Breaking the Mold - 7

Greetings. Welcome to another midweek service by means of live stream from the nearly empty auditorium of Beacon Baptist Church on Kirkpatrick Road in Burlington, North Carolina. And we joyfully serve the Lord during these days of COVID, continuing to minister at a reduced pace because of the necessity of the COVID situation. Nevertheless, accepting all of these circumstances as designed by God and planned by God and applied to the lives of God's people in a way that will assure our good, knowing that all things work together for good to those who love God and who are the called according to His purpose. So thank you for joining with me for the midweek service tonight.

I hope that you are ready to receive a great deal of information from missionaries. I trust you are ready to consider prayer requests, and I trust you are ready to look at the Word of God as we worship Him in this electronic way that the Lord has provided for us. As my wife and I were viewing the live stream service Sunday night where Pastor Latour brought an excellent message and where we also heard from missionary Larry Bunyan, but on the devices we were listening to, watching on, it had a count of how many people were viewing or at least how many devices were tuned in, how many computers and so forth were picking up the live stream. If it's like our house, then one device means two viewers, my wife and I viewing together as we projected up on our big screen television, which really makes it nice. But at any rate, I was watching that number and noticed over the course of the evening the numbers increased by 30. We started out at one number at the beginning, and by the time it was over, we had added 30 along the way, and some of them didn't get very much since they got in within the last 10 minutes or so of the service. But we were glad to see people joining us and continuing to join us. I told Marty, I think the explanation for that, people joining that late, is that when people go to sermon audio, there's a place where they can scan how many services are being broadcast live at that moment. And, of course, ours is one of them at that particular time. There are others as well.

But if people are looking for a live service as opposed to prerecorded service, then they go to one of those sites and click in. So we probably had a number of folks like that joining us on Sunday night. Well, let's commit this time to the Lord in prayer. Father, how grateful we are for your faithfulness, your provision, your guidance, how grateful we are for the grace of salvation in Christ Jesus. How grateful we are that we can join together as a body of believers, even though we are not assembled together in one location, that nevertheless we can join our hearts together around our unity in Christ Jesus and around the word of God and around our common interest in the work of missions. And we thank you, Father, for that means to meet and to worship in this way. We pray that you will guide and direct in all that is said tonight. I pray that you will open hearts to receive with profit all that is communicated tonight. And we ask those things in Jesus' name.

Amen. We love to sing hymns of doctrinal substance at Beacon Baptist Church, as you can probably tell by tuning in and hearing our singing. And here's a hymn that we sing from time to time that I really love. It's called Hail Sovereign Love. It was written by Jehody Brewer, who lived from 1752 to 1817. And as I remember hearing the story of this hymn many years ago, and I hope I still have the details in mind, I believe the words of this hymn were found on the body of a slain British officer in the Revolutionary War in the early days of America. And at least that's a story that came to me. But at any rate, here are the words.

Listen to them. Hail sovereign love that first began the scheme to rescue fallen man. Hail matchless, free, eternal grace that gave my soul a hiding place. Against the God that rules the sky, I fought with hand uplifted high, despised his rich abounding grace, too proud to seek a hiding place. Enrapt in thick Egyptian night and fond of darkness more than light, madly I ran the sinful race, secure without a hiding place. But thus the eternal counsel ran.

Almighty love, arrest that man. I felt the arrows of distress and found I had no hiding place. Indignant justice stood in view. To Sinai's fiery mount I flew.

But justice cried with frowning face, this mountain is no hiding place. Ere long a heavenly voice I heard. A bleeding savior then appeared. Led by the spirit of his grace, I found in him a hiding place. Should storms of thundering vengeance roll and shake the earth from pole to pole, no flaming bolt shall daunt my face, for Jesus is my hiding place. A few more rolling suns at most will land me safe on Canaan's coast, for I shall sing the song of grace and see my glorious hiding place.

Great hymn. A couple of announcements. We do want to rejoice in the continued response to our Faith Promise program for 2021.

And we have now through this last Sunday received 47 cards. Our missions total stands at just under $66,000 and a little over $6,000 for the building fund. We are grateful, grateful for the response that we have received. We are mindful, however, that we still have a long ways to go. Simply to have the funds necessary to continue supporting our missions budget at last year's levels.

And in a year of COVID, that would be, I think, a great cause for rejoicing if we are able to continue supporting at last year's levels. Please pray that the Lord will make that possible. I noticed one additional card in the box in front of the pulpit as I came to the pulpit tonight.

So I know other people are continuing to respond. Then let me also mention that the December Elders Deacons meeting will be this coming Tuesday night, December 8 at 715 in the fellowship hall. And I should also mention that the Tri-State Particular Baptist Fellowship will be meeting here at Beacon Baptist Church on this coming Monday afternoon from 2 until 5 o'clock. Two speakers are currently scheduled. The first one is Herb Taylor, Missionary to Hispanics.

Herb and Wanda make their headquarters in Greenville, South Carolina. But they travel a lot and I was pleased to see the announcement that Herb will be speaking in the first slot at 2 o'clock on Monday. And then at the last slot, Pastor Bobby Smith of a church in Winston-Salem whose name I have forgotten at the moment.

Forgive me for that. But he'll be speaking to us in the last slot. And there'll be one other speaker that has not yet been announced but will be present on Monday, I'm sure. For a third speaker and we'll also have a time of fellowship. If you're able to join us for all or even part of that time, we would be delighted to have you. Now let me cover the prayer requests, praises and prayer requests that are on our midweek sheet.

And you may have a copy of that because we send that out by email and you may have downloaded it. We praise the Lord that Marseille Councilman's surgery went well. She had surgery. She had it yesterday. She went back. She had it in Durham and went back to Durham for a follow-up visit today. Nellie Hunter has broke her elbow several weeks ago and it is doing well.

We praise the Lord for that. Vicki Pope, Art Pope's mother, recovered from COVID, which is a wonderful report. She's up in years, is in a facility in the state of Washington. Her husband passed away. Art Pope's father, Charles Pope, passed away a few days ago. Our government official of the week is Elon Alder member Monty Allison.

We continue to highlight these Beacon members. Don Burns, who's recovering from foot surgery. Drew Guthrie, who is continuing to battle cancer.

Alice Marlick, recovering from a fractured pelvis and is rehabilitating at White Oak Manor. Greg Phillips in the fire damage that his appliance store in Greenville, South Carolina sustained about a week and a half ago. That is, I thought I could bring up the name of that business.

Phillips Supply Company is the name of it. And please pray that the Lord will help the Phillips as they recover from that fire. We're praying for Jonathan Wright, member of our church who has COVID, but seems to be doing well.

Others. William Green, one of the staff members of Piedmont Rescue Mission, has COVID. A pretty serious case was hospitalized. I'm not sure if he's still in the hospital or not, but we are praying for him. We're praying for Sandra Lee, a friend of Sue Vestal, who is continuing to struggle with a heart situation.

Let me see if I can bring that up. Recovering from having a heart stent implant. She had to return to ARMC this afternoon to repair a pseudoaneurysm caused by the catheterization last week. I've never heard that term before, a pseudoaneurysm.

I'm trying to guess what that means. My guess is that it's one that didn't develop naturally in the body, but one that was caused by the instrument that implanted the stent last week. We're also praying for Harold Lynch, who is a brother of Aaron and Steve Lynch. Aaron and Steve are members of our congregation, and their brother Harold is in ARMC. We continue to pray for Stuart Waugh, who is recovering from his recent liver transplant and also is being treated for cancer. I'll give you an update on that in a moment. We recently received word that missionary Mike Webster, one of the missionaries we support who is serving in France, has been diagnosed with colon cancer.

If I have time, I'll read the prayer letter that gives that information, but please pray for Mike Webster. We have been partners with the Websters for several decades. They previously served in French-speaking Canada. I can't remember the name of the first town where they served, and then they moved to Quebec and served there for a while.

And then, in recent years, went to France. Under the sympathy section, I already mentioned Art Pope's father, Charles Pope, that passed away. Please pray for that family. We've also mentioned Bonnie Coy's friend, elderly friend, 97-year-old Helen Sawyer, who passed into the presence of the Lord from a rest home in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a retirement center for retired missionaries.

She was 97 years old. Please pray for that family. And Tony Abernathy's brother, or brother-in-law, rather, Wilbur Whitehead, passed away. We're praying for that family, too. Furthermore, we received word that Shirley Rocky will be having a lung cancer biopsy coming up very soon. She'll be having it this Friday, December 4, to determine the type of cancer that she has and the treatment options. We're praying for Dean Vaughan, Michelle Lowe's brother who's been diagnosed with cancer that has spread. He'll be undergoing chemo. And then, Naomi Williams will be having a PET scam on December 22.

This is the mother of Amy Freeman. So please make all of these matters of prayer. Now, I will turn my attention to some of the missionary communications, and I'm going to start with one from Stuart Waugh. If I can bring it up on my cell phone.

That's never a sure thing with me. There it is. All right. We have two texts from Laverne Waugh. The first one came in on Sunday, but not early enough to mention this in the service Sunday morning. She says the chemo has been a bit rough on Stuart, but he is persevering. We have had to delay our return to Zimbabwe for a few weeks as a number of the teachers at my school have tested positive for COVID, which means that Sarah, known to us as Sarah Kate, and all our grandchildren have been in contact with them, and Stuart cannot go anywhere near that. We are disappointed, but should be able to go back at the beginning of January. Sarah and Lee came to Johannesburg and will be tested tomorrow.

We can't see them until they are clear. I'm praying for the vaccines to work and to be available hopefully soon, assigned Laverne. I guess you may have heard on the news today that Great Britain has approved a vaccine, and it's ready to go.

That sounds very promising. All right, and then here's another text up to date just today from Laverne. Thank you all for praying.

Stuart is battling with the chemo and feels really ill. We see the heptologist tomorrow afternoon and should have a medical update then. Despite feeling ill, he is preparing material to share with the pastors when we return to Zimbabwe, hopefully December 18, all things being equal. Please pray for the Lord's protection for Stu, especially as Bulawayo is spiking at the moment, also for all of our people to remain safe and COVID-free as they have been. Praise the Lord for good rain so far, and ask for a good season of crops after a devastating three years of drought.

The hunger has caused a great deal of suffering, but the people are trusting the Lord all the more. Please greet the precious folk. We are deeply thankful to you all.

There are two updates from the WAHS serving the Lord in Zimbabwe, but presently in Johannesburg for medical reasons. Now I move on to some other communications. This one, a thank you letter from Tony and Tammy Honeycutt of Piedmont Rescue Mission. Dear Beacon Baptist Church, thank you so much for sponsoring the Greater Vision online event.

Without your help, it would not have been possible. We feel that it was a success and hope the results will continue to come in during this month. Please continue to pray for the mission as we forge forward during the pandemic. We are praying that the Christmas event will be a good one, even though it will be a lot different than in past years. God bless you for your financial support for the ministries of Piedmont Rescue Mission in Christ, Tony and Tammy Honeycutt. I believe they've had five or six cases of COVID among the residents there at Piedmont Rescue Mission, so pray for them as they deal with isolating those folks and making sure they're getting the proper care and observation.

Okay, moving on. We've got a number of letters here. Here's the one from Mike Webster in France. It says, soon after our last prayer update, President Macron declared another lockdown, facing a return to technology for our Bible studies and Sunday worship. We can tell that many of our folk are worn out from all of this, as we are sure you can understand. We sure can.

We're in the same boat. Thankfully, as of this writing, the COVID-19 situation seems to be gradually improving. There's even the possibility that some restrictions may be removed in December. Though the initial biopsy from Mike's colonoscopy in August was negative, later tests revealed that the tumor is indeed cancerous.

It has been classified as a T2, but is close to a T3. He will undergo oral chemotherapy along with daily radiation for five days a week, lasting five weeks beginning December 1. So that's basically going to be all the month of December and into the first few days of January. This will be followed by surgery one month or so after the treatment. Would you please pray that God might be glorified every step of the way, that the treatment of surgery might be effective, that Mike still might still be used of the Lord to minister the word during treatments for Melanie's physical strength, that despite COVID restrictions, Melanie's sister in Belgium and our oldest daughter in South Carolina might be able to come to help at different times.

So that helps us to understand what's going on with the Webster's. Please pray for them. I have the latest letter from the Greens. This is Jesse and Hannah and their two children, one of the newer missionaries that we added to our missions budget a couple of years ago when we had good response to Faith Promise and were able to increase our involvement. I'm just going to give you a summary of this, but they are, like all of us, dealing with the requirements, the changing circumstances of COVID. They've had to change their plans about going to the country that they were originally planning to go to, and I'll not mention that because this is going out over the web, but they are still on schedule to go to a neighboring country to start learning the language, waiting for their target country to open up.

They're still on target. Like all of us, they're dealing with changing circumstances, but they are trusting the Lord. He mentions, in addition, I have extended family members, a great uncle and aunt that just passed away from COVID. Please pray for God's grace in the lives of their siblings, children and grandchildren.

May the Lord bless and keep you in Christ, signed Jesse Green. I have a short email from the Gutamans in Alaska. It's good to hear from them. We grew to know and love these folks as they worshiped with us for about a year while they were here in Burlington doing training at the airport here, getting ready for Alaska. Happy Thanksgiving from Alaska. We are watching snow fall outside and enjoying a cozy holiday. We have so much to be thankful for this year.

Life and ministry for our family has been blessed beyond measure, and praise God for how we have seen Him work. Just this week, Andy and Joe Gehrig flew two airplanes up to Nenana, Alaska. They left one of the planes behind to be used by the master's mission. They are borrowing a Kingdom Air Corps training aircraft, that's the group they're with, for one of their new missionary pilots to use for continued training.

They've got some photos here, which of course you can't see. They said, we are here in Alaska pressing forward in hopes of advancing the work of the gospel. We, like everyone else on planet Earth, have a, quote, that didn't go as planned year. It has been an incredible year of ministry, though, although it wasn't what we thought it would be. The bulk of Kingdom Air Corps ministry occurs during the summer, and we were still able to see God work in mighty ways despite COVID challenges. Students and their families still came.

People quarantined, and we did our best to stay six feet apart, which isn't too hard in Alaska because there is a lot of space. We labored together in aircraft maintenance, pilot training, building maintenance, and construction and discipleship. We were unable to have Brooks Range Bible Camp this year due to COVID, but some of our staff got together and sent cards to campers out in the Alaskan bush. We continue to praise God for the purchase of the Kingdom Air Corps Ranch property and work that was done on several buildings around the property. In many ways, our ministry was all the more meaningful because we felt so grateful to be able to continue some of our operations, and we saw so much evidence of God's working in our students, volunteers, and staff. As winter sets in, please pray for our staff and families.

The darkness is a real thing that we all contend with in different ways. Work has turned to primarily aircraft maintenance. The schedule over the winter has a more laid-back feel, although Andy still works full days and weeks. Please pray for the maintenance work that he does as it makes a big impact on the summer ministry at Kingdom Air Corps. We thank you for your continued prayers.

We praise God for all of you who pray and encourage us. We don't experience days that are practically all night with very little sunlight, as they do in Alaska, because we don't have those conditions here. We really don't understand the challenges that they cause. But some of you have been around Beacon long enough to remember a missionary that we supported for a while in Scotland.

In Scotland, I don't know what the exact longitude is, so how it compares to Alaska as far as the amount of sunlight, but it's a similar situation where they have days with just, I don't know, two or three, maybe four hours of daylight is all they get all day long, and the rest of it is all darkness at night. And those missionaries, the wife was not able to continue under those conditions. It really had a very serious health impact upon her, and they had to leave Scotland and move further south, and they served in England for a while because of that reason. So this can have psychological effects.

It can have physical effects. We need to pray for our missionaries who are in that situation. Well, let's see here. I've got a couple of other letters. I will read a portion of each of them.

I can't possibly read them all. I'll read the first part of this one from David and Donna Edens, and they write, Dear Praying Friends, As some of you know, Donna and our daughter Rachel were involved in a serious automobile accident in October. The two principal vehicles involved were totaled. Donna Scuff suffered three broken ribs, a punctured right lung, multiple fractures of the right pelvis, and a concussion. She was in ICU for three days, then in a regular hospital room for four days, after which she was released to come home with hospital-provided transportation as she was unable to walk or stand upright.

After two weeks at home, she is able to walk, some using a walker. Several personnel from the hospital have been visiting to help her with rehab. We continue to be reminded of God's protection.

Both Donna and Rachel could have been more seriously injured or killed. Many of our friends have kept them before the Lord in prayer. We appreciate all of you who prayed for us during this time. And I'm going to stop there, though he goes on to talk about how the believers on the field, where they served for many decades, prayed fervently for Donna during this time and how the Lord graciously has answered their prayers.

Then the other letter, it's several pages long, and I'm just going to read the first few lines at the beginning. It comes from the Bixby's in France. They actually help support three missionary families in the field of France. Mike Webster referenced earlier. Bob Bixby, or not Bob, but Tim Bixby that I'm reading from now. And then David Vaughan and his wife, Nikki, who are way down south.

These other two missionaries are in the northern part of France. But they're writing here to talk about the sudden home-going of Ruth's father, who lives in the Raleigh area, and they didn't think they'd be able to come home for the funeral, and God graciously allowed them to do that. Dear friends, how could I, Ruth, ever express how grateful we are for your concern, for your notes of sympathy and promised prayers for the tangible expressions of love in the form of financial gifts that enabled us all to travel to the States with my family following my dad's recent and unexpected death. It still amazes us to think back to how God perfectly arranged so many details surrounding his home-going. We praise the Lord that we were able, in spite of COVID, to travel on our planned furlough to the States last summer, which allowed us to make some precious memories with my dad that have now become even more dear. We also marvel at the timing of his death that had occurred during our children's fall vacation from school, as well as at the incredible airline ticket prices we found and the financial aid we were given that made it possible for all of us to travel and to be present for the funeral. It's still hard to believe that in the matter of 36 hours, we had learned the news, packed up, and made it to North Carolina to be with my mom and the rest of the family.

We are so blessed by many Christians who sought to minister to our entire family. And she goes on to describe her father who was, I didn't know what he did, but he was a small-engine aircraft mechanic, the same kind of airplanes that Andy Goodman works on and the others who train over here at the Burlington Airport. That's what he did. He was an aircraft mechanic. But he loved the Lord. He was deeply committed to missions. He traveled to the mission field. He used his skills in that way.

And he had a wonderful testimony that he leaves behind. Now, there's something else I want to read from this letter before I lay that aside, and that's the matter of the ongoing building project in France, which is a huge project, as you may recall. The Bixby's are located in a suburb of Paris. In property values, they are very high. And they rented a restaurant to hold their services in for a while and for reasons that many of you have already heard.

I won't take time to go into now, but that proved to be very unsatisfactory. They were given an opportunity to utilize a building on a lease with an option to buy basis and given about, I think, three years to raise the money to purchase this building, which has been an enormous blessing, so suitable for the ministry, but it is a very expensive project. And the entire amount to purchase this building amounts to, I'm going to say, something in the neighborhood of $700,000.

Now, I break into their letter at this point. He says we are scheduled, this was written prior, that tomorrow, November 24, we are scheduled to meet with the owners of our church building. We presently have more than one-third of what we need to purchase the building, so that means they have something north of $200,000, maybe $250,000 or more. However, we still need to have a clear solution in hand for the rest of the funds by early next summer in order to purchase the building.

If we are not able to begin the purchasing process at that point, we will most likely have to move out on December 1 of next year. I would certainly have preferred to be able to go into the meeting with more funds already in hand. However, we are determined to do, as we have always done, be entirely honest, we will tell them what funds we have, that it is still our strong desire and prayer to buy the building, and that having seen as a congregation how God has provided miraculously for us in the past, we know that He can easily choose to give us the approximately $400,000 more we still need. So that's what they're facing. Make that, please, a matter of prayer.

They need to raise about $400,000 by summertime next year. That seems like a very daunting project, but God is able. Can God spread a table in the wilderness? He certainly can.

If God raised funds for a building, He certainly can. Well, tonight I'm going to return to Acts 11 in the series that I've been involved with on Wednesday nights for some time, and this will be the last message, whether I finish or not. I had gotten to a place last time that I thought I might just say, that's the finish and we'll move on to something else, even though I hadn't quite finished. But I have received more response from this series than anything I've ever preached on a Wednesday night, and even more than many of the messages I preach on Sunday. I've been quite surprised at the number of people who have communicated, some members of the church who are listening tonight, no doubt, by live stream, but others in other places who have picked these messages up off the internet and have enthusiastically received them and emailed them to friends. So I know the Lord has used this series, and I think it would be profitable, therefore, to continue on. Now, what we're talking about in Acts 11 is the burgeoning development of what we now call foreign missions, how that really started in the book of Acts.

And even though the details of what they did at this time are not exactly what we normally do now, the general principles are exactly what we are endeavoring to do. And I think it's very important that we focus on that because it is possible, and I would say at times, even easy to get on a rabbit trail with missions and to pursue some worthy cause, some worthy project, but one that doesn't really fit into the general principles that Scripture lays before us as to how exactly the work of missions is to be carried out. And so this passage helps with that a great deal.

So I don't have a lot of time left tonight to finish this up, but I need to do it. And I'm going to read the passage, and then we will wrap it up, whether we're done or not. But here's the account, Acts 11, verse 19. Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but to the Jews only. But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists preaching the Lord Jesus, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. And I pause there in the reading because the three steps that we're following in this passage are, number one, evangelism, number two, church planting or church development, and number three, ministry, that is, the new converts in their newly developed church beginning to reach out and minister to others. And so what I've read so far is the account of the evangelism. Now what's different here, normally when we think of missions, and we think of missions sending the gospel to faraway places, we think in terms of commissioning and sending a missionary to go and first evangelize, and then after he's evangelized to gather the converts together into a fellowship of believers and begin to teach and instruct them so that they understand the doctrine of the local church and how that is such an important part of God's plan and how they fit into the local church and how the church is supposed to be organized and developed and calling upon God to send gifted men to minister the word. And that is the second thing that the missionary does. And then, of course, while that's going on, he's also encouraging these people to learn to do ministry themselves. That's what pastors, pastor-teachers, well, that's what apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers do, according to Ephesians chapter 4.

They equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Now what is different in this situation that we're just beginning is that the first stage, the evangelism, did not take place by the activity of what we would call missionaries. It took place by the activity of what we call laymen who were scattered because of persecution. So in this case the missionaries, there really weren't anybody called missionaries and there really wasn't anybody that was identified as missionaries in those days, but the preachers who came to the scene, first Barnabas and then Saul, and developed the believers into a functioning local church, they came after the evangelism was already done. That's not usually the way it happens, and I shouldn't say it was already done because evangelism continued and more people believed and more people believed. But they came after the initial evangelism had been carried out by godly laymen, which is a reminder that we are all involved in the work of missions in more than one way, and we certainly pray for missionaries, we certainly give that missionaries can go, but we are also witnessing, we are also evangelizing, and God doesn't need, what should I say, all full-time missionaries, full-time preachers in order to evangelize. He may need, by his designation, uses men that are gifted and equipped and appointed by the Holy Spirit for the work of ministry to do the public preaching that is necessary to develop those believers into a church, but the evangelism can and should be done by any and all believers, and we see that in this situation. Now, another thing we see in this situation is that even though the details here are a little different from what we normally think of in terms of missions, in that, as I've just explained, the initial evangelism was not done by the missionaries but by laymen, but we'll see the same pattern that is laid down here is one that does turn out to be followed by what are probably the first officially recognized missionaries, who are Barnabas and Saul, these very same two men, who served really as appointed representatives of the church of Jerusalem, or at least Barnabas was, he was sent up there by that church, and then Saul, who was enlisted by Barnabas, who was invited by Barnabas to join the ministry, and later, as this very church in Antioch grew and developed, we come to Acts chapter 13, and we find that the church had grown to the size that there were now five men recognized as teaching elders or pastors, as we would call them, and then the Holy Spirit said, Separate unto me Barnabas and Saul, the first two men, the most experienced men, the most, what should I say, probably the most valued men in the church, and the Holy Spirit said, Separate them for the work that I have called them to, and they laid hands on them and sent them out, and now we have some recognized, bona fide, church-sent missionaries going out to spread the gospel throughout the Roman world, and what do they do?

They follow the very same pattern that we find here in Acts chapter 11. First they go and preach the gospel, they evangelize. Then where God saves a sufficient number of people to start planting a church, that's what they do next. Now the Bible doesn't tell us what number is necessary in order to plant a church, to organize a church, but it takes more than three or four or five, and as we follow the ministry of the apostle Paul, we can see there are some cities he goes into, and though there might be one or two or even three or four or five that are converted by the work of the Holy Spirit, Paul does not stay and establish a church because apparently there aren't enough believers there yet to do that.

Athens is one example of that. He preached on Mars Hill. There were a small handful of people who believed, but Paul moved on to Corinth, some, I've forgotten how many miles away from Athens, but west of Athens and to the other coast, really, of the Greek peninsula, Athens being on the east coast and Corinth on the west coast, but at a narrower part, I don't remember the number of miles involved, but anyway, Paul went to Corinth, and there he stayed for a year and a half, and many people believed. God blessed his preaching with greater fruitfulness, and many more people were converted, and he stayed and established a church.

But the pattern is the same. First evangelism, then if God blesses the evangelism sufficiently, church planting, and then when the church begins to be established, challenging the church to begin to minister, to take responsibility for ministering to others, and Paul did that in part by taking up a project offering for the persecuted saints in Jerusalem among the Gentile churches that he established, including Corinth that I just mentioned and several others, and that's exactly the pattern we see here in Acts 11. That's exactly what they did. So first of all, evangelism, then I continue reading. We secondly come to church development, church planting. We read back at verse 21, And the hand of the Lord was with him, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. Then news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. When he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord, for he was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord. See, evangelism is continuing to go on, but Barnabas is even now beginning to establish these believers into a local church.

Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people, and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. The church is being developed. The church is being established. The church is being taught.

The word of God is doing that work. Now as we come to the final verses, we come to this church being taught to minister to others. And so we read in verse 27, And in those days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch. Then one of them named Agabus stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea.

This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. So number one, evangelism. Number two, church planting.

Number three, ministry. Now this description of the ministry that they were involved in, and I think I mentioned last time, that there were no doubt other areas of ministry that they were involved in as well, but this one that is mentioned here, this raising funds to help the church of Jerusalem, that account can be broken down into two parts. There's first of all a need and secondly a response to the need. The need was the famine, and that was communicated to them by the prophetic voice and the prophetic warning by Agabus that there's a great famine coming, an economic recession, and because the saints of Jerusalem were already in difficulty because of persecution, many of them had already left Jerusalem for that reason, there was a great need there. And so the need is made known to the church and they respond to the need by making a commitment. The disciples we read in verse 29. This is a mark of discipleship.

If you're a disciple of Jesus Christ, you're going to have the maturity to respond to needs like this. The disciples, each one, rich, poor, bond-free, whatever, each one according to his ability, not everyone had the same resources, the same financial ability, but each of them had the ability and privilege and responsibility of doing something, each according to his ability determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. This they also did. So first of all, there is a commitment. Each one decided what he before the Lord thought he could do. And then there was a time to make good on their commitment. This they also did and sent it to the elders in Jerusalem by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.

We see a demonstration of love. We see accountability that was sent by the hands of Barnabas and Saul, their two most godly and mature men, spiritual leaders, officers in the church, and they went to do it in spite of the fact that there was a great need for ministry. In Antioch, there was also a great need for very reputable men who were honest men and were trusted by the church to communicate this offering. It had to be done in the right way. And so they brought it to Jerusalem and committed it into the hands of the apostles there. Now, those are the principles.

Now, in this matter of ministry, you can follow the same principles, first a need and then a response to the need. Now, I think I said last time that maybe some of them were involved in teaching children. Well, now, we don't know that they were.

That isn't mentioned. And really, in the New Testament, there is no specific mention of churches conducting children's classes. So maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But if they recognized that as a need, then surely some of them responded to the need, and they got involved in that ministry. If someone said, we have a lot of people in the city of Antioch who are not well, they're more or less what we would call shut-ins. They can't come to church, but if somebody would go to their homes and minister God's word to them, they would be happy for that opportunity to hear the word of God, a need. And so then there are people who respond to the need.

We see the same sort of thing in our church. You see a need, and then God, first of all, reveals the need, and then God lays it upon the hearts of people to respond to the need. And that's the way the work of ministry goes. I've learned over the years that the best way to develop new ministries in the church is to let the Lord show them to us.

He shows us a need, and He lays it upon the hearts of people to respond to that need. The programs over the years that have been proposed by the pastors have not always gone well. But every ministry where somebody said, I've got a burden for this, here's a need. Our Hispanic ministry, for example, someone had a burden for that.

I'm going to sneeze. Here's a need. I'd like to try to minister in this way and see if we can reach some of these people around us. The need was presented, and God raised up people who responded to the need and have ministered in that way. That's been shut down now because of COVID, but we're looking forward to the day when we can return to that ministry. Preaching God's word in the many senior centers, rest home facilities throughout Alamance County is a need for somebody to go into those homes. I am amazed at how many of those facilities our church goes into. Again, shut down because of COVID.

Nobody's going into those facilities right now. But during normal times, we go into approximately 20 different facilities every month, some of them once a week, some of them not quite that often, and that takes an enormous number of people to do that. But it's just developed. The need is there. God impresses the hearts of people who have a heart for that, an ability for that, and they go and meet the need.

And on and on it goes. This is the way ministry develops, and we see that in this example in Acts 11. I'm going to conclude by looking at this account, summarizing it in a slightly different way, but now moving to four different points. The beginning of missions, evangelism. The goal of missions, functioning churches. The method of missions, God's word.

They gathered with the church, meeting regularly over the course of a year, doing what? Teaching, preaching God's word. That's the method of missions, proclaiming God's word. The result of missions, ministry. The result of missions, sharing, people who give. The result of missions, unity in the body of Christ as these Gentile believers reach out to the needs of Jewish believers that they don't even know personally, but bringing together this unity in the body of Christ. That's the result of missions.

We see it all here in Acts 11. It's a wonderful passage to instruct us in how to carry out worldwide missions. And now we bow in closing prayer. Lord God Almighty, we thank you for saving our souls. And we thank you for allowing us to be involved in the work of missions.

And we thank you for giving us guidelines in your word as to how to carry that out. And we pray, O Lord, that you might help us to return to more normal days. All of the missionaries that we support are struggling with COVID, which is worldwide.

And yet, Father, all of them are reporting blessing and ministry opportunities that they would not have had if it had not been for COVID. And so, Father, we know you know how to carry out your work better than we do. And, Father, we thank you that Marcy Councilman had successful eye surgery, and we pray for her recovery. We thank you that Nellie Hunter is responding so well in the mending of her elbow.

We thank you that Art Pope's mother, Vicki Pope, has recovered from COVID. That is an enormous praise, O Lord, for a senior citizen as she is, and you have brought her through. Father, we want to pray for Elon Alder member Monty Allison, our government official of the week, that you will bless this person and guide and direct them and give them wisdom from above. We pray for Dawn Burns, that she may continue to heal from her foot surgery. And we pray for Drew Guthrie, that you will give her strength as she battles her cancer.

And for Alice Marley, as she's recovering from her fractured pelvis. And we pray for the Phillips in South Carolina as they deal with this damage, this fire damage to their business. We pray for Jonathan Wright as he is also battling COVID.

We thank you that his case does not seem to be a heavy one at this time. But we pray for William Green, a staff member at Piedmont Rescue Mission who is battling a very serious case of COVID. We pray, O Lord, that in your kindness that you might strengthen him and that you might heal him and that you might allow him to continue the work that he has been doing so well. We pray for Sandra Lee as she's dealing with these heart issues. And for Harold Lynch Jr. as he's in the hospital with serious health issues. We pray for our dear missionary brother, Stuart Waugh, and thank you for the reports that we have received.

We pray that you might enable him to go to Zimbabwe and to meet with the pastors there. We also pray for Mike Webster as he is facing colon cancer. We pray for Donna Edens and for her complete recovery from this serious accident.

And thank you that she's doing so well already. We pray for the family of Charles Pope, Art Pope's father who passed away in the state of Washington. And for the family of Helen Sawyer, Bonnie Coy's friend. And for the family of Wilbur Whitehead, Tony Abernathy's brother-in-law who passed away in Virginia. We pray for Shirley Rockey that you might help her and give the doctors wisdom as they try to determine the exact nature of her lung cancer and how to treat her. We pray for Dean Vaughn, Michelle Lau's brother with a serious battle with cancer. And also we pray for Naomi Williams as she has her PET scan on December 22. Now, Father, calm our hearts. Quiet them in the knowledge that you are the all-wise and all-powerful and all-gracious God. And we commit our needs and lives into your care as we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.