It is a real privilege to be with my brothers and sisters in Christ this evening, and I trust that God would meet with us by His Holy Spirit. I've been assigned the task of speaking on the local or sending church and the missionary. I don't know how many churches here have ever sent out a missionary. We sent out one in my pastoral experience, and we have a biblical understanding that we want to come to grips with, and it's our understanding in our national association. the local or sending church, and the missionary. How should the sending church view the missionary, and how should the missionary view the sending church? We're gonna spend almost all of our time in the Book of Acts, so you might wanna open your Bibles to the Book of Acts, and we're gonna be zooming through. The Bible is God's record of God's purposes in time and eternity to save a people for His glory and for their good. I love what John says in John's Gospel where he records our Lord saying, there is nothing more exquisite in all existence, in all eternity, than knowing my Father. And I've come to save you so you can know my Father like I've known him from eternity past. The New Testament is filled with many examples of God's saving purposes being worked out by God, the Holy Spirit, as He works in the lives of believers that He chooses to use. We see our Lord's life and death and resurrection and ascension, and then we see the Holy Spirit being poured out, and then we see churches and individuals doing all kinds of things in the book of Acts, and we want to look at those during our time right now. First of all, first major point. The book of Acts reveals three things about the missionary church planter and their sending church. I get this from Acts chapter 14. The book of Acts reveals three things about the missionary church planters and their sending church. Acts 14 verses 24 through 28. Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Atalia. And from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. Please note verse 28. And from there they sailed to Antioch. What is it about Antioch? Where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they had arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. And they remained no little time with the disciples. We see three things in this passage. First of all, there's commendation. Paul says that they were returning to the local church that had commended them to the grace of God. We know in that chapter 13, the church in Antioch sent out Paul and Silas to be missionary church planters. They've been having some worship. It says that the Holy Spirit is probably speaking through one of the prophets, said that they were to set aside these two men. So the sense in which the local church had commended them to the grace of God and sent them out. They didn't send themselves. And they could not sustain themselves. The grace of God called them and the grace of God would have to sustain them. I worked for 11 years in parachurch ministries. I know what it's like to, in a sense, be self-sent. I had an inward call. These people would hire me. I could raise support. I could go out and do ministry for a number of years. But it wasn't biblical. It wasn't New Testament Christianity. Besides commendation, the second thing we see in this passage is accountability. Luke says that these missionary church planners were accountable for the work that they had fulfilled. In other words, they just didn't kind of float around the Mediterranean and do their thing and come back, but they were accountable to something they had been told to do. They'd gone out with a certain job description, if you will, and this was an agreement with the church. This is what you're being sent out to do. And it says that they did it. They had fulfilled that agreement. So there's commendation, there's accountability, and then there's an ongoing, I call it communion, not just relationships, but close communion with the saints of Antioch. Luke notes that they remained there no little time with the disciples. It wasn't that they reported in, filled up their gas tank, got their new rations of money, and left, but they stayed because this was their home church. They had been leaders in this home church. He lists in chapter 13 some of the leaders in the Antioch church, and then God says, I want you to set aside two men to go out. Well, when they came home, they weren't just celebrities on furlough. They were part and parcel of this church in Antioch, and they stayed with them no little time. Sometimes missionaries can view their local churches like the bank, where you kind of come back periodically, get some more money and go out, or a club. But these people had been there sending church people that they had ministered to themselves. These were people who they considered dear brothers and sisters in Christ. And presumably they kept on using the gifts they had been using before they left for the mission field during their extended stay back in Antioch. So those are three quick things just about this one passage. There was commendation. This church commended them. They didn't commend themselves. accountability, and then finally ongoing communion. We'll come back to these issues because so much of ministry that's done today is so contrary to what you see in the New Testament. And having come to the Doctrines of Grace in 1976 and then reevaluating so many ministry things, I had to redo so much of my life ministry over the next several years before I went into the local church ministry in 1981. The book of Acts reveals seven things that sending churches were doing with their sent men. There are seven things that are listed here in the book of Acts that the sending churches were doing with their sent men. Number one, sending churches have an outward-looking sending mentality where some of the best leaders are given by the church to go evangelize and make disciples. We know in Acts chapter one, verse eight, the famous verse that I believe Jerry read earlier, But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the world." Now it was given to the apostles, but then as they spread out and found out, it was the churches that picked up. the rest, and in chapter 13, verses 1 through 3, the first missionaries were sent out after a worship service. God the Holy Spirit apparently had spoken through one of the prophets and said, I want these men to be set aside. It says, after fasting and praying, the church laid hands on the men and sent them out. Now, I can remember having a sense of, I wanted to do this, I wanted to do Christian ministry. and I couldn't think of any prohibitions against doing Christian ministry, and somebody would hire me to do Christian ministry, and somebody would support me to do Christian ministry, but a full-blown sense of a calling from God and being sent by a local church was very foreign to my experience. Later on, when I did have a sense of being called to the, having come to the Doctrines of Grace and then coming to have a call to the local church ministry, A couple of things had to happen. I had to see that subjective call objectified by the local church wanting me to do something. And then I had to go ahead and do it. As we'll see later, if you think you have the gift of teaching but nobody has the gift of listening to you, then you don't have the gift of teaching. And I think the passage here in Acts 13 says that these were not marginal members. These were pillars of the church. Sending churches are outward looking, and it's not like, oh no, you can't have those two, you don't understand, these are two of our best guys. Here's a couple of fringers that you can send, and we wouldn't mind losing them. In fact, we'd rather they go somewhere else. So you can have these people. No, they were two of the pillars of the church. In fact, I think the verse that came to mind as I was meditating on this was Romans 8.32, one of my favorite verses. He who did not spare his own son, What does it mean to spare something? It means you can have everything else, but I'm gonna set this aside, I'm gonna spare this, and you can have everything else, but you can't have this. You can have all the angels, you can have the seraphim, you can have the cherubim, but you can't have my son. Paul says, no, do you understand the biblical logic? If God didn't even spare his very best, his own son, while we were yet sinners and could only expect wrath. He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he then not only freely give us all things? Paul's logic is, if he gave his son to us, his very best, and we only should have expected wrath, since his son has now come and purchased us, do we expect to get worse? from God. In other words, is God going to treat us in some kind of chintzy, cheesy fashion, now that we've become His children, when He gave us His Son, when we should have only expected wrath? That's not, Paul says, you're not thinking clearly if you're not realizing the sense of blessing that God has for you. So the church in Antioch says, these are two of our best guys. It'll be a hit, the Lord knows, He'll bless them, He'll bless us, we'll do it. So we have to ask ourselves as sending churches, are we outward looking? Do we have a sending mentality? Is there anybody who's off limits? No, you can't send them. No, you can't call them. Number two, these sending churches recognize the special gifts or graces of the men they sent. I think that's important. In chapter 13, verses one through three, it says that Paul and Barnabas were already recognized as parts of a group of men who were acknowledged as leaders in the church. They were noted by Luke as prophets and teachers. These were men who were already fruitful in their home church and in their home culture. They were already a blessing. They didn't send green, untested, unfruitful men in the hope that they would somehow mature in the mission field. And we know of young men who have gone and crashed and burned in the mission field or held up the work while they were growing up. They should have grown up in their home church. They should have been worked with by their elders. They should have been cultivated. But the point is, is that these were good men. These were trained men. These were fruitful men. These men were already doing it in their home culture. The best predictor of a ministry overseas as a missionary church planner is you're having a ministry in your own culture. Because if you can't cut it with people you know and you're already like in so many ways, it's nigh on impossible to do it among strangers and strange cultures. Look in chapter 16, verses 1 through 5. I think this is an interesting thing here about the apostle, about the apostle's assistant Timothy, 16, 1 through 5. Paul also came to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra, or Lystra, and down the road, so to speak, at Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in these places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they were on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily. Timothy is noted by Luke for two things. He's noted for his home background. His mother was a believer, and in chapter one of 1 Timothy, I believe, Paul notes that his grandmother was a believer. But he was also known for his spiritual maturity because his home church in Lystra didn't just know him as a spiritually mature man, but the church down the road, the next closest fellowship, the church in Iconium, says he was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. He had a reputation in two churches for being a godly man. Sending minded churches ought to communicate with their gifted men, recognizing their gifts, and encouraging these men to use their gifts. Paul was listening to what the churches were saying, and these two local churches were commending this young man. Paul saw something in him. Later on, we would learn that Timothy was a spiritual son to Paul, that while he grew up with a believing mother and grandmother, it was not clear that he himself was a believer, but viewed Paul as a spiritual father. And so we as ascending churches need to make sure of a man's effectiveness in his home culture and among people he already knows, among people he doesn't have to think about a lot of things, he just does it, before we put him on a plane. Men who cannot communicate the gospel with power in their home culture and home church are not going to automatically be fruitful in a foreign culture just because they moved there. And that's kind of obvious, but sometimes we don't think that way. Somehow we think that something magical will happen. I threw out the rhetorical question at the end of John's message. So I said, so a plane trip isn't going to make me a spiritual man. A plane trip isn't just going to make me a good missionary. And there's some people think if I just show up, if I just somehow something, it's like, like the naive you that I was sitting back there, but the pastor gave the invitation and I walked 20 feet and I became a Christian. There's something about walking 20 feet that changes you. Now, logically, that doesn't seem to be, but somehow that's what they tell you. So in the same logic, if I take a plane trip to outer Slavovia, I'll be able to have a great ministry there. That's just not true. Ascending churches confirm the inward subjective call of men with the objective acknowledgement of the whole congregation. A man who claims to be called to preach and teach but can't find anybody to listen to him is not called to preach after all. And we would have saved a lot of men, a lot of trouble and heartache. In my parachurch days, I knew men who came into the parachurch ministry who shouldn't have been there, and they lasted a year or two and struggled, and it was sometimes very painful and awful to watch, but I've seen that in the gospel ministry too. Okay, a third major point. These sending churches sent men who recognized and practiced that they were accountable to their local church. They sent men who these men knew that they were accountable to their sending church. as well as also accountable to the words of the apostles. What do I mean? Go back to Acts 14 a minute. We saw here how Paul and Barnabas were returning to Antioch after their first journey. And Dr. Luke notes in verse 26 and 27, Antioch where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. to the work that they had fulfilled. And when they had arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. We were sent out on a job. We returned. We reported on how we did with that job. It wasn't just, well, this is between me and God, there's no accountability to you people. That's just not true, that there's a sense in which if it's a spiritually minded church, the whole church should have its fingerprints on this individual, and they're coming back to report, this is what God did. You sent us out to do this, we did this, and this is what God did in response to our being faithful. Look in chapter 15. In verses 30 and 31. So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch. Here they are going back to Antioch. And having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. This is the letter from the Jerusalem Council that the apostles and elders in Jerusalem had signed. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. Now what's significant here is And we'll see this later. These were faithful men relaying what had just come down. They didn't change what the edict from Jerusalem was. They didn't give their own interpretation. They didn't argue with it. They were faithful at finishing their responsibilities and returned from this big powwow, delivered the information and the results that had been reached. In chapter 18 again, Luke notes Paul's faithfulness to keep his sending church informed. In 1822, when he landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church and then went down to Antioch. After spending some time there, he departed and went from one place to the next through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples. Whenever Paul's in the region, he comes back to his home church and reports in. New Testament missionaries are not lone rangers or lone wolves doing their own thing without any input or oversight or care from ascending churches. As a young Christian, when I would read about Paul in the New Testament, he does seem like a pretty powerful individual. I mean, he does seem like, to have the torpedoes full speed ahead, you know, I don't care what's facing me, I'm going to do it. And there might be a temptation to think, well, Paul was just a tough guy. He would have been a, you know, he could have been anyone, a number of successful things in the world, but here he was as a missionary. And he just kind of did his own thing. And that would be a real serious misreading of the New Testament, I think. Yes, Paul was given a great spirit, a great attitude. But you know, if I'd been caught up to the third heaven, if I had seen heaven, but had to live down here a while longer, I bet a lot of stuff here would look different in light of having already seen heaven. I mean, you can put up with this junk if you've already seen that glory to come. Anyway, Paul was, he always had people with him. He was rarely alone. It was very rare. If you go back and read, Paul's always taking a bunch of people with him. Rarely alone. He wasn't a loner. And the third point I wanted to add was, another sub-point here, as faithful ambassadors of Christ and sent men from their local congregation, they did not change the ruling of the Jerusalem Council, nor did they seek to sway the local congregation away from accepting the ruling. They were men under authority of their church and the words of the apostles. A fourth point, these churches sent out men with both a plan and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit changing their plans. These men were sent out and they had both plans and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit changing their plans. What do I mean? There are some who read the New Testament and kind of have a charismatic impulse or charismatic bent that Jesus and the disciples were just kind of floating around the Mediterranean doing what came natural, doing what popped into their mind. And that's not true. They had a method to their madness. And if you read some good commentaries on the ministry of our Lord or on the apostles, you can see that there were plans that they were fulfilling. Paul had one and then a second and then a third missionary journey. But even with that, it meant also that their plans were not infallible. They didn't think of themselves as, I prayed about it, and I have a God's plan, I'm gonna work this thing like iron. Well, sometimes you mean well, you know. How many times in the ministry wish you could have a do-over or a mulligan? But in Acts chapter 16, one of my favorite passages, Paul's on his third missionary journey. He's going everywhere, once again, a second journey. He discovers he can't go any farther, pick it up at 16.6. And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. How they were forbidden, we don't know, whether it was a providence or a prophetic word. Verse 7, and when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. Again, we don't know if the Spirit said no, or if he put some hard providence in their path, like soldiers, but anyway, they couldn't go into that area. So, what does the word so mean? Well, okay. It's kind of like therefore. So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. Now, Troas is a seaport. And at a seaport, you can go anywhere. You can retrace your steps and go inland, or you can take a voyage out to sea. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night, a man of Macedonia. How do they know it was a man of Macedonia? Well, probably because there was something about his culture and his language and his clothes. But somehow he knew from his vision that it was a man of Macedonia and was standing there urging him and saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. The gospel had not yet crossed the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. There's two little spits of water between Turkey and Greece, the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. It's narrower than the English Channel. But they had not gone to the Europeans because those are the really bad people. I mean the gross people. Don't go to the Europeans. Those people are crude. I mean they're ugly and they're crude and mean and sinful. Obviously I'm making it up here. But there had not been a ministry to exclusively Gentile areas. They had mixed areas they'd gone to. But now they're going to go to the Gentiles. And they're going to go to the Europeans. In a sense, We're sitting here tonight because Paul obeyed that vision to go across and start a ministry with the Europeans. And the vast majority of us here have European descent or part European descent. So yes, Paul says, I've had one missionary trip. I'm following it up to see how the guys are doing in the churches that I planted. Oops, can't go there. Okay, well, oops, can't go there. Go down to the seaport, has a vision. Okay, we'll go there, and you go there, and things take off. We're here tonight because he obeyed that vision. Yes, he was a man with a plan, but he was willing to deviate if God's providence in the Spirit meant otherwise. This is momentous to think about. You can have plans, and some of us are really strong on plans. and have a hard time deviating. Others are classic charismatics who are always ready to do something different and have a hard time staying on task. And Paul was, I think, a person who stayed on task, having gotten counsel and prayed and sought the Lord, but willing to listen to the Spirit's plan B. And again, twice, no, you can't go here. No, you can't go here. So you go to a seaport and you can go anywhere from there. And that's when God moved him to go. Number five, these churches sent out men to do evangelism discipleship in order to plant churches. That was a point that came up in the Q&A earlier. Our understanding of a missionary is his calling is to do evangelism, discipleship, with the end of planting churches. He's not just shotgunning the masses. He's not holding crusades in Phrygia and Galatia and canning up statistics and giving people follow-up material and then leaving. He's actually seeking to do evangelism, discipleship, and church planting. Next chapter 15, please look at verses 36 to 41. And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. Okay, seems like a decent plan. Now Barnabas wanted to take with him John called Mark, but Paul thought It's best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And thereafter, a sharp disagreement broke out, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, which was Barnabas' home island. But Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of our Lord. Again, this is in their home church in Antioch. Can you imagine, and you haven't considered it, your church is in the New Testament, your church is in the Book of Acts. The two heavy hitters from your church had a big blowout, and they're not ministering together anymore, and you have to report that, and you read about it in Luke's account of the Book of Acts. That would be a hard thing to take. And the church commended Paul, and, okay, Silas, yeah, he's a good guy, you can take him. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. The whole purpose was we want to strengthen these churches. We want to have not just decisions, but disciples. And it's interesting that they both carried out a very similar ministry, even though they were separated. They were both wanting to make converts and disciple them. And we know that later on, after Paul's ministry, Barnabas's ministry with John Mark was so successful, twice in Paul's pastoral epistles he mentions that John Mark is a useful man to him, he's a good man. Barnabas had helped make him, Barnabas had helped disciple him, Barnabas had helped John Mark to make it. And so we have the Gospel of Mark because of John Mark. But then we have the Apostle Paul, who Barnabas also discipled, so to speak. Barnabas was the leader first, and you can read about him in Acts 5. A wealthy man, a Levite, gave a lot of money to help the early church get going. It goes out, and it's Barnabas and Saul, and later Saul's preaching gifts come into the forefront, and it's Saul and Barnabas. But Barnabas just kept working with men, and Paul had to admit, yeah, please send John Mark. He'd be a real help to me right now. When you go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe or obey all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Paul and these men were reading about what to Herculean lengths. You know, Herculean comes from the word Hercules, this great Greek mythic character of strength. Look at all the stuff they went through. You know, you can read the book of Acts, you can read Paul's account in Corinthians. Look at all the stuff they went through. just to make people Christians by preaching to them and then helping them to grow, teaching them, answering their questions, to teach, to catechize, to equip these young churches. They didn't just evangelize and leave. Stadium evangelism as conceived in America in the West is not something we see in the New Testament. And the idea of just counting noses and say, okay, we got 3,000 decisions at Lystra and move on and reporting back home is totally foreign to the New Testament. There's a man named Charles Finney, and he was big in America 175 years ago. And Charles Finney did a, I don't know if he's a believer or not, his doctrines, he was a Pelagian. He believed you could save yourself if you would. But he, the areas that he ministered to in upstate New York came to be known as the burned over district. Because once his revivals had left, nobody in that area was interested in spiritual things for a hundred years. And he had to admit at the end of his life to the man who was the president of his university, Oberlin University in Ohio, he goes, the areas that we used to minister in, they're burned over. Nobody cared about anything after their so-called revivals happened. But basically it was manipulating people, getting people to make decisions and not teaching them the whole counsel of God, not discipling them, not planning churches. And yet America still copies a lot of the things of Finney and things in Southern Baptist churches. Many independent Baptist churches are used today that were invented by Finney and that have not proved helpful. We want to do evangelism and discipleship in order to plant churches, to see churches begin and gain strength. Number six. These sending churches send out men who are reliant upon the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit and the prayers of the saints in the local churches. You can't read the book of Acts without asking the Lord, Lord, would you please give me more of your Holy Spirit? Would you make me more holy? Would you make me hate sin more? Would you make me love Christ more? Would you make me love holiness more? Would you give me more grace to face up to the things I have to face up to? You can't help but read the book of Acts and see that the Holy Spirit is continuing the works of Christ. Some have titled the book of Acts, the Acts of the Apostles as filled with the Holy Spirit, continuing the works of the risen Lord. And Luke is showing how the kingdom is being advanced, not through Christ going from place to place in Palestine, but 12 ordinary men. And it would be very edifying to do a study of the apostles, but they were just regular guys. They weren't trained in the universities. They weren't even trained in the schools of the rabbis. They were just fishermen and a tax collector and a zealot who was a revolutionary. They weren't dummies by any means. They weren't formally educated. They didn't have any formal theological training, but they had been with the Lord and he trained them. And these were men who had to rely upon the Holy Spirit because the work was so huge. Imagine if we came and numbered 12 men and had them line up here. Okay, guys, here's the world. Go get them. They just poof, all pass out. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem. That's people who are culturally close and culturally similar. Judea, a little farther out, but still culturally similar, so there were still Jews in Judea. Samaria, that's geographically close, but culturally very different. They were the Samaritans. The Samaritans called the Jews dogs, and the Jews called them other names. Anyway. They were not, there wasn't a lot of love lost. Even our Lord going through Samaria on his way in John 4 is a big shocker because Jews would always go around Samaria, they wouldn't go. It's like if you're going from here to Buckhead, well there's parts of Atlanta you don't go in because those people live there. You don't want to run into those people. Well Jesus purposely walked right through those people and interacted with them and saved a bunch of them. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and finally to the ends of the earth, people who are geographically distant and culturally distant. And much of our evangelism we do is really kind of Judea, Jerusalem, and Judea, people who are around us, people who are like us, and that's fine. Samaritans are people in our own culture that are culturally different, but then going to the ends of the earth is what we're looking at. In chapter two, the Holy Spirit has said to help Peter and the 11 preach at Pentecost in foreign tongues they didn't learn. Not in gibberish, but in foreign tongues they didn't learn. In chapter four, verse eight, Peter preaches boldly in the spirit to the Jewish leadership. Okay, you Sanhedrin guys, you need to listen up. This is where you've blown it. In Acts chapter four, verse 29 and 31 and verse 33, the believers prayed for the Holy Spirit's boldness and they got it. The Holy Spirit came upon them and gave them boldness. Lord, do you know that they would have put space between my head and my shoulders and they're gonna kill us. So help us to be really brave and strong and preach anyway. as opposed to, how can I get out of town quickly? In 2 Corinthians 1, verses 8 through 11, here's Paul, the archetypal missionary, telling the Corinthians that things had been so rough that he feared for his life. But he said, the Lord delivered me, and I think he'll deliver me out of everything, but you know what? The grace of God is sufficient, but you need to pray for me. He doesn't say it's either or. He says, the grace of God will take care of me, but you need to pray for me. This is not a one man deal. It's not the Paul show starring Paul. It's a man who sent out from, and I need you to pray for me. I remember Ron Dunn years ago speaking on this about the grace of God and the prayers of the saints is what gets any missionary or minister through his labors. In Colossians chapter four, Paul says, Please pray for me. Please pray for me. He's in prison. Pray that I might have an open door for ministry and I would speak boldly as I ought to speak. He's asking of the saints to pray for him. We see that emphasis on the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts in the New Testament. And you probably pray for the anointing or the empowerment of the Holy Spirit for your preacher. I teasingly tell people, you know, pray for your preacher because it's really praying for yourself. If he does a great job, you'll pay attention. You'll get a lot out of it. If he's boring and a stinker, it's going to be a long morning. So if you want to pray selfishly, pray that the Lord would anoint your preacher. But seriously, God's not going to be glorified. People are not going to be saved if God the Holy Spirit doesn't come there. There's nothing more open to the charge of deadness and hypocrisy than a Protestant worship service if God the Holy Spirit's not there. If you went to a Roman Catholic service this Sunday, you would smell the incense, you'd see the lights, you'd hear the tinkling of the bells, you'd touch, the wafer would be on your tongue. You'd have all of your senses go off. And you'd go home going, wow, I felt something there. pardon me, but well, duh, you're supposed to. That's how it's set up. But none of those things are spiritual things. Seeing lights, seeing the architecture, hearing the tinkling of the bells, smelling the incense, touching, having the wafer on your tongue, none of those are promised in Scripture as a means of mediating grace. If God the Holy Spirit doesn't come upon a Protestant worship service, the preaching is dead, the singing is dead, the reading of scripture is dead, the praying is lifeless. People go, this church is so boring with four Os, because God isn't there. But if God is in the midst of his people, man, what a difference it makes. And finally, number seven, The sending churches sent out men who themselves knew that they were not rock stars, they were not demigods, but they were simply sinful creatures saved by the grace of Almighty God and then entrusted by their Savior with the Gospel and filled with God the Holy Spirit to preach it. In Acts 14 we have Paul and Barnabas in the city of Lystra and the people were so taken by the spiritual power that they thought that the Greek gods had come down among us, Zeus, Barnabas being older, and Hermes. Zeus was the head god and Hermes was the god of communication. And so they called Paul Hermes and Barnabas Zeus and they were coming and they came out of the little pagan temples and were making offerings to them and it was really kind of over the top. And it took, I think, probably a couple minutes for Paul and Barnabas to figure out what was going on. And since they tore their garments and said, look, we are men just like you. You're not going to treat us like this. You will dishonor God if you treat us like this. They didn't want to grieve the Holy Spirit. Paul can say in 1 Corinthians, I mean, in 1 Timothy 1, 12 through 17, he first said in one of his epistles, he was the least of the apostles. Then he said he was the least of the saints. And finally he said at the end of his life, He was the chief of sinners. I heard a story about Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, who would never talk about conversions at Westminster Chapel, would never talk about any details about statistics, but Richard Owen Roberts was studying in London for a book he later wrote on revivals, and Dr. Lloyd-Jones asked to speak with him, and I won't go through the whole story, it's a long one, but finally, this deacon kind of strong arms and said, today you're going to come. You've put me off now. This is the third time. We're going to go see him. Come on. He wants to see you. And so have you ever seen a picture in a book of the front of Westminster Chapel, maybe with Dr. Lloyd-Jones and the pulpit? It's much wider than this. So anyway, there was a hallway behind this wall here. And Dr. Lloyd-Jones' office was in one corner. And then there's a door there. And people would come in the hallway. And sometimes he wouldn't leave church till 4 in the afternoon. of a service that ended at noon because he's seeing everybody waiting for him. Well, Richard Owen Roberts thought, well, I'll be here a long time. And the deacon said, no, you're seeing him today. He wants to see you. You're going to go now. And marched him up front and put him in line. And Dr. Lloyd-Jones had a way of dealing with people. If you were just visiting from America, oh, I'm from America. We wanted to see you. And you're a great preacher. And we're glad to be here. Thank you very much. And he talked to you and shook your hand at the door. And then there you go. But if you were somebody there in prime spiritual need, he would invite you to come in, close the door, you'd sit on a sofa, he'd sit on a chair, and you'd talk about whatever's on your heart. And when Richard Owen Roberts was invited in, and he told about his ministry of studying revivals, and Dr. Lloyd-Jones was interested in revivals and wanted to know what he had found out, and said, when your book is finished, can I have a copy? Well, yes. And then as they left, the deacon was taking him out and the man saw the long line and just couldn't believe how many people were in line there, you know, a hundred people maybe. And finally he got the deacon outside and said, how many people do you think come to Christ here on an average Lord's Day? And the deacon kind of looked around and he says, Dr. Lloyd-Jones would skin me if he ever heard me breathing a word because he doesn't want to grieve the Holy Spirit. And anywhere, take any credit for anything going on, but we estimate 25 people of service come to Christ. Imagine having the burden of knowing that when you speak, this many people's destinies are kind of hanging on your preaching. But Dr. Lloyd-Jones was not a rock star. He didn't consider himself a rock star. He said at the end of his life, I'm just an old sinner saved by grace that God chose to use. He wasn't a rock star in his own mind. He wasn't a demigod. But sad to say, I've known missionaries who started out as meek and humble man who began to read their own press clippings. And Paul could say, I am who I am by the grace of God. And his grace to me was not in vain. Prayeth that your missionary church planners and your pastors, who hopefully start out humble, would say that way. God is opposed to the proud, but he'll give grace to the humble. I've known some people, one of you here today and in another state, someone who had no formal education, was up in age and read books about divine impassibility. and said it was one of the greatest experiences they've ever had in their Christian life and how it ministered to them, filled their heart, gave them great visions of God. And I know men with theological degrees who said it's too hard for them to understand. God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble. If you're humble enough to ask the Lord to help you, he can open up your mind and fill you up. But if you're full of yourself, there's no room for anything else to go in. Let me conclude with some practical encouragements. Four ways today's sending churches can better work at their calling. Now, I first gave this message in Louisiana because the First Baptist of Clinton was sending out Alan Beardmore. And right now we don't have any missionaries that I know of that are here that are going to be sent out. Did I miss anybody? Possibly have someone from the military, chaplaincy. But first of all, we need to pray. Pray for God to raise up faithful men who will be called to do these things. Pray that God would raise up men. It may seem obvious, but you have not because you ask not. Second of all, pray for these men to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to show their gifting while they're still home, and their gifting can be acknowledged and fine-tuned. If God's calling some men, help us to see it, Lord, and help us to see his gifts and help us to help him be better at it. Pray for God to use these men in evangelizing and teaching while they're still in their home culture. Help them to be effective and fruitful here. If they're seeing people come to Christ, if their teaching really does help people and people are pursuing holiness. Pray that God would open doors for them for effective ministry. You know, in seminary you preach in places like mission halls and nursing homes. Nursing home preaching is loud, short, and clear, okay? Because, you know, people go to sleep on you, or people are dozing off, or who knows what. But there are people, you talk about the neediest people in this community are people who are in the 11th hour of their life, and the clock is moving toward midnight and their death, and many of these people are still lost. And God gives you an opportunity to go there, and be loud, and be clear, and be straight with the gospel. Pastor, pray for mission work in the missionaries from the pulpit and in your prayer meetings. When people hear their pastor pray and pray with a certain amount of passion, like he gets it and he cares and this is important to him, the shepherd leads the flock. If the pastor seems bored or indifferent to missions, it's gonna be an uphill battle for people in the church who are interested in missions. Pastor, pray for men's need of the gospel from the pulpit. People need the Lord. They do. I remember that old Steve Green song from the 80s, People Need the Lord. It's a very poignant song. My next prayer request is even more poignant. It's something I've shown some shame to say. I didn't pray probably the first 40 years of my Christian life, but Christ deserves to be more honored and glorified than he is, even more of a need than people need to be saved. You know, we have relatives who are lost, and I have relatives I pray for, and people from college and high school I pray for, and they need to be saved. But Christ deserves to be more glorified. Are there too many people enthralled with Him, prepared to spend eternity marveling at His grace? Are there too many people just in awe of Him? No. So yes, pray for people because they have this great need to be saved. But Christ has a greater, not a need, but He deserves to be honored and glorified far more than it is. If my heart is burdened and I communicate through my preaching the gospel with a passion, it will cause people in the congregation to sit up and take notice. If the pastor has a heart for missions and evangelism, it will be contagious to the congregation. And after prayer, educate. show slides, show movie clips of the nations and people groups and their spiritual needs. I left my copy at home, but Operation World, this big, fat book about all the nations of the world as currently conceived and who lives there and how many different tribes or people groups and what their religious character is. It's done by broad evangelicals, so parts of it are kind of weak, but it gives you a better idea than any other tool of what the spiritual condition of so many places is. What was the statistic that Jerry read about the churches in China? How many of them are led by women? Eighty-one percent? Eighty-five percent are led by women. We'd hear about the explosion in China. Eighty-five percent of the churches are led by women. And the, what's it, the lightning from the east? The Christ came back to earth as a woman? And that's the heresy going around China? Anyway. We need to know these things so we can pray. Have an annual missions conference. Kudos for having this school of world missions. But have a missions conference. Have a missionary come home and be on furlough and speak. Sing missionary hymns about the extension of Christ's kingdom. Highlight faithful and even the famous missionaries. Not all missionaries are famous. There's a couple of missionaries. One lady who was a missionary during World War II in the Pacific Islands, and she spent most of World War II evading the Japanese and all the things she went through for Christ. Nobody had ever heard of her name until that book was out there. Kevin's read it, and that's a great book, isn't it? Have a book table, yes, and a great missions book table available. And then for your missionaries, buy the best new books that are out there and send them to your missionaries because they may not have access to them. They might not even know they exist. I'm sure Alan Beardmore doesn't know the latest and greatest things that are coming out that would be helpful to him to keep up with the truth. And when the missionaries are home, help them. Have laymen in your church, the deacons, sit down and help them with their budgeting and planning. So are you putting away money for the future? What about, do you want your kids to go to school? What are you going to do about that? Are you planning for that? Oh, no, I just love Jesus. Well, maybe we can talk about this. And seriously, when you're just getting started, you know, I got through this time, and I'm a home on furlough, so we'll see how the next time goes. But you want to help them think through down the road. kind and patient elders in Deakin say, you're not in Social Security, are you? No. You don't have Medicare, do you? No. You're not getting any younger? No. You better get something here. So I worked for ten years part-time to earn points to get back at least into Medicare. Because I wouldn't need that. But when I was told when I was 22, you don't need that, it's not even going to be around when you're an old guy. Well, it's still around and I'm an old guy. Educate. Give. Give your best man to the Lord for him to send out to the world. Have it as one of the purpose statements of your church that you want to be a sending church and that you would regularly pray that God would raise up someone. Give your monies liberally to the extension of the gospel. Have a percentage goal of your church's budget for missions and evangelism. Give the gospel, this is the give section, give the gospel from the pulpit regularly and fervently in the authority of the spirit. Evangelism and mission work is usually caught before it's taught. Martin Lloyd-Jones was nothing if not evangelistic. Even though you think of him as an expositor of scripture, he was always evangelistic. He had a great number of missionaries come out of his church, and he didn't emphasize missions per se. He just emphasized the gospel and the need of the lost. Give your missionary a scholarship to go to some conference, like if he's in some continent that has, the Banner of Truth has a conference in Australia and one in England. There's conferences in Canada and there's conferences in Africa, and I'm not up to speed on Asia, but if you can get them to a conference where they can get some encouragement from men in the ministry and some teaching, that would be good. And pastors and elders, give yourselves and go visit your missionary at a mutually advantageous time. I've talked to stateside pastors who never visit their missionaries because they don't like to travel, they don't like to sleep in strange beds, and they don't like to be inconvenienced. Well, die to yourself and do it anyway. God will bless you and bless the missionary. You need to see firsthand. You don't need to hear from a missionary traveling hero. I don't need to travel to your missionary to tell you how he's doing. It'd be best if you saw and you experienced it, and that way you could, I think, draw closer to him and help him more. And finally, communicate. Missionaries and their wives can become lonely, and I think the loneliest may be in their early years, Before the ministry is well advanced, converts may be scarce, kindred spirits nonexistent, and culture shock is still strong. And for you to, if they have phone access, call them up periodically, write them letters. Faithful phone calls and emails from their pastor and the people in the church who are close to them can mean so much to them. And not just, I knew a person who was in a foreign country and it was well known for people who like to go vacation there. So people would just say, we're going to be in town for a couple weeks, can you put us up? And it was just a free vacation for Americans who would go visit this missionary. And they really didn't appreciate it after a while because they had to take time out of their mission work to accommodate Americans who were expected to be trotted around and shown the sights. But seriously, If you can call this person and if you were a friend with them before they left, keep your friendship going. One thing that's not helpful is when you call a person, how's it going, you ask stock questions. You ask the same stock questions every time you call. So it's like you didn't listen to our last two phone calls about how are the kids? How's this? And so they spend their time talking about certain things, and that's fine. But think about how, if it was the other way, what kinds of questions would you like to be asked? What would you want to divulge? How would you like to talk about your soul and your ministry? Another thing to communicate is communicate what's happening in the church and the association, the things that might impact them. Oh, by the way, we had a UFO land on the church and it crushed 12 people last month. Oh, they might want to know that. Or ARPCA's taken over the SBC. We bought out the SBC and we're... Yeah, that's right. We've all had lobotomies. You know, they might not want to hear some lady had a fight with her husband and called you, but they might want to hear about other things that would be pertinent to them because they're still part of this church, if they're sent out from this church or your church. And it'd be helpful to keep them connected. So there's a lot of other practical things I'm sure you can come up with. Those are a few to tease you. I'm done. I suppose we can stick a fork in it. Do I answer questions tonight or what do we do? John, would you pray for us, and then we'll take questions. Our very God and Father, we praise You that You sent Your Son, and that You also now call Your churches to be those who send sons to the Church, as it were. Lord, we pray that You would help us as churches to have wisdom, grace, foresight, to help your Holy Spirit. We pray again that you would raise up, meant to go. We pray for the missionaries on the field. Amen. Thank you. Do you have any questions, possibly? Yes, sir. Suppose you see, over a few years, a man in your church who seems to be called to be a missionary. And suppose you're at a place in the church where you're financially unstable, or even the pastor's not doing so. How do you tell him, go to this other church. We can't see you. How do you balance that? That's a very practical question, and you just happen to come from a church in Gwinnett County that's not paying your pastor full-time, and maybe there's somebody in the church who might be qualified, might down the road be a missionary, but your church can't support your own pastor, let alone your missionary. But you are part of a state association, and the reason why we're doing this together is because we can do more as an association of churches. Our Confession, Chapter 26 of the Confession, commits us to a belief in close communion of the churches. The word communion in the Confession doesn't mean the Lord's Supper, it means close intimate fellowship, connectivity, association. And in 1996, a number of us met at the Banner of Truth Conference in Pennsylvania to discuss starting ARBCA. It wasn't called ARPCA then. We have Reformed Baptist Mission Services, and that's fine, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out if you've got, maybe then we had 30 or 40 churches. and we had 12 missionaries. How many missionaries can 30 or 40 churches support? You're going to reach a point of cutoff because you can't support an infinite number of missionaries from a few handfuls of churches. We had to do stateside church planning. We had to educate our ministers. We had to create publications. So we said, let's expand RBMS to become all these things and call it whatever we will and have it do stateside church planning and have it do the training of ministers and have it do publications. And so we invited, we agreed to do it. I agreed to host it. We hosted it in Atlanta in 1996 in November and 26 men arrived and voted to do it. We spent two or three days knocking out a rough constitution. And then we sent the men back home to their churches to talk to their local churches about it. But the idea was we couldn't support very much ministry from a handful of churches. We needed to grow in our churches so we could support more. And so I would think the thing would be for your pastor and the office holders to, if they're going to recognize this man and begin to work with him and maybe get some counsel from the sister churches and say, how can we get this man from point A to point Z? Maybe the other men or pastors would like to comment on that. Or not. I think you said the most practical thing is that's the appropriate association. We're not a denomination, as you said so many times already. But as an association, you give other local churches their like-minded opportunity to support and initiate through that local church. True, that's a good point. I think that, let's say he comes from your church. Your church can be the sending church, even though it's not a big church, even though it's not a wealthy church, but it's his church. It's the church where he's apparently growing up in and has grown up in and can be sent from, and he'll have other churches with fingerprints on him and that will help support him, but you would still be the sending church. That's a good question, practical question. Let me ask you a question. Turn the tables. What if you see someone in your church who's very gifted, he's ministering to other people, he's all the things that you want, but he's not yet an elder, and he's not yet a missionary or a church planner, but he's a gifted preacher, whenever he speaks, he can really do it. What would you suggest you do to help cultivate this man, okay? He doesn't see himself as anybody great, but you think, You, laymen and elders, think that this man has gifts beyond just pastoring his own soul and maybe pastoring a family. Can you think of ways to encourage him? As you scour through the Gospels and the Book of Acts, what kinds of things do you see men who are in training but not yet officially called, what kinds of things do you see them doing? Can you guys go into town and get some food? I'll be waiting here by the well. Now, if they can't go into town and get some food and come back, then they'll be like, well, strike you guys off the list. Or what was the other one? Oh, I want you to go into town, there's going to be a donkey. I want you to take care of this donkey deal, okay, and you guys can do that. Now, if they couldn't do that, you're not going to bump up their responsibility level. And you think, well, do you think it was really hinging on that? No, I don't think it was hinging on that. But if they couldn't do that, you're not going to put more responsibility on them, right? So you give, you know, a man who is faithful in little things will be faithful in much. We once had a guy who wanted to be a deacon, and people made him a deacon. But he thought being a deacon was kind of like in a Southern Baptist church where it's, you know, fame and glory. It wasn't in our independent church. And he got so upset, he quit. He goes, look, I didn't sign up to be a deacon to set up chairs on Sunday morning because we met in a school and he had to set up chairs on Sunday morning. He goes, I didn't come, I didn't sign up to be a deacon to set up chairs. And he really showed his colors. He was a very proud man. Later we found out some even worse things about him. We're so glad that he stepped down. And we're so chagrined that we never let him become a deacon, even for a brief time. So can he do mundane and menial things with a good attitude as unto the Lord? to meet women and just ask them, should we pray about it? don't see themselves in a certain spiritual situation because there's a sticking point in their life, and then maybe they've not discussed it with somebody, but that sticking point is going to have to be dealt with. Maybe either a sin they committed years ago or something else in their life that they think may disqualify them, and it would be helpful to get that out and talked about. Maybe it is disqualifying, but maybe not.