Short Term Mission with Eternal Impact - Leaders' Talks

If you can't do the small things, you shouldn't try to do the big things.

Like if you can't give a cup of cold water in Jesus' name, you really should not get on a plane and go halfway across the world to help somebody.

If you can't help your neighbor next door, and you're not willing to share your faith with those guys, I'm just gonna tell you it is weird that you would raise money, spend money, to go across the world to share your faith that you would not share at home.

God wants us to be faithful in small things.

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All right, everybody open your Bibles up to Romans chapter 15 and we will fly through this.

Romans 15 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 15.

Romans 15 · chapter mention

I chose this message because, or this passage of scripture, because Paul is a short-term missionary.

All of us are short-term missionaries, by the way.

Every one of us are on short-term mission.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

First of all, if you want to sponsor a child or to go on a mission trip or to go across town and serve, whatever that is, every one of you have the opportunity to serve Christ in ways that are outside of your job.

I think almost every person that went on this mission trip did so by either giving up their vacation, taking some time off of work, taking some time off of school.

Every one of us have the opportunity to set our life aside for a short period of time and just focus on doing ministry.

And that's a great privilege.

But the other reason why all of us are on short-term mission is because seasons of life change.

And sometimes we can lock in and think, man, this is going to be a 40-year run.

This is going to be a 50-year run.

And then the Lord will surprise you.

So if you're seeking the Lord while he may be found, you may find that he moves you from this place to that place quicker than you thought he would.

Two months ago, if you were to ask me, Bobby, what are you doing with your life?

I would say, okay, in two years I'll plant a church.

And then in a 48-hour period, God just changed my whole world.

He just changed my entire world and said, No, no, no.

I'm preparing you for something, but sometimes my ways are not your ways, and my thoughts are not your thoughts.

And what I actually want you to do is I want your next phase to be a speaker.

And that shouldn't change who I am as a person.

I should get up each morning with a similar goal to help people come to know Christ and grow in Christ.

And if that means God says, hey, I'm moving you to Russia, or hey, I want you to be a speaker, or hey, I want you to pastor a church, or are you going to have a baby, or whatever it is, where God just changes something in your life, that's kind of how life works.

We're all short-term missionaries in that we don't know what today's going to bring.

You know, Brian, I think about you when you lived in Florida, and then the Lord said, I want you to go here.

And here you are, and you've made an impact in my life, right?

It's just by saying, Yeah, I'll do it.

Whatever you want me to do, I'll do that.

So you're a short-term missionary in that way.

But we are all short-term missionaries in this.

Life is a vapor.

It's a vapor.

So this life in general is super short.

Do you know in the amount of time that I was on the mission field, I got three prayer requests for very close friends that are dying of terminal cancer.

And I did not know that they had cancer before I went on the mission trip.

Nor did they know that they had cancer before I went on the trip.

Life is super short.

So when we get up every day, we should get up saying, God, how do you want to make the most of this day?

And I'm just going to give it to you, God, and I'm going to give it to you with all of my focus, and I'm going to pour my heart out for the kingdom of God because my eternity is in the kingdom of God.

I am on a short-term mission right now.

So I want you to open up your Bibles to Romans chapter 15, and we're going to look quickly at what we can learn from the, I believe, the ultimate missionary, short-term missionary.

Romans 15 · chapter mention

It says in verse 1, We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves.

Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to his edification.

So let each one of us live for our neighbor.

The very first thing that we do to make an impact in this short-term mission trip that we are on as people is to love.

Love your neighbor.

Excel in love.

What does God want me to do?

Well, I don't know all the details, so I'm going to get up today and I'm going to love.

And if you begin to love your neighbor in the way that Christ loved the church, look at verse 3.

Verse 3 says, For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproach you fell on me.

So Christ Himself loved us to set an example to say, hey, here's how it works.

Love is not what we think it is sometimes.

Love is not a feeling.

Sometimes I choose to love my kiddos when I'm like, oh, I could just pound you right now.

I can't do that.

What do I have to do?

I have to die to myself, have to die to what I want, and I have to just do what's best.

And the scripture says in verse 2, it's edification.

Now the Greek meaning or the uh yeah, the Greek meaning for edification literally means to build the house.

So when you edify someone, you're building them up.

Like, what do you need?

It's not what do I want to do, what do you need?

That's why personally when I hear about people talking about changing the world, my first question is, okay, is that for you and your legacy?

Or is that for the people you're serving?

Because for the life of me, I can't see too many people out there who have literally changed the world.

Now, applaud to those who would say there's nothing too big for me that God can't do.

But let me ask you this is there nothing too small?

Is there nothing that's like, this is this is too small?

It's too small to give a person a cup of cold water in Jesus' name.

Probably the most impactful thing that happened to me on this mission trip happened in the airport.

I put the second team on the planes, everybody had gone, so I went.

I still was having to wait on my flight.

So I went to get some coffee, and as I was going to the coffee shop, there was this lady that just started coughing so bad with her kid.

And people were kind of looking at her.

And then I was in the coffee shop ordering my coffee, and I could still hear her coughing.

And so I got a bottle of water, and I just went to her.

I didn't say anything to her because I didn't speak her language, and I just handed her a bottle of water.

And the look of, first of all, just sheer gratitude, because she was gasping for air.

Like she was really struggling with her cough.

But number two was just the look of confusion.

Like, why did why would you do that?

Like, you don't even know me.

And it's just small things.

Small things.

Listen, if you can't do the small things, you shouldn't try to do the big things.

Like if you can't give a cup of cold water in Jesus' name, you really should not get on a plane and go halfway across the world to help somebody.

If you can't help your neighbor next door and you're not willing to share your faith with those guys, I'm just going to tell you, it is weird that you would raise money, spend money to go across the world to share your faith that you would not share at home.

God wants us to be faithful in small things.

And that's what Paul is saying.

Paul is saying, look at how God loved.

Look at how God loved.

We should love.

We should love like that.

But he's getting ready to do like a switcheroo on them.

Because the number two thing that I think every short-term missionary, which is all of us, should be able to do is reimagine who our neighbor is.

Because Paul is beginning to talk to them about Gentiles.

So he's like, yeah, Christ loved you, and yeah, Christ died for you.

And yes, as a church, we should all love one another.

And then they're all saying, yeah, yeah, we should.

And he said, Oh, and the Gentiles are also the church.

Listen, had Christ not died, the religious institution still would have said that Gentiles cannot know God.

They should not know God.

It is appalling to think that they could know God.

And Christ dies, and then Paul comes in and he begins to speak the word out about Gentiles and how the Bible has all along said that when Christ comes, he'll unify all of us.

We have to, have to, have to be able to reimagine who our neighbor is and how we can serve them if we want to be impactful in missions.

That's just a reality.

Listen, did you know that Plato, the toy, was not a toy when it started?

Did you know that?

It was not a toy.

It was wallpaper cleaner.

That's what it was.

It was only gray, and it came in a big can, and it was wallpaper cleaner, but during the Great Depression, people thought it was frivolous to spend money on wallpaper cleaner.

So they were going out of business.

So the guy's sister-in-law said, Can I use this at school?

Because I don't have any money for anything educational, anything to distract the kids.

Can I use this at school?

So she took this big thing of wallpaper cleaner and she told the kids during the Great Depression, just make something out of it.

So they started doing it so much that they loved it.

And she called her brother and her brother-in-law and said, You don't have to go out of business.

This stuff will sell.

Because it was a cheap, cheap, cheap toy during the Great Depression.

And that's why we have Plato.

Now I can guarantee you that Plato the toy has made exponentially more money than Plato the wallpaper cleaner.

But it takes imagination.

It takes imagination to say, hey, where can we go with this?

What can we do with this?

And I love my church.

I love my church.

I couldn't wait to get back to church because people acted like they were excited to see me.

I knew people were praying for me.

I knew people were praying for me while I was gone.

I knew people were rooting for us while I was gone.

But I was excited to come back here and pray.

Like just praying behind the uh wall to get ready for service.

It was like, yes, I am home.

Church is actually about building us up, about edifying us.

But we have to reimagine how each one of us are gonna go out.

So this next week, this Saturday, we're gonna go and serve the homeless.

This Saturday, we're gonna go downtown, we're gonna serve the homeless breakfast, we're gonna eat with them, we're gonna pray with them.

Just meet here at 7 o'clock in the morning, we'll pray, and then we'll go over.

So I want to encourage you guys to reimagine what I can do with my faith besides just come to church.

That's one of the ways you can do it.

On July 28th, we'll be going into the city and we are going to be painting homes and we're gonna be helping to restore homes, and we're gonna be praying over people and speaking hope into their lives.

Those are some of the things that we can do if we just reimagine what Christ wants to do and how Christ wants to use us.

So the last thing I want to talk about is aim.

So if you guys will go to Romans chapter 15, verse 20.

Romans 15:20

Romans chapter 15, verse 20, Paul says, and so I have made it my aim.

Romans 15:20

Aim.

I have made it my aim to preach the gospel.

Not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation, but as it is written, to whom he was not announced, they shall see.

And those who have not heard shall understand.

Paul was intentional.

He made it his aim to preach to the Gentiles.

And aim means that we focus.

There's a target.

Too many times in in the Christian's life, we just shoot and then we paint the target around it.

And that's not the we need to have focus.

We need to even know what we are praying for when we wake up.

God, I'm trying to reach Gentiles.

Can you show me how that works?

Can you show me what I need to do?

I need to be strategic about what I do.

So here's what I said aim is.

Aim is appointed and intentional ministry.

Aim.

A-I-M.

Appointed.

That means God is telling you where to go.

That means you have to have a devoted relationship with the Lord where He's leading you by the Holy Spirit.

Intentional, that means this is not just happened by accident.

I'm going after it.

And that's my ministry.

That's what I'm going after.

That's my prayer for all of us.

That as we have aim in our life, aim in what God's calling us to do, we'll make great impact in this city.

Because if nothing else, we'll know how to pray.

If nothing else, we know what we're waking up and going after.

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