3-7-23 - Scatter

At this time, we're going to have a video from the Adams family and they are missionaries to the country of Wales.

They couldn't be with us this week. They're in another missions conference. They're going to show the video and then I'm going to come back up and I'll present kind of what they're doing there and the need for missions in the country of Wales. So as you can see, there's a great need in the country of Wales and you think back to 1904, 1905, the great Welsh Revivals and it is a very dark country, post-Christian country of Wales.

There's over 3.2 million people in the country of Wales. Churches are closing at an alarming rate and those of you that were with us when Richie and Missy Ork were here, you remember he was trying to get to the field to help that Ebenezer church there and the Muslims were coming to the local pastor at that time and telling him, oh man, why don't you just quit, why don't you just give in so we could get this building and start a mosque here. And so you could see that Missy and Richie Ork are the missionaries that the Adams family is going to go help on the field there and there's 77% of the population claim no religion at all currently. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the nation of Wales and so what is their vision? It's obviously to win the Welsh to Christ. It's to see them baptized and discipled. They want to train nationals to start self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating churches that are independent local Baptist churches. And so what is their plan? Their plan is to engage national pastors and Welsh churches, assess the areas in urgent need and prayerfully consider a location to start a new church revive closing churches and plant new churches.

Also where will they start? Obviously it's their Ebenezer Baptist Church with Missy and Richie Ork and they're looking forward to getting to the field and their future plans are to actively share the gospel and disciple new believers, helping them to grow in their knowledge of Christ and they will continue to teach and lead wherever that is needed once they get to the field there in Wales. At this time we also have a ministry presentation of the Ragsdale family and they couldn't be with us tonight. They are in the country of West Africa, the country of Togo and you may have seen their board out in the hallway there and they may show some pictures behind me as I go through this but Adam and Angel Ragsdale they just got to the field February 1st so they were fresh on the field.

I was talking to him this week and they were trying to get us a video. They're able to get us the photos but once they got on the field they've just been tossed into ministries. They're trying to get settled in a home and unpacking and I believe in one of the photos there you'll see all the storage totes that they're just trying to unpack to get the house ready to go. But there's a great need there in Togo. They were going to come alongside a local veteran missionary. Their goal is to train leaders to plant churches, to make disciples, obviously to see souls saved and baptized as what they're wanting to do and they'll be working alongside the veteran missionaries there in Togo and there are many ministries the Napiers operate that all lead to church planning. They will be helping in the Bible Institute that they have there, soul winning and church planning as the language ability grows. So they're currently in language school right now as well so you think of all that and that they're taking on currently so they need our prayers. They fervently need our prayers for the language school to learn the language so they can effectively minister in the community that they are in and also the ministries that they're helping oversee. They're going to say we are especially excited about the opportunity to serve in the Bible Institute training men to go plant churches. It is through this ministry that we will be able to send young men out of all out of Togo and to other Western African nations all across Africa and eventually all over the world is their goal. We believe soul winning and making disciples are the fundamental steps to planning lasting indigenous churches and so that is the Adams or the Ragsdale's to Togo as well in the ministry presentation and they hope to have us a video by the end of the week and maybe we can show that in some future weeks to come. Before we have brother Lewis come to preach the word tonight to us if you remember what he spoke on last night it was on prayer and as he's been so effective at preaching through this conference about an effective ministry for missionaries and so a missions program he talked about prayer last night and making sure that we're specifically praying for our missionaries and I got a newsletter in today and Pastor Josh had told me about it and I just wanted to share it with you when Pastor Lewis says our missionaries need our prayers just listen to this this prayer letter that this missions family went through within a week's time frame. This is the stewards family to Ireland and so it reads this have you ever felt like you've been in a boxing ring maybe not physically but mentally or emotionally even spiritually well that's what happened this past past month it has been like that for the steward family in one week's time we got a phone call on Monday from the u.s. saying that Denise's brother Doug was in the hospital with COVID related issues right hook Tuesday another phone call that said her dad had broken his neck again left hook Wednesday yet another call saying Denise's oldest brother and his partner were sick and not doing good punched to the nose Thursday no phone call but a letter from the property owner of the building that we are renting the church from or that the church is in that the renting stating he is selling the building and we must vacate by September punch to the gut so as he's as Pastor Lewis is reading this last night as he's preaching last night and he's talking about Nehemiah and the enemies that are trying to thwart God's plan you can kind of see sometimes Satan is against what God's for and so you can see throughout this letter there's just one attack after another and then on Friday we received the uppercut that Denise's mom had a severe stroke we put Denise on a plane ASAP and actually she flew back with brother Lewis McClendon back to the States and she returned to Ohio to be with her mom and her last moments her mom passed away so you can see that our missionaries need our prayer they need our specific prayers and this is the encouraging part after we hear this this devastating news he said myself Clark and Kate followed in a few days later for the funeral as hard as this week sounds God never left our corner he encouraged us with Denise's mom's life as she was a born-again believer in Jesus Christ he uplifted our hearts after the funeral with Chloe getting engaged to a fine young man named Noah the Lord propped us up by finding us a home to move into a week after we returned to Ireland so they had lost the the lease on their home as well and that process and he has allowed our hearts to rejoice with Denise's disciple following Christ in baptism and Sunday with a high of 59 in attendance if that's not good enough we had a young man accept Christ as his Savior and his father became the first deacon of our church thank you Lord for being in our corner and I just thought that was a real tangible way to tie in Pastor Lewis's message last night to the need of our prayers and to tie in the missions care team and what the missions conference is about pray give go and it's because of our faithful giving that many of you are a part of that we're able to bless missionaries beyond just the the monthly giving you know like she said we blessed a church in Central America with a roof and dr. Edwin Shelley over in India we were able to give 5,000 additional dollars to a Bible Institute that they needed government regulations to meet that fund of $50,000 and so I just want to say thank you church if you're contributing to faith promise giving if you're part of giving if you're part of praying thank you for your faithfulness and just the challenges if we're not a part of that let's get on board with it and continue to see that grow and increase and thank you for my time for the time and I'll ask Pastor Lewis if he can come and bring the word tonight make it feel welcome as he comes well we've talked about give and we talked about pray and tonight we're going to deal with the subject of going of scattering around the world and I invite you to open your Bibles to Acts chapter number one and we're going to start tonight by reading Acts chapter 1 verses 1 through 9 so as you find Acts chapter number 1 if you'll stand as we get ready to read God's Word tonight the former treaties have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up after that through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto apostles whom he had chosen to him also has showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs being seen of them 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God and being assembled together with them commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father which saith he you have heard of me for John truly baptized with water but you should be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence when they therefore were come together they asked him saying Lord without this time restore again the kingdom to Israel and he said unto them it is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father put into his own power but you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and to the outermost part of the earth and what he had spoken these things while they beheld he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight father in heaven thank you for letting us be part of what you're doing around the world you allow us to give you allow us to pray and you allow us to go and to take the gospel to the world and we're pray that we'll all take that command seriously in our lives in Jesus name Amen like I've said before the book of Acts just gives us so much about God's plan to reach the world and we see here in verse 8 that God wants us to reach the entire world the disciples had a question Lord tell us about the end times and I love talking about the end times and I don't know about you but I pray that Jesus comes back today but as our world has gotten worse and worse sometimes we've been distracted by how bad our world is getting so we don't stay on focus on what we're supposed to be doing no matter who what president gets elected no matter what Congress passes no matter the dumb things this world does we still have one thing we're supposed to focus on and that's reaching the world with the gospel nothing should take us off track of reaching the world with the gospel to the test were to go to the uttermost part of the earth that's the farthest extremes of the earth we're gonna take it to the very farthest extremes God's goal for the time of from the time of creation has been for his people to fill and be an influence in the world Genesis 128 says and God blessed them and said unto them be fruitful and multiply and replenish or fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth he wanted his people to spread around the world Isaiah chapter 49 and verse 6 says I will also give thee a light to the Gentiles that thou mayest be the salvation unto the end of the earth so we see that phrase again to the end of the earth God wants his people going to the farthest corners of the world to tell people about him at the Tower of Babel we can see that even back then people were not obeying God like he wanted them to and they resisted filling the earth after the flood God specifically commanded people to fill the earth Genesis 9 1 and God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth so his people again were to spread around the earth but just two chapters later in Genesis chapter 11 we find the people making a specific decision not to go around the world like he wants them to look at Genesis 11 4 and they said go let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach into the heaven and let us make us a name lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth they said we're not going to scatter we're going to stay right here and what did God do with the people at this time we'll look at verse 7 of Genesis 11 go to let us go down and therefore confound their language that they may not understand what another speech so the Lord scattered them abroad from fence upon the face of the earth and they left off to build the city God scattered them they weren't going to scatter they refused to scatter and so God confused your languages you ever been in school trying to study a different language language of people you can blame for that as a people's the Tower of Babel so now at least you know who to blame when I was in school I want to be a doctor so I took Latin so I can learn the Latin language and that what we learned in that was Latin is a dead dead language dead as it can be first that killed the Romans and now it's killing me you know I took Latin in high school that I took Greek in college so I've never taken a spoken language so I don't know what it's like to learn a language to speak a language but it all started here with some people that refused to scatter in the New Testament we see God giving the same kind of command to his people to scatter and take the Gospels to the end of the earth in Acts 1 contains God's logistical plan to use his people to reach the world he said reach Jerusalem the disciples were to stay there initially till the Holy Spirit came but they were to stay in Jerusalem and reach Jerusalem and once they had the Holy Spirit to come their job was to reach that town and they did a great job in reaching Jerusalem when you go through acts Acts chapter 2 and verse 41 3,000 people were added to the church I mean they were going acts 4 4 5,000 men believed acts 6 ones the disciples multiplied acts 6 sevens they greatly multiplied and so we're seeing a lot of good things happening but the command was Jerusalem and then Judea and then in Samaria and then to reach the world and you will go through Acts chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4 chapter 6 and chapter 7 and it's all about Jerusalem but then a dramatic thing happened in Acts chapter number 8 God forcefully made them scatter to take the gospel to the world Acts chapter 8 in verse 1 and Saul was consenting it to his death at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem and they were all scattered abroad isn't it interesting the word scatter old New Testament you see that word God wants his people to scatter and it took persecution to get them to scatter abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the Apostles persecution caused the Christians to scatter acts 8 4 therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word now see God had to make them scatter but they scattered the right way because as they went they told people about the good news of the gospel they faithfully preached the gospel everywhere they went the good news is they took the gospel where they went the bad news was it took persecution for them to scatter but once the scattering started the gospel was preached everywhere it went everywhere from Jerusalem we know that the Bible says it went to Samaria I'm gonna get that from acts 8 5 then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them and the people with one accord gave heed to those things which Philip spake hearing and seeing the miracles which he did for unclean spirits crying with loud voices came out of many that were possessed with him and many taken with palsies and they were lame were healed and there was great joy in that city so from the town of Jerusalem they went to Samaria Philip went and preached the gospel and people in Samaria trusted God so many people got saved in Jerusalem I find this a very interesting thing about the church in Samaria so many people were getting saved that they actually asked Jerusalem to send people down to help them with all the people getting saved acts 8 14 now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word they sent it to them Peter and John they said we've got to send more people to help him out isn't that a great thing that he was going so great that they couldn't handle it themselves give us more people give us help but it not only spread from Jerusalem to Samaria it went other places as well acts 11 verses 19 through 21 now they wish were scattered there's that word again are brought upon the persecution that arose about Stephen traveled as far as Phineas and Cyprus and Antioch preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only and some of them there were men of Cyprus and Cyrene which when they came to Antioch spake unto the Grecians preaching the Lord Jesus and the hand of the Lord was upon him and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord so we see many towns that are being reached as the church in Jerusalem was scattered they went out and more people were getting saved in churches are being started but then we see something else from Samaria the gospel spread from Samaria look at acts 8 26 and the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip saying arise and go toward the south unto the way that go out down from Jerusalem unto Gaza which is desert and he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia and eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of Ethiopians which had charge of her of all her treasure and had come to Jerusalem for to worship was returning and sitting in his chariot reading Isaiah's the prophet then the spirit saith unto Philip go near and join thyself to this chariot and Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah's and said understandest what thou readest and he said how can I accept some men shall guide me and he desired Philip that he should come up and sit with him so we have Jerusalem and the gospel was spreading and now we have from Samaria the gospel spreading Philip leaves Samaria comes down and reaches the Ethiopian eunuch and then from there we're told in Acts 8 40 that Philip was founded at a zotus passing through preaching to all the cities till he came to Caesarea so we see that from Samaria the gospel began to be spread and then from Antioch we see from that place the gospel was spread around the world Acts 13 verses 1 through 4 now they were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manain which him had brought up with Herod the tetrarch and Saul and then ministered to the Lord and fasted and the Holy Spirit said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work where unto I have called them and when they had fasted and prayed they laid hands on them and sent them away so they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost departed under Seleucia and from thence they sailed to Cyprus Paul's ministries took him around that known world now what I just did was something extremely boring you know what I just did we just had a history class didn't you love history when you were in school and all yours oh we have people that loved history that's good I can remember it was just dates I found this date this happened on this date this happened on this date and you remembered it long enough to take the test and that was mainly history for a lot of us okay what I just gave you was a history lesson but I gave you a history lesson for a very important reason I talked about all those towns and I read all those verses to say this when we first started reading it the gospel hub was in Jerusalem to begin with Jerusalem was the hub the people left out of Jerusalem to go places to proclaim the gospel then Samaria became a hub what happened Jerusalem sends somebody to Samaria Samaria has such a big church they asked for help but from Samaria it becomes a hub now and from that hub you have Philip who goes reaches the Ethiopian eunuch who takes it to that country and then he went up to the coast of Israel and went up the coast preaching in all those cities and then we saw not only was that a hub but Antioch became a hub because out of Antioch is where God called Paul and Barnabas to take the gospel to the world and the point I want to make is this God's plan to reach the world is for every church to see themselves as a hub for the gospel every church needs to be a hub for the gospel from this church the world needs to be reached that's what a hub is from this church this church is a hub to take the gospel to the whole world when God called Paul and Barnabas to go he left three good men in Antioch let's look back at Acts 13 verses 1 through 2 now they were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Menaen which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch and Saul as they ministered to the Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said so get that part who's speaking here the Holy Ghost says he said separate me Barnabas and Saul now there was no higher calling from the ministry there's just places that God wants people to go that's all there is these other guys Simeon and Lucius and Menaen we're not inferior men it wasn't like the missionaries were the best people out there are as missionaries that's not true everybody is to be wherever God puts you and God is gonna put some in Antioch and say you stay here in Antioch but these two guys I'm gonna take and go over here and if you're obedient you just say God where do you want me to be and that's where you go if God says be a missionary you'd be a missionary if God says stay right where you are and reach the people where you are you do that the highest calling for you is to be where God tells you to be it's as simple as that so there's no hierarchy here but what I want you to see is that God said Antioch you're gonna be a hub to spread the gospel around the world and it's gonna start with these two guys and I'm gonna take them and take the gospel around the world but even as a missionary they can only go where God tells them to go I've always found Acts 16 to be interesting Acts 16 verse 6 now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia I mean that just astounds me that that verses in the Bible I mean how could God say you can't go there but God told him I forbid you to go there you are not going there but the spirit it goes on and says that in verse 7 and they were come to my Asia they swayed to go to Bithya but the spirit suffered them not so as he even missionaries can only go where God is leading them to go because God had a different person it was Peter that he was going to send in that area and God wanted Paul over in this other area because that's where we get the Macedonian call that we see in verse number nine where there stood a man of Macedonia and prayed saying come over to Macedonia and help us and when they had seen the vision they immediately went so even missionaries are not free just to say I'm gonna go wherever I want to go doesn't amaze you sometimes when you say the missionaries how do you know you're supposed to go there and all they can say is that just God impressed it on our hearts and we couldn't get it out of our minds and every time it turned around that name of that country was there and they just know that God is calling them to reach those people each church has a Jerusalem a Judea and Samaria and the end of the earth because every church is a hub and we kind of talked about this before but remember acts 1 8 it's not sequential it's at the same time you which your Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth at the same time every church must have a plan to reach their area and that's what I love about coming to churches like this church is because you do have a passion to reach this area you are reaching people people are being saved here people are being discipled here people are being baptized here lives are being changed here you have a passion to reach this area and a church has to have that this is why a church missions program must be multifaceted must not be just in one area we need a plan to reach our town and we need a plan to reach our state and we need a plan to reach the whole world that was the introduction every church can fulfill all of acts 8 by focusing on three goals from this whole history I've just given you now I want to direct your attention to three goals that every church ought to have goal number one pray that Lighthouse Baptist Church will always be a strong hub for the gospel one of this church always needs to be is a strong hub not just a church that's reaching this area but be a strong hub to reach the whole world the church is doing well to put this church is doing well to fulfill all the parts of acts 1 8 you have a missions emphasis and that's and I believe you were telling this is the seventh missions conference that you have that correct I mean you've been doing this for years you've been saying yes we need to be outside of ourselves you're working hard to reach your own town you're being you're part of planting churches in the state of Ohio your church is part of Baptist Church ministry network and those churches in Ohio have always been strong in planting churches in Ohio and then supporting missionaries around the world fulfilling acts 1 8 is interconnected you are reaching your area as your church grows you can become a bigger part of reaching Xenia and the state of Ohio in the world this church Lighthouse Baptist Church needs to get stronger because your area needs this church but as you get bigger that means you have more missions money and you can reach more of the world does that make sense so it's interconnected as you grow if you see yourself as a hub as you grow you're not just having an impact here but if you keep up your missions conferences which I know is the plan then you're still being challenged about the rest of the world and you can take on more missionaries and do more projects for missionaries when they have a need so you see how this is all interconnected as you grow you reach more people here but you've reached more people around the world but to do this lighthouse Baptist Church needs to be a strong hub and Antioch was a strong hub for Paul because when you read all about Paul when he would go to missionary journey he came back to Antioch and they were still there they were still reaching people and they spent a long time they're working in that church again because that church was able to encourage him they were a strong hub for him and you can help Lighthouse Baptist Church become a strong hub with your attendance with your giving and with your soul winning and when you're doing whatever you can to reach your area so you see you are not an isolated person because when you reach somebody you bring the people here which then thrive in this hub which then helps this hub reach even more people but it really starts with your faithfulness it starts with your attendance it starts with your giving it starts with you saying I need to reach the people around me so when you reach people here and they come to the church and they get saved and they start giving the missions maybe they give enough to help you support another whole missionary so when you bring people here you're interconnected to reaching all of that secondly pray that Lighthouse Baptist Church will always prepare people to scatter prepare people to scatter and I know this church and that's one of your goals one of the prayers that this church has for a mission conference is that God will call people to scatter that God will call people to say I'm willing to go wherever it is God calls me to do God continually scatters people God moves church members away from the church they attend I hate that part of it that part of scattering as a pastor I hate it every time my family moved away I prayed all the time Lord send me a really good Sunday school teacher I need a good Sunday school teacher you know but when I lost a good Sunday school teacher that was a different story altogether I didn't like that part at all but I learned something about people scattering from my church I remember a time a younger family moved away I mean they were connected to the church they were involved in the church they were serving they were doing everything you'd want a church member to do but then he got a job promotion which required him to move and he said I've got to move because I got to have this raise well after about six months they came back for a visit and I said have you found a church to get into yet he says well we've narrowed it down to two to three churches of course I'm thinking it's six months and you've narrowed it down to two to three choices I think there's a problem here about a year later they visited again and they said they had not found a church yet about a year later the wife visited the church and told me they never found the right church and so her husband just said forget it and as far as I know they never got back into church again and that really bothered me you know it's a dangerous thing to leave a great church without really praying for God's will you know it's not enough to leave a church just because you can move and get more money this family got more money but they lost their kids because their kids never stayed in church I just want to be careful about that but what I'm saying in this message is this that had such a big impact on me that I changed a lot of things that I were doing and when a family told me they were leaving I would meet with them where are you gonna go let's find a church there let's find a church now that you can go to and I would call the pastor and I do my best to link them up with the church so to make sure when they move they went to a good solid church and some people I talked with they actually decided not to move because they said we don't find a church in that area that our kids are gonna need what they need you know what you need for your kids to make it they need God they need you they need the church and when you move and there's no church there what are you doing to your kids and so I proactively started people I I grasp the fact that people are gonna move out of my church people are gonna scatter from my church we're not talking about ministry now but people are scattering because of job opportunities of things like that and I became very proactive in my sermons I would preach things like listen when if God leads you from this church make sure you take what you learn from this church and go work in that other church get involved as me as soon as possible remember how long they're in our church my goal was to help them grow so they would be a better person a better member the next church part of my issue of where I was at a military town so we had people being transferred in and out from the military trans perspective so I wanted them to leave our church and get right into a church and get more involved in that church and after that instead of hearing the stories about families who moved and never got found at the church then I started hearing stories of people said we got this church we got involved and we're teaching and I felt a lot more better about that I'm just saying is one of the things that this church could do as a hub is to make sure they help people when they scatter but then we talk about scattering for God's purposes God calls men and women and families to start churches and every church needs to be the to be like lighthouse Baptist Church and prepare them I love to being these kind of churches that already have a plan in place we're developing people for the purpose of scattering to start new churches to new churches start to need to be started it's always hard when people leave and we all hate it when people leave I'm going to talk about now for a ministry but remember scattering for the purpose of the gospel is God's plan and sometimes they only may be here for a short time somebody comes as an intern and a short time but they are worth investing in and praying in because God is scattering them and then God calls men and their families to go to the ends of the earth and we need to support them and we're saying in this missions conference if God is leading you to scatter surrender to God's call to scatter in your life and say I'm willing for God to use me anywhere in the world and we need to support them then third pray that Lighthouse Baptist Church will always praise God when he scatters people from Lighthouse Baptist Church mission agencies will list the top two reasons why people who surrendered don't end up on the field and the top two reasons people who surrender and don't go to the field is because of a the church or their family doesn't want them to go the church or the family doesn't want them to go we love missionaries but we don't want our grandkids on the mission field you know we were glad when the kids left home but then they had grandkids and now we want grandkids right a lot of times a family is a hindrance to that and I just want to challenge you that if anybody in your family wants to go to say I'm glad God scattering them I will miss them and I wish they were here for the holidays and all that kind of stuff but I am willing to let any family member go that God calls any family member when I was 16 I went to youth camp and at youth camp I surrendered my life to the Lord and when I came home and told my mom that I had surrendered my life to the Lord she immediately started crying and I didn't know for a long time why she started crying but the reason she started crying was every pastor she had had had been a drunkard before they became a pastor and when I said I had surrendered my life to the Lord she says well he's got to become an alcoholic she wasn't upset about me being a pastor she just didn't want me to go through becoming an alcoholic to become a pastor because that's all she knew was a former alcoholic was her pastor but sometimes we can make it hard on our own family members we're gonna miss you we're gonna miss you on holidays but remember that God is a scattering God and it's an honor when God calls somebody from our family and churches love missionaries but it just seems like God calls the couple that they're just doing the best thing yet your whole church the best teacher they're the best whatever in their church but we have to learn that God is going to scatter people remember God took 40% of the leadership of the church in Antioch and one afternoon five people praying five leaders of the church praying and two God says separate them he took 40% why because God is a scattering God Antioch is our pattern for supporting those who go and praising God that God is calling from people from our church Acts chapter 13 in verse number 3 now remember this is a church perspective Acts 13 1 & 2 God they were having the prayer meeting God called out Paul and Barnabas what was their reaction it says and when they had fasted and prayed they laid hands on them and sent them away no arguing with God no negotiating with God just obedience the Holy Spirit spoke they prayed they laid hands on them and they sent them out and these two guys changed the world what a great church they were in they released them to scatter in heaven you'll be glad that you were part of God scattering plan so start rejoicing when God scatters when God calls people from this church to start churches when God calls people from this church to be missionaries praise God that God is using this church to impact the world which would you rather be part of forced scattering or intentional scattering Tower of Babel forced scattering persecution in Jerusalem forced scattering and we just need to be the kind of people that says when God scatters I'm going to rejoice you pray you give and then tonight you go if God calls you if God doesn't call you to go then you say lighthouse Baptist Church is a hub and every time I attend every time I give every time I try to reach my neighbor I am strengthening a hub that God is using to have an impact on the world so you see we're all involved in scattering because by helping to build this church we're helping this church support the people that scatter from this church we're all a part of God's plan to reach the world again I want to ask you just to bow your head and close your eyes at this time so as you can think through what we talked about tonight one big question I have for you with their heads bowed and your eyes closed is as God calling you to scatter do you feel God's tug in your heart that he wants to use you to reach the world and I want to encourage you tonight that if God you feel that tug in your heart today that you just say I'm ready to surrender God I have that tug in my heart I don't know where I don't know when I don't know how but I just feel that tug in my heart and I want to encourage you tonight to come and to say I surrender I'll go where God tells me to go and do what God tells me if God's not dealing with you you need to make a decision tonight you're part of a hub that is reaching the world with the gospel your attendance is important to God's plan to reach the world your giving is important to God reaching the world you when you witness here you're strengthening this hub you're increasing the giving of this church so that more people can go and would you make that deeper commitment in your heart I'm gonna be part of God scattering I'm gonna be part of a hub that's reaching the world I'm gonna be more faithful I'm gonna give more if I can I'm gonna spend more of my time reaching my friends and my neighbors and my workers with the gospel father in heaven we can see from the Word of God that you are a scattering God and father we're so glad that somebody scattered to bring the gospel me and now it's time for us to scatter sometimes that scatter just means that we scatter by leaving our house and going to our neighbor and reaching them help us all to be people that scatter but I pray right now if there's somebody here that you're tugging on their heart now that they'll come in this invitation and say God is calling me and that people will come tonight and just say I'm gonna be part of a hub that's reaching the world in Jesus name Amen.