First Church #1: Missional
Text: Acts 1:8
Introduction: Letter from a mission board to Paul the local
church missionary
Rev. Saul (Apostle) Paul
Independent Missionary
Corinth, Greece
Dear Mr. Paul
We
recently received an application from you for service under our Board. It is
our policy to be as frank and open-mined as possible with all of our
applicants. We have made and exhaustive survey of your case. To be plain, we
are surprised that you have been able to "pass" as a bonafide
missionary. First, we are told that you
are afflicted with severe eye trouble. This is certain to be an insuperable
handicap to an effective ministry. We require 20-20 vision.
Do you
think it seemly for a missionary to do part-time secular work? We heard that
you are making tents on the side. In a letter to the Church at Philippi you
admitted that they were the only church supporting you. We have to wonder why?
Is it
true that you have a jail record? Certain brethren report that you did two years’
time at Caesarea and were imprisoned at Rome.
You
made so much trouble for the businessmen at Ephesus that they refer to you as
"The man who turned the world upside down." Sensationalism has no
place in missions! We also deplore the lurid over-the-wall episode at Damascus.
We are appalled at your obvious lack of conciliatory behavior. Diplomatic men are not stoned and dragged out
of the city or assaulted by furious mobs. Have you ever suspected that gentler
words might gain you more friends? I enclose a copy of Dalius Carnagus' book,
"How to Win Jews and Influence Greeks."
In one
of your letters you refer to yourself as Paul the Aged. Our mission policy does
not allow for elderly on the mission field. You have written many letters to
churches where you have formerly been pastor. In one of these letters, you
accused a church member of living with his father's wife, and you caused the
whole church to feel badly and the poor fellow was expelled.
Your
ministry has been far too flighty to be successful. First Asia Minor, then
Macedonia, then Greece, then Italy, and now you are talking about a wild-goose
chase to Spain. Concentration is more important than dissipation of one's
powers. You cannot win the whole world by yourself! You are just one little missionary,
Paul. In a recent sermon you said, "god forbid that I should glory in
anything save the Cross of Christ." It seems to us that you if are to ever
be supported through a missions board you also ought to glory in our history,
our cooperative missions program and the unified budget.
Your
sermons are much too long for modern hearers. At one place you talked until
after midnight and a young man was so sleepy that he fell out of the window and
broke his neck. Paul, wake up! Nobody is
saved after the first 20 minutes. "Stand up, speak up, and then shut up is
good preaching advice.
It
hurts me to tell you this, brother Paul, but in all of the 25 years of my
experience, I have never met a man so opposite to the requirements of our
Foreign Missions board. If we accepted you, we would break every rule of modern
missionary practice.
Most
Sincerely yours, Felix Flavius, Sec Foreign Missions Board.
The People of Bible Missions - Acts 1:8
But ye shall receive
power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses
unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the
uttermost part of the earth.
You Shall be
This is the 2nd person plural of (you) esesthe in Greek. It
means all of you or in Texas, we just say ya'll.So who is the ya’ll Christ was speaking to? Who are these
people assembled to see Christ ascend to heaven? Well you don’t have to be a
Bible detective to know that those folks gathered that day on top of Mt. Olivet
were the first church of Jesus Christ. Acts 1:15 tells us the number of names
together were about an hundred and twenty. It would be a valid assumption to
think that those same people on the Day of Pentecost were the same ones that
Jesus during his ascension, told to remain in Jerusalem until they received
power and were baptized with the Holy Spirit.
(A Side Note) notice that they are baptized with the Holy
Spirit, not by the Holy Spirit. By definition, to be baptized is to be
immersed. Scripturally speaking, Jesus baptized the church in or with the Holy
Spirit on the day of Pentecost to show this was His house of witness, just at
God filled the tabernacle and the temple with the Shekinah glory, the fire of
God, in the Old Testament showing those were His House of Witness.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit occurred once and that was to
the church as a body. As individuals we are convicted of our sin and need for
Christ by the Holy Spirit, receive the Holy Spirit at salvation, we are guided
to truth by the Holy Spirit, are sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of
redemption, and we should strive to be filled with the Holy Spirit, but we are
not baptized by the Holy Spirit. Jesus only baptized one time and that was His
church on the Day of Pentecost and He immersed them in the Holy Spirit.
How do we know they were already a church? What scripturally
constitutes a church?
Jesus said in Matthew 16:18 that he would build his church.
The word he used was ekklesia in the Greek. It is a compound word that comes
from ek which means out of and kaleo which means to call. Together it means a
called out assembly.
Today, we would say that the church is a group of baptized
believers, called out by Christ and covenanted together, to preach carry out the
Great Commission.
These 120 certainly meet that definition. Even more than
that we can see it was a fully functioning church because…
It had the Ordinances John 3, Luke 22:14
It had the guidance of the Holy Spirit, though not His power
John 20:22
It had a ministry to the poor John 13:29
It had missions in Samaria and in the Gentile land of
Caesarea Philippi John 4
It had a youth program Mark 10:13-14
Only thing they didn't have was a gymnasium, a lady’s fellowship
room and a youth room with an air hockey table.
So the people of Bible Missions was the church of Jesus
Christ in the book of Acts.
Who are “You” Today?
Well it’s the same answer. It the people of the Lord's
church today. The same church that Jesus promised he would empower and
perpetuate. Promising that not even the gates of Hell would overcome it. This
should be understood in three ways.
First individually, each one of us is personally responsible
to witness for Jesus Christ to be a part of Jesus plan for Biblical missions.
Quote: The special person called to do missionary work is
every person who is a member of the church of Christ. The call does not come to
a chosen few, it is to every one of us. - Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
Secondly Corporately, Act 1 verse 8 also means all of us
corporately as the body of Christ, together we as a church are responsible for
missions. We must be a missional church, a church that supports missionaries in
the work of carrying out the Great Commission and a church that if possible
sends missionaries from our own church family.
Finally Cooperatively, We as a church working together with
other local churches to send, receive and support missions, but only directly
with other local churches, never through a board, a fellowship, or a
clearinghouse. Those are never seen in scripture. This is what we find in
scripture…
Scripture Philippians 4:14-19 Notwithstanding ye have well
done, that ye did communicate with my affliction. Now ye Philippians know also,
that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church
communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even
in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity.
What were they doing? Supporting Paul as a missionary sent
out by the church in Antioch with their offerings.
Illustration: Shackleton’s Expedition to Antarctica
The following advertisement appeared in London newspapers in
1900: MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. Small wages, bitter cold, long months
of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and
recognition in case of success. Ernest Shackleton. Sir Ernest Shackleton had
placed this ad to recruit men for the National Antarctic Expedition and was
overwhelmed by the tremendous response that it generated. "It seemed,
" he later said, "as though all the men in Great Britain were
determined to accompany me.” - Wm Bennett, The Book of Virtues (New York, Simon
& Schuster, 1993), p. 493.
When we read the book of Acts, we remember the great
commission given to us by Jesus Christ the founder and sustainer of our church,
we should be just as excited as those men were to go with Shackleton, to respond to the monumental task of being a mission
minded, missionary loving church.
Transition:
So the people of Biblical missions is we, the church. Next let’s
see what it is that we are supposed to do. What is the Action of Bible
Missions. Read again Acts 1:8
The Action of Bible Missions -Act 1:8
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is
come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all
Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth
Witnesses of Me
Jesus said Ye are to be witnesses unto me. The action that is
undertaken for the Lord is to be a witness. So what is a witness? What exactly are
we, the church, supposed to do?
The word, interestingly enough, comes from the Greek work
martus. It means one who can testify or tell what they have seen, heard or
know.
This is also the word transliterated into English from which
we get the word Martyr. The word still means to testify but it adds that that
testimony is sealed and proven by the willing death of the one who testifies.
Am I A Witness?
If we are to fulfill the New Testament ideal of being a
missional church, a mission minded, mission supporting church then we must answer
the question, Are we witnesses for Jesus Christ? Are our words, testimony and
even our life if necessary, giving evidence of who Jesus is and what he has
done personally for me?
Didn’t there used to be a Christian bumper sticker that
asked, If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough
evidence to convict you?
This action is our primary duty after loving the Lord with
all our heart, mind, soul and strength. We must not ignore it, forget it or get
it wrong.
Understand what it means to be a witness. It is much more
than just the words we say, it is actually who you are. You don’t just witness,
you are the witness. Jesus said, You shall be witnesses of me.
You were a lost sinner who has now been saved by the grace
of God are you showing it?
You are a now a child of God, on your way to heaven, are you
joying in it?
You are a Christian indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit
are you flowing in it?
You are today a product of the love of God reaching down to
this world through the cross of Jesus Christ, are others knowing it after
meeting you?
Be what you, be what Jesus told us to be, a witness of Jesus
Christ. Share with your words, your actions and your life, your own personal
knowledge of what Jesus has done in, through and for you. You are the expert witness
on who Jesus is to you. Make sure the world sees and hears you as His witness.
Illustration:
Let me give you a couple of examples. There is the story of
a missionary doctor in India, who come to a very remote village and found a man
who was blind, but the blindness was caused by inflammation and easily cured
with a salve he carried with him. He applied the medicine and in just a few
days the blind man could see. He was so grateful to the doctor when his sight
returned but then the next morning he was gone with a goodbye. The missionary
thought this was strange but put it down to a culturally response. A few days
after that the same blind man came back into the medical compound holding rope
which was leading 48 blind people back to the doctor that cured him. When asked
where he had gone, he replied, “When I could see again. I knew I must find
others and tell them of the man who have me back my sight.” That man was just
being a witness.
Let me give you one other example, when Harry Truman visited
the Vatican, he signed in the Vatican guest book like this, "Harry Truman,
Baptist." You may say what you want to about Harry Truman but one thing
you can’t deny we was not ashamed to be a witness that he was a member of a
Baptist church even in the heart of the Catholic Kingdom. That’s the kind of
witnesses we are called to be.
Transition:
There is one last consideration for us to understand in Acts
1:8 and that is the place for Biblical Missions.
The Place of Bible Missions - Acts 1:8
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is
come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all
Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth
Where They Went
Jesus said they were to be witnesses of him both in
Jerusalem and in all Judea, in Samaria and to the then to the uttermost.
Jerusalem was where the first church was located. If you
walked down the street where the upper room was found you would have seen a
sign that said, “1st Independent Baptist Church of Jerusalem.” You only think
I’m kidding about that. We know they were Baptist because they immersed in
water and we know they were independent because they were the only ones around.
The Lord founded a church not an association, convention or denomination.
So the 1st Independent Baptist Church was in Jerusalem, that
was their starting point, where their church was when Jesus ascended, but he
told them to also at the same time go throughout Judea. This was their state or
region inside the Roman Empire.
They were also to go to Samaria. The was the country to the
north, a place the Jews avoided because they didn’t like the people who lived
there.
And just in case they didn’t fully understand what Jesus envisioned,
he told them, you shall be my witnesses to the uttermost part of the earth, to
the ends of the earth, to the farthest kingdoms and nations around the world.
They had no idea just how big that final phrase would turn out to be, but Jesus
did.
Am I Going?
Are you going to your Jerusalem, Athens, Texas in Henderson,
County.
It is our job to tell Athens the gospel. According to the
latest demographics for our Jerusalem, there are 12,797 people who live in
Athens. 74% of those people speak English while 23% speak Spanish and probably
English as well. They are mostly from Athens and Texas but there are people
from all around the world living right here. We have all ages, all income
levels, all education levels and all of them are our responsibility to be
witness to when the Lord opens the door. Am I willing to go to the people of Athens,
Texas.
Our Judea is the great state of Texas
In looking through our list of missionaries, you can see on
glaring omission, we don’t have any missionaries to Texas and very few to the
United States. If we as a church are going to be witnesses to both to Jerusalem
and Judea then we better start praying and looking for God called, church sent
missionaries to our state and nation. My Grandfather, Van George was a church
planter in Cooper, Texas. He used to say, “Foreign missions will fail, unless
home missions prevails.” We need to be supporting home missionaries.
Our Samaria, is the neighboring states and countries,
These can only be reached through local church sent missionaries
carrying the gospel on our behalf.
Right now we have the Chaces in Hawaii and the Burbidges in
Canada. I think that again we as a church are failing in this part of the Acts
1:8 mandate. We simply are not supporting enough missionaries to our Judeas and
our Samarias.
Finally, Our uttermost is the rest of the world.
Praise God for the Cashners, in Scotland; the Hollands, in Papua
New Guinea, the Lotts, in Guatemala; the Nomuras in Japan; the Norbergs, in South
Africa; the Thomases, in Costa Rica; the Whites in Germany; the Rivases in Amazing
Grace Children's Home – Mexico; the Anderssons in Sweden, the Holmses, in the Ukraine;
and the Rosenbalms, Ghana.
These are the supported and prayed for missions of Calvary Baptist
Church. We should never cease to thank God for allowing us to share in this eternal,
glorious work and we should ask God for forgiveness if we are not personally
involved in sending the light by witnessing ourselves and by giving to missions
her and around the world.
Illustration: The Dying Thief didn’t Give
A minister once asked a man why he did not give of his time
and money to help support the work of Christ. "Well," said the man,
"the dying thief did not help with missions; and he was saved, wasn't
he?" "Yes," said the
preacher, "I believe he was; but you must remember that he was a dying
thief, whereas you are a living one.- Glen V. Wheeler, 1010 Illustrations,
Poems and Quotes, (Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Publishing, 1967), p. 214.
Conclusion: God’s Authority through the Local Church
Several years ago I was attending a Missions conference in
Monterrey, Mexico, a missionary from a Baptist church in Mexico was introduced
who was going to Africa, another to Cuba, others to Central America. All over
the world today there are believers, missionaries and churches where logically
and realistically, they should not be. Churches in communist countries where
they say God does not exist. Missionaries in Moslem countries where it is
illegal and a capital offense to preach in Jesus’ name. Believers and churches in
countries all around the world, where their testimony is enough to have them
arrested and thrown in jail. Yet, still they are there!
They are there with nothing more than the authority of their
local church and the prayers and support of other local churches. Did I say
nothing more? I should have said nothing less than the full power and authority
of the Church of Jesus Christ! There is no greater authority, there is no
greater power given to any institution on earth greater than the power and
authority that was given by Jesus Christ to his local church. It is the
authority that breaks the borders and any nation, overpowers the power of
Kings, overrules the law of nations, and supersedes the strength of Satan.
Story of a Missionary. PV Zugg Missionary to the Muslims. Is
a man who should have quit a long time ago. He was a missionary to Israel,
Lebanon and Egypt all places where he is not allowed by man's law to preach the
Gospel of Christ. In the 1970's while driving with his family in Turkey a truck
struck his station wagon injuring him and killing his wife. This left him on
his his own and with several adopted children from the mission field to raise. He
is gone to be with the Lord now but when I knew him he was in his eighties but
still travelling to churches across the United States and back to churches in Egypt
and Lebanon that he, his wife and family had help start in the 1950's. Where did
he get his power? How could he keep going with all the stress of being a
missionary without a wife, traveling alone across the United States and with
the burden and sorrow of the years? How could he do it? Why would he do it?
Because he believes the Creator of the Universe, the Rock of Ages upon which
the church was built, gave his sending church the commission, authority, the
vision and the power to be a witness of Jesus our Savior. Then that same local
church laid their hands on him one day as a young man and passed that same authority,
vision and power on to him. Bro. Zugg believed
that Jesus himself had given him through the church the keys to the kingdom of
heaven and no worldly lock could stay unopened.
Calvary Baptist Church of Athens, Texas, Jesus established this
church to be a witness of Him in Athens, and in Texas, and around the world until
He comes again. This is our commission, our authority, our vision, and our
power. Now we must commit ourselves to being what we are called to be,
witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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