and turn to Matthew 28 I am going to stray a little bit tonight from our survey of the book of Acts and with our upcoming missions emphasis Sunday I really felt like I needed to just address some things and I know we got a good group here tonight but I know the weather hinders some people from driving and from being able to see and things along that line. And I wish I had maybe covered this a little bit earlier this month. We do have a handout if you want one, and you can help yourself to that. I think it'd be a help to you. And you'll notice on the Lord's Supper table, we have these yellow faith promise mission cards. And tonight, if you would, get one, stick it in your Bible, and I want you to pray about it. We're going to take faith promise commitments this Sunday. I'll ask you to start putting them in the box. We'll have a box for you to put them in. Now, I want to say this. Our missions giving is tremendous. It's absolutely tremendous. And yet I don't want to be a pastor that's weak or fail our church saying, oh, this is so good. I don't think we should challenge the people to do any more. I just thought we can always do more. And especially when it comes to world evangelism. Some of you, how many of you saw the pictures of Zambia this morning that I sent out? Isn't that just amazing? And that's not of our missions program. It's just a love offering that we took up. And I counted, I think, six, seven or eight kids who were going to be getting uniforms. They were being sized for school uniform. School is free, but you can't attend unless you have a uniform. And then I saw those many children. How many remember the last time I see there's like 60 kids that were there. It's doubled their attendance. They were running about 30 kids and they minister these kids. They pick them up. They bring them to Sunday school. There is a village. that's about an hour outside if I'm correct in this but an hour outside I looked at Joy because she's my liaison between the people there in Africa and their old friends in college but Mrs. Stahl still communicates with me but this other village is an hour out farther And when they passed the word around that they were going to be giving out milk and eggs for every child, they started coming from that other village. They would walk an hour before school to get six ounces of milk and a boiled egg. Now, what's really interesting is one day last week was was it's like their spring break, but it's it's like students day. It's one day out of school. And the church has a youth activity. You have to be a teenager. to come to this. And the church has a youth activity just for teenagers, and they have never had one person come from the distant one-hour village, and they had every teenager in that village come to that church youth activity. I want you to know, you know, missions involves faith. It involves sacrifice. It involves grace. But I got to tell you, it involves money. And God speaks a lot about money, a lot about money. And some of you remember, I used to give the whole month of January to stewardship. I'd preach every message. Every message of the month of January was on stewardship. Now, I haven't done that in a while. And I'm not shy about preaching on giving, and I believe in giving, and we give. But it's just tremendous. I'll explain this more to you Sunday, but it's very simple, and you'll make your commitment. You'll write it down. You'll check off the side. There's no commitment too small, no too large. You'll tear that off. You'll keep that in your Bible to remind you of your commitment to be a year commitment. And I just want you to know our missions giving is great. We've given all of our missionaries an 8% increase. We've increased our giving for this year for $5,500. We've gone from $100 a missionary a month to $125. And of course, we do much more, much more, more than double than that. for our home missionaries. But I don't want to be naive or be foolish in not encouraging people. Some of us may need to increase our mission giving, and then some of us may need to begin to get in faith promised missions. I'll tell you what, I love it. It works, doesn't it? There's all kinds of programs for world evangelism. And I don't know of anything that works or anything any more biblical than faith promise missions. So just something to bring up to you. And when I see those children from Africa, you know, I just believe we're going to see people in heaven and in heaven will know. And they'll say, I want to thank you for that. $25 or that $100 or whatever you gave. I want you, you know, and think about these kids who are getting nutrition their parents never got. And just how much healthier they'll be. But you know, now that they see that they're loved and there's concern, they're coming to the church. Oh man, that's great. I love it. Matthew 28 is known as the Great Commission. We're going to do an overview of missions tonight to look at it. Verse 16. Then the 11, Judas is going out. He's hung himself. He swung into hell on a rope. There's 11 disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. He told them to go and to wait in this place. And he said, and the Bible says, and when they saw him, now he is in his glorified body. He's he's died on the cross. He's resurrected. They see him. They worshiped him. But some doubted. That might have been doubting Thomas there, who knows. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. I want to tell you this, that hasn't changed not that much. He still has all power. He has all authority. And no other authority can supersede His authority. in heaven and earth. So he tells us the commission is here, verse 19. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the ends of the world. Amen. Now today throughout Jerusalem there's various types and styles of archways that really dominate the architecture buildings there in Jerusalem. Now the archway is an inverted U. It's made up of blocks that are put together, but the strength of the arch is a wedge-shaped stone in the middle that's called the keystone. And that keystone is vital. The keystone is the stone that keeps the archway from collapsing. And we have many elements in Christianity from an arch of triumph. Let me tell you what they are. Number one, there's the deity of Christ. He is God. He is Lord, He is Lord. He is risen from the dead and He is Lord. Every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord. So we see His deity. That's an element of Christianity. We see His blood atonement, saved by the blood of the crucified one. Wonderful hymn. Biblical hymn. Salvation is, by grace, not of works, not of what I've done. not of anything that we need to do. Number four, there is the blessed hope of the believer. He said he's coming again, and he is. He's coming soon, and that is our blessed hope. Now, the resurrection of Christ is the keystone of Christianity. We have the deity of Christ, we have the blood atonement, we have salvation by grace, we have the blessed hope of the believer, but the keystone of Christianity is the resurrection. All the building blocks of Christianity are held in place by the keystone, the keystone of the resurrection. And if Jesus did not rise from the dead, everything else would collapse, wouldn't it? I had someone ask one time, can I be saved and not believe in the resurrection of Christ? No, you cannot. But if we confess with our mouth and believe in the heart that God is raising from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And if you don't believe that, you can't be saved. The resurrection is the difference of every other would-be savior, Buddha, Confucius, you know, Hare Krishna, or whatever other would-be savior. They're dead. Their bodies are in the tomb. They rot. And so Jesus is risen, and that keystone keeps all the other elements from collapsing. Now the product of the resurrection. The resurrection brought several new things that had never existed before. This is encouraging and exciting to me. These things cannot be accounted for apart from the resurrection of Christ. What are these new things? There's the New Testament. When someone says we're a New Testament church only, I want to ask, well, do you preach for the Old Testament only? Because that's all the New Testament churches had was the Old Testament. But I want you to know, because of the resurrection, we have the New Testament. Because of the resurrection, we have the local church. Now, let me tell you this. There's no universal church. Well, what church do you go to? I'm a member of the universal church. Really? Where is it located at? How much money did they give the missions last year? How many souls did they baptize last year? Anybody from the Universal Church come to your wedding or come to your funeral or come to visit you and pray with you in the hospital? Ridiculous. There's no Universal Church. There's a local church. And listen, anything that is done in the name of Christ has got to be, if it's going to be scriptural, biblical, if it's going to be right, have the blessings of God. If it's going to have the authority of the scriptures, it's got to be under the local New Testament church. Anything else that's not under the church is a para organization. Now, this is not a little thing. This is a big thing. And it's huge. And there are those organizations who want to attack Christ on their doctrinal statement, and they want to speak about Jesus, but they're not under a local New Testament church. Listen, we have a mission board, Far East Baptist Missions International. It is under the local church. The missionaries that we have that's out of our church, they answer to us. They don't just show up willy-nilly to go preach Jesus. We commission them, we ordain them, we send them. That's the authority of the local New Testament church. And we have the authority if for any reason something goes awry, we have the authority to yank their chain and pull them back because that's the authority of the local New Testament church. Anything else that's a para? The word para means beside, by. Camps that are Christian camps that aren't underneath the church, it's a para-organization. Colleges that are Christian colleges, but they're not underneath the local New Testament church, it's a para-college, it's a para-organization. These are people who have an issue with authority, by the way, or they would put themselves under the authority of the local New Testament church. So the local New Testament church is a direct result of the resurrection of Christ. You cannot explain the existence of the church apart from the fact that Jesus arose vicariously from the grave. Now, the commission of the church... I'm laying a lot of foundation here. I don't want to scare you. My points will be short. But what was Jesus, what was his parting words? You know, the parting words, the last statement is always a very significant statement. And if you want to know what's the closest to the heart of Jesus, listen to the Lord's last instruction as he commissioned his disciples who became the foundation of the local New Testament church with Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone. It's Ephesians chapter 2 verse 20. And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. That, my friend, is the commissioning. That's the foundation. Now, to commission something means to grant it certain powers and authority to carry out the particular task, duty, or mission it has been assigned to do. Example, all ocean-going ships are commissioned. You know, they have a big commissioning. They break the bottle on the bow after some words are said, and that thing rolls back into the ocean, and it's commissioned. And it is an active service until it has been decommissioned. You military people know what I'm talking about. The local church is like a ship. It's been called the Old Ship of Zion, amen? That's the church. The old ship of Zion. And Jesus gave the ship a commission. He gave no commission to any other organization. His commission's to the church. And all other religious organizations are operating without divine sanction, and the local church is God's only appointed agency to which He works through. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 22 and 23. And hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him, Now, there are those who think that maybe my position Which, let me say, it's not my position. It's the Bible position about local church. There are some who'll say, I mean, that's extreme. That's a little bit, you know, that's preserved. You know, that's too, that's very extreme. That's our, no, no. The local church is the only organization God gave his authority to. There's a lot of, I mean, I can name a bunch of them. universities, colleges and all kinds of different, you know, organizations that do good things, humanitarian acts. They're not big about some. Most of them aren't big about preaching the gospel, but they do good things, but they do it in the name of Christian love, in the name of Christ. Now, I'm glad that they do things. If people if people can help burn children, I think that's great. If people can help blind people, I think that's great. Are you with me? You know what I'm saying? That's what I'm saying. But unless it's underneath the local New Testament church, you cannot tack Christ to it. Now, the ship, this old ship of Zion, hasn't been decommissioned. This ship is still commissioned. It still has a job. It still has a duty. We still need to go about the Master's business. What exactly is our commission? Two things. Number one, we are commissioned to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ to win the lost. That's number one. We are commissioned to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ to win the loss. And then number two, we are commissioned to establish converts in a growing relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Where do you get that from? We get it from Acts chapter 28. Go ye therefore and teach all nations. The Greek word for nation there is ethno. Yeah, it's ethno, and we get our English word ethnic from it. We're to go, we're to teach, and we're to baptize. And then he tells us that that is converting sinners to Christ. And then teaching them to observe all things, that is schooling, training them, establishing them, those converts in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Now, listen, if the church is not doing that, she's lost her way. Churches have turned into social clubs. Man, there's smoke on the platform. They're jamming out to music. They got gymnasiums and they got Pilates. Don't ask me how to spell it. They have, you know, an instructor dancing. To the oldies. And what has happened, the church that's dwindling is looking for some way to build a crowd and bring people in. But we can't use the world's methods on doing that. Christ's commissioning of the church is stated in five different places in the New Testament. In each instance, the Lord gives us a separate element of our commission. Number one, the spreading of missions, the program. This is the program the spreading of missions Matthew 28 he says all power is given unto me in heaven and earth verse 18 in verse 19 He says go ye teach all he says baptize them in verse 20. He's just teaching mean training them to observe now winning people to Christ This is the program We are to win people to Christ. Our mission is not a mission of reformation. It's a mission of regeneration. The world has a method of trying to reform people. But that's not going to last. The flesh is still in control. The soul is still lost. But when you have the spiritual awakening, when you have the new birth inside, It's not long that the Lord begins to deal with us about, man, I mean everything. Doesn't he? There's not a person who excludes this. I don't care if you're just a granny and you never had a bad thought in your life. When you get saved, there's all kinds of things he starts to deal with in our lives. So, there's the winning people to Christ. Our mission is not to reform, it's to regenerate by the spiritual birth. B, baptizing them. They are to identify themselves with the church and, you know, they were born again and baptized before they were added to the church. And they identify themselves with Christ and they identify themselves with the church. Baptism is a an outward expression of our inward happening. We've been buried with Christ to raise the newness of life. And then, C, teaching them to do likewise. This is reproduction. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you and lo, I'm with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Now, we have the spreading of the gospel. And that's the program, winning people to Christ, baptizing them, training them, discipling them, teaching them to do likewise. Number two, there is the subject of mission. And the subject of missions is preaching, the preaching. Mark 16, verse 15 and 16. Now, this is powerful, and we're gonna deal with the latter part in just a moment, but let me tell you this. God has ordained the foolishness of preaching. And there's concepts today that, well, people don't want to come, and they don't want to be preached at, and they don't want to be shouted at, they don't want to be pointed at, you know, they don't want that. So let's have coffee, and let's have donuts, and let's, you know, and it's all been all kinds of forms. I've been ministering over 40 years, and you men have been there that long or longer, and we've seen all different new programs trying to spread the gospel, and we've seen different subjects of missions that's not preaching. You know, we're going to wrap the word. Oh, I remember that. And we're going to be deeper life. We're going to go down long. We're going to go down deep. Stay down long. But we come up dry. You know, people don't want to be preached that we're going to get up. We're going to be a stand up comedian, a comedian, and we're going to have a draw crowd. We'll make people laugh and they'll have a good time and they'll want to come back. Let me tell you this. Listen, when you come to church, if no preaching happens, you ought to leave the church. Find the church and listen, whatever they preach, it better be in this book. You see, this book is the authority. This book is the final authority in our life. And there are those who are trying their best to find new material, more interesting, and they get up and they make it as less of a church as they can. In their dress, they make it as less of a church. It's like they're going to go out and work on their car. Somebody say amen. It's like they're going to go out and work on a car. They get rid of the pulpit. Let me tell you this. This is God's sacred desk here. You move this thing, move the desk in front of a judge as well in a courthouse. You know the courthouse got its structure from the house of God? That's where He got it from. And so, you know, we should understand that He has ordained preaching. Go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Now, the gospel is the good news. Hallelujah. What is the good news? That we can have our sins forgiven. The good news is, A, Jesus Christ died for our sins. We see His death. It's His death that paid for our sins. We can't pay for our sins. B, Jesus was buried. He died for our sins and they buried Him. He was put in a tomb. C, Jesus rose from the dead. And D, we have to believe. If you don't believe any of that, you're not saved. You can't be saved. Acts chapter 16, verse 30. And brought them out and said, this is the Philippian jailer, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe. Believe and look at the object that they're to believe on, on the Lord Jesus Christ. And then they say, and thou shalt be saved. And if you're saved, thy house can be saved too. We can take the message to them. This is the subject of missions. It's the preaching. What does it mean to believe? To believe means to place total dependency upon. to completely put total dependence upon what Christ has achieved on Mount Calvary. He said, to tell us that it is finished, nothing to be added to, and we must believe that He is the sinless substitute, and through Him and Him alone is salvation. Now, there's a warning to those who reject the gospel. In verse 16 of Mark 16, it says, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. And we need to warn people that if they're without Christ, they will be damned. I was talking with a lady this week, sweet lady, precious lady. And she was sharing with me, in a broken heart, she was crying, heartbroken, about a relative that she has that's lived Christless, just lived Christless. And she's she's had a terrible, terrible childhood. And she's had terrible adulthood. Her. She's had a child that she lost early in life. And she's an ICU. And there's no hope for her. She's dying. She's dying without Christ. And this lady I was talking to, she openly sobbed. She wept. And she said, I know she's going to hell. And her daughter who died will be there waiting for her. And they will not love each other there. Direct quote. That makes me want to sob. You know, you know what's really You know, we feel touched and moved right now, but I want you to know, people who don't know Christ, they're damned. There's no hope for them. There's no storage tank, some limbo. There's no place for them to go that one day they'll be out. There's no purgatory where they'll pay for a certain amount of sins and if we give enough indulgences and light enough candles, they'll be set free. Listen, they go to hell and they go to hell for eternity. And when you know people, And let me tell you, this is a sweet person. This is a kind person. Not everybody going to hell is Hitler. This is a kind person. This is a person who, man, I just think about it often. I just want to weep about it myself. A year and a half ago, was at home. And I had a relative come through. And they said, Are you busy? I said, No, why don't you come through? I don't know where I think Debbie was at Vanderbilt with with Rachel, maybe I don't remember she wasn't there. And they got there. Gosh, And I bounced this kid on my knee and carried her up on my shoulders. But she's not a kid anymore. We talked about some of the things that I did is before I was married, I had money. I worked. I had money. Before I married, I had money. I had a motorcycle. And I took her to the zoo. I think she's like three or four years old. We talked about that. She remembered it. She had no father. Insight. And we went out to Maria's and. I fed her really good. Went back to. My house. And. I sit down, I said, I got to talk with you. I said, Are you in church anywhere? She said, Yeah, I go to a church that I think what she said it was that studies other religions is what she goes to. And I looked at her and I told her how much I loved her. And I told her, I said, I want you to know. I'm terrified you're going to burn in hell for eternity. You know what we do? We soft pedal around family and friends who are going to go to hell for eternity. I want you, you better listen, you listen live stream. If Christ is not your savior, I want you, the Bible says, if you believe it not shall be damned, you'll be damned to hell for all eternity. We've got to tell people. And I think we talk to people, and we have friends, and we have family that are so messed up, and we try to help them, but somebody better give them the gospel. Somebody tell them, and they've heard the gospel a hundred times, and some of them went to Christian schools, and some of them grew up in Christian homes, but I want you to know this, they better know they're damned for all eternity. Oh, if I could see that person saved. They've not talked with me since. You see, you have to believe, but we have to warn those. To believe is to be totally dependent upon. Number three, we see the spreading of missions, we see the subject of missions, the program, the preaching, but notice the supply of missions, the power. In Luke 24, verse 46 through 48, look what it says. I want to tell you this, this preaching hasn't changed. A lot of people want to put away repentance. I want to tell you this, no one's ever gotten saved without godly sorrow in their life. Repentance and remissions of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. Now, many make excuses, saying, I cannot do this. I cannot do it. And I want to say, hey, man, I can't either. God's business requires God's power. He told us that He would empower us. You should receive the Holy Spirit and He would empower us. And there's a, listen, there's a price. There's a price for that power. Let me tell you what it is. It's separation and holiness. We can't be dirt. We can't have the world's dirt. We can't live in a carnal world and then think that we can speak out, speak out and and have the power of God on us. Now, we can talk about things and we can rejoice about things. But I want to tell you this, the supply of mission is power and that power comes from living a godly, holy, separated life. Fourthly, notice the strategy of missions, the plan. Acts one verse eight, but you should receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you. And you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Mission's plan is a is a big task. You see. We're not just responsible with this commissioning. for our family. Oh, it's wonderful when everything's hunky-dory in our family, and we've got our sweet little brood together and our families together. But what about the rest of the world? And we're not just responsible for people across the street. We're responsible for the entire world. Every person, Mission's plan is a big task. Where do we start? We start right where we're at. He says in verse eight unto both in Jerusalem, you start with your Jerusalem, your Jerusalem, your house, your family, your circle of influence. Hey, Andrew got saved, what did he do? He went and got Peter and brought him to the Lord. That was this Jerusalem. We need to reach out. To our friends or your friends, your coworkers, your classmates, your neighbors. We need to have an outreach or we are to reach out. And to constantly tell people about the Lord, and then we need to make Christ known. Every way that we can. And then lastly, number five, There is the serenity of missions, the peace. In John 20, verse 21, the Bible says, Then said Jesus unto them again, Peace be unto you as my father has sent me. Even so, send I you. No need to fear. Jesus is with us and he brings serenity. He brings peace now. Isn't it strange that the thing that is the closest to the heart of the Lord seems to be that thing the father is from some saints and some churches today. Someone said, if you want to enrich days, plant flowers. If you want to enrich years, plant trees. But if you want to enrich eternity, plant the gospel in the hearts of people. And God's people said. Now, let me say that faith promised missions is above and beyond our tithes and offerings. We don't rob Peter to pay Paul. Well, I'll just take my tithe and I'll designate. You don't designate tithe. It comes to the storehouse and your offering. But you pray about what you can give and don't let the devil tell you that it won't make a difference. I want to tell you this. There's a five year old kid in this church that gave his $50. that made a difference for a month for an entire tribe of people. So don't think that what you give, and then let me say this, don't dismiss the fact that God may not use you or could not use you on the field. Don't dismiss that. I love missions. I love our missionaries. I want you to know I had Brother Padilla call me a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday. It was coming from Illinois. I didn't answer it first because I thought it was about my extended warranty on my car, so I didn't answer it. And then he called back in a minute. They don't usually call back that quick, so I answered it. It's Brother Padilla. He's down in Mexico. He said, hey, Pastor. He said, do you remember? This is Francisco Padilla. I said, yes, Brother Padilla, I remember you. You're Denise's father. Of course, we had him preach one Wednesday night coming through. He says, Pastor, he said, I call you. I asked him, I said, what you need? Missionaries never call pastors just to say, how's the temperature? They need something. I'll tell you something. You pastors know this. I took a phone call from a pastor. I'm from a missionary young single guy to the death. And I took his phone call, Rachel took the call and put him through. And I said, you know, I can't help you right now. I said, I don't know your board. If you want to send your information, I'd be glad to read it and look at it. I said, but I do want to tell you this. I want to thank God that God's still calling people to the mission field. And I said, and I want you to rejoice today that the hand of God and the call of God is on your life. I said, what you're doing is hard right now. He says, oh, Pastor, it's so hard. I said, I know it is. I said, we've got missionaries. I'm president of a mission board. I know it's hard. I said, but God, where he calls, he funds the way. You just stay deep in your faith. And I just encouraged this young man for a while. Brother, and he told me, he said this, this is what he said. I didn't finish. He said, Pastor, thank you for taking my call. So many times pastors don't want the money's not there. That's not the direction we're going but you know just because we're not going to financially support them doesn't mean we can't talk with them and encourage them and Brother Padilla called and he said we have these pews. He said I assure you they're not as nice as your pews. I said I know. There are probably two boards put together. I doubt they have a back on them. He said, we're $300 short. But the man who made him said, if I can guarantee the money, he would give them to us for this Sunday. I said, Well, how much is it? 8000 pesos? That sounds like a lot of money, doesn't it? Why is it so much? I said, How much is that in us money? He said $300. So go ahead and do it. I said, we'll send it out. Well, we'll send out $300. He says, Pastor, I remembered you said when you get on the field, if if I needed help, I could call you. And he said, I was praying, Lord, what should I do? And the Lord said, you should call Pastor Savage. I love helping missionaries. You know, we have great missionaries that we support. We have also missionaries out of our church and there's not anything. Short of criminal, that I wouldn't do for them. Let's come this Sunday. Let's pray for our missionaries. We don't know where all they're coming from. We don't know where all they're headed to when they leave here. Let's ask God to meet with us in a great way. God's people said, Let's stand. Lord, thank you for your time in the house here. Thank you, Lord, for meeting with us. And, Lord, we know that this is the commission of the local New Testament church. It hasn't changed, and the church hasn't been decommissioned, and it will be decommissioned one day when you come. You'll snatch us out of here. But until then, may we be about bringing converts to Christ and teaching them, training them, where they could be transformed in the likeness of Jesus. Lord, help us tonight. Help us to come tonight and lift up this Sunday. This is a Sunday the devil will hate. He hates this kind of stuff. He hates it when people get fired up and give and people get fired up and go. Lord, I pray that you'll do something great for our church this Sunday. In thy name I pray. Tonight you come and pray as the Lord leads.