Fellow Citizens

Hello and welcome to the Live Boldly Podcast, brought to you by Celebration Baptist Church.

I'm Jessica and today Pastor Scott is going to talk about how we are called by God to serve his mission.

Let's start with an impactful moment in your life, Pastor Scott.

Tell us about the moment that your call and all your years in ministry came full circle.

This is a crazy story that I wrote about in the devotion today.

So I a couple days ago in the podcast, I was talking about the bench that I was sitting on overlooking the Straits of Malacca.

And that was around 1996.

And uh I found myself 15 years later, 14 or 15 years later, on that same bench.

Okay, now after I'd sat on that bench the first time, I came back to the United States and went to seminary where I met my wife, Crystal.

We got married and began our family, and then as a family obeyed the call to go back overseas and serve in missions.

We had served in Australia and we had served in Myanmar, and we're in Malaysia now doing church planting.

And we were we were involved in several different church starts.

We were involved in one that was kind of a house church model in our neighborhood.

And we were in a home group with several uh uh ethnic Chinese, um, and two of those people were Uncle Ko and Auntie Rose.

Uh Uncle Ko was uh 55, 56 years old, uh had retired, um, and was basically he was he was a Buddhist uh or the conglomeration of different religions that the Chinese follow.

Um but he was a part of the group, and uh I was continually sharing the gospel with him.

He was continually hearing the gospel through our Bible study.

And Uncle Koe came to Christ.

Uh he believed.

And Auntie Rose came out of a Catholic background, and so she also kind of came to faith, I guess you could say, or realized uh kind of that final uh placing faith in Jesus Christ and his grace alone.

And so it came time to baptize them, and because we were a house church model, we didn't have a place to baptize.

Right.

So instead of going to find a church that would allow us to use their baptistry, we decided as a group to travel to uh Port Dixon, Malaysia.

And I got permission from the Baptist camp there, where the bench is to use their beach and uh to baptize there in the water uh off the coast.

And uh that was it was it was a great moment.

And then after that I went and I remembered, it came back to me.

I've been on this bench before, and so I sat down on that bench just kind of wow moment.

And I realized that it was on that bench 14 years ago approximately that God had turned my heart to the nations.

And there I was that day baptizing Uncle Ko in Malaysia, an ethnic Chinese, in that same water that the bench overlooked.

And that in that moment, 14 years of ministry came full circle.

It was it was a wow moment for sure.

That's absolutely amazing, Pastor Scott.

That blows me away.

You mentioned that you, in your devotion, that you were amazed by how God frequently calls us to the front line of missions.

Um, how has being on the front line of missions for years and years impacted your life?

That that's a very complicated answer.

And we could be here all day kind of hitting all of those.

Um the short answer to it is this serving on the front lines of missions um continually brings to life your own salvation.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh you remember in elementary school, being on the playground, and it was time to choose teams for kickball or dodgeball or whatever it was, and you pick two captains, and those two captains alternated, I'll choose so and so, and I'll choose so and so.

Yep.

And uh, of course, the first couple of picks are always the athletic studs on the playground.

Yep.

And it you just kind of go through that whole through that whole order, and it gets kind of more awkward and embarrassing uh for different people.

We like to think of ourselves as God's first pick.

Like if God's the team captain, we like to think of ourselves as, hey, I'll take Scott.

So I need Scott on my team.

I mean, the great commission's at stake here.

I'm gonna choose Scott because Scott's a great guy, and he, you know, but really, but that's not the way it works.

Uh, truth be told, we're probably the last pick, except that that's not the way God operates, okay?

So, uh, but in putting that in perspective, we have to realize that if it were like that, that we're we're we're at the bottom of the pick pile.

Okay, we think a little too highly of ourselves when it comes to this whole thing.

What we have to realize is that what the only thing we bring to our salvation is the need for our salvation.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

And so uh if you if we if we remember that, we remember our own testimony and our own need of salvation and our salvation experience, we kind of can't help but be wowed or awed by the fact that God would still use us to fulfill his great commission.

Yeah.

I mean, he doesn't just save us and put us in the stands or on the sideline, he likes saves us and then puts us in the game and says, all right, go.

And that is that is so impactful because it constantly reminds me of who I am and from where I came, and that the grace of God is so big that he would still call me and use me.

That's super exciting.

So unfortunately, there are a lot of things in our lives, whether that's sin, a lack of resources, a lack of time, all of that can be reasons that we don't serve.

So, how do we let these things not interfere with our calling to serve Christ?

Well, no matter who we are, okay, no matter whether we are missionaries or ministers, pastors, or or or or church members.

And there's not a class system in in Christianity, and there's not levels, okay?

I mean, it's a level playing field.

But we tend to, you know, put missionaries on a pedestal and kind of pastors are kind of this higher class.

We tend to do that.

But no matter who we are, we are called to a life of holiness and stewardship.

Yes.

Okay?

And it's not a matter of just following the law and not breaking the law.

Okay, that that's not the calling.

The calling is that is the pursuit of the things of Christ.

It's a life of discipleship, it's a life of choosing holiness when we're presented with that choice over choosing momentary gratification, uh, which would which leads us into sin.

Uh, we're also stewards.

We're st our our time on earth is borrowed, our bodies are borrowed, our uh our resources are borrowed.

If we kind of line up all facets of our lives in that line of discipleship and stewardship, and that's keeping our finances in order, yeah.

Uh, and not being so debt laden that we can't move, um, it is fleeing from sin so that we're not caught in an unfaithful moment that would hinder us from pursuing a call to ministry.

Um, we just as Christ followers have to have our lives continually in line, worthy of the calling of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Just being in a position, posturing ourselves where if God called, we're ready to move.

Yeah.

Whatever that move might be.

Yeah, that's important.

So, what are some ways that people can serve in and through the church here at Celebration?

Things that we can actually do.

Another great thing about our salvation is that we are saved into the community of believers, into the local church.

And so, I mean, there's so many places to serve, uh, whether it's in uh the tech ministry with audio and video, uh, whether it's in rocking babies or teaching children or teaching students or leading uh leading Bible studies, um, opening your home and hospitality to uh to your neighbors uh that they would be able to come in.

Um in missions, it's uh it's serve days, it's mission trips, which we will be resuming hopefully some this summer.

It is it's going to Quincy and serving uh and serving there.

Um it's giving, it's it's faithful giving uh to the church that we can forward God's mission uh through uh celebration.

Uh but the opportunities to serve are endless.

So the question is not can I serve, but where should I serve?

What are your gifts?

What are your talents?

What are your interests?

What hobbies are you already there that you can actually bring to the table?

And we can help you find a place to plug in with that, with your gifts, with your talents.

Yeah.

Thanks for talking to us about serving and how we can actually take bold steps in our serving, Pastor Scott.

Uh, to everyone listening, don't forget to follow Celebration Baptist Church on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, keep up with our current sermon series, live boldly, and explore other things that are going on in our church family at this time.

Pastor Scott, would you pray for us today?

I sure will.

Father, thank you again for another day, another day of life.

I pray that we would continually live with the reminder that our lives are on loan from you, and our money is on loan from you, and our gifts and our talents are on loan from you.

Father, I pray that you would find us faithful as we exercise our talents, our gifts, our resources for the glory of God, for the purpose of the mission through the church.

Father, I continue to pray that you would call out Celebration Baptist Church members to ministry, to missions, or simply showing them their next steps and plugging in here at Celebration.

But Father, for all of us right here that are hearing this today, find us faithful with that which you have entrusted to us to steward for your purposes.

I pray all this for the glory of God and in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Pastor Scott, thanks for joining us for the past three days.

To everyone listening, be sure to tune in again tomorrow.

We're going to hear from Pastor Tommy as he explains his journey and missions.

We'll see you then.