So if you take your Bibles, please, to the Gospel of John, chapter 6. The Gospel of John, chapter 6, starting with verse 35. We're going to read John, chapter 6, verses 35 through 40. Our theme today is Jesus Christ, God's missionary. Starting with John 6, 35, and Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you that you also have seen me and believe not." All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and he that comes to me I will in no wise, no way cast out. For I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which has sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone who sees the Son of God and believes on Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day." Powerful moment. There had been a feeding of 5,000 people earlier and that drew a crowd. And there's a lot of people that were looking for him afterwards. And Jesus said, you didn't come because I've done miracles and I'm the son of God. No, you came because your bellies were filled and you'd like more of that. And he warned them not to labor, not to give all your efforts to the food that perishes, to a belly that'll perish. But you need to do God's work. You need to seek God's breath. And he goes on to tell them that he is living bread, and they can partake of him as if eating bread, but their souls will live forever with him. And unfortunately, it turned into quite an argument at the end. People were pretty mad at him. It's easy to get people to come for the carnal stuff, but when it gets really spiritual, look out. So Jesus made something very clear. I'm on a mission. I'm not here to do my own will. I'm here to do the will of Him that sent me. So I don't speak with my own doctrine. I'm speaking His doctrine. And the works I'm doing, I do because He sent me to do them, and I do them with Him. And the end result is everybody that sees me, believes in me, they're never going to perish. I will. I love that. I will raise them up at the last day. So that's a good start here. So as we said earlier in the concert, that a missionary is someone who was sent on a mission. They have a job to do, a purpose to fulfill, a plan to follow, a goal to complete. This usually involves leaving comfort and routine in order to do something important. And there's a lovely little list of verses there that would be very useful to that point. But what we're going to do is take our Kids Club five statements, five missionary statements, and we're going to examine them for just a moment. The first statement was 1 John 4, 14. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. That's so clear. That is so crystal clear. People get sidetracked with religious themes, and I hate to say it, but religious hobbies, and they forget this is what Jesus is all about, that he came to be a savior. Though he's equal with God, Jesus, the Son of God, submitted himself to the Father. He took on a human body and fulfilled the Father's will on earth. You notice there in our scripture reading, John 6, 38. For I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. Yeah, and in John 13 verses 1 through 5, I'm very fond of this. There's a turning point at John 12. That's his last public speaking. That's the last time he addresses the crowds. After that, John 13 on is all with his disciples. And he starts out, and you know he's preparing to go to the cross and purchase them, but he starts out with a very interesting thing. He takes a towel and he washes their feet. If you knew you were gonna die and have all the sins of the world put on you, would you be thinking about people having clean feet? Now what Jesus was thinking of is how I will teach them to love each other and serve each other as I have served them. But there's some excellent things here telling us what's going on in the mind of Jesus before he went to the cross. So I read John 13, verse one. And now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him." Notice this in verse three, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he was come from God and went to God. That's so powerful. But the next thing, it's not another preaching campaign to the world. No, he rises from supper and laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself. And after that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Sometimes we think serving the Lord has to be so spectacular, so awe-inspiring. Washing feet isn't really awe-inspiring. But why did he take time to teach these things? He could have been contemplating, oh no, I'm gonna have the sins laid on me. I'm gonna suffer, it's gonna be terrible. No, he's thinking all about them. He loved them unto the end. He's thinking about giving to them and giving to his father and fulfilling what his father wanted. But that verse three, there's a sense of direction there that I wish every one of us could have. That the father had given all things. giving him all things. Now he has all authority, all power, you know, he's got it in the universal sense, but how about things like, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. We have now been given all things. All things are working together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. All things are for your sakes, that the abundant thanksgiving of many may redound to the glory of God. All things. Jesus is sharing what he has with us. We're family now. We're part of that kingdom. And he knows he has everything and the world has nothing to give him. Do you know that? The world has nothing to give you? They'll act like they're giving you something, but they're going to tax you and take it from you another way first. But oops, I'm getting political. I better stop. But Jesus knew that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he was come from God. Now, we haven't come from God in the same way the Son of God came from God, but nonetheless, we are born of God. The life we now have, it came from God. And now, he says, and went to God. Do you think enough about the fact that you're on your way to heaven? That you're part of a kingdom that the increase of it will never know any end? That all this stuff going on in the world is all just like watching the sea waves go up and down and up and down. We have something that goes on forever. When there is no more heaven and earth, when there's a new heaven and new earth, we're going to be there. And that should give us confidence and a sense of direction and allow us to focus on the loving things that we should be focusing on and sharing that. Well, I got to keep going now because there's four more things to talk about. He was sent to save us from our sins. It's the second mission statement. 1 John 1.7, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin. Okay, we walk in the light. We don't always walk according to the light. Have you ever been in broad daylight and tripped over something? You may not want to admit it. Some of you already have just by chuckling. But the difference is when someone's in the dark and they trip, they don't know what they tripped over. And guess what? They'll trip again, again, and again, and again. Well, we can see what we tripped over and not keep tripping. Because we're given light. Jesus is light. He's in us, He's around us, He surrounds us, and His word is light. And so we have this opportunity to walk in the light. And when we don't walk according to it, we can confess that, and He'll forgive us and cleanse us. In 1 John 1.9, just a great verse to go after verse 7 there and verse 8. But here we are without hope as sinners in a sinful world deserving God's punishment, but God had compassion and sent his son to not only receive the punishment for our sins, but also to change us by giving us the spirit of his son through the new birth. Now, I just want to read something from Galatians here. Galatians, the first chapter. Galatians chapter one. Starting with verse three, it says, Grace be to you and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. You see there, it says that he gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world. That word present tells me that this evil world is temporary. It's just, it's a passing thing. The world is passing away and we are being delivered from things that could destroy us forever, but instead the world will be destroyed forever. We'll get a new one. But also very important here is Galatians chapter four, starting with verse four. But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you see, as a sinner, as an enemy of God, I could expect punishment for sin, but as that I'm now a child of God, I don't get punishment, I get correction. There's a motivation that with love, we're gonna get better. It's not gonna stay this way. And so I try to avoid the word punishment when I talk to people who are Christians about sin, because God doesn't wanna punish you That would be destructive. He wants to correct you. That's constructive. And the motive is love, and the goal is better things, because ultimately we are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, and that's where He's heading with us. Well, Satan doesn't want any of this. Satan has been the enemy of God and enemy of our souls ever since the beginning. And 1 John 3,8, our third missionary point is, is he was sent to smash Satan's power. And 1 John 3,8 says, for this purpose, the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. I've already said it, but the name Satan means enemy. He has been our adversary since the time Adam and Eve were in the garden. He has pursued everything in this world. He has tried to use everything in this world to try and tempt us and lead us in rebellion against God. Main areas of attack are fear, lust, and pride. When Christ rose from the dead, he defeated Satan's plan. Those who received Christ into their hearts and minds now have power over the influence of the devil. And devil means accuser. The accuser of our brethren night and day. So Jesus explained it there in John 8 that Satan is a liar and the father of it. He's a murderer from the beginning, a liar, the father of it. When he speaks a lie, one translation says he speaks his own language. You can read that in John 8, 42 through 44, but we can't read all these lovely verses that would help explain the satanic influence in this world and this terrible spiritual war going on between Christ and Satan. And we have now entered into this war. We were under its influence before. We were in a war, but not at war. Now that we're born again, we become soldiers as well as children of God. We're his soldiers now, and we've entered into a warfare And the interesting part is Satan already knows he's defeated. Because when Jesus rose from the dead, he's not going to die anymore. Satan thought he could just kill off Jesus. He tried several times to get the Jews to kill him, but it wasn't the right time, not the right way. And when it was the right time and the right way, Jesus says, nobody takes my life from me. I'm going to lay it down. And my father loves me for doing this. I'm laying it down, and I can take it back up again. Now, at the time he said that in John 10, they didn't know what he meant. They find out in good time, but we have entered into a warfare. And I want to take you all the way over to the book of Revelation chapter 12, verses nine through 12. I want you to see Satan's doom and our victory in one lovely little section here. Revelation chapter 12, starting with verse nine. Revelation 12, 9, and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceives the whole world. He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ. For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they, now this is a prophetic statement, but if you are a follower of Jesus, they means you too. And they overcame him, the devil, by the blood of the lamb. That's the only way to be justified of your sins and be born again. By the blood of the lamb. Number two, by the word of their testimony. That's the gospel. That's your God story with God's documentation of the gospel truth. and they loved not their lives unto the death. Okay, so how do you overcome Satan? First of all, you must be born again by believing in Jesus Christ, his shed blood, his resurrection. You must call on the Lord, receive him into your life, and then... You stay in the gospel truth. Don't get sidetracked with a bunch of other issues and ideas and isms and things that religion is full of in this world. You stay with the gospel truth. It'll keep you between ditches every time. And that third thing, they love not their lives unto the death. Can we say with Paul, for to me to live is Christ, to die is gain? I like to think all my affections and all my possessions and all my agendas and plans and hopes and so forth is kind of like a handle on a teapot. I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Anyways, Satan could pick me up by the handle and move me around where he wanted because of my lust and my pride and my deception and my darkness and all that. I was easy to handle. But when Jesus Christ came into my life, came into that little old pot and he snipped the handle and the handle came right off in Satan's hand. He's trying to move me around and oops, he just got a handle now. Now, sometimes he bluffs and deceives us still into doing what he wants, but we don't have to. You don't have to use that old phrase, the devil made me do it. He can't make you do anything. He's a toothless bulldog trying to bark and bluff you into the corner, don't let him. Resist the devil, he'll flee from you. And that's because first you drew nigh to God and God drew nigh to you. And since Satan's kingdom is called a kingdom of darkness, and God is light, and Christ is light, and his word is light, if you're in the light, walking in the light, darkness can't handle that. I've never yet been in a dark room and turned on the lights and saw the darkness come back in and snuff the lights out. Now, if I didn't pay my electric bill, you know, that might mess up my illustration. But otherwise, light always overcomes darkness. So draw an eye to God. He'll draw an eye to you. Submit yourself to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. I better move on. Because he was sent to show us the truth. And we read from John 18, 37, for this cause I was born and for this cause I have come into the world that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. He says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish and neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father, who is greater than all, He's given them to me and nobody can pluck them out of my father's hand because I and my father are one. There's two hands joined together like that. And we're in the middle and you can't wiggle out between the fingers either, by the way, but nobody's going to pry you loose from the hold of the father and of the son. And so he came to show us the truth. It sets us free. There was a group of people listening to Jesus in John chapter 8, and it says many of them believed on him. So he turned to those who believed on him, and he says, if you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth. And the truth shall make you what? Free. I was afraid somebody would say, make you mad. Unfortunately, that happens sometimes. But sometimes you got to get mad before you get glad. But the truth shall make you free. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. So the last thing on our missionary list is that he was sent to show us God's love. He was sent to show us the truth. Now he's sent to show us God's love. Love and truth have to go together. Oh, you know, truth without love can make you a clever devil. Truth without love can make you straight as a gun barrel, but just as empty. He was sent to show us God's love. I read 1 John 3, 16, just the first part. Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us. Love must be communicated and shared. It cannot be static or stagnant. We are told that God is love in 1 John 4. Matter of fact, we're told more than once, God is love. The father had to communicate and share his love. It's just kind of like if there's a fire going on in the house, maybe you don't see the flames, but eventually you'll see the smoke. It's got to get out. Love has to get out. And God's love had to be communicated and shared. For God so loved, he gave. And that love motivated him, and we need to be motivated by that same love of God. So we are able to know and understand God's love by what Jesus Christ has done and is yet doing. Receiving God's love not only enables us to love God, we love him because he first loved us, it not only enables us to love God, but also to love others, especially the family of God. And oh, does the scriptures teach a lot about that one. I'm going to go to an easy one. John 13, 34 and 35. John chapter 13, verses 34 and 35. And Jesus says, a new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another. Now, if I stopped right there, there'd be a big question, like, how is that a new commandment? I can go back in the Old Testament and seek commandments to love my neighbor as myself. What makes this a new commandment? It's the next part where I stopped reading. A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. Before Jesus came, I didn't have a perfect picture of love. I could have theoretically seen a picture of love from the law, because love is the fulfillment of the law. But without the new birth, I'm not going to get it really. That's why John said back in John 1, verse 17, the law came by Moses, and that's a good thing, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. That grace, that love, that's what puts the gunpowder in the shell. That's what puts that propellant in the can, you know, and gets things moving, gets things happening. The grace, the love with that truth is the power of God unto salvation for us. Now, two things I want us to take away from this lesson now. Number one, Jesus Christ came as a missionary to serve God's purpose. The purpose was to deliver sinners from the penalty and power of sin. And we need to answer this question. You need to answer it to yourself before God. Have you received this free gift? If you have not asked God to save you for Jesus' sake, you may just be going along as a nice religious person. And maybe you're a little better than what you were, but you're nowhere's right with God unless you've been born again. Jesus didn't die on the cross to tell us, y'all do your best. Hope you make it. Jesus didn't just pay a down payment, and we have to figure out the rest of the installments. No, Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he made it white as snow. He paid a debt he did not owe, because I owed a debt I could not pay. And whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Make sure you've called on the Lord. And the scriptures will give you confidence that you aren't just talking words, but you've started a relationship and he now, the spirit of his son dwells within you. Now, having said that, if you are a follower of Jesus and you have received this free gift, the second thing is, it says here, one day the followers of Christ will also be delivered from the presence of sin. We see him delivering us from the penalty of our sins and the power of our sins, but one day the very presence So there'll be no more devil, there'll be a new body, there'll be a new heaven, there'll be a new earth wherein dwells righteousness, and that's all coming. But in the meantime, which happens to be like 2,000 years so far, in the meantime, Christ has given his followers a mission. He said, as the Father has sent me, even so send I you. That's in John 20, 21. And many other things he says here, but it tells us in Philippians 2, 5, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. You go on to read how he had equality with God, he had the worship of angels, he had all these wonderful things, and he laid them aside. He emptied himself of all that glory and splendor, took on a human body that could suffer. and die, and he obeyed God, suffering even the death of the cross that we might live, that mind is supposed to be in us. I'm a child of God. I can strut my stuff and tell everybody I'm a child of the king. If you don't treat me right, boy, my father's going to get after you. We could try acting like that, but we wouldn't be like Jesus if we did. He didn't claim those things. He did proclaim them, but he didn't claim them in a sense that he wanted them to give him the kingdoms of this world. Now he was gonna take the abuse, take the punishment when he had done no sin, and then God would lay the sins of us on him. And then when he rose from the dead, Philippians 2 says, he gave him a name now which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now, we want to help people to bend their knees and confess with their tongues now while they're getting his good. Now's the time. Today's the day we should be confessing Christ, calling upon Him. And we're here to tell others, because there's one thing, of all the wonderful things I can do in heaven one day, one thing I'll never be able to do is share the gospel with an unbeliever. Because there won't be any there. But they're here. They're here. Many of them have flooded into our country. We've got all kinds of different sinful worldly people to share with, and we have all kinds of ways to communicate and to send missionaries. If we aren't the ones sent, we can support them that are sent, and we can do so many things while there's time for that great salvation. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's the power of God unto salvation to them that believe, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. And so may we have that grace, like our Lord Jesus did, to not just think of ourselves, not just survive, but to actually worship God and create some contagious things that others might join us to worship the Lord. I end on these words in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31 to 33, whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give none occasion, neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God, even as I please all men and all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved." Jesus Christ, God's missionary. Could you say Jesus Christ and your name, God's missionaries? That's what I dare say he would love from us right now. Father, please bless the word that's been given that we examine this mission statement, this set of statements that we would receive gladly into our hearts, these truths, and then from a converted heart, be able to share them And the same truth and the same love that was in Jesus, is in Jesus, is now in us and coming through us to others. Please have your way, Lord. Do your work. You finish the message, Lord, and keep speaking to us about these things. I ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.