Exploring the Heart of God: The Mission of the Church

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

We're going to conclude our series looking at church culture.

And it's been something that we've been looking at since the beginning of the year.

And we've been talking about what it means to be a biblical church, what it means to follow scripture, what it means to follow in the will of the Lord.

And when we look at the will of God, we.

We need to find the will of God from one place, and that is scripture.

So what does scripture say about the church?

What does scripture say about what our desire should be, what our direction should be?

And what we can see is in 2026, we're looking at three words, up, in and out.

It's God's will that we first of all have a relationship with him.

Secondly, that our relationship with him is growing.

And then in the next step, we know that that relationship overflows into our relationship with others and our relationship with others within the church.

That's where it starts.

If we love God, we love others.

And if we love God, we will serve others.

If we love God, we will forgive others, we will be able to have those relationships within the church.

But then we see that last word in our vision for this year, the out.

How do we deal with those in our community?

How do we deal with those that are not believers?

Well, there's a few different ways that we can approach a non believer.

We can see them as an enemy and we can see them as hopeless, or we can see them as an opportunity to share the gospel, to have compassion, to live the truth in front of them.

And that's what we're going to be talking about here today.

And I think that it starts here this morning with some idea of what God tells us about this going out into the world, preaching the gospel.

A couple verses that I want you to see when it comes to the heart of God.

In this is Luke, chapter 19.

Luke, chapter 19, verse 10.

This tells us what the heart of Jesus was when he came to this earth.

And I think that as our greatest example, we should follow the path that Jesus took.

Now, we.

We know that we are not the ones doing the saving.

Only Jesus could do the saving.

But we are ultimately responsible as Believers to point people to the one who does the saving, that is Jesus.

And so in Luke chapter 19, we see verse 10, the reason why Jesus came.

It says, for the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

And so we have a problem in this world today around us.

So, so I think a lot of times when we think about church, we think about the internal workings of church.

And that is one major element to church is the family of God, the body of Christ.

But we also have to think about how the church interacts with the world around us.

And so the world around us, I think we could all agree, is dark, it's, it's lost.

And so there's a way that we deal with those that are around us, that are lost.

It says, Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost.

And so it is our goal, it's our marching orders to tell the world about Jesus, to tell him, to tell them about him and about what he can do for them in their lives.

And so a lot of times we think about the, the spirit of compassion which we're going to talk about today.

But I want you to see another passage of scripture in First Thessalonians chapter 2, if you will go there with me.

I just want to start out with a few of these build up verses and then eventually we're going to get to our main text first.

Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 8 tells us something else about the sharing of the word of God with other people around us.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so there is this element of love and compassion that we are to have for the lost.

But sometimes in our church cultures we see the love kind of excusing the sin and excusing the problems and saying, hey, you know what, we need to just love on them and do things for them, but we don't need to tell them that they're wrong.

What we're going to see here in this passage is that yes, the heart of the gospel is love, but also the heart of the gospel is truth.

And so in First Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 8, it says, so being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you not the gospel of God only, but also our souls because you were dear to us.

Meaning it's, it's, it's based in love.

So the reason why we share the gospel with people around us is because hopefully we love them.

And the Bible says that if we love them, we'll tell people the truth.

If we Love them, we will sacrifice for them.

And sacrificing for them means sometimes going through difficulty in sharing the truth of the gospel.

So in First Thessalonians, chapter 2.

8, it says it's based in love.

It's.

It's based in the fact that their souls were dear to us.

It says, so being affectionately desirous of you, that.

That's.

That's strong way to say that we cared for you so much that we brought you the Gospel.

But I want to see another verse that's very close to that.

That's 1 Timothy, chapter 2.

4, 1st Timothy, chapter 2, verse 4, tells us that, yes, sharing the Gospel does have an element of love.

It must be based in love.

It must be based in compassion.

We have to care for the person that we're sharing the truth with.

But then in First Timothy, chapter two, verse four, it also tells us that God would.

And this is speaking of the will of God.

Verse 3 says, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved.

And so it's the desire of the Lord that all come to him in salvation.

We know not everyone will, but God wants us to have the same heart that he has when it comes to trying to lead everyone that we can to Christ.

And then it says, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

And so it's that same principle that we've talked about before.

Speaking the truth of the gospel means to speak the truth in love.

Truth and love.

How we deal with other Christians.

Truth and love how.

How we deal with the unsaved.

Truth and love, how we deal with our family.

Truth and love, how we deal with other Christians within the church, that we're having conflict with.

Truth and love.

And so I want you to see as we're building this case for going out and going and sharing the gospel and evangelizing the lost and.

And going across not only Middletown and Townsend and Odessa and Newcastle county and Delaware and America, but all over the world.

But all of this has to be based in truth and love.

The truth of Jesus Christ, the truth of his word, and the love that God has for us and for the lost.

Another verse that many of you are familiar with, and I think that this is a verse that we use quite frequently when it comes to evangelism.

And That's Mark, chapter 16, verse 15.

He says, and he said unto them, go ye unto all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

That word preach just means to proclaim.

It doesn't mean to Preach a sermon.

As, you know, three points in a poem or whatever that you think of.

When you think of a sermon.

It means to proclaim the truth of God no matter where you are, whether it's your workplace, whether it's in your home, whether it's in a setting that is comfortable for you or a setting that's not comfortable for you.

The whole goal of a disciple of Jesus Christ is to proclaim to everyone that they can the truth of Jesus.

Now, how do we do that?

Well, the first step of that would be just simply sharing what Jesus has done for us.

The.

The average Christian, every Christian should be able to at least explain the gospel, to at least explain the good news of Jesus Christ, what saved me, what I'm trusting in to save me.

Every Christian should be able to clearly explain Jesus came to this earth.

He's not just a good teacher, but he is God.

The Bible says in John chapter one that the Word was with God and the Word was God.

So every Christian should be able to explain who Jesus is, what he did for us by coming to this earth.

He lived a perfect life.

He committed no sin.

The Bible says that he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law, meaning he did everything in the eyes of God, in perfection, complete holiness.

But then the Bible says that there's a problem.

And the problem in this world is sin.

And the Bible says in Romans that the wages of sin is death.

The payment for sin is death.

And so everyone who commits a sin, whether it's one sin or a million sins, all of us are guilty of sin.

Therefore, the Bible says that all of us deserve hell.

All of us deserve punishment.

All of us deserve separation from God.

But then Jesus offers that gift, that.

That payment for our sin on the cross.

That's why we have crosses up in our building.

That's why we focus on that.

It's not because it's a cultural symbol.

It's not because it's a fashion statement.

It's a.

It's a symbol.

It's a picture of the death that Jesus gave for us.

He wasn't killed.

A lot of people think that Jesus was killed against his will.

No, Jesus willingly gave himself for us so that we could have that payment on our account, so that he, the only one who could pay that punishment for us, did that.

And so therefore he bore the wrath of God.

He paid the price.

But the Bible says that that's not where it ended.

He stayed in that tomb only three days, physically speaking.

But three days later, he resurrected and conquered death and offers that gift of eternal life for all of us.

And if we believe in faith, the Bible says Ephesians 2:8:9, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

So it's a gift of grace that is the Gospel.

Another succinct, very clear presentation of the Gospel is really in the first four verses of First Corinthians, chapter 15.

I would encourage you at some point to read that and understand that, because what Paul says is this.

Basically the gospel is the good news of Jesus from, from beginning and not to the end.

Because what we can see is that it never ends because we all are offered everlasting life in Jesus Christ.

So that's one way that we can share the gospel, just by simply sharing with people what God has done for us, how he saved us, how he transformed us, how he gave us everlasting life.

But then another way that we can share the gospel, that is by the way that we live.

The Bible always emphasizes that we're to live in word and in deed, that that we are to love in word.

And indeed.

And so what we see In Matthew chapter 5, verse 16, it says, Let so let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.

And so it's not just about what we say, even though that is so important.

I've heard some people say, well, just live your life in the gospel and don't say anything.

Well, that's, that's a problem because the Bible does say in word and in deed, so you can live a good life, you can live a godly life, but people are going to ask you why you have the hope that's within you.

That's first Peter, chapter three, verse 15.

The Bible says to be ready to give an answer for when people ask you, hey, why do you have hope?

Why are you different?

Why are you not doing the things that we're doing?

Why are you forgiving?

Why are you gracious?

Why.

Why are you loving?

And the Bible says that we're to give an answer with meekness and fear.

We're to give an answer with, with gentleness and respect.

To say the reason why I'm different, the reason why I have hope, the reason why I can live in a dark world with hope and joy and peace is because of Jesus Christ.

And so Matthew chapter five tells us that our actions matter when it comes to sharing our faith.

And so again, it's love and truth, word and deed.

That's what we talk about when we're talking about presenting the gospel.

And so God says, we all have the great commission, the great job, the great responsibility as a Christian.

And the great responsibility is this, to share the gospel to the world.

Acts, chapter one, verse eight says this.

And I think that this is important to note, because the Bible tells us not only what we are to do when we go, but it tells us where to go.

Acts, chapter one, verse eight.

But you shall receive power after that.

The Holy Ghost has come upon you.

And by the way, everything that we do when it comes to sharing our faith is not based in how good we are, how smart we are, how.

How attractive we are.

The Bible says the power that comes with our preaching, our proclamation, our evangelism comes from the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit.

So he says, the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem.

What does that mean?

That means the first place you have to go is Jerusalem.

So all of you need to sign up for the Israel trip today.

And that's.

We know that's not what we're talking about.

Jerusalem for them in that context was right there, right where they were.

They were in Jerusalem.

And so the first place that you go in evangelism and going out is where you're currently at.

Your first place is your family.

The first place is your community, who you come across every single day.

But then he says, that's not where you stop.

That's where you start.

Then he goes to Jerusalem and all Judea.

Judea would be the surrounding areas.

And so taking it out a little bit further.

And in Samaria now, most of you know, the implication there is that Samaria was not a place that these people would have been comfortable going to.

They.

They would have not liked the people in Samaria.

They would have been different.

There would have been a great conflict between these people.

And so what we see here is he says, don't just go to people that you feel comfortable with going to go to people that are different than you, that are outside of your comfort zone.

And.

And then he says samaria, and then unto the uttermost part of the earth, meaning as far as you can go.

We want to have this message spread.

And what an amazing truth it is that these folks did listen to the Lord, even though there was a lot of struggle in the early church, we know by way of proof that the word of God spread all over the earth.

That's an amazing thing.

It started in Jerusalem and it spread.

And.

And there's more in the Great Commission.

We know that in Matthew, chapter 28.

This is really the verses that I've been studying the last.

I don't know, about two years, really.

What does this passage in Matthew 28 talk about?

Well, it's the last three verses.

And in Matthew, chapter 28, verses 18, 19 and 20, Jesus gives us a very clear plan of what he calls us to do as his disciples.

Now, yes, this is directed to the disciples there, right at the right before Jesus ascends into heaven.

But what I will say is this.

I think all of us have this great commission that we're called to follow in our lives.

Their church has this great commission to follow in our lives.

And so it says here.

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth.

So, by the way, what God is calling us to do, it starts with the power of the Lord.

It starts with the indwelling of the Spirit.

It starts with Jesus.

He doesn't expect us to do something on our own strength.

He expects us to do it in his strength.

But then he says in verse 19, go, go ye therefore, and teach all nations.

The idea there is God.

Make disciples.

Don't just teach them the facts.

Teach them what it means to follow Jesus, to be a disciple.

One element of sharing our faith is telling people facts.

The facts about who Jesus is, the fact about what he did for us.

But also part of evangelism is teaching people what it means to grow in their faith.

I think so many times we forget about sharing what it means to grow in our faith.

We tell people how to come to Christ, which is great.

That's the first step.

But the next step is teaching people what it means to walk as disciples.

And so he goes on to say this.

He says, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever.

I have commanded you.

And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.

So he says, my power is with you.

Go make disciples.

Share the gospel.

Show them what it means to follow me.

And then he says, at the very end, lo, I'm with you always.

So Jesus's promise is this.

In this pursuit of going out, he's going to give us power, and he's going to give us his presence.

And so therefore, there's nothing that we have to fear.

Because the success, the success is not based in us.

The success is based in relying in Him.

So how do we do this?

What does this look like?

How do we preach the gospel?

Well, I want us to go back to the motivation of doing it, because a lot of times we reduce sharing the gospel down to a formula.

Well, if you go up to someone and you got to go to point one, point two, point three, get them to sign the paper, and then we're done, we're good.

But no, it's more than that, because a lot of times what happens is that the individual Christian lacks the motivation to do this.

And sometimes we blame it on fear, sometimes we blame it on maybe just not being educated enough to be able to share our faith with other people.

But I think it goes a little bit further than that.

I think the motivation goes back to what Jesus talked about in Matthew chapter nine.

And so I want you to go to Matthew chapter nine with me.

That was a long Runway.

But we're going to get to our main text here this morning.

Matthew chapter nine speaks of seeing the lost through the eyes of Jesus.

If we see the lost as just something that we do to check the box in our Christian life, we're going to miss the whole point of what it means to share our faith with other people.

Jesus sees here in Matthew chapter nine, the lost.

He sees the multitudes.

And his response to the multitude is what I really believe we should respond to when it comes to our motivation to sharing our faith.

And so In Matthew chapter 9, verse 35, it says, and Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

So needless to say, Jesus is busy.

Jesus is doing the work of His Father.

He is preaching the gospel.

He's healing people.

He's proclaiming the truth in a place that really needs the truth.

It's dark there, and he's busy.

And so what did Jesus see?

Well, he saw a need for preaching.

He.

He saw a need for service.

He.

He saw a need to do the work of the Father.

And so where we start is really this.

It's.

It's obedience to the Father.

It's obedience to His Word.

If we say, well, I gotta do this because Pastor Josh is really gonna get on my case if I'm not doing the vision this year.

That's.

That's missing the point.

It's.

It's.

It's our relationship with God that drives us to follow Him.

It drives us to serve Him.

It drives us to obey what.

What he calls us to do in our life.

And so Jesus, we know, perfectly submitted himself to the will of the Father, even if he was physically fatigued.

The Bible says that he was going everywhere.

He was preaching the gospel, he was teaching in the synagogues, he was healing every sickness.

And ultimately we know that sometimes it does in some ways, as a Christian, especially in a church as busy as ours, sometimes there's easily a temptation to be fatigued in the work of the ministry.

So what does he say here?

He says, no, there's something more there.

Verse 36.

But when he saw the multitudes, Jesus looks out and he sees the people.

He sees those people that need a savior.

And it says this phrase, and I think this is the core phrase that I want us to grasp you this morning.

He says he was moved with compassion on them.

And so Jesus did not just see a need for preaching and a need for ministry, but he saw the need of the people, the greatest need.

Need of the people.

Verse 35 states that Jesus preached the gospel to the people.

But we see in verse 36 that he was moved with compassion.

So the motivation was not just, hey, I need to check a box to make sure I'm doing all of my work.

No, he was moved with compassion.

It was a heart of love for those that needed a Savior.

And so we can't be effective soul winners.

We can't be effective proclaimers of the gospel without a true passion for the lost.

We, we must love those who need Jesus and love them enough to tell them the truth.

You know, what did Jesus do?

Jesus gives them the greatest thing that they needed, and that was a savior.

We look at our society today and there's a lot of things that people around us need.

I mean, they're, they're, they're.

You guys know this.

We all have needs, but particularly there are some people that are in great need of, of physical, material, wealth.

There's people that are.

Need of housing.

There's a people in need of a lot of different things.

And as a church, we could look to the symptoms and we can say, well, you know what, we can just give somebody something and make them feel better about themselves.

But then that would not be enough.

I think that what we need to do as a church is to give people the greatest need, and that is the need of a savior, and that is to proclaim the gospel.

Now, I don't think that means that we should be void of compassion in the physical realm.

I think that what that means is as we go into the world and share the gospel, and that, yes, we do meet people's physical needs, but at the same time explaining why we're meeting the physical need by sharing with them their spiritual need of a Savior.

All of us can understand that we're going to face issues in our life, but the biggest answer to all of our problems is having that walk with Jesus.

Because the walk with Jesus gives us something, as Philippians says, is the peace of God that passeth all understanding.

Meaning that no matter what we're facing in our life, whatever circumstance it might be, whatever hardship we might be in, the Bible says that we can have peace.

Why?

Because we don't just have the peace of God, we have the peace with God in salvation.

Therefore, we can say, yes, I have a physical problem going on in my life, and I'm not happy about that.

But I know that God is with me through this.

I. I know that maybe I'm in a financial hardship right now, and I know that there's going to be some issues and maybe some things that I have to give up.

But at the end, I know that I have Jesus as my savior and that if everybody took everything away from me, the only thing that they can't take away from me is my relationship with Jesus Christ.

The Bible says Jesus speaks that the things of this earth, moth and rust, can corrupt.

They can, they can come in, they can steal things from us.

But as a believer, the thing that no one can steal from us is that personal walk with Jesus Christ.

That's what we need to give to the world.

That's what we need to proclaim.

That's what we need to live.

And so Jesus says here he's moved with compassion on them.

Why?

Because they fainted, they were weak, they didn't have direction and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd, Jesus likened the people to sheep having no shepherd.

A shepherd guides, a shepherd protects.

A shepherd looks out for what's best for his sheep.

And so a sheep without a shepherd has no hope of life, no hope of survival.

And we must see the lost the same way the unsaved have no hope on their own to reach some sort of peace, some sort of protection, some sort of satisfaction.

And so it's our goal as believers is to share with the lost sheep the only good shepherd who can protect them, who can sustain them, who can feed them, who can give them everlasting life.

And so Jesus saw the need of the people.

But not only did Jesus see the need of the people, verse 37, he sees a problem.

He sees an issue at hand.

He says in verse 37, then saith he unto his disciples.

So he looks to his disciples.

Now remember, who are the disciples.

Most of us see the disciples as the 12 that followed him.

And though they were disciples, there were more disciples there.

It was, it was who followed him.

And so Jesus looks to his disciples and he says this.

The harvest truly is plenty.

What's he talking about there?

He says there's a big group of unsaved people out there.

There's a great need for preaching the gospel.

There's a great need for those who are lost.

He says the harvest is truly plenteous, but the laborers are few.

He realized the need of the people.

He realized how great the need was.

And he realized that there's not enough people to get out there and preach the gospel.

So for the need of the gospel is still important today as it was back at the time of Christ.

And so he says, hey, there is a lot of people that need Jesus, and there needs to be more people going to them.

And he says, verse 38, Pray ye therefore, pray ye therefore, that the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.

So.

So we have to understand that there's a problem today.

The.

The problem is this.

We've got so many people walking around that are unsaved in America today that have not heard a clear presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And then what's the other problem?

We've got a bunch of churches.

Depending on where you're at in our country, you can drive and see a church almost on every corner.

Now, not all of those churches are actively proclaiming the gospel message, but every gospel preaching church should see that as a.

As a challenge.

It should see that as an opportunity to say, you know what?

How many people in our community have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ?

How many people in our community have heard a twisted gospel?

I guarantee you somebody has preached some type of gospel to every single person in our community.

Whether it's the gospel of money, whether it's the gospel of a twisted Jesus, whether it's the gospel of works, whether it's the gospel of flesh and pride and humanism, whether it's the gospel of whatever.

We know that people are hearing some type of news.

Now it's a matter of, are we as Christians going to be willing to say, you know what?

Our news is different.

Our news is better.

We.

We need to share that good news.

And so Jesus says, hey, there is a problem.

We need more laborers.

But Jesus had the plan.

Jesus says, pray, ask the Lord.

And not only ask the Lord, Because I think in context here, what we have to understand is that he's assuming that these disciples are going to go.

So he says, hey, pray that there's more.

But we know that when we pray, we also need to follow God in faith by saying, okay, what do I need to do to help other laborers come into the harvest?

What?

Well, number one, I need to share my faith.

Number two, I need to encourage others.

I need to disciple others to become a disciple just like me, so that I can share my faith with other people and so that they can share their faith with other people.

Jesus tells us to pray for more workers to share God's word and his love.

And so it starts with prayer, but it also goes to us as a responsibility to take it upon ourselves to do our part as laborers in the harvest.

And so, so we.

We looked at Jesus and how he viewed this situation, and we see that he's moved with compassion.

The question that I would have for all of us here this morning is this.

When we look out and we see the world the way that it is, what is our response?

For many of us, it's this.

It's like disdain, it's hopelessness.

It's kind of writing off and saying, well, the world is going down in fire and we just are going to give up.

And that's sometimes what we see within Christian circles is a sense of defeatism.

But what I would say for us today is that if we truly believe the message that we're trusting our life in, hey, that message is a message of hope.

That message is a message of truth.

That message is a message of love.

And if it's transformed our life, it can transform others.

You say, pastor, I've shared it with this person a hundred times, and he or she hasn't still not listened.

That's okay, keep sharing it, because it's not on us.

It's not our responsibility for them to make the decision.

That's the responsibility and the power of the Spirit changing their hearts.

The Bible speaks of the parable of the sower, right?

It's our job to sow the seed.

It's our job to distribute the truth and to live the best way that we can to show that Jesus Christ has changed our life.

And so what I would challenge you to do is not look at results as much as look at faithfulness.

And so how can we do this practically?

Well, as the church, we have corporate events in which we come together and we say we're going to go and do something.

And we.

We have mission strips we have local service opportunities.

But what I would say is that, yes, even though the church has corporate action that we do as a ministry, I think that it should go further than that.

I think that all of us should take as a responsibility to have a lifestyle of going right.

So as we grow together within discipleship, within the church.

Discipleship doesn't end with just what we teach within these four walls.

Discipleship is this.

We take what we've learned.

We take things as we grow, and then we go in service and in sacrifice and in the Gospel to share what it means to know Jesus.

And so how can we have this Christlike perspective?

I think it goes like this.

So serving others, right, starts with service.

Jesus was willing to serve others.

Verse 35.

If we have a selfish view of life, we miss opportunities to serve, we miss opportunities to share.

And so Jesus was serving in this passage, even though he had already done a lot.

We, we never should be saying in our life, well, I've done enough, I've reached it.

I, I've hit my service quota for the month.

I'm just going to give up serving.

We never know what God is going to bring into our life.

And so we always have to be ready to serve.

And so if God has blessed us with salvation and he's blessed us with service, we should return to the best of our ability in service and, and sacrifice for Him.

But then we see serving others and then seeking the lost.

Seeking the lost.

I, I don't think that we should.

Like, for example, I don't think we should assume everyone's unsaved.

Like, you walk up to someone and say, you're a sinner and you're going to hell.

Ask questions, right?

I think, I think the biggest thing is seeking lust, looking and asking God for you to have open doors.

Paul called them doors of utterances, which means opportunities to share the gospel.

Pray for opportunities to share the gospel.

You know, a lot of times it's, it's us initiating the conversation.

But if we're really perceptive, sometimes there's opportunities for us to have someone else ask a question that could bridge a gap into sharing the gospel.

Maybe it's just where you go to church.

Maybe if a conversation comes up and you say, well, I can't come, on Friday night we have a church event.

Oh, you go to church?

What church do you go to?

Well, I go to so and so, whatever, church.

And then from there it's, hey, what do you guys, you know, have you ever been to church?

Do you go to church?

And there's an opportunity to ask questions and hear.

And so seeking the lost, Jesus was filled with compassion.

He knew that those people needed the gospel.

He was hoping that not.

Not just hoping that they would come to him, but he was looking for people to actively look and to minister to those people that needed him.

And so as Christians with a view like Christ, we have to actively be pursuing the loss.

But then what I would say is pursue the loss, but also sow the seed, sow the gospel.

It's one thing to recognize that someone's unsaved and know that they're not a Christian.

You know, we could identify that.

Maybe, maybe they're not private about it.

Maybe they just say, yeah, I don't go to church.

I don't believe in all that mumbo jumbo.

I don't believe in anything.

I'm.

I'm an atheist or I'm whatever, okay, we've identified that they're lost.

We've sought after them, we've found them.

But what do we do?

Well, the culmination of all this would be to sow the gospel, to spread the seed.

It's not upon us how they receive it, it's how we share it.

So Jesus saw a need for more workers to sow the good news of the gospel.

And, and we've all been given gifts.

We've been talking about that for now, almost over a month.

We've all been given gifts, and God has called us to use them to the best of our ability to preach the gospel, to evangelize the lost, to edify the saints, and to exhort others to love and to good works.

And that's really the model of up, in and out.

It's first and foremost, I'm growing in the Lord in my walk with Him.

How do I grow in the Lord with my walk with him?

You grow in your love for Him.

How do you grow in your love for him?

I believe is to follow what he has called us to do in obedience, to study his word, to communicate with him in prayer, to serve him, to love him, to spend time with him.

And as we do that, it will reflect to how we deal with other Christians.

We must love one another.

We must be serving one another.

We must be edifying one another.

We must be educating one another when it comes to small groups and, and service projects and Bible studies and Sunday school classes and everything like that.

But then eventually, what it means is that our church has to be mobilized.

Our church has to leave these four walls, this property, and go and be a gospel witness.

To be a light in this world.

The Bible speaks there in Matthew, chapter five.

I wish we had more time.

But it speaks of a Christian not being a light that's hidden under a bushel, but to take the bushel off into hold that light up into the world.

It doesn't mean that every one of us is called to be a street preacher, even though some of you might be called for that.

I'm not saying that that's a bad thing.

I'm just saying that not everyone's gifted in that capacity, but all of us are gifted in the capacity to shine the light of Jesus Christ to this world.

If we want to see Middletown Baptist Church grow, which I hope that all of you want to see Middletown Baptist Church grow, because that would be the will of God.

I believe that it's God's will that we grow to whatever capacity he wants us to grow in, both physically and more importantly, spiritually.

But if we want to see Middletown Baptist Church grow, how do we see that happen?

Well, Pastor, we just advertise more in the local newspapers.

One, I'm going to tell you that that's probably not going to be the most effective route.

Okay, we'll have a good website.

Well, that might help get people through the front door.

Have a good sign out by the road that that might help initially for people to know that we're here.

But knowing that we are here and attending a service is not growth.

I could put out in the local news that we're giving away a free car and everyone that shows up gets a raffle ticket.

I bet you that there will be a lot more people that show up to Middletown Baptist Church that Sunday and we could say, look at this growth.

But that's not.

That's not biblical growth.

We could focus on one element of entertaining people and say, oh, okay, you know what?

We're going to bring in a new music artist each week, and people might come out for that.

And I'm not saying that that's in and of itself wrong, but what I am saying is that if our ultimate goal of growth is just bringing people in and finding different ways to bring people in, we're missing the point.

Because the point of growth would be for people finding who Jesus Christ is and being deeply rooted into a relationship with him.

That's true growth.

And what we do, how do we do that?

Well, the best way for the word of God to be spread and for people to come in and be deeply rooted is for individual Christians to reach other people, to bring them in, to lead them to Jesus Christ.

That's the way it happens.

That's how it happened in the early church.

That's the way that it happened.

They didn't have to advertise in the local newspapers.

They were talking word of mouth.

They were sharing in their life.

And so what I want to encourage you to do is first and foremost bring people to church, invite people to church.

But it's more than inviting people to church.

It's sharing the gospel with them.

It's.

It's sharing the truth and then discipling them along the way.

That's true biblical evangelism.

I'm not against tent revivals.

I'm not against any type of big services and bringing special speakers in.

But what we have seen, and I think some of you might agree with me on this, is that we've had big motions and movements to get people in and make people have professions of faith.

And I'm all for having those professions of faith.

I want us to come to Christ.

But I think where as a church we can do better is by finding these babies in Christ and then formulating a plan for them to have and find spiritual growth.

Because what we've seen in the American church is a lot of stunted spiritual growth because we're excited about people coming, which we should be.

But then we forget about that step of nurturing them and raising them into maturity, into being a mature believer in Jesus Christ.

I remember all three of my children's births.

The days of them were we were celebrating, we were excited.

Others had more complications than others, especially our most recent one, Silas, because some of you know, Silas has some complications.

Some of you know, or maybe didn't know, I had some complications on that day.

So I was a day I will never forget.

But what I will say is that those days that my children were born, I was super excited.

We were laughing, crying, cheering, thinking about their names, thinking about all these different things.

And what if, though, we had these children?

And we said, okay, that was a great day.

There was new life.

And then we just said, okay, figure it out.

And we just left them.

And we didn't nurture them to a place of spiritual growth, on physical growth, feeding them, preparing for them, getting them a nice place to live and keep warm.

And you guys understand the principle there.

It's a very simple principle of maintaining and nurturing a child to a place where they become functioning, independent adults.

That's what it looks like within the church as well.

We have to come alongside.

And I don't care if someone's been saved for 50 years or 50 minutes.

What happens is that sometimes people that maybe have been saved for a long time have not had the opportunity to see that spiritual growth.

And so what I would encourage us to do is not only go out and share the Word, but as we go out, share the Word and then bring some along with us and say, look, you're.

You're my.

You're my disciple.

I. I want to walk through with you these questions.

I want to walk through with you these concerns.

And then if I don't have the answers for this, we'll find it together or we'll find someone who does.

And I think that's an exciting thing for us to see in Middletown Baptist Church.

So as we conclude here this morning, I want you to think about those three words, up, in and out.

Where is my relationship with God?

First of all, do I have a relationship with God?

Have I trusted in him in faith?

It's not about being a good person.

It's not about working my way.

It's not about being a church member.

It's not about any of those things.

It's about, do I have faith in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone for salvation?

Have I trusted in the gospel that's laid out in scripture, then?

Okay, yes, I do have that.

Okay.

Now, what does that mean for growth?

Well, just like any other relationship you've ever had, spending time with a person, getting to know their needs, getting to know their wants, getting to know their desires, getting to know them in every personal way.

And the way that you can become intimately aware of who God is and what he has done for us is through His Word.

Grow in a love for His Word.

Grow in a love for the preaching of His Word.

Grow in your love for the study of His Word.

But obviously, we know that just knowing the Bible doesn't transform our lives.

It's about knowing what the word of God says, believing it and applying it to our lives.

And then, of course, from there, it's communicating with God.

It's talking with him.

It's serving.

It's being around other Christians.

It's.

It's understanding that my brother in Christ, though I might not necessarily agree with everything, I might not like the football team that he follows.

I might not like the job that he has.

I might not like necessarily some of the things that he does or says.

At the end of the day, he's my brother in Christ.

And we have to find that commonality in the bond of the spirit of Christ.

Now, if there's conflict, we deal with that biblically, if there's conflict, we deal with it.

Truth and love.

We deal with it with Matthew 18.

We deal with it with love and with grace.

And Ephesians 4:32, to have a spirit of forgiveness.

Why?

Because God has forgiven us.

And so we deal with that.

But we should see the church family not as our competition.

We should see the church family as our.

Our teammates that we're working all together with, one at a time, with different purposes, with different skills, but ultimately under the same great shepherd of Jesus Christ.

And so what I would encourage you to do is think about your relationship within the church.

Where's.

Where's my role of service?

Where's.

Where's my small group?

Where's my community?

I would tell you here this morning, I love church.

Church, for me is something that I think, obviously where I'm at in my life is a priority for me.

And the priority for me and my family is not to see church as just a place that we go on Sunday mornings.

We got to go to church like we go to the basketball game, like we go to, you know, the grocery store.

No, I want my family and I want for myself to see church as my family, My.

My community that I come to, not just to find spiritual teaching, even though that's amazing, that's what we need in the church, but also where we find community and edification and exhortation and being challenged.

There should be accountability within the church.

I know that's not what we want to talk about, but every individual, every.

Including myself, we all need accountability.

Set up accountability in your life.

Where we see problems is when someone doesn't get to a place of accountability with other people in their life.

And it's so easy to drift when we have no one to be accountable for.

Folks, I'm your pastor.

I want you to keep me accountable.

Talk with me.

That's why we go above and beyond with transparency of the church, because we don't want ever there to be a temptation to think that someone owns a certain part of the church or that someone is void of the instructions that the word of God gives.

So find accountability somewhere within the church.

But then we also see that it doesn't stop there.

And this is, again, this is where we end.

It's deploying being the salt and light into the world.

You know, we.

We have a few opportunities this summer.

Not everyone's going to be able to be a part of all of them.

For example, we have a missions trip that we're taking to Africa.

We have different service projects.

That we're going to be trying to accomplish here at our church, but I would want us to say here is that we don't need to wait for a church project to come up.

Be.

There's a little song that we used to sing when we were kids, and we should probably sing it as we're older.

Is be a missionary.

Every day.

We're all you.

You guys may or may not know it, but you have an opportunity to be a missionary in Middletown, Delaware.

You know, we, You.

You guys are.

God has equipped you.

God has commissioned you to be a missionary.

Wherever you are in your Jerusalem, you say missionary.

I'm.

I'm not qualified to be a missionary.

You're qualified because you have Jesus Christ as your savior.

Now, maybe you're not called to foreign missions, maybe you're not called to go and preach behind a pulpit.

All of us are called with the mission of the gospel.

And so I would encourage you to think about how you, in your sphere of influence in your life, whether it's your workplace or your home life or your neighborhood or your hobbies or wherever you're taking your kids or your grandkids or wherever you come across.

Some of you guys go to a restaurant every single day and they know your name.

They walk in and they say, hey, brother so and so.

Or they might not call you brother, they might say Mr.

So and so.

And you know them by name.

Okay.

Do.

The question would be is this.

Do.

Do the people in your life know that Jesus is real to you, that you have a relationship with him?

And if so, I would encourage you to continue on in that.

But if not, let's look to be the salt and light in the world that we are in.

Well, I'm asking if you're able to just stand with me, every head bowed, every eye closed as the music plays.

Hear this.

This moment.

In a few moments, we're gonna have a time of invitation.

A time of invitation is.

Is nothing for guilt.

It's nothing for anything other than for you to respond to the preaching of the word of God, to take a level of commitment to him.

Because I know how easy it is to hear preaching, to hear teaching, agree with it, and then just move right on to the day to day.

What I would challenge you to do here this morning is we've gone through a lot of sermons on church culture, on.

On what it means to be a church, what it means to be a believer, what it means to be a teacher, what it means to be anything within the church.

And, and so what I would encourage you to do is think about those things and in, in, in a way personalize it to you and say, lord, what do you want from me when it comes to the church?

What do you want from me when it comes to going up, in and out?

And if there's any of those areas that God is speaking to you about, I would encourage you to move on that, to obey Him.

If you have some questions, maybe you need some direction, I would love to personally speak to you and see what what God might have for you within Middletown Baptist Church or or elsewhere.

And another thing I would say here this morning is that I never want to assume that every single person here is a believer in Jesus Christ.

Maybe God's been pressing on your heart.

Maybe God's been bringing to you questions and concerns here this morning.

Jesus can change your life.

Jesus can make you have the peace of God.

He can give you eternal life.

He can give you comfort and joy when nothing else can Here this morning, what I would encourage you to do is pray and ask God to save you.

Ask God to give you that peace that passeth all understanding through salvation to Him.

The Bible says it is but by faith no work can save us, only the work of Jesus Christ and we trusting in Him.

So if that's something that you need here this morning, either you could come forward and grab somebody here, a man could go with a man, a woman could go with a woman.

And we can show you in the word of God what it means to know Jesus Christ as your Savior.

Lord, I pray that you be in this time of invitation, working hearts and lives.

Pray that we can follow you in every single way.

We ask all these things in Jesus name.

Amen.

As the music plays, follow as the Lord leads here today.

Foreign.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

You would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch dot com if you've enjoyed this podcast.

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Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.