Our Mission for Missions | Elder Terence Atkinson

You're listening to a message to go from acts Church. We hope this message

will light up your day. The word for this morning is our mission for

missions. So what is radically saved God to do with missions? Well,

we're not saved just to know Jesus is our Lord and savior. Yeah,

that's that's part and parcel. But I think there's more twin than that.

You know, there's more to being saved than just knowing who Jesus is.

So our mission for missions towards the finishing line heaven rules. I'm reading from

Closions one Versus one two Poul an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will

of God. And Timothy our brother to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ

who are in Coloss Grace to you and peace from God a Father and the

Lord Jesus Christ. What was Paul's relationship with the church at Coloss Do you

realize that Paul had never been to Coloss Colossi, He had never been there,

But yet he took the trouble to spend some time to write to them,

to be interested in them, to have some kind of fellowship with them.

Hey, how many of us can be excited when some other church is

doing well. You know it is it is imperative for us to be happy,

to be joyful, to enjoy other churches and other ministries also prospering.

You know why we're all in the same book. These are our brothers and

sisters in Christ, whom God is blessing. So we should not look at

some other church and some other places and some other people who know Christ and

say, ah, how come things are so easy for them, and it's

not so easy for us. Our calling is different. So who started the

church in coloss It was Apoprus. He had started the church in Coloss and

he had gone and he had met Pauline told Paul all these great testimonies that

were taking place, and Paul was excited. Hey, he was happy,

he was joyful, he was blessed. You know, that's what missions is.

Can you and I be blessed in some other place seeing some other ministry

take place? Why do we go and share the world with someone else?

Why do we go to some other church and help them? Why do we

go to some other people and help them? You see, Paul did not

only concern himself with the churches he had started. He also concerned himself with

churches that he had not And if you read a little bit further on in

book or Collisions, you'd find that he says, I've never met you and

you have never met me. But he still took the trouble to write.

So what can we learn about this? Hey? Sometimes we are called to

go out for missions. We're called to go and share with the people whom

we've not met. We are called to another place. That's okay, It's

okay to go and bless somebody else. Hey, it's so sad if the

only ones we want to blesses ourselves, isn't it? That's really sad?

Why did why did Paul say? Why did Jesus say in Matthew twenty eight

going to all the world and preach the gospel yesterday? When we go out

and share the world, we're doing what God wants of us. Because you

have an anointing that you are caring forward to a different lad You're sharing with

them something that Lord, the Lord has blessed you with some knowledge that the

Lord is blessed you with. Paul was sharing with them in this letter all

the things that he had learned, and he was encouraging them. He was

blessing them. He wanted to do something special for them. He wrote a

letter. Inclusions one three to five says we give thanks to God. And

this is what Paul was saying. I give thanks to God and Father,

our Lord Jesus, praying always for you. Hey. He didn't pray.

Sometimes he didn't pray a few times he said, he prays always for this

church, for this people whom he has never met. Since we have heard

of your faith in Christ, Jesus, and of your love for all the

saints, because of the hope which has laid up for you in heaven,

which we have heard before in the word of the truth of the Gospel.

Paul was saying, I thank God, Hey, when we go out and

we share, when we go out to a different place, what are we

doing? We are actually thankful that God has blessed somebody else and put you

there to be a further blessing. Can we pray for a people whom we

do not know. You don't need to go, and if you can't go,

can you at least pray? Can you at least show some concern for

somebody else that's not your, your own or not us? Why do we

get excited about somebody else that's not us. When I first became a Christian,

this was way back in seventeen nine. I went to study in Singapore

in eighty. In nineteen eighty, I was a very new Christian. I

had not known. I did not know much. But I'll tell you this,

I have never seen more people come to the Lord with me sharing that

little bit that I know. Then at the times when I already knew all

the you know, the deeper things and Lord of theology, I've not seen

as many people come to the Lord with all my theology. But with the

simple things that I knew, I saw people come to the Lord. So

anyway, I went to Singapore and I didn't know anybody there. I didn't

know anybody in Singapore, and of because I had relatives, I stayed with

relatives for a little while. And this was, like I said, nineteen

eighty. I went to the school. And you know how I picked my

school. My school was the first name on the list, Bartley Secondary School.

So I went. I went to the school. You got a place,

Yes you have, Okay, can I join? They said, Uh,

can you give me money? He said, I don't want to give

you money. I just gave the government money to go to Singapore. You

have to pay five thousand singers at that time. That's equivalent about thirty forty

thousand dollars now. And but I said, what I can do is I

can train your tennis team. So what But you don't have a tennis court.

So the principal looked ten me say, I want a tennis team.

Don't worry. I built your colle So he actually built a tennis court,

nice beautiful tennis court, big one, and he gave me the key.

He says, it's yours. You trained the school team. So actually it

was a dream come true for me. Man, I used to live,

breathe and dream. I know I'm shot, okay, but I really love

tennis. I could do a lot with the tennis ball in my rack,

in my head, okay, even though I was short. But you know

I had the tennis call. Godhead blessed me with something I like, and

I trained that Tennessee. I remember the first time I was forming the school

team, I say, we're studying a tennis team. Will you'll come?

Twenty people came with their tennis records. One in the afternoon. I say,

okay, follow me and we went for a five kilometer jog with the

rackets in the head. When we came back, fifteen dropped out, sorry,

fourteen dropped out. Six remain and say, okay, you're the ones

I will trade. And well, you know, we did pretty well for

a first time team. We at least gave the champions a real fight for

their money, you know. And this is how God blessed. I used

to stay in a church hostel. The church was here and you walked through

a gate and then you got the church hostel. So what I used to

do after school, I'd go to church and pray for those people who were

possessed. Every night, the pastor there would be praying for those people who

are pressed of the devil, those people who were possessed. And so every

night I would go to church and I would pray with him and his team,

and we'd preentaled about maybe four or five in the morning. Then I'd

go back, take my shower, get ready for school, go to school

at six in the morning, take the bus from Juo all the way to

Bartley Road and and be there in school until seven in the evening. Go

back and do the same thing over and over again. So every night I

used to tell my friends about the things that God was doing among these people.

I remember that when we were praying for one person three of the people

that had charmed the three of the people, the priests of some other faith

came to the church because they knew that we were praying for this person's delivery.

But you know, it's the three of them. And I saw this

in my own eyes as they stepped foot across the gate into church like that,

all three of them fainted. They were on the ground. Then they

came to their senses, they got up, and they literally ran away.

Because the power of God is real. The power of God supersedes the power

of the evil one. And this is just the amazing things. And every

day I'd go and tell my friends. And I didn't know that I was

on a mission. I had no idea that I was sharing Jesus Christ with

them as a missionary would. But you see, we think that when we

share Jesus Christ, it has to be you know, like this, I

give out come and give a message and preached them. No, being in

a mission field is just telling everybody about what Jesus is doing in your life.

And every day, I go and tell them, I go and tell

them about how people were being delivered. I remember this one little girl,

and nobody could hold this little girl down. You know, she was a

little girl. Four men had to hold it down even as we were praying.

Now, don't for a minute think that the enemy is all that powerful.

You see, the church that I was in at the time, they

were not holy spirit filled. They were Bible believing Christians going by faith,

but did not know that much the power of the Holy Spirit in dwelling in

them like you and I do. And although I was baptized, but they

had told me, no, you cannot speak in tongues in church, you

know, okay, fine, But the word that I was receiving was very,

very strong. That's why I remained there. And this little girl,

which men could not hold in the name of Jesus, come out and she's

fine. Ten years old. I remember there was one guy who we prayed,

and we prayed and we prayed, and the demon would not come out.

He just wouldn't come out. So the pastor said, you know,

it's late, go back, get some rest, you know, come the

next day. Tell me whatever the Lord reveals to you. Okay. I

went back about three or four in the morning. I had a couple of

hours snap before I had to go to school, and in that time I

had a dream. And in the dream, I had washed my uniforms and

I hung them out to dry, and I was on the third floor of

the hostel, and I remembered that dream. When I came to take the

clothes in, the second uniform had fallen all the way to the ground.

And I'm thinking, my dream, isn't it kind of strange? Shouldn't the

one nearest to the balcony edge be the one that falls? But it was

the second one, so I thought, okay, never mind. Next day

I came and I told the pastor. Pastor, this is the dream that

I had, and I found it very strange. This is okay, I'll

take I went to school. When I came back that evening, the pastor

told me, Terrence, you remember the dream. He told me, yeah,

well, the demon couldn't come out. We went to the house.

We went, you know, searching through his things to see why, what

could be preventing, And as we came up, we came across a set

of uniforms. And as we were going through it, the second one fell

to the ground. When we picked up the second one, we found in

it a charm that had been put by one of his so called friends.

So when we saw that charm, we took the uniform and that charm,

and in the name of Jesus, we threw it into the fire. And

the moment it burned, the demon came out. When I went to school

the next thing, and I told my friends, oh man, they were

so afraid, you know, but they were hearing and I'm getting somewhere right,

I'm getting somewhere telling all this. So they were three very close friends

of mine, and I would be sharing with them each and every day the

amazing things that God was due and the power of deliverance that was happening in

church every night. So I lived on about one hours sleep or two hours

sleep four weeks on end. I remember one night one day, I went

to Orchard Road and I suddenly fell sick. So I told my friends,

I can't join you today. This was a Saturday, Saturday morning, about

nine o'clock, I went back to Jurong by bus. I had only enough

of energy to get upstairs, and when I opened the door, I literally

crashed on my bed with my shoes on. I just collapsed in the bed.

I got up the next evening at six. I actually slept for about

thirty hours straight. And after that I was feeling fine. God sustains.

God always sustains. So now we have I'm telling these people these things.

I'm telling my friends these things. And when I left Singapore, I was

kind of sad because these three friends of mine it seemed as if they didn't

accept the Lord and say, oh, you know, have I wasted my

time? Did I waste their time? I want you to know something,

when you share the word of God with someone, when you tell someone about

Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter whether you see the result there or not,

because you have sown a seed. It's a seed that will grow and many

years later you may see the fruit. So this is what I had been

sharing and sawing with my three friends all right now. In Collusions one sixth

it says, which has come to you, It is as it has also

in all the world, which is bringing fought fruit, as it is also

among you since the day that you have heard and you, by the grace

of God in truth, hey, when people here, fruit will come.

When you go out and you tell people about Jesus, fruit will come.

So I'll skip the next one, but I just want to go to the

next slide pictures. Okay, you see this. This was me seventy pounds

ago. I'm on your right, all right. This was in nineteen eighty

one. And you see the guy on the right, he is a person

that I lived with him. After one year in the church hostel, my

friend's parents got to know me and say, Terence, can you come in

and live with us? They invited me to live with them, and I

went to live with them simple people. The reason why I lived with them

stayed with them was because I think they wanted me to be a good influence

on their son. The guy in all right, his name is Raymond.

I you know, he was one of the people. How we got to

know each other Tennis. So you see how everything works for God's good purpose

because of Tennis. I met him. Because I met him, he invited

me to his house for some you know, lunch or something like. I

got to meet his parents. And when I met his parents, his parents

like me. They asked me to come and live with them. Why they

wanted me to be company for their son. Now, he was a young

guy. His closest sibling next to him was fifteen years older, all right,

and he had about ten siblings. All of them loved me so actually

they became like my family, and I grew very very close with them,

and when I came back to Malaysia, we kept in close touch until one

day my computer crash. You want, you must remember this was before the

internet, This was before WhatsApp and before your your your your smartphones. So

when that computer crashed, my details of him was lost, and I lost

contact with him for twenty five years. And I tried. I tried so

hard. They shifted house, I tried to contact him. I just couldn't.

I tried through my other friends, but you see, he had left

Singapore, so we just completely lost touch for twenty five years. I kept

searching for him. One night, on the night, I told the Lord

this, God, I give up. I've tried searching for him every way

and I cannot find him. I don't know know whether he's alive or whether

is dead, but I give up. So I went to bed. As

I lay my head on the pillow, I heard the Lord audibly get up,

go and search for him. Now, it was a very forceful command.

So at twelve minutnight I just put my head on the pillow. So

I dragged myself out of bed. I went to the computer, did everything

I had always done, nothing different, And guess what I found him.

I found his name on a golf handicap list. I think it's called National

Association of something Golf Professionals or whatever. I found out he's a single hap

anicapper anicapper of three. You know, it's very very good. After I

found that, I found out that he was in Bangkok. I began searching

and I found a company that had a name that looks similar to his.

So the next morning I called that company. Let's say, is this person

Da da Da Da dada from SPOS He? Yes, I say, can

you let him know? Oh, he's just retired, I said, I

don't care. If you've got his number, call him for me. Please

tell him that I'm trying to contact him, find out whether he is the

one and navy is give me give my number to him, and a few

minutes later he called. Twenty five years this happened during the pandemic twenty twenty

is when we caught up with one another and I told him when we can

travel, I want to catch up with you. So that's him on the

right. Next picture, that's him. I'm also on the left. Seventy

pounds later and that's him on the right. I met up with him last

year on Malaysia's National Day August thirty first, and that's a picture of us

singing. You know what we're singing. We're singing gospel music. He married

a Christian and he continued to play golf. He did not give his life

to the Lord. One day he was shifting house and he heard a doorbell

ding dong in the morning. He went to the door and when he opened

he found twenty people there. What are you doing here? Since we've come

to help you move? They were from his wife's church, so he was

so touched. They helped him move house. And then when he moved house,

he told his wife can I go to church? She said, okay.

She took him to church and found that they were having lunch on the

floor. Because it was a very small church. You know maybe about the

shop lots. They're very small, maybe about sixteen feet by about ten twes

one hundred and sixty square feet. Obsessed announcers and they were all eating on

the floor. Then he said, it's not right that they eat on the

floor. He bought them tables and chess. Then he got to know these

people and he began to love them. Then I want to tell you this.

He bought a factory. And then he told his wife, I think

we have a little bit of money. Why didn't we buy the plot of

land by the side of the factory. He bought a plot of land.

What did he do? As I told you this before, I think he

built a church. He showed me a picture of the church's It now sits

about three hundred people. It's lovely, it's a beautiful place. And he

keeps expanding the church. Now, how many times did he do this?

He did this. He did this four times. Then he bought another plot

of landing he said he you know, I think you want to build a

Christian school. Then told his wife, I have only enough money to buy

the land. So now money bought the land. And then he says he

wasn't satisfied. He went going around talking to his friends. One of his

friends and no, man, I'll build the whole school. Built the school.

When we when there last year, there were seven students. Now they

are twenty. It's a Christian school by the way. Now, next line,

you see this. This is eight hours from Bangkok up north. So

he bought a rubber plantation. I think it's about eleven eleven or so acres.

Then he said, let's do something with it. So he cleared two

acres and he's building a church there. This is the church. The church

is here starting off the church, and that's where he stays when he goes

down to check and see how the work is going. He's got one of

those tens you know, it's a lovely tenor. And uh, you can

go to the next line building a fish pond. You know why saw that?

When I just want to go and have a time out, they can

also go there, so he wants he's thinking about that. You go to

the next life. That's a closer picture of the church and the next life.

This is his pastor, just going house to house sharing the gospel.

I think this is his wife here. When they first built it five months

ago, they had three people. Today they have twenty. This was a

friend that I loved as a brother who I lost contact with twenty five years.

But God did not lose contact with him and all, and they will

tell you. These guys will tell you they never forgot the things that I

was telling them and sharing with them every day in school, and it changed

them. It made them open. You do not know when you go somewhere

and you meet somebody and you just tell them what you know? What do

you know? You know how God saved you, isn't it? You know

how God helped you. He's not asking you to preach to them some theology.

He's just asking you to share with them what you know. And look.

Twenty years later, no, No, forty years later, forty one

years later, five churches and a school. I told him. I met

him again last month and I told him, you know what, I'm really

really proud of you. You have changed so much. Being the last child

was very beneficial for him. Means he always got his way, okay,

which is why I think the parents wanted me to stay with him so that

I could help him. He came one day to meet his his terrence.

I don't know what I'm gonna do. I think I know just enough to

pass my A levels. But if I pass, I have to go for

National service and that'll be the end of it. So I said, then

fail and when you fail and you retain, you're allowed to retain one year

in Singapore. When you retain, make sure you give it all you God,

so that when you come out on national service you got a good standing.

You know what he did, He did exactly that and he got better

results. Caused him to be an officer in the Navy who was a stepping

stone for him. God will do things like that. You do not realize

the impact you're going to have on people just by telling them what you know.

Hey, how many of you are here from another country? Can I

see us your hands? Okay, that's one of you. Welcome, all

right, let me tell you wherever you go, God will use you.

Let's make it a little bit easy. How many of you are from different

states? That's quite a lot of you. Are you blessing the church because

you're here from another state? You are? God has actually said, you

know you're a missionary, just that you don't know it. But life is

a mission. Life is a mission. So now when you understand this,

you're not so afraid to go elsewhere, because what are you doing? You're

doing what Paul did, being happy for another church, being happy for brothers

and sisters he had not met, having interaction and connection with him. Remember

what Jesus said, I pray that you maybe one, even as eye and

the Father are one. This is what he's talking about. Being one doesn't

mean altogether, you know. It simply means having one heart for one another.

You can have a one heart for one another. When you want to

see somebody, come up. Go on in the next picture. You see

this guy. I've told you this testimony. I thought I put a face

to it. There's another one of my classmates. I found out that he

became a preacher. He's a pastor. And how did this happens? It's

you, I think, what do you mean? It's me? This don't

remember what you wrote in my autograph book. I said, how can I

remember? It's been forty years. He said, you wrote this. If

ever you run into trouble, call on the name of Jesus and he will

come and he will help you. This guy was very very rich, or

could be still very rich. I don't know, very very rich. He

had his own yacht, by the way, and when he was on that

yacht in the waters alone, something happening. He was about to die,

and in desperation. He was wondering what to do, and he remembered what

I wrote in the autograph book, and he called on the name of Jesus,

and he said, Jesus came to me and helped me. The moment

I got to land, I gave everything up and I went to serving full

time. How is this possible? I want you to know that your life

is exciting. You know, your life really is exciting. Do you know

that in twenty years time, I'm going to hear so many testimonies about people

whose lives I have touched but did not know. Why must you know it

now? Why must everything you do have a response that you see right now?

Why? And then you get so discouraged. I don't see anything happening

because you don't see it now. But then when you get older like me,

and then you begin to see all these things, you realize one thing,

it doesn't happen. Happen now. It's a process. You've sown the

seed, and God will take that seat and grow it into a plan that

will produce fruit. And many years down the line, you will look at

it and you'll say wow. You mean to say, I had a hand

in that, And God will pat you on the shoulder and say thank you

for going. Thank you for going, because you at least told them what

you knew. I could work with that. It is much better for you

to tell somebody something you know and believe than to tell them something profound,

even though it's true, when you don't have a connection in your heart about

it. That's why I said, the greatest number of people I've seen come

to the Lord are the ones which I did not share with them theology.

I just shared with them what God was doing in my life. You know,

I didn't get saved in a in a big church. Praise God for

those of us that are saved in a big church. I was saved in

a church the woods, literally in a palmoil estate, small little church.

But I've always known a life of plenty to go into an area like that,

and that's where God decides to save me. Wow. Because people were

only giving off their faith with simplicity, I love your Lord, and because

they were telling the Lord I love your Lord in worship, the presence of

the Lord came down on me and saved me. And I was looking at

these lights. The Lord just ministered to me and he said, you know,

what. Yeah, this is how it was when the Lord saved me.

It was during worship. The worship was two and a half hours long.

The message was two hours long, and then after that we worshiped another

two and a half hours. Don't worry, I'm not going to keep you

that long. I promise you. She showed me five minutes. I'll take

that five minutes. I was there and all these people are worshiping the Lord,

and this pillar came down on me. It was a pillar. And

what was the pillar? And I and I and I could see through it.

It was gold. I'm seeing through the pillars and all of you.

I'm seeing through a shield of gold. It's like, can you see the

bow where you are? You can see that bow through that gold? Per

perplex perspect perspect plastic. Why did they make what's so difficult? It's plastic?

And then a voice said, Terrence, you're not a Christian except me

now. And I gave my life a lot quietly, no sinners, prayer

given, no altar call, just a loon because I heard I heard the

voice of the Lord. Hey, you're gonna go to places, all right.

There's a connection. There's a connection with believers elsewhere. So if you

get a chance to go, you're just getting to go to tell them what

God has done for you. You know why, because everybody knows what God

has done for this person. He is the same person in the same place.

Everybody knows. Ready, But somebody comes from outside and comes in here

and tells you about their life is something new that may be the very thing

that sparks your heart. So today I've got friends who loved the Lord.

I told you about my other one, right, the other friend. Because

there's there's a group of three of us, three four of us. Okay,

the other one was a and I've told you this testimony today. He

is a he is he is what's the word event not evangelist, missionary,

all right, very rich guy, very successful, high performing alcoholic. Yeah,

he was an alcoholic, high performing meaning that everything he touches turns to

gold. While he is an alcoholic. He starts with liquor at ninety m.

You and I start with coffee. He starts with liquor. All right,

But you know what, God saved him. He had he had third

stage cancer of the osagas and they had to operate him from the back and

only twenty percent survived this operation. And when they operated in the back,

they found his spread to his arm, so they had to cut his arm

to remove all this. So it's quite quite a difficult operation. In the

operation, he was dying, and when he was dying, his wife was

singing gospel music to him, and the Lord met him and said, you're

not going to die now, I'm sending you back. Go and serve me.

He walked at a hospital in two weeks from an operation at less than

twenty percent survived from And today he goes around Southeast Asia. He gave his

business to his support in it and say you work for me, You go

ahead and do that I And all he does is he goes around Southeast Asia

as a missionary impact these people who hurt those testimonies their lives. And every

time we meet, it's the same conversation, how those words that I shared

with them when I was there impacted their life. Hey, they are going

to be many people who are gonna come up to you when we meet in

heaven, going to tell you you had a part in putting me on the

right track. And you'll say, I don't even know you. You see,

because we want to see answers. Now, fruit doesn't come until the

seed just dates. And when the seed just dates, it's got to take

root. It's got to grow, it's got to mature, and only when

it matures it fruits. So you and I got to understand one thing.

Whatever you do for the Lord is going to take time. But nothing that

you do for the Lord is ever wasted. Praise the Lord. We hope

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you. God bless