of the gospel for us from Acts chapter 14. His message is on the task of missions, and we're looking forward to hearing the word. Seichi and Ruthanne, did she disappear again? Well, there you are, yes. It's so good to have them with us at our home, and such a blessing to have Seichi preaching for us this morning as well. Before he comes, I want to lead us in a pastoral prayer, if you would bow with me once more. Father in heaven, your goodness and greatness cannot be measured. We praise you and give you thanks, together with your Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. Glory be to you, O God. Lord Jesus, In this world of evil and strife, you have founded your church with the blood of your cross, and you continue to build it by the ministry of your Holy Spirit through your word. You have established the communion of your saints in this country and community for the proclamation of the gospel so that your love for sinners may be made known, and that they may be saved, and that they may be added to your kingdom. Thank you for this church family. Thank you for every saint that you have added to this congregation, for the overseers and deacons, for those that serve so faithfully, for our sister congregations throughout this community. Thank you for the continual supplies of grace and peace that sustain us as your church in these evil times. Father, I pray today for healing for those who are sick and strength for those who are weak. I especially ask for your mercy for Bob and Mary Kaiser, for our sister Ann Denson, for little Sawyer McDonald. Lord, we pray for this little two-year-old and ask for your healing and mercy and wisdom for doctors, for him. For Jackie and Cheryl Sparks, Lord, show them mercy also. Justin and Meredith Cottle and their children who have been sick all through this week We just ask for your healing mercies. And then, Lord, there are many others with these kinds of physical needs. Grant your healing to them. Father, I want to pray for our dear sister, Carrie Skaggs. We ask that you would give her faith and wisdom as she parents her children. She has a home full of young adults and little ones. Please provide for all their needs. We pray for Maddie, Lord, as she walks through these college days and for her testimony for Toby and Annie and Sammy and for Will and Silas. We pray, Lord, for all that they would be light in this dark world, that you would give the boldness to stand and speak for Jesus Christ, and that you would help them as a family and also as individuals to grow in faith and trust in your word. Father, I also pray for Michael and Kathy Shearer this morning. How we thank you for their years of faithfulness in serving you in this church, and for their continued labors in behalf of your people. Praise you, Lord, for your faithful servants. We ask that you would enable them to faithfully live for you every day, and that they might continue to love and to give encouragement to others, counsel and wisdom, and that they would be a light for their children and grandchildren. Lord, may your hand be upon them for good. Lord, we pray also for our country. And we ask that you would restrain the sinful and satanic impulses thriving in our culture and among our government leaders. Lord, we pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would restrain and oppose this. We pray for the salvation of our leaders. We ask, Lord, that you would continue to give us freedom to preach the gospel. Would you help us to be bold and to be salt and light in this world? We ask that you would build your kingdom through the bold gospel witness of our church. We give you thanks for sending your servants in the gospel, Seiichi and Ruthanne Kamimura. Thank you for calling them to the work of the gospel in Japan. We pray for the Japanese people that you would open many hearts to the message of salvation that you would break the gates of hell that hold so many in darkness, the darkness of tradition, of secularism, of Hinduism, Shintoism. We ask your blessing upon their work and the work of Lagos Church in Nagoya as they use the keys of the kingdom to unlock the gates of hell and share the gift of forgiveness and freedom through Christ. Lord, bring forth a harvest of soul. Send forth labors into your harvest. Now we ask that you would fill our brother Seichi with the Holy Spirit to preach your word with power, and that you would work in us to make us attentive and hungry for the word of truth, and make us obedient and submissive to your commands and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Bring upon us conviction, bring us to repentance and humility before you. Give us unity as a church, O Father, together with your Son and the Holy Spirit. We ask these things one God forever and ever. Amen. It's a joy for me and our family to be here worshiping with you. It's been especially sweet to spend so much time with family over the holidays. It's been almost three weeks now. We are grateful for having had the opportunity earlier this morning to share about our ministry to Japan and also this past Wednesday evening You got to hear about that ministry as well. If you were not present for either of those, my wife Ruthanne and I are missionaries raising support currently to leave for Japan in the fall of this year. This morning I have the honor of preaching God's Word to you specifically on the topic of missions. And I counted a special honor as it is the first Sunday, the Lord's Day of the year. And we are reminded as a local church, the central task that Christ has commissioned us to do. My goal for the sermon is to define the task of missions and to stir your heart for missions. Again, my goal for today is to define the task of missions and stir your heart for missions. If you're like me, it's quite easy to get so caught up in a task I'm doing, whether it's for work or for leisure. We can be so zoomed in that I lose perspective in other things that matter. Early on in ministry, I would take forever working on a sermon. I can just keep working on it for a whole day, for multiple days, other than eating, just not doing anything else. In fact, that story, when Ruthanne and I were dating, our very first Valentine's Day was coming, and I would be preaching that evening on Friday, which was Valentine's Day. And so I had asked beforehand if we could do something special the following day on Saturday. And so the day of, on Friday, I was working on the message the whole day, and to my utter shame now, I hadn't sent a single message to her. Happy Valentine's Day. I hadn't spoken to her at all until after I gave the message that evening. And I am here to tell you, I repented, and God's grown me a ton since then. Now, you may never have done what I did, but I think you can relate with me, whether it is for work, our studies, a hobby, or a relationship. It's quite easy to be so wrapped up in something that we start to lose perspective on other things that matter. I think the same can happen not just as an individual, but as families. Perhaps we find ourselves mainly sticking to ourselves, closed off to other people, staying insular. Or maybe we spend time with the same group of people, same group of Christian friends all the time, not really inviting others or being open to making new friends. Or maybe we're just concerned about matters of our own local church, which I know for ABC is not the case after hearing Pastor Bob's pastoral prayer, but sometimes we can find ourselves not praying or caring for other churches about our city, about our government, or about the nations, those outside of our circle. Now to be clear, we of course should invest more of ourselves to those inner relationships of greater commitment, but it is a both and. We must also look outside of our immediate circles, as far out as those among the nations who have never heard of Christ, because that's the commission that we have all as local churches received from our Lord. So even for myself, as a missionary, I need this. But as a follower of Christ, just like you, we need to hear this because it can be so easy to just be focused on the legitimate needs and interests of those immediately around me. I must remember that the task is bigger than just our own local church. It is bigger than even Japan in the case of our family, bigger than a particular unreached people group that you might have a burden for. The task that has been given to us as local churches is for the name of Christ to be made known among the nations. But what exactly is it that we are trying to do in missions? There is so much good that we can and ought to do, that we can do as individual Christians in parachurch ministries, but is the main goal of what Christ has called churches to do, to alleviate poverty, establish hospitals, provide education. Again, all good things that Christians ought to do. Or is the task of missions completed if we're doing open-air evangelism, door-to-door evangelism, or we just gather as two to three believers? Because that's our conception of a local church. What are we aiming at in missions? This is the main idea of our message. The task of missions is for the name of Christ to be known and worshiped among the nations through planting and strengthening churches. That is through planting and strengthening churches. So we want to think as God thinks about how we are to carry out his mission. And so we take our cue from his word. So if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Acts 14. We're focusing on three verses there, verses 21 to 23. While this message is admittedly not comprehensive in all that can be said about the task of missions, we're gonna look at this passage and see several key components of the missionary task. First, for context, we have to know where we are in the story of Acts. Paul is on his first missionary journey. He and Barnabas have been sent out as missionaries by the church in Antioch. We see that in the early part of chapter 13. The Holy Spirit actually is the one who sets apart these two men for the task. And so the church sends them off. Paul and Barnabas travel to different towns and cities proclaiming God's word. As a custom, they first go to the Jewish synagogue because they want to speak to the Jews who know scripture. And so they labor to explain from the Old Testament that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. And they go on to explain that this Jesus is the Messiah. Now, some who hear this, they believe, but others don't. And the unbelieving Jews, they stir up the Gentiles, and both groups attempt to mistreat and even stone Paul and Barnabas. And Paul and Barnabas, they escape, they move on to other towns to keep doing the same thing, preaching the gospel with the risk of harm. But the unbelieving Jews, they are tenacious. They are so angry, fed up with this teaching, that these men, when they hear that Paul and Barnabas are preaching Christ in some other town, these unbelieving Jews go to that town, traveling even 80 to 100 miles, rile up the crowd there to convince the people that Paul is a fool and worthy of death. This is what happens right before our passage in the town of Lystra. Unbelieving Jews from Antioch and Iconium, they go over to Lystra, win over the crowds there. What is perplexing though, is that moments before, this same crowd in Lystra, they saw Paul heal a lame man, making him walk. And the crowd were treating Paul and Barnabas as gods, even wanting to offer sacrifices to them. But now, all of a sudden, they do a 180 degree turn because of the influence of these unbelieving Jews. And these Jews, they stone Paul. And they actually think he's dead, leaving him outside the city. Paul is so badly beaten, he's likely unconscious. And as the disciples in that town of Lystra gather around Paul, miracle of miracles, Paul simply just gets up and he even goes back to the same town. The next day, Paul and Barnabas, they move on to a different town, a town called Derbe. And so to say the very least, I mean, this is very highly eventful and very highly charged missionary journey with much opposition. Verse 21, we find ourselves in the town of Derbe. I'll read it for us, verses 21 to 23. When they had preached the gospel to that city of Derbe 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 that through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. As I mentioned, one thing we learn from Acts and the patterns that we find there is how we are to engage in missions today. And so as I said, the task of missions is church planting and strengthening. Whatever specific ministry a missionary sets out to do, it should very much be in line with and promote the twin works of church planting and strengthening. I'll organize the rest of this message under those two headings, church planting and strengthening. So first, planting churches. Now, what is the heartbeat? of missions, what carries the work forward, what does this look like on the ground? It is evangelism and discipleship. We see this in verse 21, when Paul and Barnabas had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples. Now the task of missions involves proclaiming the good news and teaching God's word to those who believe. This is what they do. In the early church, we see that Peter, Paul, the apostles, they do many good works. In fact, God performs through them signs and wonders, casting out demons, healing the sick, even raising the dead. But these miracles in the early church served a purpose. Through these signs and wonders, the Lord testified to his message of grace. The works, the good works, complemented the message. We see that what drove Paul and Barnabas was the determination to speak, to declare a message. What is this gospel? The same message that we today are proclaiming to those around us, that we sung about, and the same message that we carry to the nations. Now this is what you can expect that I as a missionary, Ruthanne as a missionary, will take to the people in Japan. And if you are here today and do not have a saving relationship with the Lord, I urge you to hear and receive this gospel of God. The message is the truth that the one living and true God who created the heavens and the earth and all of mankind, this God has fixed a day in which every single one of us, people made in his image, made to live in his world for his glory, he has fixed a day in which we will be judged for all our sin. But our God is long-suffering, he is patient. And there is a day of judgment coming for those who lived their lives not worshiping him alone, not giving him thanks, but pursuing for our own gain, pleasure, comfort, ease, happiness from everything else but God, from created things, all that is in the world for ourselves, rejecting him. This is our sin, our cosmic rebellion towards God. It is the source of all the evil, suffering, brokenness that we see and experience in this world. And our sin means death for us. A death that is eternal, conscious torment separated from Him. We are justly condemned. And in our folly, most of us think we're not that bad. We're not that evil. We even think that even if we are wrong, we can make ourselves right by our good works, by being a good neighbor, by being a model citizen, by adherence to some man-made religion, by turning to a false savior. But we do not understand how pervasive sin is, how incalculable our debt of sin is, the great cosmic offense. Our sin is against Him. We cannot make ourselves right with Him. but God in his great mercy has made a way. And this is the gloriously good news of the gospel that while we were his enemies, in his great love, God has fulfilled his promise. How does he do this? By sending a savior, his own son, who will crush the enemy of Satan, the enemy of death, who will restore us to a relationship with himself, who will give to us his own righteousness, who will save us from our sin. Now, how does Christ do this? He does this by living a perfect life, obedient to the Father on our behalf. He does this by dying as our sin-bearing substitute on the cross, by taking on God's judgment in our place. He saves us by rising from the dead, assuring us that we too, though sinful, we too can be declared righteous through faith in Christ. And where is he now? Where is Christ now? He is at the right hand of the Father. He has sent the Spirit of God that all who belong to him will be born again as children of God through faith in Christ alone. As our Lord has said, repentance for forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name to all the nations. It will be proclaimed. It must be proclaimed because there will come a day when everyone will see Jesus and we will either stand condemned in our sins, or we will tremble with inexpressible joy as we finally behold our Savior. So this is why the church sends, this is why missionaries go, so that through this gospel, the good shepherd would gather to himself all his sheep, those who are not yet of his fold. And this is the gospel that Ruthanne and I intend to tell forth in Japan. But Paul and Barnabas, they not only proclaimed this message, secondly, they made disciples. Paul and Barnabas preached the gospel not only as the entry point in our salvation, not just to get us to be saved, but as the grace in which we presently stand. The gospel is the foundation for an entire life of discipleship. Now, what does this mean? means that the gospel is what shapes us daily. so that we're conformed to the likeness of Christ. It's the gospel that fuels us daily so that our hearts are properly motivated to love him, obey him, and trust him. It is the gospel that reorients us daily so that our purpose in life truly is to live for God's glory, no longer living for ourselves, but for Christ, who for our sake died and was raised. It is the gospel that fills our hearts with hope in the darkness of this world so that we're reminded where we are heading, of our future hope, the glory that is to come for us. This gospel is what drives a lifetime of following Christ. And this is what Paul and Barnabas are after. They weren't interested in merely getting professions of faith or even converts. By the grace of God, they wanted to see disciples who follow Christ daily. In our passage in Acts, Luke actually chooses a word that's only used a handful of times in the New Testament. This word, verb, in fact, make disciples. And it's included, as you all know, in Jesus' great commission. And so Luke is intentionally describing what Paul and Barnabas are doing as keeping in step with Christ's commission to go and make disciples of all the nations. And this task of making disciples isn't just about preaching to the masses and then quickly moving on to another group of people. It's not stated exactly how long they were there in the town of Derby, but we know from other passages in Acts that they stayed in places like Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus for an extended period of time, months, sometimes even years. Now all this shows that it takes time, effort, and intentionality to grow as a disciple of Christ. A few weeks ago, Ruthanne and I were at Redeemer Church, a sister church, and we witnessed and rejoiced together with the church there as we saw a young sister in the Lord being baptized. When you and I see someone being baptized, we know intuitively that the work is not done. And as a church, we affirm our commitment to their growth as a disciple. In fact, as members of one church body, we are committed to one another's growth and discipleship. The very word disciple means to be a learner, a pupil. And so we are constantly learning. We're learning all that Christ has commanded us, learning how to live that out in the particular roles and seasons of life that he has placed us in right now. We're learning the whole counsel of God, the breadth and depth of scripture, his plans and purposes through redemptive history from Genesis through Revelation. And ultimately we are learning a person, we are learning Christ himself, what it means to abide in him daily, what it means to depend on him in the day to day, what it means to make much of Christ in the choices that we make, what it means to bear his image in any and every situation we find ourselves in. Now I wanna emphasize the importance of discipleship by way of explaining the spiritual state of Japan. Some pages here got skipped over. I might need to go and get my older copy here. Sorry for the interruption. So sorry, could we pause? Go ahead, all right. We'll do this from memory. So explaining the way, the state of the church in Japan. So many people, when they think of Japan, they usually don't think of Japan as an unreached people group because it's very modern. The technology is advanced. But the unfortunate reality is that though Protestants have taken the gospel in the 19th century, they have never Really, the gospel has never really taken deep root and spread throughout the country in the form of healthy churches. And as Ruthanne has mentioned earlier in the presentation, Japan has been called the missionary graveyard, not because people go there physically and die, but it takes a long time for fruit to be seen. And so missionaries have tended to not see any fruit or little fruit and move on. And so, What I have come to observe, there are many, many challenges and barriers to the gospel. You can explain it through culture, like a culture of overworking, a culture of prioritizing harmony, and you can explain it through the religious traditions there, including Shintoism and Buddhism, but what I have come to see is that people might come to faith in Christ, but the problem is that there's a lack of discipleship. that it seems like it's enough for Christians if they merely attend Sunday worship, to maintain their faith, so to speak, by just going to church on Sundays, by praying before your meal at home. And that is the substance of one's faith. But we all know that that is not what it means to follow Christ. The church there in Japan, and also churches everywhere, need to be taught and to see, to observe, in the lives of other Christians, what does it look like to be a godly husband? What does it look like to be a godly wife in the home? How to train up your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. We need discipleship to know what it is to repent the difference between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow. What it means to confess your sin to him and to others, not just merely saying sorry, but asking for forgiveness. Now this is essential to the task of missions, discipleship. Now we see that Paul and Barnabas in our text, they didn't just go to this town of Derby, make disciples there and then move on and just forget about them. They made disciples in the previous towns. What did they do at the end of verse 21? We see that they returned to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch. Now these were places, as I mentioned before, where there was persecution. Right before this in Lystra, Paul was stoned to death. Why did the missionaries go back to these hostile places? It's because, verse 22, They knew that the disciples in those towns needed great strength and encouragement. It says in verse 22 that the missionaries returned to those towns, strengthening the disciples by encouraging them to continue in the faith and by telling them it is necessary to go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God. Persecution is a reality. Persecution varies from culture to culture, from time to time, but it is a reality for all of us. In fact, the Apostle Paul, he actually refers to this period in his life later in 2 Timothy. Paul tells his beloved son in the faith, Timothy, who is a pastor of the church in Ephesus, he tells them in 2 Timothy 3 that at the end of days, Difficult times will come. People will be lovers of self, and people will grow from bad to worse. But you, Timothy, you have followed my teaching. You have followed my conduct. You have followed my persecutions at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra." And then he says this to Timothy, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Now we might think that persecution is for this particular period in time, early church, when the gospel just springs forth. And though it varies for all of us, the reality of suffering is the case for all of us as believers. Now you would think, How does Paul and Barnabas, how do they encourage the churches there, the disciples who are in these towns? It says at the end of verse 22, they were telling them it is necessary. that suffering and hardship is necessary. The word there, necessary, Paul has used it elsewhere to say it is necessary that Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. This necessary indicates that all of this, including suffering and hardship for believers, all of it is according to the plan of God. That God is not surprised by what happens to his people. That He is not so powerless that He can't do anything about these persecutions or the suffering of His people. In fact, He says, God says in Romans 8, that we are co-heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him. And then we'll enter into glory. When I was teaching English in Japan for two years, I was prayerfully deciding which church to commit to. The second church I visited. I remember walking up to a house and looking at the building right next to it, which is a prefab, which is like a shed. I remember not sure if this was the church, but peering in and seeing this lady come and greet me. And then I walk in and I realize, oh, this is where the church gathers. There's probably a dozen or so people there with little kids as well. I remember in one of the front rows was a young man who was my peer around my age, and I quickly got to know him. We introduced ourselves to each other, and right after the worship service, he invited me out for lunch. We got to share our stories, and there began a friendship that has lasted to this day. Now, I've learned a lot from him. We've deepened in our friendship, and we meditated on the word together, we prayed together, we went through life together. He showed me around Japan, we visited other places together, and he taught me a lot about what the church is like in Japan. I remember during the week, we would have phone calls, and on the weekends, we'd see each other in person. Sometimes he would be discouraged. Discouraged over various trials of life. It could be disagreements in his family. It could be being really stressed because of the intense workload. It could be the condition of the church that we were part of and also the wider church at large where he would see people drifting away from the authority and sufficiency of God's word. It could be about a difficulty in loving someone and a believer who is difficult to love. And by the end of our conversation, there would be a noticeable change in his tone. There's a sense of joy in him. And I can speak Japanese, but I am not a native-level speaker. And so in this whole conversation, I'm saying a few words. I'm not saying much, anything substantial. But he's processing with me a fellow believer who is like-minded in our convictions. And I remember thinking, Wow, I'm really not doing much here except listening and seeking to understand well and saying a few words. And what a privilege it is for me to be able to be such an encouragement to this brother who feels so lonely out here in this rural church where there aren't really any young people around our age. And the church needs strengthening. The church needs one another. to tell us to persevere in the faith, the persecutions that we endure, the cares of life, the burdens that we bear, all kinds of discouragement to our faith. We need one another to exhort one another and to persevere in the faith. And this is what Paul and Barnabas knew they had to do to strengthen the disciples in these towns. Now, there are other ways that these missionaries have strengthened the church. As we have seen, the first way was to encourage the believers through suffering. A second way that we see here is that they appointed elders for them. We see that in verse 23, when they had appointed elders for them in every church. We know that when Christ the Good Shepherd calls his sheep to his own, Christ doesn't call his sheep defenseless or without care. Christ provides under shepherds, pastors, overseers to shepherd the flock of God. We see that in Ephesians 4, Christ gives gifts to the church and part of the gifts are pastors and teachers who shepherd the flock. We learn that a group of disciples doesn't make a church. There must be a commitment on the part of elders, pastors, to preach the word of God, to expose it and apply it, to practice the ordinances, baptism and communion, and to preserve the purity of the church through church discipline. Now, these are the things that make up a local church. Now, was this a one-time occurrence for Paul and Barnabas to appoint elders for these groups of disciples? We know that this wasn't the case because we learned from Titus 1 that Paul instructed Titus to appoint elders in every church. In fact, let's turn there in your Bibles to see Titus 1.5, we see that Titus is a beloved son in the faith, and Paul explains why Titus left him in Crete. He says in verse five, the reason I left you in Crete was to set right what was left undone, to give order to what remains, and as I directed you, to appoint elders in every town. Now this was a regular practice for Paul. Now, he gives the qualifications of an elder, of an overseer from verse six onward. In verse nine, he says that the elder must hold fast to the faithful message as taught so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it. Pastors must know the word well and must know it to give sound teaching to build up the body of Christ, but also to refute those who contradict it, to protect the flock from false teaching. Now Titus goes on, or Paul does in Titus verse 10, for there are many rebellious people full of empty talk and deception. Verse 11, it is necessary to silence them. Now, this is the calling to elders and shepherds who protect the flock. There will be, as Paul says in Ephesians 20, savage wolves among them, even those who will rise up from within them, who by their teaching will turn the disciples away from the truth. Now, in Japan, there is a lot of syncretism. and a lot of confusion. Confusion by the general society as to what Christianity is. In the last century, from mid-20th century onward, there's even a term that has come up, new religious movements, because of how many religious groups there are out there. This one particular group called Aum Shinrikyo, the leader there, the founder, He has claimed to be the Messiah, the Christ. He's called himself the Lamb of God. And there was a famous deadly incident in 95, where members of the cult group had released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway station, killing 15 individuals and hurting and harming many others. And this has become so well known in Japanese society that Most, if not all, Japanese people are afraid of religious fanatics, of those in extreme religious groups. There are what we would identify as cults here in the States, such as Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses out there. I remember when I was taking a train in my area to a neighboring town, and this is, again, a more rural area, looking out through the window of the train and seeing Mormon missionaries riding their bicycle. I remember it being in my apartment, and there were Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on my door. For an average Japanese person who have little to zero, little to no knowledge of the Bible, all of these groups are just the same to them. Whether it's one big Christian group or just some extreme religious groups that are not Japanese, that are foreign. And so this is essential for churches in Japan. that the churches are protected and guarded through sound teaching, through a right understanding of the word of God. Otherwise, the people will be misled, drawn away from the truth, confused as to the nature of Christ. Is he truly God? Confused in other matters of the gospel. Going back to Acts 14, In addition to the church being strengthened by being encouraged through suffering, secondly, by elders being appointed, thirdly, they were strengthened by being entrusted to the Lord. We see that at the end of verse 23. When Paul and Barnabas had appointed elders for them in every church and prayed with fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. Now missionaries have to move on at some point, right? They can't always stay there. And in moving on, there's a sense of anxiety. And Paul describes this in 2 Corinthians 7. He says, he has the daily pressure on me of anxiety, of concern for all the churches. And we care about one another, we care about churches. Now, are they going to be okay, essentially? Now, how do we move on? Well, we must entrust churches to the Lord, ultimately. Because without the grace of God, the task of missions fails, utterly fails. Because it is by the grace of God that people come to faith. It is by the grace of God that people endure in faith. It is by the grace of God that we are kept to the end. only by the grace of God. And all of this work is called the grace of God. We see this in the end of chapter 14. I'll read it for us. This is the conclusion of Paul's first missionary journey from verse 24 to 28. They passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. After they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Italia. From there, they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. After they arrived and gathered the church together, they reported everything God had done with them and that he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. And they spent a considerable time with the disciples. When the Holy Spirit set apart these two men, Paul and Barnabas, for the task, for the work, it says here now that they have completed that work. And that work, as we have seen, entails not just starting a church. It is planting a church and also strengthening the church. And all that includes people coming to faith in Christ, and people being built up in the faith, growing as disciples, elders established and appointed, and people strengthened to endure in the faith. And this is all the grace of God. I've been able to speak with Pastor Phil from Redeemer. And it's always a joy when I get to hear from him how Redeemer Church is doing. It's a sister church. But I also know that Redeemer is a church plant of Anniston and also Grace Fellowship. And now after 11 years, the church there, they get to experience the fruit of faithful years of laboring in love through pain, suffering, and much sin. But more than all of that, the grace of God. And Anniston was instrumental in this. And I'm sure that back then, there were many of you who are here today who were faithful in praying for the church plant. And even before that, pouring into those beloved members who were sent out from Anniston to be with Redeemer to start that church. Now this is essentially what we are seeking to do, but taking the gospel to a totally different culture, different language group. And as missionaries, We see from the end of chapter 14 here that we're not just about going out there and being completely invested in the people there, which means never coming back to our local churches and home church, sending church here. And we are not individualists out there. Missions is a collective effort. It is a task that the sending church and missionaries out there do together. And so as missionaries, we are committed to return as well, and to report, to share the grace of God, what God is accomplishing through us together. And that is what Paul and Barnabas did, and that is what Ruthanne and I intend to do as well. And so, Anniston Bible Church, you've been instrumental in the past, and my prayer for you is that Anniston will continue to be instrumental, making disciples here and out there by planting churches, strengthening churches as he gives opportunities in the future. Let me close in prayer for us. Our Father in heaven, our hope is in Christ alone. God, we are merely vessels, broken vessels, weak vessels, and that is the kind of person and the kind of churches that you use, people who are weak and broken over our own sin and shortcomings, and that is when the gospel shines so brightly. All the power is in Christ. All the glory goes to you. So we ask, Father, that this pattern that we have seen in Acts, that you would continue to deepen this work of church planting and strengthening here through Aniston, God, through those who are suffering, to those battling with sin. Father, would you bring great comfort? Would you bring great strength that we would all continue to grow as disciples of Christ, seeking churches that are healthy, established among all people groups. We ask and pray this in your son's glorious name. Amen. to come to receive an offering. While we are receiving the offering I think we have enough