SPEAKER_00: For those of you this morning who are a guest or even new to the Bible, feel free to use that Pew Bible in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: And you can take it home with you if you don't own a Bible so that you can have a copy of God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: The big numbers are the chapters, the little numbers are the verses.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we continue our series on church-centered missions.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, I want to focus on the Great Commission and its role within the local church.
SPEAKER_00: Nawemi read for us all of Matthew 28, but we're going to be focusing on verses 16 through 20, which is normally called or referred to as the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: The great Bishop J.C.
SPEAKER_00: Rao once said that the church, the church exists for one great end, to get to carry the gospel to the lost.
SPEAKER_00: The church exists for one great end, to carry the gospel to the lost.
SPEAKER_00: Over the centuries, many churches, Christians, missions, organizations, and parachurch ministries have great zeal to see the gospel go abroad.
SPEAKER_00: But unfortunately, there has also been a issue of a lack of theological understanding of what missions is, what a church is, and how we should do missions, which is why we I believe sermons like these are helpful.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you guys, but I don't know if I can recall, since I've been a Christian, being in a church where I was taught from the pulpit or a class, what is missions?
SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're not taught, then we just gravitate towards all sorts of definitions.
SPEAKER_00: So my aim in this sermon this morning is to help us look at the Great Commission and see that Jesus entrusted the Great Commission primarily to the local church, giving her the authority and the responsibility to make disciples by preaching the gospel, baptizing believers, and planting and strengthening churches.
SPEAKER_00: But to do that, we we have to consider some context here.
SPEAKER_00: So reading all of Matthew 28 is helpful.
SPEAKER_00: This is right after Jesus' death and resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples, the 11 disciples he's speaking to, were present during Jesus' horrific crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: They are now looking face to face at the risen Savior.
SPEAKER_00: He has accomplished what he said he would do, and he opens his mouth and gives them this charge.
SPEAKER_00: So just picture that.
SPEAKER_00: I would assume if you were there, if you had the privilege of living with Jesus for three years, watching him perform miracles and teach, watch the Pharisees try to kill him, then execute him on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: They hear Jesus make this charge.
SPEAKER_00: His words would have carried some weight, wouldn't they?
SPEAKER_00: If you saw someone rise from the dead and now they're telling you, all authority has been given to me, your ears perk up.
SPEAKER_00: But we have to ask a simple question.
SPEAKER_00: What, or I'm sorry, who did Jesus give the Great Commission to?
SPEAKER_00: So some would argue, well, he gave the Great Commission to the 11 apostles that were present who he was speaking to in the text of Matthew 28.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I would say that's not entirely true, because if you look at the end of the Great Commission, he says in verse 20, I am with you always to the end of the age, implying that this Great Commission is going to carry on until the end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: So it can't end just with these apostles or disciples that Jesus is speaking to.
SPEAKER_00: Others will say, well, the Great Commission is for every Christian individually, which is partially true.
SPEAKER_00: Every Christian has a responsibility before the Lord to fulfill the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: However, I don't believe it's given to individuals, Christian, Christians primarily, which we need to be careful with because we are Western Americans and we tend to think about everything individualistically.
SPEAKER_00: But that is not what Jesus is doing.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in the Great Commission, Jesus is primarily giving this charge to the local church.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus spoke these words to the apostles, but he wasn't intending to create a bunch of free agents who would just run around individually and do their own thing.
SPEAKER_00: These men would end up forming and leading local churches.
SPEAKER_00: So the best way to understand the Great Commission, in my opinion, is to ask the question: how did the apostles interpret Jesus' words?
SPEAKER_00: And what did they do in light of what Jesus said?
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to guess because we have the book of Acts, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: So what we see is these apostles, and then you look at uh men like the Apostle Paul, who's added later, these men, after this Great Commission, after Pentecost, and they received the Holy Spirit, would go out and form and lead local churches, and those local churches would carry the mission forward long after the apostles were dead and gone.
SPEAKER_00: So the Great Commission is not about personal ambition or it's not about individuals, Christians' private calling.
SPEAKER_00: It's about a church authorized obedience under Christ's authority.
SPEAKER_00: And a quick, if we look at the Great Commission real quick, quick sidebar here on baptism, look down in your Bibles in verse uh 18.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came near and said to them, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_00: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Just notice the wording there from Jesus' mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' command assumes that baptism follows repentance and faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's a disciple publicly identifying with a local church and going public to the world saying, I am born again and have trusted in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, disciple that individual and bring them within the care and accountability of the local church.
SPEAKER_00: So though we love our brothers and sisters who are convinced of the infant baptism persuasion, I'm just confused how that fits with Jesus' words here.
SPEAKER_00: But that's my mini soapbox on baptism.
SPEAKER_00: But again, one of the best ways to understand Jesus' Jesus' command is to ask, what did the apostles do in light of what he says here in Matthew 28?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is clear.
SPEAKER_00: They preached the gospel, people believed, and they planted churches.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we see in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we see at Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: They preached the gospel, people came to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and then churches were planted from those conversions.
SPEAKER_00: We see it immediately in Jerusalem, in Acts 2.
SPEAKER_00: We see it in Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel didn't create disconnected believers.
SPEAKER_00: People didn't just get saved and then just kind of roamed around autonomously and just follow Christ on their own.
SPEAKER_00: They were saved into churches that were formed out of the necessity of a bunch of people who come to faith in Christ who now need to be a part of a local church.
SPEAKER_00: And those churches didn't stop there.
SPEAKER_00: They helped plant and establish more churches that were fulfilling the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: As one verse says, whenever this is Paul speaking to the church in Rome, he says, Whenever I travel to Spain, for I hope to see you when I pass through and to be assisted by you for my journey there, once I have first enjoyed your company for a while.
SPEAKER_00: In Romans chapter 15, Paul is expecting the church in Rome, which is already an established church, to help him take the gospel to Spain where it has not yet been preached.
SPEAKER_00: Mission wasn't detached from the church, it flowed out of it.
SPEAKER_00: So even in Romans 15, we don't see Paul, even though he's an apostle, Paul's not running around saying, I'm just gonna drop in somewhere by myself and just pursue missions.
SPEAKER_00: He seeks the aid of an established church in Antioch and asking for their support so that the gospel could spread in Spain.
SPEAKER_00: And then when we get to the church in Antioch, it shows us a very clear pattern.
SPEAKER_00: The church in Antioch gives us, I would say, one of the clearest pictures of church-centered missions in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Because in Acts 13, while that church in Antioch is gathered, worshiping, fasting, and praying, the Holy Spirit speaks and says, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the works to which I called them.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens next?
SPEAKER_00: What does the church in Antioch do in light of the Holy Spirit's revelation?
SPEAKER_00: The church in Antioch gathers together as a body, they fast, they pray together, they lay hands on Paul and Barnabas, and then they send them out to do the ministry the Holy Spirit called them to.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't just run around with a private calling saying the Holy Spirit told me to go do this thing, and they just left as trailblazers and did missions.
SPEAKER_00: They went to the church of Antioch, and that body of believers fasted on behalf of these brothers and the gospel work they wanted to do.
SPEAKER_00: They prayed for them, they laid hands on them, which is a sign of commissioning, and they sent them to do the ministry entrusted to them by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful picture of how the church has a part in spreading the gospel through vessels that the Lord seeks to use.
SPEAKER_00: There's no Lone Ranger calling here, there's no private commissioning.
SPEAKER_00: It is the Spirit working through the gathered people in Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: And when, and I love this, and when they go, Paul and Barnabas, and their journey is over, do you know what Paul and Barnabas do?
SPEAKER_00: They return back.
SPEAKER_00: They come back to the church in Antioch, not to a missions board, not to a paraturance ministry, not to some agency, not that those things are bad, but they come back to the church in Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: They're sending church, and in Acts 14, it says this after they arrived and gathered the church together, they reported everything God had done with them, and that he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, and they spent a considerable time with the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: That is precious.
SPEAKER_00: That means God's design here was for the church in Antioch to have a hand in the gospel ministry that Paul and Barnabas were doing.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul and Barnabas understood that they were sent by and under the authority of the church in Antioch, and they come back to graciously report, look what all God has been doing as we've been preaching the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And now the church in Antioch gets to celebrate with these missionaries to say, look at God's goodness.
SPEAKER_00: We have prayed, we have fasted, we have laid hands on these brothers and sent them, and God has glorified his name by bringing the Gentiles to saving faith in his son.
SPEAKER_00: Missionaries go out from the church and they return to the church they are accountable to and supported by because it is a family endeavor.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the point I don't want you to miss.
SPEAKER_00: The Great Commission is instructions for the local church.
SPEAKER_00: The Great Commission is an instruction for the local church.
SPEAKER_00: Where am I getting that from?
SPEAKER_00: If you're like me, when I first came to faith in Christ, I would have said the Great Commission is primarily just for us individually.
SPEAKER_00: We all fulfill the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: Be a missionary in your home, your neighborhood, and all these things.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to be very clear, there is an aspect in which the Great Commission is for each individual Christian, each individual church member, but primarily it is for the local church.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, so we're in Matthew 28, the Great Commission, but what comes before Matthew 28, Matthew 16, where Jesus speaking to Peter says, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overpower it.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying, I have an intention to build my church.
SPEAKER_00: And then later he gives us the Great Commission, which is the means by which he will build his church in Matthew 28.
SPEAKER_00: We have to read the Great Commission in light of the authority Jesus has entrusted to local churches.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is telling his disciples, I have all authority.
SPEAKER_00: And to be clear, he's not saying like just because he resurrected, he has like some new authority that he didn't already have as God in human flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, no, all of y'all have now been put on notice.
SPEAKER_00: I am who I said I am.
SPEAKER_00: I have all authority over created order and the spiritual realm.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, go and make disciples and baptize them.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, uh, I'm sorry, he exercises that authority as the senior pastor of every church, and he encourages these men to preach the gospel, to baptize believers, and to teach them to obey all of God's word and to send more workers who will do the same.
SPEAKER_00: Or to put it another way, to make my point that the Great Commission is primarily for the local church, when you look at, look down at Matthew 28.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at Jesus' commands here, his instructions.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18 All authority has been given to me on heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_00: Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe everything I have commanded.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you a question.
SPEAKER_00: Where is that best done?
SPEAKER_00: In the context of the local church.
SPEAKER_00: The local church proclaims God's word.
SPEAKER_00: The local church has the mandate to disciple one another.
SPEAKER_00: The local church has the uh the has been entrusted with the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we don't encourage Christians to baptize each other at youth camps or in their swimming pool or take the Lord's Supper at a wedding or a small group, because those are ordinances given to the local church.
SPEAKER_00: So this is best done in the church.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus says, teach them to observe all that I have commanded, he's describing the ongoing teaching ministry of the local church, which is how disciples are formed.
SPEAKER_00: If we could just define terms here, I would say a disciple is simply essentially a student, a pupil of someone.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: You're a student of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And discipleing is the practice of helping other people follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we are all blessed and entrusted with that ministry of helping others follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus gives this great commission, he's speaking primarily to the local church.
SPEAKER_00: But guess what?
SPEAKER_00: The local church is made up of what?
SPEAKER_00: Redeemed, born-again, brothers and sisters in Christ, who are the instruments by which the Lord does these things.
SPEAKER_00: And when he says, teach them to observe all that I have commanded, that is one reason why at Redeemer we are committed to what some would refer to as expositional preaching.
SPEAKER_00: Even though this is more of a what I would call a topositional series, we're doing where we're focusing on a topic and looking at passages of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: But our normal diet, our normal rhythm is to walk through books of the Bible verse by verse and to try to understand God's word.
SPEAKER_00: The way I would define expository preaching is where the main point of the biblical text becomes the main point of the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of me as a pastor saying, hey, I got a great sermon I want to preach, I just need to find the verse to go with it.
SPEAKER_00: No, that's not expositional preaching.
SPEAKER_00: Expositional is we want God's people to know God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what every Christian should do in their discipling as we fulfill the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: We want to expose God's people to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And those who have yet to know the Lord, we want to expose them to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Because God's word creates God's people, and God's people are shaped together in the context of a local church through inspired scripture.
SPEAKER_00: This is important for our understanding of missions.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we're, as churches, sending people overseas, we have to ask the question what are we sending them to do?
SPEAKER_00: We are sending them to proclaim God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We are sending them to make disciples by teaching others what God's word teaches, which is important.
SPEAKER_00: Just to be frank, not everything that's called missions is always missions.
SPEAKER_00: I'll give an example.
SPEAKER_00: I was a part of a church in which we as leaders had made a decision to pull financial support from a missionary of the church.
SPEAKER_00: After having prolonged conversations, trying to understand this gentleman's ministry, we came to realize his ministry does not align with our philosophy of ministry or our philosophy of missions.
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, this brother was, first of all, he was stateside, he wasn't overseas, but he was teaching in a public school classes to young men on just moral virtues, just how to have integrity and virtue as a young man.
SPEAKER_00: Very nice.
SPEAKER_00: That's not bad inherently.
SPEAKER_00: But when we looked at the Great Commission, we said, brother, missions, first of all, is taking the gospel to an unreached people or going to strengthen churches in an unreached people group to make disciples and to see churches birth.
SPEAKER_00: So to teach virtues is not missions.
SPEAKER_00: And so we decided to steward resources elsewhere.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, let me just emphasize this.
SPEAKER_00: If you pay attention to Jesus' words, do you notice if he's giving the apostles an option here?
SPEAKER_00: Is he saying, like, hey, y'all, um, since I rose from the dead, could y'all just consider this?
SPEAKER_00: It would really help me and my father out if y'all went to all nations and make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: He he starts out in verse 18 with authority, like, all right, y'all see me, right?
SPEAKER_00: I was dead three days ago.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm standing before you, like I said I would do, but y'all didn't believe.
SPEAKER_00: Now he says, Go therefore and make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: That is a command, which means obedience to the Great Commission is not optional.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says in John 15, 14, you are my friends if you do what I command.
SPEAKER_00: That's not just referring to the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: That's just referring to being a disciple of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If you claim to be a disciple of Christ, but you don't do what Jesus commands you, it's hard for him to accept you as his friend.
SPEAKER_00: So when it comes to the Great Commission, I would say there's only three types of people.
SPEAKER_00: There are those who go, there are those who send and support those who go, and then there's the disobedient.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: There are those who go, and not everyone's gonna go, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're not the one who goes, you are the one who should be sending and supporting as you are part of a local church, or you're disobedient.
SPEAKER_00: There's only three options.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Spurgeon said it plainly.
SPEAKER_00: It is the whole business of the whole church to preach to the gospel to the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: It is the whole business of the whole church to preach the whole gospel to the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: Every member of Redeemer Church has a biblical mandate to fulfill the Great Commission, to see the whole gospel be proclaimed to the whole world, to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're going yourself or whether you're holding the rope for someone who is going, that is the privilege we get to play.
SPEAKER_00: That is the example we see in the church in Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if the Great Commission belongs to the local church, and if Jesus has entrusted his authority to each local church, then we have to get clear on two things.
SPEAKER_00: What is a church and what is missions?
SPEAKER_00: This is important because confusion is everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And if there's confusion about what is a church and what is missions, then there's all kinds of nonsense that's going to be happening under the umbrella of gospel missions and ministry that doesn't line up with the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So let's define our terms here.
SPEAKER_00: What is a church?
SPEAKER_00: Now you cannot go to a chapter and verse in the Bible where the scripture says here is a definition of a church.
SPEAKER_00: However, when you look at the totality of the teaching of the Bible and put all that together, you can find a helpful definition as to what constitutes a local church.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my attempt at a definition.
SPEAKER_00: A local church is a group of baptized believers who covenant together to gather regularly, to hear God's word preached, to share in the ordinances, to love one another, and proclaim the gospel to the lost, all for God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just read that again.
SPEAKER_00: So, what makes a church a church?
SPEAKER_00: A local church is a group of baptized believers who covenant together to gather regularly to hear God's word preach, to share in the ordinances of baptism in the Lord's Supper, to love one another and proclaim the gospel to the lost all for God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: That's what makes a church a church.
SPEAKER_00: That definition matters because missions exist to produce churches that do that.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: So when missionaries are sent, they are sent with God's help to establish churches of baptized believers who come in together to gather regularly, to hear the word preached, to share in the ordinances, to love one another, and proclaim the gospel to the lost, all for God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: That is that is the aim of missions.
SPEAKER_00: So what is missions?
SPEAKER_00: This is the definition I introduced last week.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but before I get to a definition again, here's the danger.
SPEAKER_00: If everything is missions, nothing is missions.
SPEAKER_00: Just like you know, the current cultural moment we're in, if everything's abuse, nothing's abuse, right?
SPEAKER_00: If everything is missions, then nothing is missions.
SPEAKER_00: Digging wells overseas, providing medical aid overseas, sharing the gospel on a short term mission trip, these are all good things, but they are not missions.
SPEAKER_00: They are ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Ministry and missions are different.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just use myself as an example.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in School, I was not even a Christian, but there was a Christian club on my campus that sent out an invitation to go on a mission trip to Tijuana.
SPEAKER_00: Now living in South Cat Southern California, that's just a couple hour drive.
SPEAKER_00: So I signed up.
SPEAKER_00: Not because I love Jesus or missions, I just didn't want to go to school.
SPEAKER_00: So I signed up.
SPEAKER_00: We got a day off of school, and we took a bunch of clothes to an orphanage in Tijuana.
SPEAKER_00: And we got to hang out with the kids, played soccer and all these things, donated some clothes.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't, we didn't interact with a church.
SPEAKER_00: No one shared the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: There was no pastor involved.
SPEAKER_00: We were there for a couple of hours and then drove right on back.
SPEAKER_00: But that was my first missions trip.
SPEAKER_00: No, that was a good deed we did.
SPEAKER_00: That was a loving deed we did, providing things of necessity to these poor kids in this orphanage, but that was not missions, that was a service project.
SPEAKER_00: So we need a definition that's clear, that's biblical, and agrees with Jesus' Great Commission and church-centered missions.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the definition I used last week.
SPEAKER_00: Missions involve churches sending qualified workers across linguistic, geographic, or cultural barriers to start or strengthen churches, especially in places where Christ has not yet been named.
SPEAKER_00: One more time.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me, for the rest of this sermon, unpack that definition and give some implications.
SPEAKER_00: So starting with missions means churches send.
SPEAKER_00: Local churches, not individuals and parachurch organizations, according to the Bible, bear the primary responsibility for fulfilling the Great Commission and equipping, assessing, sending, and supporting missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: Individuals obey the Great Commission through the context and the instrument of the local church, not apart from it.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament teaches that the local church is the primary means of obeying the Great Commission and taking the gospel to the nations and baptizing individuals and planting local churches.
SPEAKER_00: And the local church has the authority, as we saw in Antioch, to identify, assess, train, send, and support qualified missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: Which brings me to the second part of the definition.
SPEAKER_00: Missions requires qualified workers.
SPEAKER_00: Qualified workers.
SPEAKER_00: This might be one of the most common mistakes churches and parachurch missions organizations make.
SPEAKER_00: They have detailed churches have detailed qualifications for who they allow to be a pastor or a deacon or a small group leader, but they'll send any zealous Christian who's interested overseas to go be a missionary.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is very concerning as a pastor when I see this.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can't even go to a local shelter and adopt a dog without meeting certain qualifications.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we're willing to just send any zealous Christian overseas to do the hard work of missions.
SPEAKER_00: No, a careful vetting and training process does not hinder missions.
SPEAKER_00: I would suggest it actually protects the faithfulness of missions and the honor of Jesus Christ by making sure churches are sending those who are assessed, qualified, and then supported by their local church.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to be clear, I don't, I don't, I'm not saying that missionaries need to be seminary trained and have to have degrees and all these things.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: They just need to be qualified for the work that they claim they are called to do.
SPEAKER_00: The most important missionary training does not happen overseas.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't happen in a classroom.
SPEAKER_00: It happens in the context of the local church that that missionary candidate is a member of.
SPEAKER_00: And that happens through the ordinary life of the local church.
SPEAKER_00: So if we're wanting to send qualified workers to fulfill Jesus' command in the Great Commission, what should churches be assessing for?
SPEAKER_00: What should they be looking for?
SPEAKER_00: I would suggest before a church sends someone across cultures and continents, that church should examine at least four things.
SPEAKER_00: And three of these I'm stealing directly from our church website, our philosophy of ministry, how we summarize a lot of what we do here at Redeemer, which is we are seeking to help people grow in conviction, competence, character.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to add one more for missions here: fruitfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just unpack those.
SPEAKER_00: What do we mean by conviction?
SPEAKER_00: By conviction, I mean their knowledge of God and their understanding of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, do they know God and his word well?
SPEAKER_00: Not that they need to be pastors or preachers, but can they competently, with conviction, uh teach God's word well to help others understand?
SPEAKER_00: Do they fully agree with their sending church's statement of faith?
SPEAKER_00: That should just go without saying.
SPEAKER_00: No church should ever send someone from their mist to be a missionary if they don't have a wholehearted endorsement with that church's statement of faith, because that means they might go overseas and teach something that contradicts what you as a church believe.
SPEAKER_00: Are they committed to the authority and erancy, inspiration, and sufficiency of scripture?
SPEAKER_00: That's very important.
SPEAKER_00: If as a church you're committed to these things, but you send someone who's not committed to the inerrancy of scripture, they don't believe the Bible is truly inspired by God, they don't believe scripture is sufficient for all that pertains to life and godliness, then the next question is, then what are they going to be discipling people in?
SPEAKER_00: Next, do they have a healthy biblical understanding of the church?
SPEAKER_00: Do they understand according to scripture what a church is?
SPEAKER_00: That I mean, some of these should go without saying.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're sending someone to be a missionary who doesn't have a robust understanding of what a church is, then what are you sending them to establish overseas?
SPEAKER_00: If people come to faith in Jesus Christ, if they don't have a biblical understanding of uh church leadership, of membership and discipline, all these core things that make a church a church, then you're sending someone to plant a less than healthy church.
SPEAKER_00: But second, you should assess competence, which is the ability to persuasively and lovingly communicate God's word to others in various ways.
SPEAKER_00: Are the people you're assessing as missionaries competent to persuasively and lovingly communicate God's word?
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, can they clearly and lovingly and persuasively explain and teach the gospel to others?
SPEAKER_00: That's something we need to assess.
SPEAKER_00: Or have others, another question to ask, have others grown spiritually through their ministry?
SPEAKER_00: Through their ministry of hospitality and discipling?
SPEAKER_00: Have you seen others grow in light of their ministry?
SPEAKER_00: Can they instruct others in sound doctrine?
SPEAKER_00: I think about the qualifications of a deacon.
SPEAKER_00: A deacon should be able to uh teach and defend the faith.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean they need to be, you know, stalwarts of the faith who can memorize every dead Puritan or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00: But can they competently instruct others in sound doctrine?
SPEAKER_00: If someone came to them and said, could you disciple me and help me follow Jesus, do you have confidence that that prospective missionary would confidently say yes and could do that?
SPEAKER_00: Third, you should assess character, the godly character in life that accords with sound doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a stance we take here at Redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: Every missionary should be elder qualified.
SPEAKER_00: Not that every missionary needs to be an elder or needs to preach and serve in that office, but rather saying, do they meet those character qualifications?
SPEAKER_00: While not every missionary will serve as an elder, every missionary should be elder qualified because, in the context of missions, they are representing Christ and his church cross-culturally and they are exercising spiritual influence.
SPEAKER_00: So you should assess are these mature, godly, faithful, holy individuals that we would tell someone in our church, if you want to, if you want to walk with Christ, imitate them as they imitate Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Another question to ask are they trustworthy and reliable?
SPEAKER_00: Are they the type of people that you would confidently say they are trustworthy and reliable?
SPEAKER_00: Do they do they show personal responsibility?
SPEAKER_00: When you're on the mission field, you are working with a lot of uh lack of supervision because you're in an unreached people group, you're by yourself or maybe with a small team.
SPEAKER_00: So you have to be able to work with faithfully with little supervision and just pragmatic things.
SPEAKER_00: Is their marriage and their home life healthy?
SPEAKER_00: I was a part of a church in which a sister wanted to be a missionary to Papua New Guinea.
SPEAKER_00: And as leaders, we supported her in that.
SPEAKER_00: We were working with her parachurch ministry and ministry, and we were, you know, moving along in the process.
SPEAKER_00: But as we were doing what I'm describing here, assessing her character and just her fruitfulness in the life of the church, we found out that she had some sinful conflict with a family member, and we suggested, like, sister, we support you, but we think you should resolve this.
SPEAKER_00: You should honor the Lord by pursuing reconciliation with this individual you sinned against.
SPEAKER_00: Long story short, the sister had no interest in doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she refused to do it and ended up just going to another church, asking their pastor to sign off on her parachurch ministry's uh endorsement for her as a missionary, and they sent her.
SPEAKER_00: That I would say would disqualify that sister for being a missionary by displaying poor uh character.
SPEAKER_00: Also, you should assess what are their motives for missions.
SPEAKER_00: I have been in ministry long enough to see sometimes people can be just ensnared with loving the idea of ministry, but not have the right motives for ministry.
SPEAKER_00: So, as best as you can, assess what is their motives, what is their why?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you want to go to this particular country to help establish a gospel preaching church, Lord willing?
SPEAKER_00: What is driving that?
SPEAKER_00: Is it is it because you want to see God glorified amongst a people group who is not worshiping God?
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the type of people we should send.
SPEAKER_00: Is it because someone you look up to was a missionary and you're like, I can see myself doing that?
SPEAKER_00: That's probably not a good person to send, at least at that time.
SPEAKER_00: And here's something else, just encourage all of us.
SPEAKER_00: When we are assessing character, we must be willing to send our best.
SPEAKER_00: Because God sent his best, his son, Jesus, to die on the cross to redeem his church.
SPEAKER_00: We must be willing to send our best, which means if we ever have the privilege of sending one to do any type of ministry work, it should tear our hearts apart on their last Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Because we know we are losing a faithful brother or sister who the Lord has been using to help our people follow Jesus in our community.
SPEAKER_00: So we should be willing to send our best because God was willing to send his best.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth uh aspect we should assess is fruitfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Fruitfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Do they display a track record of making disciples as a healthy member of your church?
SPEAKER_00: So many churches, so many prospective missionaries have a desire to go when they're not even faithfully making disciples at their current church.
SPEAKER_00: It makes no sense to send someone to a different continent to do ministry, to do missions, to seek to evangelize the lost and to plan a church when they're not even a faithful, fruitful member of your church?
SPEAKER_00: If they're not actively making disciples, if they're not actively showing hospitality and evangelizing, why on earth do you think they'll do it on a different continent?
SPEAKER_00: And a good question to ask.
SPEAKER_00: If they are faithfully serving the Lord and being fruitful members of their local church, then prayerfully ask, are people growing in godliness as a result of being under their ministry?
SPEAKER_00: If someone is faithfully serving the Lord, or let me let me give a case study.
SPEAKER_00: If there are two individuals in a church and both are faithfully sharing the gospel, they're discipling people, but one brother you realize it doesn't seem like people are really growing.
SPEAKER_00: It actually seems like the relationships kind of die off, and even when they show hospitality, they they seem to, they're not really making the connections that we would like to see them make.
SPEAKER_00: But then you see another brother doing the same exact things, but you see people growing in their walk with the Lord as a result of that brother's discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: You see people coming to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I would say you should probably go with that other brother and spend some time investing in him and then try to shepherd the other brother and figure out, well, what how can we serve you to help you grow to be more fruitful in your ministry?
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me be very clear the fruits of any ministry come from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So we're not being pragmatists here on the negative side, but that does tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: Like if a man is saying, I'm called to do this thing and he's trying to pursue it, but you realize, okay, I see what you're saying, but I'm not seeing the fruit from your ministry.
SPEAKER_00: So maybe we need to disciple you a little bit more to strengthen your ministry before we send you.
SPEAKER_00: All I'm saying is the church should not send missionaries who have potential.
SPEAKER_00: They should send their best, those who are qualified and trained and sent and supported to do the work of missions.
SPEAKER_00: Missions should not be something where we pat a Christian on the back and say, build the plane as you fly it.
SPEAKER_00: No, we want to invest in people well.
SPEAKER_00: So to start, just to keep unpacking this definition, the second half of my definition of mission says to start or strengthen churches, especially in places where Christ has not been named.
SPEAKER_00: I would say the Bible gives to us in the Great Commission and in other texts in the New Testament that the aim of all missions is the establishment of healthy gospel preaching churches, which means sharing the gospel overseas is not missions.
SPEAKER_00: Evangelizing the lost in a different continent with a passport in your back pocket is not missions.
SPEAKER_00: Evangelism is an aspect of missions.
SPEAKER_00: It's not less than that, but it is more than that.
SPEAKER_00: This is why I'm not necessarily a big fan, and I don't want to be too nitpicky here, but I'm not a big fan of, you know, hey, we we need to be missionaries in our city, we need to be missionaries in the workplace.
SPEAKER_00: I get what people mean by that.
SPEAKER_00: What they mean is evangelize, share your faith.
SPEAKER_00: But missions is evangelizing for the sake of seeing a church planted as people come to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So the goal of missions is not trips, it's not service projects or being able to tell a nice story.
SPEAKER_00: It is the establishment of healthy gospel-preaching churches that will glorify God by making disciples of Jesus Christ, according to Matthew 28.
SPEAKER_00: So that is the aim of missions.
SPEAKER_00: You are so as Redeemer Church, if we were sending someone to the mission field, we as a church are saying we have assessed and trained and are sending these individuals to, Lord willing, share the gospel with the aim of seeing a church established where there isn't one, or we are sending them to a church that is established in a hard-to-reach people group so that they can go help strengthen that church's ministry so the gospel can continue to advance.
SPEAKER_00: So we are seeking in missions.
SPEAKER_00: The aim is to establish healthy gospel preaching churches, which means sometimes that means planting new churches in areas where no church exists, or it means joining and strengthening an existing church so it can bear faithful witness in its context.
SPEAKER_00: But the aim is always the same: Christ's glory displayed through Christ church.
SPEAKER_00: This is important stuff because there has been for centuries the problem of churches abdicating their role and their authority to parachurch organizations.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not against parachurch organizations.
SPEAKER_00: I would say actually, parachurch organizations are a gift of God's common grace, in which, if they understand their role correctly according to the Bible, they understand just like a seminary, a missions organization, whatever it is, they exist to come alongside local churches to equip and support them and what the scriptures call them to do.
SPEAKER_00: So I would say ideally, every faithful Christian parachurch ministry should have in their mission statement, we desire to work ourselves out of a job one day.
SPEAKER_00: Because we have existed to serve the local church and what they're called to do.
SPEAKER_00: And if we do that well, then maybe one day churches will no longer need us.
SPEAKER_00: So again, I don't want to come off at all as if I'm anti-parichurch missions organizations because they are actually doing really great work.
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, if we needed to send missionaries into a hard country, I don't know everyone's careers in here, but I would be willing to guess we are not equipped to train someone in a new language, to help someone establish a business in another country so that they can safely enter into the country.
SPEAKER_00: We're not equipped to evacuate them out of a country for their safety if we needed to.
SPEAKER_00: There's all sorts of things that come into helping a missionary go from assessed and trained by their local church and their pastors, then to logistically getting them into another country and established to do evangelism and missions.
SPEAKER_00: So we all have our roles, but the challenge over the centuries has been churches abdicating their authority and the parachurch ministry stepping in as if they're the professionals saying, hey, pastors, just sign off your endorsement and then we'll take it from there.
SPEAKER_00: And what has happened is that has infiltrated churches, and then zealous Christians who mean well, who have a desire for missions, will not involve their church or their pastors.
SPEAKER_00: They go directly to a para-church ministry and start the whole process without saying, wait, what role does my church play in this?
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, if I could just give a quick layout of what should this look like in the life of a local church, I think a church that's just being healthy, that's preaching God's word, that's discipling its people and shepherding them well and evangelizing the lost, naturally you're gonna have people among your congregation who's gonna catch some passion for missions.
SPEAKER_00: And as that happens, that church member should first go to their pastors and say, I don't know what the Lord's doing, but the more I learn about missions, I feel like the Lord is just stirring in my heart a desire to be a part of that somehow, whether that's me going or supporting someone else who goes, and then submitting to their local churches process of does my church have a place overseas where they desire to see a church planted?
SPEAKER_00: Does my church already have established relationships with like-minded ministries overseas that we can be sent to to go support that team or to help work with your elders to determine a place where uh your church should have presence overseas and then be willing to submit to your church's vetting assessment training process to receive their full endorsement.
SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, if a missionary is sent out from a healthy gospel preaching church, it's not the missionaries who are leaving and doing missions on their own.
SPEAKER_00: It is that church that is seeking to do missions in a particular place through the members it's sending to represent them in a different country.
SPEAKER_00: And that also invites, that's why I love that story in Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: Because as churches do that well, everyone has a part to play in missions.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what a lot of churches do they'll say, we support 50 missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: What that means is we send 20 bucks a month to all these missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: We don't really know them, we don't have any relationship with them.
SPEAKER_00: We're not, they're not accountable to us.
SPEAKER_00: They're kind of doing their own thing through this organization, but we give financially every month.
SPEAKER_00: No, friends, it is so much more precious.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, for a sending church to generously and sacrificially support their own members who they send and keep relationship of accountability, just like if they were members of your church still here physically, to have accountability, to shepherd and care for them.
SPEAKER_00: If you have the resources to send elders and members of your church to visit them, to strengthen and encourage them in their walk, to remind them like we have not forgotten about you.
SPEAKER_00: You are members of our family.
SPEAKER_00: You're an extension of us and your country representing our church while you proclaim the goodness of our God in salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And it is a family affair.
SPEAKER_00: That is the beauty and the example, I believe, that the Bible lays out for us in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So, friends, when we talk about missions, we are not talking about a side project for a few Christians.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the mission that Jesus has entrusted to the church, which is why I entitled this series Church-Centered Missions.
SPEAKER_00: We should strategically and lovingly move slow to assess and train and send and support missionaries well so that when they go, they can go for the long haul.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might not know this, but unfortunately, because of a lot of the concerning things I have described, the average time a missionary is on the field is about three years.
SPEAKER_00: That's because they have not been trained and vetted well and supported well and all kinds of other various factors we could get into.
SPEAKER_00: But if you do this well, according to God's design, you are setting people up to have a fruitful ministry, Lord willing, for decades until the Lord comes.
SPEAKER_00: And you can see churches planted and be a part of that.
SPEAKER_00: So, in closing, the Great Commission isn't about something we as a church outsource.
SPEAKER_00: It's something that God has commanded us to do and that we steward.
SPEAKER_00: Some will go, some will not, but all must send and support, and every one of us is accountable to Christ for how we participate in his mission through his church.
SPEAKER_00: And our prayer in all of this is Psalm 67, verses 1 through 2.
SPEAKER_00: May God be gracious to us and bless us.
SPEAKER_00: May He make His face shine upon us so that your way may be known on earth your salvation among the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.