Go Ye Therefore

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. I appreciate what's going on in the church and people getting excited about jail services and reaching out to community. and that takes the dying to self because I'm sure we all have things we could be doing in our spare time. We need to give up what we want. [00:00:34] And as we look at the life of Christ, He didn't even have a place to lay His head. And He wasn't pursuing after His own interests. Well, I guess He was, wasn't He? He was about his father's business, but I'm saying how we can pursue after our own interests. Last time we talked about the Word of God and how important is the Word of God to us, each of us individually. [00:01:10] What does it mean to us? And as we look at that, and as we can grasp the importance of the Word of God, or the importance of Jesus Christ in our life, then we will want to go out and share it. You know, how excited are we when we have a baby? How excited are we when we win a ball game, a volleyball tourney? [00:01:43] I don't know. What all we get excited about? Shoot a buck? Maybe we're not as into sports as what we used to be, but there was a day when we'd follow sports and the Colts and all that stuff. And maybe that's time gone by and I praise the Lord for that. But how excited are we about the Word of God? And when our team wins, we want to let everybody know, well, Jesus Christ has won. [00:02:17] and we need to be letting everybody know. Leon asked me a title. I said, I don't know. I should maybe start thinking of titles, but I did think of one maybe, and that is from Matthew 28, verse 19, Go ye therefore. This is such a, I thought about, It's such a big topic and we could just study the life of Christ. [00:02:52] If you look at all the disciples of Christ, even in the Old Testament, all the men of God, Jonah, think about all the missionaries that there were in the Bible. They were all missionaries. And then, you know, we could focus on the life of Christ, how He came down. So, how important is the Word of God to you? [00:03:29] My question is, are we about our Father's business? And why did God save you? What was His purpose in saving you? He saved you so that He could use you. In order to be a missionary, I think that we need to see the two kingdoms clearly. There's two kingdoms. And if we don't see them clearly, [00:04:00] we're not going to want to go out and share about God. I looked up the word mission it means to send ascending or being sent any number of persons appointed by authority to perform any service in Matthew I had to think of that authority I thought of the authority of the church we send out a missionary [00:04:30] but that's not who we send them in we don't send them out in the name of the church Matthew 28 verse 18 Jesus came and spoke to them saying all authority has been given to me in heaven and in earth so he sent them out under his authority I have some statistics I said that right the first try I have some of those [00:05:02] that I got from, I think it was Weston Leiby, three years ago. I didn't get them three years ago. He spoke them three years ago. And so I'd like to share them. He was talking about foreign missions. And he said that he was talking about the unreached people group, people groups. [00:05:34] You know, everybody around here is reached. You know what an unreached people group is. They never heard the gospel. He said there's 16,000 people groups. There's 6,775 people groups that are unreached. that have never heard the gospel. That's 2.5 billion people. 66,000 of those unreached people die every day. [00:06:10] And that is one every one and a half seconds. So if you just want to, somebody could be Thank you, Lord, for this reading of the Gospel of the Holy Bible. And it would be a nice reminder of how fast these people are dying that have never heard. And that's not even including the people that are rejecting Christ. And that was another thought. Why are some of the people around this community rejecting Christ? [00:06:43] Christ. Are they rejecting the Christ that they see in us? Or like are we portraying the true Christ? Are they rejecting the true Christ that they see in us? Are they rejecting a Christ that is not the real Christ, if you know what I mean? So every second and a half, somebody from the unreached world never heard the gospel is dying. That spoke volumes to me. [00:07:17] He also, he said that he did an extensive research and found out that the average American Christian, so-called Christian, Gives 2% of its income. Now, you know, a lot of us are going to say, wait a minute, we give more than that. And praise the Lord. But we're talking about the average American Christian, [00:07:48] so-called Christian, gives 2%. The rest of it is spent, of course, on ourselves, 98%. The average American Christian makes up 30% of the world, the world's population, but makes 56% of the world's income. So they make up a lesser part, but they make over half of the world's income. So if you take, let's say we take $30,000, that's what the average American makes. [00:08:30] Maybe it's more, maybe it's less. Some of you are going to make more, some less. But let's just use $30,000. That means that the average American Christian gives $900 a year. And from that, okay, that there is all the giving. So, you know, when you give to the church, so much goes to building funds, so much goes to missions, so much goes to general fund. 6% of that giving goes to missions. I think ours is quite a bit more than that. [00:09:01] Hallelujah. So, $54 a year goes to missions. Am I being confusing here? So the average American Christian gives $54 a year to missions and 13% of that $54 goes to the unreached people which breaks it down to $7 a year that the average American Christian is giving. And, you know, most of our circles are going to give a lot more money than that. [00:09:41] But what are we doing to reach the unreached? And even what are we doing to reach those around us? What is our view of missions? How important is the Word of God to us that we want to spread it to others? Jesus said, He simply said, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. As I got to thinking about that, I had to wonder, am I a fisher of men? [00:10:15] And if I'm not a fisher of men, am I following Christ? What am I doing to further His kingdom? Do I keep in mind that He saved me to use me? Jesus lived a life of suffering love. You look at his life, he was suffering all of his life, nonresistant. And am I willing to suffer? [00:10:50] Am I willing to suffer to save a soul? I know that we don't know what it's like to suffer. We don't have to suffer. But do I know what it's like to give till it hurts so that somebody can go reach the unreached. Let's turn to Mark 13. Verse 32 to 37 [00:11:38] But of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, Nor the Son, but only the Father. Take heed, watch, and pray, for you do not know when the time is. It is that a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. Watch, therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming, in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all, watch. [00:12:19] The first thing that I noticed, it says, take heed, watch, and pray. Am I praying? What am I praying for? And I know that sometimes there's going to be times in our lives when we have to focus on our family. It seems like that's all we can pray for sometimes, or ourselves. But then as we grow in the Lord and as we read His Word, where's our focus and where's our attention? Where's our interest? What are we interested in? [00:13:02] You know, are we praying for those people? Are we crying for the countries that we can't even pronounce? For people, do we see life for what it is? Do we see the value of a soul? Sometimes that can be kind of overwhelming as we look at it. But also there's times even in my life that I kind of forget about those people in another country. [00:13:35] We got it so nice here and we keep ourselves busy that we forget about even the person down the street who, if they don't come to Christ, they will be lost. Verse 34, it is like a man going to a far country. Jesus has went back to his father, is sitting at the right hand of his father, We each have a special work. Do you know it? Do you realize it? What is your special work? What are you called to do? [00:14:19] What are you called to do? And how will you ever know what you're called to do? How are you supposed to know that? Is somebody going to tell you? Or is God speaking to you? Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming in the evening. I had to think of, there was times when we used to stay home as kids and mom and dad said they'd be home about 9, 30, 10 o'clock and the house was a mess, you know, and all of a sudden they showed up at 9, you know, the house was a mess and it was in, you know, we didn't clean up. [00:14:57] And I used to always think of that for myself spiritually, you know. Before God comes back, before Christ comes back, I need to have my life in order. And that's true. But at the same time, how many souls do we know that are lost? And are we doing something about it? Then Matthew chapter 9. Verse 37 and 38 [00:15:35] Verse 37 Then he said to his disciples, The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labors are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labors into his harvest. We all know that as we look at the world and what's going on. But something caught my eye in 38 there again. [00:16:06] It says, Pray the Lord of the Harvest. And I had to think, we are not, sometimes we think that we're working with God, with Christ to bring in these people. But then we can start depending on ourselves if we're working along with Him. We're really working for Him. He gives us the power. And do you ever feel scared to witness to somebody? Me? I have. [00:16:41] Do you really believe that God can be with you? You know, I'd be scared to go out to New York City and to spread the gospel and to talk. What would I say? Boy, that scares us. So what do we do to prepare? Read God's Word. You know, what do we do to prepare for basketball? Jamie's doing these exercises for his ankle so he doesn't sprain his ankle. What for exercises are we doing to prepare ourselves to preach the Word? [00:17:13] How important do we think that the Word of God is? How important is it to us? How important is it to share with the next person? Then in Matthew 10, verses, we'll read 5 to 10 I guess. This is where Jesus is instructing his disciples. These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them saying, [00:17:47] Do not go into the way of the Gentiles and do not enter a city of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now, here he's saying, you know, just stay at home here a little bit. He's not really sending them out to the Gentiles or the Samaritans. And I never really thought of it that way before, that that's what he was actually doing. Just stay here at home, you know. So, a lot of times we hear so much talk about going into foreign countries and all this, and we need to, because later on in chapter 28 it says go into all nations. [00:18:25] So, we do need to, but for now, you know, so it's almost like our church wanting to do a mission, you know, what are we doing here in our community as a church? But then again, let's break it down a little bit more. What am I doing in my community? The people that I meet, just off the cuff, somebody stops in at work or something, you start talking to them. What do you have to say to them? Are you just looking for a way to get the Word of God, just stick it in there a little bit? [00:18:58] Bring the conversation around to the Bible about their life. You know, are we looking for ways? Do you pray in the morning, Lord? Lord, lead someone, bring someone across my path. I can lead them to the Lord. But be careful. You pray that he'll bring someone to you. Trust me. I think there's several of us that know all about that. So, you know, and as we as we come home from work and we're tired and the kids are there and we're busy and but we got a spare moment. What do we read? What do we do in our [00:19:35] If you don't have a, like, if you don't get Voice of the Martyr or some magazine like that, I would suggest you get it. Because it really speaks to, tells you all about what's going on in the world way over there, persecuted Christians. and it helps us to take a, it stirs our interest in what God is doing in other countries [00:20:07] and what people are having to go through to share God's word. Verse 7, And as you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tonics, nor sandals, nor staffs, for a worker is worthy of his food. [00:20:42] That spoke volumes to me. Do I realize that freely I have received, so freely I should give. And, you know, when we went down to Jamaica, we wanted to make sure everything was going to be provided for us, you know, and we don't want to run out of money and go hungry. And how would we ever get back home? And what about our health care and all this stuff? And but here they were sent out. And I've heard I've read some men say that maybe they thought that it was such urgency. [00:21:21] But maybe God just said, hey, Jesus said, hey, just do as I did. Just go and preach the word. And then verse 16 to 31. Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the councils and scourge you in their synagogues. [00:21:52] You will be brought before governors and kings for my sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour which you should speak. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. There's kind of your answer If you're in the Word of God, you're reading it every day, your desire is to spread the Word of God, to share the important Word of God with somebody. [00:22:32] And you meet somebody at work or you're looking for a way to talk to the insulation guy, you know, or something, whatever, milk truck driver, I don't know, I had to think of LeVon all of a sudden. God is going to give to you what you need. Do we trust Him in that way? You know, sometimes your mind can just go blank and all of a sudden, bang, there's something to say. So we shouldn't worry. Verse 21, [00:23:06] Now a brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child, and children will raise up against parents and cause them to be put to death and you will be hated for all my name's sake but he who endures to the end will be saved when they persecute you in this city flee to another for surely I say to you you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes verse 27 whatever I tell you in the dark speak in the light and what you hear in the [00:23:44] and do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. You know, do we know, are we willing when it talks about persecution and how people will deliver us up to the councils in the synagogues and they will whip us and they will... [00:24:22] I know that He's talking to the disciples here, but we never know when that time will come. And are we willing to go through that pain and suffering to lead someone to Christ? How important do we see the Word of God? But then it goes on to say that we don't need to worry about that because He takes care of the sparrows, He will surely take care of us. Then let's go to chapter 28, very familiar, verse 19. [00:25:04] Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age. That's your promise. God will be with you even to the end of the age while you are trying to lead others to Christ. Go therefore and make disciples. One thing I forgot to mention [00:25:36] back in chapter 10 It mentions, or maybe I didn't get there yet, Acts 1 verse 8. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. [00:26:08] We will receive power when we're scared to go out and to share God's Word. We will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And we are to start in Jerusalem, here at home. And then Judea, Jerusalem was in Judea and Samaria is a little north. And then go to the ends of the earth. Let's go to Acts 6, verse 5. [00:26:55] Here we're going to be looking at Stephen and Philip. Acts 1.8 says that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon them. And here in Acts 6.5 it says, The same pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith, and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and then it names the rest of them. [00:27:31] And verse 7 says, Then the word of God spread, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. Then it says, And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. Do you believe that that can happen for you? Or maybe it is. Or is that just for these guys? [00:28:02] It's not really for us today. I don't believe that. I believe that that's for us. If you're a Christian, you're saved. God saved you to use you to further His kingdom. Then Stephen, in front of all these guys here, this council, verse 10, and they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke. [00:28:34] I don't know, he probably didn't have anything planned to preach in chapter 7 when he preaches to the council. Um, they ended up stoning him, as we know, at the end of chapter 7, verse 54, and when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed at him with their teeth. Can you imagine? Here this guy is preaching, uh, God has called him. He's preaching, he, he, how important do you think the word of God was to him? [00:29:11] that he would go through this for the Word of God. But he being full of the Holy Spirit, how else did he make it through? Power from the Holy Spirit. Gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God and said, Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears and ran at Him with one accord. Oh my word, can you just picture that? [00:29:45] And they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. That there, what a great example and a witness to me. [00:30:21] Then in chapter 8, it starts out with talking about how Saul was persecuting the church. At that time, a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem. and they were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. Remember in chapter 1, verse 8, it says go out into Judea and Samaria. Maybe they had no place else to go, but they went. Verse 4, therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. [00:30:57] Everywhere. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And then in chapter 26, we all know the story of the eunuch. The angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is desert. So what did he do? [00:31:28] I don't know if I'm called. I'm not called. So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia. We know the story. Verse 29, Then the Spirit said to Philip, Go near and overtake this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah and said, Do you understand what you're reading? You know, it's pretty important to send Bibles to China. [00:31:59] It's pretty important to give out Bibles But it's also important that somebody is there to explain. Here the Ethiopian eunuch, we know he had some questions. He said, how can I unless someone guides me? And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. The place in the scripture where he read and he goes on to say. Okay, we need to, you know, there's a lot of different ways to witness I know, but we need to be willing to go and God calls us to go somewhere because here if Philip wouldn't have been there, who was going to show him Christ? [00:32:48] Who was going to explain the scriptures to him? The big thing that I want to bring out is that they were obedient. You know, if you look at the life of Stephen there in the end, he obviously loved the Scripture. It was important to him. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been willing to die for God. So again I ask, how important is the Word of God to you? [00:33:26] I also had to think of, you know, you have a king and a kingdom. Wasn't there somebody, some big king that they said that his kingdom, the sun never set on his kingdom, that's how big it was? I forget who that was. It was in Rome or something, I don't know. But what if his son would have said, you know, he's not interested in the kingdom. [00:33:58] He's only interested in just his little space over here. He's only interested in, you know, his kingdom was so big and so vast and stretched for, you know, continents. Well, what if we, sons of God, would only be interested in just our little space here? You know, we would tell that prince, hey, you've got to be about your father's business. You should be interested in what's going on in the other parts of your kingdom. [00:34:33] So, we too need to be involved, and we can be. Are you a sender or are you a stay-at-homer? When we say that we are not called, we're not called to missions. You know, we're definitely stay-at-homers. Stay-at-homers are not called. But I know that we're not all called to go to a foreign mission. [00:35:03] But we are called to spread God's Word. In closing, I want to read a couple of verses from Philippians chapter 2. And this is my prayer as we go throughout life, us as individuals, us as a church, That you may become blameless and harmless, children of God, without fault, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. [00:35:43] How true is that? Among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life. Do we hold fast this word? And how precious is it to you? How precious is it to me? And what are we doing about it? Every second and a half, there's someone dying that is unreached. I wonder how many there would be that are reached that are dying. [00:36:17] So, search the Scripture, search your heart, pray. Ask God to show you where He wants you to go. I just pray that we can be obedient to Christ. Thank you.