hi I'm Professor Timothy Moore and this is unit five on the introduction to missions And we're going to begin looking at missions as disciplem today Uh often when people talk about missions they speak in terms of someone going somewhere to start a church uh launch a ministry a church planting uh movement etc uh and in reality missions is always a disciplemaking endeavor and technically we don't go anywhere to start a church Um biblically missions is about disciplem and disciplem begins not with planting a church or ministry It begins by planting the gospel of grace the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ When we plant the gospel effectively churches and church multiplication movements are simply a byproduct They're always going to happen where we are effectively planting the gospel of grace when people are exposed to and understand the the the um the essence of the gospel and how it affects them personally God promises in his word to work in a powerful way drawing people to himself drawing people out of spiritual death into spiritual life He will expand his kingdom family and he'll pour out spiritual blessings on people's lives that give him that give the the people the real hope that we've expressed in in previous lessons So the gospel of God's grace found in the work of Jesus Christ unleashes hope within people that they can then express in the world and others have the opportunity to come to faith in Christ and then churches and church planting movements are a byproduct of that And so here's here's a key thought missions as disciplem begins with the understanding and the application of the gospel of grace in the mission context And so what we're going to uh cover in this unit in terms of the gospel of grace as mission is its essence and its expansion We're going to look at biblical examples of missions and missionaries and and their particular focus because they had a singular focus And we're going to uh we're going to I think revolve primarily in this unit around the Apostle Paul and those that were called to be companions of Paul on his missionary journeys And let's start with Acts 20 24 where Paul who is you know the consumate example of a missionary in the New Testament uh he says this uh none of these things move me Now um when he says these things he's talking about what he said previously in Acts chapter 20 which is that the Holy Spirit revealed to Paul that in his future as he carried out his mission assignment there would be significant difficulties He even used the word suffering the word persecution etc imprisonment So the Holy Spirit revealed these things and he let Paul know that he's going to be working through all of them And he did Looking back at what God did through Paul's life much of the expansion of the gospel and of the church happened while Paul was in prison Um and so Paul is saying none of these things What things those things the persecution the suffering what the Holy Spirit said that he would endure in his time on earth while he's carrying out his gospel mission He says,"None of these things move me They don't affect me. " He says,"Nor do I count my life dear to myself so that I I may finish my race with joy and the assignment that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify. " And here it is Here's the assignment He said to testify to the gospel of the grace of God Let's pray about this together Father thank you for these students who are uh who are learning what your word says about biblical missions and the example that we have with the Apostle Paul and the companions that you called into his life to carry out this mission this mission to testify of the gospel of your grace and how you used it Lord to extend and expand your kingdom on earth and for church churches to be launched exponentially as a byproduct of this assignment And so help us to plug into this Lord Help us to understand this gospel of grace and in its essence to understand how you cause the expansion of your kingdom through the gospel of grace and then how you're continuing to do that through hearts that are yielded to you today I pray for all of these students and for myself that our hearts would be yielded to you and that we would walk forward in this assignment and this calling to testify of the gospel of your grace in Jesus name Amen So this is Paul Four missionary journeys They're all in the book of Acts they're um they all happen in about a 14-year time period And if we place ourselves back into that historical context just imagine um when you trace it and there are all kinds of maps You can Google the maps of Paul's missionary journeys and you can literally measure how far Paul and his companions traveled in these four missionary journeys and it's 9,150 miles with no cars no airplanes Um they probably did the vast majority of this travel on foot or in a boat 9,150 miles over 14 years four missionary journeys And God calls at least a dozen people to Paul and the specific assignment and calling that God put on Paul's life Uh people like Barnabas and Timothy and Titus and Aquilla and Priscilla and John Mark and and uh Titicus and and several others Uh yeah Uh what so here's what we want to focus on first What is the gospel of grace because that's Paul's call What is the gospel of grace uh number one it's the power of God that saves us Romans 1:16 says "I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes for the Jew first and also for the Gentile.
" And so basically that's everyone Gentiles ethnos that's all ethnicities uh all nations all peoples The gospel is for everyone It's the power of God to salvation So the first thing about the gospel of grace to keep in mind is it is the power of God to save us And so the word save Greek word soas means to be rescued and redeemed and restored And so whatever the content of the gospel of grace it is God's power and method to rescue us from the effects of our sin to redeem us into an eternal relationship with God and to restore what is broken through sin in our lives and in the world And so that's the first aspect of the gospel of grace It's the power of God for our salvation The second part is that it is the pure gift of God and it cannot be earned Ephesians 2:8 through10 says God saved you Same word So to us God saved you by his grace The gospel of grace when you believed and you cannot take credit for this It is a gift from God It's a pure gift from God It's not something that we can earn Verse 9 says "Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done so none of us can boast about it. " Verse 10 "For we are God's masterpiece and he has created us a new in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. " So it's the power of God gospel of grace It is the pure gift of God that cannot be earned and it's very expensive It's the most expensive and important gift that could ever be given Uh we can't earn it We can't achieve it and it's not a reward for what we do But somebody paid the highest price for that It is very expensive And we see in Romans 3:23 through through 28 how the gospel was purchased It is an expensive gift Romans 3:23 says "Everyone has sinned and fallen short of God's glorious standard Yet God.
" In verse 24 it begins with yet God That Greek phrase can be translated yet God or but God And anytime you see a yet God or a but God statement in the Bible DrJohn Piper said "All of the hope and all of God's word hinges on those two little words yet God or but God. " Because everything that's broken and wrong with the world the answer to that is but God or yet God And here we have that Verse 24 Yet God in his grace freely makes us right in his sight He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty of our sins For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life shedding his blood This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time And God did this to demonstrate his righteousness For he himself is fair and just and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus Verse 27 Can we boast then can we brag that we have done anything to be accepted by God no Because our acquitt is not based on obeying the law It is based on faith So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law This is the word of the Lord So the gospel this is a key a key point an essential element of this The gospel always always lifts burdens and unleashes blessings Now I I want to compare and contrast religion with the gospel because the gospel is not religion The gospel is this gift It is the power of God to rescue and redeem us It is the pure gift of God It's a very expensive gift and it was paid for by Jesus And the Bible says it's not something we can earn We can only receive it by faith Religion equals good advice That's the aim of religion to give you what what people consider good advice And so good advice is always something to do And something to do equals burden increased So it's on you It's about you and it is a list of what is required or forbidden Every religion has a list of what is required or forbidden And often in those religions it's a pretty dynamic and and changing list Like there are a few more rules 10 years from now than there are right now There the list expands The list changes that happens even if it's called Christian and it becomes a religion it is a list of what is required or forbidden and therefore the burden increases because the burden is placed on you the difference between that and the gospel of God's grace is the word gospel means good news it's not good advice it's good news and it's not something to do it's something done It's something completed something finished And if if it's that and it is biblically it's not burden increased it's burden gone That's the good news The good news does not put a burden on you The good news eliminates the burden So what we are teaching if we're if we're truly Christian if we're truly biblical we're not teaching a list of what is required or forbidden We're teaching the gospel of God's grace which is the power of God to save us to rescue us It is the gift of God that can only be received by faith And it's very expensive but the price has already been paid The work's already done That's what Jesus meant when he said at the moment before he gave up his spirit he said to Telus "Dai it's finished Paid in full. " Um so we receive the gospel We don't achieve anything in the gospel It's already been achieved It's already been paid for And the moment that we receive Christ into our lives by faith How do you do that romans 10:13 says "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved rescued redeemed restored.
" And so it is an invitation It is something that you receive And so we get the gift of of God's grace and forgiveness by inviting Christ to come into our lives He works by invitation He doesn't kick the door of your life down and and work in spite of of um of you rejecting him He he waits That's what and and that's what Jesus meant when he sat and looked over Jerusalem before he went to the cross and he said "How often I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks but you were not willing. " And so the willingness of the individual is something that Jesus talked about and the invitation given by the in individual is when Christ steps through the door into that person's life and then never leaves them never forsakes them and brings all of the benefits and blessings of the gospel of grace into that person's life to rescue them redeem them and restore them And as a person's understanding of the gospel of grace increases they understand that they are forgiven that they are accepted by God all because of Jesus And amazingly John chapter 17 says "God the father loves the person who has received Jesus as much as he loves Jesus. " The first time I read that I thought because uh I I spent years studying biblical languages I I I was like I don't remember reading that specific phrase And I thought I've got to look at look that up in the biblical language of coin a Greek and I've got to see if it really says that And guess what it really says that It says exactly that That the same amount of love that the father has for the Lord Jesus Christ is placed on the individual the moment they receive Christ And that's good news So if we don't have to work our way into acceptance then um what motivates us well if you understand that you're forgiven and accepted by God and there's nothing that can touch that And by the way the Bible says there's an enemy of our souls in first Peter chapter 5 And and um and he's always looking for for some type of hook There's Bible words for that foothold and stronghold He's he's always looking for some kind of hook in the believer's life to make them believe something different than the gospel of grace And so what happens when a believer sins it doesn't affect your acceptance by God It doesn't it doesn't affect the level of God's love for you Here's what happens when you sin It gives the enemy a hook and the the enemy hooks onto your deliberate sin and he wants to bring four things This is what we experience It doesn't affect our salvation It doesn't affect our acceptance and our forgiveness and the love that the father has for us But we feel four things fear failure futility and finality This is what he wants us to feel So when we're sinning deliberately and when we sin deliberately long enough we call that an addiction And so when that happens in our lives we become fearful We start believing that it depends on us and and not on the finished work of Jesus We we begin to parrot We don't realize we're doing this but we're paring an identity statement that the enemy is is bringing into our lives through that hook that we've given him with our deliberate sin And that identity statement is I'm a failure And an I am statement is an identity statement And there it's very powerful when you start telling yourself I'm a failure The enemy knows that So he doesn't want you to experience the joy of your salvation And so he tempts people believers especially tempts all people but he tempts believers to deliberate sin so that he can take the joy of our salvation at least temporarily and make us filled with fear instead of joy Make us agree with this identity statement that I am a failure Futility is a word that means nothing I do matters Like I should just stop everything that I'm doing for God or with God because nothing really matters and I'm a fake All right another identity statement And then finality ultimately expressed is I'm going to die and there's nothing after death None of this matters futility and there's a finality and and all of the promises of God about this being temporary and then our life being eternal it's not really true And so there are people who've truly opened their hearts to Jesus and experienced this salvation and had that initial joy and that first love and then they are they start walking into deliberate sin and sometimes the deliberate sin becomes addiction and instead of living in that acceptance and forgiveness and that beautiful space we start living as believers in the area of fear f fear failure futility and finality and it's all a lie It's all a lie But if it's your reality you'll have no joy And the devil will take that if he's lost your soul [Music] So we have to realign ourselves with the gospel of grace We have to confess our sins First John 1:9 says that um if we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness And it teaches that we have an always have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous one And so when we bring our hearts back into alignment with the gospel of grace and what Christ has achieved for us those hooks disappear A foothold happens with a deliberate sin I think a stronghold is a more powerful expression of that that happens through addiction A an ongoing pattern of that deliberate sin And the Bible says those footholds and those strongholds can dissolve They can be destroyed And our hearts realigned with the gospel of grace And when that happens wow the fruit of the Holy Spirit happens Joy increases The the the understanding of the love of God for you and the acceptance of God in Christ permeates you And guess what happens the fear dissolves The sense of I'm a failure dissolves The futility nothing I do matters dissolves And then this life becomes a mission that we move through we flow through into eternity with God where there is joy unspeakable majesty and blessing forever more So let's talk about the expansion of the gospel of grace That was the essence of the gospel of grace And actually I moved into the experience of the gospel of grace Uh I intended to just talk about two things here but there are four aspects of the gospel of grace I want to cover in the next couple units Um let's start talking about the expansion of the gospel of grace Did how did that work in in Paul's life we already mentioned there's four missionary journeys God started calling people to Paul and the specific assignment that he gave to Paul And uh and they started traveling on foot and by boat 9,150 miles And churches began to be established not because Paul says "I've gone to this place gone to Ephesus or or Leosa or Galatia or wherever to start a church He didn't He said "I'm going to give testimony to the gospel of God's grace.
" But because he and his companions did that local churches formed that were kingdom outposts And we see through the the early history of the church an exponential deployment of people from all of these uh churches local churches that were not places for ministry They were bases for the mission and people were deployed out groups of people deployed out And there's an exponential expansion of God's kingdom expression of the gospel of God's grace and hundreds of thousands of new churches forming as a byproduct of these people going out with the gospel of God's grace experiencing it expressing it and there's expansion And at the end of Paul's life toward the end of Paul's life and this 14 years of specific missionary journeys he says in Romans 15:18 "I dare not boast about anything except what Christ has done through me bringing the Gentiles to God by my message and by the way I worked among them. " They were convinced by the power of miraculous signs and wonders and by the power of God's spirit In this way I have fully presented the gospel the good news of Christ from Jerusalem all the way to So started in Jerusalem four missionary journeys ends up in ericum And he said "My ambition has always been to preach the good news where the name of Christ has never been heard. " rather than where a church has already been formed by someone else He said "I have been following the plan spoken of in the scriptures where it says those who have never been told about him will see and those who have never heard of him will understand.
" In fact my visit to you he's talking to the to the believers in Rome And he said "My visit to you has been delayed so long because I have been preaching in these places. " So the mission the foundation of all mission is um and missionaries is to take the gospel of grace where it has not been heard or understood And then then what happened was Paul stayed there a while Paul it's very interesting to me that Paul only visited the major cities He didn't stop in small towns He went to the town to the city squares in major cities and he plugged in and he lived there one to three years Why why was that um the strategy of Paul well Paul was called Paul is one of three types of missionaries in the Bible And we describe the first type of missionary that Paul represents as a frontier missionary or an apostolic missionary And so this is a person called by God to go in and testify of the gospel of God's grace As it says here in Romans 15 he said "By my works among them and by my message. " Those that those phrases are very important By my works among them and by my message Paul goes to places that had not heard of Christ and he begins by his works and by his words expressing the gospel of God's grace and people begin to come to Christ The Holy Spirit works remember it's the power of God to save all all people So the gospel is the power of God to save Paul is expressing it in his works and his words and people start coming to Christ Those people start gathering organically naturally Paul knows that believers gathered together to learn to be on mission together is the church The people start gathering and Paul starts training them how to do life with God life with Jesus And we've touched on this in intro to missions how life with God is a devotional life It is a relational life and it is a missional life Everything that we have in 12 of the 27 books of the New Testament that the apostle Paul wrote all those things fit in those three categories A devotional life with God a relational life with God and a missional life with God And so Paul stays one to three years training these people to do that to be disciples to make disciples with those three essential experiences of life with God and then the second type of we see the second type of missionary So there were certain companions called to Christ and called to this mission that are traveling with him and they're and they're there in that major metropolitan area and the church begins to expand through the expression of the gospel of grace by works and words And then it becomes time for Paul to move to the next city And so who leads that movement in Ephesus god calls one of the companions named Timothy and Timothy stays there for years and years He stays there and he he is there according to 1 Timothy chapter 3 he's there to develop leaders Paul says in in 1 Timothy 2:2 the it's interesting two of the 27 books of the New Testament are written to Timothy first and second Timothy And Timothy is this second type of missionary that drops in He stays in one place and for years he develops the leaders and he makes sure that this movement that has become uh gatherings has become what we would call a local church expression There may be many different gatherings in the city but he makes sure that this continues to be a base for the mission And what happens periodically as we look at church history groups are being deployed out of Ephesus and they're taking the gospel of grace and the church and the kingdom of God expands exponentially That's what always happened Paul shows up with the companions People respond to the gospel of grace They grow in life with God Those three aspects of life with God And then Titus is left in Cree Timothy is left in Ephesus So the second type of missionary is more of a of a pastor or a lead elder that is is in that place and base of mission long-term to develop and deploy disciples of Jesus Christ who multiply disciplemakers And so you have a Pauline type of missionary which is the apostolic frontier missionary who goes in where the gospel's never been heard or takes it in a way where people can grasp it through the works and words stays with them for a while and then moves on and leaves the second type of missionary there and says "Stay here Develop leaders Appoint elders in the churches.
" Exactly what he told Timothy to do and Titus and Creek Appoint the elders Develop impart things to faithful and teachable people who will be able to teach others also make sure there's a plurality of solid leaders there so that this can continue even after you graduate and go to heaven So um the third type of missionary is represented by Barnabas Um Barnabas is a new name Uh Barnabas was not born with the name Barnabas The word Barnabas means son of encouragement And so God calls him as a companion to travel with the apostolic missionary to assist him to encourage him Why do we need that because the devil's real Because ministry is not a dance It's a fight Paul says "I have fought the good fight I have finished the race Ministry and missions is not easy Paul suffered and he needed those companions to encourage him He needed a Barnabas He needed a Titicus He needed a John Mark He needed these people Aquilla and Priscilla to encourage him He t he used those words They have encouraged me They have refreshed me Paul said And so there are these refreshers They are there are these encouraers They they are also emissaries They learn from Paul and they go do it themselves wherever they are together And so you have Paul type missionaries You have Timothy and Titus type missionaries And you have Barnabas Titicus type missionaries And they're all so that the gospel of grace can be testified to imp planted by works and words Um it's very important I want to back up for just a moment It's very important to focus on works and words because uh often uh often the focus is let's just get somewhere and preach Let's just get somewhere and start imposing this message on people And Paul didn't teach that Jesus didn't teach that Paul did not model that Jesus didn't model that 1 Corinthians chapter 9 Paul says "I become all things to all men that I might by all means save some. " Paul also said to the Galatians in Galatians chapter 5 "All that matters is faith working through acts of love. " Jesus said in Matthew 5:16 "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify the Father who is in heaven.
" And so people take their first steps toward God and an understanding of the gospel of grace through how we live our lives not the words that we say It always moves from works to words Let your light so shine not by your words by your works so that people might glorify the father uh who is in heaven And so it's how we live And what do I mean by how we live when you grasp the gospel of grace and you realize that you are completely forgiven you are always accepted by God that God loves you with the same amount of love that he loves the Lord Jesus Christ And that never changes no matter what What's your motivation it's not to be accepted by God Your motivation is not to be forgiven by God What's your motivation gratitude I mean when you grasp it you're so filled with gratitude and your heart is filled with love because of the incredible love that God uh aimed at you first in in the Apostle John in first John says "We love him because he first loved us. " And so when we grasp the level of love and grace that's available and and not just available that we possess when we receive Christ by faith when we grow in our understanding of that our motivation becomes gratitude that becomes uh the fullness of our love for God Jesus said the greatest commandments to love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind Well the gospel of grace is what enables us to do that And so gratitude and love become our motivation And and you you need to know that if you're in that space there's an enemy who roams about like a roaring lion It says in 1 Peter 5'8 "Your adversary the devil roams about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. " And so um his singular purpose talking about Satan's singular purpose and the forces of evil are to cause you to be motivated by something else besides gratitude for what has been accomplished and the incredible love that God has placed on you as a as an undeserving human because we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God And so Satan will just take any other motivation And so when he tries to get the hooks in and your motivation uh I'm going to say this and we're going to be done There are a couple of uh of things I want to recommend after this but um what the enemy wants to do when you're carrying when you're experiencing the gospel of grace you're on mission and you're carrying the gospel of grace to others It's like two sides of one coin And there's one phrase that expresses it applied two different ways And that phrase is it's all about you Okay on one side of the coin he says it's all about you And what he means by that is it's all up to you Like this gospel of grace is is not reality You have to keep the list of what is required or forbidden And here's the reality in that None of us can do that None of us can do that a 100% of the time And so if we don't do that which that's going to happen only 100% of the time the feeling that he's trying to produce is what we talked about before Fear failure futility finality If he can't get us that way then the flip side of the coin is ego So he says it's all about you Keep the list of what is required or forbidden You can't do it you get in a position of self-loathing and all the and those four things And then if that if he can't get it that way then he says "It's all about you Here's the list of what is required or forbidden.
