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,

Mark 16:15

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.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

number 18, and Jesus came and spake unto them.

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

Matthew 28:18

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

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

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

Acts 1 · chapter mention

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

2 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

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

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

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

2 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

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.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

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.