Church Planting As Missions

All right. Paul's going to now bring us the next session on church planting. So I hope, listen, if you've got questions, start writing them down, okay? Because a lot of things Paul's saying to me, you might be going, what? Okay, that might be happening. So feel free to ask the questions, you know, Paul. can I tell you something about Paul?

He's really a nice guy and your questions won't do anything to offend him. Okay? So, Paul come up and minister the word. We are anxious to hear what you've got to say. So, we're going to just pick up. we left off sort of because I wanted to make sure that it was clear when we talked about the two states of the church that the church should be in that planting and progression.

And really it might be better to understand that part of progressing as a church is planting. It's not quite in our thinking that way but really in Acts that's what we do see. The church is growing, it's multiplying and in doing that, other churches are being planted. So a church that is progressing well will plant other churches and is going to be in a position to do that.

So it's not just all about church planting, although it sounds like sometimes because we get, like we said, the church gets involved in fads and there's a church planting fad going on right now. But really, the planting part is just an outcome of a church that is progressing well. It's going to spawn other churches. It's going to grow other churches. It's just what's going to happen.

So we want to talk about church planting as missions now, more specifically. you've been there you been involved in a church plant as we have said but I want us to back up a bit and ask the question where do missionaries go We defined that what a missionary is but where are they going One of the priorities of disciple making is that we are to go and make disciples of all nations. What are some challenges that maybe you've experienced and you've understood when it comes to the idea of making disciples of all nations. What kind of challenges does the church face in doing that?

There's a lot of nations out there. A lot of nations. Yep. It is a big world. Yep. Where to start?

Okay, where to start? It can be overwhelming. It's kind of what I'm hearing in both of those. Right. Right. Okay, logistics.

And I was hoping that somebody would say that. Because that is, it is a challenge when you think about cross-cultural ministries, and you think about having to get, I mean, just getting a, how many of you have a passport? A U.S. passport, okay. Just to get a passport now is an ordeal in one sense. It's not like going down and getting a driving license.

This is a little bit more involved. That's what it is. You got to have a passport to be a driver. Yeah. Yeah, well, my driver's license is not that way. Not yet, anyway. so but but the idea is that there are there are logistics involved in doing those kinds of things and that's that is presents a whole level of difficulty that we a lot of times just don't want to be come involved in even if the bible says we're going to we're to go and make disciples of all the nations what we sometimes do is we relegate it to a sort of an area of theology that we say that that's just God's doing he's the one that's declared that it's going to be for all nations so we don have to worry about that as if that not part of our thinking in the whole process And how many of us are pretty happy and comfortable where we are That's part of it.

If we're honest, right, we're happy where we are, and the idea of packing up and shifting into a different culture is not that appealing to us to do. We're pretty comfortable where we are. But God says that we're to go into all the nations and we're to make disciples. Now, another challenge is that there seems to be a select few individuals who don't see that as a difficult thing.

And many, many years ago, those certain individuals tried to get the church to wake up and take responsibility for doing that. The church did not wake up and take responsibility to do that. So these certain zealous individuals went off and started what we now know as the Mission Organization. and that mission organization was designed to help the church with those logistics and the logistical aspects so the mission organization would go into these countries and establish the relationships and then they would draw missionaries from all of the churches kind of thing and they would organize and send those churches.

So all the church had to do was sign the check, right? People would come, you know, when it started happening like that, it seemed like more people stepped up and said, yeah, I'll be a missionary because now this organization is going to do all of these things for us to get over there, so we'll go over there and do that. And so the mission organization just exploded, blossomed, and now, I don't know, I've lost count of how many mission organizations there are in this country alone and around the world.

There's tons of them. What's the problem there? There's a host of problems there. Some of the main problems actually go against some of the things that we already seen and that is that God has mandated the church to bear the burden of fulfilling the Great Commission not an organization outside the church Some people argue and they say well the organization is made up of Christians but what wrong with that line of reasoning Which Christians?

That's the church. Right? That's the church. Okay. Where's the doctrinal and where's the discipline? Where's the discipline?

Right? What's that? Okay. What kind of authority? Right. That is the magic word.

Elders. The church is organized. Again, she's lived with us, so it's like... She doesn't count. Elders. Elders.

The mission organizations have their boards, and those boards might even be made up of elders, but they are not the church. They don't have the authority to accomplish what God ordained the church to do. They just don't have it. Only the church has that responsibility. And so the organization, while it may be helpful, and I'm going to stop short of saying that we ought to jettison all organizations, I'm not saying that.

I'm saying the same thing we've been saying our whole time together, and that is that we measure everything according to the scriptures. So if we're going to be sending a missionary out to another culture and there's an organization that can help us to do that, we'll sit down with that organization and we'll start asking them questions. What can you do?

One of the first questions is, what's your view of the church? And if they tell us, oh, well, hey, the church is, we're a servant of the church kind of thing. Oh, okay. So then we'll present it with a scenario. Okay, so your missionary gets into this kind of situation. Who decides what that missionary is going to do?

The church or the mission organization? And nine times out of ten, and these are real scenarios we've done. with our own people. Nine times out of ten, the organization really means, well, we'll make the decision. The church. And the thinking is, always, the church can't make those decisions. The church is not in a position to make those decisions.

Only the organization is in the position to do that. Do they give reasons for that? Well, that's their reason. Their reason is that we have the knowledge and the capability to make that decision. The church does not have that. knowledge or capability knowledge of the country or you know knowledge of the culture so so the fact is then that the organization finds itself in the position of usurping that authority usurping what God has ordained that the church should do but you know what it's kind of like a marriage if you've got a marriage situation and you've got a man who is not taking his leadership seriously in that family, being the head of that family in a loving way, a lot of times the wife will get things done.

Because things need to get done, she's thinking in her head. And so I'm just going to do these things that need to get done. And then you're down a road that you don't want to go down at that point. Because it's not just about getting things done. It's about doing them the way God wants them done. And the scriptures outline for us how God wants them done.

And even the things that are directly in scripture, and we can't say this enough, if they're not directly in scripture they still have to be rooted in the principles of scripture even if they're not directly there we don't find the country of Zambia mentioned in scripture we don't find anything about the culture in Zambia mentioned in scripture but we have the foundational principles in scripture that can get us into Zambia to plant churches we have that and we can go anywhere in the world because the scriptures say that we are to be, that commands us to make disciples of all nations. So that must mean that somehow we going to be able to get to all nations to do that And going into all nations emphasizes God priority It is his priority to do this, of gathering people for himself from every nation, tribe, people, and language. And what other way would a loving creator do it?

He created all of these nations, right? So this earth is his. Everything in it is his. So it's no wonder that when we talk about the church, that he's going to have some from every nation and tribe and language on the earth. And think about it. What did Christ accomplish on the cross?

Let's jump to the end of all things. Let's go to Revelation. Revelation is a great book when it comes to missions. And don't ever let anybody tell you otherwise. Revelation chapter 5. We'll start there.

This is where we are introduced to the scroll. I'm going to start in verse 1 just because it's a wonderful scene. Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. and I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?

And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it. And I began to weep loudly, because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, Weep no more. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. and he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne and when he had taken the scroll the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense which are the prayers of the saints and they sang a new song saying Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for, and here it is, this is why he's worthy, the Lamb of God, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God. And they shall reign on the earth.

This is the sum of all things in two verses. The sum of redemption. The sum of God's plan. And Christ is worthy because of the cross. Because he was obedient to death, even death on the cross. That's the message that we carry. and that's the message that God impresses upon the hearts of individuals from every nation and tribe and language.

And it is no wonder then at Pentecost, it was more of a miracle of languages than anything else. It was just an amazing thing. And if you go back and read again, you see that that was the purpose. That was the very purpose of Pentecost. The picture that we have there was the fulfillment that we see here in Revelation. And beloved, it is going to happen.

It is going to happen. God is going to save and will have saved at the end individuals from every nation, tribe, people, and language. Whether we have a fancy missions philosophy about doing that doesn't really matter. Because he's going to accomplish that. The question is, where are we in that process? Where do we find ourselves?

Where does LaRue Baptist Church find itself in that process? And any time you sit down and talk about missions, you've got to always come back to this because this is the foundation. Christ is going to do this because he died on the cross and he ransomed people. And he is worthy then to take the scroll and open its seals and bring to close all of history after that's been accomplished. every tribe and language and people and nation sounds rather daunting doesn't it right because there are a lot of nations and there are a lot of logistics can the church do it Can the church do it Yes Yes We have to be convinced that the church can do it by the grace and strength and wisdom that God provides.

The church can do it, but we need to be busy about it. So and then jump forward to chapter seven. Because this is the actual event. This is That was just the scroll and the declaration that because the Lamb was slain, because Christ went to the cross and died, that the opportunity then from some from every nation. But here's the actual event. We have a record looking forward to the actual event in heaven.

And after there's this sealing of the 144,000 there in the first part of chapter 7, then in verse 9 it says this, After this I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. Who is this? Who are these people?

What's that? Say it with confidence. It's the church. Well, how could you have a theological debate about who these people are? I know they do. I know people do that.

They have theological debates. Well, they might be the church, but they might not be. Goodness gracious. And I'll have that conversation. I'm okay with that. But it certainly is clear when we understand that the promise has all along been that.

When you go back to the garden, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, we reference that. This plan of redemption involves the whole of God's creation and it has from the beginning. It's the wonderful unity of scripture. The message that we have throughout the whole of scripture. That's what we're carrying when we go across to another culture. Because God has ordained that it should happen this way.

And here we have an actual description of the event itself. We're actually seeing the event itself when we read it. these words. John saw it and we're actually seeing the event itself. That's how sure it is. And we have to understand that God has been doing this all along. Why did he bring Israel into existence in the first place?

Was it not to be priests to the nations? But they didn't do it. That's all right. God had a whole plan. They were just part of that plan, right? But he had a whole plan already in place no worries and he is going to fulfill that he is going to bring in some from all tribes peoples and languages and we know that to be the case and that's what he accomplished on the cross and therefore we cry with a loud voice salvation belongs to our god who sits on the throne and to the lamb i think that mission sometimes our missions is not being accomplished we are not fulfilling the Great Commission because we don't believe God.

We don't believe him. I don't think we have the confidence. I know that's my struggle. I don't have the confidence that this is actually going to happen. And I should. And that's where the church comes in because when one is weak, another is strong, and we encourage each other that, no, we can do this.

So if somebody comes and says, you know what, I think God is calling me to another culture to be a missionary, Then we sit down, we go through the teachings in scripture, and we see what we can do to get them there. We don't sacrifice the scriptures to do that. But we use the scriptures to fulfill the Great Commission. So it's going to happen. Now given what we just read in Revelation 5, Revelation 7, the priority of mission should be towards those people groups that do not already have the gospel. because that's what we are carrying to them.

That's what the Great Commission is, right? Baptize them, evangelize them, and then teach them all that I commanded. And there's that planting, progressing model that the church should always be about both of those, planting and progressing. All that is is an extension of baptizing and teaching them all that I commanded. That's all that that is. but we should be targeting them we should be praying for them we should be considering how we can do this now let me just say a word about coalitions of churches at this point because I think that there some help when we come together as local churches to assist in the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

But we do it by way of partnerships, not by way of an external organization that's operating separately from the local church. And I want that to be really clear. When I talk about a coalition of churches, I'm just talking about a bunch of local churches that get together. They're like-minded. They understand what the Great Commission is. Their doctrine is compatible to the point where the gospel is at the center of what they're doing. and they pool their resources in order to fulfill the Great Commission in putting together a team to go overseas and to go into another culture or to do something.

Or even to plant churches. Whatever. But you still have the local churches, you have leadership in those local churches that are shepherding and they're fellowshipping together with the leaders of other local churches and they're accomplishing that. I think that that's a great model. I think that in the book of Acts, we see that. We read through Paul's letters, and especially the book of Corinthians, and we can see that there's some churches banding together among the Gentiles to pool their resources to help the church in Jerusalem because they're going through some tough times.

So we see that. We see churches producing individuals who could go with Paul on some of his mission trips and things like that. So we see the beginning of those kinds of coalitions there, even in the New Testament. I think that that's something that we need to pay attention to more and more because I think we can't pool our resources to accomplish these things.

And then together with that, I mentioned the idea of sending out teams. When we talk about church planting, I think that the team approach is helpful. So when we talk about sending out an elder or you know the elder as missionary what we really picturing there is that you have an elder or elders involved in putting together a team somehow either a team that comprised of individuals from one church or if you have this coalition individuals from a number of churches who can then go as a team into this culture and fulfill the Great Commission and plant churches and help those churches to grow in that other culture.

I think that team approach, from a logistics standpoint, is going to be accomplishing, has the potential of accomplishing much. But a lot of times, though, the mission organization kind of works against that because, and I'm speaking again from experience, because I really, now we had a great sending church and we had an attachment to them. When we got back from furlough, I would function as an elder in our local sending church for the amount of time that we were there.

But there was a sort of familiness or camaraderie in our mission organization that also was in place. a lot of times for many missionaries that actually trumps the relationship in their local church or their sending church they actually find more connectivity in their mission organization than they do in the church that sent them and over the years I've talked to missionaries and in many cases they're lamenting that they really are They would want their church to be connected to them more and more. They would want a deeper relationship with their church. But it's just not there.

So they're going to have to have it because you can't do cross-cultural ministries just floating around. You have to have a team. You have to have support. You have to have connectivity. So they're going to get it in their organization. And the church is going to do what?

Sit here fat and happy and miss the blessing. Right? That's what happens. And so many, many missionaries who I think are qualified missionaries, biblically, but they are lamenting the lack of a relationship that they have with their sending churches. And the organization will be more than happy to step up and be that to them. But the church can't let that happen.

We have to take our responsibility as a church seriously Titus I said we were going to go to Titus because one of the ways that Paul operated is he would move around with these teams and he would jettison individuals in different places and he'd have them stay. We read about that in Acts when actually Paul was the one that stayed when they were delivering the letter from the Jerusalem council. They delivered it to the church there, and then two of the guys left and went back to Jerusalem, and Paul and Silas stayed there and ministered longer.

And Paul then kind of used that method a lot as he moved around. He would pick up, you know, he picked up Timothy in one place, and he'd be adding people, and then he'd move around, and he'd leave people somewhere else. And when you read, like, at the end of Romans and some of the other letters, the greetings that he gives, it's amazing the relationships that that man had.

Isn't it? It's incredible to just kind of fathom. And those were only some of them. He must have had an amazing number of relationships with people all over the place. And sometimes he left them in specific places to do things. And that's what we have in Titus.

And so he gives Titus his greeting here in the first four verses there, calling Titus his true child in the faith. He's got a connection to Titus, definitely, similar to that of Timothy. And then he tells him in verse 5, he says, this is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.

And then he goes into the qualifications of an elder. what an elder is to be like and what the character of an elder is to be like. So Timothy gets left in Crete. Crete is not Jerusalem. Crete is not even Palestine. Crete is another culture. Now it is true that the sort of Hellenization, the Greek culture, was pretty much spread all over the known world.

And so language and things were not as big of a deal. but there were still some cultural issues. If we drop down into verse 12, we see that in the ministry that... This was to carry on in appointing these elders and instructing people who weren't elders not to upset the faith of individuals in the church. But he says in verse 12, he says, one of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith. And I'm not sure how many cultures you could walk into and say stuff like that. Right. But apparently he could he could say that to Titus and this poet from Crete could write it about his own people. All right.

So there's a dynamic in the culture there. Titus is being left in that culture to appoint elders. And there's going to be these challenges that he's facing. Many of the challenges are right from the pages of scripture, but many of them are going to be culturally specific challenges. But he is still called to appoint elders as part of the church planting process.

I can't imagine planting churches and not building up or raising up leadership for those churches. And yet it happens a lot where it's just not a big deal. It's not part of the plan. and so Titus beyond the command that he gives here to Titus that I want you to remain and put into order and appoint elders in every town we're not told exactly what he's doing or Paul at least in this letter doesn't tell me exactly how that's going to look we have what we call our pre-track ministry at Grace where men are raised up into the ministry of elders over a period of time.

And there's some very specific things that have to be done in their books that they're reading and things that they're doing. None of those specifics are in Scripture. Titus, Timothy 2.2 tells us, you know, where Paul told Timothy, the things that you've heard and seen in me, right? Entrust a faithful man who can then teach others. but that doesn't tell us the specifics of how that is done.

So we do have lots of room to maneuver here, and we should, and we have to get creative sometimes, especially when we're going into another culture, but we don sacrifice the truths of Scripture to do that And that where sound biblical leadership comes in because it biblically qualified men who are leading the church are the ones who keep the church going in the direction that it ought to be going in and doing things the way it ought to be doing things and that is what Titus was told to stay in Crete and do and this is what has to be done anywhere. Anytime you're planting and building up churches, there has to be the leadership development part of it that's there. Special effort must be taken by missionaries if they're going cross-cultural to overcome barriers in those cultures.

There's some cultural practices. We got used to a number of the cultural practices, and some of them were kind of nice. I wanted to like bring them back with us. But they're kind of weird here. But one of them was in Kenya, if you're in a room or in a place, a building or even outside somewhere and you're with a group of people or there's a group of people there and you walk up to that group of people, you have to go around and shake everybody's hand.

And you have to greet everybody by name and by, you know, you got to do a greeting If you don't do that, you're rude. But how many of us were taught, you come into a room and there's people in that room, you just come into that room quietly. You don't say anything, right? You don't walk around shaking everybody's hand, right? I don't do that. I did it a few times.

I still do it sometimes. But it's just, you know, because it's like I just want to acknowledge every individual in that room. And that's a great part of that, a very good part of that culture that I wanted to bring back. But, you know, there's certain cultural practices that are better not brought back. One of them over there was that guys hold hands over there.

When they're intimate friends, they just hold hands. And it's not like holding hands in this culture. It's not even close, actually. It's just a sign of intimacy in a relational way. And I just got used to that. I mean, I didn't even think about it.

Seventeen years of doing that, you know, you don't even think about that until you get over here and try to hold somebody hand You know and that like okay I thought gonna we gonna not do that cultural practice so so but but that part of uh becoming uh aware of the cultural uh aware of the cultural practices and as we're involved in church planting there are certain things that have to be overcome in that we've had some i mean i could just spend the rest of today you know with with stories about the challenges that faced us in dealing with some of those cultural practices over there. And some of them, we knew they were sinful, but they weren't like specifically in scripture. But boy, the principles were there.

But that's really hard to teach sort of those abstract principles in some cultures that are very concrete. They're very, they need tangible things in order to learn, right? and you're dealing sometimes with these abstract things. But we constantly have to go back to stay rooted in the Scripture and continue to press in preaching the gospel and seeing the Lord do His work.

Learning the language is so critical if you're going to plant a church. Like we said, Paul didn't have language issues as such. He could speak Greek when he had to or Hebrew when he had to. So he didn't have to do that. But there was the Jew-Gentile barrier, right? That was huge.

In fact, that makes up most of the New Testament as far as the barrier to the gospel is concerned. And that's really our prime example when we look at how we are to overcome these things. And one of the ways that we don't overcome these cultural barriers is with laws, with the law, all right, or some form of legalism. We didn't actually plant a church in Kenya.

The whole 17 years we were there, we didn't plant one single church. We were involved in fixing churches that had been planted weekly, you know, weekly as in W-E-A-K. They were very weak foundations theologically and sometimes no leadership development involved in their planting And oftentimes the missionaries that did plant them obviously struggled with legalism And in one case, I remember overseeing a communion table.

Communion was being observed in the local church that we were in. And afterwards, the people came up with their little cards, and they wanted me to initial their little card that says that they attended communion that day. And I had to do that in order for them to show that they were there. And that's all they cared about, because that's what they were told.

They were told that as long as you had your little card and you had your initials on there that you attended a communion service, you're good. Can you imagine doing that? I mean, what does that do to the actual meaning of communion? Right? It's totally lost. Was that also to show that they were members of the church?

Not only for those who were members, so that they would keep just the whole communion? Right. There was a fencing going on, but even that fencing was legalistic in that sense. because if you had knowledge of your flock, you would know who's who, right? But still, the idea of that. And then just one more. This one really got me in trouble.

This was early on, and I was in a church that we were working in a church, and I was doing some church-based theological training in that church. And at one point I was sitting with the elders and they said in that meeting, they said, now we just want you to know that we know how much each one of us elders makes in their salary and we make sure that we give 10%. And as they were saying that to me, they were sliding over a stack of envelopes, right, tithing envelopes to me, across the table, right?

We want you to tithe, too. We want you to declare your salary, and we want to make sure that you're tithing 10%. And I said... That ain't going to happen. And I said it in a very Western way, right? I could have said it more African-like, but I said, that ain't going to happen, right?

And that was it. I was done in that church, literally. I was done in that church. I was done in that town, too. The mission sort of whisked me away, us away. But again, there was this, and I don't know if that one's tied directly back to the missionaries or not, But, you know, somehow, somewhere along the line, somebody's teaching, you know, that it's okay to have these rules and that sanctification happens when you have these rules kind of thing.

And we need to be so careful, especially when we're crossing cultural barriers and, you know, going into other cultures. we have to be careful that we don't fall to the temptation of establishing those extra-biblical rules in order to gauge growth and say, oh yeah, well this church is progressing well because people are doing this and this and this. The temptation is great to do that when you're going cross-cultural. We don't want to do that. the barriers that we're talking about are not broken down legalistically they're broken down by God they're broken down by the gospel that's the only thing in scripture that tells us those barriers are broken down this way it's the gospel that breaks down those barriers and we don't ever want to try and re-erect the barriers that the gospel breaks down and again we do that with our different brands of legalism and making rules and regulations and we don't want to do that because the gospel breaks those barriers down so that we can exist in the freedom of Christ that's how God wants us to exist so as we think about church planting logistics can be challenging culture can be challenging I think teams is a very wise way to consider if we're going to fulfill the Great Commission.

Not in every case. There can be certain cases, I think, where you might send an elder by himself into a situation. I know that that would be very rare I trying to think of an example and I haven been involved in one yet But you know I think teams are really going to be the way to go And the elder is the leader or elders, if you have multiple elders going.

You have elders who are providing the leadership of that team and other people involved in that team who are doing whatever it is that they're gifted and whatever their strengths are. The gospel itself is the one that breaks down the barriers. So one of the reasons, though, that there's a lot of people groups that are still unreached, it's dwindling, but they live in very distant cultures.

We were in Brazil last year, and that's where we learned about some of the western side of Brazil and up into the Amazon. There's still people that, you know, that haven't really been reached thoroughly with the gospel. And so there are those groups, but they're so far away that it's hard logistically to imagine how we're going to reach them. But we need to reach them.

The church needs to be about figuring out ways to do that. Some of those cultures have idolatrous practices that run deep into the fabric of their culture. But again, it's only the gospel that can deal with that. No plan or program of ours is going to do that. It takes God's grace and the means of concerted effort to break down the barriers erected by sin.

Now, we know that God is the ultimate determiner of who goes where and when, even in this culture here, even in our country. God is the one that decides. Now, we live real close to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. We've got people coming and going. We need to put a revolving door on our church, okay, because we've got people coming in for a few years and leaving.

It's just been that way ever since the church has been there. And ever since the base has been there. And it's not bad because they're doing their job. And their job takes them, you know, hither and yon the way it does. So we just have come to the point where it's like, well, we get them for a few years. And then we let them go.

We pour into them, you know, and then we let them go. And the Lord's going to do what he's going to do with them. But he's the one that sends them. And he's the one that gifts all his people. We read that in Ephesians yesterday. God gifts and equips the members of the body uniquely for his purposes of building and strengthening the church And not everybody has the ability to cross cultures well Not everybody can just kind of go across cultures and do that well.

There are some challenges there. And not everybody even has the desire, do they? I mean, how many of you here would desire, as you thought about it, would desire right now to go, pack up from here, move to another culture halfway around the world, and minister the gospel? As you think about desires in your own heart, is that one of them? That's where it starts.

There has to be that desire. What is the church doing to help create those desires? What's our involvement? so the first evidence that the Holy Spirit is setting apart an individual for the work of missions is that desire to go now that doesn't mean it's going to happen because it's not just about having a desire the same manner that those who might be qualified to be an elder right an elder desires the office that's where it begins and then we move through the qualifications it's not simply it's not enough to simply have the desire the church has to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit, just like we saw in Acts chapter 13.

So we believe that the church is the sole God-ordained institution for authorizing and conducting missionary activity and planting churches. And I want us to just look at Ephesians quickly here. Ephesians chapter 3, as we kind of draw this portion to a close. Ephesians chapter 3. This is such a grand passage for ecclesiology. Ephesians 3 beginning in verse 8 to me though I am the very least of all the saints Paul says this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things so that through the church here it is through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

This was according to the eternal purpose that he is realized in Christ Jesus our Lord to whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him Verse 10 through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This is at the heart of the fulfillment of the Great Commission. And we're saying that if the wisdom of God is now made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places, how much more is it made in the physical realm, in all of creation?

He is the creator of all things, and his eternal purpose has been realized in Christ. Notice that in verse 11. This is according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. We started off yesterday talking about how sanctification is remembering what God has already declared to be reality. He has already declared that every nation, tribe, people, and tongue is going to be represented in the church.

And so we want to just keep up with him in that. So it's no surprise that New Testament missions is a church-centric activity, that the church is at the heart of that. Are we willing to assess missions, ministry scripturally then? As we look at all of these things, and we kind of touched on that in our last session. Are we willing to assess missions, ministry scripturally?

Or are there things in missions that we just don't touch? They're sacred, right? It's always been this way. The mission organization. I mean, I found that having conversations about mission organizations, it's like people are like, what? What do you mean? you can't have a mission.

You've got to have a mission organization. You can't be a missionary unless you belong to a mission organization. That's not true. The church can use organizations if the organizations are truly willing to submit to what God has designed missions to be. Then there can be those relationships. But if they're going to usurp the authority of the church, then it's not going to happen.

Are we ready to make those kinds of decisions and assessments? Are we ready to make those hard decisions? I mean, should Jack Martin be an elder before he's sent out? Are we ready to speak the truth in love? Right? When he comes to us and we ask him, are you an elder?

And he says, no. Are we ready to require that? And then help him in achieving the goal. Right? Not just saying, nope, we're not going to support you, you're not an elder. I don't want to sound like that's what we're doing.

We actually want to help people to take their place in God's program in the fulfilling of the Great Commission. It's just that we have to do it according to the parameters of Scripture. That's all. but we'll do whatever we can do to help you do that and reach that and be that. So we require it, but then we also help in achieving the goal. Having that as part of our missions philosophy and policy at Grace Covenant means that most folks seeking our financial support don't receive it, sadly, because it is narrow in that sense. so if they come to us and they say you know we want to go start a feeding program can you support us and we say no it like whoa you don want you want people to go hungry you want people to starve kind of thing And it like no we just don want what you doing called missions That all If we can help somehow and not sacrifice what God has clearly said in Scripture, then we're going to do that.

But we can't support your endeavors to do that. Are we ready to withdraw support? This is a tough one. We've talked about it a bit. Are we ready to withdraw support from a missionary who we determine does not fit the biblical model? These are tough decisions.

Now, we might conclude that that, and we're in the process of doing that at Grace. We inherited some missionaries from when our church merged back in 1997. And one of the churches, actually both of the churches had missionaries. So the new Grace Covenant Church just assumed those missionaries. And as we put together our missions philosophy, it became really clear that they're not even close, actually.

And in one case it had to do with biblical counseling And we pretty strong that biblical counseling is a ministry of the local church It's not a ministry of a separate parachurch organization, right? The church should be counseling. Well, the missionary was involved in, like entirely involved, in just a company that was doing counseling. And we said that just doesn't fit.

But we sat down with them. It's still in process because it's taking time. And we didn't write them a letter or send them an email that says, you don't fit our policy, so sorry, we're cutting your salary or whatever. We didn't do that. We waited until they were home. We sat down with them, and we just talked with them.

We dialogued with them and tried to communicate our position to them. So it's a relational process. It's not simply about cutting them off because they don't fit the policy. but it is still a difficult thing nonetheless but one that we have to consider and that we have to do God has given us control over a certain amount of resources in the kingdom and he called us to be stewards of those resources and so we have to take that seriously There more that could be said there but any questions at this point?

Okay. I think our time's up. Unless there's some burning questions. Can I pray? Okay. Father, we thank you again for a wonderful opportunity to be together and think through these things.

Lord, we know that you give us wisdom from above when we ask, and we ask for that now, Lord, as we think about the fulfilling of the Great Commission and all that's involved there and the many different situations and things that we're seeing in the church and in organizations. Lord, we just pray that you'd grant leadership, wisdom, even the leadership here at LaRue, that, Lord, you would help them as they think through these things and the church as a whole, Father, as they think through what you are accomplishing in and through them with respect to missions. Well, thank you, Father, for all that you'll do.

In Christ's name, amen.