Missionary Service

At the same time, we are cognizant, we recognize the fact that revival without roots burns out. Revival without roots burns out. I think it'd be fair to say it this way. Revival isn't just what happens at the altar. It's what happens after. It's not just what happens at the altar. It's what happens out after. And and I don't think I'm alone in the in when I see those images and when I hear the reports, I I see those videos.

I'm not thinking about the fact that somebody's going to have to disciple those people. I'm rejoicing for what's happening and we should celebrate it. But we're not thinking about the oh someone's going to have to disciple them. And that's something that takes time. It doesn't just take time. It takes leaders that are trained, leaders that are equipped to do it. That are ready, that are prepared. And the reality is that right now in French-speaking Africa, we have pastors who are hungry for training, who are often untrained.

We have an urgent need for doctrinal teaching and discipleship teaching. And the reality is that considering its size, currently the French-speaking world is vastly under-resourced in apostolic materials like books and manuals, but frankly just simply in personnel as well. In training opportunities. And this is the gap that we are attempting to step into. This is the gap we're attempting to fill through teaching in Bible schools, through teacher training, through ministerial seminars, through creating online resources that can be used uh at a distance. We're trying to step into this gap.

Now, I didn't invent this. I didn't come up with it. It's what Paul talks about in 2 Timothy 2:2. He says, "And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." That's how Paul put it. And and we're simply trying to apply what Paul was telling Timothy. To teach teachers. Why? Because revival isn't just what happens at the altar. It's what happens after. Now, I want us to focus on four people in this verse.

Um first the me in the verse, of course, is Paul. He's the one writing. So, we've got Paul in the verse, and you is Timothy, who he's writing to, his son in the gospel, his protege. And then we have the faithful men. Faithful men. Followed by others also. Now, why these four? Why why focus on these four people? If we can call it that, people and groups of people. Cuz the many witnesses are right there, right? They're right in the verse as well. Why these four?

And it's a simple reason. Paul, Timothy, the faithful men, and the others also, they represent four generations of truth. That's why we want to think about that. That's why we want to focus on that for a second. This is how Paul thinks about his mission. And and and all the church has the same mission, right? To go and make disciples of all nations. Every believer, every Christian, go and make disciples. Go and make disciples of all nations. And let me just say this here. Jesus said, "Go and make disciples." Jesus did not say, "Go and find disciples." Go and make disciples.

And so, when when Paul takes that in and when he looks at his capacity, when he looks at his co-laborers, this is how he envisions obeying that commandment. This is how he envisions the mission of the church. It's it's four generations of truth. It's it's multi-generational. It doesn't stop right in front. The reality is the church is only ever one generation away from being extinct. And so, if we have just a one generation vision, what can happen? Four generations of truth. So, with that in mind, I challenge you tonight to ask yourself, "What am I doing to ensure that the message continues for multiple generations?" Excuse me.

What am I doing to ensure that the message continues for multiple generations? Try to imagine what it might look like for the local church to work towards a four-generation plan to pass on the message. What could that look like? Tonight, I'd like to share five strategic shifts that I think will help us um they will help us think in terms of a four-generation plan. Five shifts that I think are useful and maybe even needful for the church today. And shift number one is this, you stop doing everything yourself.

Okay? So, that's literally what Paul is telling Timothy, right? Timothy, I don't want you to do it all. I want you to do all the teaching, all the training, all the preaching. I want you to find some faithful men. I want you to multiply yourself. I want you to find a a a a way to do it differently. We've got to make a shift from thinking, "What can I do?" to thinking, "Who can I equip?" What can I do to who can I equip? This is what Paul's thinking about.

Paul didn't just preach, he equipped Timothy, right? He took the time to activate someone else so he didn't do it all. So you stop doing everything yourself. And and it it's easy to to sit here and think, oh, you know what? That's a very good point. For the pastor. That's a very good point for the leaders. But this is for every one of us. I really do believe this. I I want to try to show it to you. You you have this beautiful sanctuary, this beautiful uh facility here.

Somebody cleans all of this, right? This applies to everything. Somebody cleans all of this. So if you clean the church, if you're in charge of cleaning the church, let me ask you, is there somebody that you can invite into that work with you? And I'm not talking about teaching them the perfect ratio of water to cleaning solution to uh you know, to get the floors clean around here. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about equipping them, teaching them, inviting them into this task, inviting them into cleaning the church as an act of worship.

As an offering, a sacrifice. Or or if you know how to play one of these instruments, is there someone around that you can teach? Again, not not to teach them just the scales or the or the notes or the modes or but to teach them how to play as worship. When we start asking this question, who can I equip? We stop doing everything ourselves. Who are you developing to go beyond you? That's shift number one. Shift number two is this, you build systems, not just moments.

The shift here is from focusing on events to focusing on systems and frameworks for multiplication. And again, it's what Paul is telling Timothy. He's not saying, "Timothy, I want you to find some faithful men so that you can set up in classroom and you got something to do during the week." I I'm I'm not saying I Timothy, I want you to have uh some kind of teaching ministry going on. No, he's saying, "I want you to commit the things that I put in you, the things I committed to you, commit them to these faithful believers so in in such a manner that they will teach others also." It's not intended to just be the faithful believers, it's the others also.

He's setting up a system, right? He's setting up systems. Now, it'd be fair for you to sit here and ask, "Well, okay, but I'm I'm one disciple. I'm one I'm one believer. What how do I set up a system in the church?" Okay, i- if you have ever taught a home Bible study, and and I'm not talking about the the one-hour one session, but like the 10 or 12 lesson home Bible study. If you've ever taught a home Bible study, you set up a system. You set up a system where week after week after week after week, you would be sharing God's word with somebody that needs to get closer to God or somebody that's unchurched.

You set up a system. When you mentor somebody, you're setting up a system. Our Bible schools that we start all over the world, they're systems. They're systems that create pipelines that move people closer to God and that prepare people and equip them for ministry. So, you build systems, not just moments. Not just events. Ask yourself, if I disappeared, would this still continue? Is it set up in such a way that it can continue in someone else's hands? You build systems, not just moments. Shift number three.

We need to localize and contextualize. Now, I know that that one can sound kind of abstract. Um maybe even pretentious. How dare you put those words up there? But, this is something that you're familiar with. This is something that that you know about, okay? If you have ever followed Paul's missionary journeys through the book of Acts, you've seen Paul do exactly this. You've seen Paul localize and contextualize. Paul doesn't preach the same thing at Athens that he preaches at Ephesus. Paul doesn't preach the same thing at Ephesus that he preaches later in Jerusalem.

He's not preaching the same He's preaching the same gospel. He's preaching the same Jesus, but he's not communicating it the same way at all. He's He's tapping into the local culture. He's looking at their symbols. He's looking at their He's looking at the way things are set up. What does he do in Athens? He's looking around and he sees all these different altars to all kinds of different gods. And he takes that in and he analyzes it and he makes a judgment about it according to the gospel and according to his training in scripture, he makes a judgment about that.

And then he notices, "Oh, there's a there's an altar to an unknown god." Just just so they can cover their bases. They've got a altar to an unknown god. And he clocks that and he notes it and he analyzes it. And so later, he's going to do what the gospel does to every culture, he's going to use that to both critique the culture and affirm the culture as well. And so he says, "I saw all your altars all over the place and I I determined you guys are way too superstitious.

You're You're You're trying to control everything through all this multitude of altars. But I did notice you have an altar to the unknown god. And I'm here to introduce you to him." So he use but when he gets to Ephesus, he doesn't do it that way. And in Jerusalem, he's definitely not going to do it that way. Paul, what's Paul doing? Paul is localizing and contextualizing. He's learning to speak the local language by observing first. By By honestly, humbly looking around, having his eyes open. Looking at what's going on.

And he's thinking, are there things to affirm in the culture? Are there things to critique in the culture because of the gospel? So, he he's he's doing this work of analyzing the culture, learning to speak the local language, learning to understand the local culture. And this is something that we live with, right? I I don't think anyone here would disagree if I said the culture of St. Louis is not the same as the culture of Kansas City. Right? Which barbecue's better? Okay, let's move on. >> >> But you know you felt that, right?

You felt culturally things are different. We we know this in ourselves. Let me show you another example. How many of you read the Bible in English? Pastor's watching. How many of you read the Bible in English? Awesome. How many of you read the Bible in Hebrew? I'm looking. I'm looking. No. Somebody went through the work to localize and contextualize God's word so that you and I could read it and understand it. Somebody did that work. And that's work that we do in our current culture, where we're at.

So, you learn to speak the Why do we do all this? Why do we make this effort? Why is this shift important? Because it carries the vision further. It carries the message further. Amen. You localize and contextualize. Shift number four, you measure fruit differently. You measure fruit differently. You shift from focusing on crowds to focusing on things like disciples who reproduce. You learn to measure fruit differently. You don't just count church attendance. Should you track church attendance? Yeah. But that's not the only metric that matters.

You don't just count Facebook likes. That's not the only metric that matters. You learn to measure fruit differently. I had When I was an engineer, I had an engineering mentor who taught me that you always get what you measure for. You always get what you measure for. And uh he explained it he explained it to me this way. He uh he worked at a big multinational company called Siemens. And they started a program at one point where they were going to pay bonuses out to programmers, software developers.

They were going to pay bonuses for every bug that they fixed in the code. Which is awesome, right? They They had a big database of all the bugs and you would go in and find a bug and go and fix it. Um and and just to give you more information, the people who were going to get bonuses for fixing the bugs were also the people that wrote the programs to begin with. And so if you wrote a bug into the program, you could then go in and fix it later and get a bonus for it.

Because you always get what you measure for. Now, how's that apply to us? I came into the apostolic church as to the apostolic movement as a teenager. And so what what I saw coming up And if if your experience is different, that's awesome. That's great. >> >> What I saw coming up is what what we counted. We counted a lot of things, but what we really counted was people baptized in Jesus' name and people filled with the Holy Ghost. And of course we should celebrate that.

We should always that's absolutely that's absolutely uh primary, right? We That is that that's fundamental. And we should celebrate that. But that was really all that we really counted. You know, we we say other things. We you know, you count your church attendance on the Easter Sunday and so. But what we really counted, what we really celebrated was people baptized in Jesus' name people filled with the Holy Ghost. So let's think about that. Now, I want to be clear. Faith that's followed by repentance and baptism in the baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins and the infilling of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, that is the new birth.

That's the only entrance into the kingdom of God, into the church. That's the new birth according to John 3. Uh but let's think that through. It's the new birth. Can you see where there might be an issue if we make the new birth the finish line? You'd never do that in the natural world, right? You wouldn't bring a brand new baby home from the hospital, put it in the bassinet, throw up your arms, "We've got a baby. We're done." You wouldn't do that. Right? Getting the baby home, that's the beginning of woes.

>> So, you learn to measure things differently. You measure are our disciples discipling people. Are are are are Christians making disciples? Are how many home Bible studies are being taught? And if if you've never taught a home Bible study, if you hear nothing else, I want you to teach somebody a home Bible study. Even if even a brother in the church, a sister in the church, your kids, your pastor, just teach somebody a home Bible study. Just so that you know what it's like. But you measure fruit differently.

You measure fruit differently. I really believe these shifts help us. They help us to develop a four-generation vision for passing on the message. And finally, shift number five, you pray and you plant with patience. You shift from focusing on fast results to focusing on faithful investment in the kingdom. And and faithful investment in the sense that you may not see the fruit, but someone else will. A four-generation vision to pass on the message, it it demands of us that we pray patiently, that that we trust in the Lord of the harvest.

As we faithfully invest, we trust the Lord of the harvest. It demands of us that we we plant, that we sow sacrificially without knowing where the harvest is coming. >> >> This might be get me in trouble, but I'll I'll try it anyway. I think So So, Paul says some plant, some water but God gives the increase. None of us gives the increase. We can plant, we can water, we can't give increase, we can't make we can't like physically make fruit grow, push out of the ground.

We can't Some plant, some water. Um So, the the harvest is God's. It's his harvest. I think that it's time we we've we've had too many apostolics who refused to sow where they couldn't harvest. Now, we Let me ask you Let me ask you this way to think Let me ask you to think about it this way. If it's God's harvest do I get to care who harvests it? I'm called to plant, I'm called to sow, I'm called to water. I'm not called to give the increase.

And whoever harvests, I want to be able to celebrate with who's harvesting. Amen. Do you want to celebrate with whoever's harvesting? Faithful investment in the kingdom, doing the right thing over and over and over, and prayerfully trusting in God that he's got things in control. That he's in charge, that he will give the increase. I I do believe, I firmly believe that these shifts will help us. They will bridge the gap to a four-generation vision, to a four-generation plan for passing on the message, for passing on the gospel.

I do believe that. I believe that if we if we start looking at some things differently, we'll start looking further down the road and we'll start preparing, faithfully investing. This is why we're in Africa now. It It's not just to have a place to teach. It's to go and teach teachers. It's to go and equip others. And And tonight, I want you um or rather I should say I want to invite you to stand in the gap for us, for French-speaking Africa. But also for St.

Louis. Also for South County. Amen. Would you stand with me? In a moment, I'm going to invite you to come around the front to pray. And here's what I'd like to invite you to do. You may be thinking, "Okay, that I that that sounds fine, but what what can I what what can I do about it? What do I do about it right now, right here?" Here's what I want to invite you to do. I want to invite you to come down and ask God, "Show me some Timothy figure in my life.

Somebody I can start to equip. Somebody I can start to bring into whatever work it is that I do for the kingdom. Maybe it's Maybe it's your kids. Maybe it's somebody you know. Maybe it's just sharing a spiritual conversation with somebody at work or in your neighborhood. But but ask, pray, "God, show me some Timothy figure. Who is your Timothy? If you know the answer, pray for that person. Pray for your involvement in their life. But if you don't, ask God, "God, show me a Timothy." What's your four-generation vision?

Maybe come around the front and ask, "God, give me a four-generation vision." As your pastor comes, could we gather just to to connect with God for a few moments? Father, I pray for your blessing. Touch my brothers and sisters as they gather. Speak to them, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. I bless you. I believe the Lord's helping us now. Would you just take some time and respond to what we've heard, this word of truth? Thank you, Jesus.