All right, well, good morning, y'all. I'm thankful to be back safely. I took off on early, what was that, what day is it? It's Friday, Friday morning, and went to, left at four o'clock from our home and got on a plane, went to Atlanta, which is counterintuitive, on my way to Dallas-Fort Worth, and there got to spend the morning, the afternoon with Neil and Lillian's families, be a part of the rehearsal dinner and, or actually it was a lunch, and had some Fort Worth, Texas brisket and wonderful time of fellowship and getting to know their families. And then got to stay with a wonderful Christian couple, both retired dentists on Friday night, just had wonderful fellowship with them. And then went to the wedding on Saturday morning and officiated the wedding, had a wonderful time with brunch with all of the the wedding party and the guests and the family, and then flew back, got home about 9 o'clock last night. So it was a whirlwind tour of a little bit of some of the families and the culture of Fort Worth, Texas, and just a delight to be there. And let me tell you my awkward moment. So it had been arranged for me to be taken to the airport as soon as the wedding was over and the couple was leaving. What I found out was that I was riding with the couple to the church, or to the airport. So it didn't strike me as odd. It seemed like a natural thing to do. They were going anyway, and we were going to the same airport, different airlines, different planes. So they did the banner wave instead of the birdseed or whatever. So we're doing the banner wave on their way out, and I'm looking down the line, and I'm thinking, wait a second. And so sure enough, they got into the car. Neil opened the door for Lillian. She got in, closed. Everybody was taking pictures and waving and everything. And then I come running down. And he opens the back door for me. And I get into the vehicle. And it shuts. And then he goes and gets in. I'm laying down in the seat so I don't get in the pictures. And then we drive off together. And that was not my making. That was not my doing. It was one of the most awkward moments of my life. And then it was the ride to the airport, the 40 minutes or so to the airport. I'm sitting there going, I'm glad to have been a part up to this point, but now I really don't want to be here. But it was just a delight, a delight. And so they had moved back here. She came and they were still in their wedding clothes. He was in his mess uniform and just looked sharp and handsome. She looked beautiful. And just what a weekend of delight. And just with a sense of, of course, Texans are very hospitable and, you know, hey, come back and see us. Humanly speaking, unless the Lord takes me there for some reason, these are saints that I fellowshiped for one day or two days. And I told them, I said, I'll see you soon or I'll see you in glory. And just the fellowship of the saints. And then the two dentists that I stayed with, just a wonderfully hospitable couple. And I spent probably about seven hours with them on Friday after the rehearsal dinner, up until the evening, we forced ourself to go to bed. But when he came up to hug me, And he's not a particularly stoical fellow, but he's just well put together and everything. And I'm hugging him and I'm starting to cry. I'm just thinking, this is a brother in Christ that yesterday I didn't even know existed. And because of Christ and the gospel, our fellowship went so deep and our roots went so deep so quickly that our departure of this near stranger was a heartbreak. So I started crying. He didn't know quite what to do with that, but I was just like, I was so good to be with you. So anyway, so that's what I've been doing the past couple of days. I'd love to hear what you've been doing this week at some point. So here we are. So what we're doing this week, for those of you who are visiting, thanks for putting up with that. I just wanted to get that out there. I don't know if Lillian and Neil are going to be here this morning, but please love them, greet them, welcome her to Tennessee. So what we're going to do this morning is week number three of our overview of core values. We kind of moved into this direction very briefly for, had been talking about this as an eldership anyway. It would be a good time to revisit and just get those out front and feature these a little bit. And it seemed like a good time with Tyler on his paternity leave and the baby being born. And it just seemed like a good time to go ahead and do that. So he is back today. We will go ahead and finish this up this week. So what we've done over the past couple of weeks is seen an overview and basically instead of spending six months on this, I'm spending three weeks. So I'm trying to take a major point each week. And so the first week we looked at loving God by pursuing him in word and prayer, by worshiping God corporately and personally. Last week, we looked at building the church by making maturing disciples of Christ and equipping and serving the body of Christ. And then this week, we are looking at reaching the world by planting churches locally and abroad and by serving communities in mercy and justice. And of course, knowing that I spent about two months on each of these points this morning, by necessity, is going to be a very high level overview. So let's begin together. So looking at this, the sub point, reach the world by planting churches locally and abroad. And here I'm just pulling in the material and going to abbreviate it very quickly. Thinking about reaching the world and planting churches has to do with God's great plan to redeem the world. When he gives the commission in the garden of exercise dominion over all of the planet and all over all of the earth, be fruitful and multiply. That plan, if you will, is derailed by sin and spoiled by sin. And so what we find in the unfolding chapters of Genesis is that Genesis chooses a particular man and his family and his descendants, Abraham and his descendants, not only to bless them as an elect people out of the nations, but also to eventually then go and bless the nations through the seed of Abraham. And so if you'll look please at Genesis chapter 17, this plan to bless the nations, and I'll talk about how this is tied in with church planning, well, let me go ahead and do it now because church planning is essentially the spread of the kingdom through the Great Commission and the Lordship of Jesus Christ by the spread of the gospel and having these pockets or outposts of the kingdom of what living under the rule of Christ is supposed to look like even in a fallen world. And that's why the testimony of the church is so important. That's why Jesus said, by this, all men will know that you're my disciples when you have love for one another. And so when Jesus tells us to pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, a significant way that's supposed to be manifest is through local churches. The world's supposed to look at the church, not as just a replica of itself. You know, you're just a religious group of people that can't get along and, you know, and can't forgive one another and all these things. but you're a group of people who are followers of Jesus and you're so distinct from who we are in your love for one another, in your forgiveness, in your love, in your relationships, that it's a manifestation of Christ ruling on the earth in these little outposts of the kingdom. And that's what happens in church planting. And so as the church spreads and as the Great Commission goes, then churches are planted And this is seen back at this age-old plan is what I'm calling it in Genesis 17. You know, this is the second giving of the Abrahamic covenant or the renewal or reconfirmation of the Abrahamic covenant. And it talks about God being Abraham's God, Abraham being his covenant blessing, his covenant carrier. But then in particular, if you'll look down at verse seven, No, I'm sorry, verse six. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations and kings shall come to you. And I will establish my covenant between me and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to give your offspring after you. And I will give to you and your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. And I will be their God. And so he's promising the spreading of Abraham's blessing through his being his God. But if you look back in verse 4, this covenant isn't just focused on Abraham and the Jewish people. But verse 4, behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. And so when people of different nations and tribes come to Christ, they are part of Abraham's seed. We see that in the book of Romans in particular. And so this intention to bless the nations is not something that's completely invisible in the Old Testament or unrevealed, but it's part of God's age-old plan. So what we're doing is participating in the blessing of the Abrahamic covenant by planting churches. The second thing you see here is this prophetic anticipation of the spread of the gospel of God's kingdom. And when I say gospel, sometimes we truncate that and think about just forgiveness of sins. But remember, particularly in Matthew, we've been saying over the past couple of years that it's the gospel of the kingdom. It's not just the gospel of forgiveness. It's the gospel of the kingdom. It's the rule and reign of Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah, and having a people who voluntarily, by grace, come to him and live under his rule and reign. And so what we have is this prophetic anticipation of the nations coming to the kingdom. So if you look at Isaiah, chapter 42, verses one through seven. It says, behold my servant. We know this is one of the servant poems in the book of Isaiah, speaking of Jesus. Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen and whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him and he will bring forth justice, which we're gonna come back to later, to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. And the gospel writers pick this up as applying to Jesus. He will faithfully bring forth justice. There's a second time we've heard justice, so his kingdom and what he does in justice are connected with one another. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he is established. Here's number three, justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law. Thus says the Lord, God, the Lord who stretched out the heavens and stretched them out, created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it. He says, I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. Speaking of the Christ, he says, I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations to open the eyes that are blind, bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness. So here's this messianic psalm poem about Christ as the Messiah. how he's going to come, and those are fulfilled, then we see through the gospel writers of not breaking bruised reeds and quenching smoking flaxes, he's going to bring forth justice, he's going to bring forth justice, that's mentioned three times, and he's going to be this blessing, giving breath and spirit as a covenant and a light for the nations to open the eyes of the blind, who it's assumed are in those nations. And so going back to Genesis, coming through to the prophets, there's this building anticipation that God's plan is just not for a people or a particular people group or a particular tribe, but his blessing is intended for and among the nations. The third thing that we see then, John 3, 16, 17, a well-known passage is that God so loves the world. And so it's not that he sees the fall and the consequences of the fall and sin and says, okay, well, I'm just going to pick this one people group to kind of be of a tribal, I'll be their tribal deity, but it is his love for the world and the nations of the world that moves him to send Jesus. The reason that Jesus is sent is for the world, is for, if you will, a synonym might be the nations of the world, of the people that are on his earth. And then when we find, of course, in Matthew chapter 28, Jesus isn't doing something brand new. This is a fulfillment. And not surprising, his commission is in harmony with what the Father's commission was in John 3. In Matthew 28, 19, go and make disciples of all the nations. What is this? This isn't a plan B. This isn't, oh, no, it didn't work with the Jews. Let's figure out what to do now. No, the commission of Jesus to go and make disciples of all the nations is a fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. It is a restoration of what happens at the fall, a reversal of what happens at the fall. It's a fulfillment of Isaiah 42, of the coming of the kingdom through the Holy One. And it is the evidence of God's love to the world. So where disciples are made and churches are planted, it's an evidence of the presence of God's redeeming love. And then, of course, at Acts chapter 1, verses 6 through 11, in the commission to the apostles after his resurrection, he says to them, you will be my witnesses. And it's witnesses of Jesus as the resurrected king of a new kingdom. The new age has been inaugurated and it has been Is starting to spread and so for that reason the kingdom through Jesus and his lordship and the gospel of the kingdom is spreading to From Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth You will be my witnesses. And so as we witness of Jesus as the the resurrected Messiah King who is an atonement for sin the Lamb of God and And that gospel spreads the good news of the kingdom. People come under submission to him and they begin to gather together as little manifestations of the kingdom of God. These are microcosms. These are, if you will, pilot programs all throughout the earth where disciples are gathered together. And I'll just pause and make a kind of a side application here. I don't want to overstate this, but God is not dominantly concerned about the salvation of individuals, but individuals who are put in community, who are put into a kingdom. That comes individually, and He's very concerned about the salvation of the individual. But all through Scripture, it's not just the individual, and we as Americans, I think, particularly tend to fall in this direction, like my religion or my spirituality has to do with me primarily. But all through this, it's about him building a kingdom. It's saving a people, not just persons. It's persons that he puts then together within his kingdom. So this is through the planting of churches, the direction of Jesus. And what we find in the New Testament is there's a shift under the new covenant in regards to the nations. Under the old covenant, if the Gentiles, if a Canaanite or an Amalekite or a Hittite or a Hivite wanted to be a part of God's kingdom, they had to come to Israel and see his glory. They had to come to Israel, they had to come and become proselytes and become a part of that kingdom. It was hard, it would have been hard for a pagan to live as a faithful follower of Yahweh over in Genghis Khan's territory eventually. I mean, it would just be difficult for that. So a lot of it was tied to the land and to the temple and to the sacrifices. And even if you were far flung into another land, you needed to make your way back to the land. And it was come and see, come and see the glory of God, come and offer your sacrifice. But you had to come and see. Now there's this reversal of the narrative, which is not come and see, but now go and tell. So Jesus says there's a day in which God will search for those who are worshiping in spirit and truth, and neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will they worship him, but they will worship him in spirit and truth. And Jesus there prophesies of the time where the special manifestation of God is not located about a mile from the Mount of Olives on top of the, the temple mount, but rather his manifestation and the temple is going to be built as the gospel goes out to the nations in these manifestations of his kingdom. And so when we come to Jesus, we don't have to make our way to Jerusalem for a particular pilgrimage in order to bow before a throne. We do that as Gentiles, by and large, most of us, by hearing the gospel on the other side of the world And then we have now come, and this is where Hebrews breaks in and says, you've not come to the mountain that is smoking and burning with fire, but you've come to the heavenly Jerusalem. You've come to Mount Zion. And so now we have a high priest that we have immediate access to right here. And that's what happens when the church gathers together and when God saves the people. So there's this shift under the new covenant from come and see, come to Jerusalem, come to the holy land and now go and tell and wherever Christ is believed and worshiped and adored, there are his temples. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. You are the kingdom manifest. And then what Paul writes about then in Ephesians chapter three has to do with this mystery that Gentiles would be included. In Ephesians chapter three, verses one through six, for this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, Assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I've written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of the Messiah, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been. So it's not a complete secret, but it wasn't revealed as it now has been, and that is by the apostles and prophets. The mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs of that kingdom, they are fellow heirs, members of the same body, not a separate body, and they are partakers of the promise of a Messiah, Christ Jesus, through the gospel. Paul says, here's the great thing, is that this isn't God's plan B, this isn't a subservient plan, the mystery is that the Gentiles get in on it. Well, we know that from Genesis 17, we know that from Isaiah 42, we know that from Matthew 28. What we are doing is we are participating in the grandest, most grandiose, largest scheme and plan in the entire universe, and that is God's plan of redemption on the earth as his special focus of the revelation of himself in Christ. So that's what we're doing. So when we plant churches, it's just not a religious convenience in order that we might have a place close by. It's not just our own convenience to have you know, this sense of sympathy with people who are, you know, like-minded and kind of a safety oasis in the beginning of the week so that we can kind of survive through life. This is significantly playing into and together with, hand-in-hand with God's purposes and covenants and the purposes of the gospel. And so what we're doing in planning churches and being a church is something not of mere pragmatic convenience, it's something of grandeur. And you look around and you go, well, it doesn't look that way very much. But it is. That's what we're doing here this morning. That's what we do in community. So how's this done? Well, let me give us a just an overview from Acts chapter 14. And and, you know, a few years ago, here's here's what I might have done in handling this passage. I think a few years ago I would have said something. Now, let's look at the biblical way that this is done. And I don't know, a definite article is just a very powerful word. The is an incredibly weighty word. For instance, we used to be the Reformed Baptist Church of Nashville. Yeah, I don't use that anymore. I will tell you, this is a side note, that on, and Matt knows this, on my church credit card, it says Stephen Gamble, and you don't have room for, and we were originally constituted in the tax stuff and everything, the Reformed Baptist Church of Nashville. So it doesn't all fit on a credit card, so it says Stephen Gamble, the Reformed Baptist. So if you have any questions, let me know and I will give you the definitive answer, because I am the Reformed Baptist. So I'm not saying this is the way, but this is simply a case study. These are the principles and guidelines by which I think we seek to plant churches. So look with me, please, in Acts chapter 14, beginning with verse 21. And there's a lot of I'm breaking into a context here, which is just a wonderful, amazing story of the power of God. Acts chapter 14, verse 21, when they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples. And so there's an order already preaching of the gospel. Remember, it's the gospel of the resurrected king. It's the gospel of the kingdom. It's not just forgiveness of sins. You read through the New Testament. And once you become sensitized to that, you realize that this is much bigger. Forgiveness of sins is the way that we're reconciled to God so that we become something else and are a part of something else. and remains vitally important, but it's preaching the gospel of the kingdom, particularly, to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and Iconium and to Antioch. These are places they had already preached the gospel and already made disciples. As they returned then to these gospel-believing, discipling churches, verse 22, they came back 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 believed. So here's, I think, a great just general outline. How are churches planted? How is the Great Commission fulfilled? What's the basic pipeline for church planning and the expansion of the kingdom? Well, first of all, it has to do with preaching of the gospel. Second it's making disciples. That's when they believe then he says go make disciples teaching them everything that I've commanded you and Then encouraging those disciples because disciples get encouraged. They don't just get the information, but now they're circling around to Lystra and Antioch Strengthening the souls of the disciples by encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying look suffering is a part of the gig I mean, this is part of the deal. This is what you signed up for and Suffering's just a common part of mankind and human experience. But on top of just general, ordinary, common suffering, there's going to be some extra suffering that may come. And he puts it more strongly that you must enter the kingdom through these sufferings. So encouraging the disciples. And then notice when he comes back to the disciples at Lystra in Antioch, it's not the church leadership that makes it a church. And I think in my early days, my thinking was a little clouded on this. He comes back around to the churches of disciples and establishes leadership. And there are some views of ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church that says, well, it's not a church and they can't take the Lord's Supper and you can't do baptism and you can't really call it a church, you just call it a fellowship. But here what we find is Paul coming back to each of the churches where there are disciples to encourage them, and then he establishes elders, plural, in every church, singular. And so what we have then is, I think, an important component I'm going to make an application of here in a couple minutes. But that there are churches that are, Paul writes this, is it to Timothy or to Titus? He says, you know, I left you there in Crete, I think it's Titus, to set in order the things that were remaining, or the things that were out of order, to establish elders in every city. But it wasn't that the church became the church because it had formal leadership. It was a church because they were disciples of Jesus Christ, they were learning, and for the good and blessing of the church, then he comes back around later when there's been some maturity and establishes those elders within this church. Better to have those more well-established leaders than to put them in prematurely, we see this one application here. And so what they did then, the church is already existing where there are disciples, that looks like probably groups of people meeting in their home, and as much as they can, having access to the letters of Paul and hearing about the gospel of Jesus. And here, then appointing leaders who will teach, equip, and mature, and that's where 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 come in. And then what they do is they commit them to the Lord with prayer and fasting, these leaders to the leadership of the churches. And then what I believe it is assumed here, but it's not explicitly stated, is if you're going to teach disciples to do everything that Jesus said, one of the things that Jesus said was go and make disciples. So it's a, in computer programming, there's something called an iteration at the end. It's usually at the end of a line of a particular segment of code that you put in there, a module. with object-oriented and down at the end, you know, if this condition is true, then you keep reiterating that process. And that's part of the reiteration process is we become a church and the way we obey Jesus and the way that we follow and obey everything includes the Great Commission. And so a church that becomes introverted and navel-gazing and just worried about our own spiritual health is actually falling short because we're not evangelizing, we're not taking the gospel, we're not preaching the gospel out to those who have not yet believed. And we can do a lot of other stuff, but we're failing at one of the major things that God has us here for. If he was only concerned about our holiness, he would go ahead and rapture us now. I mean, he would just, if all God cared about was our holiness, he would just take us up to heaven and we'd be perfected. But he's not only concerned about that, he's concerned about the spread of the gospel. And so we should as well. And repeat then, reiterate the Great Commission. So having churches that are themselves have built in the DNA of them this desire to plant churches. But let me make a couple clarifications from this. What we see from this passage, and I think we could show it from other ones as well, but the planting churches is the result, not the primary goal of the Great Commission. That's why we put in our second core value, making and maturing disciples before planting churches. Because planting churches is a result of the Great Commission of Making Disciples, not the goal. And here's why this is important. If this isn't kept in mind, the primary driver then to planting a church can become collecting the already converted. You know, we have our distinctives, we have these particular things, we want this kind of worship, we want this kind of music, we want this kind of preaching. And so what we're going to do is go into the area, beat the bushes, try to find those who are like-minded and dissatisfied and gather them together. And we call that building a church. I think from this passage, and honestly, that's kind of how we did it. And I'm thankful the Lord used it, and I'm thankful for what God did. But I think a more accurate biblical view is not looking for the disenchanted, the disenfranchised, for those who are disgruntled, but a healthy way to begin a church. And again, I bless God for what he did. It is in his hands. But I think moving forward, when we plant churches, we want this outward looking. So I'm going into the area, and I'm looking for those who are not converted. And if Christians who are hungry, and I put this caveat here, collecting the already converted who certainly need a healthy flock. And there's not a healthy church in the area. It's certainly important to give them help and to shepherd them well. So I'm not totally delegitimizing that. I'm just saying that the emphasis in the New Testament seems to be on this other focus. What we also see here is establishing leadership for disciples is totally legit. Like when you find disciples meeting together, just like what we saw with Paul and his companions here, when you find them and they don't have good leadership, it's totally legit to establish leadership. But again, the primary driver is preaching the gospel for conversion. It's not the only one, but it's the primary one. Making disciples that then create churches that are then planted in localized area, and localized is relative to metropolitan populations and commuting opportunities, that kind of thing. You don't have churches, for instance, in the middle of India where there's very little commuting that are as spread out in their congregation as what our church would be, but we have cars and transportation and have that ability. But here, the primary driver is preaching the gospel for the unconverted, to the unconverted, making disciples by the grace of God, building the church as we saw last week. And then this is a church that then we seek to establish leadership in. So, Romans 15 tells us then something of Paul's heart for this very thing. And I wish, honestly, I've been praying that I would have more of this heart in Romans 15, 17. Paul says, in Christ Jesus, then I have reason to be proud of my work for God. That's not that I've got plenty of pride, that's not that's not the part I'm praying about. But the word pride here means to boast and to be confident in. And I think sometimes in our views of Christian humility, we undermine something with the Bible, the New Testament. Well, the whole Bible says about being proud about our work. You know, we're so anti-self-motivation, self-identification, self-esteem, that we miss passages like this. He says, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. He says, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed. And man, there's just a great summary of what he did as an apostle and church planner. He's like, This is my work. God called me to this work and God has blessed this work. He says, but this is not something that I accomplished. It's something Christ accomplished through me. So that tempers his pride and his hard work with the reality of who Christ is. You know, you just you don't find Paul saying, you know, I'm nothing. I'm just nothing. I've not done anything. No, he says I've worked harder than them all. First Corinthians 15. I've worked harder than them all. Yet not I, but the grace of God that is in me. But I worked harder than them all. He said, though I'm the least of the apostles, he recognizes he is the apostle to the Gentiles. And he says, so I will venture to speak about what Christ has accomplished to me. And here's what he has accomplished to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed. And notice it's both what Paul did and the way he was an instrument of God and Christ to bring Gentiles to obedience. And that and that's the goal of the preaching of the kingdom. It's not just to give people confidence that they have been forgiven of their sins, though that is a huge component. It is to bring them to obedience. That's the kingdom. If you have a bunch of people who, you know. If I can use the imagery, if you think about Jerusalem, who, you know, love going to the temple, but don't love going to the throne, it's like you get both with Jesus. Going to the temple is where the throne is. And so there is forgiveness of sins. There is mercy, but there's also a bowing at the throne of King Jesus. obeying his law because it's good and it's a blessing for human flourishing and it's the right way to live. So holiness is true happiness. Holiness is human flourishing and blessing. We do those things because God's created the world for us to flourish in that way. And so bringing them to obedience, not legalistically, but under the lordship of Jesus by word and deed, he brings them to obedience, not just by what he said, but how he lived and what he did. That's why it's so important for us to live in communities, to love in communities, to have non-Christians come to our home, to be engaged with them, to have relationships with non-Christians, so that by word and deed, we might bring the Gentiles to obedience. By the power, for him, of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illycrium, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ, and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel. not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation. But as it is written, those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand." So first of all, Paul is not undermining what had already happened. He's like, look at this. I'm kind of bragging about this. Look what Christ has done through me in bringing Gentiles, but I'm not satisfied with that. What I long and am urging for is that pressing outward where Christ's name has never been heard. And we say, well, where do we go in America for that kind of thing? Well, what do we mean by Christ's name? Do we just mean the name Jesus or this idea of Jesus as a religious symbol? When I was on my way back from Fort Worth to Atlanta last night, sat in a seat next to a fellow, struck up a conversation with him. He was raised in Mexico City. His parents are from Brazil and Argentina. Is that right? Argentina? I won't even try. Forget it. Sorry, Casey. But his parents are from there. He was raised in Mexico City, has very little exposure to the gospel and Jesus, and is kind of a symbol of Catholicism. And he was Catholic, baptized Catholic, but not artsy guy, nice guy, very off the grid kind of fellow. But just talking to him, it's like, okay, I could say, hey, have you ever heard of the name of Jesus? And he would say, well, of course I have. But has he really heard? I mean, has he been told the gospel story? Has he been told what Christ is doing in a way that's not bound up with politics or bound up with make America great again or bound up with Catholicism or bound up with Jehovah's, I mean, has he heard the gospel? And so taking the gospel where Christ is not known isn't just the other side of the world, it is the other side of the world in some places, but it's also have they seen and heard by love and deed Christ? And that is Paul's longing here. So this is his ambition, whether a nation, a people group, or an individual person, this longing to pray, to equip, to go and to preach the gospel and tell the story of the kingdom. So that's under planting churches locally and abroad. That obviously just means where we are and where we go and where we send. That's why we are involved in Belgium and Cambodia and other places for the purpose of making disciples so that churches would be planted, not predominantly go and plant churches, but go and make disciples. teaching them these things so that churches may be planted in these manifestations of the kingdom. All right, well, we move quickly then to the final point here in our core values, which is very closely connected to this other one, but it is by serving communities in mercy and justice. And here, it is a hornet's nest that you just poke and you're going to get stung all over the place in our day and culture. Some of these things are kind of trigger words when you talk about social justice or justice and mercy and you talk about community and culture. Let's just say that there's a very wide spectrum of practice and belief and use of terminology. So, I'm not going to address all that or even the cultural things that are going on, but just point out some really fundamental basic things because, quite frankly, we can spend all time. Jordan Peterson has this saying, before you fix the world, make up your bed. And I think that's a, before we spent a lot of time generating energy, at least most of us, some people I think are called to this, but generating and expending energy, arguing about what social justice means, you know, on the other side of the world or Africa or South America or, you know, in inner cities, and we can get online and generate all of these things and listen to these, you know, pundits and so on. We get very, the question is, what am I doing within my sphere of influence to show mercy and justice? And Peterson's, one of his rules for living is that, is like, you know, stop spending so much time trying to do things you can't. Now, if you have a role and responsibility to do that, if you're an economic advisor, if you are a political advisor, if you're an architect, if you're working in cities and have the influence, then you need to be asking some of these big questions. But for most of us, it's going to be, what can I do in my community to participate with mercy and justice? So I've already mentioned in that Isaiah passage, interesting, and I hadn't noticed that till I read through it just a few minutes ago when we read it together in Isaiah 42, three times, the coming of Jesus brings justice, an act of justice, that it brings righteousness. And how is that? It's because we are converted out of the world and unrighteousness and sin, and we start doing the right thing. We start being concerned about fair weights and fair wages. And, you know, when I clock into my job that I'm giving, you know, each hour's work as much as I can and give to my employer what's expected until I clock out and not, you know, be sneaking around and doing other things and checking out. You know, I'm trying to give what I'm paying equitably to what I'm getting paid, the work that is expected. You know, that's I may not be able to solve Africa's problems of injustice, but I can be a faithful worker where I am, keeping my promises, being faithful to my word, being interested in these things. So with Jesus, when people start living righteously, mercy and justice starts flowing out of that. We don't have to fix the world problem, first and foremost, we just have to make up our own bed, clean up our own room, is another thing he moves out. He said, okay, is your bed made up? Then clean up your room. And once you have kind of that down, when you can clean up your own room, then maybe you have something to say to somebody else. But until then, focus on what is at hand to you. And so a closer look then is Isaiah 58. And just for sake of time, I'm not going to move through this. I've already kind of made the point from Isaiah 42. But Isaiah 58 has this emphasis on some of the problems of Israel. Basically, Israel was very concerned about justice when it came to them, making sure they got paid, making sure that, you know, they got and they were protected within the national boundaries. They were very concerned about their own, you know, comfort and ease. But then they were using their wealth and prosperity and influence and privileges to oppress servants and to oppress those who were among them who were the strangers. And God is coming against that. And he says in Isaiah 58 verse one, cry aloud, do not hold back, lift up your voice like a trumpet. This is a declaration of judgment. Declare to my people their transgressions into the house of Jacob their sins, yet they seek me daily. And what we find here, we're gonna hear about this in the sermon as well, is that these are people who are very religious and they go to church, they go to temple, they go to synagogue, they go do the religious things very faithfully. And they even fast and they pray. He says, they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God. They ask of me righteous judgments. They delight to draw near to God. So here's this picture that initially is like, man, I want to be you know, that that's what you want to have on your tombstone. I'm one of these people. But he's setting up a scenario similar to what Paul does in Romans 13 is what if somebody has all these things, but they lack something? So he says, Verse three, they're complaining against him. Like, we love righteousness and we delight in your ways and we seek you daily. Verse three, why have we fasted and you did not see? Why have we humbled herself and you take no pleasure of it? Behold, in the day of your fast, you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers. That's his answer is, you're just in it for yourself. You're about your own personal peace and prosperity. You're using me to get what you want. And meanwhile, he says, you are seeking your own pleasure and oppressing your workers. Verse four, behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Like somehow that's their motive. They're fasting in order to have power and influence so that they can abuse people and use people. He says, fasting like you're yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. So just going through the religious stuff is not going to make God hear them. Is such the fast that I choose a day for a person to humble himself? Is this really what I had in mind with fasting? Is it to bow down his head like a reed and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? Is that what you're really going to do with this? Then he says, is this not the fast that I choose to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free? and to break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? And then he says, if you'll do that, then, verse eight, your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily and your righteousness shall go before you and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. And he goes on to speak wonderful, vibrant blessings. And so the closer look at Isaiah is that just religious stuff for self-serving reasons is not the purpose of living with God. These are those who are, it's a bold call to listen there in verse one, that's the trumpet call. Privatized spirituality and a request for personal justice is what they're seeking in verse two, personal prosperity. Verse three through five, the question, why are you not hearing us? The prophet's response is, because you're doing this for yourself. And then the call to true spirituality, chapter six through 14, has to do with within the sphere, rather than abusing these people, care for these people, love these people, have mercy upon them, do justice to them, give your bread to them, do things, that are a blessing to them and not using them and consuming their resources, but using your resources to do the good within the sphere of your own influence. And this isn't just a philosophical position. It was those that they would see, it was those in their community, it was those that they had, you know, it was their bedroom, it was their bed that they can make. He says, do that, start there. That's what you need to do. And so what this means then, as we talk about reaching the world, so from Isaiah 42, there in Isaiah 58, clearly God is concerned about righteous living and doing good to those around us and those within our influence. So why aren't we, and I'm gonna bust through these, the notes have been sent out, you should have access to them, but when I went through this before, I spent a whole session just dealing with this, an overview of biblical reasons we ought to be concerned for mercy and justice. And I'm intentionally not using the word social justice because it's just so loaded today. But I just mean justice. I just mean doing the right thing. I mean mercy by caring for people that are broken and needy at different levels and in different ways. So first of all, Genesis 3.11, the consequences of the fall, the creation itself has been put under the corruption in hope of the revealing of the sons of God. So the consequences of the fall, this is not the way the world should be, and we can't change everything, and the poor, Jesus says, we will always have among us. But is there something I can do for that particular poor person that I see, or that particular poor person that I know, or a person who's particularly suffering in a way? So it's out of a sense that this is just wrong. The day is coming when all that will be wiped away. What can I do to manifest God's grace and love now? At least in some way, even if imperfectly. Deuteronomy chapter 10, verses 18 through 19, the commands of the law demand it. Much of the law has to do with what do you do with the poor? What do you do with the unjust? What do you do with the lawbreaker? What do you do with the stranger who is among you, the sojourner, the pilgrim? What do you do with your servants, those people who are serving you in some way? The laws of God are just replete with tons of directives in regards to care and justice and mercy for other people. I sometimes wonder, you know, there's the text, it's in the dietary laws, it has to do with not boiling a goat in its mother's milk, is that what it is? And sometimes I'm like, what's up with that? This is a total shot in the dark, but there's something particularly cruel about killing something and preparing it in that way in something that was supposed to give it life. It's the milk of the mother that's supposed to be life-giving that's actually being used to destroy this beast for consumption. So you can boil it in something else, but maybe it's just something symbolically using the mother's own milk It doesn't say you can't use another goat's milk, but it's own mother's milk you can't use. And I wonder, there's just some things that are particularly irksome that you just go, man, there's just something not right about that. There was something so not right about that that God said, okay, I'm gonna throw that in there too. And I don't know, was there an outbreak of baby goat mama milk boilers in Israel? And he's like, I gotta address this. You know, this has just gone too far. I don't know. But the commands of the law have a lot to do with just mercy and justice. Number three, the call of the poets and prophets, Micah 6-8. Know this one well. What does the Lord God require of you? To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. This is the summary of the law, Micah 6-8. The teachings of Jesus, Matthew 23-23, the teaching and the example of Jesus, Jesus Not only here, but also in the example of the apostles, as you have opportunity, do good to all men, especially the household of God. And then there's this striking picture that Jesus gives of Matthew 25 of the judgment. And for most of us, we'd say, okay, on the judgment day, what's really gonna hold water? What's really going to be the evidence that we are with Christ? Well, I believe in justification by faith alone, but interestingly, Jesus doesn't set that up as a kind of a theological standard, which you must pass in order to get into heaven. Okay, what do you believe about justification? What do you believe about sanctification? He's like, whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me. Whatever you did not do to the least of these, you did to me. He separates the sheep and goats and then declares judgment on them. The manifestation of their faith in Christ alone had to do with obeying his commandments, and the obedience of those commandments was to clothe the naked and feed the poor and care for others, and primarily those within their own bedroom, so to speak, those within the sphere of influence. He said, by this, because whatever you did to these, you did to me. So the standard of final judgment obviously escalates that to a place of great importance without undermining anything of the doctrinal necessity of what it means to believe in Jesus and who God is. Yet Jesus is not ashamed to say on the day of judgment, let me tell you what's going to sort y'all out is what you've done in mercy and justice. And if there's a struggle with that or that statement, let's just let's take it up together with Jesus and figure out what that means. Number seven, the promise of the world to come. It's a wonderful promise. Revelation 21, one through four, I'm flying over out of Dallas yesterday and looking down just at the multitudes. I always get a sense of perspective when I fly. First of all, I'm confident that they're pouring like unicorn dust on those planes to make them fly. You know, they say it's physics and all this. I just don't believe it. I think it's magic. It's just, it's amazing to me. Call me medieval, call me whatever you want, but there's something magical going on there. It's just amazing. But when I do fly, I'm in wonder every time we take off and every time we land and just flying. And going over Dallas and getting perspective, it's like that's a family probably of several people, and they all have stories, and they have families, and they have generations. And just getting this huge scope and thinking just how many people down there are suffering. you know, either silently with psychological, emotional problems, spiritual problems, physical problems. How many people are dying this very minute down there? How many? And that's not morbid to me. It's just this dose of human reality that I look at and I go, wow, the Bible's right. It's not all about me. I just have the strange perspective that the only person I see in the mirror is me. And the only view I see clearly is out of my view, at least as clearly as I can see it. And so we're not supposed to be selfish, but the only eyes we see through are ours, so to speak. And yet something like that, when there is self-forgetfulness and you look down and you just go, wow, there's all these people and so much suffering and so much difficulty. And this has been going on for a very long time since Genesis 3. And then reading a passage like Revelation 21 is just the great hope of the kingdom. When the kingdom comes, when the Lord's will is done on earth as it is in heaven, This is how John the Revelator describes it. He says, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. Think about the wedding yesterday, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man and he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. And what what is the consequence of that when God is with his people and his people are with him? What will be the consequence of that in the new heavens, in the new earth? It's something you can't see over the skies and skyline of Dallas. It's not something you can see flying into Nashville. It's nothing we see in any, the best of utopias of this world. It says, he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. And so in the attempt that we give ourself to to relieve even temporarily, if we can relieve the pain of the suffering, of the mental anguish of a person who is suffering and show them an act of kindness that will just relieve that a little bit, that is a foretaste of heaven. Even the least degree of relief and help, whether they're grateful or not or whether they're thankful or not, that's a little taste of heaven when all of the injustice and all of the suffering will be removed. So let me just conclude this section then with, of course, the priority of the gospel. Because a lot of the social gospel discussion that's happened, particularly over the past couple of years, there are great warnings against social gospel and social justice and all of these things, which are due warnings. They're important warnings for us as we look at history. So here I'll just say the priority of the gospel is it's not an either or. Do you preach the gospel to people or do you exercise mercy and justice? It's not an either or, but both of them, because clearly they're both biblical priorities, with an undergirning of what is eternal. Again, I'm asserting that the spread of the gospel, because it's the gospel of the kingdom, it's just not the gospel of forgiveness. It's the gospel of the kingdom. that even the manifestation of the kingdom itself can't be unconcerned about mercy and justice. The two are bound together. And I think I think we're unbiblical if we kind of pull those two apart as if they have nothing to do with one another. It's like, you know, phase one. And if you get to phase one, then there's phase two. No, they're intimately bound together. That's what Jesus came justice three times in Isaiah 42. for personal piety and concern of Isaiah 58, well, do justice. What does the Lord God require of you? To believe on Jesus? Yes, and to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. So it's not an either or, but it is a looking at the earthly and the temporal with the undergirding of what is eternal. And so that's how I would phrase it. It's not either or, but it's a priority of the gospel, and as that gospel is expressed, with works of mercy and justice. While we are to put a priority on the eternal needs of others, we are not to neglect, especially an excuse for the other one, the temporal needs of others. So there are the two possible ditches, the drift into a merely social gospel, and that would be wrong, but there's also the drift into a hyper-spiritualized gospel that clears my conscience just because I gave the waitress a million dollar bill tract I told her about Jesus and felt my conscience relieved of tipping her well so she could take care of the kids that she's raising on her own. I think it's one of the cruelest bait and switches that Christians have come up with to do something like that. So the drift into a hyper-spiritualized gospel is the gospel manifested, and before him we will stand before Jesus. And he will judge us based on what we did to the least of these that we do to him. So amidst the cultural discussions and application necessitate here nuance, conversation, clarity. We are not a social justice liberal church, but one of our core values that we will be pursuing and are pursuing is how do we make up our own bed? How do we clean up our own room? How do we show mercy and justice to those around us? All right, my time is out. There's some further applications, but I'll hold those for another time, or they're in your notes if you got the PDF this morning. Well, let's pray. That concludes our core value series. Kind of heavy, but I hope good. Yeah, I hope helpful. Let's pray. So Lord, we are grateful for your mercies. We are grateful for the help of your spirit. We are grateful to have your word that is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Light our way as we as a church seek to love you, build your church, and reach our world in these ways, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.