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[0:00] okay we're looking at the church we're looking at the core values of the church and we're really coming to an end of this hopefully next week we will bring this series to a conclusion and really with some practical things you may have seen it it's a north american mission board emphasis there's churches in shelbyville that are doing it as well it really began with jd greer and summit church in raleigh durham north carolina it's called who's your one and that's kind of just a practical how you can live this out and hopefully next week i'll kind of introduce that to you and we'll take these principles and live it out on a daily basis uh really not asking you to overextend yourself just to maximize yourself right to to use the gifts and the people god has already put a people around you so that you can incorporate these truths especially this last value core value number four and that value is we value prayerfully sustained missions including both church-wide and personal evangelistic efforts in our surrounding ministry field is we value prayerfully sustained missions we've been looking at the four core values of the church based on the biblical view of church and you're in the book of acts and i'm going to ask you to mark two places acts chapter 13 verses 1 through 5 you can mark that i'm going to read that first and i'm going to be in acts 14 verses 21 through 28 and you say well pastor you're two different sections right but we're looking at one event and as you're going there i'll kind of give you a recap of what has happened here up to this point we started this series by looking at a biblical vision for the church not necessarily man's interpretation of what the church should be but what it is the bible lays out the purpose and the reasoning for the church and we looked at the first mentioning of the church the church is supposed to be on the offensive there's this principle this bible reading principle that we have been just resonating lately the last few months about the law of first mention the first time something is mentioned in scripture it is supposed to stay true to that throughout scripture and throughout history this past wednesday night we had the opportunity to look at the first time a podium and preaching from a platform was ever mentioned nehemiah chapter 8 and then you'll if you were to go to nehemiah chapter 8 you will see where i get the practice of asking you to stand when i read the word of god from nehemiah chapter 8 nehemiah stood on a platform behind a wooden podium and he opened up the word of god and all the people stood up and they read from the word of god for four hours we're not doing that this morning but i thought about it but for four hours at a time and then they stopped and gave the sense which means they took the rest of the day the other four hours instructing one another as to what they just heard so nehemiah wasn't exposing the scripture he was reading the scripture and then others came in taught the scripture after that but that's the first time that preaching publicly like that is mentioned in scripture the law first mentioned in the church is matthew 16 you see in matthew 16 that jesus is upon this foundation i will build my church and we understand first of all that it is not our church it's not your church it's not war traces church it's not southern baptist church it's not the tennessee baptist missions board's church this is jesus's church this is his body this is his bride he is the head of the church which means he gets to determine what the church does and how it does it and he says there matthew 16 and the gates of hell will not prevail against my church which means the church is going to be on the offensive gates are always for defensive so the church is going to be pushing back darkness and we just began to look at this vision and then we started breaking it down of what we value and the first value is we value the weekly corporate worship of the entire body of believers and that's important because the church is to be visible right and the best way to be visible is to be together people notice it when you're together and you notice that corporate worship and we began to see the the the importance of the corporate worship of the body of believers we began to not only move to the worship we said we value a growing knowledge and a growing understanding of god's word and every member that applies to their life which means this that i really value every member

[4:02] from the youngest to the oldest growing daily in god's word so that god's word has a greater impact on their lives going back to that nehemiah principle they gave them the understanding which means they could understand they could hear the word for four hours but until they understood it they didn't do a thing right so you had to grow in your understanding of god's word i remember listening to a pastor one time at that time was the largest baptist church in southern baptist convention which was second baptist church houston carrie and i had the opportunity with our family to visit there several years ago one of the uh five campuses we visited but i remember hearing that pastor uh prior to our visit to the church and he always said he put the greatest qualified teachers listen to this teachers with the greatest biblical knowledge people with seminary degrees he put them in the nursery and the least qualified teachers were teaching adults he said this is why those nursery age kids can't go home and read the bible themselves so they need someone that can instruct them those adults can grow with one another iron sharpens iron he said that's the progression we make i want everybody to learn from god's word and that church grew exponentially i know it had some up and downs over the history but the understanding of the reading of scripture and things of that nature so that just stuck with me but that's a value we value a growing knowledge in god's word and then we looked at the third value we value every person doing their part every member doing their part fulfilling the function which christ has put them into which means that there are no extra parts to your body i know there are some pieces and parts of your body the doctors say you can live without but i've always kind of went by that theory that god put it in there for a reason i'm i can live without it but i function better with it right there are pieces and parts of vehicles that i have that are no longer there and they do okay without them but they don't do like they should with them and they're just a part and a piece but we understand it in the body which is called the church that jesus is the head of the church and he puts the body together and we saw this ephesians 4 and even first corinthians principle that you have a role and a purpose for being in the body and it's not to make sure the pews don't fly up when i'm sitting here we have a purpose that we have a calling you have a spiritual gift we understand that god has gifted his people for the service for the benefit of others we are told that your gift is not for your benefit your gift is for the edification of the church or the benefit of the church so we value the exercise of our spiritual gifts in the local body just as we saw this morning and then we're moving to the fourth value we looked at it for the first time last week we value prayerfully sustained missions both corporately and personally uh in our circles and that's where we're at so if you are physically able and desire to do so i'm asking if you'll join with me as we stand together this morning and we read from the word of god found in acts chapter 13 i'm going to read acts 13 verses 1 through 5 and then i'm going to go over to 14th chapter and read verses 21 to 28 acts 13 starting in verse 1 says now there was or there were now there were at antioch in the church that was there prophets and teachers barnabas and simeon who was called niger and lucius of cyrene and manian who had been brought up with herod the tetraarch and saul while they were ministering to the lord and fasting the holy spirit said set apart from me barnabas and saul for the work to which i have called them then when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away so being sent out by the holy spirit they went down to seleucia and from there they sailed to cyprus and when they reached salamis they began to proclaim the word of god in the synagogues of the jews and they also had john as their helper now go with me to acts 14 starting in verse 21 and we're going to see this what is titled the first missionary journey of paul uh saul being the same person as paul this is where it comes to an end okay acts 14 verse 21 after they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples they returned to lystra and to iconium and to antioch strengthening the souls of the disciples encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying

[8:04] through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of god when they had appointed elders for them in every church having prayed with fasting they commended them to the lord in whom they had believed they passed through pisidia and came to pamphylia and when they had spoken the word in perga they went down to atelia and from there they sailed to antioch from which they had been commended to the grace of god for the work that they had accomplished and when they had arrived and gathered the church together they began to report all things that god had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith to the gentiles and they spent a long time with the disciples let's pray lord we thank you so much for your word we thank you oh god that we have the privilege and the opportunity to open it up to read from it lord i pray that we would do more than just read it even more than just hear it but oh god that it would speak to our hearts and speak to our minds we pray that its truth would grasp us lord that it would shake us shaking us the things that need to be shaken changing us the things that need to be changed but lord it would conform us more to your glory more to your image and all for your honor we ask it all in jesus name amen you may be seated we are looking at the way of the church if you remember last week when we introduced this value core value number four that we value prayerfully sustained missions we looked at the reality that the word missions is nowhere to be found in scripture it is not a biblical word it rather it is a word that man has used to describe the activity that is defined in scripture as the way nowhere do you find the word missions but rather you find people living according to the way usually with a capital t and a capital w and we looked at the reality that missions is really not something we do not an event we go to it is not nothing we sign up for but rather biblically it is a way in which we live and we saw the truth of this that it is the way of the church it is just the outflow of a life lived biblically that if we live life according to scripture we will be doing for lack of better way to describe it doing missions it is not something that is specially designed it is not i know we as a church have on our calendar every year a missions week but in the bible it's not that way it is we are just going to live according to the way and these are the things that will be done and the busyness of our society and the busyness of our lives and the activities that we surround ourselves we have to set up events and times in order to get back biblically every now and then wouldn't it be better if we could just live biblically and have to set up times to live according to the world and if we live lives according to the way and all of a sudden we would have to try to not that we would ever have a desire to but every now and then we would set up times to live more like the world instead of trying to set up times to live more like scripture but we saw that missions is really just the way of the church and this morning i want to build upon that that the way of the church is just to continue on with this thought it is a missional lifestyle and i want you to see it found in these two passages found in the book of acts really that surround one major event which we define as paul's first missionary journey we know that there are three but there are maps in the back of your bible and you can go look at them but i want you to see how it is that we will live missionally and we can live according to the way there are some principles we need to take out of this passage some things that are really biblical principles that are rock solid that we have to stand on or we will not live according to the way of the church number one we find in acts 13 starting in verse one that missional living friend listen to me if there's a time at any other time throughout history i don't know how many of you read church history or how many of you read old books or how many of you go back and you study these things but you need to and you ought to but there's no other time that this message needs to resonate among the churches than at this time in history but you need to understand this truth and i say it being a southern baptist pastor who supports the southern

[12:09] baptist convention stay with me okay i attend each year the southern baptist convention i vote at the southern baptist convention i attend the north american mission board luncheons i attend the international mission board dinners when i can i'm a strong supporter of all of those entities i vote for the president i'm there at the commissioning service but i want you to understand this according to scripture missional living is missional living is a concern of the local church number one it is a concern of the local church it's a great saying kevin ezell who is the president of the north american mission board which by the way we support with some of the money you give to us we give 10 to the cooperative program the cooperative program breaks their money up among six southern baptist seminaries uh the north american mission board uh the international mission board and then uh the tennessee baptist mission board some 50 percent of the money given to the cooperative program in the state of tennessee actually i think it's somewhere around 51 percent of that money so over half of it goes to either the north american mission board or the international mission board about 49 percent stays in the state of tennessee okay all those numbers to tell you this kevin ezell said it at the north american mission board luncheon and then i heard later the new president of the international mission board say the same thing we don't need your money for a number of years first time i've ever heard that for a number of years what i heard was uh we need to get our churches that the goal was i'm gonna just tell you this is something that's not we want to be proud pride in this we need to be prideful we don't need to understand that but uh for for years what we heard is get your churches to give at least five percent pastor leave your churches to give five percent pastor leave your churches to give five percent all we're asking for is five percent because the average southern baptist church gives about two percent and i remember i pulled the number because when i registered to go to the southern baptist convention i have to pull these stats and i register our churches and at that year our church had given 24 and a half percent to the southern baptist convention through the cooperative program 24 and a half percent of our undesignated offerings were given to the cooperative program and i remember very clearly i was sitting at the the convention center in dallas and i was sitting here in the fellowship in the in the convention center there were two other pastors beside me and they were talking and what is common among pastors and i hate to say it is talking about how much money they give to the cooperative program and and i was trying to stay out of it now here i am i'm a very laid back guy i don't always look like this i was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and wearing tennis shoes because when you're going to listen to nine sermons a day you don't always want to wear a shirt and tie okay i mean you're in a congregation of about 10 000 people and you're sitting in metal chairs uh so i'm not trying to be a bad representation of the church i'm just trying to live uh not big fan of ties but anyway so i'm sitting there and these pastors and they're like so how much does your church give i was like well last year we gave 24 and a half percent and they about fell out of their chairs and man we need you to be on the platform i said you don't need me leading anything you know just because of the amount of money that the church gave to the cooperative program does not mean and that's how the thinking was going on but this year for the first time ever i heard we don't need your money and this is the reason behind because now we have enough money to do missions we just don't have enough qualified people to do missions think about that the southern baptist convention the longest not the longest the largest evangelistic biblical convention or the association of churches in america we have the money we don't have the people there are over 43 000 southern baptist churches and what they're saying and i can't even remember i can't remember the millions of people that are members of that and what they're saying is we don't have enough people to do missions work this is why and i'm just picking on southern baptists because we're southern baptists right

[16:10] i'm just i'm just i'm standing in my own house i'm just standing in my own house we have thought our responsibility for missions was to send money to a missions board and leave it!

[16:21] rather than train people to go serve on the mission field and send them it's quiet in the church house when you talk like that but look at what it says now there was an antioch in the church that was there missions is the calling and the responsibility and the concern of the local church antioch is not even the birthplace of christianity now i'm all about corporate i'm all about the cooperative program i'm all about the fact that we can do more together than we can do apart and i'm not not disparaging that at all i'm just being honest with you here as a pastor i'm just being honest with you as your pastor and the things that i have seen over the years and the things that i have acknowledged and this is just my way of preaching to you from my concerns and my overflows is jerusalem was the center of christianity for a while it was the birth of christianity the church in jerusalem was a mega church they added 3 000 one day the next day they added 5 000 right i mean it was a mega church it went from 120 to about 10 000 members in about two weeks time okay but they were sitting in jerusalem until the persecution started because god had told them through jesus you shall be witnesses unto me in jerusalem judea samaria and to the uttermost parts of the world right you need to get out of jerusalem well they're a mega church content to be in jerusalem staying in jerusalem hanging out into jerusalem until the persecution starts and all of a sudden the dispersion happens and then some believers some no-name believers we don't know who they are made their way to antioch and started a church they spread the gospel and the church is sitting here in antioch and all these people are understanding well barnabas leaves jerusalem goes to antioch to see about this church i'm giving you a very quick rundown of the book of acts and barnabas is up like man this is a pretty cool church but they need to be instructed who would be good oh i remember saw tarsus right he's over here making tents in tarsus so he goes to tarsus find saw bring saw back and now they're hanging out in antioch and since antioch was started by a bunch of no names about a bunch of people who just love jesus they decided some other people needed to love jesus and all of a sudden god's using them here and this local church begins what we call the missional activity of christianity to the world a church started by we don't know who layman brought the gospel there a tent maker was one of the leading teachers there someone who was converted he said no that's paul now at this time he was just a tent maker before he really ever became on the christian map here he was one who had persecuted the way he didn't want to live according to the way he really hated the way he was making tents now all of a sudden he's a teacher of the way listen friend listen missions is a concern of the local church god has called every local church to be in the business of making disciples who make disciples he has called the local church to carry that why because only the local church has the resources to do mission activity only the local church so what do you mean we don't have all the money in the world we don't have all the resources in the world we don't have all the cool gadgets in the world we don't have all the ability to make all these cool t-shirts and i get a lot of t-shirts from north american mission board international mission board i'll i'll bring who's your one to you and that's from the north american mission board we don't have the resources to do all that right these para-church ministries even outside of southern baptist they have the resources to do those things but it takes people to do missions god carries his gospel on the backs and the feet and the hands of his people para-churches are great they come along beside us but it is not to be the one that we give the responsibility to because it's a concern of the local church it is the burden of that number two

[20:22] not only is missional living a concern of the local church missional living is a direct result of the leading of the holy spirit look at what it says right here it says it names them there in acts 13 verse 1 it says while they were ministering to the lord and fasting let me just stop right here kind of give you a side note usually god sends out those who are already serving somewhere else while they were ministering to the lord and fasting god has a way of using the active okay god has a way of using those who are ministering in their local context to send them out to a broader context and we'll get to that in just a minute but while they were ministering to the lord and fasting they were doing the work of the local church says the holy spirit said set apart for me barnabas and saul for the work which i have called them to uh someone once said i would love to know how the holy spirit said this but we don't know that because the bible doesn't give us a program to follow just says that he said it okay uh we don't know if some they heard an audible voice we don't know if i hand wrote on the wall we don't know how it happened but we know the holy spirit said this to them and then it says here verse 3 then when they had fasted and prayed a lot of fasting going on there right someone once told me man it convicted me as a as a baptist pastor convicted me and he was of another denomination he said our church believes in fasting and your church believes in getting to the table fast and i was like yep you're right and and how can you answer that but look at what it says again this model of the church was the church looked like they were ministering to the lord and fasting and then they prayed and fasted says in verse 3 and they sent them away and so being sent out by the holy spirit again this is a unique connection i have it not in this bible but in the bible i study out of that they sent them away but they were sent by the holy spirit which means what that the holy spirit is doing its active work through the people of the church that when the church are working in unison the holy spirit is present with them because jesus said we're two or more gathered together i am there as well and he says the holy spirit will come make its abode with you he will live in you so that when the church is doing something the spirit is doing it so the holy spirit's activity is seen in the activity of the individuals of the churches they sent them out but i want you to understand this that missional living is a result of the leading of the holy spirit which means that if we are being led by the spirit then we are being led to live missional lives there's no question about it to say that we are led by the spirit to do nothing is a lie you say well the bible says be still and know that i'm god you're exactly right there are times even in the leading where i have to stop and i'm in all wonder and understand that he is god that he is majesty that he is wonderful that he is magnificent but it is also a following jesus says follow me and i will make you fishers of men following leads to activity right you don't follow by being still you don't follow the leading of the spirit if he is leading you he is active and all through the book of acts we see the leading of the holy spirit which means every time we see the holy spirit show up it is always in a new territory doing something new for a new people group doing new activities in new ways we looked at this throughout the book of acts when we went through this study and i know i'm kind of giving you an overarching theme of it that every time someone is filled with the holy spirit they start talking right and every time they talk they're only talking about one thing they're not filled with the holy spirit and talking about how bad tennessee football was even though we can talk about that a lot right they're not filled with the holy spirit talking about all these other things they're filled with the holy spirit the only thing they're talking about is jesus christ they're talking about the gospel and jesus said this is the way it's going to be jesus says that when the helper comes that is the holy spirit he will remind you of everything that i have said he will convict the world of sin how do you convict the world of sin by proclaiming the name of jesus he will make people uncomfortable how you do that by proclaiming the name of jesus he will always remind

[24:24] you of what jesus has said the holy spirit's work and activity centers around the person of jesus christ which means he is going to lead us to someone who needs to hear the name of jesus christ missional activity is always a direct result of the leading of the holy spirit and if we want to lean into the holy spirit and we're saying oh spirit i want you to be present in my life and i know we get a little baptiocostum when we start talking about that makes us a little bit uncomfortable but when we're really depending upon the holy spirit then the holy spirit begins to move us and to lead us and to push us to go to other people let's just stop and step outside of our convention okay southern baptist church have about 40 000 missionaries around the world right now southern baptist convention does but we're seeing a decline in the number of missionaries we have around the world every denomination is seeing a decline in the number of missionaries that have around the world but one every every bible teaching bible believing denomination is seeing a decline in the number of worldwide missionaries both homegrown at home at home and abroad but one anybody know which one that one is pentecostals the pentecostal church is seeing an exponential growth in the number of missionaries around the world why because they put a lot of and i'm not saying it's wrong i'm just i'm just telling you the facts okay they put a lot of emphasis on the personal leading of the holy spirit and they actually believe the holy spirit could be leading them as individuals to go do something for him as the king and when you get to that place of saying the spirit could ask me to do something it's real comfortable to say the spirit's leading us right because if the spirit's leading us it might actually be you might have nothing to do with me it's real comfortable to say the spirit's leading us all the spirit's leading the church we love that the church the church the church the spirit's leading the church i'm just going to go ahead and tell you the book of acts says that the walls of the church were shaken and that's a physical building right the spirit shook the walls of the church that's the only time i ever find the spirit doing anything with a building okay just shaking it making it but it shook it so that the people inside the building would know that they were being led to do something else but it's real comfortable to say the spirit's leading us so the spirit's leading the church but it gets really rubber hitting the road where you say the spirit might be leading me the spirit might be talking to me because then all of a sudden watch out you're making yourself vulnerable and you're opening your life up and you're saying holy spirit you really care about where i go what did the holy spirit say here set apart for me he didn't say set apart for me some of y'all the holy spirit says set apart for me barnabas and saul individuals to the work i'm calling them to do now there were a whole lot of other ones in there right one of those in there was brought up with herod the tetrarch what does that mean he was a running mate with herod the king he was brought up in some good circles and you say well he probably would have been more fit to stand before the kings and testify to the gospel because he knew those people no they brought saw and paul was used for that later right the holy spirit has a way of speaking to individuals that's why when we sing that that that song i love that song i surrender all um and sometimes i'm a little upset that myself is how i sing i surrender all i think we ought to sing i surrender all with a smile on our face i think i think i surrender all with glory in our hearts and lord unto thee i give you everything so that you can lead me to anything and you can do whatever you want to with me oh god not with my neighbor not with the people around me but with me here it is i surrender i'm not saying god i hope they surrender something i'm saying i surrender here it is oh god you could be leading me to do something that's the leading of the holy spirit and we see that missional activity is a result of the leading

[28:27] of the holy spirit number three by the way i have five this morning i'll say okay so i'm making my way quickly number three and the first one was it is a concern of the local church the second one is it is a result of the leading of the spirit number three and this is where churches really get kind of hands-on and they don't like this a missional living is a call to let go of people it is a call to let go of people this is why let me move it from you guys and let me put the heat under my own pot right this is why so many pastors don't preach missional living this is why it's uncomfortable in the pulpit because if you really preach this message if you really look at this message look at what it says it says then when they had fastened prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away man they sent paul think how good the church at antioch had it barnabas the son of encouragement i mean selling his property and helping other people out everybody needs a barnabas every church needs a barnabas we want a barnabas walking around with a whistle on his lips happy all the time i want some sons of encouragement just man you're doing great today and hey this church does fantastic you encourage your pastor and i praise you for that i love the barnabases i have in my life every church needs a barnabas somebody says you need something let me sell it and i'll give you what i've got uh man antioch had barnabas then they had saul i mean he becomes paul right who writes more books in the new testament than anybody else antioch had some richness in barnabas and saul right there and they sent them away i mean you think about why did they pray they were ministering to the lord and fasting and the holy spirit said send barnabas and saul why does it say so they stopped and prayed and fasted because they probably were like lord do you really want barnabas we like barnabas i can think of some other people i'll send lord but not barnabas right barnabas is encouraging barnabas is not discouraging barnabas is a giver he sells his property and gives it to the church he doesn't lie like some people who have died for lying barnabas is a good member lord are you sure you want barnabas and saul he's pretty persuasive in his teaching he's got a testimony i mean he met the risen lord on damascus road he hung out with three years in the desert being instructed we want to hold on to saul because saul knows some stuff nobody else knows the spirit said these are the two i want he says so they sent them out friend listen to me missional living calls the church to let people go jd greer president of the southern baptist convention right now pastor of summit in raleigh durham north carolina i've already uh kind of uh mentioned in this morning but jd greer says this our churches must not be measured by their seating capacity but rather they must be measured by their sending capacity you say well he pastors a mega church you're right he does but they have also started over 1 000 churches in the last 10 years and every year they send out hundreds of college students because they have like three major universities duke north carolina and there's some others around them so they have this huge college population of students who are there and they encourage them to say after you graduate give us two years of your life and we're going to send you on foreign mission and they do it with the hope that you won't use your degree for your own self but you'll use it for the kingdom he says your church cannot be measured by its seating capacity it must be measured by its sending capacity a.w. tozer one of my favorite pastors of all pastime history i love the writings of a.w.

[32:00] tozer christian missionary alliance association was a great pastor a.w. tozer never pastored a large church matter of fact no church he ever pastored ever got over 500 in capacity because he had this two-fold promise a.w. tozer is well known he was asked to invite he was invited to preach at bible conferences all over the world he was the editor of a christian newspaper a christianity today the journal he was well known for his sermons he had powerful oratory skills not necessarily the most pleasant voice to listen to but really was great in bible exposition but he never grew a large church and people wanted to know why and history shows he either made you mad and ran you off or he taught you well enough he sent you off you're either convicted because of the message he preached and you got mad and quit or you took a hold of the message he preached and you were sent by the holy spirit to go minister somewhere else i've had the privilege of seeing some people that said under my ministry going to the mission field and it's thing it's trying it's hard it's there's some people i haven't wanted to let go but also at the end i understood how they'd come to me say you know billy joe i think that i'm supposed to be going here and i'm like man i don't want to see you go but i want to go i'll just be honest with you right now my prayer is that the lord would lead 95 of us to go to the mission field and i would be grief stricken and i would probably be laying awake at night trying to figure out what in the world the lord was doing but if about 95 of you came to me and said the lord's leading me to the mission field will you support us i would lead the church to send you out of here so that you would go serve the lord because it's not about building a kingdom in war trace it's about being building the kingdom in heaven and if he is sending you away from here it's because he has somebody else he wants to bring in here so that they could be sent out of here and we see this happen in the book of antioch or in the book of acts at the church of antioch we need as a church to not not just necessarily talking to war trace baptists i'm just talking about us as a church with a capital c the universal church we need to understand this and it starts with the pastor it's not about how many people you can gather around you to hear you it's about how many people you can equip and disciple that you can send out to go equip and disciple others paul told timothy the message that i've entrusted to you entrusted other men so that they may teach other men and i'll just be just be frank with you when the church is not sending people out then the church is failing to do what it was called to do when we don't see people entering into the ministry we don't see people entering into the mission field then we are not fulfilling this is why kevin azel the north american mission board and the international mission board president both said we don't need your money what's happening is we don't have churches equipping people to send out to the mission field anymore our churches are too busy trying to hold on to their people and rather than equipping them to let them go missional living is a call for the church to let people go i've got two more let me get to them real quick okay i know i'm a little bit over but it's okay let's go with it real quick because you got to see these missional living is a concern of the local church missional living is a result of the leading of the holy spirit missional living is a call to let go of people number four missional living is a matter of love beyond oneself it says here in acts 13 so many being sent out by the holy spirit they went down to seleucia from there they saw the cyprus and when they had reached salamis they began to proclaim the word of the god in synagogue of the jews and they also had john as their helper and if you were to read the rest of acts 13 and read into acts 14 and you would see this listing of all these places they went and they journeyed and they journeyed and they journeyed and you can go to the back of your bibles and you can open up those pages you might not ever open up very often those color-coded maps and you can see the missional journeys of paul and you can see everywhere paul went and you know that john came back because john john mark he wrote the gospel of mark by the way he ended up leaving because it got hard it got

[36:03] it got terrible and i have a theory on that it's not that mark was a bad guy it's that the holy spirit didn't say send mark it said barnabas and saul right so there has to be the spirit leading to go but mark went just because he thought it'd be cool to help him and all of a sudden it got tough so he went back to jerusalem god had other plans for him he used him to follow the preaching of peter and to write the gospel of mark and became very beneficial uh to paul later on in his life but up to this point not but you see the the mountain passes they went through you see all the mountains they traveled over and you say well yeah yeah that was something they had to do no it's not something they had to do it's something they wanted to do because missional living is this it is a matter of love beyond oneself the only reason you leave antioch is because you love the other people more than you love yourself really it is because of your love for the savior that died for the world the bible says for god's soul loved the world that he did something right that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life and then the bible tells us that we have the mind of christ to live missionally is to have a love that moves beyond that moves beyond oneself i know it's kind of hard i know it's kind of harsh but we understand this in biblical terms it's the only reason i'm not saying you have to leave i'm not saying you have to go somewhere missional living is something that can be lived out in your local community it's something that can be lived out in your local state something could be lived out uh it's short term long term it's something that could be a lifestyle a friend listen to me it is administering to those people god puts around you this is what we're going to get next week in this personal how it results to you personally uh it is inviting people into your home is being hospitable to other people it is loving those whom the world does not love it is caring for those whom the world does not care for it is is clothing the naked and feeding the hungry and giving a drink of water to the thirsty it is being concerned about the multitudes of children that are dying around the world it is being concerned about all the people that are suffering religious persecution like no other time before but paul says this when speaking of his missions he said we are compelled by love stats don't move people to activity i can give you every statistic i can give you every number i can tell you that there are over seven billion people alive in the world today and a full four billion of them are probably going to go to a crisis eternity and the fact that four billion people are going to a crisis eternity doesn't move us stalin once said the death of one is a tragedy the death of a multitude is just a statistic stalin wasn't good but his theory was if we can make the numbers so big nobody can grasp a hold of it they won't concern themselves with it and tragically history showed him to be right and when we stand in churches and we talk about the millions and millions and millions and the multitudes and multitudes and multitudes we don't understand it because the number is so large we say there's no way to do it but friend listen to me when it becomes personal when it becomes a matter of love when we look at people in the face and we stop and we consider the hurting we consider those who are fatherless we consider those who are without not necessarily we don't consider the choices they made that got them there but we consider the people that are there and we begin to look beyond the circumstances and we begin to look at the individuals and we see the great need is that they would know jesus christ as their lord and savior or they would spend forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever in a crisis eternity wishing someone would have told them we understand this reality that the only way we live missionally is because we love jesus so much and loving him so much cannot help but move us to love others more than we love ourselves because the only thing that keeps us still is self-love i know it's harsh but it's true we love our comforts we love our pleasures we love our ease we love our order we love our programs

[40:05] man we love it when he's through because we get back to doing what we want to do and the whole time we've been here thousands of people have entered a christless eternity called hell that's why it is moved by love beyond oneself last and finally number five and this you find in acts 14 missional living always leaves behind a lasting impact missional living always leaves behind a lasting impact it says in verse 21 after they had preached the gospel do you understand what they were doing in their missional living they were preaching the gospel now they were doing other things paul was making tents there were people those who were traveling with paul were doing physical work they were doing other things they were meeting physical needs so that they could impart spiritual truth right we see this but we see that after they had preached the gospel they were there doing the temporary so that they could proclaim the eternal nothing wrong with doing the temporary but we understand that door it opens to proclaim the eternal after they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples not just believers disciples which is what jesus commanded us to do make disciples the emphasis in the great commission is not necessarily in the going it is in the making disciples if you read it and it's in native language in the greek the emphasis is not on going the emphasis is on making disciples and everything else around the great commission in matthew 28 revolves around making disciples you go make disciples you baptize because you're making disciples you proclaim everything to them so that you can make disciples it's all around making disciples right and disciples is more than believers a believer goes yeah that's true a disciple says i know that's true because of this this this this this this and this you have taught me everything that jesus taught you so i'm going to teach that that's making disciples sloppy works nasty work but we understand here that after they preached the gospel and made many disciples and they returned to lystra and to iconium and antioch and look at verse 22 strengthened the souls of the disciples encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of god look at verse 23 and when they had appointed elders for them in every church having prayed with fast and they commended them to the lord whom they had believed what do we see here that missional living always makes a lasting impact everywhere paul and barnabas will call him paul not saul so that we don't get confused everywhere paul and barnabas went they left behind this trail of disciples and a trail of strong churches they proclaimed the gospel they taught them everything jesus had taught them they imparted to them the truth of eternity and they set up churches and they set up elders plural in churches which were leaders they were teaching pastors and ministering pastors and concerning pastors and a multiplicity of pastors so they left a lasting impact they didn't just leave some people who believed they left behind them an impact that remained the churches that were there it's amazing paul took the uh to gospel to the city of ephesus in the city of ephesus he set up a young man named timothy as a pastor and he wrote first and second timothy to timothy as he pastored the church at ephesus later on the church at ephesus at ephesus was pastored by someone that you might know it was named john john the disciple right one of the 12 apostles ended up pastoring the church at ephesus and then he was in exile in the isle of patmos and he went back to the church at ephesus and it says there that he died of natural cause and natural death but we see that the church at ephesus had a lasting impact it moved well beyond and went further beyond than the lifespan of paul the church at ephesus is also housed some of the first christian church fathers the church historians right from there and we see this lasting impact because they didn't just go do something temporarily they took the time to invest in people's lives to make disciples to set up churches to make sure there were leaders there friends i don't care if we're doing it here or if we're doing it on the other side of the world

[44:07] i don't care wherever it is we're doing it what we're doing needs to be done for the purpose of making a lasting impact if we're using our hands if we're using our feet if we're using our head whatever it is we're doing we're not doing it just to meet a temporary need we're doing it to make a lasting impact because missional living always leaves behind a lasting impact always let's pray lord i thank you so much for this day god in all reality i understand this is a very hard message it's hard for me to hear it's hard for me to apply lord we know that by the power and presence of your spirit you could lead each one of us to walk in obedience for your glory and our desire and our aim and our ambition is not that we would be made known but that you will lord you would be lifted high your name be magnified salvation in jesus christ being proclaimed through the pews and pulpits of this church people coming to the faith in jesus christ as our lord and savior lives being influenced for all of eternity or disciples being raised up hearts and minds being changed practices being left off and new works beginning just have your way oh god in jesus name amen daddy daddy daddy

[45:57] Thank you.

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[46:57] Thank you.

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[48:57] Thank you.