I invite you, brothers and sisters, to turn back to Acts chapter 14 and beginning in verse And as you are turning there, I do want to once again thank you for the kind invitation to come and to preach God's word to you and to enjoy a sweet fellowship with your pastor and to hear some wonderful testimony of what God is doing through various ministries and church planting works. Philip, so encouraging to hear about what the Lord is doing in the mountains of North Carolina. Let me tell you. You know, a lot of people will say, they'll shrug their shoulders at a 64-member church. Let me tell you, how much greater is a faithful 64-member church than an unfaithful 600-member church or 5,000-member church? They're everywhere. We're in the age of the megachurch. And the megachurch is so often getting bigger in size numerically, but getting more and more shallow spiritually. The message is changing according to the culture. Praise the Lord for all churches of all sizes that are staying true to scripture. Amen? We are in a day where this is going to mean something very important as the culture continues to frown upon historic Orthodox Christianity and Christian values. And I think the age of the megachurch is actually on the decline as it attempts to seek to conform to the culture. And so let us be faithful to scripture. And we've been talking about the Great Commission over this past weekend. And rather than come and be a kind of a cheerleader for you going out and being a missionary, although that is part of the application of what's being said, what I've tried to do, perhaps giving you a different angle on thinking about world mission, is to talk a little bit about strategy and what is the Great Commission and its content, and how should we respond to it as a church? What should we be doing? What should we not be doing? What should we be careful of in terms of mission creep? We talked this morning about those two wonderful promises that are book-ending, the imperative to go and to make disciples, and that we should be going with those promises in hand, giving us confidence, holy boldness in the Lord Jesus Christ that Christ is building his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. We literally bust down the gates of hell with the preaching of the gospel and we trust that the Lord is building his church through these unadorned means of word, sacraments, and prayer. Those things that are so unglamorous and ordinary when it comes to the world's view. To the world, to the unbelieving eye, these things are always going to be irrelevant. We believe. We are Christians. We believe the word of God. We believe that these means are efficacious to save and to sanctify God's elect. And so we do them. And even when things aren't as fruitful as we would hope they would be, we trust these tools that Christ himself has ordained for the ministry. And listen, if you're going into ministry, or if you are a spouse of someone in full-time ministry, there are dark days of ministry. There are days when you scratch your head and you wonder, maybe we do need to drive the four-wheeler up on the stage and tell a lot of jokes before the sermon. Try that one, Pastor Carl. That I'd want to see, I'll tell you. There are dark days in ministry when things aren't always going so well and people aren't responding as we would hope, but we must ultimately trust that that Word of God that is proclaimed, which has both the message of judgment and salvation always being held up side by side, we trust that the Lord is using His Word and He is both judging and saving sinners for His own glory. And we talked a little bit about making disciples as well. It's so important that when we talk about making disciples that we recognize that that disciple making isn't by simply stroking people's egos and simply making them feel welcome and comfortable. On the contrary, we have been right smack dab in the middle of the gospel of Luke in our morning services. I'm preaching through Luke. And we've been in those middle chapters, which are so strong when it comes to the call to discipleship. In fact, we know that there's a section in there in chapters 14, 15, and 16, talking about the cost of discipleship. And Jesus basically says, you cannot be my disciple. You cannot be my disciple unless you hate your father and mother, spouse, siblings, in comparison to me. In other words, your devotion and allegiance to me must be so far above your allegiance to your family, because your family may turn on you. This is first century Jerusalem here, where if a Jew were to convert, their family could turn on them. And Jesus says, you can't be my disciple unless you're willing to follow me at all costs. He also says, you must take up your cross and follow me, an instrument of torture and death, or you cannot be my disciple. He also says, you must be willing to renounce everything if you want to be my disciple." He then later talks about money. You cannot serve God and money if you want to be my disciple. And over and over again, he gets to the very heart of what it means to be a Bible-believing Christian. All hypocrisy is swept away. And he says, if you want to be my disciple, you must, of course, first and foremost, abide In the work of Christ, trusting in him alone for your salvation, you can add nothing at all to what Christ has done for your salvation. You must trust in him alone for your salvation. And yet in him, you cannot be his disciple unless you are bearing this kind of fruit of allegiance and loyalty and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is true, authentic Christianity, being a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we are called as a church to make disciples like this, to not withhold this message, the strong message of the cost of discipleship, but to preach it because we believe that the Lord would have us to. These are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. These are the kind of disciples that he wants. These are the requirements that he has set forth. And so we are called, the Great Commission says, to make disciples, not just to grow big churches. And so we come tonight to Acts chapter 14, starting in verse 19, and we see what the apostles were about in their ministry in the early church. In verse 19, it says, but Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city. And on the next day, he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying that through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. Here ends the reading of God's word, let us pray. Our Father, we do ask that you would be pleased to illumine our hearts and minds that we would receive, embrace, believe, and respond to this word here this evening. that we would know the Great Commission, that we would know your word and the example left for us in your word, and that we would not just know it, but believe it and embrace it. As a church, as individual believers, may you receive all the glory, and may you work by your spirit as your word is being preached even in these moments. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. The Bible is clear from beginning to end that God Himself has purposed and designed the missionary enterprise. And its ultimate end, according to Psalm 67, is the spread of God's truth for the joy of all peoples in Christ. The spread of God's truth and glory for the joy of all peoples in Christ. What we are going to consider tonight is the fact that the divine architect of missions has not concealed his plan for missions, his blueprint for missions. The architect does not leave his workers in the dark without a blueprint. He does not leave it up to us to figure out what to do. On the contrary, God has revealed it to us. He has shown it to us in his word how missions is to be done. In other words, the missionary task is not something that we are meant to make up as we go along. Nor is the missionary task something that significantly changes from age to age or culture to culture. This is one of the biggest questions that comes up. regarding the doctrine of worship and regarding the doctrine of mission. By the way, two doctrines upon which, I know everybody says the church stands or falls in the doctrine of justification, and that is true, but let me tell you, the church stands or falls in the doctrine of worship and mission as well. Denominations historically have fallen because of their neo-Orthodox view of mission. Like New Covenant worship, biblical missions is trans-temporal and trans-cultural. Whether in the first century or the 21st, whether we are at the foothills of the Himalayans in northern India, the coastlands of Australia, the plains of Africa, the Palatinate in Germany, the Andes Mountains of Peru, or Calvary Presbytery, God's blueprint for world missions is the making of mature disciples through the planting and the strengthening of biblical churches. We see it right here in our text. It's plain as day. God's blueprint for world missions is the advancement of his kingdom through the multiplication of God-centered churches. Anything that we do, now please hear this, anything that we do in the name of Christian mission should in some way be supporting and coming alongside the planting and strengthening of biblical churches. Sadly, it's too often the case. However, that missiology or the study of missions is divorced from ecclesiology. the study of the Church, the doctrine of the Church. Missiology is often divorced from ecclesiology. They are like distant cousins rather than best friends, as they should be. Even in our Reformed camp, where we are known historically to have a strong view of the Church, we have in recent times become infatuated with a kind of new school of missions, one that profoundly marginalizes the doctrine of the church, giving alternative ministries and programs our greatest attention and energy and resources. But the Reformed have historically had a strong focus on church planting. Some of you will know that John Calvin and his pastor's academy in Geneva trained many men who went out as missionary church planters. Some were even sent to Brazil. What is most amazing, however, is that between 1555 and 1562, over 2,000 Protestant churches were planted in France, all under great threat of persecution, some pastors losing their lives for the sake of the gospel. And John Calvin himself wrote to men who were under great persecution, some who lost their lives. It's a part of our Reformed heritage to be missions-minded. I recently was part of a book project that was dealing with Jonathan Edwards. I had the privilege of writing on Edwards on Mission. Jonathan Edwards, a man who had espoused the sovereignty of God and the doctrine of election and predestination, and yet he was passionate about mission all over the world. Even himself, the last eight years of his life, becoming a missionary to the Indians, the Mohawk and Mohican Indians. in New England. Rather than planting doctrinally solid, God-centered, price-proclaiming churches that will do the work of biblical ministry, we are often more inclined to engage in and support other endeavors, more so-called relevant and cutting-edge projects, even though God has clearly revealed to us what he has ordained for the salvation and nurture of his people. Too often when it comes to overseas mission strategies, the establishing and building up of local churches is on the periphery. I've witnessed this firsthand in many different well-intentioned overseas ministries. I've seen it in missions endeavors dedicated to mercy ministry. It has been apparent in many evangelistic ministries or sports ministries that the church has very little to do with their approach. These ministries should never be separated from or substitutes of church planting. If they are, we have at best misunderstood and at worst ignored God's blueprint or strategy for missions. Here's the point. And let us not miss this. God's blueprint for missions found in his word is the establishment of biblical churches throughout the world. Through this missionary enterprise, it will not always look exactly the same, but it will always bear the marks of true biblical church planting. That is organizing, hear this now, organizing and building up churches with spiritually qualified leadership, Those who, that is, are faithfully overseeing and nourishing the flock through the means of grace. This is hard work. It doesn't happen overnight, but it is God's way. It is God's way. Oak trees do not grow up overnight. One thing I love about living in the low country of South Carolina, all the marvelous oak trees. And from time to time, my son Hans will say, Daddy, how long do you think it took for that one to grow? I don't know, son, a long time. But you know, little, these weeds, there's these weird, I don't know if this is a low country thing, I don't know if they have these up here, but they're these little vines that have these bulbs. And they grow like three feet in two days. And they have thorns on them. I mean, they're angry. You try to pull them up, they cut you. And then when you actually do dig them up, they've got these ugly potato-looking bulbs, nasty things. And they grow so fast. But you know what? You can get a shovel and dig them up very easily. But not an oak tree. Things that last are what we want to be about, and we want to do things right when it comes to church planting, and God has the blueprint for us. He calls us to go and to baptize and to make disciples and to teach all of what Christ has commanded. With these things in mind, let us think about our text for a few minutes. In this passage, we meet Paul on his first missionary journey. He is with Barnabas. They are traveling along one of the major Roman highways, Look at what they're doing. They're organizing and they're strengthening new churches in Galatia, in the southern region of Asia Minor, specifically in these four cities of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. You will notice that the chapter begins with Paul boldly preaching Christ in a Jewish synagogue in Iconium. Verse one states that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed in the gospel. This upset the unbelieving Jews. And they sought to undermine Paul's ministry. Later, they sought to physically harm them. When Paul and Barnabas learned of it, they traveled about 20 miles south to Lystra. In verses 8 through 18, while in Lystra, we are informed of the debacle of the crowds. They seek to worship Paul and Barnabas, calling them Zeus and Hermes, because of the miracle that was done through them. I mean, you talk about crazy church planting stories. You know, the sad thing in our day is that when people start worshiping the church planter, the church planter starts saying, this is great. They're not saying, don't make sacrifices to me. They're like, no, bring it. There's not a lot of humility. But here they are struck with horror as these people start worshiping them, calling them these Greek gods. While all this is taking place, the hostile Jews from Antioch and Iconium suddenly arrive on the scene to make things worse. And this is where we pick up the narrative. And there are four things I want us to see in this story about God's blueprint for missions in terms of the response of these missionaries. We see, first of all, their willingness to suffer. Secondly, their passion to persevere. Thirdly, the primacy of preaching. And fourthly, the priority of establishing and strengthening God-centered churches. The willingness to suffer, the passion to persevere, the primacy of preaching, and the priority of establishing and strengthening God-centered churches. First of all, the willingness to suffer. You all know that wonderful quote by Jim Elliott, that missionary to the Alka Indians who was martyred in the 1950s, became a hero to so many. He said, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Paul and Barnabas were willing to lose all. They were true disciples. They were willing to renounce all. They were willing to take up their cross to be a true disciple of Christ. They were willing to give all, to lose all, even their very lives for the sake of the gospel. and the advancement of Christ's kingdom. Look at verse 19, it says, Paul was beaten so brutally by these zealous Jews that everyone thought he was dead. Here we see the grace of God shining forth brightly, do we not? The very man who used to persecute Christians. The very man who endorsed and encouraged the martyrdom of godly Stephen. Here he is, himself, being stoned because of his bold proclamation of Christ. The persecutor had become the persecuted. And because he now knew Christ, he would not have it any other way. He would rather suffer for the name of Christ than to walk around in flowing robes and be a well thought of Jewish teacher. This suffering for the gospel was no surprise to Paul since at his conversion in Acts chapter nine, Christ said to Ananias, quote, that Paul must suffer for the sake of my name. And we know that message was passed along to Paul. He knew he would suffer. In fact, Paul's ministry is one of many near death experiences. All of his life was full of these experiences as a Christian. He was a true missionary. He was willing to suffer for the cause of Christ. And I believe we live in an age where we must be ready. All of us, everyone who calls themselves a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ must be ready to suffer. It's a mark of true discipleship. It's a mark of sincerity as a Christian believer. And as our culture becomes increasingly more hostile towards our Christian beliefs, There will be a time, I believe, in the not-too-distant future where we will have to choose whether we will be respectable Southerners who go along with the beat of the drum of our culture, or will we be followers of Christ and say, no, do what you will, but I will follow my Lord. This is, shall I say, especially true for those who are teaching elders, ruling elders, those who are in the ministry, how important it is that we are willing to suffer for the cause of the gospel. Because if we are not willing, how many of our people that we lead will be willing? One story that I'm always moved by is that of John and Betty Stam. After Hudson Taylor had founded the China Inland Mission in the mid-19th century, hundreds of zealous men and women signed up to serve as missionaries in China with CIM, China Inland Mission. Two of those missionaries were John and Betty Stamm. John and Betty Stamm, they attended Moody Bible College in Chicago in the early 1930s. They became acquainted with one another through a prayer meeting. At CIM, lots of romance can happen at prayer meetings. Why don't people go to prayer meetings? You could meet your future spouse there. What's wrong with you? They became acquainted with one another at Moody during this prayer meeting. And despite the dangers of doing missions in China during those days due to communist rebellions and uprisings, God gave them both a heart to reach the Chinese with the gospel. In Betty's case, this wasn't altogether surprising since she grew up in a family as a Presbyterian in missions with her family. Despite the recent martyrdoms and evacuations of missionaries all over China due to political and mortal dangers, Betty Scott sailed for China after graduation. John had one more year towards graduation, but they decided they would hold off on their relationship because she believed she was called to go and to serve in the mission there in China. They put their call to missionary work above their desire to be together. John sailed to China after his graduation and was delighted in God's providence to run into Betty in Shanghai, where she was receiving some medical attention. Soon they were engaged. A year later, in 1933, they were married. And just a year after that, they gave birth to a beautiful little girl, Helen Priscilla. This couple was deeply in love, and they were staunchly committed to serving Christ in China. That fall in 1934, the Stams were assigned a CIM mission station in Anwai, where just two years prior, missionaries had to be evacuated because of fear of political terrorists. Their superiors believed that the area was now relatively safe, but that was not to be the case. Less than two weeks after the Stams arrived at this mission station, the Stams were attacked by communist guerrilla soldiers and placed under guard. John Stam was allowed to write a letter to his superiors because they were asking for a ransom for their lives. On December 6, 1934, he writes the following, quote, dear brethren, my wife, baby, and myself are today in the hands of communists. Their demand is $20,000 for our release. All our possessions are in their hands. But we praise God for peace in our hearts and a meal tonight. God grant you wisdom in what you do, and to us fortitude, courage, and peace in heart. He is able and a wonderful friend in such a time." He goes on to write, things happened so quickly this morning. They were in the city just a few hours after the ever-present rumors really became alarming so that we could not prepare to leave in time. We were just too late. He finishes his letter with these words, the Lord bless and guide you, and as for us, may God be glorified, whether by life or by death. In him, John C. Stam. The day after this letter was written, the Stams were taken to another town. There they were stripped down to their underclothes and marched through the street, mocked and ridiculed along the way. It is said that when some folks saw them and they were being marched through the street and humiliated, some folks saw them that knew them and said, where are you going? And John turned to them and said, we are going to heaven. After being led to the center of town, these two godly newlyweds were forced to their knees side by side and they were executed by beheading. May God be glorified. whether by life or by death. This was their ambition. This was their ambition, the glory of God. This was Paul and Barnabas's ambition, the glory of God. This should be the ambition, not just of Christian missionary disciples, but all disciples everywhere. To live is Christ and to die is gain. May God be glorified, whether by life or by death. You see, the missionary enterprise is one where we give our prayers and our energy and our thoughts and our encouragement and our money. The missionary enterprise is very much connected to what it means to be a disciple and to show the fruit of discipleship. You are concerned that souls are saved all over the world and that churches are planted and that disciples are made. If you don't care about that, if that's not on your radar, you should question the seriousness with which you walk with Christ. Are we willing to endure suffering for the cause of Christ's mission? Are we willing to be inconvenienced and to make sacrifices to see Christ's kingdom advance? Just recently, again, in Luke, we looked at, last Lord's Day, we looked at the parable of the unjust steward. And I'll tell you, you read that parable for the first time, you're like, oh my goodness, what in the world is going on in that parable? because it appears that Jesus is praising this unjust, dishonest servant. But what's going on there is he's essentially saying this steward was very shrewd in the way he made a life for himself after he lost his job with his manager. He was very shrewd. And actually the manager himself says, wow, that was pretty impressive, the way he's made a life for himself. And so when you first read it, you're like, is Jesus encouraging us to be dishonest? No, he's not encouraging us to be dishonest. What he's saying is, may we give as much energy and shrewdness for the sake of the kingdom as unbelievers give in shrewdness for the sake of their earthly life. And to whom little is given, May you do a lot with that little. He who is faithful with little will be faithful with much. He who is unfaithful with little will be unfaithful with much. Do not serve God and money. That's the whole point of that section. So much of this is connected to what it means to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, for us to train people to think like disciples and to make true disciples. We need to be willing to suffer. to sacrifice for the cause of mission. The second thing we see here is the passion to persevere. What did Paul do after he was stoned and left for dead? Did he take an early retirement? Did he look for a friendlier field to harvest? Move to Florida, play some golf? Now look at verses 20 and 21. Look at verses 20 and 21 with me. Are you kidding me? They went back into the hornet's nest. They went back in. Not only did they continue preaching God's word, but they went right back into the hornet's nest in Lystra, Iconium, and last but not least, Antioch, where the Jews that stoned him were in heavy force. Paul loved the churches that he had established in those cities. He had poured his life into them as a preacher, as a shepherd of God's flock. No amount of persecution would keep him from them. This reminds us of Paul's words to Timothy and to Titus. 2 Timothy 2.10 says this. Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Titus 1.1. Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness. Why did Paul suffer? Why did Paul persevere? Answer, for the glory of God, for the advancement of his kingdom, and for the sake of the elect. It's the confidence he had. Notice that Paul's understanding of the sovereignty of God doesn't doesn't quench his zeal for mission, it fuels it. Some people say, why missions if God is sovereign? I would say, why mission if God is not sovereign? If he is not there working, changing hearts from stone to clay. We see perseverance in mission. They didn't give up when things were difficult and things get difficult in ministry. Things get difficult on the mission field. Things don't always go the way that you'd like them to. There are lots of valleys, lots of dark clouds in ministry. particularly when you're on the so-called front lines of church planting and mission. And so we must persevere. We must persevere in mission. We must be willing to suffer. We must be willing to persevere. And then thirdly, we see in this passage the primacy of preaching. Preaching is our Lord's ordained method of communicating his saving truth. It's God's way. As I mentioned this morning, it's what the apostles were busy doing in the early church. They were preaching, proclaiming the gospel. There are many, many explicit references to preaching just in the chapter that we are in, just this chapter alone. Verse 1, just run your eyes over these. Verse 1, chapter 14, they preached and a great number believed. Verse 3, they spoke boldly for the Lord. Verse 7, after much persecution, they continued to preach the gospel. Verse 9, Paul was preaching. Verse 21, when they had preached the gospel. Verse 22, encouraging and strengthening the disciples. Verse 25, they spoke or preached the word. Wherever Paul, the missionary church planter, went, he was a herald of the gospel. Why? Not only because he believed in the authority of Scripture and the efficacy of Scripture, but he believed in the method that Christ himself had ordained to bring this truth to the world, to establish Christ's body, the Church. In the mid-90s, I had the privilege of traveling to India three different times, and I went there to visit a very godly missionary named John Dorsey. He was in his mid-70s when I visited him, and I have all kinds of wonderful adventure stories about my time with John Dorsey in New Delhi, India. I almost died like 50 times in those trips. It was madness, just madness in India. Two things really impacted me in my time with John Dorsey. First of all, in whatever ministry context we were in, whether it was doing a visitation in somebody's home, or whether it was a teenager's meeting, or meeting with college students, or gathering with the church on the Lord's Day, he always preached and taught the word of God faithfully. It was always a part. If we went to visit someone in their living room, we would have chai, tea, and some cookies, and then, and John weighed about 350 pounds, he had a lot of cookies. He never said no. I never heard him say no to food. It was wonderful. And he was like the grandfather that I never had. He called me boy. One time he forgot his teeth when he was going to church. And he walked back into the apartment and he said, boy, I forgot my teeth. One day you'll have to worry about these things. He was a wonderful, godly man, great sense of humor. Always, it's one thing that impressed me, always faithful to preach and to teach the word of God. He knew that that was the power of God into salvation, what the gospel was. He really believed that biblical missions entailed the proclamation of God's truth, and we must too. We must too. The second thing that impressed me was John Dorsey, who was willing to suffer. He went through all kinds of suffering. It's amazing he lived as long as he did. We need to be willing to suffer for the Lord, willing to persevere. Finally, we need to set clearly the priority of establishing and strengthening God-centered churches. I said it this morning, I'll say it again. The primary application of the Great Commission is the organizing and strengthening of biblical churches. That's what it is. We see it all over Acts. It's an obvious, I think, and clear application of the Great Commission. And so we end this message where we began. It's one of the main motifs of this text. It's one of the main themes of the New Testament. Paul was not on an evangelistic crusade, going from city to city to try to simply get decisions for Christ, or to set up small groups, or to start sports ministries. No, he was preaching the gospel, verse 21, and calling those who profess faith to count the cost, stating in verse 22 that it would be through many tribulations that they would enter the kingdom. That is not a message of easy believism. This is Paul's strategy for church planting. Okay, if you want to be a disciple, get ready to suffer. Okay, let's have chai and cookies now. Look at his... I mean, could you imagine putting that up on the sign? I mean, we put up, you know, banners. We put them up on Sundays in front of the middle school that we meet in and it has the service times. You know, could you imagine on that sign, putting there, it is through many tribulations that we must enter the kingdom of God. But that's exactly what it's all about. trusting God in the midst of tribulation, and in this context, and I believe soon in our own, that entails persecution. Paul's not mincing words. He's not doing a bait and switch. He's not saying, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, and if you just believe in Jesus, all your problems will go away. What he was saying was, if you believe in Jesus, you're gonna get more problems. More problems. Now you're going to be persecuted in addition to all the other stuff you have to deal with. Now you're going to receive persecution if you are a faithful Christian in this culture, in this context. But all of this Paul was doing with the goal of establishing and strengthening churches. Look with me again at verse 22. He went to these cities strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. Now listen, and when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fasting, They committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. Notice there are lots of churches and that there are elders being appointed in those churches, a parody of elders. Church planting and the strengthening of souls in those churches. Bavinck in his classic work on missions writes this, The book is called An Introduction to the Science of Missions. He says, Scripture is quite plain, that it is the Church, the body of Christ, which forms the organ through which and in which the glorified Christ will reveal his great work of salvation to the world. Missions, agencies, and organizations may do a lot of good things. But Christian mission should never be isolated or divorced from the church, the visible church. What is the visible church? All those around the world who profess that they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and are members of congregations that bear the marks of the church, namely the right preaching of the word, the right administration of the sacraments, and church discipline or church order. under the oversight of elders, trained, ordained, qualified elders. And that's what Paul and Barnabas were working to establish. They did not view Christian mission as merely an effort to get decisions for Christ, but rather to make disciples, to baptize their children, to organize congregations that will faithfully carry out the ordinary means of grace, all with the hope that one day these churches would mature, that they too then would send out called and qualified pastors to plant more churches. It's so simple. It's so beautiful. And yet, how often do we lose sight of this mission of the church? Planting and strengthening churches is what Paul and the apostles did. This is what Calvin did. This is what we should do. This is God's strategy for missions, his strategy for making disciples. So what should we take away from this text? What should we take away from this weekend? Number one, our missions giving, our missions giving ought to reflect our confidence in God's blueprint for mission, namely the establishment and encouragement of biblical churches. Are we primarily about church planting? Now in some ways I know I'm preaching to the choir here because I know your pastors are teaching this very thing. But I want to encourage you to be committed to this into the future, to support more and more church plants, because we know that this is God's blueprint for missions. And don't support those church plants merely by writing checks and sending an email once or twice a year. Be committed to those church plants and strengthening those church plants. Send your ministers to them to encourage them Write them letters. Send them emails. It doesn't need to just come from the staff of the church. You can look and see how you can get in touch. That book of all the missionaries is wonderful. Take a little time. Let them know you're praying for them in family worship. In our family, in the Payne family during family worship, every night, each of us prays for one of our missionaries. And the only trouble we have is when the kids fight over who they're gonna pray for. I'm sure none of you have that problem, right? I'm like, come on, aren't we a little more spiritual than this? Let our missions giving reflect our biblical and theological view of mission. Secondly, may we all be willing to suffer and persevere in mission as Paul and the apostles did, as John and Betty Stamm did. This is evidence. of our love and loyalty and devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ, that we would be willing to suffer for the sake of the kingdom and to sacrifice for the sake of the kingdom with our finances. Thirdly, may we, as a leadership and as congregations, encourage young men going into the ministry to think hard about being a missionary church planter, either here in the States or abroad. May we not simply think that their future is gonna entail becoming an assistant pastor somewhere and then becoming a senior pastor somewhere. Perhaps the Lord is calling you to be a missionary church planter. And being a church planter doesn't mean that you have some extraordinary extra set of gifts. Being a church planter means that you are a pastor in a bit of a dynamic entrepreneurial context. but you're just a pastor, a pastor who's called to feed the sheep and to tend the lambs and to love people and to do some organizing and training and then particularization. Is the Lord calling you to that? Perhaps he is. Maybe the Lord will call some families in this church to go be a part of something like that in the future. Let us be willing to think hard to think long, to meditate upon God's blueprint and strategy for mission. And if we do, I believe we'll be sharper as congregations and more in conformity with scripture. Let us get more familiar with God's strategy and more willing to leave our own on the table. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for this brief time in your word. We thank you for this weekend where we have taken some time to think about missions. We pray, O God, that we would be in conformity to your word and not to this world, that we would not look for the latest craze in missional thinking, but rather that we would look to your word to study the great commission that your Son gave to us and to study the the early church, and the work of the apostles, to see what they were committed to, and then to commit ourselves to the same, to this normative approach to Christian ministry and making disciples. Lord, bless this congregation. Bless the pastors, the session, the diaconate. Grant great and extraordinary added wisdom to this leadership and to this flock, that you would use them greatly into the future for your glory. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.