Witness Pt. 26

Aren't you glad you came to church today?

Amen.

I'm glad you came too.

For those of you that may not know me, my name is Jesse, and I'm the preacher, and so that's what I'm going to do now.

So take your Bible, if you would, and turn with me to Acts chapter 14.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 14, we are going to begin reading in the first verse of this chapter, and we will consider the entirety of this text.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

Now, while you are finding your place in Acts 14, I want to draw your attention to this screen.

This is one of the favorite pictures of me that has ever been taken.

First of all, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way.

That hair, though, right?

We got to bring that back.

Now, that's not why I love the picture.

It's not just a luxurious mane that I like.

That is a picture of me preaching in Leicester Square in London, England, on a Friday night.

Now, Leicester Square is in London's West End and is the heart of London's entertainment district.

This is sort of like England's version of Broadway, if you will.

And on a Friday night in Leicester Square, over one million people will walk through that area every Friday night.

It is packed.

I was on a mission trip in London in the summer of 2023, and on that particular Friday evening, we were working with a group of street preachers and evangelists from the British Open Air Mission.

This is what they do.

They preach and share the gospel publicly.

And while we were working with them, I stood back and watched for a few minutes and I said, I've got to do this.

I will hate myself if I don't get the chance to preach to all of these people as they're walking by.

So I found out, I figured out who was in charge.

And I weasel up to this British guy and I say, Listen, brother, you can hear me talk and know that I'm not from around here.

I said, but, I said, but, it's basically what I told him.

I said, My name's Jesse.

I'm from the States, as you can tell.

I said, I love to preach more than I love to eat.

And I promise, if you'll give me five minutes on the microphone, I will not say anything to embarrass you.

And somehow I talked him into it.

And so they let me preach that day in England.

And uh you can tell the two British guys, the one in the burgundy shirt and the blue shirt, they had never heard anybody from Appalachian America speak before.

And they were bemused to hear this majestic hillbilly twang unleashed in their high-class British society.

It's one of my favorite stories from my ministry.

And it is a missionary story.

And I tell you that missionary story because what you read about in Acts chapter 14 are missionary stories.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

I've got more missionary stories.

I can tell you about a time when I was on a trip to Mexico when at 2 o'clock in the middle of the morning we were pulled out of our van that we were traveling in by very well-armed and very serious Federales and made to stand on the side of the road in the desert while they went through all of our stuff.

But we made it.

It's a good story.

And if you've been in church long, you know that missionaries have the best stories, don't they?

Missionaries have the best stories.

They have stories of just unbelievable answers to prayer, stories of miraculous interventions from God, stories that just blow our minds as kind of ordinary, normal Christians.

And we love hearing missionaries tell their stories.

But a lot of times, if you're like me, when you hear a missionary tell their stories, you think, that's not my life.

Those stories are inspiring, those stories are captivating, but that's not me.

Well, I want to make the case to you this morning, and you're gonna have to just grasp this with me and go with me on this, or really nothing else I'm going to say will be of any help to you today.

I want to just make the case this morning that every person in the world, all eight billion of us, every one of us is either a missionary or a mission field.

Every one of us is either a missionary or a mission field.

And God may not have called you to cross-cultural missions.

He may never send you anywhere but Henderson County and maybe once a year to Myrtle Beach.

But whatever your life looks like, if you know Jesus, God has sent you to be a missionary in the parameters of your life.

If you're a stay-at-home mom and you're knee-deep in diapers and wipes, you have a mission field in those babies.

If you work somewhere in corporate America and you're flying all over the country to high-power business meetings, God has made you a missionary to those boardrooms.

If you're just struggling through a high school honors trigonometry class and you're just praying that the Lord gets you out of there alive or just raptures you out of it in the middle of it, God has made you a missionary to that math class.

And in this passage of scripture, reading these missionary stories from the life of the Apostle Paul and his friends, we see three commitments that I want to bring out for you today that will help us live well as the missionaries God made us to be.

So let's read this chapter and then we'll dive in.

Acts chapter 14, verse 1.

Acts 14:1

The word of God says, Now it happened in Iconium that they went together to the synagogue of the Jews, and so spoke that a great multitude, both of the Jews and the Greeks, believed.

But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brethren.

Therefore they stayed there a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, who was bearing witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

But the multitude of the city was divided, part sided with the Jews and part with the apostles.

And when a violent attempt was made by both the Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to abuse and stone them, they became aware of it and fled to Lystra and Derby, cities of Lycaonia and to the surrounding region, and they were preaching the gospel there.

And in Lystra, a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother's womb, who had never walked.

This man heard Paul speaking.

Paul, observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand up straight on your feet.

And he leaped and walked.

Now, when the people saw what Paul had done, they raised their voices, saying in the Lycaonian language, the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.

And Barnabas they called Zeus and Paul Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.

Then the priest of Zeus, whose temple was in front of their city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, intending to sacrifice with the multitudes.

But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard this, they tore their clothes and ran in among the multitude, crying out and saying, Men, why are you doing these things?

We also are men with the same nature as you, and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them, who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways.

Nevertheless, he did not leave himself without witness, in that he did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.

And with these things they could scarcely restrain the multitudes from sacrificing to them.

Then Jews from Antioch and Iconian came there, and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead.

However, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city.

And the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derby.

And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, We must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God.

So when they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

And after they had passed through Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia.

Now when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Italia.

From there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work which they had completed.

Now when they had come and gathered the church together, they reported all that God had done with them, and that he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

So they stayed there a long time with the disciples.

The grass withers and the flowers fade.

But the word of the Lord abideth forever.

Acts chapter 13 and Acts 14, which we have read today, tell us the story, or at least stories from the very first Christian missionary journey.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

The very first Christian mission trip occurs, beginning in Acts chapter 13.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

When the very diverse, very dynamic church at Antioch in Syria believes that the Spirit has set aside the man we know as the Apostle Paul, his good friend Barnabas, for the work of mission.

So in Acts chapter 13, verses 1 through 3, we see that they set them aside to go and to share the gospel in different places.

Acts 13:1–3

They leave Antioch along with their assistant John Mark.

They travel west across the Mediterranean, go to the island of Crete, travel the island of Crete from east to west, preaching the gospel there.

Then they kind of sail up northwest to the mainland and then begin proceeding due north to go to the city of Antioch of Pisidia.

Totally different Antioch from the one that they left.

There were a lot of Antiochs around back then.

But in Antioch of Pisidia, we read in Acts 13 about the message the Apostle Paul preaches in the synagogue.

And he takes this lengthy sermon and he ties together the history, the theology, the characters, the hopes of the Old Testament scriptures, and he tells those Jews in that synagogue that Jesus is the long-awaited, long-promised Messiah and Son of God and Savior.

Some like it, most don't like it.

Kind of goes well, doesn't go great, but Paul keeps moving on.

And in chapter 14, we have the second leg of the journey, followed by the return trip.

And we read about what happens when Paul and Barnabas return home to the church that had sent them out, back to the first Antioch, Antioch of Syria.

And what fascinates me about this story is this phrase that is used in verse number 26.

If you have your Bible, look there with me.

Acts 14 in verse number 26.

The word of God says this.

From there they sailed to Antioch, where they started.

Where they had been commended to the grace of God.

Look at this, for the work which they had completed.

For the work which they had completed.

In other words, the missionaries had accomplished the mission.

They had done what they set out to do, and they sensed that the job was over.

And I thought about that this week, and I thought about my role in my life as a pastor, and I thought, you know, that's not fair.

Because it feels like there's always more work to do than there is time or energy or ability to do it.

There's always somebody else to call, there's always another meeting to schedule, there's always another sermon to prepare for, the work is never finished.

Our other pastors know exactly what I'm talking about, yet these guys somehow they're done.

They knew we've done what we went out to do.

Then I thought about our lives.

The truth about our lives is that if we consider this whole life that God has given us as a mission trip, one day the trip's gonna be over.

Y'all know that, right?

One day you're gonna return back home.

And one day you're gonna have to answer for the work that you accomplished.

Now that's not a threat, don't misunderstand me, but the Bible does say that we have a limited amount of time.

And even if we break our lives down into seasons, moms of young kids, one day, those kids will be out of the house.

Every dad in here said, Praise the Lord.

One day you will graduate high school.

Most of you will graduate high school.

But one day, I'm confident that season will be over.

One day the company where you've worked for 40 years, Monday through Friday, eight to five, giving them your life and giving them your very, very best years, one day they're going to send you out the back door with a sheet cake and a gold watch.

And that part of your mission will be over.

But when that, praise God, but when that time comes, will you be able to say, I accomplished the mission?

Or will you say I never even really started the mission?

Will you be able to say, I tried?

Will you be able to say, I experienced everything and accomplished everything God wanted me to experience and accomplish?

If you would like to be able to say mission accomplished when the trip is over, there are three commitments that I see from Paul and Barnabas on this trip that are essential for you to be able to say mission accomplished.

So today we're going to look at their missionary stories.

We're going to highlight three commitments that I want you to make this morning and take with you as you go.

Here's the first commitment.

The first commitment is I will not quit.

I will not quit.

In Acts chapter 14, Paul and Barnabas begin in Iconium with the same basic mission strategy that they've already displayed in other places.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

That is, they begin in the Jewish synagogue.

And you will see Paul especially doing this in later chapters in the book of Acts.

When he would go to a new area, he would always start in the Jewish synagogue.

And he had a very strategic reason for doing that.

He had a lot in common with these people.

He had a common view of God, a common view of the Old Testament, common messianic hopes and anticipations.

And he knew that he could build a bridge with them that would be shorter than it may be with other people.

And I think that's very, very important for us as the people of God because many of us will simply never be effective as missionaries in our own context because we're really good at building walls with people who aren't like us, but not good at building bridges.

Amen.

We're good at isolating, judging, and excluding, pushing away.

We're not as good at reaching out.

The apostle Paul was a master at reaching out no matter what crowd he was in front of.

In this case, he's in front of a Jewish crowd.

And so he begins to preach probably a very similar sermon to what he'd preach in Acts chapter 13.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

I say, if you've got one good sermon, preach it a thousand times.

I've not preached a good sermon yet, and so I preach different sermons all the time.

But if you get a good one, hang on to it.

Paul had a good one in Acts 13, so I'm sure he's preaching many the same themes and many the same ideas.

And verse 1 seems like it goes well.

And then verse number 2 begins with that deadly, fatal conjunction.

But there's always a but, isn't there?

But the unbelieving Jews stir up the Gentiles, poisoning their minds.

These desperate demagogues are defiling the minds of the Jews.

But then in verse or the Gentiles, and things begin heated and things become hostile.

But look at verse number three, another conjunction.

Therefore, in other words, because of this, what do Paul and Barnabas do?

Paul and Barnabas stay a long time, speaking boldly.

In other words, as opposition increases, as difficulties increase, well, frankly, so does their stubbornness.

See, we're not going to leave.

We're not going to quit.

I love that about Paul and Barnabas.

And I think the one thing that is true about the Apostle Paul, and we know more about him as an individual than we do Barnabas, just based on the word of God, the one thing that has to be true about the Apostle Paul, that maybe I admire more and more, is that the Apostle Paul had a whole lot of Jesus in him, and he had absolutely no quit in him.

No quit in him.

But the Bible does say that as things tend towards violence here in the early verses of Acts 14, that Paul and Barnabas do leave the city of Iconium because they know that they are in danger.

You say, ah, well, see, there it is.

It got hard and they quit.

No, they didn't quit.

They just redirected.

And often God will redirect us in life at certain seasons, but God will never let us quit.

The reason I say they didn't quit is because when they come to Lystra, what are they doing?

Same thing they've been doing.

They're preaching, worshiping God, and telling people about Jesus.

But then in verse number 19, the Bible says that some of these aggravated people from Antioch and from Iconium follow them to Lystra, and then they persuade the multitudes in verse number 19, they stone Paul.

Paul is a victim really of a lynch mob.

People who are so angry.

Get this that they follow him from Antioch in Pisidia all the way to Lystra, which is a distance of 115 miles.

Understand what that means.

In a world before vehicles and all the ways that we get around, these people took weeks off of work to hunt Paul down because they were so mad about his preaching.

I've never preached a sermon like that.

Now I've made some people mad before.

Sometimes it's my fault.

I'll just leave it there.

Sometimes it's my fault.

Paul preaches, and they say, this has to be silenced.

And they literally take up stones to kill him, and they're so efficient and so effective in their stoning that they think he's dead, and his body is a bleeding, broken, crumpled mess on the ground outside of the city, and they throw their rocks away and they leave.

But Paul wasn't dead.

And the Bible says that the disciples, the church comes to him probably to bury him.

Paul gets up and he goes into the city, and then he carries on.

So that in verse number 21, what is he doing?

He's preaching again.

He has no quit inside of him.

Don't you love that resolve that the apostle Paul and Barnabas show in this passage?

And I think the reason that I love it is because most modern American evangelicals like us, we got a whole lot of quit in us, don't we?

I mean, made a fresh banana pudding for homecoming.

And the preacher didn't even eat any of it.

So I'm not going to love me any more than that.

I'm just going to quit.

And you laugh because you know I'm right.

You've heard those stories, right?

Can't believe they didn't even give me a solo in the choir.

Quit.

We'll find any reason that we can to quit.

Paul knows that quitting is not an option.

And I just want to tell you this morning that a lifetime of obedience, the way Paul demonstrates it, is born out of a singular commitment that says, no matter what happens, no matter how I feel, no matter what I face, no matter how dark it is, no matter how desperate it becomes, even if it kills me, I will not quit.

Some of you today need to come to this altar in our invitation and pray the quit out of yourself and say, Lord, whatever it takes, remove the quit from me so that I will continue to persevere.

And some of you maybe are in places where you have quit before.

You can start again.

You can start fresh and you can start over.

Even if you're in a place right now where the seasons of your life are changing and you feel like you should quit because your health isn't what it used to be.

Your family seems like it's in shambles.

Maybe your finances are a mess.

Maybe your mind is racked with depression.

Any number of things could be tempting you to quit.

Maybe it's been your own sinfulness, maybe it's temptation.

It could be any number of things, good or bad.

It may be kids, it may be business, it may be work, it may be schedules.

Don't quit.

Don't quit.

You say, well, why is it that we shouldn't quit, even when we want to quit?

Here's why.

Because Jesus did not quit on us.

He did not quit on us.

And as far as I can read in the Bible, the reason that Paul had no quit in him is because God has no quit in him.

We talk all the time about all the things that God can't do or God can do.

And we're quick to say there's nothing God can't do.

Well, I do beg to differ, God can't quit.

He cannot quit on his people.

He will not leave us or forsake us or abandon us.

And if he will not quit on us, then we shouldn't quit on him.

I remember reading just several months ago the story of a British pastor by the name of David Martin Lloyd Jones.

Some of you may know that name, a man with three first names, but Dr.

Lloyd Jones was a fascinating character in history.

He was a very gifted preacher.

And he preached in the history of the church relatively recently, during the middle part of the 20th century, so you can still listen to his preaching.

Most everything he ever preached that was recorded is available for free online.

You should do that.

He's a very gifted preacher, very intellectual preacher, but he's also British, which is not fair to those of us that aren't.

Everything he says sounds brilliant, but he was brilliant because he was actually a cardiologist before he became a pastor.

He's a real deal, all right.

And he had an incredible ministry, a ministry that still carries on today, his writing and his preaching and all these things.

But the article I read was about another pastor who I cannot remember who wrote this.

But also grew up in the United Kingdom, basically idolizing Dr.

Lloyd Jones.

He was his hero.

And he finally had the opportunity to go and hear him in person as an older man.

Many, many years and many, many miles down the road.

This is his chance to finally hear Lloyd Jones.

He said, Lloyd Jones preached.

It was amazing.

But he said, what gripped him was that after the service, Lloyd Jones stood in the church, and as people left, they shook his hand, like we do here.

They told him how much of a blessing he had been.

Some of them shared their problems and complaints, asked for prayer and different things, as people do with pastors.

But he said, here's what stuck with me about Dr.

Lloyd Jones.

He said, Every person that he spoke to, his greeting to them was not, God bless you, I'll be praying for you.

It was not, thank you for being so kind, none of those things.

But his greeting to every person was two words.

Keep on.

Keep on.

I think if the apostle Paul, who was so faithful, who was stoned, who faced death and ultimately was beheaded for the gospel, I think if he could preach anything to us today, it may just be keep on.

Keep on.

If it's hard, keep on.

If it's dark, keep on.

If it looks impossible, keep on.

Even if you feel like you were laying alone, bloodied and broken underneath a pile of somebody's rocks, keep on.

That's the first commitment you need to make.

If this mission trip is going to be successful, don't quit.

The second one is don't become a distraction.

You should commit today that you will not become a distraction.

Now, Paul faces a lot of hostility, which is bad.

That's really bad.

Getting stoned is bad.

Some of you did it a different way in the 70s, that's bad too.

Getting stoned is bad.

The Lord knows.

But things actually seem to go really well when they move to Lystra.

Because they begin preaching in Lystra, and something really, really remarkable happens.

Paul is preaching, and you see in verse number nine that while Paul is preaching to the crowd, his eye's on one guy.

And his eye is on a gentleman who's never walked, disabled, deformed, some capacity, born without the ability to ambulate the way that most of us do.

And Paul sees him.

It's a fascinating thing.

Those of you that have preached or taught Sunday school or even sang or speak in public, even our elementary school and other teachers, you know how this happens.

How you can be talking, thinking about what you're saying and how you're saying it, but you're also thinking about something entirely different.

I don't even pay attention to my own preaching.

It's weird.

And that's what Paul's doing here.

He sees this other guy.

And then the Bible says, this is what's really wild, is that in verse number nine, Paul sees that the man has faith.

I've never seen faith.

Paul saw it.

And then so he says to the man, you know, get up and walk.

We've seen these sorts of miracles all through Scripture.

Praise God.

What a joy this is to watch this.

Well, these backward people in Lystra, they see this supernatural healing.

They understand it is a supernatural healing.

And they say, well, the most logical conclusion is that the gods have come down to visit us.

These are the Greek gods, the gods that you learned about in high school and mythology.

Zeus the Olympian, his brother, I think Hermes was his brother, but Hermes, his brother, he's one of the gods anyway.

He's the one that had wings on his shoes.

So they're here.

And man, if Zeus is here, like we got to make a big deal out of this.

So the priest of Zeus says, nobody move, I know exactly what to do.

The priest of Zeus goes, Zeus goes back to the temple.

He grabs a couple of unsuspecting cows, throws some ceremonial garment on them, and he's leading them back to the multitude.

He's going to sacrifice them to Paul and Barnabas.

Now the Bible says that the people in Lystra are speaking in their Lycaonian language.

That would indicate that they don't speak Greek, they don't speak Latin, the kind of high-faluting languages of the day.

This is their backward redneck dialect, right?

Paul and Barnabas probably don't understand what's happening at first until they see the priest of Zeus coming with his ceremonial sacrifices.

And Paul says, This is a problem.

And he begins to preach this little mini-sermon, saying, Listen, we are not Zeus, we are not Hermes, we are not gods at all.

We are just here to tell you about the true God.

We are not that great, but God is good.

It reveals a commitment that Paul and Barnabas had that they would never become a distraction to the message of the gospel, that they would never be the ones to get in the way of the message of Jesus.

But my thinking is this: if you've been talked about, if you've been fussed at, if you've seen people manipulating others to form a mob that wants you dead, why, it would be nice to be worshiped for a little while, wouldn't it?

That would be a refreshing change of pace.

To say, you know, I am pretty great.

It would be very, very hard to be humble in this moment, and yet they were.

Saying, we will not be distracted.

I wonder.

How many of us, how many of us, in the way we live our lives, are distracting people from the message of the gospel?

And perhaps the language that we use.

I'm not talking about English here either.

I'm talking about those colorful sentence enhancers you use to make your English go a little bit further?

How many of us with our attitude towards other people, even at home, distort and distract from the message of the gospel?

How many of us through our sinful choices and habits?

But how many of us, like Paul and Barnabas could have easily done here, how many of us actually use our gifts and our talents in a way that is often self-serving so that we are the focal point instead of Jesus?

The abilities God has given us, the appearance that God has given us, the finances that God has blessed us with.

If somebody looked at our lives, maybe the people that know you best, and they said, this is the focus, this is what their attention is on, this is what they point to.

Would it be Jesus or would it be something else?

Friends, I don't want to be a distraction from Jesus.

I don't want to distract anybody from him.

Do y'all know what it's like to be distracted in church?

I've been pastoring for a long time.

And there's very little that happens in a sanctuary at this point that I even pay attention to.

Just honestly, I am almost undistractable at this point.

Almost.

But the reason is because in the very, very first church that I pastored, there was a little girl who almost broke me, shattered me.

Because she was, and only God alone knows why this is, she was the most distracting individual that God has ever put on planet Earth.

And the grown-ups in her life knew that she was distracting.

I didn't say they cared, they knew.

And so one particular Sunday, I remember vividly, they thought the way to keep her chill during church is to give her, here's what they did: to give her a prescription medicine bottle full of quarters.

So that instead of being distraction, distracting, she can just it didn't work.

One particular Sunday I remember so vividly.

I remember like it happened last Sunday.

I'm preaching, and the little girl has to get up and go to the bathroom.

It's all good.

You gotta go to the bathroom, go to the bathroom.

That's why we have 300 of them here in Mud Creek.

But at this particular church, we had two.

One for the men and one for the women.

And they were located behind, basically behind our baptistry.

And the door to get to the hall was basically from me to Craig's guitar.

And so she has to go to the bathroom.

So she walks up the steps in her distracting self.

And while I'm preaching, she goes, Hey.

And I went, hey, what are you gonna do?

We know what it's like to be distracted, to have, to fight for attention, but I'm challenging some of you to look at your life where it is right now and recognize that you are distracting people from Jesus.

In any number of ways, good and bad.

You are not putting all the attention on Jesus.

I remember this story from the life of Charles Spurgeon.

I've told you, I remember hearing this years ago from a pastor, and I've told you before that there are some stories pastors tell that may not actually be true, but they ought to be.

This is one of those stories.

I don't know if it really happened, but it should have happened if it didn't.

And the story goes that while Charles Spurgeon was a pastor, again, in London in the middle part of the 19th century, um he was he was pastoring at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and there were many, many gifted, godly pastors alive in London during that time.

It was just a unique season in the history of the church where all of these very, very gifted preachers were ministering in the same sort of geographic location in Victorian England.

And so there are these two ladies at a given church that love God, love Jesus, and they love good preaching.

I love people that love preaching.

They're my favorite.

And these two old ladies love preaching, and they said, here's what we're gonna do: we're gonna go to all these different churches, and we're gonna hear all these great preachers, and we're gonna decide which one's the best.

And so they go to hear Dr.

So-and-so preach.

They listen and they leave saying, Dr.

So-and-so is such a great preacher.

His command of the English language is unparalleled, his education, his rhetorical abilities, his oratorical flourishes, Lord, is just so remarkable.

Then they go to hear Brother Watts' name.

And they leave listening to Brother Watts' name, and they say, Brother Watts' name is so passionate.

He just makes the scripture come to life and he paints a picture in your imagination that's so colorful and so vivid.

We loved him.

He's such a great preacher.

And then the time came for them to go hear Charles Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

And when they went to hear Charles Spurgeon preach, the story says that when they left, they left, wiping tears from their eyes, saying, What a great Savior we have.

Friends, the goal of our lives is that people meet us, see us, interact with us at whatever level that happens, and they say, What a great savior.

Because we have committed not to be distractions.

The third commitment that they make is this.

The third commitment you need to make is that you're not going to do it alone.

You're not going to do it alone.

We do, and the church, we have done such a terrible disservice to this story because we call this Paul's first missionary journey.

But Paul's not by himself at any point.

He leaves with his friend Barnabas, their assistant John Mark.

John Mark flakes out and goes home.

We'll talk more about that in a few weeks.

Barnabas is with him.

They're working together as a team.

Read back through the chapter and recognize that it's not just one person doing this, it's a team of people doing this.

And then when the mission trip is over, they come back to the church that sent them.

And there are so many practical, helpful things, nuts and bolts ministry tips here that I think are so important.

They're not necessarily exciting, but they are important.

I'm going to give them to you.

One thing that you should learn from this passage is that missionaries who have been sent out are accountable to the people that sent them.

And so they come back and they say, Here's what happened.

Here's how God used us.

Here's what we did while we were gone.

And as the leaders of Mud Creek Baptist Church, we want to have that same missionary culture.

Not just with the ones that actually we send out from our congregation, but those that we partner with.

That's why next Sunday morning, during our Sunday school time, our missions partner in London, Ryan King, him and his wife, Iuliana, their little girl Sarah, will be with us.

And at 9.15 next Sunday morning, they will be sharing the great work that they are doing in London.

And I want you all to be here.

Because I want you to hear how your missions praying and missions giving through our church is making a difference in England and in the world through what's happening in England.

So, what time does church start at Mud Creek?

Amen.

We're making a difference, Kyle.

You know that?

That's important.

They're accountable to those that send them and those that give.

You also see in the passage, and this is very, very key.

It requires explanation, but it is key to everything that's happening.

Verse number 23 says that as they return to visit the churches that they have planted, they appoint elders, plural, in every church.

The apostle Paul planted church led by teams of elders.

Now, I'm just going to go out on a limb and assume that Mud Creek would like to be like the churches Paul planted.

I assume he knew what he was doing.

He planted churches led by teams of elders.

So we have to ask, well, what in the world is an elder?

What in the world is an elder?

Well, the Greek word for elders here, President Butteroy, is the most common, the most common word used for pastors in the New Testament.

Whereas the word pastor that we use primarily is about what pastors do, the word elder is about what a pastor is.

He is a man of maturity who models Christian maturity to the congregation.

So that the congregation looks at that brother and says, that's what it means to be a mature, faithful follower of Jesus.

He's not perfect, but he is an example to the body of Christ.

It's just a different word for pastor.

But what Paul does is he appoints teams of pastors in churches.

It's fascinating, isn't it?

It's fascinating.

It's something I'm trying to lean into more and more as one of the pastors here at Mud Creek.

Because we have an incredibly gifted team of pastors serving us at Mud Creek.

And these brothers have gifts that I don't have.

In fact, I had to get with uh Pastor Dave, Pastor David Horton, this week, and I had to go to them and I said, I need y'all to pastor me through something.

I need them to pastor me.

I rely on them.

That's why I've so often introduced myself as, my name is Jesse, I'm one of the pastors here.

This is not the place to make a hero of one person.

Well, it's like Paul, I don't want to be a distraction.

This is not the Jesse Carr fun family-filled variety hour.

This is about Jesus.

And as pastors, we work together with the giftings and abilities he's given us to serve him.

In fact, I'll tell you this story.

It's so funny.

I met a guy last week, last Sunday, and he had some history with Mud Creek.

He had been here for something, whatever, but he'd been gone for a long, long, long, long, long time.

And I introduced myself and I said to him, I said, My name's Jesse.

I'm one of the pastors here at Mud Creek.

And he said, Oh, man, it's great to meet you.

He said, I heard y'all got a new pastor.

How's he doing?

And you know exactly what I did.

He's doing fantastic.

He's incredible.

He's so amazing.

We just he had no idea.

Now, one day he's gonna find out.

He's gonna find out.

And he's gonna be embarrassed.

I won't be.

But they're led by a team of people.

Why is that important?

Because Paul and Barnabas were a team.

They established teams.

They report back to the church family.

None of this, none of it is about a single individual.

None of it is just about one person.

But it's about the entirety of the body of Christ who are commending one another.

You see that in verse 26, commending one another to the grace of God.

The mission that God has given us to live for the glory of the praise of the name of Jesus cannot be done in isolation.

The Christian life cannot be lived in isolation.

We must have one another.

We must have genuine relationships.

And I've preached this before, but I believe it so much I'm going to preach it again because I am one of the pastors here and I can.

The problem with a church like Mud Creek, brothers and sisters, is that this is an easy place to come and hide and never be known and never know anyone and just slip in, hear a sermon, hear the music, and then leave till the next week.

Brothers and sisters, these things ought not be.

Because we are a family of believers.

And I think families should know one another.

In fact, I'll go even further and tell you this that if you are not living in relationships with the people of God, you are not living the Christian life.

You're not.

Here's an easy way for me to prove it.

Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew chapter 6, and he said, When you pray, say our, not my, our Father who art in heaven.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth.

It's in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

If you do not know, brothers and sisters in the Lord well enough to know how to pray for God to meet their needs, you are not living the life Jesus intended you to live.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgive us our trespasses.

You can pray that by yourself.

You can sin on your own, I promise.

But then Jesus says, You also need to be praying, forgive us our trespasses, even as we do what?

Forgive those who trespass against us.

That means for you to be living the kind of life Jesus wants you to live, you need to be close enough for people to sin against you.

Did the microphone cut out?

Because it sounded like it got really quiet.

You need to be living close enough for people to let you down so that you can show them the same forgiveness Jesus has shown you.

And if you're not living with people like that, you're not living a life Jesus died to give you.

See, we want to be isolated even while we suspect we need community.

Right?

We're longing for people.

Longing for people.

That's why we doom scroll Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and we substitute genuine Christian community for an algorithm that's been invented by artificial intelligence to cater to the stuff that we linger on and click on.

Looking for that community.

And yet we know that that's numbing us to our ability to actually talk to, relate to, and interact with real people.

God made us for one another, and we need one another.

And there's much more that could be said about this, suffice to say, brothers and sisters.

If we are brothers and sisters, then we are family, and we need one another.

And we should be living in a way that we care for one another, we hear from one another, we serve together.

Because in the end, what's happening in verse number 27?

Paul and Barnabas come with the church of Antioch that sent them.

They gather the church together.

The only way you can have a church is when it's together.

They report all that God had done with them and that he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, so they stayed there a long time with the disciples.

Do you realize what happens when the church gathers in Acts 14?

What happens when the church gathers is they celebrate what God did through them as the church scattered.

See, what's going to happen in just a minute is we're going to pray and have an invitation.

In fact, Jesse, Mandy, you guys come on and get ready to sing for us.

I know this is a highlight of the service for a lot of you.

We're going to have an invitation.

And we're going to invite people to come forward.

They need to trust in Jesus.

We're going to invite you to do that.

If you're going to, if you need help in some spiritual way, we're going to invite you to come back.

Anything we can do for you.

But after we do that, I think Pastor Kyle's going to come close us out.

Is that correct?

That's right.

Okay.

Surely you're not going to mess that up.

And he's going to pray or he's going to say, you are dismissed, or you are at liberty, whatever.

And as soon as that happens, do you realize what happens to our church?

A fundamental change happens to us.

We are no longer the church gathered, we are the church scattered.

But then, God willing, we will be back on Wednesday to meet together again.

And then we'll be back, Lord willing, on the next Lord's Day.

We will be gathered.

And I pray that each of us takes our mission's calling seriously enough that when we come together, as the church gathered, we celebrate what happened when we were scattered.