Unknown Nations Podcast

 Hello and welcome to the Unknown Nations podcast, highlighting what God is doing in the most spiritually dark places in the world. Well, today, very special episode. I'm actually going to be sharing my personal testimony of how the Lord brought me to faith in Christ and the calling that we have here at Unknown Nations and the unique things that God did to bring us to this place of focused vision.

 

Well, my name is Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations, where we have the honor to serve God by helping reach the most zero access barrier ridden, spiritually antagonistic, spoken word reliant people groups on the planet, giving birth to the church in impossible places. Today's story, my story, it's really about invitations and about God of the universe who constantly is creating invitations for you and I. It's just a matter of, are we responding or not? 

 

So I'm super excited to share my story with you. For me, it's about three key sort of defining moments, where an opportunity was presented to me. And in that moment, when I look back on it, I think, you know, I could have gone this way. I could have gone that way. And I think of our lives very much as a row of dominoes. And so many times that opportunity, which represents a domino, we don't know the destination of it. All we're given is a certain set of circumstances at that moment. And do we say, yes, right. Or do we say no, that, that's really what it comes down to.

 

And it really is about us hearing His voice because there're so many things in life that I think God asked us to do that don't make sense. And one of the stories that we've shared here at Unknown Nations is the story of Philip, and the Ethiopian eunuch. And when he came to Philip, the angel of the Lord, it was in the middle of a great revival and, and if it's me, I'm probably staying in that revival.

 

But the angel of the Lord in Acts chapter eight comes to Philip and tells him to go to the desert road, which by definition is a place where nobody's at. Philip didn't understand at the time that you're going to be meeting an Ethiopian eunuch, a very influential man, and that as a result of that, an even greater revival will break out in Ethiopia.

 

He didn't have any of that information. All he had was an encounter with the angel of the Lord. He knew that was God's voice and off he went. That's what God is asking of you and I. How well do we know our master's voice? It's like the sheep that is in the pasture amongst all the noise and chaos of all the other sheep making noises and distractions.

 

And when he hears his shepherd's voice, he knows he knows his master's voice. And I think that's for you and I will. Well, for me, the first defining moment was when my girlfriend at the time invited me to go to church. Now I was raised, I had an amazing upbringing. My mom and dad are just choice, choice servants.

 

They are precious. They have been an amazing example. We'll be celebrating 60 years of marriage here next year. So they have been an amazing role model for me, but they didn't really push, we'll just say religion. And so I went to church, but I didn't have that relationship. I lacked that relationship.

 

I was around Christianity growing up, but I lacked the relationship. And then when my girlfriend who is now my wife, Kathy invited me to this church. And I said, yes, I went and it was the first time in my life. I had really heard what I would say distinguishes, from religion to relationship.

 

And there was an individual there, my first pastor who shared the gospel message. He threw the net and when I say that, I mean, just gave a gospel opportunity. Hey, it's not about you being a good person. And he did a lot of pastors do this trick. “Every head bow, every eye closed. And if you have never had a personal relationship with Jesus, today is your opportunity.” 

 

And I thought to myself, I had never heard that terminology before. I'm sure that's everybody in this room. And so when I raised my hand, I didn't realize, I think it was one of the only people that raised my hand. And I was so convicted, under the power of the Holy Spirit in that moment.

 

I'm a huge advocate for altar calls. And giving people an opportunity to respond because so many times when the preaching of the Word comes, we know the scripture says in Isaiah 55, “my Word will not return void.” 

 

Furthermore, we know that someone being convicted is not about an articulate sermon. It's not about a charismatic individual or a messenger. It's about the Holy Spirit. And Jesus made that very clear when his disciples were disheartened when he said, “hey, I'm not going to be with you forever. And I'm going to be leaving you soon.” 

 

And they were like, “no, no, Jesus don't leave us.” 

 

And he said, “trust me. It's in your best interest that I leave you, because I won't send you alone. You will not be alone. I will send a helper for you. And when he comes (speaking of the Holy Spirit,) he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment. So it's in your best interest that I leave you, but I'm not leaving you alone.”

 

That's what Jesus said because the Holy Spirit convicts us. And that's exactly what happened to me that day. So when you throw the net, you're not saying I want them to. I gave a great argument. No, I shared the word of God and the word of God that goes forth will not return void. And so we need to capitalize on that moment and create an opportunity for someone to respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

 

And I'm so thankful that someone gave that opportunity to me because when I responded to Jesus, it was like my life went from being in black and white to in color. Now, this is the big defining moment after obviously. The biggest defining moment of my life was saying yes to Jesus. But what happened next was super powerful.

 

It was a seed that was planted into my life. And I didn't even realize the significance of it at the time, but I had turned around and Kathy had been sharing with some women that I had never seen before in my life. And she was telling them my story, “I was falling in love with this guy. I can't really marry him because he's not a Christian yet. And I was really praying for him for months and months.” 

 

And these women were celebrating with Kathy over my salvation. Now, what happened was I turned around and I saw Kathy and these women I'd never seen before. And they had tears that they were shedding for me. And at the time I didn't understand the significance of it. I knew something crazy had happened and something amazing and my life was changed. 

 

But strangers are crying for me. This is the significance of it. Years later, I would become the CEO of Unknown Nations. It dawned on me that that is the kind of compassion that will be necessary for us to reach the nations that Jesus died for, to have the kind of compassion for quite honestly, people that you are unlikely to ever meet this side of eternity.

 

We need that kind of compassion for their eternal soul. We need to have the burden, our hearts broken with this idea of people going into an eternity in the absence, outside of the presence of God, however you want to describe it. They're going to be separated from God for eternity. If they had not had the moment I did just minutes before where I said yes to Jesus, it's upon you and I to be the stewards of that message, sharing it with them and making ways and provision for them to hear that very message.

 

So that was kind of defining moment number one for me. The second one was when I was in business, and I'm serving Jesus. We're youth leaders at our church. We're very engaged. I'm committed. I'm checking all the boxes, attending church Sunday night, Wednesday night.

 

You know, we're giving all those kinds of things, right, that you need to do. We're involved in volunteering and different people had come up, and they had suggested that I would be involved in ministry. And I thought to myself, “I really need the Lord to hit me upside of the head with a two by four.”

 

I need an apostle Paul, you know, Saul on the road to Damascus where he got just leveled by the Holy Spirit. I need that kind of an encounter. Not because I was, you know, not listening to him or defiant in some way, but because I wanted it to be genuine calling. I just really eagerly desired that.

 

And I was invited to volunteer for an organization. This was in 1995. And I was invited to volunteer and I was doing my business at the time, and I thought I had no time for this. This person came out to me, “hey, would you help me do this golf outing?” 

 

And I thought, “I don't have any time for that.”

 

And I kind of laughed at them at the notion they'd even ask me. We had a couple of our kids at the time starting my business, and I threw it in the trash, and the Holy Spirit spoke to me at that moment, “I want you to investigate this more.” 

 

And I literally was arguing with God at the time at my desk: “I don't have time. I'm just starting my business. I'm already involved in ministry.” 

 

I gave every reason under the sun that I could think of and the Holy Spirit said, “go and check this out.” 

 

So that act of obedience for me, was walking to the trash can and pulling out this brochure on what was Unknown Nations and talking about this organization that was taking the gospel around the world.

 

So I think again, not that I'm putting myself in any category of fill up, you know, the great ambassador of the gospel in the New Testament. But I think there's a parallel for you and I, when we think about doing things that don't make sense. You have to understand that it's God's voice, because when you understand it's God's voice, then you are going to do things that don't make sense, but it's his agenda, it's his plan.

 

The fact that two plus two equals 10. Doesn't mean God's not involved in it, but you have to understand your master's voice. You have to be able to discern. And the only time that's going to happen, the only way that's going to happen is for you and I to spend time with him through prayer, through fellowship, through going to church, and hearing a preacher of the word.

 

And for you and I to devour the word of God, that is how we get to that place of knowing that it's his voice, because God's not going to tell you anything that doesn't line up with the Word of God, that you don't bear witness in your spirit. It might be difficult. It might be challenging, but it will never not be in alignment with scripture in your prayer life.

 

So that was my second defining moment. And then the third one was as I was serving at Unknown Nations in the early years, I started as a first volunteer here in 1995 and became the CEO just a couple years later and been serving. For all these years and when in the early days, we were involved in a lot of different projects.

 

We weren't nearly as focused as we are today. And quite honestly, as a young leader at the time, I was getting a little burned out because I had so many different good things going on that knowing what the one thing was was really where my weakness was at. And I was reading a book called Unveiled At Last.

 

And I read this book and it talked about people who had never had access to the gospel cradle to grave. I had been a leader for a couple years at that point in time, and I thought, “how is that even possible around the year of 2000 at the time that 2000 years after Jesus died, that there could be people without access?”

 

I knew there were plenty of non Christians, but people who had never heard of Jesus before. I thought, “how audacious of an idea is that?” 

 

But yet that was the reality and the Lord just put such a burden on my heart for that. Well, what happened was a gentleman that I highly respect and is super instrumental in me even being here.

 

He brought in an audio player and he put it on my desk and he goes, “I think we need to do this.” 

 

Wow. Because we were doing all these other random things, I didn't have a great attitude with it. And so he kind of left my office and I thought to myself, “I don't want to do one more thing.” 

 

And the Holy Spirit began to speak to me to investigate. So I did, and I learned that there's over a billion adults in the world that are totally illiterate. And I also learned, furthermore about oral learners in two thirds of the world, and even up to 90 percent of the people in the unreached areas are oral learners, meaning they prefer to learn in a non literate way.

 

And I was like, “wow. Oh my gosh, having an audio Bible is amazing. There's no better delivery tool than that to get the gospel to people.” 

 

And so I went back into his office and I said, “this is what I've learned about it.” 

 

And he goes, “that's great. That's why I brought it to you.” 

 

Well, I kind of laughed about that at the moment, but then the thing that I lacked before was a lack of vision and doing a lot of good things. The Lord showed me unreached people groups and the audio scripture. And I brought those two things together. And I went back to this organization and leaders and I said “here's really what I feel like we should be doing. Not all these random good things, but I feel like this is the one thing.” 

 

And praise the Lord, they got behind that and now for well over 20 years that has been our singular focus. I am so thankful to the Lord for giving defining moments in my life. And I'm sure you have some of your own, but it really brings to light one of my favorite quotes of all time. It's a leadership quote, and it's this, that “God is not as interested in your talent and ability as much as your availability is and teachability that manifests itself in obedience when he calls.” I know that's a mouthful, but the essence of it is this. You can be as intellectually brilliant as Albert Einstein, the most gifted preacher in the world. You can have scripture knowledge and scripture running out your mouth.

 

And that's a wonderful thing. Don't get me wrong. Education is a good thing, but friend, if you and I are not available and teachable, we're never going to have that Philip moment. We're never going to do something that doesn't make sense because our mind, intellectually speaking, is telling us that's a bad idea because two plus two does not equal ten.

 

It equals four. And the longer we live like that, the more we will miss the opportunity. So I want to encourage you to find those defining moments, take a risk for God, know his voice and lean into it. Well, thanks for joining us on today's episode of the Unknown Nations Podcast, visit our website at UnknownNations.com to learn more about how you can get involved, subscribe and follow, and join us on this incredible journey of faith, hope and transformation. Join us in making Jesus known to the ends of the earth. The impact you can have is immeasurable and together we can see God's kingdom expand into the darkest corners of the world.