Sermon Tone Analysis

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.