<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Homer Trecartin

Muhammed’s Prayer

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

I think that's all of our prayer, isn't it?

It was Thursday afternoon in a difficult Middle Eastern country.

This isn't her picture, and Sunita's not her real name.

But throughout today, this morning and this afternoon, I'll be changing names and leaving out names of countries, in some cases blurring faces or using a different picture because the work is sensitive in many of the countries and places where I'll be telling stories from and we don't want to stop the work just to be able to tell a story.

But Sunita was just finishing up her duties that Thursday afternoon in the hospital, getting ready for a long weekend, and it was going to be a wonderful long weekend.

She'd been planning for months for this special weekend, a Friday night communion service.

Now, Friday night communion services are special, but to most of us, we don't think too much about it.

It comes around occasionally, but for Sunita, her pastor and 1 other pastor shared 7 countries in the Middle East.

They pastored the churches and groups in 7 countries throughout the Middle East.

And her pastor had to get a visa every time that he came to visit her country.

And for more than a year, the government had refused every application he had made for a visa.

When Sunita heard that Barbara and I were going to visit her country, she said, Pastor Homer, would you be willing to hold a communion service?

I don't often get a chance to go and travel someplace.

You didn't ask me, Adrian, to come here and hold a communion service.

So usually they're asking me to do other things.

Sunita began making all the arrangements.

It was going to be their first communion service in more than a year.

She made special arrangements at the hospital so that she could make sure she had that weekend free.

She even worked some extra shifts for people.

Now it was Thursday night and Friday night she was going to be helping with that communion service, except the boss walked in to see her just before quitting time on Thursday.

I know you were planning to be gone a long weekend this weekend, but a lot of people are sick and I've got to have you work tomorrow night." No, Sunita said, please, you know, I'm in charge of a program and she couldn't tell him what the program was, but she said, I'm in charge of a program and he said, I'm sorry, Sunita, I know, but I don't have anybody else.

Well, you can imagine how you would feel.

That Friday night, she was trying to be pleasant, but in her heart, she was upset at the boss.

She was especially upset at God, and any time there was a pause, she would be crying out to God in her heart, Why God, you know I wanted to be at the communion service, it's going on right now, I helped to organize it, I helped to prepare everything, and now here I am at the hospital, why?

And just then in the middle of 1 of those outbursts in her heart to God, they weren't outside outbursts, nobody else heard her, but in her heart she was crying out to God.

Just then the door flew open and an excited little voice said, Sanida!

A little ten-year-old Muhammad rushed toward her and threw his arms around her.

Sanida had known Muhammad since he was a tiny baby.

I don't know the condition he had been born with.

I probably wouldn't have known even if they had told me, but it it was something that that required regular and painful treatments as he would have attacks throughout his life growing up.

And many times, Sunita had been his nurse on duty when the family would rush in and she would hold the little boy and be rubbing his head and his back and praying for him in her heart.

She couldn't pray for him out loud, but in her heart she was praying for Muhammad and for his family.

But Sunita hadn't seen Muhammad for 2 years.

His family was wealthy, and when he got to be 8 years old they left the country and traveled the world looking for a cure or at least a less painful treatment.

They didn't find anything and they were back and that Friday evening he was having an attack and needed treatment immediately.

And as the little boy looked up at her and through his pain-filled eyes, he said, oh, Sanita, I am so glad you were here.

Now, tears started to run down Sunita's cheeks, not just for the pain she saw in his eyes, but tears of apology to God for her outburst.

It was to help you answer the prayer of a little Muslim boy.

God does answer prayers for Muslim boys and Jewish and Hindu and Buddhist boys who don't know always who they're even praying to.

But something in the life of that tentmaker nurse had touched that little boy's heart, so he wanted her to be on duty that day, even though he hadn't seen her for 2 years.

Today I wanna focus, this morning, this afternoon, all 3 times, I wanna focus on 2 Corinthians 5, verses 19 to 21.

We often use this passage to make various theological points and they're good ones but I want to look at it today from the mission standpoint.

God's call to mission for each 1 of us to get involved in the world around us That's what I see in this verse.

We're going to read it from the New Living Translation this time, not the Living Bible, but the New Living Translation.

For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them.

And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.

We speak for Christ when we plead, come back to God, for God made Christ who never sinned to be the offering for our sin so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

Now each of our 3 times today, and I know that many of you won't be able to be here this afternoon, but if you are we're going to each time look at a different part of this verse.

This morning we're just going to look at verse 19.

God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

Now does it say reconciling Jews to himself?

No, Paul was a Jew, but he doesn't say God was in Christ reconciling the Jews to himself, does it say Seventh-day Adventists?

We might like to think that we're the center of God's universe, but it doesn't say God was in the world, God was in Christ reconciling Seventh-day Adventists to himself, It doesn't even say Christians, does it?

It says the world, all of it, every nation, tribe, language, every person.

Now you'd expect me to say that because I work for Adventist Mission at the general conference, so that's what I'm supposed to come and say, right?

I promote the mission offering, global mission pioneers, I recruit and send missionaries.

In fact, next week when Paul and Petra Howe are here, give them a hug for us.

Barbara and I were there in Mena and had a part in bringing them to work in Sudan where they're working now and with Adra there, but God is calling each of us to different positions.

I've been involved in sending missionaries.

I believe that God wants to reconcile the entire world to himself.

Do you really believe that God wants to reconcile the entire world?

Or are there some people groups that you think, well, maybe they're beyond being helped.

Maybe God has already closed probation on them.

Why are you bothering to go over there and work?

God hasn't shown me when probation closes for any 1 of us or any group of people.

He's just said go and reconcile the world to me.

You know, we're praying for a mighty outpouring of the latter rain.

This is a picture of the last General Conference session.

We say that we're longing for Jesus to come, that we want a mighty movement to finish the work, But do we really know what we're asking for when we pray that?

Are we prepared to deal with the results of a visible answer to our prayers?

What would it mean if God answered that prayer?

Let me explain by starting with some history.

Some of you like statistics and history, and I don't know, I guess maybe that's not real clear up there, but maybe you can see it.

For the first 60 years, most of our members lived in the United States, in North America, for the first 60 years of our existence.

But in the 1920s it began to change to where we had more than 50% of our people outside of North America.

I know some of you think that's the year after Noah came out of the ark, but it was quite a while ago.

Back to Menu

Muhammed’s Prayer

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine