunter to do work all over China.
Your gift today is what helps make all our future work in China possible. It’s what funds more than 30 outreach ministries–ministries we’ve highlighted over the past three Sundays. And today we’re asking you to give $250K. That’s part of the $435K we’ve committed to these ministries this fiscal year. We’ll pass the trays just once this morning. Your gifts help us reach around the world to places like China, and down the street to places like Macon Hall Elementary, and every place in between.
Prayer
