On Mission With God

In nineteen ninety one, John became the pastor but As the Baptist Church.

And while he was a pastor here, God put an inspiration in him,

a determination in him, led John, John, you need to start a

Christian school. And in nineteen ninety five he led but As the Baptist Church

to start but as a Christian academy. And so John's going to be here.

John is married to Christie. They have four daughters and I think now

seven grandchildren. And so he's graduated from Davidson College and then holds a Master's

Divinity from Southeastern. He works with North Carolina Baptist Convention. He's the director

of operations group, and he's pastored three churches over seventeen years. So we're

so thankful. It's a pleasure to be here on this day because God laid

it on my heart, in my wife's heart, that we needed to be

a part of starting a Christian school. And and honestly, it's not something

that I would have done. It wasn't for my girls. They didn't have

the privilege of attending here. It was something God just said, you do.

This is why I have you here. This is a part of your

mission. While you're at with us to Baptist Church, and so we did.

And I had no idea that I'd be back here twenty seven years or

so later and you'd have a high school and all those things that have happened.

And it's just so gratifying to look back and say, Wow, God,

you are so faithful. And I hope that our students and the parents

really appreciate what God did and the sacrifice of people like Brenda, who's been

here since almost as long as we have as I have, and others that

have just invested in this ministry all these years. It is making a difference.

And I'm very honored to be here on BC a day to be a

part of celebrating what God's doing. So, if you will, let's go

to the Lord in prayer, and then we're going to go to his word

and talk about his mission for us. Father, thank you so much for

Bethesda Baptist Church and Bethesda Christian Academy. God, I never could have imagined

when you laid this on my heart what this would become and how you would

do things that God, we couldn't have done on our own. You've done

it. I thank you for the leadership at the academy. I thank you

for the leadership at the church and how well they worked together, and for

the impact that they're having on the community, on these students, on their

families, and on eternity. God, as we get ready to go to

your word, I pray that you just open our hearts and minds to hear

from you. Teach us, Lord, and remind us of your faithfulness for

asking the name above all names, Jesus Christ style Lord. Amen. Now

to those of you who are students, I got young students, old students.

The youngest ones I think went out after singing. But when you're little,

people ask you what do you want to be when you grow up?

And now they'll start saying, what do you want to be when you graduate?

Well, when I was little and people ask me what do you want

to be when you grow up? I wanted to be a mighty mouse and

mighty mouses making a comeback as a cartoon. I think that's cool. Here

they come to save the day. Some of you will see it later.

But as I got a little bit older and and people would say, you

know, what do you want to do? I wanted to be Jim Phelps.

Now those of you who are old or know who Jim Jim Phelps is.

Those of you who are younger have no earthly idea unless you really paid

attention to the Mission Impossible movies that Tom Cruise remade. They weren't as good

as the original series. But every week I would look forward to sitting down

in front of this little TV about this size, which was big at that

time, and this man named Jim would walk into a phone booth. And

for those of you who've never seen a phone booth, I am I gonna

they existed. He'd walk into a phone booth and he'd pull out this little

recording device from underneath the phone and push play and it would say, you

know, Jim, here's your mission. This is what's happened in the world.

The world are gonna come n and your mission, should you decide to

accept it, is to blah blah blah blah blah. And then then the

tape was self destructing five seconds and he'd be off and the music we start.

Do you remember that if you saw the move In the newer movies,

they use the same music. I wanted to be Jim Phelps. I wanted

to have a mission. I wanted a big mission. I wanted something that

was spectacular and that made a different I wanted to save the world. God

just let me be Jim Phelps. And even after I became a Christian,

deep inside, I still wanted to be Jim Phelps. I wanted to be

somebody that everyone went wow, wow, he saved the world. He did

something spectacular. And I was about twenty seven years old when God helped me

understand that he had a mission for me. I was in an evangelism training

class, and those of you who have been through those over the years,

one of the verses that you always learned is Ephesians two eight and nine,

for by grace he saved through faith in that and hont of yourself is the

gift of God, not of work, so that no man can boast.

It's just one of those kind of standard passages you learned. Well. God

showed me Ephesians to ten that came right after it. For you are God's

workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that Jesus himself designed you

ahead of time to take care of. And I'm like, I got a

mission from God. God has designed me for a mission, and God is

going to put things in my way over the years to fulfill that mission.

And it's not from some God on a tape recorder. It's not from some

help some self help book. This is a mission from God himself. And

b. C. A. Was a part of that mission. I got

to fulfill that and I'm looking at it now and being able to look back

and see all the things God has done and everything thing in my life now

flows from that understanding that God has a mission for me. And I want

you to know. Those of you who are still in school, you think,

oh, I'll find out someday. God has a mission for you that

starts right now today. He's got something for you. It starts today.

Yes there's some long term plans, but I promise you this, He's not

going to drop the playbook out of heaven that tells you exactly what's going to

happen in all your life. Sometimes it takes a long time to really know

what God was doing in that case. For me, those of you who

kind of know my background, I started off in business, financial planning,

all that kind of fun stuff. God called me to ministry when I was

twenty eight years old, went to seminary and all those things, and I

always struggled with why, God did you have me spend a decade studying business,

having a financial planning business, doing all those kinds. Why would you

do that and then call me to ministry. I mean, if you had

called me while I was in college, I would have gone straight to seminary

and I wouldn't have wasted. So I thought, you know, eight or

nine years before I started doing real ministry, and then after seventeen years of

being a pastor, God called me to be one of your missionaries at the

Baptistate Convention in North Carolina, where I'm the CFO. I handled all the

insurance and our camps and conference centers, casual careway trout, those fall under

me. I'm using my business skills day in and day out, human resources,

payroll, all that falls under me. And I look back on it

and say, God knew that I was going to need that decade preparing for

the business before I spent seventeen years as a pass before I would be the

CFO and director of Operations for the Baptistate Convention, so that I could use

all of those things together. And it makes perfect sense, But it took

him twenty seven years before. He let me see looking back what he'd been

preparing me for. So don't think he's not got a plan for you now,

teens, young people. He does. He's got a mission for you

right now. One of my daughters, when she was a senior in high

school, asked something that probably some of you high schoolers. And by the

way, i'm looking over here at the orchestra, because y'all were so good,

Thank you so much. I'm excited by that. But one of my

daughters, when she was a senior in high school, was whining and complaining

about having to take calculus. You ever felt that some of you may be

in stem education and you may just love that kind of stuff. She didn't.

She's she got her master's in the eighteenth century English literature or something.

Calculus just is not a part of who she was, and why do I

have to take calculus out of it? So blah blah blah, I said,

why are you doing it so well? You made me no, no,

don't blame that on me. Well, well, the counselor at school

said, it'll look better on my college applications if I have calculus on their

an advanced math, And nah, that's not really the reason you're taking it.

Well, my friends are in the class. Oh okay, that may

be why you're in there. But let me tell you something. God has

a reason for you to be in there, and if you can tell me

what that reason is, I will let you drop the class. So you

go upstairs, you think about it, tell me, come back and tell

me what the read said that you're taking calculus is from a God standpoint,

and I'll let you drop the class. She came down a little bit later

and said, because God wanted me to stretch my mind and do something hard,

to learn, to do the tough things, so that when he asked

me to do something that I don't really understand, later on I'll say yes.

She got it. And then she said, I'm all stand calculus,

Dad. But the point was she understood there was a purpose that God had

even in calculus for an English Lit. Major. He was teaching her through

that. And what I want to tell you this morning, every one of

you in this school, every parent, is that God has a mission for

you, for your child, for your family. Emily. And you may

say, oh no, no, no, not me. Yeah, I'm

too I'm too young, I'm not educated enough, or I'm too old,

or I'm to this that or the other, whatever nonsense. If God had

a mission for a liar like Peter, or a murderer like Paul, or

a farm boy like Billy Graham, or a sinner like me, I promise

you God has a mission for you. And this morning we're going to to

learn from one of the parables Jesus told it's very familiar to us to show

you that you can be on mission with God. I want you to take

your Bibles if you haven't with you, and it'll also be up on the

screen. Maybe maybe not. I didn't get it. Oh, it will

be good. It's right there, Luke, chapter ten. And I want

to read this familiar parable. You'll know it, but I want you to

listen to it with with new years this morning, Luke, Chapter ten,

beginning at verse twenty five. This is where the Bible tells us. On

one occasion, an expert in the law stood up in front of to test

Jesus and said, teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

What's written in the Law of Jesus replied, how do you read it?

He answered, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with

all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind,

and love your neighbor as yourself. You've answered correctly, Jesus replied,

do this and you will live. But he wanted to justify himself, so

he asked Jesus, and who is my neighbor? In reply, Jesus said,

a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the

hand of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and

went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down

the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on

the other side. So to a leevit when he came to the place and

saw him passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he

traveled, came to where the man was, and when he saw him,

he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds,

pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey,

took him to an inn and took care of him. And the next

day he took out two silver coins and gave him to the innkeeper. Look

after him, he said, And when I returned I'll reimburse you for any

extra expense you may have. Now, which of these three do you think

was a neighbor to the man who fell in the hands of robbers? The

expert in the law replied, the one who had mercy on him. Jesus

told him go and do likewise. This is a man who saw his life

as a mission. Now, most of us have played every part in this

story. We've heard somebody. Anybody not hurt anybody in your life. Anybody's

gonna lie. Okay, you've been hurt by somebody. You've been too busy

to pay attention to someone who had needs, You've been too self righteous to

get involved in things. All of us have been there. But Jesus said,

your mission is to be like the Samaritan, and you can be.

There's just four steps you have to follow, and do that number one you

I can be on mission with God if I'm willing to become his follower.

Now that's the starting point. I need you to understand this right off the

bat. That has to be the starting point. We look at the parable

of the good Samaritan when we think about how he took care of him and

all this kind of thing is sometimes we forget what was the original question that

brought this all about. How do I have eternal life? That's what brought

all of that parable about. It was a salvation issue. And you cannot

be on mission with God until you come to a point that you say,

Lord, I'm yours. I submit myself to you. I love you with

all my heart and soul, of mind and strength. Whatever you want from

me, Lord, I'll take whatever you say. The answer will be yes.

None of the plans that God has for you can be fulfilled until you

take that step of becoming a follower of Christ. You got to be on

the team to play ball. You have to. You know, when I

was coming along in school, most of the time I was sitting on the

sidelines watching people. People play football or basketball, or soccer or all these

kinds of things. And there were times that I wanted to go I could

do that. I can't believe they missed that shot. I can't believe you

didn't catch but I can catch that. But you know what, there were

no plays called for me. So I went on the team. And some

of you think being in church, playing church, singing some songs, going

to a Sunday school class every now and then. That's enough. That's what

it's all about. Let me tell you something that is not what it's about.

Those are all things that come after you make a decision to trust Christ,

and until then nothing else really matters. You're not fulfilling God's mission.

You can play church, but there's a difference between being at church and having

a relationship with Jesus Christ and yielding your heart to him and saying God,

I'm your I know some of you in this place right now who made that

decision after you played church for a long time, and I'm grateful, But

I know that every time I get up to preach in front of a congregation,

there are folks that think I'm a member of the church. I was

baptized, I was a deacon, I was a Sunday school teacher. I'm

gonna stand before God someday and say, hey, look what I did.

And as Jesus said in John chapter seven, He's going to look at that

person and say, I never knew you'd get behind me, because it's not

about what you can do for Jesus, it's about what He did for you.

That's the only way that you're going to spend eternity with him is that

you accept the fact that He did it all you, by grace, through

faith, received his gift. So the first step to being on mission with

God is saying I'm going to be your follower. I'm going to give my

life to you, young people. That's where it starts. If you've never

done that, going to Christian school won't do it for you. God's not

going to drop his playbook out of heaven for you until you have a relationship

with Him through Christ and then He'll tell you what you need to know at

that time and let you take one step by faith at a time with him.

So that step number one. Second step is I can be on mission

with God if I'm willing to see with his eyes. If you look back

at this text, verse thirty one, is it talks about the priest.

That says the priest when he saw the man passed by. Then the Levi

when he saw the man he passed by. But the Samaritan, when he

saw the man, he had compassion on him. If you want to be

on mission with God, you're going to have to see with his eyes.

You're gonna have to say, God, I want you to show me your

perspective on this situation, and I feel so bad for our young people these

days, with all of the mess that you see in the world, all

the lies and deceptions, and we get so jaded. I'm asking you to

look at those things with the eyes of Jesus. When you do that,

it changes everything. You see people as souls, You see them as opportunities

to share the love of Christ with. When a disaster happens, you see

that as an opportunity to help someone. We had tornadoes, and this year

we've had more disaster relief work in March and April than any of the seventeen

years I can remember working with a Baptistate convention. It's been incredible. I

mean Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, and just on and on and

on and on. And it's easy to just look at that another disaster.

Oh No, But I work with a bunch of people who when that happens,

they go, oh yes, we get to as symbol groups to go

and minister in the name of Jesus to those people, a lot of them

who probably don't know Jesus. But because we meet their needs, we feed

them, we give them showers, we help rebuild their houses. We're going

to get the opportunity to tell them about the love of Christ. Yes,

we don't pray for disasters, I promise you we don't, but we pray

that every time there is one, that God will give us an opportunity to

get involved in the name of Jesus and meet some needs and love on people

for him. We see something on the news about somebody going to prison,

and we think he got what he deserved. What I think is, we

got a great prison ministry, and in fact, we actually have a seminary

program in our men's prisons here in North Carolina. Then we're getting ready to

start in our women's prisons where they can take seminary classes, get a certificate

and a degree so that they're ready either to start a church in the prison

or when they get out to go work in the church. That's an opportunity.

You see so much on the news today about immigration. Now let me

tell you. Don't come up and winded me about Gracian and people from other

countries coming into our country. I understand the need for some control from a

political standpoint, but every time I hear about an illegal immigrant coming into our

country, I'm thinking I hope somebody tells them about Jesus. I hope we're

there to help give them some water and help them find a job if that's

what they need. That we will love on them and provide a place for

them to stay, and that we will meet the needs in the name of

Jesus. It is an opportunity. I have nothing to do with who comes

and who doesn't come over the border. I am never down there. Wouldn't

go down there praying God, please don't send me down there. I'll go

if you tell me, But I really don't, you know, have a

desire there. But regardless of whether they're here legally or illegally, it's an

opportunity for me to tell somebody about Jesus. And we as a church need

to look at what are the opportunities out in our neighborhoods for those that may

feel like nobody cares about us. Everybody's mad that we're here. What opportunities

do you have to tell somebody about Jesus, that he loves them, that

he has a plan for their life as well, that they can be on

mission with God. Open your eyes, see the opportunities got real quiet in

here, all of a sudden that usually happens when the spirit of God is

speaking to people's hearts. Third thing, I won't keep y'all all day,

he said, I had till two thirties. That right, is that what

y'are usually? Third thing, I can be on mission with God if I

am willing to feel with his heart. You see, that's the real crux

of the matter. In this story of the Good Samaritan, the priests will

live. They just didn't care. They didn't care. Oh, I've got

too much to do to stop and help somebody who's on the side of the

road, or you know, leave. I would say, oh, I

can't be contaminated by them unclean, unclean. So they passed on by that.

They just didn't care. Do you really care? Do you care about

people? I know? I have had times in my life where I got

caught up in check off Christianity. You know what that is, as we

just check off a list. Wake up in the morning, say a quick

prayer. Check, tell my wife I love her. Check, don't yell

at the kids. Check, have a little devotion time. Check. Don't

scream at the person who cut me off while I was driving to work.

Check and go visit somebody in the hospitals having to surgery check, you know,

just check it all off. I did good. At the end of

the day, I say, Lord, here, here it is. Here's

all the things I did. Didn't feel. Didn't just check it off.

That's not what Jesus does. Jesus has compassion on people. A few of

you have heard me tell this story before because it profoundly changed my ministry of

my life. But God helped me understand how unfeeling and those of you who

know me best understand that I'm not an emotional person, that I'm mercy is

the end of my gifts. I had to pray God help me be and

act merciful, even though I don't feel it. So that's not something that

comes natural from me. But God, God taught me a lesson. This

is while I was a pastor in Charlotte and I was headed to the hospital

one afternoon to visit somebody before they went in for a heart surgery. And

going down the Independence Boulevard. Any of you who know Charlotte, and it's

a little hard though. That's a horrible place to be anytime, but especially

during rush hour. So fortunately I was going against traffic. I was going

into Charlotte. They were coming out. So I'm driving down and as I

got to this one area was still crowded, and I thought, I'll take

a short cut through this shopping area. And so I got up to the

Stardust Road in the Earth and I got in the left hand lane to turn

it. As I was getting ready to turn to kind of cut back through

the shopping center and then go down to the hospital that way, there was

a man standing on the corner, had this sign up there, hungry,

Please help God bless, and I saw him out of the corner of my

eye, but I just kept going. I had to go to hospital to

see somebody in my church, and you know, they expected me to be

there. And and God spoke to me. And it's not one of those

things where like the radio came on and God spoke or what he just spoke

to my heart. It was very clear. I knew what he would saying.

He said, feed him, And so I started talking out loud to

the Lord, not do that in the car. I pray out loud.

I'll sing. You see me going down the highway, I'll be doing praise

music, my arms up and all that kind of fun. Stuff. So

I just I said, Lord, you know I need to get to the

hospital already, maybe gonna be late if I don't go ahead and get gone

and whatever, you send somebody else to feed him again. And then God

said feed him. If you've ever had God yell at you before in your

heart, you know what I mean. So there's a Windy's right there.

So I whipped in. The Windy's got a junior bacon cheese bird and a

value for I who big spender came out and this is four lane or two

lanes this way, two lanes that way divided. When so I came out

of Windies, went down a little way, turned around, and started heading

back toward the intersection. And when I when I got close to the intersection,

I realized if I got in the right lane where he was over on

the corner, that I was going to have to turned right on Independence Boulevard

in rush hour traffic, and it would take me twenty or twenty five minutes

to get down where I could turn around and come back the other way I

needed to go. So I made a split second decision. I got in

the far left lane and pulled up and stopped at the light. And I

rolled down both windows and I said hi. He said me yeah, And

I took my hand out the window with a bag of windows and I threw

it over three lanes of traffic and it landed right there. And I'm thinking

God, I had to be a God thing. And by that time the

light changed. I did a little U turn around the thing. And as

I'm doing the U turned, God said what did you just do? So

I started talking out loud to him me. I said, Lord, you

told me to feed him my fitting me, He said, you just treated

my child like a dog. So I got in the left hand lane,

pulled in, pulled into the shopping center, pulled over to us, close

to him as I could got out. This is a big shopping center.

It's got a fountain and all this stuff. And I walk over and I

said, hey, I'm the guy that just threw you the food and he

said thanks. I said, you don't understand. I came to apologize because

I treated you like you don't matter. And I want you to know that

you matter, that you matter to me, and most importantly, that you

matter to God. Now, if I was an evangelist, i'd tell you

that he prayed right there to receive Christ and we baptized him in the fountain,

and five people driving by I got saved and came in. None of

that happened because it wasn't about him. It was about me. It was

God saying, don't don't play being a preacher, being a minister of whatever

if you don't really care about my people. And so I pray, God,

help me to have your heart, to feel with your heart in every

situation. You know, God, God gave me the opportunity after I went

to the Baptist a convention. I'm in charge of the hunger ministry for the

state in North Carolina. You probably didn't know that. I mean, it's

just so ironic. Didn't ask for whatever just got assigned to me. So

I literally help hundreds of churches every year with feeding programs, providing some funds

for those churches that do hunger offering work with Baptist men on feeding. We

will give away over a million pounds of food this year to people in North

Carolina. I mean, it's amazing. But it's like God just rubs that

in all the time, just to remind me, don't ever get away from

actually feeling with my heart. Are you willing to do that? Are you

willing to feel because folks, when you do, when you let that happen,

you can't help but do the fourth thing. And the fourth thing is

I can be on mission with God if I'm willing to act with great faith.

That's what happened with a Samaritan. He was acting out of faith.

Understand, it was very dangerous what he did. I mean, he didn't

know that the robbers weren't there waiting for somebody to stop and help that Samaritans

to help that man that they had robbed before and jump whoever the helper was.

Also, he was a Samaritan. He was a half breed, if

you would be that's what the Samaritans were, half Jewish, half not Jewish.

Nobody wanted to have anything to do with him there, they're half breeds.

And then he goes and he takes this man to an end and he

pays for it all and says, hey, if it costs anymore, doesn't

matter what. When I come back, I will pay you for any expense

that you might have. Those are faith steps. What is it that God

is asking you to do that's going to take faith? Maybe it's teaching the

next generation of missionaries. Maybe it's taken an opportunity on in the church that

you never thought you would do. Maybe it's volunteering some time with the students

here in BCA and allowing them to learn from the things God has taught you

over the years. Maybe it's financial. Maybe God's asking you to do something

financially. Is you go, yeah, I don't know that I can do

that. Let me assure you, if God asked you to do it,

He'll provide the way to do it, but the ingle will provided until you

do. I've heard of that so many times. Well, when God gives

you a million dollars, I'm going to give this to the church. Don't

worder that way. Maybe God's asking you to go. And one of the

things we talk about our theme for the Baptistake of It and Now is we

are a movement of churches on mission together, and one of the themes is

we go. We're trying to help churches understand how people can be sent out

as church planters every college student. Our goal would be for every student that

graduates from college that's connected for one of our churches, give two years on

the mission field, allowing God to try to open up doors for what they

want them, what God wants them to do for the rest of the life.

What a great place to learn. What are you willing to go when

a mission, mission trip, mission opportunity comes up? Are you willing to

say yes? Or? Lord, I don't speak that language. Trust me,

there'll be somebody on it that does. And you know I'm interesting.

One of my daughters just got back for a fifteenth anniversary honeymoon trip to Italy.

She said, it's so funny. Everybody in Italy speaks English. They

all do. We started at an orphanage down in Nicarago. When I was

down, never had any problem. They all speak English. I adopted a

daughter from China and when we were there there was always somebody that could speak

good English. So don't let that get in the way. Lord, I'm

too old to travel abroad. No you're not. I'm too young to traveler

bart No you're not. It's going to take some faiths. So my questions

were closes. Do you want to be on mission with God? Do you

want to know His mission for you as an individual, as a student,

as a church Do you really want to Today's your opportunity to say yes?

Now? There are probably some of you out there who have never said,

Jesus, I need you, I need you to change my life. I've

messed up and I know that I can't fix it myself. The day may

be the day that you take step number one to you say I want to

become a follower of Jesus Christ. Nothing else matters until then, But most

of you probably taking that step. So my question is, evaluate what's going

on in your life right now? Are you really willing to see the opportunities

that God is putting around you? Are you going to pray that God show

me something that I would have overlooked. Help me see it from your perspective,

and when I see it, God, help me feel with your heart.

If you played check off Christianity, do you really feel for people?

And then what are you going to do about it? Maybe you just need

to come down to this audier and say, God, I've been trying to

plan my life out for myself and I'm tired of it. Just kneel and

pray and say God, I'm yours. He'll speak, sometimes very loudly,

sometimes he'll whisper, but he'll never fail to speak to his child who wants

to know how to be on mission with him? Would you pray with me?

Father? I thank you that we can come to you when we've messed

up, when we're not sure about things, and know that you not only

hear us, but that you care and that you want us to be involved

in your mission that you designed us for before we were ever born. God,

I prayed this morning that you would speak to hearts and that we would

listen. I pray God that you'd use this time of commitment that your son

Christ might be glorified. God, change lives as you see fit, call

people as you see fit. Well, whatever you're asking us to do,

may our answer be us. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen,