Understanding the Essence of Missions: A Call to Action

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 are going to forego our study in the Book of Joshua because I thought it would be appropriate to speak on the why behind our missions program here at Middletown Baptist Church this Missions emphasis month.

And there's a lot of opportunities to talk about missions, but the bigger question is, is why do we do this?

Well, some might say, well, you know, churches should have a missions program, and so we should have a missions program.

Well, that's not a good answer.

A good answer is not, well, other people do this, so we should do this.

A good answer is, what does the Bible have to say about missions?

And I want to point just a few passages of scripture that fuels our desire to have a missions program here at Middletown Baptist Church.

And so I want you to see a few passages of scripture that speak to this.

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to the book of Mark.

All the way at the end of the Book of Mark, we see a command, a command for believers.

And for a lot of times, we think in our Christian life that like.

Like, for example, the building that we're in, we're thankful for this building.

But the reality is, is that God has called us to take what we are learning here at our facilities and go with that into the world.

Now, we know that in Acts, chapter eight, it speaks of where we should go.

But the first step, I think, that we need to see here in Mark, chapter 16, verse 15, is this.

Jesus is speaking to his disciples and he says, hey, this is what you are supposed to do.

This is your marching orders.

This is the goal for you as a follower of me.

And he says in verse 15, and he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

The command, the.

The first directive of Jesus is to go and to.

What does it say there?

It says to preach the gospel.

If you go to other passages of scripture that speak of this, you go to one of my favorite passages of scripture, which really drives really the heart of all of what we've done this year with our theme of go is Matthew, Matthew, chapter 28.

The last verses that we see in the book of Matthew, again is a reiteration of the same truth to go into the world.

But there's more in the book of Matthew, and it tells us what we're supposed to do when we go.

Now we.

We know where to preach the gospel, and, and that's important.

That's the initial priority.

But there's more here In Matthew, chapter 28, it says in verse number 18, and Jesus came and spake unto them.

Matthew, chapter 28, verse 18, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth.

Go ye therefore.

And so there's a reiteration of the going, go ye therefore, and teach all nations, 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've commanded you, and lo, I am with you all.

Wait.

Even to the end of the world.

And so there's a directive for us to go preach the gospel.

But as we preach the gospel, the.

The thought here would be to disciple folks that trust in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We just don't want to see people come to Christ, even though that's the prime directive.

But also there's a secondary command in that, and that is to teach, to minister, to come alongside and teach people what it means to walk in relationship with Jesus Christ.

And I know that's the goal for our church, I know that's the goal for our missions program, is to not just see folks come to Christ.

That's the first goal.

But there's more to that, and that is to see individuals come to know Jesus and to walk in obedience to him and know what it means to have the blessing of his presence and power in their life.

And that's exactly what Jesus mentions there in Matthew, chapter 28.

He speaks of his power and he speaks of his presence.

Remember there in verse 20, he says, and lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the world, that God is with us in this process of going.

Now, what does that look like?

Well, we go to acts, chapter one.

Some of you know where we're going with this.

Where are we supposed to go?

Well, initially, what does the bible say?

Well, he told his disciples to go to Jerusalem.

That was their immediate vicinity.

So all of us at middletown baptist church have a command.

And that is to take the gospel to our Jerusalem.

Where's our Jerusalem?

Well, if you live in Middletown, that's your Jerusalem.

If you live in bear, that's your Jerusalem.

And so we are to take the gospel to the people that are close to us, our initial contacts.

Verse 8 of Acts, chapter 1, he says, but you shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you.

And so I. I want you to note that, that all of this is based off of the Holy Ghost indwelling.

The Holy Spirit's indwelling and guidance says, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem.

And then, you know the next part.

Judea, that's the surrounding area.

And in Samaria.

What's Samaria?

Samaria is the place that we're not comfortable going, right?

We.

We know that.

We know Jerusalem, we know our Jerusalem.

And that's where we probably feel comfortable.

Judea is the surrounding area.

But then he mentions here for these fellas, this group of people, to go to Samaria.

Samaria was a place that they weren't comfortable going.

Samaria was considered in their mind the enemy.

They were different.

They were pagans.

They were people that did not receive them well and did not treat them well.

But nonetheless, we are to go to those people that are difficult to those people that are different, to not complain about them, to not reject them, but to come to them with the love of the gospel and the truth of the Gospel.

Love is not accepting someone's wrongdoing.

Love is not condoning someone and saying, you're okay the way you are.

Love is telling somebody the truth about how Jesus, and Jesus alone can change their life.

We go a little bit further and he says, into the uttermost part of the earth.

Now, all of us in this room have a directive in what we call the Great Commission.

All of us can go to Jerusalem.

Not all of us are necessarily able to go to the uttermost part of the earth.

But we can support that mission by either sending individuals within our midst or finding other individuals of like faith and like practice to support and to ultimately pray for and give to.

And so that's why we have a missions program.

Now.

My desire, and I believe the Lord's desire, is to see folks leave Middletown Baptist Church that are members to go into the field.

And that's a difficult thing to say as a pastor because American Christianity is hoarding people.

You want to have multiple people staying here and building our buildings.

And that's great.

But, you know, what would be even greater is that we would find individuals in our church that feel the call to go somewhere and to preach the gospel short term or long term.

But then we see that there are some limitations.

But there's other aspects in Scripture that call us to do some things when it comes to the gospel.

I want you to see another passage of scripture that I think would be important.

To note in this case we have the command to go, but we also have the command to give.

If you have your Bibles again, turn to Second Corinthians chapter 9 with me.

The Bible speaks of the fact that even though we are limited in our vicinity, we might you know, I don't know about you, but I want to be in like 10 places at once.

But I can't be.

I can only be in one place at one time.

And we're ministering where we're ministering.

But the beauty is, is that we can give.

Second Corinthians chapter 8 is is a whole lesson on the blessings of the Macedonian church as they give and invest into another church there.

And so we see here in Second Corinthians chapter 9 that there is a call to not only go, but also to give.

Says in verse number five of Second Corinthians chapter nine.

Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren that they would go before you, before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty whereof ye have noticed before the same might be ready as a matter of bounty, and not as covetous.

But I but this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.

Every man now he's speaking of giving here.

He says every man according as he purposeth in his heart.

Now what does that mean?

That means this, not everyone is able to give the same amount.

And, and I don't think there is a command for everyone to give the same amount.

It says here specifically that this is a private thing.

This is a personal thing as God purposes in this individual's heart.

So let him give not grudgingly.

You know, the challenge for many of us is to give, as it says here, cheerfully, sometimes, like I could use that for other things.

I, I, I could save that I, I could have some more comfort.

But he says, no, don't give grudgingly or out of necessity, meaning I've got to give again.

But no out of joy, says why?

Because for God loveth a cheerful giver, and God is able to make all grace abound towards you, that ye always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.

So he speaks here specifically of the fact that we give out of the abundance that God has blessed us with, and it goes on and talks more about the blessing that it is to give.

But I would challenge you to say, you know what, I'm not Able to go.

Pastor Josh I'm not able to go to a mission strip.

I'm not able to be a full time missionary.

And God has not called me to be a full time missionary.

But God has called you to the Great Commission in which you can go and then you can give, you can pray, you can support, you can encourage.

One of the things that we forget about within the ministry of missionaries is exhorting them, encouraging them.

You know what?

I know that as a pastor here at Middletown Baptist Church, when I'm encouraged by other believers, it is such a motivation for me.

And the Bible speaks of the importance for us to exhort those in our fellowship.

And so that means we should exhort those that are around us and we should exhort those that we're sending out and that we're purposing in our hearts to support as a missionary.

So I would think about this.

How can you, as an individual living in Delaware or Maryland, depending on where you're at, how can you as an individual find ways not only that you can support financially, but how you can support with prayers, how you can support with letters of encouragement, how you can find different opportunities to meet different needs in different capacities?

And so here at Middletown Baptist Church, one of the calls that we have is to support, to give.

And I think about that and I think about sometimes, often we think about what we can give to get, you know, and I think we should give to the local ministry here.

That's part of missions, right?

That's the local, that's Jerusalem.

But at the same time, we should think about how we can give to the foreign mission field.

And, and I would encourage you to think about that, really, with the nuts and bolts of it we have.

And I'm just going to kind of break off script here and talk about specifically how it works.

So we give to the general fund of Middletown Baptist Church.

When you give of your tithes and offerings, that goes to the work here in Middletown.

And that's fantastic.

We need that.

We can't let that go.

But one of the other things that we do at the church is that we designate money towards specifically towards missions.

And I would encourage you to pray about how God blesses you in that.

And we have done something over the years called faith, promise, giving.

And what God has laid upon your heart, there is a purpose and there's a reason for that.

And if God lays upon your heart to give to missions, it's not about giving to missions and then forgetting about it and thinking, well, maybe that will affect someone.

No Specifically at Middletown Baptist Church, we want you to know that every dollar that you give is going either to the gospel here in Jerusalem, or in Judea, or in Samaria and into the uttermost part of the earth.

And so it's a cause worth supporting.

It's a cause of partnership.

One day, when we get to heaven, we're not going to know specifically all the people that we have affected, either through what we say and what we do, or.

And also where we give.

Who knows what a dollar given to a missionary will eventually do?

I mean, we're hearing these wonderful stories of people getting saved and people getting pulled out of a life of sin and into the life of obedience in Jesus Christ.

That is such an exciting thing.

And you can be a part of that through our missions program here at Middletown Baptist Church.

And so I want you to think about our.

Our goal for the whole year is to go, to go with our physical bodies, to go with the gospel, to go with our finances, to go with our talents.

God has gifted each and every one of you with specific talents.

See, how do you know that, Pastor?

You never know.

I. I know that because the Bible tells me that.

The Bible tells me that God has gifted each believer with at least a spiritual gift, maybe multiple spiritual gifts.

And God has gifted you with those gifts not to keep for yourself.

Those gifts are always to invest into the kingdom of God.

And so think about how God has specifically gifted you.

And if you don't know how God has gifted you, I would encourage you to get into a study about the spiritual gifts.

Specifically, start with Romans, chapter 12.

Because God has given you a specific gift for a specific cause within the context of missions, within the context of the gospel.

So I want you to think about that.

I want you to meditate upon that.

I know a lot of Christians that are frustrated with their own service within the church because they really don't know where God has called them to serve or how God has called them to serve.

And I would encourage you to pray about how God can reveal to you how he has gifted you so that you can feel that.

That sufficiency in serving in Jesus Christ.

Now, all of us are to serve in the gospel.

All of us are to serve with the truth of the word of God.

But there are different avenues in which we can do that.

And so, as we conclude here this evening, I want you to think about that.

I want you to pray over how you can be involved.

And specifically, you know, sometimes in my life, I'll do this.

Lord, bring me something that I can Invest into.

Bring me something that I can serve in.

And I go, well, where are you going to bring that?

I don't know where to go with this.

I don't know where to support.

All right, here this evening.

God has opened a door for an opportunity for you to support a church across the world.

Actually way more south than us down in South America.

And we see that there's a financial need and it's not a need of selfishness, it's a need of necessity out of growth for the gospel.

And what better thing can we do and then invest in people that are loving Jesus Christ, that are sharing Jesus Christ?

And I encourage you to think about that here this evening.

If God's pressing upon your heart to give specifically to the Turins and specifically to this building project, hey, don't hesitate.

I'm gonna.

I'm gonna challenge you here this evening.

This.

I'm gonna speak from my heart and my experience.

I can find every reason not to give to the work of the Lord in my flesh.

Well, I need that.

My kids need that.

We're really tight this month.

I don't know if I can pay all my bills.

I don't know.

Well, the reality is this.

We can't out give God.

And the goodness of God is this, that he doesn't expect us to give and then bless us, he's already abundantly blessed us.

We're supposed to give out of the abundance.

I was talking to our Sunday school class a little while back and I was saying this.

And.

And by the way, when I'm preaching or teaching, I'm speaking to myself.

This is not so.

I'm not preaching from a perch of perfection.

This is where I struggle sometimes.

I think about all the things that I could complain about.

Well, look at that person's house across town.

Look how nice that is.

Look at that vehicle they're driving.

You know, I could be this or I could be that.

You know what?

In.

In perspective.

I don't know if these statistics are right.

Someone can correct me later.

But I'm pretty sure that us in this room tonight are probably more wealthy than like 99% of the world.

Because the reality is, is like, look at, look, we.

We all rode a vehicle in, we're all wearing nice clothes, we're all well fed.

The reality is that there's a lot of people in this world that don't have that.

And they need that nourishment, they need that, that clothing, they.

They need those resources.

And hey, we're blessed.

We can turn around and Give that.

How much do we really need?

But then I would venture to say that that's not enough.

We can feed an individual, we can clothe an individual, we can give housing to an individual.

But you know what?

They're still lacking the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And just as much as there's people that are hungry all over the world for physical food, there's people even more hungry, whether they know it or not, for the nourishment of God's word and the sufficiency that is Jesus Christ and his salvation.

So the greatest message that we could give the world, if we love the world, we give them the truth of Jesus Christ and Middletown Baptist Church.

We have to understand the times that we live in.

Folks, church is not a game.

It's.

It's not a.

It's not a club that we come to and just have a good time.

We have a mission.

We're on the battlefield.

Actually.

The Bible compares us to warriors wearing spiritual armor in a battle for the cause of the truth.

And if we really believe that, we would say, okay, let's get serious about this.

Let's get serious about where my role is in that.

And I'm saying all this because, folks, this is something that's stirring in my heart, stirring in.

In my world of, like, what am I doing?

What am I truly doing?

Do I really, truly care for these folks when I say that I pray for somebody?

Are we praying?

How are we praying?

If God has blessed us here this evening, let's show that blessing to other people.

And so, again, I'm not going to go too much farther with that, but what I will see there in Second Corinthians, chapter nine, I don't think that this is a name it and claim it prosperity gospel.

Now, like, well, if I give a bunch of money to a bunch of people, he'll just come back and give me a bunch of riches.

It's not necessarily what it's saying.

I think that specifically speaking of the spiritual blessings, when we sow into the spirit, guess what?

We're going to reap spiritual blessings.

You know, me and my family, we've had a lot of times in our life where we're like, I don't know how we're going to make it.

I don't know what he's going to do.

I don't know how we're going to get through this.

But you know what?

Every time he gets us through it, every time he provides just what we need, even if it's not in the way that we need it, we thought we needed it.

And I'm going to tell you here this evening that the challenge is this.

We need to, we need to give, we need to go, we need to pray, we need to serve.

But I would also say this, and in closing, it's this, we need to grow when we understand what's at stake.

The spiritual maturity that we, that I lack in many ways in my life, I need to grow in that.

Because when I grow in my spiritual maturity, I'm not focused just on me.

I've used this analogy before.

Silas is not even two years old.

But, but he is.

And I don't think I'm going on a stretch here.

He's.

He's selfish, right?

He wants what he wants.

He's.

Hell, he's hungry, he wants to eat.

He's not sitting there considering now he's a little bit better at this.

Like if his sister, brother gets hurt, he'll come up and hug them and you know, rub them on their heads or whatever.

He's kind and caring.

But, but we all know what we mean by that.

A child in his or her younger years is, is selfish.

And some, some adults, physical adults, have not gotten to the place of understanding that it's not all about them.

And as a Christian, the more we grow in the truth of God, the more we realize that this world, this ministry, everything that we do, is not just about us, us, us, us, us.

It's about going and saying, lord, what do you want me to give to others?

Jesus is one of his last acts of service and leadership was taking his disciples and washing their feet.

Peter, the guy who was about to deny him, washes his feet.

Judas, the one who was about to betray him, washes his feet.

And that's a amazing act of service.

Just Jesus didn't need to do that.

He didn't have to do that to prove anything.

He.

He could have done many different things, but he said, I do this.

John 13.

I do this for an example to you.

And so I want you to think about how that can look in our lives.

How can we wash those around us and their feet?

Now, I don't believe in a literal foot washing ministry.

Even though if you wanted to do that, I don't think that's wrong.

But we're not there yet.

But what I am saying is, spiritually speaking, what does it mean for me to come alongside a brother and wash his or her feet?

What does that mean for me to invest into the kingdom of God financially?

So this isn't a big ploy.

To.

To get your money.

So ultimately, where's your heart?

And that's where our missions program is.

Our missions program is the support.

We don't want to sit here and go, wow, we've got 50 missionaries.

Look how great we are.

It's God's blessed us.

So we want more.

We want to bless more people.

We want to reach more people.

It's my vision that we have.

Hey, who knows?

Maybe God could double our missions program within the next few years.

We have 31 people.

How about we just say, let's, let's.

Let's go for 60 or possibly here.

I'm just speaking on the fly here.

Or maybe let's just talk about how we could support our current missionaries more.

And so that's something that we can think about when we come to this time of missions, emphasis month.

And so, number one, what does it mean for me?

Number two, what does it mean for my actions?

Number three, what does it mean for me supporting those around the world?

And so if you've never given to missions or you've never supported missions, or you've never even thought about going yourself and doing something within the missions field, hey, here's an opportunity for you to think about it this month, just to at least think about it.

And here tonight, it's right before us.

There's a need.

There's a need in South America for a new building.

And, hey, we can be a part of that.

God might not have us support everything, right?

That might not be realistic, but what it can be is we can do our part.

And that would be a blessing to the Turins, it would be a blessing to their church.

It would be a blessing to the country and ultimately be honoring God.

And so if God's laying that upon your heart this evening, you can mark it down, you can put it in an envelope, and you can put it in there, and we'll make sure that it gets to the right place.

And so I wanted to share that here this evening with you.

Why we do missions at Middletown Baptist Church.

So.

Well, with that being said here this evening as you head on out, I know that the Turins are going to be having.

They have a table out there already.

Stop by the table, grab a prayer card.

I always encourage people to grab a prayer card and put it where you look at something frequently, you know, you know where we sometimes put our prayer cards.

I go to the fridge a lot, so I put it up on the fridge right as I was getting a snack.

I'll see, like, oh, there it is.

Yep.

I'm gonna pray for them.

I have.

I. I have missions cards in front of my desk at work, right.

And every so often, I don't pray for them every second of every day, but when my eye catches them, I pray for them.

And I want to make sure that we do that within the church.

So stop by the table, let them know that you're praying for them, then pray for them, and then find maybe how God is leading you to support the terrains here this evening.

Well, I'm going to go ahead and close in a word of prayer.

And if you have any questions about the missions program, how you can give to missions, maybe you missed the meeting earlier today and you say, I want to know more about taking our trip to Rwanda.

I have a lot of information, and if you want to know more about that, I can fill you in on all that here, and that would be great.

Well, I'm going to go ahead and close with a word of prayer, and then after that, you guys will be dismissed.

Lord, I just thank you for the time that you've given us.

I thank you for the opportunity to come together this evening and hear wonderful report of how your work is being seen in the life of the Tyn through their lives and through their example.

Lord, I just pray that you protect them.

I pray that you continue to provide for them.

I pray that you impart power and provisions to them in the midst of their ministry, Lord.

And we pray that this building is provided through whatever capacity you see fit, Lord, in the timing that you see fit.

And, Lord, we pray for great blessings through that.

And we believe that you can do it.

We believe that it is something that could cause a great impact in the country.

Lord, I pray that you be with us within our own missions program here at the church.

Help us to individually see where we can go, where we can give, where we can pray, where we can serve, Lord, where we can invest into the kingdom of God, Lord, in our Jerusalem, here in Middletown, in our Judea, in our Samaria, and into the uttermost part of the earth.

So, Lord, we love you and we thank you for all the blessings you've given us.

Lord.

Help us to, out of cheerfulness and out of gratitude, reciprocate that back to those in need of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so we just thank you and we love you.

We.

We ask that you bless us as we go our separate ways and in our fellowship to follow.

In Jesus name.

Amen.

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

I hope that this sermon has been.

A blessing for you.

If 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, please subscribe and follow along for future podcast and updates.

Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.