What Makes a Missions Minded Church

If you would to Acts chapter two and I will start off by saying my wife and my other daughter Elizabeth send their greetings. They would have loved to have been here today. Although, I think Elizabeth is just happy to be on the road to recovery. She is going to try to go back to school tomorrow and she has been in excruciating pain. She had all four of her teeth cut out, wisdom teeth, and two of them were bone impactions and so she had to have a lot her Her face is all bruised up and swollen and this morning, she was feeling a little bit better.

So, hopefully, she's through the worst of that now. As brother Rick said, we are now missionaries with EBI which is Editorial Bautista Independiente which is the Spanish Theological Training and Publications Literature Ministry of Baptist Midmissions. And so we have the privilege to travel to promote EBI materials and to help train people to use those materials all over Latin America. So we have contacts, we visit, we administer in 29 different countries in Central And South America, of course a little bit in Spain as well. And so we go to those places, do teacher training courses where we teach believers how to teach Sunday school, how to be effective teachers and speakers.

We teach at seminaries, Bible institutes, Bible colleges, teaching modules and that type of thing. And then a really exciting thing we have is a Masters of Arts program. This is with the accredited University Piedmont International University up in Winston Salem, North Carolina. And so we are able to provide a four year, it's almost five year, four and a half year master's degree program totally in Spanish that these men and ladies, mostly men in Latin America can take to further and prepare themselves for ministry. What is exciting about that is before now there really wasn't an accredited theological studies program in Latin America and so now these men can be trained and then they are equipped and ready to be able to teach in seminaries and to do a good job in their ministries and so God's blessed that.

We have a lot of exciting new books that are coming out in the days ahead. A big three volume set of systematic theology that we're almost done translating, editing, that will be printed later this year and then we will get early next year I should say and then new commentaries from Warren Wiersby. Some of you have heard of him and that will be coming out in a one volume, a nice, beautiful hardcover book and something that's something we don't often like to talk about but there's going to be a book on how do Christians handle this the the world with homosexuality and we know what scripture says about that and so how can we lovingly help people with that and so in the days ahead, that's we have a book that we'll be releasing by it's funny. His name slips my mind. Ken Ham who's with Answers in Genesis.

It's his brother. I can't remember his name. Somebody Ham and he's going to be working with us on that book. So, it's in the process of being translated now to Spanish. That and another exciting book that we have coming out is called Cold Case Christianity and this was a a man who was a forensic detective who was an atheist.

He said he didn't believe in God. He didn't believe in the Bible and so he decided he was going to approach Christianity, the gospel, the story of Christ with forensic scientific techniques. And so he looked and he examined and this book goes through and shows the different ways that a forensic scientist, a detective would look at the Bible. Well, as he was doing his research, he came to know the Lord. He's a Christian today and so this book is is an exciting book, a very easy read and so we're going to be working to have that put into the Spanish language to make available in the days ahead.

So, we do that type of thing as well providing materials for churches and then helping to train church all over South America and so exciting ministries. We ask that you would keep us in your prayers. Now, it's kind of interesting this morning. I thought about speaking on Thanksgiving for obvious reasons but because I'm a missionary, I just couldn't. I had to go back and I wanted to preach from the book of Acts.

Acts is my favorite book of the Bible and I wanted to look this morning at a message that I've entitled, what makes a missions minded church? What Makes a Missions Minded Church? And so this morning, I don't know, are these flags always up here? Okay, so I was going to come in and I was wondering, did they just put up the flags because a missionary speaker was here, you know? Alright, so does having flags at the front of a church make us missions minded?

I noticed there is a I am assuming that's a faith promise tracker up there to show how much money has been given to missions for the year, that type of thing. Does that make us missions minded? Perhaps somewhere around we have a map that shows where the missionaries that the church prays for up on the wall. Does that make us missions minded? A lot of people have ideas of what they think makes a church missions minded.

This morning I want us to think about that, but perhaps even more importantly, I want us to think about what makes us as individuals missions minded. Are we really missions minded people? What does it mean to be missions minded? So I want us to look at that this morning. And I'll start off by saying there's a peep, there's a lot of people that have all kinds of things that they think of when they think of missions.

I remember one of the first times that I ever spoke on missions as a new missionary, a young person and I went to a church and so I was and and the pastor asked me to speak to the youth group. Now, I have to tell you, I I love working with all age groups and the older I get, I don't mind working with teens quite as much but when I was especially younger, I was like, Man, I would love to speak to any age group from zero to 12 and from 20 to 100, but teenagers, man, are pretty intimidating. And so pastor, one of the first times I spoke, he asked me to speak to the youth group. And right there in front of the youth, I started off and I said, okay, kids, what do you think of when you think of a missionary? And of course, what did they do?

They all just sat there real quiet. Okay, what do you think of when you think of a missionary? So, I stood there and so this one kid said, cannibals and they all kind of snickered and I guess they pictured this big boiling pot with the missionary sitting in there, you know, getting ready to be eaten and so I said, kind of got a laugh out of that. By this time, I'm breaking out in a cold sweat, you know, wondering, oh, these are going to be a rough crowd. Alright, what do you think of when you think of missionaries?

So, this one kid right in the front row, dead serious. He looks at me. He goes, boring speakers. Thought, oh boy, this is getting really intimidating up here now. What am I going to do?

And so, I went on and talked to him about what missions was. Well, that's what some people think of when they think of missionaries. They picture the most extreme places in the world or they picture, I can say it, I'm a missionary. They picture this weird missionary family that pulls up in a in a minivan with 15 kids and they're all wearing clothes from the Goodwill and they hand me down. So, you know, that's what they think of when they think of missionaries and they don't think about the great commissioner, the task that God's left for us.

I remember when I was in Bible College, a lady found out at at a secular job I was working. I worked at a shipping store and she found out that I was a she found out that I was a Bible College student. She said, oh, how wonderful. What are you studying to do? And I said, I'm going to be a missionary.

She said, oh, how wonderful. That's just great. She said, my church is very missions minded and she told me the name of her church. She said, oh, we just love missionaries and then she kind of paused and she said, but is that really what you want to do with your life? You're going to go to all this time in Bible College and seminary and prepare for this and then do all of that.

She goes, is there money in that? And I thought to myself, how ironic that this lady just said, oh, we love missions and I'm from a missions minded church and then she turned around and asked me, is there money in that? My wife's neighbor, he found out that we were going to the mission field and he said to us, how would, how could you choose to waste your life doing that? He said, you'll be back home in a few years. There's there's no end in that.

There's there's you can't climb a ladder. You can't accomplish anything with that and so we live in a world where people have all kinds of different ideas about missions. You don't have to turn there but in Acts chapter one, we know that scripture tells us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the world. Some people call that the Great Commission. Another Great Commission passage, Matthew 2eight 18 tells us, Go and teach all nations.

Then in Mark sixteen fifteen, we are reminded to go and to share the gospel with every creature, with all the people in the world, to every nation. And so we are given this great commission task and let's think about that for just a second. We hear the term great commission. What is a commission? Well, a commission is when somebody is given a task and we're given a responsibility and we're asked to go do that to represent somebody.

We often say that missionaries go on what we call deputation. That's kind of an old fashioned word. You're like, where in the world do you get that from? Well, when I think about deputation, I think about the good old Andy Griffith Show and why do I think of that? Well, what who who is Andy Griffith's sidekick?

Deputy Barney Fife and what did he do? He had his bullet in his pocket and he was he was tripping all over town or trying to to take care of business. Well, what was a deputy really to do? A deputy was somebody that came there and they're supposed to have authority from someone else. So, who was their authority?

Ultimately, Barney's authority came from Andy, the sheriff or the townspeople and he was supposed to go out and to to protect the people and uphold the law. So, he he didn't necessarily have that power on his own. He was given that power. That's why he carried that badge and that's why he had that bullet in his pocket. Well, the same way for us as missionaries, I don't go on my own behalf.

I don't go to the mission field and say, hey, this is what I want you to hear. I go and tell people what God wants them to hear and I don't go in my own power. I don't go in my authority. I go with the power of the holy spirit. Scripture tells us there in that passage we just referred to in Acts chapter one that we are going to be given power after that the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit's come upon us.

So, I don't have to depend on my own abilities or my own power. God does the work through us. Now, why did God choose to use us? I wish I could say I was perfect, sinless but you know, I'm not. None of us are and so why does God use us?

Well, was His plan and in His will He wants to use us to be His servants and so that is what missions is all about. It is an exciting thing. We can go out and influence the world but do you know something? Now, we're in a baptist church. I'm with the Baptist Missions Organization and so you know what's sad?

I read statistically, less than 4%, less than 4% of baptist churches actually ever send out a missionary from their congregation. That means the majority of the churches in America, the vast majority have never sent one of their own people to the mission field. Now, the exciting thing about that is we do know that churches, the mission field is right here at home as well and so when we have outreach in our community, the people that we are trying to reach, that's missions in a sense but we are not sending people to the mission field and why is that? Well, because a lot of people don't understand what missions is all about. Like the lady that said, oh, is there money in that?

She obviously didn't understand what missions was all about. I'll tell you, the church that I grew up in used to be a vibrant, vibrant church. Had three or 400 people on a Sunday morning. Perhaps, most exciting part of the church was on Wednesday nights. We had a children's program and we had hundreds of children that came to that.

Well, over the years, the church kind of lost their vision. They kind of lost their focus of what they were doing and the church began to decline in numbers and it got smaller and smaller and smaller and eventually, they did away with the Wednesday night children's ministry and a lady in the church, I went back for a visit and she actually said to me, she looked me right in the eyes and she said, you know, we don't have our kids club on Wednesday nights anymore and I thought she was going to say it was sad and she goes, but you know, I think that's a good thing because those little kids, all they did was tear up the church facilities. And I thought to myself, wow, that's why the church is dying. I could go on and give you example after example. I had a pastor say to me one time, oh, I think missions is great but our church can't afford to support missionaries.

The way I see it, the church can't can't afford to not support missionaries. God blesses a church that supports missionaries. Now, I know that sounds self serving as a missionary to say that and I'm not preaching prosperity theology saying that you're going to be blessed by every dollar you give to God but God wants us to support missions through our local church. I believe that's how he does it and so, people don't understand what missions is all about. This morning, I want us to kind of think about that and and look at Acts chapter two and I want to start off by asking us, is Missouri Avenue Baptist Church a missions minded church?

Think about that for a minute. Now, that's an easy question. You say, okay, that takes the pressure off of each us because we're talking about the church but what about you? Are you a missions minded person? Look with me if you would.

Acts chapter two and verse 41. Acts chapter two verse 41. And it says, then, they that gladly received his word were baptized and the same day, they were added unto them about 3,000 souls and they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers And fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together and had all things common. Verse 45, And sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need.

And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. Now, like I said, I love the book of Acts. Now, Acts is a historical book of the Bible. When we think about doctrine or studying teachings of scripture, we might think of the book of Romans. We think about different books, but Acts is a history book.

I love history, and we have the history of the early church here. These were exciting times in the growth of the church and what we just finished reading about was the early church. Some people call it the first church after Christ's time. And during this time, we know the days right before this, the time of Pentecost, we see that the church was starting to be formed as we think of the church today. It was growing.

And the first thing that I want us to see that made this church missions minded and it's something that would make Missouri Avenue Baptist Church missions minded is a church that's missions minded has to have proper preaching, has to have proper preaching. Now, I gotta start off by saying today's world, preaching is becoming less and less important in churches, not because that's a good thing but that's just what people think. Now, I can tell you this morning that Missouri Avenue Baptist Church is a typical baptist church, a typical independent baptist church now. Do you know what? Sadly, this type of church is not a megachurch.

We're, this isn't a good location, visible on I'm not from here but I'm assuming that's a busy road. Looks like a lot of traffic goes down through here. So, it's a good location but you know what? Pastor Rick could probably rip out all the pews. He could paint the walls in here black or dark blue.

You could turn all the lights off. You could put spotlights up in here and and you could put in strobe lights and lasers and you think I'm being ridiculous but you could do these things and you know what? Probably in a short amount of time, you could fill this building up because people love to be entertained and so, hey, that's great. We can change have a different kind of music. We can bring in entertainers.

You know, I'm not saying jugglers but we can bring in famous people or a comedian or something like that and hey, wonderful. The church is filled. Well, the problem with that is, it takes away from what we should do at church and one of the key things we do in church is study God's word in a church that is missions minded should have proper preaching and all those other things, yes, it's becoming popular today. Those churches are growing but the way I see it is whatever we use to win people to get them to our church better be what keeps them in our church. If somebody comes to our church because they're entertained, what's going to happen when they get bored with the entertainment that we have?

When we have the same old people. What's going to happen? They're gone. They're not going to come back. What happens when we say, Hey, we're going to have this big concert here.

Well, they're going to look for something bigger and better. You see, all of those things, they're not necessarily always bad but those things in and of themselves don't change lives. What changes lives? The preaching of God's word. The Bible even talks about the foolishness of preaching.

Well, it it it seems foolish to man but what it is is very important. It's we're commanded to do that, to go and to preach the gospel to everyone. We'll look at that in a second what the gospel is really all about. Scripture tells us, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God and so, why don't people have faith today in our country? Why is faith in decline?

Why are there people saying, I'm an atheist. I don't believe that. I don't want to have anything to do with church. Well, one of the reasons is because we've gotten away from the proper preaching of God's word that we need in our churches. When Peter preached in these early days, what we call around the time of Pentecost, there were times when there was 3,000 people saved.

Wow. Wouldn't that be exciting today to have a revival right here in Clearwater and say, hey, we had 3,000 people come to the Lord. Does that still happen? You know, it does still happen in parts of the world and we say, well, that was back in the good old days. Well, maybe it's because we've gotten away from preaching.

We've gotten away from letting people hear God's word so that they can come to faith by here and there. Now, there's a lot of churches today. Like I said, that are growing and there's people that talk about mega churches and you know what? Sometimes those mega churches, I don't know. They may not all be bad.

There's not always a bad thing to have people come to church. That's a wonderful thing but we have to kind of look and see there's a lot of churches nowadays that have what I would call fluff. They bring people in. I saw a church one time. This was years ago.

This this will kind of show my age but this church said, hey, we are going to have a special event to draw people to our church for our missions emphasis week and so we are going to show the movie Cool Runnings at our church. Now, if you've ever seen Cool Runnings, I love the movie, Cool Rings. It's about the Jamaican bobsled team. I like it because I've been to Jamaica. It's a cool movie.

It's a fun movie. It's a probably could say it's a family movie, I guess but the thing of it is is absolutely no spiritual importance to the movie at all. It's just a fun comedy, I guess you'd call it. Well, the thing of it is, is that going to change lives? Showing that movie?

No. And so, people do that. We have famous preachers and teachers on TV that get up and they have these messages that are very very entertaining but they very rarely use the Bible. So, I want to caution you. I want you to think if you're a missions minded church and I know pastor Rick preaches the Bible and so, always make sure that God's word is the center point of your church.

God's word, the preaching of his word, the truth. Now, are these are the are the teachings, the doctrines in scripture always popular with society? No. There is going to be times when society is going to say, hey, we don't agree with that. I mentioned the book that we are getting ready to produce on homosexuality.

People are going to say, oh, you Christians, you are full of hate and and you're just closed minded. Well, you know what? What scripture teaches on that is not popular in our society today but yet it's what God's standards are and so, we have to be willing to preach that. We have to be willing to do that and God is going to bless the church that does. As we proclaim God's word.

Now, I can tell you in Peru where I was a missionary for fourteen years, we did all kinds of things that people would call entertainment. I may have mentioned this last time. We we had soccer tournaments. We had music concerts. We showed videos on big screens in the local parks.

We did kids clubs. We did carnivals. We did medical campaigns. We did all kinds of stuff like that and some people might look at that and say, well, none of that's preaching but you know, we did those things to attract people. Why?

So that they could hear the gospel. Every time we did one of those events, even during the soccer tournament, between every game, we had devotional with the teams. At the big championship game when everybody was there to watch. We had a speaker to come in and to share the gospel so that people can know about Christ and so we did those things and and so it's not necessarily bad to entertain people. We have to be careful to make sure that our ministries, that our church always has proper preaching.

Now, you think to yourself, I'm off the hook. Missouri Avenue Baptist Church, pastor Rick gets up and preaches. So, we're done. Well, here's the thing, your pastor may be missions minded. He might be preaching God's word.

He's out there studying but now have to ask you personally to personalize this question. Am I a missions minded person? Well, how do I do that? Well, I'm not saying that each of you has to preach. You don't have to prepare a message and stand up here but think about is God's word important to you?

Do you ever take time to study God's word? Have you read through the entire Bible? Do you know the majority of Christians have never read through the scripture And so this is just like a treasure trove of information and we go through different challenges. Maybe you deal with anxiety or depression. Scripture helps us.

It has things that will help us with that. Maybe you want to learn about science. You know, there's things in the Bible that talk about science that that the Bible talked about before scientists even discovered it. You want to know about anything, history, all the problems of life if we knew need to know how to solve conflict, how to work with interpersonal problems, everything that we need to know is in this book. It's a guidebook for life and just like my car has an owner's manual in a sense, the Bible is God's owner's manual for us.

So, my question for us is, yes, Missouri Avenue Baptist Church from what I know has proper preaching in it but what about us? Do we take time to study God's word? Is it a priority for us? Do we take time every day to read through it and to study it and to memorize it? Scripture tells us to hide God's word in our heart.

Have we done that? And I can tell you it comes as a great comfort. I'm so thankful that I I mentioned that kids club in that church. I'm so glad that I grew up going to that kids club where they at I hate to use this phrase but when I was a little kid, they forced us to memorize the Bible. Well, because when I was little, you know, it's a lot easier to memorize.

The older I get, the harder it becomes to memorize things and remember things. We all know that and so I memorize these verses and I find myself when a preacher's preaching and he'll be reading a verse and and I'll quote the verse along kind of under my breath while he's reading it and Olivia, my daughter will say, have you memorized the whole Bible? I'm like, oh heavens, no, I haven't memorized nearly as much as I should but because most of the things that I memorized, most of the verses I memorized, I memorized as a kid and so, I'm thankful for that but have we taken the time to do that? Are we reading God's word every day? And so, a church that's missions minded and people that are missions minded have an emphasis on God's word.

Now, the second thing I want us to see, we see in verse 42 and look here, I want you to see not only does it have proper preaching, this church that we see in the book of Acts had proper praying. It says there and they continued steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship in breaking of bread and in prayers. Now, before I go into this, I want us to notice here it says, they continued steadfastly. A little bit further down, it says, they had all things in common. Now, I want you to think for just a moment and and pastor Rick hasn't told me anything.

I don't know anything about the history of this church. I literally don't know anything that goes on here other than that I just know pastor Rick from years ago but you know, even in a small church, small churches, big churches, medium sized churches, new churches, and old churches, it's always filled with sinners. We are all sinners and because of our human nature, one of the things that we have is we have conflicts. People don't get along. People bicker and and I hope that's not the case here but if it's like most churches, there's probably some of it a little bit or there has been in the past and if it's not, there will be in the future.

Why? Because that's part of our sin nature and this early church, it says that they had all things in common. They got along. Now, just imagine that. How many of you have ever heard somebody say, I would go to that church but that church is filled with hypocrites.

Haven't we heard that? And you know why? Well, in a sense, it's true. We are a bunch of hypocrites. We tell people, you need to do this and then we live like the world or I wouldn't use that language and then we spout it off when somebody cuts us off in traffic or what have you and we are.

We are a bunch of hypocrites and so the world looks at that and they don't want anything to do with us, probably understandably so and so, this early church, it's interesting to me. It said they had all things in common. I've I've told this at several churches but the church that my wife grew up in, it has a absolutely beautiful facility and they've remodeled the church several times but it's a very classic looking building. It's got these beautiful columns and these gorgeous stained glass windows. It's just a beautiful church building but when you go up and I remember the first time I went, I sat with my wife in the balcony and we looked down.

I'm looking down and I'm like, why is it like that? Beautiful pews and every other pew is padded. So, the front row is padded. The second row is wood, padded, wood, padded wood, the whole church and I thought that's the oddest thing I've ever seen. You wouldn't notice it unless you're up in the balcony and you know, it's kind of interesting because when they were remodeling the church, about half the church said, church that's classic, that's a good godly church should have wood pews and the other church people said, a church that's comfortable that people want to come to and they stay pay attention is a church that has padded pews and so it kind of started off as a little joke and then people kind of got mad about it and the church was about to split over whether they should have padded pews or wooden pews.

Now, we wonder why people don't want to come to our churches and so this church couldn't decide they were about to have a church split. People were furious at the business meeting. So, the pastor said, okay, we'll pad every other pew and so they were happy with that and so, the joke for me was, when I was up there in the balcony before that church service, guess which pews filled up first? The the the padded pews and I wanted to say, wait a minute, if you voted for the wood pews, you ought to have to sit in the wood pews But anyway, that's the kind of things that happen in our churches today. There's another church in Winston Salem, North Carolina that has two different colors of carpet in the auditorium.

It has one color underneath the pews and one color for the aisles. Why? To make it nice looking? Well, it looks pretty neat but you know why they did it? They did it because they couldn't agree on the carpet color and they were going to have a split over the color of the carpet.

You hear stories like this. I've seen it so they must be true And so crazy things. Well, this early church, they had all things in common. They got along and I think one of the reasons why it was possible was because they prayed together. It says so they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine.

So in other words, like we looked at, they studied the Bible and in fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. Now, breaking of bread could be referring here to the Lord's supper because he commanded them to do that but they had fellowship meals together. Y'all ever heard the story about the the little kids that went to their school and the teacher said, hey, we want you to have a we're going to talk about religion this week in school and I want each of you to bring something that's a representation of your religion to school. So, the little Catholic boy brought his rosary beads and the little Jewish boy had his little skull cap on his head and then the little, they they were going around and the the Muslim boy brought his prayer rug or what have you and so then it was time for the little baptist boy and he pulled out of his backpack a casserole dish and so the the teacher's like, what's this all about? And he goes, well, that's what baptist are all about.

We eat, you know, and and so, what do we think about when we think about our churches? Well, here we see that they did have fellowship and I think we as Baptist a lot of times, we fellowship around the dinner table or what have you but they prayed together. You know, I've read statistics that the average Christian prays less than a minute a day. We have the ability to talk to God in heaven. We have the ability to talk to the creator of the universe.

He wants to communicate with us. He communicates to us through his word and we communicate to him through our prayers and and you know what? We don't take advantage of that. You know what's interesting though? We all have time for these little devices, don't we?

We all have time to sit there and scroll. I bet you someday we're going to find out that these muscles or something are going to wear out in our fingers because we sit there all day long scanning through our phones. And isn't it amazing? We love these little things so much. We have to stay in touch with everybody.

So much so that we do it while we're driving down the road. And it tickles me to death. We pull up at a stoplight and it look around you. All the cars, the people's faces are glowing in the dark because they're looking at their phones. We have time to check our Facebook or our Twitter or to send a Snapchat but we don't have time to talk to God And then we wonder why we are not mission minded.

We wonder why our churches aren't growing. What it says there, they continued steadfast in apostles' doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread and in prayers. Why don't we have proper prayer life? Well, it's because we don't take the time. We don't realize the power that's in prayer and so this early church did that.

First Thessalonians five seventeen, you know this verse. It says, to pray without ceasing. Now, that idea, does that mean we pray twenty four hours a day? No. Scripture even warns us to to be careful about vain repetitions that we just sit there and pray.

I know that there are people that say the Lord's prayer or they say little prayers over and over again and they they don't even mean anything to them anymore because it's a vain repetition but when it says here in first Thessalonians five seventeen to pray without ceasing, what it's really telling us to do is to make ourselves always in the attitude of prayer. We should always be ready to go before the Lord. Everything that we do should be bathed in prayer. You know, it sounds ridiculous but hey, I'm going to go buy a new car. You know what?

We ought to pray about that. Lord, give me wisdom in choosing the right car. Help me not to to be deceived or help me not to make a poor decision. We're getting ready to go eat dinner. Do we pray and say, Lord, help me decide where go eat.

Well, there wouldn't be anything wrong with that but we could sure pray and thank God that we have the ability to eat and we have all that that we need provided for us. So, we should always have that attitude of prayer and so I can ask you here. I heard that today at 05:30, there's going be a prayer meeting at the church. So, hey, yes, the church is doing right. We have a prayer list.

We have prayer meetings. We pray on Wednesday night. I know pastor Rick is praying. So, what about you? Is prayer important in your life?

Do you communicate with God? And so that's the second thing that makes a church and makes people missions minded. Now, the third and the last thing I want us to see is the church's missions minded has proper priorities, proper priorities. Now, look at verse 44 and it says, and all that believed were together and had all things common and that's what I referred to earlier. Notice, they they got along and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need.

Now, you see what these early believers did? They sold their possessions. They shared things together. Why? Because their goal was outreach.

Their goal was to give to those in need. Their goal was to to to provide and to glorify God through that. Now, I have to be careful here again. It's easy for me as a missionary. I I I'm not going to stand up here.

Wouldn't it be funny? I I'd I'd love to see y'all's faces if I said, you know what? I want all of you this week to go home and sell your car and send the money to me because I'm your missionary and that's what scripture tells you to do and hey, if you can sell your if you can sell your house and you can all move in here to the church and send me the money, that would be great too. I bet I could be on the news by the end of the week preaching garbage like that. That's not what I'm telling you to do but it's interesting and you know what?

I'm not telling you to do that but what is interesting about that early church is they were willing to do that and they had their priorities straight. Is it wrong to have a nice car, to have a nice home, to have nice things? Certainly not but we want to make sure that our priority is for things of the Lord and so the way that this early church manifested that was that they were willing to sell their things, to sell their possessions, to give it to all men. Now, if you read it between the lines here too, it's kind of interesting. Those people were very faithful because remember Christ had just ascended back to heaven and he told them, he left them the great commission In Matthew twenty eight eighteen to 20, that is where we see Christ telling them there.

He has given them a command right before he leaves and he is saying, hey, as I go up to heaven, this is what I am leaving you to do and you know what? I believe this early church, they really had faith that Christ was coming back and they thought he was coming back soon. Now, in light of eternity, what's two thousand years compared to eternity? It's nothing but in our human minds, we look and say, maybe sometimes we even wonder if Christ ever is going to come back but we know that the day now is closer than it's ever been before. We see the things taking place in the world.

It seems like we're getting to the end times. I don't know. I'm not a prophet. I can't tell you that but these people, they believe that Christ was coming back and they were willing to do that. They were willing to sell their possessions.

They were willing to put everything together for the work of the Lord. I read one time the story of some missionaries in Columbia. Columbia had a huge problem with the Fark terrorist organization. It was a group of rebels that were trying to overthrow the government there. And the missionaries had worked there for many, many years and I heard this account of these missionaries.

They were in this little village and the FARC rebels were getting close. They had surrounded this area. They were trying to take it over. And so they got a call on the radio that said the US military was sending helicopters to evacuate these missionaries out of their compound. And they said it's a very, very dangerous situation.

If you stay behind, you're not gonna you probably will not live. And they've been burning the villages and the places they go through, so they said whatever you leave behind, you probably will never have again. And they said, They're coming at this set time. You have very little time. You can each bring one bag, one small bag of your most prized possession.

So be getting your passport, get your legal documents, if you have a photo album, get those things. Everything else has to be left behind. There's not time and there's not space for this. So, as they were gathering their stuff together in a panic and fear, the missionaries, their children, this whole group of people were getting their things together and then they began to hear gunfire, they began to hear the evidence of these rebels getting closer And then all of a sudden, they hear the roar of the military helicopters coming to evacuate them. The helicopters are coming in.

They have to land in this field. And as they're landing in this field, they are taking their stuff and they're walking over to Marines or whoever it was or getting off helicopters to evacuate them and all of a sudden gunfire erupts and things start shooting across this field. And they had to run across this field and as the missionaries were running, they began to drop their suitcases. That one suitcase that they had with their most prized possessions, they left them behind and they got to the helicopter. They got inside.

Some of them were shot if I understand but they survived. They got in. The helicopter takes off and a fire of machine and a bunch of machine gun fire and they take off to safety. They look down and they're beginning to burn their village. They can still see their suitcases, their prized possessions laying there on the ground and so one of the marines looked down and asked one of the missionaries said, what does it feel like to leave everything behind and to see all your worldly possessions left there?

And the marine said that the missionary looked at him and said, free. Now, I want you to think about that for a second. What if today, you had to lose everything that you own and you said, hey, you can only take one suitcase and then right at the last moment, you find out you can't even keep that suitcase. In light of eternity that we see that that we're free from those things. We don't need those things to give us pleasure and the early church realized that and again, I'm not trying to give you a guilt trip for saying you have nice things.

I think God provides those for us and they can help us but we should always like the early church keep our priorities straight. Now, we can look at Missouri Avenue Baptist Church. I don't know what percentage of your budget goes to minish missions or to outreach but I know part of it does and so, hey, you can say we pass the test. We we give to missions but what about you personally? Do you give to missions?

Are you faithful to giving to the Lord's work here at your church? Is it a priority in your life? And we can take it out of the realm of financial things. What about our time? Do we have time for God?

Do we have time to be a part of the church? Are we doing what we can for the Lord? There's always a need and then the last thing I want us to see real quick is in verse 46. You see, with that proper preaching, they had proper planning, they had proper priorities and look at this verse 46, they have proper planning. It says, and they continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house to eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.

We know by history, later in the history of this early church that they sent out missionaries. This church grew and people were saved and each person did their part to spread the gospel. What about you? What about us? Are we doing it as a church?

Are we reaching Clearwater? Is that where we're at? Seminole, I don't know where I'm at. But anyway, are we reaching this area with the gospel? What about our own neighborhood?

What about where we work? Are we doing our part? And so folks, after looking at this, I hope that today when we leave, if somebody was to ask you, what's mission all about? I hope you're not like one of those teenagers that pictures me boiling in a pot of water with the cannibals around me. I really hope you're not yawning and saying, oh, boring speaker.

I hope you're not saying, oh, it's this or that and and we've lost focus. I hope you see that if a missions minded church is going to have proper preaching, You make sure that you support pastor Rick in that now and in the days ahead. You make sure that's a church that has proper praying and you do your part to pray for missions, to pray for your pastor, to pray for your church. Make sure that you have your priorities straight, that you have time for the things of the Lord and then proper planning. How do you do that?

Well, the early church, Acts chapter one verse eight tells us how you plan to reach the world of the gospel. It starts at home and so it tells them there to into in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the world. If I was to translate that verse or to rewrite that verse for this church, it would say, hey, be my witnesses right there in Clearwater and then in Florida, then in The United States and then to the rest of the world. Mission starts at home. You folks can reach people with the gospel that I'll never meet.

Your family, your neighbors, your coworkers. So, of us needs to do our part. Now, this morning, I want us to think about this. This is a message that's for believers. This is for people that are Christians that have a relationship with Christ but perhaps you've never accepted Christ as your savior.

Maybe you don't understand what I'm talking about when I say you can communicate with God. You know, I've heard people say, the gospel is only for weak people. People listen, you you people just can't accept the fact that someday we're all going to die and you just you just use it as a crutch. It's just a fairy tale. Well, I can tell you those of us that have a relationship with Christ, we know it's not a fairy tale.

We have a peace in our lives. We have joy in our life. We know what our future holds because we have that relationship with Christ and and we could go through and show evidences of how the Bible is true but the most important for me, the most exciting evidence that the gospel is true is the lives that has changed. I know that once I was blind but now I can see. I know that once that I was I was depressed and with anxiety and now, I have joy in the Lord and it doesn't mean everything is going to be happy and wonderful all the time but we have hope in Christ.

We have hope in his word and so, what's exciting about this message is for Christians, it's something that we can use and we can we can evaluate our lives. We can evaluate our church and if you're not a Christian, we can look and say, that's what I want. I want to have that joy and you know, it's interesting. We're all sinners. Scripture tells us that all has sinned to come short of the glory of God.

The Bible also tells us that the wages of sin or the consequences of sin is death. Wow. What good news, right? No, it's not good news. It's sad news and and that depresses us and that worries us but what's exciting about it is even though we're sinners, despite the fact that we're sinners, Christ provided a way for us and Christ came to Earth.

We see historically and we see in the Bible that Christ came to the Earth. He died on the cross. He he lived a sinless life first. He was God's son. He died on the cross.

He was buried and what happened the third day, he rose from the dead and because of that, he had victory over death. He had victory over the grave and so he offers to pay that sin debt for us. Let's just imagine for a second that you are driving down the road and you get a speeding ticket and what's the consequence of that? Well, you got to pay a fine. Well, the consequences of our sin is death and death is really separation from God.

God is perfect. He can't live with us and so, we're separated because of that sin. Well, because of that, Christ came down. It's like if I went to the jail or I went to the courthouse and I paid your ticket for you. Well, he paid that ticket for us.

He paid for our sin death and he was the only one that could do it because he was sinless. I couldn't pay for my own sin debt because I have sinned. I couldn't pay for your sin debt because I have sinned but Christ was sinless and so he took the punishment for us so that we could have life and you know what's great about it? There's nothing we can do to earn it and there's nothing we can do to deserve it. So, this morning, all these suggestions, all these things that I've told us we can do, that will not earn our salvation.

It's a free gift and all we have to do is accept it and that's an exciting thing for us and so that should get us as Christians excited that we should want to share that good news with other people and so I want you today to just kind of evaluate that. Think through your life. Think about your priorities. Think about your prayer life. Think about your study of God's word and I hope that will help us to to glorify God and to to see our church and to see that our community change with the gospel.

Let's pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for your word. Father, we thank you for the opportunity we've had just to look at this passage of scripture about the early church and there's so much more we could see there Lord but we can see these these four areas that help them to grow. Father, we ask that you would just be with Missouri Avenue Baptist Church with these folks here. Help this church to grow and to reach this community and that he help each of us to grow and and to change and to glorify you with our lives.

Father, as we go out today, I ask that you would just burden us with this passage of scripture. Help us to meditate on it and to think through it and just to dwell on this in the days ahead that we can glorify you with our lives. Father, if there's someone here today that's never understood the gospel that wants to have that peace, that wants to have purpose in life. May those folks come today. Talk to me.

Talk to someone here. Talk to a loved one that they can understand and and and be shown the gospel and understand how they can be saved. Father, for the rest of us, help us to be motivated by your word today. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.