Missions

Well, as mentioned, my family and I, we have been serving in The Philippines for twenty two years this July. I'm here with my wife, Jessica. We have seven children. Three are married. We have three grandchildren as well. One, our daughter, lives here in The States in California. Our two oldest sons are in The Philippines with their wives.

Two of our grandkids are there. One is here. And we have one daughter studying in university in South Korea, and then we have three that are still with us. Our oldest is 33. Our youngest is 10. So we've got a pretty good range there. This August, we'll have been married thirty seven years.

We actually met in California when we were 14 years old. We lived in the same city. My wife was born in The Philippines, but her family moved here when she was seven years old. And then when God burdened my heart for going to The Philippines, he included in that vision or that burden is not just training up men in The Philippines, but men and women in the churches and strengthening churches through the country and even to other nations in Asia.

And it took a little time for the Lord to prepare me and a little time to prepare my wife's heart as well to bring her back to The Philippines because her family came at some difficulty. They actually had to leave their children behind. They couldn't afford to come here with their kids.

So they came here and got jobs. They waited in line and did the legal process to get here. And and then they brought their kids, and the Lord was kind in that as well. And he is allowing us to train men and work with many churches representing 13 languages and about probably well, the churches we can't even count because there's so many students in other countries.

But it's a blessing to have a ministry of multiplication like that. And I would say we are doing nothing. We get to watch what the Lord does. He's doing awesome things. We try not to get in the way. We make mistakes, of course, and we repent and ask for his forgiveness for that.

And we try to faithfully serve him, and it's a joy to watch churches and men and women grow and be strengthened. Well, we're here on furlough right now. And during this time, we've been speaking at different churches, thanking many churches like yourself. Your churches helped our ministry in The Philippines.

We have a tribal group of people up north we're working with that are mainly a Muslim group. They have the New Testament in their language, not the old yet, and they haven't had it that long. And about two, three people a year die from bad water. And so your church helped with some funds to help with finding and drilling a well.

I don't know if that's been completed yet, but they're also doing water filtration. And then our local church in The Philippines goes out weekly and does bible studies with them and is teaching them, and we're building a facility. Very informal. It has a roof but no walls, but it'll be a nice place for them to meet and worship.

So thank you so much. And getting to know us, we covet your prayers. We do have prayer cards that we brought. We're not raising support, but we sure would love to have more people praying for us. And we in in saying thank you, I wanna share the Lord's word with you.

And being here and meeting those churches a few months ago, I was speaking with a pastor's friend, and I think this a pastoral friend of mine. And I think this ties into what I'll be teaching today from Acts chapter 13 verses one through three. That pastor felt responsible for the disappointment of his congregation because they experienced the failure of three of their missionaries.

And as one of their pastor elders who advocated for three families to go out, I don't know if they were all in Asia, but one of them was definite no, one was in Asia, one was in Europe, and the other one I'm not sure. One of the missionaries even had to be disciplined out of their church.

It was that bad. So it was very heartbreaking. And understandably, members were like, how could this happen? You vouched for these families. We invested a lot of money, a lot of prayer. We sent teams to them. How could this happen? And he felt that pressure. Now granted that one one of the men that I'm thinking of, he was on the field for many years and started out well.

This can happen. We are sinners, of course. But we wanna minimize failures like that. So we're gonna be looking at that because it breaks our heart when people that we've trusted, we've prayed for, we've finished excuse me, we've supported. And we've that. To And faithful stewards of God's resources in reaching the nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Well, the early church was faced with the same dilemma. They were working on obeying Jesus' command. In in the beginning of Acts, he commanded them to preach the gospel not only in their hometown of Jerusalem, but in the nearby cities of Judea and then even the regions of their enemies in Samaria and to the ends of the earth, foreign places where different languages are spoken, different foods are eaten different, dressed different ways.

How do we communicate with them? How do we go to them? How do we share the gospel? What are the challenges? I have learned over the years, it's interesting, I have learned evangelism explosion as a pattern or tool to share the gospel. The what is it? The four spiritual laws, the way of the master.

I've got these different ones we typically often learn. The Romans robe, we learn different ways to share the gospel. And then I was in Malaysia one year with one of our missionaries and talking to some of the members in his church, and he says, I'm trying to share the gospel with my Buddhist family.

They don't respond to those methods so well. When they come from a worldview where there is no god or there's a force or it's your ancestors you worship or prosperity proves that you're right with God using our methods, some of them aren't the way to start. And so I'm sure the early church, how do we speak with these different people?

And if, you know, some of them, if they're Jews going out, well, they hate us. What do we do? So these type of questions are not foreign. These aren't the first time they've been asked in the very beginning. They were working on obeying Jesus' command to preach the gospel to the nation, but they needed to know how should the church be involved.

Fortunately, we can see in Acts thirteen one through three that we do we're we're we're And that. That. I don't have to go to some gurus or read the latest book on how to plant churches or teach or preach. I just go to God's word. It has everything I need.

It saddens me that so many churches, for one reason or another, don't follow this template, this model or pattern. And after serving in The Philippines for twenty years, I've seen a lot of damage of missionaries who have tried to do things their way. Sometimes that's because they're not actually very well trained.

I've seen many missionaries that just had a a good burden, a a good heart for the lost. They understood the basic needs. I was tempted to go straight to the mission field. I got, counseled, by a missions org, ABWE, American Baptist World Evangelization. That was the first, mission that we were looking at joining.

And he said he said, older Mantum, you know, son, you you need to get your training first. And I said, well, I'm thinking of going to seminary in The Philippines. He said, people don't really wanna support missionaries who aren't trained yet. Get your training first. So I took that good advice.

That was life saving counsel. That was so great. But I've seen other missionaries who have come to the field with little to no training. Sometimes the way they teach others is they pop in someone else's video and they watch that. But then they have no depth on answering the questions or where the theology came from.

They can't we can't lead anybody any farther than we've gone ourselves. I've seen other missionaries. When I went to language school, there was a couple that I would go with together as we were studying Tagalog, and they would often fight on the drive. We would carpool together. One morning, the husband slammed the brakes and says, if you don't like it, you drive.

And got out of the car, walked to the other side. She said, I will. And she walked over, got in the car and started driving. I'm sitting in the back going, oh my gosh. And this gal was a counselor, supposedly, Christian counselor, and this guy was a pastor.

So I've seen churches suffer under people like that. I've seen others think, oh, well, you're a missionary if you're doing humanitarian and relief work. And those could be great things, fighting human trafficking, feeding the hungry. We're involved with well. Those can be great things, but a lot of ministries get so sidetracked on doing that that they never get to the gospel or at least the gospel is not the main thing.

So, you know, the Red Cross does those things well. UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, and many other non Christian organizations do a great job of doing those things, but we can't call those missions organizations. How do we send out missionaries? What should they be doing? What's the distinction between doing good things and helping people because the love of Christ compels us and doing what is called missions?

We're gonna be unpacking that this morning. Let me start with a little definition from a nine Marks book called Missions. It's an excellent little book. I think it's kind of a beige brown color. It's not maybe a 100 pages or so. It is packed with so much wisdom.

And in this Nine Marks book, that. We're going to so and geographic boundaries so through the gathering or planting of churches and teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded. If someone is doing a great ministry of helping hurting people but it doesn't contain that, then it's not missions.

It's it's it could be a great wonderful thing, but it's not missions. And we are called to bring the gospels to the ends of the earth. So with that definition in mind, let's pre proceed to see God's model for making disciples globally. Start we'll start with the context of the book of Acts, which shows God's pattern to reach the ends of the earth throughout through churches raising up and sending qualified missionaries.

The book opens with the risen Christ promising to empower his followers to be his witnesses. And then Jesus fulfilled that promise, and the Holy Spirit began empowering believers like Peter to witness. And Peter preached his first sermon. Thousands of people were added to the church that day. Spirit empowered believers also testified beyond Jerusalem as they preached the gospel in Judea and Samaria.

However, the time for the nations to hear the gospel came, and the church used the used was used by God for that mission. It I think they delayed a bit. It appears that it took six to seven years for them to get out of Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria.

And God used persecution to scatter the church, and that's when the gospel began to head to the nations. So listen now as after this that little background as I read Acts chapter 13 now. Acts thirteen one through three. Now there were at Antioch in the church that was there prophets and teachers, Barnabas and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, Ammanian who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.

And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So here in verse one, as we impact these three verses, and this is a pivotal time.

You had the first seven chapters. They're in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria. And now in 13, they're going to the ends of the earth. And this is where the church is wrestling again with that dilemma. How do we do this? And this is where it all takes place. We see here that the first characteristic of a missions minded church is that they are well taught by qualified ministers.

Mission sending churches have godly teachers feeding them God's word. This is what we're gonna see today, that this pattern involves churches that have several commitments. They're they have a mindset, and this first mindset is that there is a soil in a mission sending church. It's a church that has godly men, godly women pouring into their people starting from a young age, and the word of God does its does its work in hearts.

We were talking earlier in Sunday school and even some side conversations. There's a a natural response to a transformed believer. When you are saved, you you can't help but love God, love his word more, love his people, and wanna see the nations worshiping him. I would even say if you come to church on a regular basis and you got the the Christian bumper sticker on your car, but you could care less about reading the bible.

Hey, I got my bible on Sunday. I'm good. You could care less about telling your neighbor or your coworker, let alone going to the ends of the earth. I would get on your knees and say, Lord, am I really yours? Why does my heart not ache for those who are your enemies, for those who don't worship you, for those who don't know you or haven't heard your name?

How can I be involved whether it's sending someone or preparing someone or supporting someone? And that soil, again, comes in churches that preach and teach the word faithfully. And this kind of person, these are the kind of people we're gonna be that we our love for the Lord grows, our desire to when you're blown away by what God has done for you, when you recognize that, wow, I'm a sinner that deserves hell.

That's where I should be. That's where I should be going. But for some reason, I can't understand it. God saved me. Even as a saved person, I still sin and let him down. And he still loves me, and he's continuing to work on me to make me more and more like him.

What can I do to show my gratitude? What can I do here? What can I do at my job? What can I do in my community, my Jerusalem, my Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth? So we see that mission sending churches have godly teachers feeding them God's word.

Again, verse one says in this church in Antioch, there were prophets and teachers. And we're gonna see who these teachers were. It mentions several, and we'll we'll just look briefly at what kind of men they were. But in mentioning Paul, he fled to Antioch because in Jerusalem, they wanted to kill him.

Perhaps embarrassed the Jewish leaders. He was their boy. You know? He was working on their side. He was going after Christians, arresting them. He gave agreement when they were being put to death, and now he's on their side. He's working for the church. He's working for Jesus. So he had to flee Jerusalem, and he came to Antioch.

That church is North of Israel in Syria. It's on the Eastern border of Turkey. And this church is the first recorded church to send missionaries globally. Verse one mentions that they were a church that was committed to the teaching of God's word. And that verse gives us insight into the kind of men that were ministering in this church.

Verse one tells us that they had prophets and teachers, and the first one mentioned is Barnabas. Barnabas was a Levite. His his name was Joseph, a Levite. So he was from Israel, one of the tribes. He was a Jew who was saved. His name was Joseph. He had the nickname of Barnabas, which means son of encouragement.

And he was an encourager, as we'll see. As Paul had deserved the reputation of being a destroyer of the church, the apostles and others, they heard about him and really? We gotta let this guy in? You sure he's not just a spy or trying to get in and and arrest us?

Barnabas the Encourager said, this guy is legit. I've been with him in the trenches. He's the real deal. I'm sure he shared how he was transformed and Jesus saved him and now made him a champion of the church. And it was Barnabas is the one that spoke up for him so that the others would accept him.

Just a little side story. I think about this, in ministering in Pakistan because we minister beyond The Philippines. We have students all over the world that we teach. Starting from COVID, they started online with us because they were locked down and they saw we had been moved to online courses and developed some relationships with so in Pakistan, they wrestle with, Christians, converts coming into the church.

As a nation of almost 99% Muslim, they should we let this guy in the church? Is he the real deal? They have a nickname for new converts is one of my friends there told me. They call them bombs because they've had new people coming in under the guise of, I I came to Jesus.

I wanna worship with you. He comes inside and detonates himself and kills members. Now this doesn't happen in every church. It's it's happened a few times, but it does create a fear. And I'm sure a fear like that was in the early church. We heard about Paul, formerly Saul and what he had done.

So Barnabas brought him in and vouched for him. Acts 11 adds that Barnabas was a good man. He was full of the Holy Spirit and faith and that he had led many to the Lord. He served with Paul as a missionary to the Gentiles. So just summing up the kind of teacher that was tilling and planting in the soil of the church in Antioch, Barnabas was an encourager.

He was faithful. He was a teacher, and he was an evangelist. And not much is known about the other men mentioned in this passage. In verse one, Simeon, Lucius, and Minaean are mentioned. And from the text, also we can glean is that they served the Lord faithfully in the church.

They were also teachers there. They communed with God through fasting and prayer like the rest of the church. Again, these were the kind of people who in going going in to church. Southern Turkey. Initially, And he was, as I said, a persecutor of the church, but Jesus saved him and transformed him and sent him out as a missionary in Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and he had a focus on the Gentile nations, which gave him the nickname, the apostle to the Gentiles.

So what kind of man was Paul in that church that he was investing in? He was a faithful teacher as well. He was a missionary. He was a church planner, and he served the church. He went from a persecutor of the church to probably a man who died for the church.

So important to note, that church that sent him and Barnabas, they proved their character in that church. They developed as ministers in that church, and they were accountable to that church. Sadly, many missionaries have little connection or accountability to a local church. I've seen some in The Philippines that just come out independently or the churches in The US have very little oversight over them or know what they're doing.

But Paul was very well connected to this faithful church that prayed for them and sent them. And every time he went on his missionary trips and came back, he went back to the church in Antioch, reported on what the Lord was doing. They rejoiced together, prayed together, and they continued to support him.

So that's why it's critical for churches and their missionaries to be committed to the word of God, to have a soil that is rich in the faithful preaching and teaching of God's word so that even in from the Sunday school on up, our people are being transformed by it.

But even in the best taught church with people who know scripture inside and out, we can't do anything on our own. And that brings us to a second characteristic of a missions minded church. A missions minded church is a prayerful church that's dependent on the holy spirit. We'll see here in acts 13 verse two, churches that are focused on reaching the world for Christ are spirit directed churches.

It's not just a room where people strategize and, okay, well, looking at the numbers, Asia maybe has the majority of the world's population and then few resources. So that's where we're gonna go. We we can do that. But God may have a particular people group or area in mind for you or a particular church, and we need to be directed by him.

And if we're gonna send some, and I would challenge you to send from your own people, you need to know who. Lord, guide us. Guide us in our planning, in our preparing, and who we should send. Doctor Luke continued in verse two of Acts 13. He said, while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart Barnabas and Saul.

So we see in this verse here that the church was committed to serving. They were ministering. This is a participle. This is an ongoing continual action. This is not a one time thing. They didn't just have, you know, a concert and or a prayer event, and everyone got really excited.

Hey. Yeah. Let's go reach the nation. This was their regular practice. Faithful teachers regularly taught. They were regularly ministering, and then they had a practice of going to the Lord in prayer and fasting and pleading with him to direct them, so then he commanded them to set apart these men.

They discovered God's will in this passage through fasting. So what is the discipline of fasting, and how does that help? I've seen in The Philippines that a billboard every year, this one church puts out, they have a month dedicated. This is their fasting month. And they discuss together, what are you gonna fast from this month?

Actually, reading the beatitudes in other places of scripture talks about when you fast, don't put it on a billboard and let people know. Don't let the right hand know what the left hand's doing. Do it in secret. At least that's one type of fast. We'll see there's different types.

But if you're pleading to the Lord for his direction or you're repenting of sin, you don't make a show for everyone to see. So I see in The Philippines and probably here as well that there's confusion on what that means. It's not talking about a lot in scripture.

So what are we talking about here? Well, Lexham Bible Dictionary says that the Old Testament mentions general fasting and individual fasting, and they were done for a variety of purposes, including mourning, repentance, and seeking divine deliverance. We would see this when Israel would go into battle, there were times where they would fast or they've just been beaten by their enemies and what did we do wrong?

And they find out a sin was committed. So they fast and they repent. Nineveh fasted when Jonah preached, or and they repented and covered themselves in sackcloth and ashes. So these are done these are some of the reasons for mourning, for confessing sin, for seeking divine deliverance. Additionally, fasting is a way to seek God's direction and get his guidance and will.

It doesn't that through increased dedication to prayer, repentance, and focused attention on discerning God's leading. Practically speaking, because I've wondered about this, okay, well, I could understand setting time aside throughout maybe many days, weeks, months to pray for something, give it extra attention. But why the denial of food?

So this is just my theory here. Scripture doesn't tell us exactly why, but my theory is, let's say you've committed to fasting, whether you're repenting over sin, you've got a serious decision to make, you're seeking God's guidance, and you just really wanna be focused on praying about that and and understanding God's will for that.

So you get to work. You didn't bring your packed lunch today. And you're not gonna go out. You're fine in the morning. A couple hours goes by, maybe it's ten. You haven't had your morning coffee and maybe some toast or something, you start to feel that hunger pain.

Oh, yeah. Didn't break my lunch today. Oh, yes. I need to pray about this issue. It's an internal reminder. And then can start praying it up, whatever, if you're confessing or seeking God's will. And lunchtime comes around, it gets a little stronger. And you're reminded, okay, I'm gonna take my lunch break.

Now the time I usually dedicate for eating, I'm gonna dedicate it to prayer. So I just think it's an internal way that your own body can remind you of your commitment that this is serious. The church in Acts knew knew this was serious. We're gonna send some men out, some of our members to foreign lands.

They can't just pull out their phone and Venmo them some cash. They can't go to the local ATM. They they can't carry a refrigerator in their back. How are these guys gonna eat when they get there or along the way? There's thieves. These are Jews. No one's really gonna have their back if they call the police.

We see this happen in Pakistan when Christians complain to the police for being discriminated against or abused. The police are kinda like, hell, too bad for you, buddy. So these guys are going to unknown places, and the church this is serious. How do we do this? Lord, guide us.

So they prayed and fasted, and the spirit directed them on sending some of their people out in response to their dedication. So we've seen so far that when churches are committed to being well taught to serving God and to knowing and doing his will, they will be directed by him.

That kind of church will know who to send to make disciples globally. And verse two shows us a third characteristic of a mission minded church. Missions minded churches set apart ministers who have a calling from God. Also in Acts thirteen two, we see that churches committed to reaching the lost recognize and get behind God's workers, the ones that he has called.

Acts thirteen two, the Holy Spirit said to the prayerful church in Antioch as they are fasting and praying, he says, he commanded, set apart from me Barnabas and Saul for the work. Well, first he says, set them apart. That has the idea of selecting those that God has called.

Not, well, who who's is anybody out of work or not busy? We we need to send somebody. Oh, you you got some extra time? Alright. Let's it's not just sending the willing. We wanna send I I I refer to it as our Timothies or our Timothy is. We wanna send our best.

We wanna send the ones that God's called. Well, how do we know who God's called? Well, if you pay attention, you'll see that God highlights or puts a spotlight on those he has selected to become missionaries. And you'll see that through their faithfulness, their fruitfulness, and their character.

If I heard rightly, I think you are recommending people for elder right now in the church here. It's the same principle. You are looking for those that God has called, that he has highlighted. He puts a spotlight. It's not like, well, get any volunteers. Come on. Come on.

Anybody? Anybody? You're not trying to drag someone kicking and screaming into it. You're recognizing, wow, this person is so faithful. They love the word. That man loves his family. He shepherds his family. He loves the church. He serves here so faithfully. We've been seeing it for years. We've seen them go through adversity and hard times, and they continue to maintain a godly Christian character.

That person's wired like an elder. They have the character. They're able to teach. They're faithful, above reproach. It's gonna be everyone's gonna go, yes. I I've seen it too. It's obvious. That's the kind of person or persons that need to be elders. Those are the kind of people we need as missionaries, the one that God makes clear.

So the whole congregation go, we see it. Imagine if someone is recommended as an elder and everyone goes, really? That guy? Or same thing with a missionary. Really? That person, they they get sick at every food. They'll only eat one type of food, and you're gonna send them to India?

I don't see how that's gonna work. But God highlights the ones that he's prepared. I I know in my own especially looking back, I can see how God prepared me even as a kid. And even little things is funny. I worked at in, at Hughes Aircraft, the electronic industry for ten years before I went to the mission field and seminary.

And I used to complain about these meetings that I had to go to every week. And I'm like, oh, we're just bean counting. And they made me use Excel, and I learned these different programs on the computer. I did construction when I was a teen. And now I'm saying, wow, God is using all of that.

God didn't waste any of those experiences, and God prepares people. And one way that we can see the ones that he's called and affirm that is we're gonna see it together. Once you recognize them, you need to come alongside them to help prepare them for the work that God's called them to.

You might even see as little as you know, I used to volunteer for Sunday school, the sixth graders. And even then, I I knew God had burned my heart for missions, and I I showed the kids a missionary video during one of the Sunday school classes to which the parents who loved me, and I highlight that because they had plenty of reason to be angry with me, and they very gently and kindly, as a 20 year old young man, Sean, we don't even let our kids watch Disney movies.

And you just showed them a tribal group where witch doctors were casting spells on their enemies. And, my kid's having a nightmare. He keeps having nightmares. So, yes, I didn't do that well, but the principle is we want to encourage them and inspire them, show them, look, there's people that don't know Jesus all over the world.

So I should have either picked a different video or told the story. But I am also I take joy that that young man eventually from sixth grade, he went on to the Masters University and went ended up going to The Philippines on a short term trip. I think it was for a few months, invented some kind of water filtration project or something and went there and stayed with the tribe.

And his mom told me, even when he was little, he goes, he wants to serve in missions. You scared him, but you also inspired him. So leave the scare part out and do the inspire part. Come alongside. And then as the younger, as they're going through youth group and you see, wow, this this young man has got all these other young men, they gather around the flagpole together.

It was something son used to do with kids. They'd gather around the flagpole at school and pray, and then he started discipling some men or young men. You see some faithful people doing that. Hey. Have you ever thought about doing that globally? You know? And if you recognize that, let's get wow, this person's faithful and they're teaching, they're discipling, this person loves to share the gospel, create opportunities for it.

You got the soil of the preached word. You've got the faithful congregation praying, seeking God's will. Look for the people he's highlighting. And when you see, wow, this one this might be one. He might be preparing them to be a minister right here in our community or to the ends of the earth.

Let's get behind them. Let's develop them further. Let's disciple them. Let's give them opportunities. Because as as it says here in Acts two, he said, set apart Barnabas and Paul for the work. God has got work for every one of us. It's not that a few are called to work and the rest of us are called to sit in the pews and just be fed.

He's got all of us to work in one way or another. See this in Ephesians chapter two verse 10 after it talked about how great our salvation is, that free gift of God that we can't earn, we can't deserve. No one's gonna boast about it. And then it goes into verse 10.

We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. We were created to do good works to reflect the goodness and greatness of God. And he prepared those beforehand so that we would walk in them. So what work did God prepare for the churches and its missionaries to do?

I find it kind of humorous that a lot of people think missionaries do some kind of special advanced things that your typical church doesn't do. You know, we're kinda like the the special forces that are sent out. We do exactly what you do. Actually, we learned it here first.

We learned it in the church when the church recognized, oh, wow. You're faithful at that. You do that well. Then we get sent by the church so that the work of the missionary and the church is the same. The only difference is the address. There should be no doubt about what our work is because Jesus great commission in Matthew twenty eight eighteen through 20, after Jesus said, all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth, the the resurrected Christ said, therefore, as you go, as you're going, your daily life, life takes you, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit.

Bring them in, not just converts, but baptize them and make them a part of the church. And then as a as a member and a part of the church, teach them to observe all that I've commanded. You don't simply just evangelize them. Don't simply just run them through a book.

Take them through the full counsel of God's word. Teach them till they are mature men and women in Christ. So the work is clear, but the question remains, who should be sent to do it globally? The Holy Spirit showed us who when he said in verse two, after he said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work.

Who should he send? The ones that I have called. Set them apart for the work I have called them to. And just as God prepared the work, he also prepared the workers. So your responsibility is to discern who among you has God chosen to send. I would say in a church this size, there's gotta be some.

I can understand maybe a little bitty small church. Okay? If we send a couple of our guys, we hardly have maybe those are the only ones that are teaching. They might have an excuse. They're not ready yet. But this is a sizable enough church. I'm sure there's some here that can go that can go to the nations.

So recognize who they are. Discern that. This word called has the idea of summoned. God has summoned some, has the idea that the church should clearly see the spirit's choice of the missionary. You will see someone with a transformed life as well as God's direction of them and his provision for them.

Just quickly, when we were wrestling with leaving my job of ten years with good benefits and a nice house, insurance, two cars. My wife had a good job. Our family lived a half an hour away, and we're thinking, are we crazy? Is this really what God wants us to do?

Maybe, you know, we're get by the time we get to the field, we're gonna be 30. Maybe this is a younger man's game. So we were praying. We talked to our elders and our leadership, and they affirmed and they poured into us. They helped me go to seminary.

They gave me ministry opportunities in the church. I did everything from, as I said, Sunday school, setting up chairs, cleaning the kitchen, however they needed me to becoming an associate pastor there. And then when it got more serious, it got to the point where, okay, I need to leave my job.

This my family values a good job, especially my wife's family and the Asian culture. How are they gonna take that? That's a big step. But we knew we couldn't continue if we hung on to that security. So I left my job. We sold our cars. We if I leave the job, we can't make the car payments.

Probably, we had our kids in Christian school. We definitely can't afford that anymore. So we called the Christian school and said, hey, this has been great for our kids and we're so grateful for you all, but we're pulling our kids out. We're gonna go to the mission field.

We're preparing for that. And they said, okay, we'll let you know. And I said, oh, I'm sorry. You must have misunderstood me. I'm letting you know that we're ending our time here. We're probably gonna end up homeschooling or something like that. And they said, okay, we'll call you.

And I just kinda walked away. That was strange. But, they did call us. And they said, hey, we love your kids and your family. We wanna help get behind you. So we're giving your kids full scholarships. And if you're at school and you can't pick them up, we have an after school program.

We won't charge you for that either. And that just began confirming the Lord's calling on us, the burden he gave us. Our leadership recognized it and began investing and training us. And then we saw God doing things like that, that, wow. He he gave us a little step.

We obeyed, took a step of faith, and he kept showing you. You're walking the right way. Keep coming. The next thing, a missionary was returning to Albania and said, then I didn't know this guy. I think it might have been I can't remember if he talked to me in person or an email, but he says, hey, we're going back to the mission field.

We've got this van. Could you use a van? You can have it if you want it. We're like, we just sold our van. You know, we were wondering how are we gonna get our kids around and then we had a little red pickup truck and stuff. And, well, maybe that was a little before, but anyways, we sold our vehicles.

God provided new vehicles. My wife got a raise at her job. Didn't ask for a raise. They gave her a raise. So we just saw God continuing to confirm his calling. And I would say look for that. Expect to see that. Because sometimes God closes doors and that could be an indication, okay, like Paul was looking to go to he got his Macedonian call and didn't quite end up where he thought he and he's you know, maybe he went to Spain, maybe he didn't.

But sometimes, God gets you moving, and it becomes clearer what he wants you to do as time unfolds, and you need to act in faith and obey those little steps. And that will inform and encourage not only the individual going, but even the whole church. Wow. We gotta get behind this person.

We see what the Lord's doing. So the established pattern for sending out missionaries was that they came from well taught churches with qualified teachers. They were prayerful churches who depended on the Holy Spirit, who made it clear who was called to go. Verse three shows us a fourth characteristic of a missions minded church.

Missions minded churches affirm and release their people to the field. In other words, churches that are passionate about seeing God worship globally, and I think this word to, you know, to send them out, set them apart and send them out, has the idea of unleashing. And the churches that are passionate about that will unleash their members for the work instead of holding them back.

They don't just send the willing, they send their Timothy's. And so Luke's words in verse three go that then when they you know, my initial reading of this, thought, you know, it's just the elders were praying and fasting over Paul and Barnabas. And when they had prayed and laid their hands on him, they sent them away.

As I look closer, I'm like, woah. That little word, this little pronoun, it's plural. It's it's not just a person, but this whole group. What group is it referred to? It's the whole church. This whole church was behind these men. This whole church affirmed them, prayed over them, fasted for them, sent them together.

They sent them away. They unleashed them. The response to the holy spirit's command to set apart Barnabas and Saul was that the whole congregation sent them they focused on God's leading, and then they laid their hands on them. And in the Bible, we see the laying hands on people for various reasons, and we see that it's a symbolic gesture to show affirmation, connection, approval, shared responsibility, or identification with someone or something.

Let me give you some passages that ex give that example. We can see that idea expressed in the Old Testament when people laid their hands on animal sacrifices. They did that to symbolically connect with them and to transfer their sins to them. A sinner would recognize I have violated God's law, and the ultimate price has to be paid to make me right with him.

What they had at that time was an unblemished lamb. And they would hold their hands on it, and they would pray over it and confess their sins. They would cut the throat. The priest caught the blood, went off the sacrifice. He would offer it on their behalf, and their sins were symbolically transform transferred to the animal so that they could be declared forgiven.

The elders of the church in Ephesus laid hands on Timothy to affirm the granting of his spiritual gifts. They were showing. We have by laying our hands, we recognize. We see that he has the gift of teaching and leadership. We affirm this man. Paul and Barnabas laid hands on men in the churches of Asia Minor as they appointed, affirmed, and identified them as elders in Acts fourteen twenty three.

Paul warned the Ephesian elders not to be quick to affirm new elders by laying hands on them. Don't don't lay don't lay hands on them too quickly because in doing so, they would be affirming them, before the congregation. They would be responsible for any damages caused by those elders if they were unqualified sinful elders.

So don't do it quickly. Test and make sure these men are really above reproach and godly men before you affirm them by laying hands on them. So here, back in our text, Acts missionaries to affirm that they were called. We're affirming. We've all seen it. We've seen these men teach.

We've seen their character, their heart. We see God's favor on They believed in them. They were a part of their ministry, and they supported it. Then the whole church, sent them out for years of ministry and in a similar matter. We wanna do like they did. This is one point I wanna highlight here.

They sent their own out. This church gave priority to just sending their own. They didn't say, hey. Can we send one of the apostles? We've got some finances. Can we send one of the apostles in Jerusalem? No. They sent men from among them that they saw that they were qualified.

And I would encourage you to take that principle. Prioritize. Don't limit to only your church, but prioritize. Look for those that God's highlighting and send some of your own. My wife and I were the first missionaries sent out by our home church in California. To date, I think they've only sent out two from their congregation.

The rest, they support like over 20 missionaries. But there was a huge difference when they sent their own, when we were just members of the church, served as deacons, eventually serving in Sunday school. We helped in the nursery, began teaching in the college ministry, became a pastor in bible studies throughout the church, serving in various ways.

They had confidence in sending us. I mentioned in the beginning the pastor friend of mine who felt the pressure of his congregation being disappointed in him and the other elders because three other missionaries failed. I believe when you send your own, you have an opportunity to better know, are we sending our Timothy's and Timothy's?

Are we sending our best? Are these people really qualified qualified for ministry? It's not just someone visiting us and passing out a prayer card, kinda like what we're doing, but, we're not asking you to send us. But, we're encouraging you to send your own people you know. And it may be difficult to give them up.

You might be losing some key people in doing that, but you've gotta unleash them. God will provide more here. You're sending people to places where they have no one to teach often. We my first missionary trip to The Philippines, we visited a church that didn't have a pastor.

They said, it's been eight years since we've had a pastor. We're praying for one. So our men are taking turns, teaching. There's an abundance of churches and resources and trained people in The States, but not in the ten forty window in many places in the world. So I would urge you, send some of your own, send some of your best.

Be willing to give them up for the nations. So today, we've seen four characteristics of a missions minded church so that you can follow the master's model for making disciples globally. We've seen that missions minded churches are well taught by qualified ministers. We've seen that missions minded churches are prayerfully dependent on the holy spirit.

Thirdly, we've seen that missions minded churches set apart ministers who have a clear calling from God. The church will all see that. And, fourthly, missions minded churches release their people to the field. We share our wealth with those who are poor. And, Lord, I pray that you would raise up many from this church, that you would give them eyes to see those that you've set apart that you have called.

Help prepare them, that this church would help prepare them for that work, that they would experience the great joy of being a part of you're doing in reaching the nations, that their own people would come back and visit and share what you were doing in the ends of the earth, that they would be investing in that, they would be storing treasures in heaven, that more worshipers of you would be raised even from from the children here now who are in Sunday school, that they will someday grow up to be mighty servants of you leading many to Christ, planning churches, loving the needy, and proclaiming your glory.

I thank you for that undeserved privilege, Lord, that we get to do that. Help us to do that well. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.