Part of the Team: Our Role in World Missions
POV: Teamwork in the body of Christ is essential for effective missions.
Audience: People who are apathetic about mission because they think it’s not for them, and some who would be willing to play a part if they knew an appropriate role.
Action: Find a role and play your part. Don’t worry about “giftings” just do what God puts on your heart. Learn more and be educated about missions!
Benefits: We can see the Great Commission in motion and being fulfilled, and be part of a winning team that has incredible meaning. The peace, contentment, and excitement of being part of God’s plan.
Introduction
Blow whistle! Enter some of the missions committee as a football team…
We’re wearing different football jerseys not because we’re on different teams but because each of us bring different gifts and skills to the missions team! We’re one team because of one common goal – that we make disciples in Woodlands and the World!
We work together as a team for missions, but it isn’t enough for it to be just us. The entire church needs to work as a team for missions. This includes not only the pastors and the leaders, but each one of you can be involved in missions and be a part of God’s missions team.
Today in the book of Acts, as we look at the beginnings of the ministry of a man named Apollos, we will see how essential teamwork is throughout the body. You are going to be challenged to learn more and to play your part. We’re going to give you practical ways that you can do just that, because after the service downstairs in Cana Hall they have set up various booths for the different countries we are involved in.
The World Cup may be going on in Germany, but we are having World Missions right now in WEFC! So throughout this sermon, I’m going to be referring to people and places and things you can find out more about. Whatever God puts on your heart, I want you after the service to find out more about that thing at the appropriate booth downstairs!
Blow whistle and dismiss team!
Many of us never thought that we who are in Singapore can play a significant role in world missions, or perhaps you just didn’t know specifically what you could do. But when you take that step to find out how you can play your part on the team, you will be participating in the Greatest Commission ever given to anyone – take make disciples of all nations! And you will get to see that in motion and be a part of the winning team. It’s the most exciting and most rewarding thing you could be a part of!!
Now, let’s turn to Acts 18:23 and see what God’s Word has for us today…
Verse 23 sets the stage for us…
"After spending some time in Antioch, Paul set out from there and traveled from place to place throughout the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples." (Acts 18:23, NIV)
At this point in the early church there is a flurry of missionary travelling and activity. Paul leaves Antioch (right side of map) and travels along the blue arrows, through the regions of Galatia and Phrygia. Eventually he will end up in Ephesus, and here is where we read about Apollos.
"Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately. When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. On arriving, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. " (Acts 18:24-28, NIV)
What we see in this passage is a teamwork of people, working together, and a man at the centre of the story – Apollos, who matured, developed, then was sent out to tell others about Jesus.
The first lesson we can learn from this passage is from Apollos. Like him, we must
1. Be Ready and Teachable
Apollos was a man who was ready to be used by God. He wasn’t standing stationary in life, but he was moving with whatever he had. The fascinating thing about Apollos was that he had both great skills and also a great lack of knowledge!
On one hand, he had been taught the skills of speaking convincingly. In the ancient world, this was a highly prized skill among the Greeks called rhetoric. And he combined it with his Jewish education in the Old Testament. He was man who capably straddled two worlds –his Jewish heritage and his Greek surroundings. Verse 24 tells us that he came from Alexandria, a city where one-third of the population of Jews – a mixing pot of Judaism and Greek culture. His situation like a typical guy in Singapore, who may grow up with Chinese culture while having an English education and is exposed to a globalized worldview. Such a person is able to straddle asian and western worlds, and Apollos did that with his teaching skills!
Yet Apollos also had a great LACK of knowledge. We are told that he knew only the baptism of John. What does that mean? This refers to John the Baptist, and his ministry of calling people to repent from their sins in preparation for the coming of Jesus. In Matthew 3:2-3, John the Baptist says:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near…prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”
Apollos was preaching a powerful message of repentance, and the coming of a Saviour. It was good but incomplete! It was incomplete because he hadn’t yet heard that this had been fulfilled in Jesus, that Jesus was the Saviour, and had already died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. This was why Priscilla and Aquila explained to him “the way of God more adequately”.
So you can see that on one hand, Apollos was a man who had significant talents yet on the other hand he lacked significant knowledge. This represent aspects of every one of us! God gives each one of gifts and talents, experiences and skills - yet every one of us also has our own hang ups, weaknesses and limitations. We often feel limited by alack of knowledge or confidence. It could be a fear of talking to strangers, or appearing foolish, or not being able to manage our time to handle ministry, work and family. Whatever your limitation, you still can be used by God, but you must, like Apollos, have a heart that is Ready to be Used by God
Even though Apollos had limited knowledge about Jesus, he was doing his best with what he knew. His heart was in a position ready to be used by God.
The church can have the best equipping, training, and inspiring programs available, but unless you have a ready heart to move in whichever direction God calls you, you can’t get moving like Apollos. On other hand, if you have a ready heart, then when God shows you something, or burdens your heart, then you can get moving.
Illustration: Tennis
· Some of you know I play tennis. This is my tennis racket!
· Normal standing posture doesn’t allow you to get ready for the ball.
· Ready position allows you to quickly
· Super-ready aggressive position to receive the serve.
Is your heart in a ready position? Are you living your life in such a way that when God calls you to move in this ministry, learn a new skill, or be humbled in a new way – that you are ready to quickly spring to respond.
Pause
Something else that goes hand-in-hand with being ready is being teachable. Apollos exhibited this in a tremendous way. We read in verse 26, that Priscilla and Aquila, upon hearing him speak, “invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.”
Now I’m quite sure that Apollos was a far more gifted speaker than either of these two. He was also very knowledgeable in the Old Testament scriptures, yet he was still willing to learn and demonstrated a very teachable heart.
I believe that as a church, we have learned and progressed a great deal under Ps Leonard’s leadership in missions over the last 6 years. We learned more about caring for our missionaries on the field, and we learned about adopting an Unreached People Group, the Sawa of Thailand. Now God is calling us to make a difference in East Timor, and I believe, to align ourselves closer to God’s heart that has a burning passion for the lost. In the coming LTP semester, on Wed 20 September, we will be starting an LTP course that will help us do just that. It’s about us becoming world Christians, learning what God has done to reach the lost, and how we can be involved in the work right now. It starts 3 months from now, but I want you to prepare yourself to be READY and TEACHABLE. Watch this 1 min video:
Show LTP 270 Kairos Course Video (1.5 min)
If you’re ready to learn more about God using you in His missions team, then after the service, one of the booths downstairs is featuring the Kairos Course and you can learn more about it and sign up there.
Being ready and being teachable are important matters for our hearts. We also need to pay attention to how we can find and develop the right people to go to the mission field.
When Priscilla and Aquila heard Apollos speak, they were neither jealous of his great skill, nor did they feel superior because of his lack of knowledge. Instead, they warmly opened their home to him and were eager to build him up in the faith. Their efforts paid off, and Apollos became an extremely effective minister of the gospel.
Two keys to this effective ministry were training and sending.
2. Train and Send
Just as Apollos was teachable and received training from Priscilla and Aquila, we must also be serious about training those among us who are considering full-time missionary service.
Prepare and train future missionaries
In WEFC, we want to be very sure that when someone is sent for missionary service, that they go well prepared for ministry and challenges that they will face. This is why we are now starting a “Missionary Candidate Training” program in our church. This program begins from Level 1 for someone who is just considering the possibility of missionary service, to Level 4 where a person is making final preparations to go to the mission field. Whether you’re still a student, or if you’re the head of your own household, we want to help you in that process of discerning and acting upon God’s call for your life.
This training program deals with discipleship, accountability, mentoring, and the practical aspects of becoming a missionary. You will be mentored by one of our leaders and be guided in the path of possibly becoming a career missionary. I know we have several people in our midst who are considering this call upon your life now. At the training booth downstairs in Cana Hall, you can pick up a copy of this MCT Training Program with all the necessary details.
We want to be serious about training our future missionaries – with mentors playing their role in the team, and future missionaries committed to their training – so when it comes to sending them out, we will send them at their best. More than that, we want to eagerly send our best.
To send our best means to be willing to send what is the most valuable to us. Apollos was probably the best teacher that the believers in Ephesus had. He was the kind of speaker who captivated your attention, whom you could listen to effortlessly and enjoyably. And it wasn’t just fluff, because not only did you enjoy listening to him, but you learned a great deal too. His powerful words, flair for delivery, and passionate prose could keep you glued in rapt attention for more than an hour. Whenever he was scheduled to preach, the crowds would be extra large. Then one day, he tells you that he wants to be a missionary to the churches in Central Asia. The Ephesian church was about to lose one of their best preachers! How did they respond? Let’s read from verse 27:
“When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him.”
Let me show you how far Apollos travelled. Their beloved teacher travelled all the way from Ephesus to the region of Achaia, places like Corinth and Athens. This normally took 3 days of sailing to reach, plus the land transfers. It would be like us taking 3 connecting flights, followed by an overnight train ride! He would be able to write letters, but he wouldn’t be able to personally be with them for some time. What became of his ministry?
On arriving, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. "
Like the brothers in Ephesus, we need to eagerly send our best. We must never hesitate to give our best people, our best resources, or our best time to missions. Often, the more valuable the one being sent, the more difficult it is to genuinely send with eagerness – in no place is this more evident than when it comes to releasing our children to God’s service in the mission field.
Pause
Many of you have met my wife, Renata, at the last church retreat. She’s a ministry staff in the Methodist church, and she has a great passion for missions. When she first felt called to serve God in missions she was in university. Several years later, she felt that God wanted her to leave her job at STB, to begin her theological training and go into full-time missionary service. She plucked up the courage to speak to her father and told him what was on her heart.
Now my father-in-law is very faithful Christian and generous with others. He serves in leadership positions in his church, and even hosts missionaries in his home when they come through Singapore. But hearing his own daughter tell him that she wanted to go to the mission field is a different thing than praying for others to go. So when she told him what was on her heart, he was very quiet [PAUSE] then said…. “That’s not what I had in mind for you.”
I had a similar response when I told my parents I was going to be a pastor. I knew some difficult choices had to be made, and hearing the hurt and disappointment in my mum’s voice made things that much more difficult. We struggle with obeying God and honouring our parents at the same time. For Renata, that night she went to bed and cried into her pillow. And as she prayed, God spoke to her saying, “I’m your father too.” Peace filled her heart and she knew that God would take care of things.
God worked on hearts, until Renata’s Dad is now all for us serving God full time… but I think that if, in the future, we were to bring his grandCHILD to the mission field there would be another round of struggles of the heart.
Once, at a family Chinese New Year gathering, her dad stood up and announced to the family that Renata was going to full-time ministry. He said this… pause… “Before she was born, we prayed and dedicated her to God. We had forgotten until now…”
Parents, you need to be ready to release your children when God calls remembering that they belong to Him and that you are stewards over their life. I’d like to show you something in Psalm 127. Turn there in your bibles there and mark this. Verse 3 says:
Sons are a heritage from the Lord,
children a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their enemies in the gate.
The arrow is a powerful weapon. Because of it, a warrior can extend his reach and influence much further than he could reach with his own two hands.
Your children are rewards from the Lord, and like an arrow held in your hand or stored in your quiver, they will be with you for many years. But when the time comes for your arrow to be put to your bow, you must release it in whichever direction God calls. When you gladly release your son or daughter to the mission field, supporting them though it is painful to see them go, you are playing your part on God’s missions team. And like an arrow, through your children, your reach and your influence will be far greater than what you yourself could achieve. Your legacy in God’s kingdom will be far greater than you could have achieved with your own two hands. That is why they are your arrows.
Pause
It must have been difficult for the believers in Ephesus to release Apollos, but they did so gladly and he had a highly effective ministry. This was possible because of the training, sending, [emphasis] and caring that he received. What we must also learn to do as a church, especially after we train and send our missionaries, is to continually care for those whom we have sent.
3. Continually Care
Providing caring support for our missionaries long after their farewell party is one of the most important things a church can do. Let me tell you - caring is much more interesting and has much more variety than simply helping to pay the bills. It’s also something that the missions pastor and the missions committee cannot do alone.
This kind of caring support is best done by various people within the church, perhaps by individuals, by a family, or by a Care Group. And this is where any one of you sitting here today, can play this crucial part of God’s missions team.
When a missionary is sent from our church, she uproots herself from Singapore and is transplanted in an entirely new country, culture, and language. She learns and adapts to this new place, and begins to change as well. Yet she still needs to keep her links with Singapore and WEFC, and she sometimes has struggles and difficulties which need a listening ear. We have long ago dispelled the notion that missionaries are super-Christians who don’t need anyone’s support. Instead, we, the sending church, have the primary responsibility for that support in God’s missions team.
Let me give you some examples of how you can be a fantastic source of caring support, playing your part in world missions. You could do this for just one missionary – perhaps John, or Lily, or Louis and Chris. Let’s start with something common:
Of course you know that you can provide financial support through the Faith Promise Offering that directly provides the money that is needed by the missionary to live and to do ministry there. But have you ever though of also giving one-time gifts just as a way of showing love and appreciation? A few months ago, Lily told me that out of nowhere she got a surprise email from a friend who had given her an amount of money by depositing it into her bank account. It was a completely unexpected, and very encouraging surprise.
You could provide morale support by letting them know you are praying for them, or by asking them how things are going with their ministry or things in their life that they shared in the Missions World newsletter. You could think of something light-hearted, like perhaps finding out a food-snack that Lily misses cos she can’t get it in Central Asia, then buying a packet and mailing it to her! Can you imagine when she opens the package – it would be like the VISA advertisement on TV – Pork Floss from Bee Cheng Hiang - $8, Postage to Central Asia - $4. The smile on Lily Wee’s face – Priceless!
You could provide communication support. For example, missionaries need to keep in touch with Singapore and what goes on. Imagine cutting out newspaper clipping on interesting local news, then sending those to Louis and Chris after collecting a month’s worth! What a fantastic surprise loving support to that family.
There are many other kinds of support that you can provide to a particular missionary and be an encouraging blessing to them. You could be a ready source of logistics support, providing anything they need for ministry or doing things for them in Singapore that they can’t do while they’re not here.
Downstairs, there is short article about this [show paper], which you can pick up from one of the booths. It has some more explanation and more ideas about how it is we can provide caring support for our missionaries. It will spark ideas in your mind as you read it, about how you can support them. At the tables, you can also write an encouraging note to John in Sawa Land, Lily in Central Asia, or Louis and Chris in Japan.
One particular area I want to mention is what we see Priscilla and Aquila doing this in verse 26.
When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.
Showing loving support through hospitality by inviting people into our homes is an excellent way of being part of God’s missions team. We also have a great opportunity to do this, not only for our own missionaries, but for those who work among the Sawa, our adopted unreached people group in Thailand. Through the years of working there, we have gotten to know several of these missionaries and when they come through Singapore, we have an opportunity to show them loving hospitality in our homes and our country. At the Sawa booth downstairs, there is a sign-up for being on this hospitality team. You can play a part in missions in this way by hosting an individual or a family, usually for a day or two. We even have opportunities to do this near the end of July. The benefit and encouragement you provide to missionaries will be immense, and more than you can imagine.
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Conclusion
I hope today that you have grasped that effective world missions involves many different roles. It’s more than simply the missionary who goes, plus someone who pays the bills. Our caring support needs to go far beyond this, and this is good news – because this is how most of us will be involved in world missions. It is said that for every soldier who goes on the battlefield, there are nine other people who support him In the same way, for every missionary on the field, there needs to be a team of support people working at home sending and supporting him or her on the field.
Your part on the team at this moment could be learning more about missions through the Kairos Course, it could be releasing your son or daughter to go to the mission field even though it’s painful and worrying for you. It could be supporting the Laus, Lily, or John in a small but significant way that you never thought of before! It could be involving your Care Group or your family in providing caring support to a missionary, so that your children learn about loving others through missions. When you involve yourself in this way, you will be part of God’s missions team fulfilling the great commission to the ends of the earth.
So this week, whether you’re watching World Cup matches at 3am, or just catching highlights on the news, look at the teams from all around the world. Teams that are working together, and perhaps some that are not! Remember that missions is about people playing different roles on different parts of team – and while only one country will life the World Cup in victory this year, God’s Word promises that you [take out football jersey from bag] can play a part on His winning missions team.
Sermon Outline
Part of the Team
Playing our part in world missions
Acts 18:24-28
- Be ________________and ________________
- T___________and S___________
- Continually C___________