Kept to Scatter

So let's dive into our text.

Okay, so this we're looking at this narrative of Acts in chapter 11 and a little bit of verse 13 or chapter 13 as well.

And what I want us to kind of understand when we start to engage with this text, uh, I want us to see this that uh verses 19 through 26 of chapter 11 show us that we scatter to multiply.

We scatter to multiply.

That is a huge part of uh what we are.

Um when we look to this narrative text in Acts, we have to kind of set up some background history of what's going on.

So here we see that the church was scattered.

Now they were scattered because of opposition that they had faced.

When Stephen, who was the first martyr of the church, when he gave his life for the gospel, uh, persecution flooded in after Stephen had done that.

And that persecution was actually led by a man named Saul.

Now, many of us know Saul as the apostle Paul.

Uh, but this Saul, he was headlining or spearheading the persecution that the church was facing at this time.

And so, so what did they do?

They see Stephen get stoned to death, right?

Uh then Paul says, I'm gonna come in, or Saul is his name at this point.

I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna persecute the church.

And so they were forced in some way to scatter.

But this scattering was not without mission.

That this is key.

The scattering wasn't hiding, right?

This scattering of persecution wasn't retreatism, it was still fueled with mission because what we see in Acts is that they went out and continued to preach the gospel.

So that's the first thing that happened.

They're scattered here at the beginning of chapter or in chapter 11, 19, when it says the church scattered because of persecution.

But another thing that we have to understand is that just before this, just before this in verse 18, we read these words.

When they heard these things, they fell silent and they glorified God, saying, Then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance that leads to life.

Now, here's what that means.

Uh, there was a man named Cornelius who Peter was sent to to preach the gospel.

And Cornelius was a Gentile, he was not a Jew.

And so uh that he has this, if you ever read through Acts, and there's this dream or vision that Peter has of this blanket being lowered, and there's like a golden corral buffet on the blanket, and Peter's like, I can't eat that.

You know, most of us would look at that and say, I can't eat that.

But then God says, What I call clean, don't you call dirty, right?

And so, so therefore, Peter rise up and eat.

Um, so what he's saying is that um you know don't call the Gentiles unclean people.

Uh, my gospel through my son Jesus is for them also, it's not just for the Jews.

And so Peter sees the reality of this when he preaches the gospel message to Cornelius and his household, and his whole household was then saved.

So, what Peter does is he goes back and reports to the leaders in Jerusalem, and he says, You won't believe what happened.

And they say, You're right, we don't believe it because it should only be for Jews.

They were still kind of in this mindset and frame of thinking.

But then he gives the testimony of what happened, and they say that in verse 18.

Then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance that leads to life.

So we're seeing this active reality of the gospel saving and bringing new life to both Gentiles and Jews.

And so we have to see this passage is that in the midst of their scattering, they were multiplying.

Verse 21 says, And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.

Even in the midst of persecution, they preached the gospel.

And many were being added to the Lord.

Now we have to ask ourselves a question, why would they do this, right?

So, so literally, imagine you're in a situation where somebody busts in these doors, they grab one of us, it's probably me.

I don't know.

Uh uh, I just kind of because I stand out up here, right?

Hopefully it'd be like one of the sound guys or something.

But uh they grab somebody, grab them outside, and then they've got a whole group of people with rocks, and then they just chuck them at his head until he dies because he loves Jesus.

What will we do?

We'd probably be scared, right?

We we'd probably be terrified.

We probably want to hide because we don't want that to be our end.

That's not what they did, though.

Even in the face of persecution, even in the face of, and that wasn't the only instance, now we have Saul who comes in with a crew of people persecuting actively the church, martyring Christians just because they believed Jesus was Lord.

But this didn't stop them.

Even in the face of scattering through persecution, they preached the gospel.

Why?

I would submit they actually believed it was the only hope for people.

I would submit that they actually believed in a reality where people are separated from God because of their sin.

They actually believe in a reality that God's wrath and judgment was on that sin.

I think they have to believe in a reality that if they were going to be liberated from something much worse than dying from stones being thrown at them, that they would have to repent and believe of the gospel, or else for all eternity, they would suffer eternally greater consequences.

I think they actually believed Jesus rose from the dead.

I think they actually believed Christ was reigning as King.

This is the only reason why somebody would not just run into hiding.

They were wholly convinced that this was the only hope of salvation.

And so we see further in this passage in 19 through 26 that as they get word of what's happening, as the church is scattering, they're preaching the gospel, they're multiplying themselves, people are being added to Jesus.

They go back, word gets back to the Jerusalem Council, and they send Barnabas to go check things out, right?

And Barnabas is known as this great encourager.

And he comes to see what's going on, and faithful to his character, he encourages them to stay faithful.

And when they do so, even more are added to the church.

Then Barnabas actually goes and grabs Saul because at this time there's a conversion that's happened, right?

It's not the dude who was murdering Christians, he's now actually serving Jesus.

He goes and grabs Saul, brings him to Antioch, and they stay there for a year to make disciples.

So we have all these people being added to the church.

We have multiplication, but then there's this really important part of this passage that comes through.

They encourage them to stay faithful, they kind of put roots down and hit pause, and Saul and Barnabas lead the way in making disciples.

You see, we're not here just to make converts, we're not here just to have crusades or or big uh movements where people give their life to Jesus, they bow their head and raise their hand, whatever kind of background you've come from.

That's not what we're simply here to make.

We're not here just to make converts, we're here to make disciples.

And that's going to entail that we slow down at times to teach the word of God to the people who we are being added to this church because of our gospel witness.

You see, the Great Commission's call to go and make is understood first in scattering and multiplying.

But it's not only in those things, but it is initiated in those two things.

We can't make disciples unless we are people who scatters and who multiply.

We're not called to go and make converts alone, but to make disciples.

And so the church is a growing institution of disciple-making disciples.

When we look at what the church is, it's a growing institution.

It's not stagnant, it's not declining, it's not crystallized and unable to move.

It is a growing institution of what?

Disciple-making disciples.

Then we will look at chapter 13 and we see in verses one through two, the way we would look at this is that we would actually send out others to multiply.

We send out others to multiply.

So we scatter to multiply as God's people, but also as a church, we have to have a vision and understanding that we send out others to multiply.

Not only are we scattered locally, but we also send out others from among us to make disciples.

Let's look at the scene set up here, right?

So they have this amazing ministry team.

Imagine, like right now, we had Saul and Barnabas on your preaching pulpit, right?

It wasn't me.

Whoever your greatest podcast preacher is that you've never met, but if you did, you would fanboy out.

Like, right?

Imagine they're here.

I'm sitting in a pew being quiet because they're way, and this is what they have this amazing ministry team.

They're reaching people and growing, right?

They see all this expansion happening.

So they have this amazing ministry team preaching, teaching.

They're growing, they're adding people to the church.

But we see here in verses one through two, they're also listening to the spirit.

And that's key.

That's a key point because they would have missed the sending out if they weren't listening.

Because why were they listening?

They were listening for mission.

They were listening for the spirit to speak to them.

They were listening to be obedient to the Lord.

Now you could have said, look, you we got great preaching, we're growing.

How could we not be obedient to the Lord when we see the fruit of what's happening?

But a lot of that can cause us to become deaf to the Spirit's leading.

Success is a great way at times to quiet the voice of the Spirit in your life.

If you think about the times where you really slow down to try and listen to the Holy Spirit, it's probably when you're at a valley, not on a mountaintop.

It's probably when life is kicking you in the teeth, not when you're, you know, everything you touch just turns like Midas effect, gold.

Like that's probably not when you're listening to the Spirit.

It's when the Spirit has to say, hey, listen, right?

I love this quote from C.S.

Lewis.

He says that pain is God's megaphone to a deaf world.

There's a lot of times where we have to be smoked, smitten, that's love, right?

Smoted by God so he can say, listen to what I'm trying to tell you.

Because often in the times of success, we don't listen.

But the church here, even in the midst of success, they were slowing down, they were listening to what the spirit had to say.

They operated in a reality and mindset of mission, always awaiting the call of the Lord because people needed to be reached with the gospel.

And so, what did the Spirit tell them to do?

The Spirit said, Hey, church, give up your best for mission.

He said, Give up your best for mission.

If we look at there in verse 2, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart from me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

To be a church on mission, we're gonna have to do three things.

Number one, we're gonna have to make disciples, not converts.

That's crucial, right?

We don't we don't want just we don't want to have a thousand baby Christians filling this room.

We want to work to maturity in Christ through the teaching of God's word, through holiness and obedience.

These are things that we want to see.

Disciples, not converts.

Number two, we need to be a church on mission, we have to be listening to the Holy Spirit for instructions.

We have to be a people who listen in prayer, who aren't always talking but are being quiet, trying to understand what the Spirit have me to do.

And we talked about this a little bit in our Gifts of the Spirit sermon series, but how many times in our prayer life alone do we consciously say, okay, I'm gonna be quiet, Lord, and I have an expectation that you're gonna speak to me.

I'm gonna be quiet for just a moment.

I'm not gonna whine or complain or grovel or grumble.

I'm going to be quiet and I'm gonna sit with an expectation you're gonna speak to me.

How many of us acknowledge the Holy Spirit in our prayer life or in our Christian life?

You know, he is the third person of the Trinity, equally God in glory and majesty, yet distinct in his personhood.

We have to be listening to the Holy Spirit for instructions.

Thirdly, we have to be willing to joyfully send out our best.

If we're gonna be a church on mission, we have to be willing to joyfully send out our best.

When the Holy Spirit says, Go, we go.

When the Holy Spirit says, Set apart for me these people, no, no, Lord, that that you don't understand, those are our good ones.

So we got to keep hold of them.

Don't you see how we're growing?

Don't you see we're adding people to the church?

Don't you see how we're making disciples?

And we have to say, Lord, I'll be obedient, I'll listen.

And if it means goodbye, that's what it means.

Because one thing we're gonna realize in this time, and I want to get clear to us, is that goodbyes for the kingdom are good.

Goodbyes for the kingdom are good.

What's our main idea this morning?

We see this that we're kept as scattered so that many people are added to the Lord.

We are kept as scatter so that many people are added to the Lord.

This people added to the Lord is a constant theme that you'll see throughout the narrative of Acts.

People are continually being added to the Lord, added to the Lord.

It's through uh sometimes it's through public preaching, right?

Sometimes it's it's one person in front of many, sometimes it's one-to-one type of uh situation, but we're gonna constantly see a theme if we read the book of Acts of people being added to the Lord.

You see, the Lord in his sovereign power saves you so that others might be saved.

We are his messengers, his sent ones who go forth scattered with the ministry of reconciliation.

You you weren't saved just to be uh uh relieved of eternal punishment in hell.

You weren't saved just for self-benefit and self-gain.

You were saved because God, in his sovereignty, has ordained it to be so that it is through the ones whom he saves he will save others.

You see what I'm saying?

Uh God said, I'm gonna save you, and I'm going to dictate that it is only by you then going out and preaching the same gospel of which you were saved by, others might be saved also.

Now we might come from a position where we think, well, if God's sovereign, right?

If God's all-powerful, why doesn't he just save who he wants to?

Because God didn't determine to be that way.

Your philosophy, your worldview, your uh personal theology might get you to a place where God's so sovereign that we don't have to be preachers of the gospel, but when you read the scriptures, when you read the Bible, it's not true.

Why?

Because God didn't want it to be that way.

Simple as that.

Why do we pray if God already knows what He's gonna do?

Because God said pray.

There's times in our lives where we have to get our thinking out of our own heads and just submit and be obedient to what the word clearly states.

So let's look at two biblical realities for a moment.

Number one, the preaching and hearing of the gospel is necessary for salvation.

Let me say that again.

The preaching and the hearing of the gospel is necessary for salvation.

Let's look at Romans 10, 13 through 15.

It says this for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

How then will they call on him on whom they have not believed?

And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?

And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

Church, they cannot hear without someone preaching.

And many of us have a not me mentality.

Oh, that's not talking about me, right?

That's talking about the professional Christians.

That's talking about the pastors or the ones who have the gift of preaching.

No, there's a difference between a gift of preaching and a responsibility to preach.

Those are two very different things, and often we get them convoluted.

And there's another reality, too, that the Reformed Church specifically, I think, has hijacked the pulpit alone for the place of preaching.

And we've told member after member and congregation attender that you are not preaching, I am.

And that is garbage.

That's a lie of the devil.

Every single person is called to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You are a preacher.

You might not preach from the office of elder with authority as I am able to, but you preach with the authority of the Holy Spirit when you proclaim the gospel to those who have yet to be saved.

You are preachers.

And then how are they to preach without being sent?

Well, Jesus sent us.

Jesus, our Lord and Savior, has sent us.

It is the great commission.

Go and make.

Go and make.

That is what we are called to do.

We have been sent.

As the Father sent the Son, and the Son sent His Spirit, so He sends us to proclaim the goodness of His gospel.

So number two, number one, the preaching here of the gospel is necessary for salvation.

Number two is we are preachers of the gospel.

2 Corinthians 5, 17 through 18.

Therefore, if any was in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away.

Behold, the new has come.

All of this, this message, is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

We, when we become saved, when we are saved through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are made children, we are made co-heirs, we are made priests, we are made ministers.

Ministers of what?

Ministers of reconciliation.

Because there's this reality, right?

That they understood, even in the face of scattering through persecution, that we are distant.

We are separated from God the Father because of our sin.

And what is the means of reconciliation that we have to obey, what we have to repent and believe in that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day.

Only by believing in that are we able to be reconciled back to the Father of whom we rebelled against.

When we are reconciled to Jesus through the power of the gospel, we become ministers, preachers, proclaimers, heraldals of that same gospel.

Church Jesus saved us so that others might be saved.

The church won't grow unless we scatter to multiply as ministers of reconciliation through the gospel.

Hear that again.

That vision of reaching 1% of the Mason Westchester area in 10 years, that's not going to happen unless we realize that we are ministers of the gospel of reconciliation.

Unless we realize that we are called to scatter, to multiply.

And again, I'm very disinterested in growing my kingdom.

I'm very disinterested in growing a huge name from sacred mission.

I'm very disinterested in all those things.

What I'm really interested in is that people are being saved.

They're repenting of their sin.

They're believing in the gospel.

They get themselves into a healthy church.

They start engaging in biblical community.

They start seeing the culture around them transformed into the image of the kingdom of God because they understand themselves as ministers of the gospel and they are going out preaching the good news, living gospel witness.

That's what I'm interested in.

But many of us we don't understand this.

And we fail to realize the importance of scattering with gospel intentionality.

Some of us we simply scatter without multiplying.

We scatter without multiplying.

We embrace the social structures of our culture, we involve ourselves in relationships, but we have no gospel witness.

We often keep our faith private and disconnected from the rest of our life, leaving the job of reconciliation to the pastors.

And we and we see this all the time.

Some of y'all wanna wanna wanna wanna buy land and retreat and and be, you know, that's fine if that's what you want.

There's still people to reach out there, right?

Uh you can do that, but but it's not like We're becoming these hermits of society.

We still engage in the culture.

We still have relationships.

We still go out and do things.

We technically scatter, but we have zero gospel witness in our going out.

We by and large were afraid to share the gospel.

We're afraid of the consequences of sharing the gospel.

If at work, I'm afraid of losing my job.

I'm afraid of the consequences will happen.

I'm afraid what my friends will do if I start bringing up this conversation about Jesus.

I'm afraid of the implications.

You see, we we scatter, but we have no gospel witness.

The problems with this is that we don't really believe hell is real and Jesus is the only hope.

If we're honest, we don't really believe hell is real and Jesus is the only hope.

If we look at the book of Acts, we're worried about losing our job.

These brothers and sisters were losing their lives.

Stoned to death, fed to wild beasts.

These are the realities that they faced, and their mouths did not stay silent.

We have grown accustom in a culture where we're supposed to shut up and be quiet.

And there's louder voices around us rising up.

And here's the problem, church.

Um, it it this again, this isn't a political thing.

What's happening is that the voices that are rising up and being loud, uh, if you look, the culture's putting their hope in those things because we have false prophets declaring false hopes in our society.

And the whole time the church is just being quiet.

And look, the church doesn't express its voice at the ballot box.

That's a joke.

The church expresses its voice when it opens its mouth and proclaims the gospel of Jesus to the people around it.

When we look at Jesus, that's what he did all throughout the New Testament.

Like Jesus showed almost zero interest in the government.

Jesus said this.

Here's what Jesus didn't do.

He didn't look at Rome and see this oppressive, abusive taxing system and the way that it was impoverishing people, the way that it was oppressing them, the way that it was creating the marginalized in society.

He didn't look at Rome and the taxing system and say, we got to do something to overthrow that.

We got to do something to overturn it.

We got to make sure that we liberate as many people as we can.

No, what Jesus did is he went to Nicodemus and he showed Nicodemus he was the only hope of salvation.

He was the one who they had been calling that would come to bring salvation to his people.

And then Nicodemus's heart was changed.

And then Nicodemus, the tax collector, went out and he started giving back all that he had stolen.

And one life transformed turned to many lives transformed.

I mean, imagine.

Imagine if we didn't try to be quiet and change things through ballot boxes, but we had neighborhoods, cities, states, uh uh uh uh nations changed because the church stood up, preached the gospel, and people actually got saved.

We don't see ourselves, secondly, problem with this position is we don't see ourselves as spirit-filled preachers.

We just don't.

We see ourselves as Christians.

We see preaching left to me or another elder or someone else.

We don't let me tell you something, church.

Me and you were Christians.

Me and you were filled by the Holy Spirit.

Me and you were brought in through adoption and the purchasing through Christ's blood into the family of God.

Me and you were made priests.

Me and you were called to minister and preach the gospel of reconciliation.

There is nothing that's different about our realities and our identities in Christ Jesus.

You are spirit-filled preachers of the gospel of Christ.

And you have to look at yourself like that.

You have to realize that truth about you.

You have to wake up and operate in that reality.

You have to see that the Spirit of God, the same one who raised Christ from the dead, has now filled you, gifted you, given you the ministry to be able to reconcile people back to God through the gospel.

The sad part about scattering without multiplying is some of us actually use the banner of mission for our recreational purposes, but we simply just use it as an abuse of Christian liberty.

You see, there's no mission without proclamation.

Being with your buddies at the brewery is not mission unless there's the witness of the gospel.

Be honest with yourself.

You're just drinking with friends.

Being at the park with other moms is not mission unless there's witness of the gospel.

Be honest with yourself.

You just want to hang around somebody who doesn't need you to wipe their butt.

I'm not saying those things are bad.

I'm saying don't say you're being missional.

Without gospel witness, we're just hanging out.

And we need to be honest about that.

But some of us need to be honest about the reality of how we've abused that.

And we've abused the Christian liberty that we have in Jesus and the gospel to go and hang out.

Some of us as men, we've used that too many times to get away from our wife and kids.

We need to repent of that.

But others of us, we don't just scatter without multiplying, we gather without multiplying.

We gather without multiplying.

Once we have been brought into the family of God through the preaching of the gospel, we quickly quickly lose sight of the need and call to run back and bring others in.

We become self-focused rather than outward focused, caring more about programs, ministries, or changes in the church that negatively affect my self-interest rather than positively affect those who are not apart yet.

We become stagnant, calcified, reflecting a dead, fossilized portrait of what once was rather than a living, growing portrait of the ever-expanding kingdom of God.

Look, church, churches may die, the kingdom of God doesn't.

Churches may close down, the kingdom of God doesn't.

Churches may stop growing, the kingdom of God doesn't.

Are we going to be a portrait of a man-made thing?

Or are we going to be a reflection and image of the kingdom of God?

And we have to ask ourselves about that.

Do you think Christ is interested more so in people being added to his kingdom?

Or the programs and ministries and other personal preferences we add to our Sunday mornings.

I love this quote from William Temple.

He's a former Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury.

He says this the church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.

The church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.

The more we can understand this is not about us, first and foremost, the better off we're going to be.

The happier we're going to be, the less fussing we're going to have, the less tensions we're going to have, the less members' meetings with uprisings and rivalries we're going to have.

This has not that look, the more and more that I can look out at that sacred mission and myself say, this isn't about my preference, this isn't about me, this isn't about what I want, but this is about how are we creating space to bring people into the local church after we've been the ones who have been sent out, scattered throughout the city, proclaiming the gospel, because this is the reality.

We should be discipling people before they ever even come into the church.

If you're expecting to just bring someone in and then rely on me to preach the gospel, rely on one of the other pastors to preach the gospel so that your friend gets saved or your family member gets saved.

Look, that might work for a period of time.

That's not how it's supposed to work in the kingdom of God.

They should have already been hearing the gospel from you, they should have already been starting to be discipled by you, and then they should be coming in here because the reality of our salvation again is that we get connected to God's people.

The local church is a is a non-negotiable in Christian life.

But it doesn't start here, and it's not all about this.

God forbid we look back 20 years from now and simply reminisce through the halls of what once was.

We're not here to become a museum.

We're here to push back the darkness, multiply ourselves, see many more come into the family of God, preach, die, and be forgotten.

You see, sacred mission, what I want from us is I want us to have a desire to be a people so on fire for the gospel that the churches who will be planted 50 years from now tell our stories and dream about being able to do only portions of what we have.

That's what I want from us.

I want us to see people added to the kingdom.

And when they look back, when when we see young men called to ministry, called to plant churches, we see young women raised up to be involved in the local church to serve God.

When we see that happening, what are they doing?

Do you remember?

Do you remember Sacred Mission?

Did you hear the stories of what happened here?

Did you hear where they were bringing people, adding them to the church?

Did you hear how on fire they were for the gospel?

Did you hear about the persecution that hit them because of how faithful they were to preaching the gospel?

Did you see how they remained faithful in the midst of persecution?

Did you see how nothing could sway them from their faith?

Did you remember?

Did you hear the stories?

Could we be like that?

That's what I want.

That's what I want us to be.

Church, the gospel for us is that Jesus was sent by the Father so that many would be added to his kingdom.

Jesus was sent by the Father so that many would be added to his kingdom.

When we look at why Jesus came, it was to reconcile us.

It was to purchase us and redeem us.

And many of us, we get this crazy subconscious notion that the mission stopped with us.

This is kind of how we act, right?

When Christ saved me, the mission was complete.

Man, that's not the case at all.

Jesus was sent by the Father so that many would be added to his kingdom.

You see, he came to pay the price for our sin.

He came because we as a people both could not, nor did we desire to be a part of that kingdom.

But he knew what was best for us.

He knew that in himself is the only place that we can find fullness of joy and satisfaction and pleasure and peace.

It is only in him.

And so his love for us, he came and he died so that he could pay the price for our sin.

He was buried and then rose again so that we might be able to have the righteousness of his perfect obedience in his life to the Father in exchange for our unrighteousness, so that we might be made alive in Christ.

For us who were dead in our trespasses and sins, unable, unwilling, and undesiring to be reconciled to the one who loves us, but God sent Jesus to reconcile us so that many would be added to his kingdom.

If we lose sight of that, we've lost sight of the gospel.

In John 12, verse 32, Jesus says, And when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

John 12:32

Christ was lifted up so that many might be added.

So how might we live in light of this truth and beauty?

Number one, realize you have been sent.

I can't harp on this more this morning.

You have been sent.

You are a missionary, you are a minister, you are a preacher, you are a herald of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That is who you are.

If you don't realize that, if you think that the majority of your Christianity is about your own maturing in Christ, you know what you're going to do?

You're going to constantly have friends who are Christians and not have any friends who are non-Christians, right?

That's one thing that a measure that we should ask ourselves.

How many of you even have friends who are unbelievers?

Who you can even share the gospel with?

Or have you so secluded yourself for your own maturity that you just have Christian friends and you've cut out all unbelieving people?

Right?

How many of us, if we don't realize that we have been sent, do you know what we're gonna do?

We're gonna find ourselves in another Bible study, in another group, in another place, surrounded by more Christians and more.

I don't know how many people I talked to, and it's like, you're in how many Bible studies?

How many small who you're you're just flirting with the whole city, ain't you?

I mean, it's like, how many things do you have to get into and you're constantly replacing all these Christian things and you have zero connection with unbelieving people?

That is anti-kingdom, anti-gospel living.

Please understand that.

It's not healthy, it's not good, it's not what Christ has called us to do.

Christ has not called you to become a great disciple, Christ has called you to make disciples.

Now, there's an implication and an understanding in that you got to be a pretty good disciple to make disciples, but most of us never get past the part of pursuing to be good disciples of ourselves.

You have been sent.

Number two, be excited about goodbyes.

And we run into this a lot when it comes to mission group multiplication, church planting, whatever it might be.

I want us to be a community excited about goodbyes.

And that might mean we lose some of our best people.

That might mean we send out some of our best friends.

That might mean that what this group that we had for three years and built all these tight relationships with now gets broken apart because Christ is saying, I want multiplication.

I want people to be added to my kingdom.

I need these people separated and sent out for the glory of my name and the good and joy of all people.

We might need to be obedient to that.

And in that process, we need to be excited about goodbyes.

I don't want to be a people who forsakes mission because we're white knuckling some type of emotion or some type of heart posture of wanting to tightly hold on to these relationships that we have.

You don't understand how much this means to me and how how wonderful this has been.

We should say, you know what?

The Lord's calling you, he's telling us to set you apart and send you out for the glory of his name.

Praise God, you better be obedient and go.

But many of us, we don't, we don't look that way, right?

When we see multiplication, we don't see addition, we see divorce.

And that's just such an unhealthy way to understand the gospel.

That's an unhealthy way to understand the kingdom.

We need to see multiplication as addition, not as divorce.

And we need to be excited about goodbyes because here's what if we're gonna be faithful to mission, if we're gonna be faithful to gospel preaching over the next 10 years, we are going to say goodbye to some of our best people.

And that's a good thing.

That's a good thing.

I'm not saying it's not gonna sting a little bit, right?

I'm not saying that you're not gonna have an initial response of sorrow or or something of that nature, but I'm saying we have to condition our thinking to be excited about goodbyes.

Thirdly, we have to go and multiply.

We have to go and multiply.

We are kept to scatter so that we might go and multiply.

This is the growing of the kingdom.

This is the mustard seed that grows into this giant tree of which the birds of the air can even make their homes in.

This is that tiny little thing that expands and expands and expands.

And this is the motivation of the kingdom of God.

That his people would go and multiply.

And this is what you see constantly through the book of Acts.

This is constantly what you see throughout the New Testament.

His people are going out, making disciples, preaching the gospel, connecting them to the local church, connecting them to community, and then going back out again on mission with the gospel in hand.

Church, we have to think about this, okay?

We I I really want you to contemplate over this next period of our gathering, how many unbelieving friends do you have?

And I mean friends.

I don't mean coworkers or people you're forced to be around, right?

Now, if you have a coworker that is an unbeliever and you actually take them to lunch and you actually intentionally try to build a relationship and you actually intentionally try to share the gospel with them, that's a different thing.

But if you're just like forced to be around someone, maybe we don't want to count that this morning, right?

How many relationships do you have with unbelieving people?

How have you structured your life to where you're completely engulfed in Christianity?

And I don't mean in a good way, where we're engulfed by the presence of the Holy Spirit, where we're engulfed and entrenched in the truth of the gospel, where we're where we're where we're soaked in God's word.

I don't mean a good way.

I mean, how many of you just completely retreated into the culture of Christianity?

And then ask yourself this what's what's been your mindset about growth?

What's been your mindset about growth?

Is it all about your maturity?

Is it all about your spiritual growth?

Is it all is it is it centered around you?

Or or is it centered around making sacred mission?

I have to kind of ask myself, is it centered around making sacred mission bigger?

That's just goofy, you know.

I I have to fight against that constantly.

But is or is our view of growth people being added to the kingdom?

Because hell is real, sin is damnable, but Jesus is our hope.

And so I want you to pray and think through those things this morning as we continue worshiping, and the band leads us through the singing of the gospel.