Healthy Church - Strong Church | Strategic Church Planting (January 26th, 2020) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, church, you can go ahead and uh take a seat if you will.

And uh if you have a copy of God's word, you can turn it to uh Matthew chapter 16.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

That's the first place uh that we'll be in uh this morning.

And uh by the way, if you uh don't own a copy of God's word, these verses will be on the screen for you uh throughout our time together this morning, but also we have uh Bibles available at the back.

Uh if you don't have one, uh you can go there and grab one and uh and keep it as uh as our gift uh to you.

Now uh one of the kind of main things that I've always loved about uh being uh in a movement of churches like uh we are as part of the Great Commission Collective, is that uh we as a church, we get to play uh a role in something uh that's much, much bigger than ourselves.

Okay, and I believe it's just so important that we recognize that and and and be aware of the big picture of God's mission uh to take the gospel to every tongue, tribe, and nation.

Okay, I think it's just so uh crucial that uh you and I uh recognize and really kind of understand here that what God is doing uh here at uh Redemption Church isn't just about us, right?

It's not just about what you know He, you know, what's happening, you know, within these walls as we gather together as we do on Sundays.

It's not even just about what God is doing within our homes, you know, throughout the week as we you know minister to our families and and neighbors and and you know have other uh people in our church into our homes and things like small group and and our different weekly uh ministries.

Uh it's not about that.

There's actually much more, it's not just about that, there's actually much more uh to God's plan that stretches far beyond uh our walls uh to a global scale.

And like I said, uh the great thing about that is that uh you and I, we get to be a part of uh that very thing.

Okay, and and we see the framework for what I'm getting at here uh in uh the book of Acts, in Acts chapter one.

Okay, Jesus, he's with his disciples here, and and he's about to be lifted up uh to heaven, and and he leaves them with these final words, okay?

And these words set the stage for what uh the book of Acts and the entire New Testament for that matter uh is all about.

And and and what what we're still to be about uh today as a local church in Newmarket, Ontario.

Okay, and we see this in Acts chapter 1, uh verse 8.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

This will be on the screen for you, but this is what Jesus says.

He says, But you will receive power uh when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

Okay, so he's like with the mission that I've got for you, it's not up to you to just figure this out, and this isn't you you know for you to accomplish in your strength.

You will receive power when my Holy Spirit has come upon you.

And he says this, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem.

Okay, pause right there for a second.

Jerusalem uh was like their headquarters.

All right, this is where the church got its start.

This is where the the disciples, the apostles were, and and as they proclaimed the gospel, uh there were there were converts and people were you know getting added to their number day by day.

We read about that, and so the church really kind of gets its start there in Jerusalem.

He's like, you're gonna be my witnesses here first, okay?

And he says, look at the verse, and in all of Judea and Samaria.

Okay, so those are like the surrounding, you know, kind of just out of arm's reach, the surrounding nations, the pagan nations, cities, towns, that type of thing, that the gospel would need to go into.

You're gonna go do this, you're gonna be my witnesses there as well.

And then he says, and to the ends of the earth.

Okay, to the ends of the earth.

We want to get the gospel out globally and reach all people for uh for Christ.

That's what Jesus says.

And listen, this is the exact same framework, the same agenda that God is carrying out to this very day.

Okay, so think about this.

Look at this verse still.

Think about uh of it, uh think about it as you know, Newmarket is that's our Jerusalem.

All right, so so Newmarket isn't obviously where our church is.

This is our our our our headquarters, this is our main base of operation.

And so we're to to witness here, again, not just not just here in this room, but but in our neighborhoods, right?

At with at the places that we work, whether you live in you know, Newmarket or Keswick or Mount Albert or you know, you know, east or west or stoville or or Richmond Hill or Aurora, whatever it may be, because I'm trying to validate everybody, kind of where you all live, okay?

But wherever we are in this in this kind of this area is where we are to witness.

That's you know, Newmarket and surrounding area, that's our Jerusalem.

Okay, Judea and Samaria kind of think of that as maybe a little bit further out to like the the GTA.

Think about you know Toronto, that's kind of the next major city, I would say.

And you can even maybe stretch our thinking out to you know to southern Ontario, maybe, maybe even all of Ontario.

We gotta we gotta reach them.

And then, of course, to the ends of the earth, as Jesus says, well, I mean, it's just it's just that, right?

To the ends of our country or or our province, our country, our our continent, right, and even the world.

And so the chief way that God accomplishes all of this as we see it in the Bible is by planting churches.

Okay, planting churches all over that that grow up to be healthy and strong churches.

Okay, the local church is is kind of think of it as God's vehicle by which He reaches the nations with the gospel.

Okay, that is why we are committed to glorifying God through strategic church planting.

Strategic in the sense that the verse I just read that you see there, that that's the strategy.

Okay, the strategy is just what does the Bible say about this?

Strategic church planting.

This is our this is our sixth distinctive, as uh as we kind of near the end of our series here and it's what we get to talk about today.

I'm kind of excited.

It's kind of a little bit kind of a different uh message.

Can't say that I've preached on church planting per se, uh, but something really good that we need to kind of wrap our minds around and understand and get get pretty excited about, I think, uh, as the Lord has called us to this.

So uh before we jump in though, let's uh let's pray and give these things uh to the Lord.

God, we come before you and and even just now we're already starting to get the sense that uh what you're doing here isn't even just really about the people here.

It's not to minimize what you're doing here, certainly not, but to help us understand that it's not just about um us as individuals, it's not even just about uh redemption church here in Newmarket, Lord, but your mission is actually to use us to stretch out and and cover the entire globe.

And so, God, I pray that if that's not really, you know, uh kind of our our mentality, Lord, I pray that you would uh help that to be our mentality this morning as we look at your word and and see how you uh started your church and and how you got it out spreading across the globe to uh to the point where it is even now uh here as we gather in Canada.

And so, God, help us uh with these things.

Oh uh open up your word, your our your our understanding to your word here uh this morning as we open it.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

So we are committed to glorifying God through strategic church planting, like I said.

Now you may be thinking, well, why?

Like, why are we committed uh to that?

Why should we be on board with this?

Well, first thing, I think it's important to get the why, or at least a big part of the why, down.

Well, because uh nothing, nothing will stop God's plan uh to establish his church.

Okay, God is uh very committed to this, uh so uh so should we be.

Right?

He's completely sold out to uh the establishing of his church uh here, okay, and and also far from here.

And again, so we we must be on board with that.

We must walk in sync uh with him, realizing that you know, as as as hard and as tricky and challenging and and grueling and even disappointing as church planting can be, at the end of the day, guess what?

Nothing's stopping it from happening.

Nothing will get in the way of this taking place.

And I think we really see this here in this verse in Matthew uh chapter uh 16, verse 18 uh B, the second half here, but I'm just gonna read uh the first part of it even.

I know it's not on the screen, but if you've got your Bible, of course, uh you can see this.

This is Jesus speaking.

Here's the first part.

He says, I tell you, you are Peter.

Okay, so he's speaking to uh one of his disciples.

He says, You are Peter, and on this rock, okay, the name the name Peter means rock.

He says, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

You know, when when Jesus refers to that first part that I read there, you know, Peter as the rock upon which uh I will I will build my church, uh just know that there has been uh a lot of debate over the over the decades, over the centuries, even about what that even means.

I don't want to spend a ton of time on this, but give you just kind of a taste of kind of where we're going with it or how we understand this.

I can say that it's it's not that it doesn't mean that Peter had some kind of like you know, autonomous, you know, kind of self-governing authority that was you know super unique to him, or you know, every, you know, all church planting decisions went through him and and and what he said went, and everybody had, okay, Peter, like whatever you say, that that's not what it means by by Peter being uh the rock upon which the church is is built.

Okay, neither does it mean that Peter would be some kind of like you know, unfailing, you know, perfect teacher or or leader, even.

Right?

We actually know, if you know anything about Peter, you know, he was super flawed.

His flaws are all out in the open for everybody to see.

Right?

He put his foot in his mouth constantly, he he denied Christ three times, he would go on to do that.

I mean, even in the book of Galatians, Paul actually confronts Peter because he wasn't living in line with the truth of the gospel.

The gospel is for Jews and Gentiles.

We're gonna talk about that in a second.

Peter was a Jew, okay, and he was he was starting to minister to Gentiles, but then once some influential uh uh Jewish leaders came and and and and and hung out with him in the church, he he kind of got into this people-pleasing thing, started to distance himself from the other Gentiles, and Paul saw it, he's like, This isn't right.

The gospel is for everybody, you're not better than them, they don't need to act like you in order to be you know more loved by God or real Christians or whatever.

So so we see that Paul confronted Peter, so it's not that he was like this perfect guy or anything, okay?

It's far from it.

It's also not to say that you know Peter held some kind of you know special or elite office in the church that you know every single bishop after him would hold to, as you know, the Roman Catholic Church has supposed.

I I think all kind of three of these things, uh, just taking the verse way too far.

Okay.

I believe that that likely the the the strongest explanation here is is probably also the simplest.

Okay, that when Jesus says this in reference to Peter, okay, upon this rock I will build my church, when he says this, it's simply a nod uh to the leadership role that Peter would go on to have among the disciples and in the launching and the building of the early church.

Right?

Peter was Peter was absolutely a leader, right?

He he really was.

He wasn't the only leader, he he he worked in unity, right, in consensus with the other apostles as well.

He wasn't just like a you know a gunslinger, lone ranger doing whatever he wanted.

No, he worked with them.

We also know that you know by the middle of Acts, he's not even in the picture anymore.

Okay, so but he but he was, he was a key leader, and this is what Jesus is is saying to him.

He's saying, like, you're gonna be very involved in in the leading and establishing of getting this church, this this grassroots messianic community kind of off the ground and running so that the Great Commission gets fulfilled.

Okay, so don't kind of miss out on on the real thrust of this section here.

Now getting to the verse that you see on the screen, the second half of it here, where Jesus says, I will build my church.

Right?

Jesus is going to do.

He's gonna use Peter, he's gonna use you know all of the apostles, he's gonna use us as well, but he's like, but the thrust is what Jesus is gonna do.

Right?

Peter plays a crucial role.

Okay, but Christ is the one who does the building, right?

Christ is the one who does the establishing of whose church?

Jesus, right?

Christ's church.

Now that word church there is actually the word um ecclesia, and it's the Old Testament word that we see for uh just referring to the people of God.

Okay, okay, literally it's it's it means the called out.

Okay, so you and I, we have been called out by by getting saved, called out of darkness, right?

We are the called out of culture and out of the out of the world.

We are we are the called out.

It's also a word that often just means assembly.

Assembly, all right?

So this this actually marks the very first time uh that this word is used in the New Testament.

Jesus utters it.

And ecclesia or church, of course, is what is what gatherings of local believers would go on to be known as.

That's why we call it the church uh today.

Okay, so so again, Jesus, he worked through his Holy Spirit, all right, through through people like Peter and and people like the other disciples in this very unique uh period in in human history as we see it here uh unfold in Acts in the New Testament.

Okay, and then you fast forward all these years to our day, and God is still working, right?

He's still working through people like you, right?

Through through people like myself, I pray, to accomplish this exact same goal of building uh strong local church communities.

And then uh what a statement next.

You see this this next part of the verse?

It says, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, right?

Against Christ's church.

Now, I I think that this is a verse that that we often kind of get backwards a little bit.

We kind of think of it in a wrong way, right?

We imagine this to mean that you know the forces of hell are attacking the church, right?

They're they're coming at us in in spiritual warfare and and Satan and our enemy wants to destroy uh the church, which I would say is is true, right?

Wait, it absolutely is true.

It's just it's just not exactly what this verse uh is really saying.

He can think about it.

Look at the verse again.

Do gates attack?

You ever think about that?

Do gates attack?

The answer is is no, okay.

Let me help you out with that.

The answer is no.

Uh what's a gates' job?

A gates job is to stand there and defend.

Right?

To to to be to be strong, okay?

To not fall down when when an opposing enemy army tries tries to bash it and uh and knock it down and break into a city.

Okay, now now gates of hell here as we see it is is literally uh gates of Hades.

Okay, gates of Hades.

And and whenever you see the word you know Hades mentioned in the Bible, it's it's a ref it's a reference to the power of death.

Okay, the power of death.

So what Jesus is saying here is not that that hell or or death is on the offensive against the church, but actually uh the other way around, that the church is is actually on the offensive against hell and against death.

Okay, this verse is not saying that hell's attacking us and and we gotta play defense and we just gotta withstand this and put up with whatever you know Satan spits and and throws at us, but although again, I think that is also true.

Right?

We see that in in Ephesians 6, certainly, and in other places in the scripture, but but here it's saying that the church is on the offense, right?

The church is actually attacking death, and death and hell cannot withstand those attacks.

Right?

It's got no chance.

The growth and the expansion of the church, it is not going to be stopped.

Hell, death, it's got nothing on what God is going to do through people like you and I.

Right?

I love this quote here by Kevin DeYoung.

Let's get this up there.

And this is what he says.

He says, the church is marching into all the hells of this world, ready to reclaim every square inch for Christ.

And when we storm the gates of hell, Christ promises we cannot fail.

We will prevail.

It's time to put the devil on the run.

It's time to save souls and destroy strongholds.

It's time to reclaim this world for Christ.

Listen up, church, the gates of hell shall not prevail against us.

Okay, against what God is doing.

I mean, that is awesome, right?

Do you get kind of chills when you think about this?

Christ is building this thing up here.

He's building up his church so that you and I we can spread out and have an influence across the globe, across the world, and complete this mission that he has given us, that he actually accomplishes through us to save people, rescue them from sin, from death, from hell, from the power of Hades.

Right?

Death can't defeat the Lord.

Okay, death cannot defeat us.

Why?

Because Jesus has already defeated it.

He defeated it the moment that he rose from the grave, the moment that he took a breath and walked out of that grave, death was done.

Okay, death has no power against us whatsoever.

Listen, have you ever, I'm not really like a huge movie or a war movie guy.

Okay, but but how many of you that you've watched war movies before, right?

And you see maybe those battles, those sword battles and stuff where where the the the army that we're kind of cheering for, the protagonist army, they're getting kind of beat down, right?

And they're maybe they're trying to attack a city and they can't quite get through, and and and people are pouring like hot oil over the wall and shooting arrows at them, and it kind of goes into this slow mo kind of scene here where it looks like they're gonna lose and all that, and then something happens, right?

There's like this turning point where like the the the opposing king gets gets killed, or or the gates finally come crashing down, or the wall starts to crack, and there's this turning point in the spirit, in the hearts, in the minds of the army where all of a sudden they're confident and they're like, all right, this is this is changed now, and we're going after this, we're gonna win.

It's it's it's ours, the victory is ours.

I think that's kind of the mentality that you and I should really have when we read this verse here, and we realize that nothing's gonna stop it.

Right?

When you hear that, that should fire you up, that should get you, that should get you excited.

Church, take, take courage, right?

Take take confidence in the fact that God's mission will not, cannot fail.

He is building his church, he's doing it here, he's doing it among us.

Anytime that he saves somebody, right?

Anytime that he is sanctifying you and he's helping you kind of work through your your areas of sin and your brokenness and and your taking ground and and all of that, he that's that's him building his church.

He's building you up, he's building us up, right?

But he's also doing that out in the world.

And he calls us to join him in that operation, which is really to plant and and establish churches, right?

Knowing again, we cannot lose this.

I love that.

That gets me fired up.

I hope you can tell.

That's been a huge blessing to me this week.

And of course, there's there's more here.

Let's get into uh this a little bit more here, what church planting kind of actually looks like in a practical sense, and even looking at that uh in our context here.

But here's the second thing.

Okay, we're committed to glorifying God through strategic church planting, providing encouragement and support as the church grows.

Okay, so for this, uh you can turn in your Bibles to the book of Acts, okay, Acts chapter 11.

Acts 11 · chapter mention

And like I've said, Acts is is about how the church got its start.

Right?

The whole book is is about church planting, if you think of it that way.

That's what it is.

Right?

And how the very first church began with with the disciples, right?

And the new converts as they witnessed, and this is all happening in Jerusalem, of course.

And and then in chapter 11, as you get to that point, we pick it up here with with the Jerusalem church's first church plant.

Okay, how cool is that?

The first church plant is actually in the city of Antioch.

You know, Antioch is is now the city of Antiochia.

I think I'm pronouncing that right in uh in modern day Turkey.

Okay, so take a look at what it says here.

Acts 11, starting in verse uh 19.

It says, Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over.

Stephen.

Okay, remember that?

Remember Stephen?

Remember how Stephen was stoned?

He was killed for uh for proclaiming Christ, and that was like a big signal to the church.

Oh wow, persecution is real and it's coming after us.

And because of this, they started to scatter, right?

They started to spread out across uh that area and into Samaria and Judea, of course.

Okay?

And in this, um, we see that God uses such a tragic situation like Stephen's death to actually get his people positioned exactly where he wants them so that they can uh reach the world.

Right again, just like I think a good reminder to us that that God is sovereign, right?

That God is in control and he can use the things that are in our lives that we think are are only negative and are only bad for his glory and to actually uh continue and carry out uh his mission.

Well, it says there that they that they traveled as far as Phoenicia.

Okay, Phoenicia is present-day Lebanon, just to give us a kind of a sense here, getting our bearings right.

Okay, so they traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and here we go, Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.

Okay, and so you had you had Jewish people evangelizing uh Jewish people.

That's what was happening as they as they spread out.

All right, but keep going.

It says, but there uh there were some of them, okay, some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene.

Okay, so these were some of the dispersed Jews that have had moved out of Jerusalem.

They were now living outside of their homeland of Israel.

So some of them, these men of Cyprus and Cyrene, okay, who, verse 20, on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists also.

Okay, the Hellenists were now Gentiles.

Okay, so some of these Jews were starting to proclaim the gospel to Gentiles.

Hellenists meaning, you know, Greek-speaking uh Gentiles.

Okay, what did it say?

Well, so what were they doing?

They were they were preaching the Lord Jesus.

Okay, look at this.

And the hand of the Lord was with them.

Okay, they're not on their own.

God is with them every single step of the way, guiding this whole thing.

All of this is happening according to his plan, right?

He was with them.

And look what happens.

A great number who believed turned to the Lord.

And so again, you see God building his church, now branching out to include Gentiles as well.

Okay, see, it was just a chapter earlier in Acts in chapter 10, where uh Peter had that experience with Cornelius.

Okay, do you remember that?

Cornelius was uh was a centurion, he was uh he was a gentile and a devout man, he loved God, but he didn't understand the gospel, okay, and he was respected uh by the Jews, and and Cornelius he has this he has this vision where an angel is sent to him, and and and and the angel says, Go and send for Peter.

Okay, and so he's like, all right, so he so he sends some men off to go find this guy named Peter, who he he doesn't even know, he's never met before.

While the men are coming, Peter has his own vision.

Okay, Peter has a vision as well, and and you remember he had he saw the vision of like that sheet being descended with a bunch of animals in it, and the you know, the rise Peter, kill and eat, right?

All the meat eaters rejoice in that verse.

It's in the Bible, we're supposed to eat meat.

I don't think that's really what it was about.

Okay, but he has this vision, and that's what that's what he sees.

And he's like, But I'm a but I'm a Jew.

There's some strict rules around what to eat and and and clean foods and unclean foods, and then the voice comes back to him and says, Do not call unclean what I have made clean.

So as he's like, it literally says, as he's trying to figure this out, the guys from Cornelius show up and they're like, Hey, can you come, can you come to Cornelius?

The Lord, he's had a vision.

Would you come?

He's like, All right, I'll come.

And so he gets there and he realizes, because the Lord impressed it upon him and told him, it says, told him that that the gospel is now for the Gentiles as well.

Do not call unclean what they have often associated as uh for the Gentiles, right?

They're unclean people.

This isn't for them, this is for us.

No, the the gospel is for Gentiles as well.

And so Peter ends up putting us all together because the Lord ironed this out for him, and so he preaches the gospel, and lo and behold, they get saved.

Right?

The Holy Spirit falls on them as well, and and they return all of this news back to the headquarters church in in Jerusalem.

All right, pretty amazing thing here.

And so they're realizing, oh, this is also for Gentiles, this is for everybody.

And so this is what was happening here now in Antioch.

Okay, verse 22, take a look back into Acts uh 11.

Okay, the report of this, okay, that again the gospel was going out into Gentiles, it came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.

Okay, when he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad.

He wasn't like, well, he wasn't trying to put a stop to it.

Wait a second, this isn't for the Gentiles.

No, he they recognized that that God was saving them too.

He's glad.

And he exhorted, you know what that word means?

That word just means like strongly encouraged, right?

He urged them, he exhorted them to all remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.

Okay, for he was a good man, this is Barnabas, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.

And a great many people were added to the Lord.

So you see how this church plant here in Antioch, it's it's growing now numerically.

More people are getting saved and being added to it.

But there's even more that's going on.

Verse 25, keep going.

Okay, so Barnabas went to Tarsus, okay, uh, to look for Paul or Saul, it says there.

Same guy.

Okay, and when he had found him, he brought him, Saul, to Antioch.

For a whole year they met with the church in Antioch and taught a great many people.

And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians.

That's where our name, our title kind of comes from.

Okay, so you see here that the church in Antioch, not only was it growing numerically, okay, but also in depth spiritually.

They're growing in depth as Paul and as and as and as Barnabas taught them, right?

As they encouraged them and discipled them.

Right?

Paul Barnabas was doing this too.

But again, he's God's not even done there.

Okay, keep going.

Take a look at what else happens, verse 27.

It says, now in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.

Okay, so more leaders, more support on its way, being sent down from the mother church in in Jerusalem.

Okay, and one of them, it says, named Agabas, stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world.

This took place uh in the days of Claudius.

Claudius was uh like a great military leader and had a lot of oversight over this uh region.

So there's a famine coming.

And so the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability, to send relief.

They send relief to the brothers living in Judea.

Okay, Judea, remember that's you know, in Jerusalem and then Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

So the gospel is going out there, they're caring for each other.

He uses this you know, this planting church in Jerusalem to provide not just not just spiritual exhortation and and encouragement, which of course is so important and necessary, but also physical support.

There's a famine coming.

We gotta we gotta care for people's uh felt needs here, all of this as the church in Antioch is growing, as needs arose.

Now, verse 30 just kind of concludes this section here by saying that they did so.

This is what they did.

They did so by by sending it to the elders, the elders of Antioch, that is, by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

Okay, so in this passage that we that we just read fairly quickly, honestly, uh you you get though this this wonderful picture here of how the Jerusalem church provided this amazing encouragement and and and support to this new church plant in Antioch as it grew.

Okay, and and this, honestly, it's somewhat simple.

This is really just the model uh that we we're seeking to kind of employ uh within the Great Commission Collective, right?

Within the GCC.

We see here in the scriptures that this is how churches are planted, this is how churches are strengthened as they develop.

So that ultimately, as as the as the plant starts to get stronger and healthier and grow and all of that, they can go on now to provide encouragement and provide support and even launch other church plants.

See how that works?

So now let's kind of take a second here and just sort of think about this in terms of our own uh context, right?

Think about our church now, Redemption Church in Newmarket, right?

Our church was planted by the lead church that planted us, was a Hope Bible church now uh in Markham.

Crazy to think that that was uh just about five years ago.

Five years ago uh in March.

And so uh some of you were here from the very beginning and and you were you know from this area, but you started you know attending the the church down there in Markham, and then at some point, you know, I I kind of joined from Harvest Berry, right?

So Harvest Berry even plays a role in this, and we kind of joke about that uh a little bit because that was like a really easy decision for them.

Like, yeah, leave by all means, get out of here.

Right?

But I left Barry to come down and join kind of the team in Markham to plant this with a number of of you.

And you and you'll remember in those early days, we had a lot of support from them, a ton of support.

We had you know some of their teachers and pastors come up and and do some of the preaching and teaching.

Right?

They certainly you know supported us big time uh financially as we you know grew and as we got our legs underneath us and all that, and we're able to get to the point uh where we could uh take care of the finances uh in-house here.

Right?

Their elders were were our elders until just you know just last year when we were able to uh install uh our own board here.

And so you see how they, as the like the kind of the mothership, provided a lot of encouragement and a lot of support uh to us.

What a blessing to us that we had that.

I can tell you right now, I wouldn't have wanted to plant a church uh on my own by myself with no support.

I think it was an amazing thing.

It's something that we see is so biblical.

We see it here in Acts chapter 11.

Acts 11 · chapter mention

You know, one of the you know really cool things that's kind of happened for us recently is that we've now had a hand, a small hand maybe, but in but in seeing you know Hope Church Toronto North get started.

Right?

We've seen that happen.

They just got planted in kind of the Yorkdale area uh just in uh September.

Okay, so let me give you just kind of a sense as to you know how some of the nuts and bolts of this uh all works.

I think it's really good uh that you're aware of this.

Okay, so so 5% of our overall church budget every year goes towards uh church planting.

Okay, so 5%.

And there's a bit of a breakdown there in that.

So 2% goes to uh kind of the operation of GCC, right?

And that helps you know pay their staff and and take care of their expenses and some of their needs.

So all GCC churches give 2% to them, and then we hang on to the remaining 3%, so the 2 plus 3 is five, just simple math.

Right?

We hold on to the 3%, and then we kind of as as elders, we get to decide how how are we gonna use this money now in church planting?

Right?

How are we gonna do this?

And and it could be really anything.

We could give that money to to a church overseas and help them with a building project that they might need.

There's a lot of very poor churches all over the world.

We could we could you know use it to go towards paying a pastor's salary and and and help them uh greatly in that.

It's amazing that we have this opportunity uh that the Lord can use us and use us to support these other churches.

Okay, in the Toronto, in the Hope uh Toronto North church plant, uh, we were part of what's what's called in the GCC, just a cohort, okay, a cohort of churches where where it wasn't like like just one church planting one church like Markham did for us.

But we actually kind of partner with a number of churches in this area and pool our resources together to see a church launch.

And so we joined with Markham, we joined with Oakville, with with Mississauga, with Toronto West to see uh Toronto North get planted, right?

We so we've supported them uh financially, even through the um through the special offerings that we've done over the last couple of years, and many of you have given to that uh very generously, and that has gone uh to this church.

I mean, we've had we've had Pastor Marv of Toronto North, we've had him up here a number of times to preach, and I'm you know really looking forward to getting down there to do that uh in the very near future.

Okay, but so far we've given in those ways and supported them in those ways.

We've also prayed for them a lot.

How huge is that?

We've prayed for them in our services, we've we've prayed for them at our at our prayer nights.

I know many of you have have prayed for them uh as well, just on your own time.

Okay, John and I, we have met with Pastor Marv in Cheyenne, he's their worship director, just to encourage them and and support them.

Right?

It's not too long ago that we were kind of in their shoes and trying to just kind of make things work and figure some things out within our own context.

And and I'll be meeting with Marv in just a couple of weeks, actually.

We're grabbing lunch and just pray together and encourage each other and see if there's any other ways that we can be a blessing to them.

Okay, these are just some of the ways that, you know, again, we have been encouraged, we have been supported by by other churches, and now how how we are looking to really pay it forward as we see that's the model here in the scriptures, right?

Right, working to kind of support and encourage other church plants uh as they grow.

Now, you might be kind of thinking here, and this isn't necessarily a wrong thought or anything, but you might be thinking, well, that's that that that's all well and good for for you, Pastor, or or the elders or the staff.

Like you guys have a kind of more of a hands-on kind of experience with let's say Toronto North, for example, but you know, well, maybe you're asking, well, like, what can I do as as like a member here or an attender here at redemption?

Like, how can I get you know more involved personally so that I'm providing encouragement and support to like Toronto North, for example, as well as they grow.

Okay, like even beyond our our our financial giving as as we do.

Now, if that is your headspace, that is a if that is your heart, um just know that I'm all for it.

I think that's amazing.

And I would say that one of the one of the greatest, biggest ways that you can you can support that church plant is by praying for them regularly.

Don't ever think like, ah, it's just prayer.

No, prayer is massive.

I mean, I I just reached out to Pastor Marv this week and I was asking him, like, what are some ways that our church uh can be praying for you as we just want to encourage and and provide some support in that way?

So we've got uh this up on the screen for you.

You're gonna go through this really quickly.

Grab your phones, take pictures, you know, maybe I don't know, print this off or look at your phone, pray for them regularly, that you would do that throughout the week.

It would be so great.

But you see that there, he's praying for strength and endurance for their Hope Kids team.

Right?

It's hard work.

So we're we're very used to that here, like serving kids and working with kids.

There are challenges to that.

It's it's hard.

So pray for their team, that their team would grow.

Pray that God would keep their church healthy.

Love that.

For them as they continue to have opportunities to just engage with unbelievers in their area and sharing the gospel and meeting practical needs.

That's how they would long for us to pray for them.

Okay, similarly, I reached out to Pastor Jason, Jason Locke down in Markham.

He's been the senior pastor there for uh for a year now, as he took over for uh Pastor Paul Whittingstall, uh, who we're very familiar with, and just asked, like, how can we be praying for you guys?

And so all that's on the screen as well.

They they want prayer that they would be empowered by the Spirit to be bold witnesses and merciful neighbors.

They want to share the gospel, all stuff that we're talking about, trying to do uh as well here.

Right?

And of course, they want to be devoted to prayer.

There's a big thrust for prayer in their church this uh this year.

Listen, you have no idea how much it means to me as a pastor when I when I run into people uh who are who are visiting our church on any given Sunday, right?

Who come in here and they might be from Oakville, or they might be from Toronto West or Markham, and and they'll come in here and they say, hey, we've been praying for you and just want to encourage me and us to keep going in the work uh of the Lord here.

I mean, it means it means an absolute ton, more than you might think.

You know, on another note, I think that's another way that that you and I we can support these other churches.

Again, thinking, you know, uh Toronto North uh specifically, right?

That if you get an opportunity and and maybe you're you know you got an off Sunday, it's kind of a staycation thing for you, and you don't have any duties here, maybe get an opportunity to go and visit one of these churches.

Visit Toronto North.

Get down there and encourage them.

Don't just go and then leave.

Let them know hey, we're from Newmark.

We've been praying for you guys uh for months and months.

Right?

We we've we we we support you, we care about you, keep going.

The work is hard, but but it's good.

Support them, support Marv, encourage their pastor, encourage their leaders and their people.

It's such a strong show of support.

It goes a long way.

Trust me, it really does.

Now, beyond all of this, okay, in the ways that you know we're trying to you know encourage and support you know another church or other churches even closer to home, just to give you kind of an update here, a little bit of a sense, like our elders right now are currently kind of thinking through and and and praying through and exploring some some relationships with some some other GCC churches uh that would be like overseas, okay, further away, more to the ends of the earth uh type of idea.

Right?

How can we get involved with them and or with one of them and build some relationships uh there and see how we can support?

And there could be you know further opportunities for for some of you to actually go and visit and travel and go to these churches, and we could have mission trips.

I mean, these are things that I'm praying for, these are things that I'm excited about because I want us to have a greater impact to the glory of God uh across the globe.

Okay, so many things that I would love to say about that, but just kind of stay tuned for updates from us about how all that shapes up, and please pray for us, pray for your elders, right?

That the Lord would give us clear direction on all of these things.

We love and need your prayers.

Okay, for now let's keep going here.

Final thing.

Okay, we are committed, okay, committed to glorifying God through strategic church planting, pushing through the pain so that the church becomes mature.

If you want to turn now over a few pages, still in Acts, but to Acts chapter 20, hey, Acts chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention Acts 20 · chapter mention

Okay, the church uh since chapter 11, it has uh continued its expansion, all right, and and it was through the missionary journeys of uh of Paul and Barnabas, and then and then Paul and Silas and Paul and Timothy.

Okay, churches are kind of sprouting up all over, right?

Despite the very heavy persecution that that is happening, okay, they're taking ground for the Lord.

Remember, right?

The the gates of hell shall not prevail, right?

The Lord is spreading out his church and building it, nothing's stopping it.

Okay, well, one of those churches was the one in Ephesus.

You've read the book of Ephesians before, that's the church that we're talking about in Timothy, first and second Timothy, that guy, right, he was their he was their pastor.

Okay, which brings all of us, uh brings us now to verse 17, Acts chapter 20, verse 17.

Acts 20:17

He says, now from uh Miletus, okay, Miletus was like a major harbor city in ancient Greek, no longer exists.

Okay, but it's a major, major city at the time.

He, that's Paul, sent to Ephesus and called the elders of that church to come to him.

Okay, so having like a kind of like a powwow, like a like a meeting together, a meeting of the minds.

Okay, and when they came to him, he said to them, Okay, this is his his testimony now of service to them and and what he's done.

Okay, listen up.

He says, He says, You yourself, he says to the elders, you know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews.

Okay, the Jews were uh not all the Jews, but the religious leaders.

Remember, they were clinging hard to uh to what they were all about, and and and they persecuted, they persecuted Paul, they they persecuted the church.

The the scriptures actually say they followed him around throughout his journeys just to harass him and to try and stop the work that he was doing, right?

They persecuted, that's trials and tears about all of that, right?

If you keep going, he says, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying to both Jews and to Greeks of what?

Well, of repentance towards God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Is that the gospel?

Proclaiming the gospel, I'm testifying to the gospel constantly with you.

Right?

Verse 22, he says, and now behold, I am going to Jerusalem.

So he's going back to Jerusalem now.

He says, constrained.

Constrained means like strongly, strongly compelled.

Okay?

I'm constrained by the Holy Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit Testifies to me.

So the Holy Spirit's giving them this strong sense here, okay, that in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.

Imprisonment and afflictions.

But, he says, now listen how sold out Paul is to seeing people reached for the Lord and ensuring that mature churches get planted.

He says, But, but I do not account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself.

Incredible.

If only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

Oh, that we would have this mentality.

It's like my life, it's not about me, it's not about my comfort, it's not about, you know, my life doesn't really matter.

The Lord use my life how he will.

Oh, that I would just finish out this calling that he's placed on my life to plant churches and to encourage them.

Love it.

Verse 25.

And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.

All right, so he can sense here that his death is near.

This is towards the end of his life.

And so there's sadness in this.

He says, Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, which is really like saying, you know, he's done his part, right?

I I've ministered to you, I've I've kind of left it all on the field, right?

And if so, if you were to go wayward after this point, that's not on me anymore.

I'm I'm innocent of the blood of all, he says.

He says, For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

So everything that I knew about God in his word, I I proclaimed that to you.

I didn't shrink back from some of the hard parts, the uncomfortable parts, the unpopular parts.

I I shared that with all of you.

I didn't shrink back from it.

He discipled them to the full extent of his abilities, that he was able.

Keep in mind, he's speaking to elders.

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.

That's really where we get the word elders from.

Okay?

To care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

Okay, so in that you see uh the role of elders.

They're to shepherd the church, they're to shepherd the flock that God has given them as under-shepherds of the great shepherd, right?

Of Christ.

He says, I know that after my departure, he's like, here's how it's gonna go down fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore, he says, Be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease, night or day, to admonish, that that word means rebuke, to admonish you everyone, with tears.

And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up.

Right?

He's talking about maturity here, the grace of God to build the church mature, you see that?

And to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

He says, I cover I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel.

He's not, he's like, I'm not in this for worldly things and and to make a huge salary or anything.

He says, You yourselves know that these hands, so he's talking about the elders' hands now, these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who are with me.

In all things, I have shown you that by working hard, you see the see the attitude and and and and the mindset that he had, by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, is more blessed to give than to receive.

And no question here.

Paul was committed, he was committed to church planting, committed to seeing these people in this church and these churches that he ministered to become spiritually mature in the Lord.

Right?

And to accomplish that goal, okay, by grace and the in the power of the Spirit, he had to push through some significant pain, didn't he?

Through some real challenges.

We see in this passage, right, the pain of tears and trials at the hands of those, those Jews, those leaders who persecuted him.

Right?

The pain of sensing that imprisonment and and afflictions awaited him in Jerusalem.

You imagine having that weigh on you, knowing that I'm probably gonna get beaten, probably gonna get thrown in jail here, in prison.

Right?

The prison, the pain of knowing that he would die doing this.

How about the pain of knowing that that wolves would come in and seek to undo all the years of service that he put into this church and try and tear it apart by by by warping the gospel?

Even the realization that it might be some of the elders that I'm I'm telling this to.

Right?

Elders could could stray and and they could warp the gospel and get people away from from pure doctrine.

But how about how about the pain of just admonishing and and rebuking the people in this church, he says, night and day.

He says that in verse 31.

There's likely some pain, or at least inconvenience, of being in need constantly.

Remember, he didn't have anything.

He didn't own anything.

He says, I'm not in it for silver or gold.

I sense that that was his heart for sure.

He says that, I believe him.

Okay, but you can imagine the inconvenience of not having a home, of not owning much other than what was on his back.

But he said that the elders were so merciful to him and provided for him and the people that were on his journey uh with him.

Or how about this pain?

Lastly, just the pain involved in working hard, working hard in their local church, working hard to help the weak.

See that in verse 35.

No question, church.

We're uh church planting.

It's difficult.

It's painful work, right?

That needs to be pushed through.

Not quit on, not given up on.

We need the Holy Spirit, we need grace to do this, but it's hard.

So you in?

It's tough, isn't it?

But that that's that's the challenge.

That's that's the urge to all of us, that's the exhortation uh from me to you, from God's word to you here this morning.

This is hard work, but are you in on this here and and out there?

Right?

I I think at the end of the day, we we we all long to be called to something that's beyond ourselves, that's that's bigger than us.

You know, I think even just as a man, you know, and speaking to men, I don't want to be called something that's lame.

I I don't want to spend my life wasting it.

I don't want to do something that's not gonna have eternal significance and impact.

Right?

I don't want to live for myself and my own lame, stupid pleasures.

I want to live for what the Lord wants me to do.

And this is hard and it is brutal and it requires pain, and it might, like we talked about last week, end up sending us to prison for it.

But the Lord builds his church, right?

And he uses us and he works in us.

Are you in?

Are you are you are you with me on this?

Are we gonna pray for each other?

Are we gonna are we gonna support each other in this?

Church planting is what we're about.

And I think we're still very much in the infancy stage of all of this, to be perfectly up front with you about all of it.

We're we're still working, and I mean we always will be working, right?

To just push through the through the the various pain of uh of trying to see our own church grow up into maturity.

Right?

It takes years and consistency and faith and relying on the Lord's strength.

To do that, we gotta we gotta we gotta work hard and and push through those various discouragements that that we all get, those disappointments that we have with it with one another and and with the difficulties that we have with people and with our own selves.

Right as we try and like get our own hearts into this and disciple ourselves and our families.

As you deal with all of that in serving week in and and week out and the different roles that God's called you to here, listen, you're gonna feel pain.

Right?

I love how the scriptures are just blunt about it.

It's gonna be hard, it's gonna be difficult.

You're gonna need to push through as you battle your, again, just even your own heart, let alone other people.

But remind yourself and and find confidence, find, find courage in your God that again, He is growing this, He is establishing this, He is building this.

Gates of hell are are crashing down every time that you push through your fears, right?

Every time you tackle sin areas of your life, anytime you kind of confront brokenness and bring it before the Lord and ask for his grace, gates of hell are crashing down.

Church, do not grow weary of doing good.

That is a verse that has encouraged me at multiple points throughout my ministry and certainly throughout this week as well.

That's Galatians chapter 6, verse 9.

Galatians 6:9

Do not grow weary of doing good.

Keep your hand to the plow and ensure that you're doing your part here by grace to see that our church becomes mature.

Right?

And as we do that, and as we're faithful in these things, I don't want to call them little things because they're very important things, but as we're faithful in this, the Lord graciously will give us even more opportunities to serve other believers, right?

To serve other churches in the days to come.

I'm excited about that.

I'm excited about how the Lord wants to use you and what he might be stirring up in you.

Do you allow yourself to catch the vision of this today?

Right, and realize that we're part of something really great that the Lord is doing in the GCC.

And it's not just about us, it's about them out there as well.

Will you have the heart for that?

Will you seek the Lord for strength in these things?

Will you pray for yourself?

Will you pray for all of us here in this room?

Pray for your leaders.

We want to see the Lord bring glory to his name by fulfilling the great commission.