Acts - To All People in All Places Week 3: The Missionary Mindset | Acts 3:16

Today's term we continue our experience in the book of Acts as we look at Acts chapter 3, verses 1 through 6, and we learn what it means to have the mindset of a missionary.

Acts 3:1–6

You've heard it said, or maybe you've said it yourself.

You've got a brain.

Use it.

Did you know that the human brain is just about the size of a head of cauliflower?

That means the human brain comprises about 2% of your body's mass, yet it uses 25% of your body's total energy.

And because the human brain consumes such a great quantity of energy, it produces enough electricity within it to keep a light bulb fully lit.

So literally, last week, when you had that bright idea, it was a bright idea.

And every bright idea that passes through the human brain, it's actually sent at a speed that is faster than a Formula One race car.

Yes, the 100 billion neurons that make up and are in your brain can send messages at over 250 miles per hour.

But your brain not only sends messages, it has this great capacity to store messages.

Jeff Leichman is a neuroscientist at Harvard University, and he has devoted his entire professional career to mapping the human brain.

And Leichmann has discovered this: that the human brain can store millions of petabytes of information.

I like pita chips, right, with a nice side of hummus.

Does anybody know what a petabyte is?

A petabyte is equal to more than a thousand terabytes, and your laptop at home has a hard drive of somewhere between like half a terabyte to two terabytes.

Which means that your brain can store more information over 100 billion terabytes of information.

And you're curious why your husband can never remember what you told him last night.

But what that means is like there is no computer or supercomputer on Earth that can come close to the capacity of the human brain.

The human brain is proof positive that you and I are fearfully and wonderfully made.

But here's the thing: your brain is even more remarkable than ideas and sending and receiving messages or storing information.

Because over the course of your life, your brain has this capacity to connect all of the ideas you have thought to all the messages you have received, to all the information you have learned.

And those millions of connections that your brain makes between things that otherwise would be disconnected in your mind, they give each of us one thing that is so very important.

Those millions of connections give us this one thing that can define who we are and tell us who we can become.

And that one thing is something psychologists call a mindset.

There are a few things in life that you can actually control that will have a greater impact on your daily life than your mindset.

Mindset matters.

A mindset that's the way that a human simplifies an endlessly complex world.

Your mindset tells you what to pay attention to, how you should feel, what you should prioritize.

Your mindset is the lens by which you see and understand the world and know how to act in the world.

Currently, my favorite uh character on television is this guy right here.

If we go to the next slide, he should be there.

His name is Ted Lasso.

Um, there he is.

Thumbs up with an amazing mustache.

So, Ted Lasso, he is the coach of a fictional English Premier League soccer team.

AFC Richmond.

Now, here's the thing you need to know about Ted Lasso.

Before he is the coach of a professional soccer team, he has never played nor coached a game of soccer in his life.

He was an American football coach.

It's a comedy, okay?

Now, here's the thing that sounds like a recipe for failure, and it was supposed to be a recipe for failure.

The owner of the team hired Ted Lasso to fail and to fail miserably.

She had actually won the team in her divorce from her ex-husband.

Her ex-husband loved the team and she wanted to stick it to him.

I'll show you what you did to me, and I'll make you feel the same pain that I feel.

I'm gonna hire a guy who knows nothing about soccer.

And at the beginning, it looks like Ted's gonna be an absolute failure.

His owner is against him, the players don't believe in him, and the fans hated him.

But you know the thing about that guy right there?

His mindset never wavered, it never changed.

Ted's mindset can be summed up with one word.

We go to the next slide.

Believe.

Yeah.

Ted put that sign over the doorway in the locker room his first day on the job.

Believe.

Ted believed the best of that owner even when she wanted to see him fail.

Ted believed the best of all of his players, even when they didn't believe him, nor did they believe in one another.

Ted believed the best of those fans, he knew that they loved their team and just wanted to see their team win, even when they called him some really, really nasty names.

Eventually, Ted's mindset wins the day.

He wins over the owner, he wins over the locker room, and he wins over all the fans.

And eventually they even win some games.

Mindset matters.

And if it's important for a coach to have the right mindset, then listen very carefully.

It's just as, if not more, important for a church to have the right mindset.

A church has to have the right mindset if we want to win.

Not winning matches on a field, but to win people for the cause of Christ through sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ Himself, the good news of the kingdom of God.

Today is week three in our four-part uh series that's based on the book of Acts.

And remember, Acts is the perfect companion for our season as we look to give towards global missions, as we pray for global missions, because God not only calls us to send out our money and to send up our prayers, but to send out our lives into this world.

And the book of Acts tells us story after story after story how God has been sending out his church into the world to be a witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The early church didn't sit around, the early church was sent out.

That's why in this series our declaration has been straightforward.

These two statements: I am not here to sit, I am here to be sent.

I am not here to sit, I am here to be sent.

But those two statements, listen, they are more than a declaration, they are a mindset.

They are the byproduct of what occurs when the Holy Spirit connects the ideas we know to the message we have received, to the information that we have learned.

Here's the idea that we know, best expressed by the most familiar verse in all the Bible, John 3.16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

What we know is that there is a God, and our God loves the world.

He loves everyone in the world, no matter what continent they live on, no matter what their level of income is, no matter the education they've received, no matter the structure of their family, no matter where they went to school or what their job is, God loves them and he wants to be in a relationship with them.

That's the essence of eternal life.

That's what the idea that we know is true.

And then this is the message we've received from 1 Corinthians 15.

By this gospel you are saved.

That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared.

The message we have received, the good news we have received is the story of Jesus Christ.

And in that story we learn through Jesus that God will redeem the lives of individuals and recreate the entire world.

And if you grew up in church, listen, the idea I read from John 3.16, that idea is already planted in your brain.

And if you grew up in church, or maybe you've only gone to church a few times, the idea in 1 Corinthians 15 about the gospel, that's a message that's been planted in your brain and it's already there.

But there's some information that we need to learn.

You learned it last week when Bob Harper was here from the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.

I just want to remind you of these statistics.

Our best statistics say there are 7,317 unreached people groups around the world.

That means that less than 2% of that people group have responded positively to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And of those 7,317 people groups, 3,179 of them are considered unengaged with the gospel.

That means there is no church planted within that people group.

There is currently no missionary ministering to that people group.

And did you know that of those 7,317 unreached people groups, 80 of them have a presence in the state of Arkansas?

80 of them have a presence in a state that doesn't have a massive population when you compare it to other states.

Like the nations, the unreached people, the unengaged people, live only a few hours away.

And then maybe one final statistic to bring it to Union County.

About 17% of Union County residents have no religious affiliation.

Now that statistic, 17%, is the latest one I've I was able to find.

It's about 10 years old.

And so my guess is that number is more like 25 to 30% now.

As people move in and out of areas and as the world has shifted and continued to change.

Now, we talked about what?

The idea?

Well, we know who we know God to be, the plight of man, John 3.16.

We talked about the message we've received, 1 Corinthians 15, the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, and now this information, what we've learned.

The epidemic of lostness in the world.

And I wonder if this is the problem so many of us face and our church often faces is that those things, that idea and that message and that information are disconnected from one another.

They just are in our brains, and we failed to make the connection to see how the idea of who God is connects to the message that we've received, the gospel of Jesus Christ connects to the epidemic of lostness, that information that we have learned.

And that's why we need the Holy Spirit to be at work in our church is to draw those connections for us, to connect the idea to the message to the information.

Because when that happens, a new mindset emerges.

You may call it this the missionary mindset.

That missionary mindset, it's the mindset of a church that is no longer willing to sit, but instead says, I'm ready to be sent.

It's the mindset of the church that wants to win people for the cause of Christ in the world.

And this is the mindset of the church in the book of Acts.

It's the mindset of a church that the world says has turned our lives upside down.

All because mindset matters.

And the missionary mindset that we see in the book of Acts, it did something really important for those earliest Christians.

And it can do the same thing for you and me.

It shaped the way it was the lens through which they saw everyday places, everyday people, and everyday conversations.

Everyday places, everyday people, and everyday conversations.

Because they viewed those places, people, and conversations through the mindset of a missionary, of someone who had seen the idea, be connected to the message, be connected to the information.

Listen to this story told to us in the third chapter of Acts, verses 1 through 6.

Luke writes this story.

He says, One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer at three in the afternoon.

Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts.

When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money.

Peter looked straight at him as did John.

Then Peter said, Look at us.

So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.

Verse 6.

Then Peter said, Silver or gold I do not have.

But what I do have, I give you.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.

When we read Acts chapter 3, we find ourselves walking the streets of Jerusalem.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

On our left hand side is Peter, and on our right hand side is John, two of the apostles of Jesus.

Now, Luke points this out.

It's just one day in the life of Peter and John.

That phrase one day, it tells us this is just an ordinary day in the life of these men.

In other words, they're just doing what they normally do.

There's nothing exceptional that they wake up looking forward to on that day.

They do have places to go, they do have people to see, they do have conversations they want to have.

And one of the places they're gonna go on this one day is the temple.

In first century Jerusalem, the temple was kind of the heartbeat of the entire city.

Life in Jerusalem revolved around the temple.

It's where people went for religious services and religious happenings, it's where some economic transactions occurred, it's where social interactions occurred.

It's a place where you would see people and be seen by people.

And in the previous chapter of Acts, Acts chapter 2, near the very end, Luke makes this point to tell us about Jesus' disciples.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

It was their habit, Luke says, to go to the temple courts every day.

That's where they went.

Every single day.

And so in Acts 3, when Peter and John go to the temple at 3 o'clock in the afternoon to pray, they're going to a place that they go to almost every single day.

We think of the temple as a sacred place you go once a week, once a month, once a year, once a quarter.

They went to the temple every day.

It was an everyday place in their life.

And when they go to that everyday place, Peter and John, they've got the right mindset.

They have the mindset of a missionary.

Here's the question for us this morning.

What are those everyday places that we already frequent?

Those everyday places that are on your calendar for tomorrow and the next Monday and the next Monday.

You go to these same places every week.

You go to these same places every month or every day, and you need to view those same places with the mindset of a missionary.

You don't need to go anywhere else.

You just need to go to those places with the right mindset, the right lens over your eyes to see those places correctly.

You don't go to the Jerusalem temple, but you do go to the ball fields one night, two nights a week.

You don't go to the temple or walk through the city streets of Jerusalem, but you do walk around your neighborhood.

You don't walk through a gate called beautiful, but you do walk through the doorway of your school or of your office.

Listen, the mindset of a missionary, it sends some around the world, but it sends most of us across the street.

And too often we view these everyday places as nothing more than accidents of life.

But the missionary mindset endows meaning to every place that God might lead us.

You could very well be going to that office, that ball field, that school.

You may be walking your neighborhood at this hour of the day every day as a matter not of accident, but of divine providence.

And so maybe the missionary mindset, all it says to us this morning is keep going to the ball fields, just have the right mindset.

Keep going to the office, just have the right mindset.

Keep going for those walks, but have the mindset of a missionary.

View that place is a place where you can do something strategic for the mission of God in the world.

And the reason you can do something strategic in that everyday place is because in those everyday places you meet everyday people.

And in Acts chapter 3, the person that Peter and John meet is this man who has been lame since he was born.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

And that man's physical condition has disqualified him from entering into the temple courts.

He is still an outsider to God's people.

And we're told that every day this man arrived at the gates and he watched the people come inside and he begged.

He begged for money, he begged for food, and maybe he just begged for friends.

Begged for someone to pay attention to him.

I wonder if some of those people who frequented the temple had learned how to ignore that everyday person.

They had learned to look down and to not make eye contact.

They had learned to enter through another gate.

They had learned to have a quicker pace.

And those people, listen, they didn't have the mindset of a missionary, they had the mindset of the masses.

And the mindset of the masses says that the man who is lame from birth and goes to the gate every single day to beg, he is a nuisance.

Those people, listen, they believed that the reason this man needed to beg was because of something he had done.

A sin of his parents.

So in that moment, Peter and John do something that no one else is willing to do.

I mean, I mean, just notice quite simply what do they do?

They make eye contact with the man and they listen to the man.

They look him in the eyes, they treat him as if he's a person.

And then they act as if what he is saying to us has value.

That he's important.

Because they didn't have the mindset of the masses.

They had the mindset of a missionary.

They didn't see a nuisance, they just saw someone who was needy, who was broken, who was hurting.

And listen, it's that same missionary mindset exhibited by Peter and John that compels our church to financially support so many of our local partners, partners like Hannah Pregnancy Resource Center, partners like the Eagle Foundation and Magdalene House.

It's that mindset of a missionary why we want you to volunteer through those organizations to serve.

Because listen, when our world sees a woman and a man walking into Hannah Pregnancy Resource Center, the world, the mindset of the masses says, you got yourself into this mess.

Figure it out on your own.

But the mindset of a missionary says, We know you're hurting.

Maybe your life wasn't even fair.

And we're here to help.

Or when a child walks into Eagle Foundation and needs tutoring or help, the mindset of the masses says this.

Listen, that's your kid.

You figure it out, mom, you figure it out, dad.

But the mindset of a missionary says a child not only needs loving parents, they need a loving community.

Or the world, they see a woman caught in addiction, and the world just says it's all your fault.

Can't you just stop?

But the mindset of a missionary says that need, that hurt, that addiction is far greater than anyone can bear alone.

We want to help.

But listen, that missionary mindset, it not only shapes these formal partnerships, but also informal relationships.

The missionary mindset says we are not afraid to look neediness in the eye.

We're not afraid to hear broken words spoken to us.

We're not afraid to stand alongside someone who is hurting.

We aren't afraid to hear stories of pain and to empathize with that pain.

And what occurs when we actually see and actually listen to these everyday people is that everyday conversations occur and the seeds of the gospel can be planted.

In Acts chapter 3, the lame man asks for money.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

Here's the problem, Peter and John, they don't have any money.

But they do have a treasure that is far greater than money.

They give the man Jesus.

Now, Peter and John's strategy, it doesn't negate the role of benevolence ministry in the life of the church.

In other words, I firmly believe the church still works to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and house the homeless.

We should do things like that.

Because we feed the hungry and clothe the naked and house the homeless as a sign of God's generosity and abundance in our life.

We have received the free gift of grace and now we share that free gift of grace with the world.

But I think this is the reminder in what Peter and John's story tells us.

The story is a reminder that in this world we will work hard to alleviate the ills of society, things that plague our community.

But there will be moments when our work is not enough.

There are moments when we can't give anymore.

There's nothing more to give, and the problem seems to just keep growing and growing and growing.

And our inclination in that moment is to want to give up and walk away.

But we have to realize even as we give, and maybe that problem doesn't go away, there is still something greater we can give.

So maybe the story of Peter John is just an encouragement to us to say, yes, try to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and house the homeless, but know this, those problems aren't going anywhere, but you can still offer them something greater.

The name of Jesus Christ, salvation, the gospel.

And ultimately, we don't have the right mindset.

Hear this.

We don't have the right mindset if we minister to people, if we try to help the needy, physically needy, the spiritual needy, and we don't mention the name of Jesus in those everyday conversations.

Jesus is the greatest treasure we can offer the world.

And his name has to fill those everyday conversations that we have.

So one day, Jesus is at a party and he's invited to address all the guests who are in attendance, and he scans the crowd and he sees this group of people who are influential and powerful, and he says this.

He says, When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers, your sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors.

If you do, they may invite you back, and so you will be repaid.

But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.

Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

I don't think Jesus tells us that story so you can know who to invite or not to invite the next time you throw a birthday party, next time you have a holiday party at your house.

I think Jesus is asking a bigger question about the mindset of your life.

Do you have the mindset of a missionary?

Are you willing to use an everyday event, an everyday place like a party, to invite everyday people, people who are needy and hurting, to have an everyday conversation, to talk to them about Jesus, to get to know them in the name of Jesus.

You see, this parable is clear evidence that the mindset of a missionary isn't just for those who are sent around the world, it's the mindset for those of us who are told just to walk across the street.

The missionary mindset applies to every follower of Jesus Christ.

Because as the disciples of Jesus and those first apostles of Jesus were sent into the world, we are sent into the world.

We are sent to our everyday places.

It may not be a temple, but it's the place we go week by week and day by day.

To meet everyday people.

So you can have a relationship with them for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And when you meet that everyday person, have that conversation.

Get to know them.

And then maybe you get to say, there are so many times in life when people ask me questions, and guess what?

I don't know the answer.

I can't solve that problem.

Neither can you.

But you know what I can do?

I can tell them about Jesus.

That is a lot.

That is a tough situation.

I don't even know what I would do if I were in your shoes.

But I do know someone I could tell.

I would pray to Jesus.

Let me tell you about him.

You see, God wants your life in this church to have the mindset of a missionary so that we can be a blessing in this world.

And we can use the platform he has given us for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Are you ready to have a change in mindset this morning?

Are you ready to let the Holy Spirit connect?

To connect the idea to the information, to make it all fit together so that you see I can no longer sit in this place.

I have to be sent out of this place.

Let's stand together and pray.

Almighty God and everlasting Father.

First we want to say thank you for your word that speaks to us this morning.

Your word that was written so many years ago, millennia ago, but it is living and active.

It is like a sword that pierces our deepest recesses of our heart.

I thank you that the story of Peter and John at the gate beautiful speaks to me in the city of El Dorado.

Holy Spirit, make the connections in our mind this morning that allow us to have the mindset of a missionary.

May we take seriously the ideas we know and what we've learned to be true about God, the message we have received, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and just this information about the epidemic of lostness and be propelled out into the world for the sake of your kingdom, King Jesus.

Holy Spirit, launch us into the world.

Send us out.

I just want you to reflect for a moment about the places you're gonna go this next week.

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see that everyday place with a different lens and a different mindset.

Think about those people you're gonna meet in those everyday places.

Holy Spirit, give us eyes to see them as in need of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

These people who are in need of hope and healing.

Maybe the Holy Spirit has impressed on your heart right now one person, or a family even.

Ask the Holy Spirit to give you an opportunity to share the name of Jesus in that everyday place to that everyday person this next week.

Ask the Holy Spirit for the opportunity and then just say, Holy Spirit, I'm gonna take that opportunity.

I'm gonna seize it.

Amen.