WIll Carlisle (00:04):
Welcome back to The Prisoners of Hope Podcast, and today is a great day, joined of course, by the great Joshua Youssef, and we are joined by a dear friend, our pastor, Jason Edwin Dees.
Jason Dees (00:24):
I like to refer to myself as a friend of HTP.
WIll Carlisle (00:27):
You are a friend of HTP.
Jason Dees (00:28):
A friend of HTP.
WIll Carlisle (00:29):
Who doesn't want to be a friend of HTP?
Jason Dees (00:31):
Man, I just went to the Middle East with the founder and president of HTP, Joshua Youssef, and it was life changing. It really was an amazing time. Yeah, so I'm excited, Josh, to be here today and to talk about the work that ... Look, I know I just saw a thin slice of what God is doing through the ministry, but it was wildly encouraging. Yeah, I just appreciate the opportunity to be on the trip.
Joshua Youssef (01:02):
Yeah, well, and I am glad you were on it and I love taking people to the field. We try as an organization to communicate what's happening in closed countries, countries that are really hard to get into. For the most part, a lot of missionaries have tried and failed to get into some of these countries. And so I'm curious what your perspective is, Jason, as you entered into the environment, having seen it maybe from a distance or reading some things about or hearing me tell stories. What was it like actually seeing and actually meeting these people and getting physically close to them in proximity?
WIll Carlisle (01:43):
Before we jump into the specifics, what's the context of the trip? Where did y'all go? What was the purpose?
Joshua Youssef (01:51):
So we have field teams spread out from Morocco all the way to Pakistan, and we try to get together as a team at least once a year to encourage one another, pray for one another. We do some training in that time, but it's incredibly difficult to get these people together. You're dealing with countries that do not always get along with each other, and so visas are hard to get. A few of our people were rejected by whatever, their own country or the incoming country. So we met in Turkey. We can say that. I think we met in Turkey and I brought along some of my Atlanta team and friends to come to that field conference.
WIll Carlisle (02:36):
Amazing, amazing.
Jason Dees (02:37):
Well, I think the first thing that struck me as I was just thinking about what are my thoughts on the trip were, before I get to being with, seeing the ministry up close, was just being around your team. Your team is so well-equipped and so passionate about the work that they're doing, and I just really think you've done such an job putting together the right team and people that have a wide range of skills. So I was so encouraged by that and then just getting in there and beginning to see up close, the work. The first thing, I have a lot of thoughts, but the little Kurdish church that we went to, it was amazing to be there. Josh knows this story that I have prayed, and I had got this Kurdish prayer calendar back in 2015. I prayed for the Kurds since that time and particularly prayed even that year.
(03:36):
Just seeing God bear fruit of that and seeing what is happening, and here are these Kurdish people, obviously not in what could be called Kurdistan, here in Turkey, but finding one another, gathering together, worshiping God together. Even there that night, there were people that were there that were strong believers. There were people there that were seeking out the faith. And so I just feel like I saw evangelism even happening as I was there that night. And so that was one of those. Oh, man. And then of course, just seeing what God is doing in particular among some of the Persian believers, they're Iranian believers. I'd love to talk more about that.
(04:22):
Then of course, the great thing about going to this with you, Josh, is I got to really see ... I got to at least hear field updates from your whole team, from your field team, which it's just amazing. I was blown away by just the breadth of the ministry and the depth of the ministry. So I love HTP. I'm a friend of HTP, but I was very, very encouraged just by this. I believe in this ministry more than ever after coming back and just seeing up close, and that's not always the case with me.
(04:55):
I've definitely gone on mission trips where I thought I believed in this, but they just had good marketing. Then you're like," I kind of think these people don't know what they're doing," but I really feel like everybody knows what they're doing. There's clear calling. It's not that the work that they're doing is easy or is always ... It's not maybe as big as they want it to be, but there's a clear calling. They know what they're doing. They know what they're called to, and God is bearing fruit. And I just was so encouraged by the whole thing.
Joshua Youssef (05:29):
Yeah, I love it. Jason had told me he'd been praying for the Kurdish people. This was probably over a year ago maybe. When he told me, I was like, "I cannot wait to tell you what God's doing amongst the Kurds, whether it's Kurds in Iran or Kurds in Syria or Kurds in [inaudible 00:05:45] So when we went to this Kurdish church, all I could think about was this. Jason walks up to the pastor and is like, "Can I say some things?"
WIll Carlisle (05:53):
That's amazing.
Joshua Youssef (05:54):
And so he gets up there and he starts telling him, "I've been praying for you guys for 10 years or more."
WIll Carlisle (05:57):
Gosh, such a powerful moment.
Jason Dees (05:59):
It was awesome.
Joshua Youssef (06:00):
And it was just awesome to see, because as Jason said, there was even an older man there who my team were trying to lead to the Lord whose wife had already come to the Lord. He was doubting. In Arabic, they're just sharing the gospel with him. It really was this really special moment-
WIll Carlisle (06:18):
That's incredible.
Joshua Youssef (06:19):
To witness.
WIll Carlisle (06:20):
That's incredible. So were there any personal encounters, people, you got to know, people you got to hear the stories of, Jason, while you were over there that particularly impacted you?
Jason Dees (06:32):
Well, one of the cool things, help me out with the name.
Joshua Youssef (06:36):
Cassum.
Jason Dees (06:41):
Okay, so there's an Iranian Pastor, Cassum. His story, we got to go to his house. We got to hear his story. I got to interact with him. It was interesting too. Our little church, Christ Covenant, has kind of helped his church. He came up to me on the second day. I think I'd said something in the larger meeting, Josh, and he was like, "Man." He goes, "I recognize who you were. I watch your YouTube. I watch Christ Covenant on YouTube," and he was so grateful. Well, this is after I have heard his story. So I shared some of this a couple of weeks ago, but we got to go to his house. So this guy, he has a tough childhood situation, ends up coming to faith, and gets so excited about the Lord, and does what Christians should do.
(07:44):
The thing that I love about even hearing this is there's this instinctual ... When you come to faith, you love God's word. You love God's people. So got into God's word, started teaching God's word to God's people. God's people start growing. Next thing they know, they've got dozens of people coming from different cities and maybe even hundreds. So of course, and again, I know I guess everybody listening to this, you guys are into what's happening in the Middle East, but in Iran, of course because of the theocracy that exists there, to profess Christ is treason. It's to go against your government. You're going against the supreme leader, and so he gets in trouble for that. He basically goes to prison for treason. So he gets to prison and he says, "Can I have a Bible? Can I please have a Bible?" And they said, "Well, the Bible is the reason that you're in prison." No, you can't have-
WIll Carlisle (08:44):
Probably not.
Jason Dees (08:46):
So they don't give him a Bible. So then he says, "Well, is there anything I can do to get a Bible?" And they said, "Well, we've been wanting to paint all these prison cells, and so if you paint all these prison cells, we'll give you a Bible." So he and some buddies, they do all this work. I think he called their bluff. They don't know that they're going to do it, and so they go out and they paint all the prison cells, many days of work, and he says, "I finished all the prison cells. Can I have a Bible?" I think they were like, "Well, we didn't think you would do it, but no, you still can't have a Bible." And so they said, "But what we will do is we'll give you more phone time."
(09:18):
So he had five minutes of time on the phone and they said, "We'll give you 15 minutes of time on the phone." So what did he do with his 15 minutes? He would call his Christian friends outside of the prison and have them read the scripture to him. I think he started off with Psalm 27 or something. I can't remember what he started off with, but he started with one Psalm, and I love that. And then they said-
WIll Carlisle (09:40):
And he would transcribe it as they were-
Jason Dees (09:41):
So they would read the psalm over the phone, and he would just write it out. Then all of his buddies started doing it, and collectively they got the whole New Testament.
WIll Carlisle (09:50):
That's incredible.
Jason Dees (09:52):
And big parts of the Old Testament. So I just love that love for the word. So then he finally gets out of prison, and they say, "Well, are you going to stop? You're going to stop now? You're going to stop doing this." And he says, "I can't," And I love that. This is what Christians do. Christians love God's word and they love God's people. So that's why he had to leave Iran, because they would've sent him back to prison for 20 years. Now he's faithfully pastoring this church in Turkey that we mentioned. So I was just so encouraged by Cassum and just his faith and the story of this. Here's the thing. So that's what I'm saying. This guy that I'm hearing of his faith, I saw him preach. I see this guy, he's gone to prison for his faith. He is my new spiritual hero, and then he comes up to me the next day and he goes, "I watch you on YouTube." I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, please stop."
WIll Carlisle (10:46):
Yeah, quit wasting your time.
Jason Dees (10:47):
I need to watch you. So anyway, I just was blown away by this man's love for our Lord and how real [inaudible 00:11:00] is how real the Lordship of Jesus was in his life. So that's just one little slice. Then again, there's so many stories just like that of work that is happening on the field. And it's been cool too, one of the things that struck me is just the tragedy of this earthquake that's happening and the tragedy of ISIS. All of these tragedies are producing spiritual fruit to the point where it's actually made me rethink tragedy in the world.
(11:36):
We've done a lot of work here with obviously HTP, but also with Sin Relief. I really am so grateful for those kinds of ministries that come in in these very wounded situations. I say that kind of stuff here all the time. It's not in our strength that the Lord meets us, but in our weakness. Usually, I'm thinking about somebody that had a bad day at work or something, and they worship [inaudible 00:12:05] I'm usually not thinking about a person whose whole life has been devastated and destroyed, but that same principle applies. The Lord met them in their utter weakness and proved his love and proved his lordship and proved his mercy, and these people's lives are being changed.
WIll Carlisle (12:24):
That's so good. Josh, what's it like for you? This is just 9:00 to 5:00 work that your team does, is working with people like Cassum and hearing these sorts of stories. So taking someone like Jason into that and doing that exposure work, what effect does that have on you?
Joshua Youssef (12:45):
Yeah, I love to see light bulbs go off in other people that I have experienced. Will, you've met Salam and Samar, but they have paid a price. They're in a moderate, I would say a moderate or progressive Islamic country, but they've been to the secret police headquarters many times. They've done the get in the van, close the curtains, the lamp, the hot room with the lamp. So when they look at our Iranian team and they go, "Oh, gosh, this makes us question our own faith." I go, "Well, wait, if you're questioning your faith, what does that mean for me?
WIll Carlisle (13:29):
Salam and Samar, whose daughter was almost kidnapped by ISIS.
Joshua Youssef (13:32):
That's right. That's right. That's right.
WIll Carlisle (13:33):
Just the light stuff.
Joshua Youssef (13:36):
Maybe people talk about first world problems and stuff. Maybe perspective is good, right? It is a good thing for us to get at times. Sometimes I can get a little bit used to this and things can become kind of rote and I forget what we're doing. But it's a great reminder when I get to see it in other people, when other people see it and they turn to me and go, "Okay, how do I unpack this?"
(14:06):
Together, we can say, "Okay, yeah, we don't live in that environment. We don't experience that on a day-to-day basis. We're not going to go to jail for our faith more than likely. So how do we live? How shall we now live? In light of all this, how should we live?" I think it does make me more bold. It makes me want to be more bold about sharing my faith and being evangelistic and just saying, "Hey, why would I, out of fear, give up the thing that I ought not to give up, that they're not willing to give up, which is being able to communicate what the Lord has done in our own lives?" But it is a funny thing, the reaction that we have at times.
Jason Dees (14:52):
Well, I keep using this word, lordship, but there's this confidence that Jesus really is the Lord. It's the kind of confidence that I think is exactly what we saw in the early church. Caesar is Lord. Jesus is Lord. It's a defiant confidence in the Lordship of Jesus, and I think that in America or in a more privileged setting, I guess I could say the privilege of the West, the freedom of the West, because the decision of Jesus' lordship doesn't feel so stark, nobody's going to put you in jail if you say Jesus is the Lord, right? But there's all these subtle temptations away from the Lordship of Jesus that I think we're subconsciously making. So because we don't have to consciously decide, is Jesus the Lord of my life? We subconsciously deny Jesus as the Lord of our life.
(16:02):
So I think to Josh's point, it's so good to go into the context of another culture, another country where people are having to consciously decide, is Jesus the Lord of my life today? And am I willing to go to prison? Am I willing to be ripped away from my family? Is Jesus really Lord consciously? That just so erupts their faith. It so ignites their faith, and so I think that really is one of the things that I walked away with. They're confident in the Lordship of Jesus because they're having to make that decision every single day. I think that's something that we can learn in a more free context. I don't want to live in a persecuted context. I enjoy the freedoms of the West, and I think that we should be grateful for that. But am I as confident in the Lordship of Jesus in my life? And I think that's a conscious decision that we as a church can be making even in less persecuted areas.
WIll Carlisle (17:07):
Yeah, I love that. A lot of the way this conversation is going is similar to Nik Ripken, Insanity of God, the way he concludes the book and what he talks about a lot. It's easy to come face to face with this and then let the takeaway just be like, "Oh, I'm a sucky Christian. I don't suffer. I'm JV, whatever," and not really have any edifying effect. But rather, it's almost this weird discouraging encouragement that we can try to take away from it.
(17:43):
But what Nik Ripken actually points people to is sharpen your witness. This idea of Lordship, I think, is an even more helpful and broader underlying sort of idea of what we see clearly demonstrated in the persecuted church is lordship and witness and courage and all these things. Rather than just being like, "Well, dang it, I don't live in Turkey, so I'll never have a cool story like that. Jesus has got to be way more proud of them than of me and my friends," and I don't think that should be the takeaway at all. But rather, like you're saying, we have this clear example of Lordship, of trusting God of daily bread.
Jason Dees (18:24):
Well, because they don't have ... I know Barrett talks about this a lot, John Piper's category of strong pride and weak pride. I didn't sense any weak pride in them, meaning I didn't sense any of this, because I'm so persecuted, I am so righteous, which I sense weak pride in American missionaries all the time.
WIll Carlisle (18:50):
Interesting.
Joshua Youssef (18:53):
Yeah, don't you know what I've suffered?
Jason Dees (18:55):
Yeah, don't you know what I've suffered? I would never spend this much money on a car. They boast in their poverty. They boast in their discomfort for the Lord. These people aren't boasting in their discomfort of the Lord. So that proves to me that the Lordship is not this kind of self-righteousness, but it's actually a lordship of Jesus. And so I think that's one of the things that self-righteousness is everywhere, right? Even when Paul talks about boasting his weakness, he's boasting his weakness in ... I'm having to depend on the Lord. It's not that he's boasting in his weakness. He's boasting in the Lord's strength. He's boasting in a state of weakness. So I think that we boast about our weakness. I think we confused that, and I didn't sense that in them at all. It wasn't that they were proud of their suffering. It's that they had suffered and it was obvious that they had suffered, but it just made them more confident in the strength of Jesus. So I actually think that's a good takeaway. It's easy for these kind of conversations to ... self-pity is a form of self-righteousness, right?
WIll Carlisle (20:20):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Jason Dees (20:21):
So it's easy to say, "Woe is me. I'm not a serious Christian because I live in the West, or woe is me. I suffer so much because I live in a persecuted thing." Me is not the point. It's what is Jesus doing in my life where he has me, and what does it look like for Jesus to be Lord of my life right now today?
WIll Carlisle (20:44):
Yeah, yeah, and we even see that modeled in scripture. There's all these different cultures within the early church, and there's different cultures, worldly cultures that the early church is within. With that, there were different levels of persecution. There were different levels of hardship. There were different levels of prosperity. The point is not, how low can you go in terms of self-effacement and misery and sadness? But it's how closely to Jesus can we walk? How much rest can we find in the gospel? And then all the other noise will cancel out. In heaven, whether you lived in Lebanon or Syria or Georgia or Delaware, we won't judge one another or assess one another or ourselves based off that, but off of what Jesus did.
Jason Dees (21:43):
That's right. That's right.
Joshua Youssef (21:44):
Well, I love this discussion. I agree with Jason, the unfiltered love that these people have for Jesus, it was evident. I do think some organizations tend to deify the persecuted church and they become these little demigods. When you talk to them, they definitely don't want that, right? That's not their desire.
Jason Dees (22:12):
Well, and I think that's one of the mistakes of Christian missions, the motivation of Christian mission. John Piper has talked a lot about this too, but the motivation of Christian mission should be the worship and glory of God, not compassion for hurting people. Now, secondarily, we care about hurting people. We love our neighbors. If we can meet someone's need, we want to meet the need. So of course, I'm not taking away ... We talk about great commandment ministry here at Christ Covenant, but all of that is not ...
(22:54):
The end of that is not that this person would ... that we would show compassion for a needy person. The end of that is that God would be glorified. So that's the end of mission, is the glory of God. Again, you can cut so hard on that that you can say, "Well, we don't need to do any mercy ministry. All we need to do is preach the gospel." Well, no, the glory of God is accomplished in multiple ways. So if I meet someone's need in the name of Jesus, God is getting glory in that situation. But the end, we talked about this last night a little bit, Josh, if you go out and do mercy ministry for the sake of the people that you're doing mercy ministry for-
Joshua Youssef (23:42):
You'll burn out.
Jason Dees (23:43):
Yeah, you'll burn out. You'll become bitter. You'll become very proud, because those people will always take advantage of you. Not always, but a lot of times those people will take advantage of you. We talked about this last night. There's a situation. There's this guy that we know, and this community, because of broader cultural narratives, has turned their back on this guy who's literally sold everything and given himself to the poor. Now, the poor are rejecting him because of a broader cultural race narrative, but he's not giving up on them. He's continuing to serve this community, because it was never in a sense about the community. I love Matthew 25. When you serve the least of these, you did it for me. You did it to me. Unless you see the face of Jesus in the person that you're serving-
Joshua Youssef (24:37):
Amen.
Jason Dees (24:37):
You'll never be able to serve them with love and gratitude and mercy.
Joshua Youssef (24:41):
Amen.
Jason Dees (24:41):
You'll only really be able to exploit them for something. I think so much of mercy and justice ministry just exploits the poor for something that we want to get out of them, even if that getting out of them is a good feeling for serving them. But if you really see Jesus in them, you can serve them from a place of worship without expecting some necessary response. Of course, we're practical people. We don't want to continue to be taken advantage of.
(25:11):
There's a lot of layers to this conversation, but the point I'm trying to make here is it all gets back to Lordship. It all gets back to, I want to see Christ in his kingdom, in his name, magnified, glorified among the people. So yes, I do want to see these people wrapped up in the glory of God, but I'm not just here on a humanitarian mission. I'm here on a God mission. I think that's a big difference. Again, I think that's so the heart of HTP, and that's what's cool about HTP. There is, I'm going to use this word, humanitarian aid kind of things going on, but it's not about the humans. It's about the God that human beings are created to serve.
Joshua Youssef (25:59):
Amen. I love it. I often say this is a two-way street. Paul, in Romans 3, he uses this language of reciprocity. I'm obligated this debt. I owe you the gospel. I want to say the persecuted church is in a state of physical weakness. We are in a state of physical strength, economic strength, or resource strength. So where they're spiritually, they may not be weak, we are, I think, in the West. So there's this reciprocity thing happening where-
Jason Dees (26:30):
We need the spiritual strength.
Joshua Youssef (26:31):
I think we need their spiritual strength. We need their story. We need their testimony. We need that exhortation to go, "Oh, yeah, why are we so fearful about sharing the gospel? This is silly." At the same time, they're physically weak and they need resources at a point of weakness. So it's this reciprocity that's happening that I love to see and I want to do better at. I want to tell the story better here in the West.
Jason Dees (26:59):
Hence the podcast.
Joshua Youssef (27:01):
Yes, here we are.
Jason Dees (27:01):
Here we are, here we are.
Joshua Youssef (27:03):
We should start a podcast.
Jason Dees (27:04):
We should. Well, I think that's a good word. Even Josh and I and Will's a good friend, Ben Washer, I've often heard him say, if somebody's doubting their faith or somebody's in a spiritual weak moment, "We just need to take them over to the Middle East. The spiritual nourishment that they need right now is this," and I love that. That's good. He's seeing what you're talking about.
WIll Carlisle (27:32):
Well, that's the reason I'm in this chair, is the encountering God's work, a global kingdom outside of the southeastern version of it that I was ... It's what I considered the whole thing to be. So yeah, that's why this story is so important. It salvaged my faith in a big way and many, many others.
Jason Dees (28:00):
I think that's a good word, Will. If all you do, it can be very discouraging. American Christianity can be very discouraging right now, if all you're reading is American evangelical news sources. Then you'll just think that American Christians are just a bunch of political demagogues or evangelicals or that or whatever. We realize, oh, actually American Christianity is not the whole of Christianity or even the majority of Christianity or even the centerpiece of Christianity. It is a version of Christianity that has a lot of wealth, but I would not say that the heartbeat of the global church right now is the American church.
(28:57):
So if you start to think about that as we are not in the inner ring, I actually think that will help your faith. I don't say that to knock American Christianity. Some of the things that you see around us right now that can be disturbing on our Christianity, well, guess what? That's not really the center ring of evangelicalism or even of global Christianity. It's an external ring. Then I think that leads you to say, "Well, what is at the inner ring?" Again, Christianity, it's hard to say, "Well, what's the inner ring of global Christianity right now?" But at least you could start looking around and saying, "Okay, what else is God doing?" And when you start to see that, it's enormously encouraging.
Joshua Youssef (29:42):
We could spend a lot of time unpacking this. I mean, the fact that Cassum, one of the churches that really was instrumental in his faith in Turkey was started by a Korean, the Afghan Bible College, which was an online Bible college, was started by a Korean. The Kurdish church we visited, it had no real Western influence. It was a Kurdish MBB Muslim background believing first generation church. So there is this global gospel that we're seeing that doesn't necessarily have America at its center, which is a wonderful thing, I think.
Jason Dees (30:21):
Yeah, amen, amen.
WIll Carlisle (30:23):
Well, we could go on for hours, hours and hours and hours talking about all these things, but we best not.
Jason Dees (30:33):
I've got to get to physical therapy.
WIll Carlisle (30:34):
You got to get to physical therapy, so much to do and so little time. But Dees, we're very grateful for your heart, for the Kurdish people, and for God's church. We're excited to see it move forward. So for Josh Youssef, for Jason Dees, this is Will Carlisle, and we look forward to seeing you next time on Prisoners of Hope.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Thank you for listening to another episode of Prisoners of Hope. Visit us at www.HTP.org. Thank you.