JOE: Welcome to FJM Television. I'm so excited to be with you
because it's Father's Day and Happy Father's Day to all of you
fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers. We celebrate
you today. It's because of fathers that we're all here and
we're so grateful to our Heavenly Father for blessing us
with you, our fathers. Happy Father's Day.
ANNOUNCER: Life is busy. It is easy for the little things in
our everyday routines to get lost in the shuffle even
when everything is going good. There are still things
that get overlooked. At Fred Jordan Mission we strive to
help those we serve on Skid Row with the little things
such as having access to a bottle or even just
a cup of clean water when they're thirsty. How about a
cup of coffee and a donut just to get your day going? Or taking
for granted having shelter from the weather, hot in the summer,
cold in the winter. Did you know a high percentage of those here
on Skid Row, who we call homeless are not drug addicts or
alcoholics or even mentally unstable, know they are fellow
Americans who maybe a few months ago were paycheck to paycheck
from eviction or recently laid off from their job or just down
and out on their luck. Your act of kindness through prayer,
through your financial gifts today help those who come
through our doors for socks, toothbrush, soap, a lunchtime
snack, and yes, even water. So let this be a reminder to be
thankful for the little things.
FRED: Sometimes it takes history a long time to reveal
where you get your strength.
JOE: Today I wanted to talk a little bit about my father,
Fred. Fred Jordan, who touched countless millions of
lives. Literally tens of millions around the world.
Fed the poor and needy on Skid Row, touched the hearts
of men, women, and children. One of my father's
last messages was trust in the Lord and do good. That
sentiment was weaved through our family. All of my
life, my six brothers and sisters always heard it. We
always knew it. It was to love the Lord your God, like the
Bible said with all your heart, with all your mind, with all
your soul and strength, everything in you. And my father
showed us that every day through his life, he loved God first,
then he loved family. He loved my mom, he loved all of us, and
then he loved people and others. You know I couldn't of had a
better example in a father than Fred Jordan. He wasn't a perfect
man and he always told us that although we really never saw
much fault. We saw him get up every day, pray, seek God. Read
the word, love my mom, love us. Go to Skid Row, care for the
homeless. The hurting, the hopeless and the helpless by
sharing the love of Jesus, feeding and clothing those who
were cold and naked and hungry, and then he went around the
world starting missions and orphanages and hospitals and
schools for the poor and the needy, touching millions upon
millions of lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ, all
because he loved God with all of his heart. He loved his family
and then he loved others in his community, and that's why Fred
Jordan spent his life giving it all to God so that God could use
him to change the world.
FRED: We're coming to you from the rooftop of our rescue
mission in downtown Los Angeles. To some people this would
be called the ghetto in many cities. This is called the
Skid Row area in Los Angeles. The City Hall is just to my
left, that peaked building, has a peak on it over there
is the City Hall and this message today we're going
to talk about the third verse of the 37th chapter or
37th Psalm and reads like this, trust in the Lord
and do good. So shall thou dwell in the land and
verily thou shalt be fed. Trust in the Lord and do good. When I
first married, my wife was young, she came from a layman's
home. Her father had always worked and mother had worked and
they had paychecks coming in and she said, what do you mean by
faith? What's faith? Well, I said, it's trusting God to meet
our needs. And people have often wondered why God has prospered
this work so much and I bring them here and let 'em see 6,000
people in the street and let 'em help feed them or help give out
21,000 toys at the Christmas party this past year. And they
say, I don't see how you can do all that. My philosophy was
taken from the story of Lazarus and the rich man, the rich man
had so much food. His table was so piled up with food that
Lazarus was able to live off the crumbs that fell on the floor.
Trust in the Lord, I don't have anything. You have yourself. You
have your hands, you have your feet. You could tell others, you
can use a telephone. Trust in the Lord and do good and then ye
shall be fed. Why don't you get a bullhorn or something, your
telephone. I've got agitated today about this whole thing. I
just can't stand to come here for another 40 years. I don't
guess God will spare my life that long, but another 40 years
and see people by the thousands going hungry and sleeping out in
the streets when most people are not saying one word for Jesus
Christ and helping do good to those who are hungry, you help
them and God will feed you. You feed them, you clothe them and
God will clothe you and God will feed you. I've never seen it
fail. It had a terrific passage of scripture. I just have to
read it over and over. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord.
Lemme make two suggestions. Grab your Bible just soon as I'm
through and open it to the book of Hebrews that's over in New
Testament, the back of the Bible. Here it is, right here.
Now faith is a substance of things hoped for. You put your
trust in God and the things you're hoping for will come to
pass. And then may I suggest that you turn to the first or
the fourth book in the New Testament and read the gospel of
John over and over. And in there it says, to believe in Jesus
Christ, to trust Jesus Christ, to have faith in Jesus Christ.
You find all these expressions talking to the person who is
God's son, Jesus Christ. And in the gospel of John, you'll find
more about the person of character of Jesus Christ than
any other book in the Bible, and it'll stimulate your faith so
that you can trust in Jesus Christ and in trusting in him
you put your faith in His Father, Father God, God Jehovah,
trust in the Lord. Do good.
JOE: As my father always said in all of his life of ministry,
which was about 70 years, love God, do good,
keep your eyes on Jesus. We'll be right back.
JOE: Here at Fred Jordan Missions every day we see all,
all types of people. I remember as a kid, my father Fred
and my mom, Willie, teaching me a song about Jesus loves
the little children of the world. Red and yellow, black
and white. We are all precious in God's sight. I still know
that song. I taught it to my children and that's exactly
what we see here at Fred Jordan Mission every day, red
and yellow, black and white, every single person
that you could think of from children all the way
to seniors are here on the streets living in LA, and they
come to our doors to be loved on, to be shared with that Jesus
loves you and Jesus saves. You know we hand out water, we hand
out drinks, we hand out snacks. We preach the gospel. We have
hot meals, we do special events. But if you want to know who
comes through our doors, it's all of us. There's no certain
person, there's no certain look. But like I said in that song,
red and yellow, black and white, we're all precious in God's
sight. That's who we see here every day at Fred Jordan
Mission. People from all around this country that end up
on these streets can come through our door and we
will serve them as we declare and demonstrate
the love of Jesus to those in need.
ANNOUNCER: Join the conversation by connecting with us on social
media. We are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more.
Visit us at social.fjm.org.
JOE: I'm excited to set up this next clip of my dad.
Might be a little bit of a challenge because my dad was
so special to me. This clip is from Skid Row 1987 Thanksgiving.
It was the last Thanksgiving that my dad preached
the gospel shared the good news that Jesus loves us,
that Jesus cares and that Jesus can take any mess of
a life on Skid Row and make a miracle out of it.
I was there with my then girlfriend, Kris, who has now
been my wife for 35 years. And on that day I was struggling to
figure out because I was away from God, how to get back to
God. But the one thing that really helped me most to get
back to God and in a right relationship with Jesus again,
was having a father who not only prayed for me, but he loved me
through it all. No matter what I did, no matter what my attitude
was, no matter what my sins were, my dad loved me and showed
me the love of God, the love of Jesus. So stay tuned and watch
as you see my dad who cared about me, pray that I would
figure out how to get back to Jesus.
FRED: But I have a son that's very close to me. In
fact, I have four sons, but one of 'em that's done something
he's never done before. He's had a lot of girlfriends.
Oh, I shouldn't have said that, but he brought his
girlfriend today and I just want to introduce him and
I wish you for my sake, give him big hand. It might
help him. Come on. Come on Kris. Come on Kris. Yeah,
this is Kris and this is where are you Joe? And this is
Joe and he takes care of the ranch that we bought down in the
desert for young people who were on drugs many years ago. And
he's not on drugs, but he's just down there taking care of things
for us. And Joe, we're proud of you and we love you.
JOE: Thank you.
FRED: And you too Kris, and God bless you. You want to
say anything?
JOE: I'd just like to say the Lord's really speaking
to me lately and not sure what it's all about, but
I know that I'm called to be with him and in his work
and in his will, and I want to be in his will and I just,
I want everybody to pray that he'll show me what to do
and open the doors and close the doors that are
supposed to be opened and closed and I really have a
burden for kids and teenagers and maybe through my life
experiences so far, I can help a couple. And if I can just help
that one. That's what life's all about.
FRED: Amen. You know it's hard for a young person today
to do what I read in the Bible this week about a man
named Caleb who said he gave himself holy unto the
Lord. And you excuse these personal things, but this is
just as important to me as these meetings here on Skid
Row to see one of my children find the answer.
And I'm going to tell you a secret. This boy is
searching and wants to be in full-time Christian work, and
he's struggling and he needs the answer. So I wish you'd bow your
heads and let's have a brief prayer right now for Joe. Our
God and our heavenly Father we thank thee for Kris and Joe. We
pray that this shall be the culmination of the struggle and
the battle between the flesh and the world and the devil and the
victory for Jesus Christ. Bless him, we pray. Give him the
answer. Bless Kris. Lead her and guide her to your perfect will.
In Jesus' name, and all the people say it. Amen.
JOE: Thank you.
FRED: God bless you Joe.
JOE: As I was wrestling at that time in my life,
kind of running from God, I had been to Bible school,
I was called to ministry. I was preaching and teaching at
a young age from 19 years old, and yet I was
filled with a lot of fear. Can I really live up to this?
Can I really be Fred Jordan? Can I do all the things
that my dad did? Could I preach as well? Could I speak as well?
Could I really reach the world the way he did? But the one
thing my dad always taught us is just be you. Joe you're you. You
don't have to be me. You don't have to live up to anything
except God's calling for your life. And my dad displayed and
demonstrated that through his love for me and all of our
family, brothers, sisters, and all of those on Skid Row. Live
up to the calling God's called you to son, that's all that
matters to me. And my dad shared God's love with me every day
until the day he died, he believed in me and he said,
trust Jesus and he will take care of you. It was only a few
weeks later that my father led Kris, my now wife to Jesus. I
rededicated my life and for the last 35 years, we've been
serving Jesus together hand in hand declaring and demonstrating
God's love, all because of a great and loving father.
ANNOUNCER: If you ever visit the streets of Skid Row in
Los Angeles, you will see ragged tents, compromised easy
ups, which is someone's home. If you walk down the
streets of Skid Row, you'll pass dirty blankets or old
newspapers lying on top of broken wooden palettes, which
is someone's bed. If you come to the corner of fifth
in town, you'll see people lined up to join Team Jesus
for a hot meal in our dining room or a time of song
and worship in our chapel. What you also see at Fred Jordan
Mission is smiles and hugs and hear wonderful stories of love
and care. Serving those on Skid Row for 80 years, feeding
millions of meals, caring for the saint and the sinner by
declaring the goodness of God through love and action. Please
continue to give right now while it's fresh on your heart. Pick
up your phone or your tablet, go to your computer and type
fjm.org. It is there you can give a generous gift to help us
continue what we have been doing for 80 years.
JOE: One of my favorite messages from my dad was
from Isaiah 6:1-9. It was call, send, go. If you're called
by God then sent by God, then go and reach the world.
Check this out.
FRED: Today I want to talk to you about three words.
One call. The second word is sin. The third word is
go. I found these three words in the sixth chapter of
the book of Isaiah. Also, I heard the voice of the Lord
saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then
said, I, here am I, send me. And he said, go and tell
this people hear ye indeed, but understand not and see
indeed, but perceive not. I have a great conviction about
this thing of the call of God. I know when I was in the
seminary I felt, a great percentage of the men in that
seminary were called by God or friends. The road gets rough and
thorny. 77% of all the missionaries who go to the thorn
field are back after three years. 77% are failures because
God didn't call him or if he did, they didn't answer the
call. The second word I want to talk about is that there was a
great cry here from this man for somebody to go, he wanted to
send somebody and who will go for us and who shall we send?
And we hear the cry come back. Here am I. I was talking to a
young lady, she was 21 years of age, recently, and she had a
great hunger for God. She said, I don't know what to do. I was
brought up in a certain traditional church, but I don't
know what these people are talking about when you talk
about a call and being sent by God to go out and serve him. She
says, what does it mean? I opened this chapter in the Bible
after I'd explained to her the plan of salvation of how Jesus
Christ came and died on the cross for her sins. And he said,
as many as he received him to them, gave me power to become
the sons of God, even to as many as believe on his name. And she
said, I believe on his name. And I said, well, the next step is
to confess him before men, as your savior, and as your Lord.
She said, I'm willing to do that. I want to do that. And
then I read this passage, scripture, here's the call.
God's spoken to you. You've indicated through the weeks that
you wanted help, you've had help now today. I've read the
scripture to you in so many places about how to get proper
related to God through his son Jesus Christ. And I said, let's
listen to this passage scripture. Who will go for me?
Now how far are you down the trail of the call of God, the
sin of God? And now here's your reply. What are you going to
respond to? Who will go for me? And this verse says, here am I.
Send me. And the scripture says, go. You know so many people want
to do something. In fact, I was asked here just today by, I
think it's one of our television crew, and said, well, with all
this talk about helping the poor and the homeless, and you're
feeding so many thousands of people down here, but doesn't it
make it easier now? Isn't there a lot of money being given all
over the nation to help the homeless? Well, I'm sad to say
there's been a lot of money appropriated by the government,
by cities, by states, but some way that money doesn't seem to
sift through the cracks and get down to where the need is.
There's so many motions being made in council meetings, board
of supervised meetings. There's so little being done. And listen
carefully. Please don't be critical of the poor and the
hungry and the homeless unless you've been there. Listen
carefully. Why don't they do it? Why don't they give money? Why
don't they do this? What about you? Jesus said, as much as
you've done unto these, you've done unto me. If you help the
needy, you help the poor. If you try to win the lost in this
country, your neighbor, your friend, your family, as well as
going overseas to what you call the heathen, listen, the Bible
says, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature. God does the calling. You can't call yourself, can't
work yourself into the lather by exercising spiritually or
physically and get a call from God. The Holy Spirit has to put
that desire in your heart. And then God does the sending. Let
me tell you this out of hundreds of missionaries, we've sent the
mission field. I made them a proposition. I said, if you will
give yourself to go, I'll guarantee you, I'll raise the
money to send you and help support you. Out of all the
missionaries that have come to the dock to get on a boat or
come to the airport to get on a plane, only one man has ever
failed to be there because he said, I needed some money. He
needed 300 and some odd dollars. And a man was on that boat that
day looking for him, and he had that $300. And he said, I
brought it here all the way from Seattle to give to him so he
could go. God never fails, but sometimes we do. The last word,
"go." Get off of it. You've been sitting long enough, you've been
crying long enough, you've been criticizing long enough, you've
been weeping for others long enough, and let your two feet
carry you to your sons, your daughters, your loved
ones, your neighbors. And from that, perhaps
God will hear your cry, hear my Lord, hear my Lord.
Please honor me and send me forth as your child.
JOE: That was my dad's heart through the American Soul
Clinic, a place to train spiritual doctors and nurses.
My father had a training center. We still have it,
the Outreach Training Center on Skid Row where
we teach and train young people, youth pastors,
pastors, lay people, any volunteers that want to
come, how to declare and demonstrate God's love to the
poor, the needy, and the lost and hopeless in this world by
sharing with them how to just simply tell their story of what
Jesus has done in their hearts and lives, their testimony. So
they can go out and share the gospel and evangelize like my
Father started in 1944, and also demonstrating God's love by
meeting the needs of people, whether they're hungry, whether
they're naked, whether they're thirsty. It was always those two
things and still is with Fred Jordan mission to this day,
declaring and demonstrating the love of Jesus. We won't veer off
the course, we won't stray from that calling. That is my
calling. That was my father and mother's calling, and we
continue that calling today at Fred Jordan Missions to declare
and demonstrate. You know if you've been watching or if
you've been viewing, and if you're one of our partners,
we're so grateful for you. Thank you so much. And if you're new
today, just know this Fred Jordan Missions every day serves
about a thousand people, every single day with the love of
Jesus, we feed and clothe and care for those who have no hope,
and also we share the hope of the world, Jesus, to see people
get saved and know Jesus. If you want to be involved, you can
write us, you can call us, you can DM us. You can go on our
social media, but no matter what you do, go get involved in the
work of Jesus Christ. You will be rewarded. Happy Father's Day.
FEMALE: (Singing) We will overcome this sorrow. We will
see the dawn tomorrow. We will soldier on down
this road as we reach for hope, reach for hope.
ANNOUNCER: Please, will you join us in feeding hungry children
and their families by phoning today, 844-FJM-FOOD or
donating online, fjm.org. That's fjm.org or mail your
check to Fred Jordan Mission, PO Box 12345,
Covina, California 91722. Please will you help?
FEMALE: (Singing) Reach for hope.
ANNOUNCER: The preceding program was sponsored by
generous friends and partners of Fred Jordan Missions.