Ends Of The Earth - How's That Work?

The Great Commission and the Biblical Pattern for Missions

As you know, for the past 23 or so years, after we left Bethlehem, we have been associated with New Tribes Mission and the whole missions enterprise. After we got home from Bolivia in 2003, we went to Charlotte, North Carolina, where we represented the work and the interest of the mission to pastors and churches there on the buckle of the Bible belt.

In a 40-mile radius of our home, just east of Charlotte, there were, if you did the Google thing, for churches you would find 12 ,500 churches in that circle, and a great many of them, I discovered, had never seen a real, live missionary in their church ever.

OK? And there's reasons for that that we may get into. I recently had the opportunity to review with the church what the Bible has to say about how to operate its missions program, so I thought I would share that with you this morning also.

Some of that is going to be familiar to you because you were here when we looked at Colossians for two or three weeks, and that is an integral part of this whole thing. It's important that we go back to the scriptures and look to see how the scriptures operated, how the first century church operated, lest we fall into the trap of every hot idea that comes down the road in evangelical Christianity in America today.

This is what has given us Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds in the parking lot, bowling alleys in the basement, to try to lure pagans off the golf course at 11 o 'clock on Sunday morning so they will come in and be evangelized in church, which completely misses the point.

All right? And so when we pursue missions, we want to look at the biblical pattern also. So let's pray and ask the Lord to help us to do that this morning in the short time that we have together. They've postponed the late service till 1230, so we have a little extra time this morning.

OK. Heavenly Father, we are thankful for Your Word. We're thankful for the instruction that it gives us, for the patterns that it lays out, for our admonition, for our following. We pray that as we look this morning at Your Word that You would encourage us again concerning the way that we do missions, and what we ought to be doing there, and how we ought to be doing it.

We ask these things that the Lord Jesus Christ would be glorified in all that we do. It's in His name that we pray, Father. Amen. I'm going to begin in Acts, and we're going to just take a little helicopter ride over the book of Acts.

And I'll meet you in Colossians chapter 1 if you want to try to hang on through Acts. That's OK, too. And we will finally end up in Romans. I want to talk this morning about four churches and what happened to them concerning what they did about the Great Commission.

We all know the Great Commission, right? Jesus said, Matthew 28, Jesus said, going make disciples. The word there is a present participle, and that's not unimportant. Going make disciples, and it's going to be particularly important for the Church of Jerusalem, the first church that we're going to look at this morning, because that's exactly how they ended up carrying out the Great Commission.

So as you go, whatever you do, however you do it, you make disciples, you teach them to obey everything that the Lord has commanded them, having baptized them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And then the last word of Jesus to his disciples before he left in Acts chapter 1, beginning at verse 8, you're going to be my witnesses. They were all concerned about whether or not he was going to establish the kingdom that day.

He said, no, it's going to be a little while. It's been a littler while, and now it's been a bigger while than a great many of them and some of us have thought before the kingdom is finally consummated, and in between here has been the church age, which has included us.

And in any case, he said, you're going to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. The ends of the earth. And we're going to look and see how that proceeded through the New Testament.

I'm going to begin in Acts chapter 2. At Acts chapter 2, on the day of Pentecost, we have Peter preaching, and 3 ,000 people will come to the Lord that day. They are baptized, and the church at Jerusalem forms.

Now, not everybody that came to Christ on that day, at least in my view, not everybody that came to Christ on that day came and stayed at the church in Jerusalem. The church in Jerusalem was, no doubt, a good-sized group of people.

We're told it was being added to daily, but not everybody that was there on the day of Pentecost remained in Jerusalem to be part of that church. You need to understand that in the, are you familiar with the term diaspora, the dispersed Jews all over the world?

There is still a diaspora, dispersed Jews all over the world. A great many of them in New York City and a lot of other places around the United States. But in this day, in the first century world, they came back to Jerusalem as often as they could for the major holidays.

That would be for Passover. That was when Jesus was crucified, and a great many of them were in the city. And then 50 days later, at the Feast of Pentecost, a great many of them were in the city again for that great feast, and they came from all over the world.

And you'll recall that Acts chapter 2 lists many of the places from which they came, including Rome. Just tuck that in the back of your head, okay? Because we're gonna get there toward the end of the hour.

And in case they heard the gospel, they were cut to the heart. Peter said to them, what was the word this morning in church? Repent, which they did, and be baptized upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They did, 3 ,000 of them were baptized that day. At the end of chapter 2, we have the commentary on how their church was proceeding at Acts 2, verse 42. They devoted themselves, they, the church of Jerusalem, those that had believed on the day of Pentecost, and then those that had come since then, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, and awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Now, we look at those verses, and by the way, let me just add this little footnote. I'm doing a Bible study in Hebrews on Sunday night in the wilds of Hardwick, okay?

And you'll notice that these people regularly attended the worship services and the congregation that met in the temple, okay? The temple was still standing. If you read the book of Hebrews, you will not understand the book of Hebrews if you do not understand it was written while the temple was still standing.

Now, I'm gonna let it go at that, but in any case, you see that that's what they did. And then they met in their homes and they broke bread. Presumably it was the communion service, which we commemorated this morning.

And so we look at that and we go, wow, this was great, great, great. This group of people meeting in Jerusalem and can't get any better than that. They had everything in common. They all loved each other.

People were being added to the Lord daily, to the church daily as the Lord was saving them and so on and so forth. People in Jerusalem were being added to the church daily. Now, what you don't see here in this little commentary, what you don't see here is that the church of Jerusalem was giving any particular attention to the last instructions of the Lord Jesus, which was going into all the world, make disciples, baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you.

They were teaching everybody in Jerusalem to obey everything that Jesus had commanded. But we don't find anything here about their attention to the so-called Great Commission. So they were doing the thing about being witnesses in Jerusalem.

And Jesus had said that, you're gonna be my witnesses in Jerusalem. And I think by extension, over 2000 years, Jesus says to us, you're gonna be my witnesses in the environs of West Boylston, Massachusetts, but that's not the end of the story.

It can't be the end of the story because the Lord has not ordained it to be the end of the story. And the other thing is this, for the wellbeing of the church, we have to keep our eyes on the ends of the earth.

It is good that we have people, particularly from Eastern Europe coming here that are involved with Bethlehem Baptist Church. That is a good thing. One of the, I used to many years ago, hundreds of years ago, I taught high school kids how to drive, trying to make a little extra money after school and all of that.

Here's one of the first things you teach. When you're steering this car, you keep your eyes up. You don't look down in front of this car, trying to make sure that it stays in the road. You keep your eyes up.

If you keep your eyes up and you're looking way down the road, everything else between you and way down the road is gonna get taken care of. Frankly, I think that's a piece of the reason for the Great Commission.

You're gonna take this to the ends of the earth. And if you take it to the ends of the earth, then West Boylston and Holden and Massachusetts and all the rest of it are gonna get taken care of in between.

Judea, Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, they're gonna be taken care of. You keep your eyes up on the ends of the earth. That's what I think was going on. And I don't think it was going on at the church in Jerusalem.

In fact, I'm quite sure it wasn't going on at the church in Jerusalem for a couple of reasons. First of all, they thought that salvation, they had missed a little piece of the Old Testament prophets. They thought that salvation and Messiah was for the Jews only.

You recall, in the early chapters of the book of Acts, every time somebody that was not a Jew came to Christ, first of all, the half-breed Samaritans, Samaritans, they have believed. How could that possibly be?

Gotta send a committee to check that out and see what goes on. Then Peter goes to Cornelius, the Gentile. The Gentiles are worse than half-breed Samaritans. They're us, okay? They're us. Gotta send a committee to make sure that that really could possibly have happened.

And then when the committee got there and reported back to the church, the church wasn't quite sure at all that they might not have struck their heads on something and were giving them a straight report.

How could anybody but Jews possibly come to Christ? Well, they'd missed a little bit of the Old Testament. For example, they had missed in the promise that God made to Abraham, I'm gonna give you a people in perpetuity, I'm gonna give you a land in perpetuity, and so on.

I'm gonna make you a nation as numerous as the stars in the sand of the sea, and I'm gonna make sure that all nations of the world will be blessed through you in Genesis chapter 12 there. They missed that, apparently.

And even, for example, in Psalm 86, where we read about its fulfillment, David looking ahead to its fulfillment, he says, there is no God like you. All the nations that you have made will come. All the nations that you have made will come and worship you, O Lord.

They didn't get that at Jerusalem. They didn't get that part. So there they were, just having a great time. So that's the first church. No apparent attention to the Great Commission. So what happens when a church does not give its attention to the Great Commission?

Some of the little churches down in North Carolina that we ran across that had never seen a real, live-in-the-flesh missionary in their church ever in their whole existence, part of that comes from the system to which many of them were attached, and it was this.

We pool all of our resources and we all give to the program and then the program sends out the missionaries. And I'm not complaining about that particularly. That particular program that sends out the missionaries cares for them well, but the problem is that they then begin to think this way.

Well, we give to the program, so we don't need to worry about missions. We don't need to concern ourselves with that. We give to the program. That was kind of where the Church of Jerusalem was. I don't know whether they gave to the program or not, but they weren't concerning themselves about the Great Commission.

When that happens, the Lord will finally step in, which He did in the church in Jerusalem, all right? I'm gonna skip up to Acts chapter eight. In Acts chapter seven, we have the first Christian martyr, the first person that was martyred for the sake of the gospel.

You know the story, it was Stephen. And by the way, one of the great histories of salvation is given as Stephen preaches to these people, for which they do not plant a rose on his nose, but a stone on his head, all right?

And Stephen is martyred and in Acts chapter eight, I read Saul approved of his execution. Saul of Tarsus, Pharisee of the Pharisees, born of the tribe of Benjamin, on his way to heaven, no doubt because he was a good Pharisee, kept all the rules, dotted all the I's, crossed all the T's.

And this new sect that was arising, that was even polluting the temple with their presence, this new sect based on this Nazarene, they needed to be put down. And so Saul of Tarsus approved of his execution.

And there arose on that day, that is the day that Stephen was martyred, a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And here's where the Lord stepped in, where the great commission is concerned.

And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. Oh, really? You're gonna be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. And Jesus didn't say this, but this is how it worked out.

And if you don't pay attention to that, I'm gonna make sure that you get to Judea and Samaria. And he did. And how did it happen? It happened because Stephen was martyred and a great persecution broke out that day in Jerusalem.

And these people were scattered all over the place. Everybody except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen, made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house.

He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Skipping up to Acts chapter 11, okay? These missionaries that we have on the scene now, they are not missionaries sent by anybody. They are missionaries driven by a guy named Saul of Tarsus.

At Acts chapter 11, I read this, verse 19. Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.

See, we're gonna keep this to the Jews. For one thing, they were scared. They were Jews from Jerusalem. They'd been driven up there. They were afraid. They didn't just run out to every Gentile gathering in the world talking about Messiah, but they kind of slipped into the synagogues.

And of course that became Paul's style too. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, spoke to the Greeks. Also the Gentiles preaching the Lord Jesus.

And the hand of the Lord was with them. And a great number who believed turned to the Lord. Okay, now we're at Antioch in Syria. There were in the church at Antioch, I'm in chapter 13 now, beginning at verse one.

I told you we're gonna take a quick trip over the book of Acts. So people were scattered everywhere. Mostly they went to the Jews. This was gonna be a Jewish deal, but a few guys from Cyprus and Cyrene, they talked to the Greeks.

They talked to some of the Hellenists. They told them about the Lord. And lo and behold, to the shock, I'm sure, of many Jewish Christians, to their shock, the Gentiles began to come to the Lord. So when you get to chapter 13 and you get to this church at Antioch, it is in many, many ways a Gentile church.

It is in many, many ways a Bethlehem Bible church. All right, although there are Jewish believers there too. We know that, by the way, because I skipped up to chapter 13. We know that because by this time, the deacons had already been appointed, had they not, at the church at Antioch.

And the reason that deacons were appointed, the first deacons were appointed, that is men that would serve the church, was because there was a conflict between how things were being distributed between the Jewish believers and the Hellenist believers, the Greek believers, in the church at Antioch.

And so the apostles said, we keep having to have these wrangles over the potluck suppers. And it's not good for us that we do that. And so what we need to be doing is preaching the Word. So we're going to appoint men who are going to oversee all of these things and work these things out where there is conflict arising in the church at Antioch.

So they appointed these guys. And guess what? You can look back, I'm not going there today. You can look back, the names of all of those guys are Greek names, I think, with the exception of one, okay?

So the church at Antioch is a very mixed bag, okay? It is a very much a Bethlehem Bible type church. A lot of Gentiles believers there, Jewish believers there, all kinds of believers there, Acts chapter 13.

Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, indeed. Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manion, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. Okay, now some of those people, some of those people that you read about there, particularly the guy that is the lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, that's beginning to sneak way over here toward Gentiles.

But in any case, Paul is there, or Saul is there, Saul of Tarsus. The Christians have been convinced that it wasn't just a spy job for him to claim to know Christ, that he really, in fact, did know Christ.

He arrives there at the church at Antioch. There he teaches. There he, I don't know, he was preaching. I don't know what his whole role was there or anything like that. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

I want you to notice that it was while they were worshiping, I presume while they were in the Word, and the Word, of course, at that time would have been the Septuagint, the Old Testament, primarily, plus whatever the apostles were teaching that they were getting from the Septuagint and by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Okay, and there are Saul and Barnabas there. But while they are worshiping, while they are fasting, while they have their noses, we'd say it this way, while they have their noses in the book, okay, encountering the Lord in that way, the Holy Spirit said, the Holy Spirit said, this wasn't a hot idea because somebody went to a conference.

This wasn't a book that had come out and was the hottest thing in the Bible bookstore. Okay, while they were worshiping, the Holy Spirit said, you set apart for me Saul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them.

Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them. And here's the beautiful word that comes down to us through 2000 years. They sent them off. The church at Antioch sent them off. Churches send missionaries.

Mission boards do not send missionaries. Well, some of them do, but churches send missionaries, okay? New Tribes Mission is a mission that was founded kind of in the middle of what is called the modern missions movement, beginning back toward the beginning of the 20th century.

New Tribes Mission is founded in 1942, along with things like Navigators, along with things like SIM, along with all of these missions that you've heard about for a long, long time. But here's the deal.

A lot of those missions, including New Tribes, a lot of those missions were para-church organizations. They weren't hooked up to any local churches in particular. There was a reason that this happened, by the way.

And the reason was that churches, because they were fighting the great battles of liberalism, that is the sound Orthodox churches, and because liberal churches had decided something else altogether, who knows what, all right?

Because that had happened, the church had dropped the ball in missions. And so people who were inspired to follow the Great Commission and to obey the Great Commission were kind of on their own hook. And it was out of that that the so-called modern missions movement comes.

And you get these independent mission boards that are sending missionaries. I want you to know that's not a biblical pattern. I want you to know also that New Tribes Mission, in particular, repented of that once the churches began to get the picture that they are responsible for the Great Commission.

Here's how New Tribes Mission sees itself today. New Tribes Mission sees itself as a group that equips people for tribal evangelism, okay? I understand you can't just jump up from Bethlehem Bible Church and run off to Papua New Guinea and have the foggiest notion about what you're gonna do when you get there.

Somebody that's been there before would be very helpful to get you equipped to do that job. However, and that someone, among others, that someone is New Tribes Mission, okay? However, however, however, we are not the sending agency.

The local church sends missionaries. New Tribes Mission equips those missionaries, but those missionaries are under the supervision and under the authority of the church that has sent them. And no New Triber these days goes out to the mission field without a sending church, not a sending missions board, a sending church, okay?

That is consonant with this pattern that we see here. After they laid hands on them and prayed for them, they sent them off. That's what happened at the church at Antioch. And by the way, this went on long before the modern missions movement.

You remember the William Carey experience, don't you? Because the people back in William Carey's day were so in the center of the tulip patch that they believed they didn't, tulip, we all know that, right?

Okay. They were so Calvinistic and so involved in election that they had come to the conclusion that they didn't need to be involved in evangelism at all. And so William Carey was told, Mr. Carey, if God wants to save the heathen, He will save the heathen and without your help.

William Carey said, I don't think that's right. And so he took off for India on his own with his very sick and perhaps insane wife on his own to India and a great many people, particularly Baptist people who come from India these days can trace their roots back to William Carey.

So it wasn't that the gospel never got out. It wasn't that the Lord didn't bless some of those things, but that was not the biblical pattern. The biblical pattern is here. Churches send missionaries. I want you to notice this also.

The sending of missionaries to the ends of the earth is Holy Spirit work. That's the Holy Spirit at work in the church. If the Holy Spirit is at work in the church, that people would be saved here. The Holy Spirit will be at work in the church to see that missionaries are sent from the church to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Now, I'm almost, for those of you that are holding your thumb in Colossians chapter one, I'm almost there. All right. But as you recall from our own study in Colossians chapter one, the story of the church of Colossae begins in Acts chapter 18.

That's where it begins. After this, Paul stayed many days longer and then took leave of the brothers and set sail for Syria. I'm at verse 18, by the way. Set sail for Syria and with him Priscilla and Aquila.

At Senchry he had cut his hair for he was under a vow. And they came to Ephesus and he left them there, but he himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. Okay, now here's the deal. Paul was on his way back from his second missionary journey, that's what we've just read here, on his way back from his second missionary journey, watch this, to report to the church that sent him out to where he had gone on his second missionary journey because they had a right and a reason to know what they had, what he was doing under their aegis, under their authority, under their sending.

The Apostle Paul, the great missionary apostle, the Apostle Paul felt himself very much obligated to report to the church at Antioch what had gone on, just as people will be coming here next week, I presume, are here to report in part to Bethlehem Bible Church what has happened because you have been involved in what's been going on in Germany through Pastor Mike and through others going and through maybe money that you've sent and whatever, okay?

So Paul's on his way back to Antioch to report what's happened. As he does that, he comes to Ephesus, the great seaport town in Asia Minor. And there, while the others leave, Paul goes into the synagogue to begin to reason with the Jews, which he does, that's his style.

All right, at verse 20, they asked him to stay for a longer period. They wanted to hear more. He declined. Why did he decline? He was on his way back to Antioch to make a report to the church that had sent him out.

That's why he declined, all right? But on taking leave of them, he said, I will return to you if God wills. And he set sail from Ephesus to go back to report to the church that had sent him out, okay?

Now, chapter 19, Paul makes good on his promise to those Jews. Chapter 19 starts this way. And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country, should probably be translated the upper country, the upland country.

In other words, he didn't go by boat this time. He came over. See, by the way, for those of you that are familiar with this technology, this is a book, okay? Those of you that have those, and you're not just scrolling around all over the place, okay?

For those of you that have those, you may find in the back pages with pictures. Those pictures are maps, okay? And so what I'm talking about here, you can follow in the map of Paul's second and third missionary journey, all right?

And I know some of you scrollers are going, I got it, I already Googled it right here. I got it, the map of Paul's, I get it. Okay, I got that, all right? In any case, it might do good for you to have a look at one of those maps.

Paul, in his third missionary journey, he goes back overland through Asia Minor, and there he comes back to Ephesus because he had told those guys, I'll come back if the Lord wills. Verse eight, chapter 19.

He entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the way before the congregation, he withdrew from him and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.

This continued for two years. Okay, now watch it. I want you to watch this. Paul had come to Ephesus on his second missionary journey. He had been there about three weeks. They said, I'll stay, I'll stay.

No, I can't, I gotta go report to the church at Antioch, okay? But I'll come back if the Lord wills. Well, the Lord willed, he came back. Okay, he's there about three months. The Jews get cranky, which was always what happened when Paul went into the synagogue to preach the gospel.

And so he took the disciples and he goes to the hall of Tyrannus, apparently not far away. And there he stays for two years. So the gospel is going out from Ephesus for about two and a half years minimum from the apostle Paul.

Watch the commentary at verse 10. This continued for two years so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. And where did they hear it? They heard it from Paul being in Ephesus.

And that brings us, of course, to the Colossians. And I'm not gonna do this because we already did that. If you didn't make those Sunday school classes, well, you're out of luck, okay? What happens is, people from way back up in the Lycus River Valley, a hundred miles from Ephesus, a few of them probably on business, a few of them come and they hear the gospel.

They're at the school of Tyrannus. And they are among all the residents of Asia who heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. All right? And so they go back up the Lycus River Valley up to what we remember, we called that the Tri-Cities, Colossi.

I can do this. Laodicea and Hierapolis, those three little towns about 10 miles apart in a triangle, way up there in the Lycus River Valley. They went up there and they gave the gospel. Now here's the commentary at Colossians chapter one.

Paul talks to the Colossians whom he had never met. They were a hundred miles away, back up the river. He was in Ephesus preaching the gospel, so he'd never met them. Except for a few, he knew two or three of them, and one of them is gonna be mentioned here.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we pray for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.

Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you as indeed in the whole world, all the residents of Asia, okay, in the whole world is bearing fruit and increasing as it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

Verse seven, just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf. The ESV correctly translates. Okay, so here's the deal. Paul, by the time he writes to these Colossians, he is in Rome, in prison.

Okay? He writes to the Colossians and he says, Epaphras, who came back up the Lycus River Valley, gave you the gospel and founded the churches at Laodicea, Hierapolis and Colossae. Okay? Because he did that, he is here now with me and he is a faithful minister on your behalf.

And so here's the other principle that comes out of the experience of the church at Colossae. The church at Colossae sent Epaphras to help Paul in the ministry, in the prison ministry at Rome. And so Epaphras, now Rome's a thousand miles from Colossae.

And so Epaphras becomes the eyes, the ears, the hands, the feet of the people at Colossae to the apostle Paul. And not only to the apostle Paul, but you'll recall that as Paul writes to the Philippians, a different crowd, Paul writes to them, some of the Praetorian guard have come to Christ.

Some of the people that guard Caesar, you know, the secret service, they have come to Christ. You know why that's happened? Because Paul was under guard 24 hours a day. All right, how'd you like to be chained to Paul for eight hours if you were a pagan?

Okay, I think you're going to hear the gospel. Not only are you going to hear the gospel, if you don't want to hear the gospel, you're going to hear the gospel. And some of them came to believe. And so the Colossians had, and part of their investment was in those apostles that were in Epaphras, who was in Rome.

And the Colossians were involved in that. And you see how this whole thing works together. But Epaphras was the eyes, ears, hands, and feet of the people in Colossae to the salvation of some of the Praetorian guard, to the help of Paul, and all of that that was going on in Rome at that time.

And so here's another principle that we draw out of that. Missionaries on the mission field at the ends of the earth need to have a relationship with the church that sent them. We understand about that personally.

Judy and I understand about that personally. We have had a relationship to you even when I was no longer your pastor. Nevertheless, there was a relationship to you that continues to this day, thankfully.

And we're grateful for that, all right? In every way. And that is a biblical pattern that we find here in the experience of the Colossians. Listen to the relationship between Epaphras and the Colossians.

Epaphras, who is one of you? Paul never said Epaphras is mine now. No, he's one of you. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.

For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you. That's where the relationship between the church and the missionary. You want people from Germany to say about these men that are coming in the next week or two.

We bear witness that they have worked hard for you, Bethlehem Bible Church. That's the kind of relationship that is supposed to be going on between missionaries on the field and the churches that send them.

Okay, he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and Heropolis, okay? Now, we only got about five minutes and I think we can stall these late mass people just long enough to get this in, okay?

All right. Don't tell them I said that, all right. Come now to the church at Rome, last church, okay? I understand that the epistle to the Romans is the great place where Paul lays out the gospel in the whole nine yards on salvation.

Justification, sanctification, glorification. We look at the book of Romans and we say, wow, this is where it's all laid out. And that's true, it is. But I want you to understand that's not why Paul wrote the book.

Because the great exposition of the gospel that is in Romans is sandwiched between two bookends. And the two bookends are about missions. Paul had never met the Romans. Say, how was the church at Rome founded?