Missions starts here

A terrible crime was committed during this missions conference! I believe that Pastor Mark Logan hacked into my computer and stole part of my sermon in college chapel this morning! He started telling the exact story that I was planning on using tonight for my message. I will retell it since most of us weren’t there for it, and emphasize it a bit differently that he did. You’ll have to forgive me, but it’s my favorite missionary story of all time.

William Carey gave us one of the most famous missions quotes of all time: “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”

TELL THE STORY OF SVEA FLOOD. EMPHASIZE THAT SHE WAS FAITHFUL IN WHAT SHE COULD DO, EVEN IF IT MAY HAVE SEEMED SMALL.

TELL THE STORY OF SVEA FLOOD. EMPHASIZE THAT SHE WAS FAITHFUL IN WHAT SHE COULD DO, EVEN IF IT MAY HAVE SEEMED SMALL.

Svea Flood: “If you won’t allow me to convert this village, will you please allow me to lead this one boy to Christ.”

A couple of years later Anna and her husband attended an international conference inEngland. Representatives were there from all over the world. A young man was there from theBelgium Congo (which, as you know, is now known as Zaire). He told of a great revival there withthousands of believers being baptized into Christ. After the session Anna went forward to meet h im.She said: “I know there is no way you would have known them, but have you ever heard of David andSvea Flood. The man’s eyes filled with tears and he said: “I am the little boy that your mother led toChrist and in our village the name of your mother is remembered with honor for she is the one wholed us to the One Who gives us eternal life”.

ed an international conference in

England. Representatives were there from all over

the world. A young man was there from the

Belgium Congo (which, as you know, is now known as

Zaire). He told of a great revival there with

thousands of believers being baptized into Christ.

After the session Anna went forward to meet h im.

.... ..... .....A couple of years later Anna and her husband attended an international conference inEngland. Representatives were there from all over the world. A young man was there from theBelgium Congo (which, as you know, is now known as Zaire). He told of a great revival there withthousands of believers being baptized into Christ. After the session Anna went forward to meet h im.She said: “I know there is no way you would have known them, but have you ever heard of David andSvea Flood. The man’s eyes filled with tears and he said: “I am the little boy that your mother led toChrist and in our village the name of your mother is remembered with honor for she is the one wholed us to the One Who gives us eternal life”.

She said: “I know there is no way you would have kn

own them, but have you ever heard of David and

Svea Flood. The man’s eyes filled with tears and h

e said: “I am the little boy that your mother led t

o

Christ and in our village the name of your mother i

s remembered with honor for she is the one who

led us to the One Who gives us eternal life”.

Missions isn’t only about the big things. It’s about the little things. It’s not only about tomorrow; it’s a lot more about today.

Missions is not a future calling for anyone; it needs to be a present burden.

What you will do one day for missions is not the question; what you are doing for God today is the question.

It is good to have goals, to have dreams, to desire to do things for God. These should have God’s glory as an objective, but it is good to want to do something for God.

William Carey gave us one of the most famous missions quotes of all time: “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”

While I would not have the audacity to contradict William Carey, I look at my own generation, and my concern is not about who will attempt great things for God. It is about who will live for God, period. Who will attempt anything for God!

The Bible teaches us some principles that I believe we see developed in the story of Paul in Malta:

If you are faithful in the little things, you will be faithful in the big things.

You don’t get to attempt the big things if you haven’t done the little things.

· Paul had an ever-present desire to preach the Gospel in the city of Rome. He made this plain in . He wanted to preach the Gospel in the most important city in the Roman empire. He wanted to march right into the capital city of the Roman world and preach to them the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

· Through a sudden and strange series of events, the Lord is going to give Paul the opportunity to do this. It didn’t happen easily, and it didn’t happen in the way that Paul likely would have planned.

· It all starts in in Jerusalem. The Jews stir up a riot against Paul, and accuse him of defiling the Temple. They were really trying to get him back for preaching the Gospel throughout the Roman world. Paul ends up being rescued by the Romans, put on trial, moved to Caesarea, kept in holding, paraded in front of governors and kings, and finally put on a ship to Rome after he places an appeal to Caesar.

· Sometimes you get to do the things that you dreamed to do, but in God’s way rather than yours!

Montreal was the scene of a bloody war between criminal biker gangs between 1994 and 2002. They were fighting over territory in the drug trade. Montreal is a major port city, and a lot of drugs, weapons, and other illegal things transit through Montreal.

In 2002, I was fresh out of Bible college when a pastor friend asked me if I would be willing to help a friend of his. I sort of accepted before even being told what I would be expected to do. He explained to me that this friend of his was an evangelist from South Carolina and that he wanted to come preach in Montreal, but that he would need me to be the interpreter.

That sounded simple enough, so I started to ask if he was going to be doing open air preaching, if he was renting a facility, or what? My friend said, “Oh no, it’s nothing like that! His ministry is to evangelize bikers and biker gangs. You would go with him into Harley Davidson stores, into biker clubhouses, or other places where they hang out, and he would preach. You would be the language link between him and the bikers.”

Now, I know that everyone needs the Gospel. I truly believe that. Furthermore, I really wanted to reach Montreal with the Gospel. But this was not the way that I had intended to go about it! Confronting drug dealers with the Bible, keeping an eye on their semi-automatics was not my idea of soul-winning! But the whole thing fell through when the evangelist couldn’t get into Canada, for some unknown reason. So…if you come on a missions trip to Montreal, I’ll be glad to send you into the biker clubhouses, the mafia’s cafes, and such, armed with loads of Gospel tracts! J

· Sometimes God will use you, but not in the exact way that you thought he would. It’s important to be surrendered to God’s plan, not to yours only.

· As Paul is being transported to Rome, the ship on which he was sailing gets trapped in a storm, and they crash onto an island. The island is called Melita, or Malta, as we know it today.

I. Be involved no matter what people think. (3-6)

· We find in our text that Paul face both the scorn of men and he faces the praise of men. But, it did not change who he was or what he did.

· Sometimes people quit because of the negative things that people say about them. Other time people get off track because of how great people think they are. Both of these things happen to Paul in the same evening.

· One minute he’s a rotten criminal, probably a murderer, and a few minutes later, he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread!

· These Maltese people were transplanted Phoenicians, and like most people of the day, they had an elaborate set of gods and goddesses, with plenty of superstitions to go with them.

· Here is Paul, being a helper, gathering up sticks for the fire that the islanders themselves had started. Out of those sticks jumps a snake, and it latches on to Paul’s hand. Immediately, in their superstition, then think, “This guy must be a murderer, and the goddess of vengeance is getting him back. He may have survived the sea, but he isn’t going to survive the snake!”

A. People are constantly observing you.

· Being a witness or a missionary is not something that you simply do, it is something that you are.

· If the people see a discrepancy between what you say and what do, the cause of Christ is hurt.

· The Maltese people were observing Paul. Even as he was doing something menial, like gathering sticks, he was still on display.

· , “In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, 8 Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.”

· The fact that people watch us is not a bad thing, but it is rather an opportunity!

B. People will draw conclusions about Christ from you.

· What a great privilege it is to be called a “child of God”. What a privilege it is to be saved! We don’t deserve it, but it is all of grace!

· With that privilege comes great responsibility. We ought to live and speak in a way that reflects well on Christ.

· tells us that we “ambassadors for Christ”. We represent Christ! Our actions, our words, our life will lead people to desire Christ or to turn away from Him.

II. Opportunities multiply through faithfulness and service. (8-9)

· So, Paul shakes off the snake, and people just stare. They expect him to swell up, and get really sick or drop dead. But they just keep staring at him. Nothing happens. This is unbelievable to them! So, they come to their superstitious conclusion: this man must be one of the gods!

· This didn’t mean that he was a god, but rather that he served God. It was really a fulfillment of , where Jesus promised his disciples that in the time of the first-century apostles, they would be able to take up serpents, as confirmation that they were his messengers.

· It appears that this spread through the island, because all of a sudden, Publius, the main man on the island, is interested in lodging them. A few moments ago, Paul is perceived as a criminal, now he’s seen as some kind of god.

· Notice that through the small thing of helping around the fire, and then being protected by God from the viper, now Paul has an opportunity to meet the main man on the island. Of course, all of this is God’s doing.

What are you doing for the cause of Christ and the cause of world evangelism? I don’t know if God is calling you to do great things, but he is calling you to do some things.

Every man who was greatly used of God that I ever met, was not only willing to do great things, but he was willing to do any thing!

· God is the One who opens doors, who gives us opportunities of service, who uses us in His way and in His time, according to His good pleasure.

· , “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.”

This is a unique opportunity. You can’t run through your church’s missions conference without involvement and yet expect God to do great things through your life.

Years ago, here at FaithWay, Dr. Charles Keen was our keynote speaker. And he made us repeat this sentence over and over and over: “Everybody doing something, and everybody doing something more than he’s even done before.”

· It’s been said that crossing an ocean won’t make you a missionary. Missionaries are made at home, in churches like yours. We all ought to be missionaries.

· Whatever the Lord has allowed you to do, be faithful at it. Whether it’s teaching, singing, witnessing, be faithful at it. Even if it seems small and insignificant, be faithful at it.

· Count Zinzendorf, the count who financed the famous Moravian missions movement, founded a group called the Order of the Mustard Seed. Their motto was: 1) Be kind to all people. 2) Seek their welfare. 3) Win them to Christ.

In the harvest field now ripened


There’s a work for all to do;


Hark! the voice of God is calling


To the harvest calling you.

Little is much when God is in it!

Labor not for wealth or fame.


There’s a crown—and you can win it,


If you go in Jesus’ Name.

· , “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.”

III. Wherever we are placed, we are there to serve God.

· God loves the people of your town as much as he loves the people of the city that I am going to. He cares for your neighbor as much as he does for mine. Your relatives are as precious to him as the souls that I will meet.

· My wife has been a great help to me in my life in this area. It was her initiative for us to order Gospel tracts with our contact information for deputation, because every soul that we meet in our travels is as precious to the Lord as any soul that we will meet on the mission field. We may not have the opportunity to speak to them as long or invest as profoundly in them, but we can be faithful at giving them the Gospel.

· Paul had never planned on going to Malta; a storm put him there. His mind was to be a faithful witness in the city of Rome. God was taking him there in a very different way from what Paul would have chosen, no doubt.

· Yet, along the way, the Lord chose to let Paul spend three months on a little island, where Paul could have an impact for Christ.

· The text doesn’t come out and state that Paul preached the Gospel there. But we can take it for granted that he did, because Paul always preached the Gospel everywhere he want, and because nowhere in the New Testament do we find miracles that don’t relate to Christ’s message. Miracles were not meant to entertain, but rather to authenticate the message.

While D.L. Moody was attending a convention in Indianapolis on mass evangelism, he asked his song leader Ira Sankey to meet him at 6 o'clock one evening at a certain street corner. When Sankey arrived, Mr. Moody asked him to stand on a box and sing. Once a crowd had gathered, Moody spoke briefly and then invited the people to follow him to the nearby convention hall. Soon the auditorium was filled with spiritually hungry people, and the great evangelist preached the gospel to them. Then the convention delegates began to arrive. Moody stopped preaching and said, "Now we must close, as the brethren of the convention wish to come and discuss the topic, 'How to reach the masses.'" Moody graphically illustrated the difference between talking about doing something and going out and doing it.

Conclusion

What are you doing for the cause of Christ and the cause of world evangelism? I don’t know if God is calling you to do great things, but He is calling you to do some things.

What you will do one day for missions is not the question; what you are doing for God today is the question.

So, what are you doing? Are you praying, I mean seriously, are you praying for missionaries and for the needs of the lost? Are you telling boys, girls, men, and women the Gospel? Are you giving for the needs of the world?