World Missions and Evangelism

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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November 8, 2014

00:01: Well, for our last preaching session, I am blessed to be able to introduce to you Pastor Steve Jennings.
00:10: He is the pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church here in Jacksonville.
00:16: He is a graduate of the US Naval Academy, and he has a degree from the Covenant Theological Seminary and Reformed Theological Seminary.
00:27: He has pastored for 28 years, and he served the Westminster Presbyterian Church for the past 15 years.
00:34: He is married to his wife, Mary, for 43 years.
00:38: They have three children and seven grandchildren.
00:42: Brother Steve, we invite you to come and share the word with us.
01:05: To be invited, and it's been an honor to get to know Keith.
01:09: I hope more so in the future.
01:16: I think you can be grateful not only for a very good preacher, I enjoyed very much the last message, but also for a man who wants to be a servant enough to organize an event like this, together with all the other pastoral responsibilities of being a coordinator and being the one who makes sure these events and details are worked out so well.
01:38: Thank you.
01:39: And I met Mike and his wife for the first time and greatly enjoyed that conversation over lunch.
01:46: As I talked to Mary on the way out, some of the benefit of this kind of an event is you meet new friends and can develop relationships you hope that are going to last for years to come.
02:01: We were looking at that Bonar book a moment ago from the Psalms.
02:05: I just paid my bill, so I'm not sure I can have one more.
02:09: But I did ask Mike, I said, you're selling all these Presbyterian books.
02:14: You've got a lot of explaining to do in your job, too.
02:18: So let's stand together.
02:22: I don't know if you've heard yet read from the Older Testament, but we're going to begin in Isaiah chapter 49.
02:34: I'll be reading at verse 1.
02:42: Let us pray.
02:45: Our Father and our God, how grateful we are that we can say to you, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
02:59: We pray that by your spirit you would, again, descend upon this meeting, upon our souls and hearts, so as to give anointing to myself who's speaking from the word of God, and to all of us who are hearing from that word, knowing that without that spirit anointing, all things would be in vain.
03:26: Lord, you promised that where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.
03:32: We pray that you would forgive my sins and give me the liberty of expressing from a clear mind and a pure heart what the burden of the Lord is for this moment.
03:45: We know that when the will of God is being accomplished, we're talking not just about time in this realm, but we're talking of eternity.
03:57: For he who does the will of God abides forever.
04:02: We pray, indeed, that there would be eternal benefit coming from our time together.
04:07: We ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
04:10: Amen.
04:12: As we read these verses, please, oh, I asked you to stand, didn't I, for the reading of this word.
04:20: As we read these verses, notice that we're reading one of those servant of the Lord passages, which are so rich and perhaps so mysterious as well.
04:33: And of course, the servant of the Lord par excellence in his ultimate expression is the Lord Jesus Christ.
04:42: And yet, I hope as we go through this series of verses, you will also see that Paul, as an apostle in the New Testament, was able to identify himself and his ministry with what is tasked to the servant of the Lord.
04:58: And you say, how can the servant of the Lord be both Jesus and Paul together? And I would say to you, it's not only Jesus and Paul together, it's every one of us together.
05:08: You say, how can that be? And the answer is, are you not in Christ? And what does in Christ mean except that as your head and as his body, what applies to him applies to us, at least in some measure, and from him come all blessings.
05:35: Listen, O coastlands, to me, the servant says, and take heed, you peoples from afar.
05:46: The Lord has called me from the womb, from the matrix of my mother, he has made mention of my name, and he has made my mouth like a sharp sword.
06:00: In the shadow of his hand, he has hidden me and made me a polished shaft.
06:08: In his quiver, he has hidden me, and he said to me, you are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
06:18: Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain, yet surely my just reward is with the Lord and my recompense with my God.
06:34: And now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, so that Israel is gathered to him, for I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength.
06:52: Indeed, he says, it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel.
07:05: I will also give you as a light to the nations, that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth.
07:17: This is the word of God for the people of God on this the day of God.
07:21: Thanks be to God.
07:23: Please be seated.
07:29: I want to repeat that last verse to you again.
07:32: I hope you'll walk out from here with it in your memory.
07:36: It's too small of a thing for you to be a servant just here in your own nation among your own countrymen.
07:48: Because I want to give you, servant of the Lord, I want to give you as a light to all the nations, the Gentiles, so that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth.
08:01: Before I stop reading from the Scriptures, I'm going to ask you now to turn to the 13th chapter of Acts, Acts chapter 13, and I'll begin reading at verse 46.
08:13: Now the reason I'm going here, I hope will be apparent to you, is because in this chapter, which incidentally is a long sermon, that the Apostle Paul preaches in a place called Antioch in Pisidia during his first missionary journey.
08:36: I suspect as you're looking at your Bibles, if you look at the back of your Bible, you'll find what's normally in these books, you'll find maps.
08:46: And the map might be helpful to you as we go through this series of verses, because we'd be looking at that map that shows the journeys of the Apostle Paul in the first missionary journey that he takes.
09:05: 13 and 46 of Acts.
09:10: Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, it was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first, but since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting light, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.
09:31: For so the Lord has commanded us.
09:36: Say, who's the us there? And I would understand it to be Paul and Barnabas.
09:44: But where is he getting the sense of his commandment from? And the answer is the Old Testament, especially the verse in Chapter 49 that I just read that was directed to the servant of the Lord.
09:57: Do you understand? Paul, being in Christ, is one of those who now is taking to himself the identity and the mission that the servant of the Lord himself assumed from Isaiah's prophecy.
10:17: The Lord has commanded us, I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.
10:30: Now what was omitted there was the phrase that said, it's too small of a thing for you to just worry about Israel, because I've set you as a light to the nations, that you should be for the salvation to the ends of the earth, the coastlands, the way Chapter 49 started out of Isaiah.
10:48: Now it's important to realize here that when the New Testament authors quote from the Older Testament, don't just take it as those particular words that they're drawing from from Old Testament truth, because what is being quoted here is the whole context of Isaiah 49, not just one phrase of one verse.
11:13: Do you understand what I'm saying? We're calling into mind the whole context of the servant of the Lord passages, especially in Chapter 49.
11:23: So I've set you as a light to the nations, that you should be for the salvation to the ends of the earth, because it's too small of a thing for you to think just what you've been thinking previously.
11:36: Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord.
11:44: And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.
11:51: Is that highlighted in your Bible already? Because it doesn't say as many as believed were appointed to eternal life.
12:02: It says as many as were appointed to eternal life were able to, so to speak, believe.
12:11: Otherwise, they'd still and you and I would still be dead in our trespasses and sin, except for this eternal appointment of God unto salvation for some.
12:23: And the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region.
12:32: Now I skipped a lot in between Isaiah 49 and Acts Chapter 13, right? Could I just go back and try to fill in a little of the blanks between those two verses? And in a sense, that means tell the story of how Paul got to Antioch of Pisidia at all.
12:56: And that part of the story, I guess we could begin in Acts Chapter 11.
13:03: And in verse 19, we're told that those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen, remember how Stephen the first martyr was stoned.
13:22: Some of those who were scattered traveled as far as Phoenicia.
13:27: You can check your math there and Cyprus and Antioch, preaching only the word to no one but Jews only.
13:39: But some of the men from Cyprus and Cyrene who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Greeks, preaching the Lord Jesus and the hand of the Lord was with them.
13:55: A great number believed and turned to the Lord.
14:00: If I want to convince you of anything to take away today, not only for the churches represented here, but for my own church that I serve as well, it would be this.
14:20: If you want a vision for your church, take the church at Antioch as a model that you'd like to see replicated in your own ministry.
14:32: So what's so significant about the church in Antioch? And I would say to you, it was Paul's home church.
14:43: That's where he was sent out from.
14:46: That's where he got the call to be a missionary.
14:50: That's where the believers and disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.
15:02: The story goes something like this.
15:04: There's a persecution after Stephen's martyrdom.
15:08: Some who were scattered take the gospel to the places north of Jerusalem.
15:17: And people believe, and some of those people were not even Jews.
15:27: And when a lot of these non-Jews hear the gospel from people who are not Jews, what's going on back in Jerusalem? There's a sense of alarm that begins to perhaps take root in suspicion or some amount of danger thought.
15:49: So Barnabas, you know, that good man, that son of comfort, that encourager, they tap Barnabas on the shoulder and say, Barnabas, we need to give you a job.
16:03: We've got a mission for you to be on.
16:06: Something's going on up there in Antioch and we need somebody to check it out.
16:10: Would you do that for us? So Barnabas goes to this place, this foreign Gentile city, which incidentally you can read archaeology today and say Antioch was no small place.
16:27: It had a geographical boundary that rested perhaps a mile wide and two miles long.
16:34: It was perhaps the third greatest, most significant city in the Roman Empire.
16:42: It had had a history prior to this of more than 300 years of being founded and beautified.
16:49: They had their own Olympics.
16:51: The population was well over 300,000 people.
16:57: It was Herod who, in a construction project, wanted to build a thoroughfare from diagonally across the well-structured blocks of the city, set colonnades on both sides, and pave that street with polished stone.
17:21: It was a metropolitan place, the only places in the Roman Empire that would have had more notoriety would have been Rome and Alexandria and Egypt.
17:31: And then comes Antioch.
17:34: It was an immoral place, lots of, we would say today, paganism, secularism, debauchery, immorality, and yet it so changed at the preaching of the gospel that it became, we might also say, the number one missionary sending place that we read about in the Acts of the Apostles.
18:01: And it was Paul's home church.
18:07: Now, the Bible tells us that when Barnabas gets there, you know, can you imagine that a little bit? He gets there and he's got his notes being taken, I suppose, and he's praying for discernment and writing things down.
18:25: He knows he needs to give a report to the General Assembly back in Jerusalem.
18:32: And the Bible says when he got, well, let me just read it again.
18:36: It's a beautiful verse and it would be a sermon in itself.
18:42: It's in 11 and verse 23.
18:46: And when he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all with purpose of heart that they should continue on with the Lord.
19:03: What pastor can't use that as a vision statement for eternity? But just think again for a moment.
19:12: Has anybody ever seen the grace of God? I haven't.
19:18: I mean, we have means of grace when we come to the Lord's table.
19:22: And I tell people when you come to the Lord's table, you're going to receive grace here if you have a believing heart.
19:33: And if you receive grace here, it's a grace that you wouldn't have received if you hadn't been here to take the Lord's supper.
19:41: But I can't see what it is.
19:43: I mean, I can see bread and wine, but I can't see grace.
19:47: What did Barnabas see? It says he saw the grace of God.
19:54: Well, what did that look like? Am I looking at the grace of God now? Are you? And if you can say yes, why yes? And the answer comes what? From not the grace which is invisible itself being seen, but the effects of the grace.
20:15: You understand? Do you recognize the effects of the sovereign grace of God when you see it? And are you glad like Barnabas was? I mean, when Barnabas gets there, I mean, I'm sure he sees vibrant thanksgiving and praise and worship.
20:33: I'm sure he senses a zeal to share the gospel of Christ.
20:39: A hunger for the word of God.
20:43: An expression of the fruit of the Holy Spirit that's not just for my own enjoyment, but And that's what you're saying to an unbelieving world.
20:51: You need peace.
20:52: Come and eat the fruit of peace and love and joy in my heart.
20:56: That's what you need.
20:57: It's not mine.
20:58: It's the Holy Spirit's fruit.
21:01: But here, partake.
21:04: And evidently, the whole city, to some degree, was partaking the grace of God.
21:13: Now, Barnabas now faces a challenge.
21:17: He says, so many people, so much Bible, so little time.
21:26: What could I do? And he remembers.
21:29: What does he remember? I remember that man that the Lord Jesus Christ met on the way to Damascus, blinded him in repentance, humbled him, in one sense, slew him.
21:49: So he could raise him up with a new birth.
21:53: His name was Saul.
21:58: And he's unemployed right now.
22:02: He's not involved in perhaps what the Lord has ultimately called him to do, which was going to be what? Take the message of the gospel to the world.
22:13: We need to get Saul here.
22:15: I see evidence of the grace of God.
22:18: I see God at work.
22:21: And I want to make sure I'm the son of encouragement.
22:25: I'm the one that stood by Saul at the beginning when everybody else was suspicious of him.
22:32: We're going to get Saul here because we need him now.
22:37: We need him to be engaged in where God's at work.
22:40: So he goes to get Saul, which incidentally, he stops being Saul in this chapter 13.
22:48: Why? Probably because he knows that he's the minister sent to the non-Jewish world.
22:58: So as both a Roman and a Jew, I think I want to be Paul.
23:05: Now, I want to be the Latin name, because after all, I'm sent by God to reach non-Jews as well as Jews.
23:18: And incidentally, as he's trying to figure all this out, because he knows he's on, in some minds, shaky ground where nobody's ever gone before.
23:30: He's trying to figure it out.
23:33: I just want to suggest to you, Isaiah 49 helped him to figure it out.
23:44: It could be that because on this first missionary journey, John Mark, who deserted them because, well, we're told it was just too much for this young man.
23:54: Well, one of the reasons it might have been too much for this young man, this Jewish, John Mark, not only the physical difficulties of an arduous journey, but also the spiritual and emotional challenges of, wait a minute, Saul, you're going to who? You're going where? I thought you were a Jewish man.
24:20: Why are we calling you Paul now? Paul, you understand? And John Mark might have said, this is too much for me.
24:29: I don't feel called to do that.
24:33: In fact, you might be off on a tangent, Saul.
24:38: But that perhaps is too much speculation.
24:43: Anyway, Paul was in a great deal, I think, of pressure and growth.
24:56: In trying to understand his place.
25:00: Now, when Paul gets to Antioch, look at this.
25:06: Verse 26.
25:07: He and Barnabas, what? They spent a whole year with the church and taught a great many people.
25:20: And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.
25:26: Now, it turns out that there's going to be a famine in the land prophesied by Agabus.
25:31: So, Barnabas and Paul go back to Jerusalem.
25:35: And then after they go back to Jerusalem, they go back to Antioch.
25:45: Let's pick up the story again in verse 1 of chapter 13.
25:50: Are you following me here? I hope this is an amazing narrative.
25:57: I mean, what drama is here? Now, in the church, that was in Antioch.
26:05: Remember, a great many people had believed.
26:07: Now, they'd been taught for a whole year by an apostle.
26:11: Who himself was inspired by God with Barnabas.
26:17: Now, in the church in Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers.
26:23: Barnabas, Simon, who was called Niger.
26:28: Now, this is a cosmopolitan kind of group.
26:31: This is a not exclusively ethnic Jewish group.
26:39: Paul was beginning to realize that, okay, Israel and the servant of the Lord, as prophesied by Isaiah, there were Israels in two different ways to understand that.
26:52: There was ethnic Israel, Jews by birth.
26:55: But there was also spiritual Israel.
26:59: The remnant of true believers God would leave behind in his sovereign grace.
27:05: And he was understanding that, I'm part of spiritual Israel.
27:14: But you know what? So is Sergius Paulus, the first one we know by name that was converted on the island of Cyprus in his first missionary journey.
27:26: How am I going to figure this out? He's a Roman.
27:29: Yes, but he's part of spiritual Israel as well.
27:37: So here's Simon called Niger.
27:40: Now, undoubtedly, that's an African origin.
27:44: This is a black man, no doubt.
27:47: Along with Barnabas.
27:49: And who else? Lucius of Cyrene.
27:53: And some scholars have identified him in conjunction with Simon of Cyrene.
27:58: Who is that? Hello? That's the man that, remember, carried the cross of Christ on the way to Golgotha? Who was also from Cyrene? Yes.
28:12: And then there's Mannaen, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch.
28:19: So where does this guy get his background? He's grown up in the palace with the king.
28:25: And you wonder, how did these guys, this disparate group, ever get together? What's the answer to that? It's called the effectual call of God.
28:37: Right? Why is this disparate group together this afternoon? Aside from, apart from, the grace, the effectual call of God.
28:47: You know, you look at that and you say, man, I see the grace of God.
28:52: Yes.
28:55: And Saul.
28:57: Now notice, as they ministered to the Lord and fasted.
29:01: That word minister there is the same root as, for instance, in Romans chapter 12.
29:09: Therefore, understanding the mercy of God with eyes wide open to the mercy of God.
29:15: I beseech you, brethren.
29:17: Yes? To offer your bodies as what? Living sacrifices.
29:22: Which is your reasonable service of worship.
29:29: The word comes from the combination of the word public and work.
29:35: Liturgy is the way it transliterates into English.
29:39: They were doing the liturgy, the public service work to God as they fasted.
29:46: And in the middle of doing their calling, these men.
29:51: The Holy Spirit says.
29:54: Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
30:04: And then having fasted and prayed, they laid hands on them and set them away.
30:11: When they return, what are they going to do? They're going to report back after their journey.
30:15: Where? To Antioch.
30:18: To their home church who had commended them to the work that God had called them to do.
30:28: Now, in the midst of that, Paul begins this ministry from Antioch, goes to the island 150 miles away to Cyprus, goes into another Antioch, which is interesting.
30:48: There's two Antiochs, right? That's why I said look at your Bible map.
30:52: And Antioch in Pisidia is where he goes into, first of all, as you understand, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
31:01: He goes to the synagogue first.
31:03: That's his strategy.
31:05: And when at the synagogue, some believe, but most turn in envy against him.
31:11: But the unbelieving world out there is so intrigued with the power of the message, the whole city gathers to hear on the next day.
31:21: Next Sunday, Lord's Day.
31:24: And when the Jews see the whole city gather to hear Paul and Barnabas, they're incensed.
31:32: And at that point, Paul says, all right, now having started the message to the Jew, I'm going now to the Gentile, the Roman Empire.
31:46: Remember Jesus had said, if they won't receive you, what are you supposed to do? Shake the dirt off of your feet and go to the next place.
31:53: So Paul stands up in this long sermon in Acts 13.
32:01: When we think of sermons in Acts, we think primarily of Acts, Pentecost, Jerusalem.
32:08: But this sermon is just as packed as the Pentecost sermon.
32:13: And it, most of all, is just as firmly directed to the person and work of Jesus Christ as the previous sermon of Peter.
32:23: As we heard earlier so well, why do people need this Messiah, Mediator, Redeemer? And the answer is, not so they can have their best life now.
32:34: The reason they need it is because this is the man and the only man given from heaven to earth whereby our sins can be forgiven.
32:44: And all those things you were trying to do to keep the law of Moses that you've broken, forgiveness comes through the ministry of Jesus the Christ who died and was raised from the dead.
32:58: And since you consider yourself Jews unworthy of this message that brings eternal life, I'm going to turn now to the Gentiles.
33:09: Because that is what Isaiah 49 said the servant of the Lord would do.
33:16: Because it's too small a thing for me to just be talking to the Jews.
33:22: You follow what I'm trying to say? That long thread of history there.
33:28: All right.
33:30: Making some application here.
33:34: I'm going to say, first of all, what can we learn by way of principle from this account? I'm going to give you four principles that I believe should be understood by the churches today who are engaged in evangelism, not just to people like you, but evangelism to people to the ends of the earth.
34:03: First of all, expect the work of missions to be sequential and incremental.
34:13: See, what event in that chain of events that I just described, what link in the chain could you have omitted and still gotten to the end we got to? And the answer is, oh, they're all connected.
34:26: You know, if those unnamed scattered believers had not gone to Antioch and talked to Greeks, first of all, Barnabas would never have gone there.
34:36: And if Barnabas had never gone there, then Saul would have never gone there.
34:41: And if Saul and Barnabas had never gone there, nobody would have gone on to Antioch of Pisidia, et cetera, et cetera.
34:48: They hadn't come back to Antioch after they left Antioch to get sent from Antioch again.
34:53: Nobody would have gone into Philippi.
34:57: And Lydia, the seller of merchants, purple, would never have had her heart opened by the Holy Spirit to receive the things spoken by Paul.
35:08: These things work together as a chain event.
35:13: There's a pattern that where you see God already at work, you want to join with him there.
35:22: All right, so the answer would be principally, how do we fit into this sequence, right? Because you're not staying alone.
35:33: You're only here because of what somebody did before you.
35:36: And somebody will be after you only because of what you did today.
35:40: It's a wonderful thing.
35:42: But you've got to do your part in this sequential chain of events.
35:47: And nobody's unimportant.
35:49: Number two, and this is really Paul's and the early church's missionary vision and calling were not set by their experience alone.
36:09: As I said before, where did Paul get this idea that he was called to go to Antioch? Because the Jews, that's too small a thing.
36:23: Where did he ever get the idea to say, God commanded us to do this? When somebody could have said, he didn't command you to do that.
36:31: He commanded a servant of the Lord to do that.
36:37: And the answer is, Paul gets his identity.
36:41: Well, sure, he stands before Agrippa three times or other kings three times in the book of Acts.
36:46: And what does he do? Can I tell you my testimony? Basically, he wants to say his story.
36:51: You know, this is what happened.
36:52: I got knocked off my horse.
36:54: I was blinded.
36:55: All those things.
36:56: He tells his story those three ways.
36:59: And some people say, you're out of your mind, Paul.
37:02: But on the other hand, he's not basing his ministry, his vision, his identity on his experience.
37:12: Now, how many people do that today? You know, it's an existential looking world.
37:18: The only thing that's true is what I've experienced.
37:21: And my experience can validate anything.
37:24: If I feel good about it.
37:26: Paul was not there.
37:28: Where he was, was grounded in the scriptures of the Old Testament.
37:34: And he understood, I am in Christ, the servant of the Lord.
37:38: So the commandments that come to the servant of the Lord, I can carry with me as mine.
37:46: Does that make sense to you? How many of you are motivated in what you're doing because of what Isaiah told you to do? I am.
37:57: How could it be otherwise? How could Jesus be motivated to do what he did unless he was grounded in what Isaiah said he would do? And when Paul says, I've been given as a covenant to the people.
38:20: Where did he get that language? And the answer is Isaiah 42.
38:24: I will give you as a covenant to the people, a light to the Gentiles.
38:29: See, how can Paul be a covenant? And it makes us understand that sometimes the covenant is personified, you understand, in a person.
38:38: So what's true of the message of the covenant comes through this person.
38:42: And Paul says, I'm the covenant.
38:45: I'm part of this covenant that I'm preaching to you.
38:47: The covenant of grace.
38:51: This fights me, doesn't it, Hugh? Probably one of the best compliments I've ever heard was from a retired Presbyterian elder a few years ago.
39:03: And I'm not saying this because I want you to believe it's true.
39:07: In fact, I hope it's true, but I don't know if it's true.
39:10: I want it to be true.
39:12: What he said to me was, see, you're an experiential Calvinist.
39:23: I want to know personally and feelingly in my heart the things I know in my head.
39:31: And I realized that if my life is not embodying the message, a message prepared in the mind, it's only going to reach other minds.
39:40: But a message prepared in the heart and the life, it's going to reach other hearts and lives.
39:45: Paul was that guy.
39:51: Number three.
39:54: What we see here, I hope you can see somewhat clearly, is this is the need.
40:02: And this is the need everywhere.
40:04: What is that need? And I'll put it this way.
40:08: The need is for men.
40:14: And I will include the feminine gender in that as well.
40:18: Not in the leadership aspects of all this.
40:22: But God looks for men.
40:26: In an age where we're being told that on many governmental forums today, they're just omitting the M and F box to check.
40:36: What does it matter if you're male and female? Because they're the same anyway.
40:40: They do the same things.
40:41: They have the same capabilities.
40:43: They have the same, well, we can't say created purpose because there is no creation.
40:48: There's persons.
40:50: And the best kind of person is one who doesn't know if they're a male or female.
40:54: They just know they're going to achieve their best personhood by being the best of both.
41:01: Now, that's a reprobate mind.
41:04: But nevertheless, these are men.
41:09: These are forgiven sinners commissioned by the Holy Ghost to do the most important thing that ever could be done in the world.
41:18: And that's bring Jesus Christ's message to sinners.
41:22: Because it's the only way they can ever be made right with God.
41:26: By repenting and believing.
41:31: The church had men that God had prepared.
41:35: And who he would call and use.
41:39: Forgive me if I use a Methodist life as an illustration.
41:44: But as an early believer, I started reading Power of Prayer by E.M.
41:50: Bounds.
41:51: And I love the quote.
41:53: Listen, we are continually striving to create new methods, plans, and organizations to advance the church.
42:03: We're ever working to provide and stimulate growth and effectiveness for the Gospel.
42:08: This trend of the day.
42:09: This is back in the 18, what, 70s? This man was a chaplain in the Civil War.
42:15: The trend of the day, the tendency to lose sight of the man.
42:22: Or else he is lost in the working of the plan or organization.
42:27: But God's plan is to make much of the man.
42:31: Far more of him than of anything else.
42:35: Men are God's method.
42:37: The church is looking for better methods.
42:40: God is looking for better men.
42:43: And the burden of my heart in many ways is you go to seminary these days, you don't learn to be a theologian.
42:50: You learn sociology.
42:52: You learn methodology.
42:53: You learn the best kind of ways to reach the demographic.
42:58: I hate it.
42:59: I'm sick of it.
42:59: I've heard too much of it.
43:01: I want to hear the Bible.
43:02: I want to hear Christ.
43:03: That's why I went to seminary.
43:05: Not to learn a new effective method.
43:09: Men are God's method.
43:13: Church is looking for better methods.
43:15: God's looking for better men.
43:16: Thank you, Mr.
43:18: Founds.
43:21: And let me say, I'm not speaking as a seasoned career missionary.
43:31: But one of the greatest blessings and opportunities God has given to me in my pastoral ministry is occasionally to take missions trips.
43:41: I hope they've been eternally valuable to those that I minister to.
43:46: And the way God has opened that door for me in the main is to go to places where men are being trained for church leadership.
43:55: And to help train those men.
44:00: And I've been there in that kind of a setting in various places on numerous occasions.
44:07: It's affected and helped me as much as I think it's helped the ones I was teaching.
44:14: Again, I've thought through this over the years and adopted what perhaps you've heard from others.
44:22: The principle that I'm responsible to God for the depth of my message.
44:29: God's responsible for the breadth of my ministry.
44:33: Do you understand? I'm responsible to dig the well as deeply as I can.
44:40: God's responsible for who comes to get a drink.
44:45: You ask me, how successful has that worked out for you, Steve? And I'll say, I don't know.
44:51: You know, maybe look 20, 25 years from now and there'll be a better way to answer that question.
44:58: I don't know.
44:59: We're walking by faith, aren't we? Not by sight.
45:02: But are you helping to build men of character for the gospel ministry? And if you are, there's an eternal benefit.
45:14: All right, number four.
45:16: The first missionaries, and this is kind of radical.
45:23: Because some of those places I went overseas, why, they were really staffed by Campus Crusade missionaries, you know? Well, Campus Crusade is not a church.
45:40: The first missionaries were sent out.
45:43: Do you understand? The first missionaries were sent out by a local church.
45:48: Not a mission agency sending.
45:51: Sent by a local church.
45:53: How many people on the mission field do you know that are sent out there by a local church? And the answer is probably not very many.
46:03: And I'm not trying to degrade mission sending agencies or parachurch agencies.
46:08: But that's not the pattern that we're giving in the book of Acts.
46:14: We're the people with enough faith to say, God, birth missionaries from our congregation and let us send them out to the ends of the earth.
46:32: God used the local church.
46:36: And that's why I believe that church understood.
46:42: Antioch, wow, God said work here.
46:45: But it's too small of a thing for us to work in Antioch.
46:50: That's too small.
46:52: What are we thinking? You haven't read your Bible.
46:55: You don't understand the prophets.
46:58: Too small a thing to be delivering people from sin who just look like you and who live in your neck of the woods.
47:09: Four principles there, all right? Fourth one was, this was originating from the local church.
47:17: Now, I'm going to ask the question, what kind of a church was that? Let's go back again for a moment.
47:24: What kind of a church was that? It was a church that had developed a firm and mature doctrinal foundation.
47:32: You remember I just read Paul and Barnabas taught for how long? Before Acts 13 came about, how long? A whole year.
47:46: I love this quote from John Stott.
47:48: It's in his commentary on Acts.
47:51: He says, when we contrast much contemporary evangelism with Paul's, its shallowness is immediately shown up.
48:01: Our evangelism tends to be too ecclesiastical.
48:03: We just invite people to church.
48:07: Whereas Paul also took the gospel out into the secular world.
48:11: Our evangelism seems to be too emotional.
48:15: That is, appeals for decision without an adequate basis of understanding.
48:20: Whereas Paul taught, reasoned, and tried to persuade.
48:25: Our evangelism is too superficial, making brief encounters and expecting quick results.
48:30: Whereas Paul stayed in Corinth and Ephesus for five years, faithfully sowing gospel seed and in due time reaping a harvest.
48:40: For instance, in Ephesians, in Ephesus, remember he camped out after the synagogue threw him out.
48:48: He camped out at a school, the school of the tyrant.
48:53: Tyrannous, okay? It's not the dinosaur.
48:56: That's the place where he taught in Ephesus.
48:59: How long did he teach? Two years.
49:07: And Stott writes, undoubtedly in that schedule in the Mediterranean world, that meant from 11 o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon.
49:20: You get to listen to the apostle Paul teach Isaiah and Jeremiah and Exodus.
49:27: Because that's the only Bible he had, right? I mean, he's not teaching them Titus and 1st and 2nd Timothy.
49:38: That's five hours a day, six days a week, because on the Lord's day they're going to be worshipping together.
49:45: Five hours a day, six days a week, two years, that's 3,120 hours of gospel argument.
49:57: Okay, after 3,100 hours of apostolic teaching, here's your diploma.
50:08: It's not surprising, Dr.
50:10: Luke records, all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.
50:20: This is a firm doctrinal foundation.
50:22: Number two, the doctrinal foundation produced a church that devoted herself first to what? Hello? Worship.
50:31: As they ministered to the Lord, and as they fasted, they get the missionary call.
50:40: If they wouldn't have got the missionary call at that time, what would they have done? They would have continued in their worship and service.
50:49: Worship was the first priority of this church.
50:52: That's a characteristic of it.
50:54: That's why in John Piper's good book on evangelism and world missions, he says, what? Evangelism exists because worship doesn't.
51:04: Why do we want to evangelize? Because we want people to worship.
51:09: If you're really going to evangelize, what you know is who God is.
51:14: If you know who God is, what can you do other than worship him? And if you get to know him better and better and better, how can you do anything other than continue to worship him better and better and better? Worship was what was happening before the missionary call.
51:33: And the missionary call came out of worship.
51:37: So, if you want to be like Antioch, what? Know God.
51:42: If you know God, you're going to worship him.
51:46: Those who know your name will trust in you, for you have never forsaken those who seek you.
51:54: Number three, Antioch was a local church, but let me say it this way.
52:05: Antioch was not an independent church.
52:11: It was not an independent church.
52:13: Now, I'm not here to try to persuade you to be Presbyterian at all.
52:19: And that's why I love people like John Owen, who was an independent, and Jonathan Edwards, who was a congregational.
52:27: But believe me, these men were not working in an independent ministry setting.
52:33: They were networked together with local, like-minded, Bible-believing churches.
52:38: They worked together.
52:40: Do you understand? It was a local church, but it was not an independent church.
52:45: How do we know that? Well, I already told you.
52:49: There's God at work in Antioch.
52:51: Is that good enough? No, because there's a church in Jerusalem, and the church in Jerusalem is connected with the church in Antioch.
53:03: And when we get word in Antioch that the church in Jerusalem is going to have a drought, we need to go help the mother church back in Jerusalem, and we're going to share Barnabas and Saul with you.
53:15: Do you understand? And when some people later will come into Antioch and say, you're not really a real Christian, because you haven't been circumcised, and you're not following the law of Moses enough, and Saul, Paul says, wait a minute, I'll go to the mat with you on that one.
53:32: We'll go back to Jerusalem.
53:33: What do they do at Jerusalem? They have a council.
53:36: What does the council say? You don't have to get circumcised.
53:41: Here, carry this letter back.
53:43: Where do you carry it back to? The answer is Antioch.
53:49: You know, these people are connected.
53:51: They're working together.
53:56: So, the local church sending out the missionary, but it's not a standalone operation either.
54:02: We're accountable to one another.
54:05: That's the kind of church it was.
54:09: Number four.
54:11: I hope you can see, it was Holy Spirit gifted.
54:17: There were at the church in Antioch.
54:19: What? Prophets? How do you get to be a prophet? An expounder of the Word of God? How do you get to be a teacher? How does that happen? And the answer is, it's the gifting and calling of the Holy Spirit.
54:34: How does anybody respond to the Lord saving me anyway? And the answer is, only by the monergistic work of God, the Holy Spirit.
54:46: So, in the midst of this worship, what happens if the Holy Spirit speaks? The Holy Spirit says, set apart Barnabas and Paul to the work that I have called them to.
55:01: But the church understands that if the Holy Spirit said that, then we send them out after we lay hands on them.
55:09: Now, what do we know about this influence of the Spirit of God? And the answer is, we ought to know as much about it experientially as they did in Antioch.
55:23: Or would you dispute with me about that? I'm not arguing for the continuance of extraordinary gifts.
55:31: I am certainly arguing over the necessity of it being God, the Holy Spirit's work.
55:39: And we won't move until we know that's going on.
55:45: But after it happens, we don't have any excuse for holding back a moment.
55:55: The Holy Spirit, God, the Holy Spirit said, I'm the one in charge.
56:00: And number five, I'm reaching my end here.
56:03: What kind of a church was this? It was a church in which the local ministry became too small a thing.
56:14: I think any pastor in training needs to be able to say honestly to the Lord, if I'm not called to foreign missions, I'm under obligation to understand why I'm not.
56:32: And I think there can be some good reasons why you're not.
56:35: You're called here.
56:38: But if you're called here, that doesn't mean that you're unconcerned or don't give the best of your efforts.
56:48: To go to the ends of the earth by whatever door God opens to cooperate and to participate in what he's doing there.
56:57: Again, I would say to you, if you know you have a sound pastor and you're content to just let him speak to you Sunday by Sunday in ocean way, it's too small a thing.
57:16: Send him somewhere.
57:18: Not forever.
57:22: Send him there.
57:23: You're going to love what you get back.
57:29: Besides that, you're just as much participating in that work as he is out there.
57:36: You're giving the freedom and permission to go.
57:39: Maybe you're supporting him in many ways as he goes, but send him out when the Holy Spirit opens the door to go.
57:51: I'm not saying because it's too small a thing.
57:54: You need to buy this big billboard marquee with flashing lights that says World Outreach Center.
58:02: And you got this 12-foot diameter disc that you're broadcasting.
58:10: I'm not saying that.
58:12: But if you're faithful to the gospel, you need to be understanding that it's too small of a thing if you're operating just here.
58:23: In fact, do you know that in Jacksonville, there are tens of thousands of immigrants from probably 50 or 60 nations that come here? And I know I could help you if you don't know names or numbers or people to put you in touch with them.
58:47: They're crying for your sound labor as they minister to people who are coming to us and are doing it effectively.
59:00: One of the greatest joys I have, and this is probably saying too much about my prideful heart, but I look forward to getting every month the Sermon Audio monthly reports.
59:15: I mean, here's these sermons going out from Jacksonville, and I'm reading, Hey, somebody in Tunisia downloaded that.
59:27: Hello? Somebody in Thailand was listening.
59:34: Yeah, it's just one person.
59:40: Yeah? Yeah.
59:49: If you multiply that by a thousand pulpits that are faithfully preaching the gospel, doesn't that excite you? What are you going to argue with God and complain that it's only one person? It's a wonderful thing to be living in this world.
01:00:08: I mean, here's your pastor on Sermon Audio.
01:00:11: Do you pray for him? You pray for the sermons as they're going broadcast around the world? Do you? You need to.
01:00:22: Because somewhere out there, there's going to be another Saul.
01:00:27: You say, he's just one guy.
01:00:29: Yeah, made quite a difference though, didn't it? That one guy.
01:00:40: It was a church in which local ministry became too small a thing.
01:00:45: It's too small a vision to conduct gospel preaching only locally.
01:00:54: And again, we're not looking at some grandiose pound my chest kind of a thing.
01:01:02: Looking at simple, servant of the Lord attitude.
01:01:10: Where's the lowest place I can go? Because grace flows downhill.
01:01:18: And if I can get to the lowest place, I'll get more grace.
01:01:22: I'll be more of a servant and the servant of the Lord.
01:01:26: Through the church today, we'll see the power of God bringing an end to this age of gospel preaching.
01:01:37: You're not responsible to do it all.
01:01:39: You're responsible to engage at the points where God calls you to join him and where he's already at work.
01:01:48: But it's too small of a thing for you to only pray and work and think where you are locally.
01:01:59: Look at the church in Antioch and seek to follow her pattern.
01:02:04: And that means you're going to pray.
01:02:06: You're going to pray, pleading the promise.
01:02:10: Listen, God swears, as surely as I live, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord is going to cover this earth as the waters cover the sea.
01:02:26: And how amazingly gracious that God would allow us to be a part of the answer to our own prayers to rust forth labors into the harvest.
01:02:37: And we're going to be a part of the answer to that field.
01:02:38: Let's close as we pray.
01:02:40: I'll turn to Psalm 67.
01:02:50: Our fathers, we stand at the end of this conference.
01:02:53: We bow before you.
01:02:54: We pray that our small service would still be multiplied and honored like that little boy who brought the fish and the loaves to so miraculously feed so much.
01:03:13: The weapons of our warfare are not carnal.
01:03:17: We don't defeat Goliath with sword and helmet and shield.
01:03:23: We have a little sling and we have a stone.
01:03:27: So it might be understood that the battle belongs to the Lord.
01:03:34: But we pray as we're instructed to pray, God, be merciful to us and bless us.
01:03:40: God, cause your face to shine upon us.
01:03:44: Why? So that your way may be known on the earth and your salvation among all the nations.
01:03:55: So all the peoples might praise you, O God, let all the peoples praise you.
01:04:02: Oh, let the nations be glad, sing for joy.
01:04:06: Cause there'll never be any joy or gladness without Christ.
01:04:11: For you shall judge the people righteously.
01:04:14: You shall govern the nations on the earth.
01:04:18: Oh God, let the peoples praise you.
01:04:21: Oh God, let the peoples praise you.
01:04:24: Then the earth shall yield her increase.
01:04:28: God, our own God shall bless us.
01:04:31: God shall bless us.
01:04:33: And all the ends of the earth, all the ends of the earth shall fear and reverence him.
01:04:40: Oh Lord, we know that you promised that you will not be disappointed.
01:04:47: And even now Christ is satisfied because he knows all those for whom he has died will in fact come to be in Christ.
01:04:59: Help us, O Lord, to be agents to bring this to pass.
01:05:04: So that all the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
01:05:10: For Christ's sake.
01:05:11: Amen.
01:05:28: That was a powerful message, brother.
01:05:29: Thank you.
01:05:30: Thank you for that.
01:05:34: That was good.
01:05:36: We want to now have our last break.
01:05:41: We're going to take a bookstore break.
01:05:43: Refreshments, I think are still going to be some in there.
01:05:46: They may or may not.
01:05:47: But I'm sure we have bottles of water and stuff if folks need.