The Expectation of World Missions

Alright, I think I already let the cat out of the bag that we're not going to be in our study in the parables. I think even last week I did say that we would not start this new section of parables that is before us. We wrapped up our study in the kingdom parables last week. The next section that we're going to look at is a group of parables that are typically called the Christian life parables, the parables on the Christian life. And I didn't want to start that tonight because I wanted to come on the heels of what we looked at Sunday morning.

Sunday morning and there in Philippians chapter 1 verse 5 and some other verses we looked at what I called this wonderful thing of participating in and partnering in the work of the gospel, having this unique fellowship of the gospel. And I wanted to come in behind that and speak to us tonight about this subject of missions. So if you would take your Bible and turn to two places, turn to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 13 and turn to Revelation chapter 5. Acts chapter 13 we're going to look at verses 1, 2 and 3 and then Revelation chapter 5 verse 9. Let me say that again in case I got it twisted.

Acts 13, 1 to 3 and then Revelation 5, 9 and 10. And that might surprise you, I'm not going to read the Great Commission although I will refer to it. And if you don't know what the Great Commission is that might be your homework. So tonight I want us to look at this subject of missions but more specifically the expectation that God has for his church and missions. Now we'll talk about God's expectation for our church, God's expectations for our church plural when we begin to conclude the message. So I want you to be thinking about that.

God's expectations for us, for you, for our church plural and it's not just one it is a lot there I believe. Most of you know that a group of us are going to the true church conference. I wish everybody could go and I understand that there are people who cannot go. But if you're not going this year I'm going to twist your arm to go next year. Just get ready for me to do that. But when we go to the true church conference there's going to be many things going on and I mean many things in a good way. A big part of the conference is preaching and teaching.

I have said this numerous times a Christian can walk off the street and come into the conference and be ministered to just by the preaching and the teaching. I was going to mention the lineup of people, men of God who are preaching and the subjects but I won't do that. You can go ahead and you can look at the Anchored and Truth website and see who's preaching and the subjects and you can even live stream that. You can go back and look at those messages and I encourage you to do that. But also a big part of the conference is really kind of a family reunion.

The Anchored and Truth network of missionaries and pastors and church planners and as we get to know one another it's just a great family reunion. We get to talk and eat together and I encourage you if you're going to get to know folks and you will see that it is really a big family reunion. But a big part of the conference will also be missions. We will hear testimonies from missionaries. We will hear about giving to missions, not just money but giving of ourselves. And if you really listen we will hear the call to be a missions minded church and a missions minded people.

So I thought it would be good to look at a few things that will help prepare us in a better way to hear the call to be missions minded. A missions minded people and a missions minded church. The kind of church that God wants us to be. Well let me pause here. Some of you might say pastor we're not going to get to go. What about us who cannot go? Well it is our job to communicate to you how this conference this year impacts us. We've got to bring that home. And it is my job as pastor to share with you how these things are impacting our church and also leading us. So I don't want to leave anyone behind here. That's not our desire.

Now let me give you what I'm calling this message, the title of the message. I call this the expectation of world missions. And these are the truths that we're going to look at. It's going to be one statement and two probing questions. Now I will go ahead and tell you that I'll spend more time on this statement. And then these probing questions we will get through a little faster. So number one, I want you to see that there can be a great ignorance in the church. There can be an ignorance and sometimes a great ignorance in the church. Now you have to be careful when you use a word like ignorant. You can insult people.

We could say it like this. There is a lack of awareness in the church. But I want to give you Webster's definition of ignorance. Webster defines ignorance as, and I'm quoting, "The state of being ignorant, lack of knowledge, education, or awareness." Now what am I saying in this? Many churches there is a great lack of knowledge when it comes to God's expectations of missions. This can come simply from not knowing what the Bible says. This can come from not knowing what the Bible says in its totality. So if we don't know, that leads to ignorance. That leads to ignorance.

And if any of us in here tonight are unaware of God's heart, God's desires, and God's expectations here, we need to be educated. We need to know. We need to move from our place of ignorance to knowledge. And I want to help us see God's heart here, God's desires, his expectations when it comes to missions from a few scriptures. And I'm going to go from Genesis into the Gospels. All right? So first, I want us to see that world missions was in the heart of God from the beginning. Missions and world missions was in the heart of God from the beginning. Some of you might be surprised to see this, even in the book of Genesis.

We see God's heart and God's desire here in the covenant that he made with Abraham. Genesis 12.3, God says, "I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in all of the families of the earth, they shall be blessed." What is he saying? "You, in you, all of the families, all of the peoples of the earth will be blessed." Then later on in Genesis 22, verses 15 to 18, God tells Abraham, "In your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." See, he's continuing, "Because you have obeyed my voice." So we see God's heart from missions in the covenant that he made with Abraham.

He said that all of the nations of the earth would be blessed through Abraham. Of course, God is speaking about redemption through Jesus that would be made to all of the nations. Now, Abraham didn't see all that, no, but he believed it by faith. We have the rest of the story, isn't that right? We have the totality of God's revelation in his word. So we see God's heart here from missions in the covenant that he made with Abraham, that all of the peoples of the earth would be blessed through him, that's speaking about Jesus. And also we see this in Exodus.

In the account when God called the Jews, his people out of Egyptian slavery, the text says that there were many Egyptians and other Semitic peoples and races who abandoned their pagan gods to follow after the one true God. This might surprise you, when God called the Jews with Moses and his leadership through the Red Sea, it wasn't just Jews and Israelites who came out. There was a mixed multitude. Notice the verse, Exodus 12, 38, "A mixed multitude also went up with them," and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. And this mixed multitude was really a glimpse. It was a glimpse of what God intended for the Jews.

God said in Exodus that he intended Israel to actually be a kingdom of priests, not just to a few, but to the nations. This meant that God intended Israel to evangelize the nations. Exodus 19, 6, "And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel." So we see God's heart here. We see God's heart in example and in practice. A mixed race, a mixed group, a mixed multitude went out of Egypt with God's people. That was God's plan. They didn't just sneak in. That was a glimpse into God's true intention through his people.

God's clear expectation was for Israel to reach the nation. It's like the mixed multitude there was a prelude to Exodus 19, verse 6. But let me continue with this. We see this when specific Gentiles in the Old Testament came to know the one true God. We know this story when Joshua sent out the spies to give a report about the promised land. What happened? The harlot Rahab hid the spies in her house from her own countrymen. Her own countrymen were trying to seize them and find them. And ultimately she was saved with all of her family when the Israelites destroyed the city.

She then joined the Jews as the people of God and became an ancestor of Jesus. We see this in Joshua 2.1 and in Matthew 1.5. Then we see this with Ruth the Moabites. After following her Jewish mother-in-law from Moab back to the land of Israel. And when I say back I mean her mother-in-law was from Israel. She was a Jew. Ruth ultimately married a godly Jewish man named Boaz. And she was an ancestor of King David and Jesus as well. She is one of the four women named by Matthew in the genealogy of Jesus. And we see God's heart in missions and other scriptures.

Psalm 22-27 "All of the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord and all of the families of the nation shall worship before you." We see this in other places like Isaiah and Psalms and Daniel and Hosea and Malachi. If we took every scripture from the Old Testament that spoke about God's heart in missions to the nations we would be here way too long. But here's one that might surprise you. We even see this in the construction of the temple. The court of the Gentiles shows us that God desired the Jews to evangelize the Gentiles.

Although the Gentiles were limited in how they could worship in the temple after they were converted to Judaism there was a place for them to worship the one true God as converts. They had done such a poor job, the Israelites, the Jews. They had done such a poor job by the time Jesus came on the scene that the court of the Gentiles there in the temple was filled with money changers and animals and Jewish trade associated with worship. They had ignored the Gentiles and squeezed them out. So notice from Genesis to Malachi we see God had a heart for the nations.

It was His desire for His chosen people that they would take the message of the one true God to them. But we don't need to stop in the Old Testament. Let's look in the New as well. Second I want us to see that Jesus exemplified God's heart all throughout His ministry. So first we saw that world missions was in the heart of God from the beginning. Second we see that Jesus exemplified. He showed us God's heart throughout His ministry. If we are not careful we will think that Jesus simply dropped the great commission on His disciples kind of cold turkey. That's not the case. It should not have surprised them.

All throughout His earthly ministry Jesus was taking the gospel to the Jews and to the Gentile peoples right before their eyes. You could say that He was exemplifying the great commission and preparing the disciples for the great commission before He gave them the great commission. Let me give you a few examples. Matthew 8, 15 to 13, Jesus interacts with the Roman centurion and Jesus says to Him ultimately I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. Matthew 12, 21 to 28, Jesus interacts with the Canaanite woman of Tyre and Sedan and He says woman you have great faith.

And then John 4 starting in verse 7 Jesus interacts with the Samaritan and oh this wasn't just a Samaritan, this was a Samaritan woman and not just a Samaritan woman, a woman of bad reputation. So there were several social rules Jesus was breaking there. A Samaritan was a half-breed Jew and a Samaritan woman was off limits to Jesus or a good Jew and she was a woman of bad reputation. And not only does He grant her salvation but to other Samaritans as well because the text says that He stayed there in Samaria for two days. None of that, none of that made the disciples feel very comfortable.

And He goes on to say to the disciples in verse 35, "Look I will tell you lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white unto harvest." He was in Samaria. They weren't looking at it like that. They wanted out. So if we read the Gospels and we pay attention we will see that from the beginning of His earthly ministry to the end Jesus interacts with Gentiles, He carries the disciples into contact with Gentile peoples and He calls their attention to their need for salvation. Of course He took His message of the cross that He was the Messiah to the Jews first.

But simply Jesus exemplified, He fleshed it out God's heart for the non-Jews as well as the Jews all throughout His ministry. Now what am I trying to show you here? What do I want us to see? This is a lot, I know. I want us to see that God has been concerned with missions and world missions all along. All those verses in the Old Testament talk about the nations, world missions has always been in the heart of God and we see that starting to unfold in Genesis 12. Of course Abraham could not fully understand those things but we do. And from Genesis 12 on we've been seeing world missions unfolding. Jesus simply fleshes it out.

He fleshes out the heart of the Father in His ministry. And get this, the Great Commission that Jesus gave His disciples was nothing new to the disciples if they knew their Old Testament, if they listened to what Jesus taught and if they really saw what Jesus did. Think about that. The Great Commission should not have been a surprise to them if they knew the Old Testament, if they listened to what Jesus taught and if they really saw and took in what Jesus was doing in His ministry. Now I want to show you that the church is far more ignorant of these things, far more than we know. More people in more churches are uneducated here.

First of all, most people in the church, a lot of people in the church do not know this from the Old Testament. And see, if you don't know it in the Old Testament, you just think that maybe world missions just came later like a plan B. That's not the case. That's not the case. And we should see that this was God's heart and plan all along. But think here with me. In most churches, the court of the Gentiles is crowded out. It's crowded with animals and money changers and business of worship. Think about that. It's all about church folks in so many churches.

In many churches today, the church is filled up with all kind of religious stuff and religious business which proves that their churches are really all about the few that are on the inside. And what I'm showing you is this. This kind of stuff shows us that we can be more like the Jews than we know. But then notice, most Christians can be just like the apostles. Many Christians are reluctant to understand that this is God's heart. And it should be the goal and the heartbeat of the church. Now what are the lessons for us? God's heart is for the nations. Others. Think about it as us and them, those outside. He wants us to have the same heart.

He wants us to have a heart for the others. And this may be an education for some. This may be a reminder for some. I've taught you this faithfully through the years and this may be a correction for some. And I'm going to be personal. I know this. I've studied this. I can make an A on the test. But I need to be reminded because if I'm not careful, I can be more concerned about us and less concerned about them. And it's not either/or. I have to have a heart for the person at Walmart. I have to have a heart for the man that loads up something at the feed store. I have to have a heart for my neighbor.

I have to have a heart for those around the world. So whether we needed a little education here or a reminder here or a correction here, because if we're not careful, we can think more of us. Now I want us to start with our questions. Our first question, our number two in our outline, do we see the great need? Do we see the great need? Now we kind of have answered this question some. If you think about it, if you think about what we've looked at, we've kind of answered this some. But there's a little more that I want us to see. This is where I want us to go to Revelation chapter 5 verses 9 to 10.

And you might not have ever read these verses or maybe it's been a while. But I want you to put your eyes on these verses. I have used these verses through the years when I've dealt with missions and different messages. But notice these verses. And they sang a new song saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and open its seals, for you were slain," talking about Jesus, "and by your blood you ran some people for God from every tribe and language, people and nation." Verse 10, "And you have made them a kingdom of priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth." Now notice the beginning of the verse, verse 9 says this is a new song.

And from our perspective, from our perspective as being confined to time and human history, this is in the future. And notice this song will be sung one day in the future when the work of redemption is complete. And also this song is distinguished from all of the other songs that are sung in heaven. Job 387 teaches us that angelic choirs celebrated when the foundations of the earth were laid. But this song, the song in Revelation 5, cannot be sung until redemption is complete. Now I want you to see a few details here. First, we must see that right now, in time, the work of redemption is not complete. The work of redemption is not complete.

God's work of saving men, women, and young people is still to be done. It's not finished yet. But one day, when the last soul that God has determined to save, when they are saved, when they trust Christ and come to Christ, well, then it will be complete. Here's a verse that I want to read. Matthew chapter 24, verse 14. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. It's alluding to the fact that it will end. That time will end one day. So we must see that right now, the time, the work of redemption, it's not complete.

And then second, we must see that this work of redemption is for many, is for many. We see this in Matthew 24, 14. Notice that the purpose of the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross was to provide salvation for the nations, the nations. It says, "And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all the nations." The cross was not only for us, but we see that it was for them. And when this was written, we were the them. I might butcher the English, but listen, when this was written, we were the them people. The Jews, they were the us people. We were the Gentiles. You see?

We were on the outside of it all. Now notice a few important details back in Revelation 5, Revelation 5, 9, and 10. I want to focus on a couple of words. Now your translation could have it a little bit different, but you can follow me. Notice this word tribe from every tribe. The word tribe here means a comparatively small division or class or people associated together. It refers to a family or race having a common ancestor. A good example here is one of the tribes of Israel, or even a good example would be one of the American Indian tribes.

But then notice from every language or every tongue, this refers to people speaking the same language. This word here would seem to denote a division of the human family larger than the tribe, but not smaller, but smaller than a nation. And then notice the word from every people. This word properly denotes a people considered as a mass made up of smaller divisions, as an association of smaller bodies, or as a multitude of such bodies united together. And then notice from every nation. This is a larger classification. This is a people in a wider sense as we would see a nation.

So notice in the language it starts with the small group or small association and it gets bigger. This tells us that the work of redemption is for the many. I guess you can say it like this. God doesn't just say all, he breaks it down so that we would see that it is for the all. So here we see that this gospel, the cross, Christ, salvation that is found in no other name but Jesus, this gospel is to be taken to all of the peoples of the earth from the smallest of division to the strangest of languages. Christ intended his church to take his gospel to them. And for us, I've given us this warning before. Some of you might remember it.

It's been a while since I've mentioned it. We have to look at a friendly little warning here. We cannot allow ourselves to have an us and them mindset. If we have that, if it comes into our minds, we need to repent of it. And at the time this was written, we were the them. That thinking, which is pride by the way, is what destroyed the Jesus ability to evangelize the nations. You see? Think about this quotation from a book called Eternity in Their Hearts. It's by Don Richardson. It's a good book. It's been a while since I've read through it. But notice what Don Richardson says here.

And I'm quoting, "Jesus did not come to give the Great Commission." Jesus did not come to give the Great Commission. Now let me finish. He came to take it away. He came to take it away from the Jews who had already possessed it in prototype for nearly 2000 years and had done almost nothing with it. It was time for the world to see that believing Gentiles entrusted with that same imperative in New Testament form would do with it. You see? Now I do not think we have this kind of an attitude in Grace's life. I really don't. I don't detect an us/them attitude or mindset. But I want you to see it can easily creep in.

It can easily, because it all comes from pride. But another lesson here. When we hear of the smallest tribe or people with the strangest of customs or languages or even when we hear of people who are the most dangerous, we need to see that Revelation 5, 9 to 10 is about them. I think about Muslims and terrorist groups and the Middle East. We can think about them as the enemy. And I know that this can make us think about some of our conflicts over there. But this is for them as well. And it's easy for us sometimes to apply this to certain peoples that maybe don't cause us fear. But we see that this is all for them.

Let me give you a little help here that might help you. Let me give you a little tip here. This is something that I do in my life. This is dealing with do we see the need. One of the things that can help you is not just studying what the Scripture says, what the Scriptures say, but reading missions biography. Yeah. Get you a good biography. I don't know if you've ever heard of John G. Payton or Patton. Some say Payton, some say Patton. The Scottish missionary that went to the New Hebrides, went to the cannibals. Yeah. If you study the first missionary that went prior to John Patton, I mean he was killed and eaten really before the boat left.

But study men like John Patton, John Payton. One of my favorite is Frank and Marie Drown. They went down to the headhunters down in South America right after World War II. That's very recent history. They had a long successful ministry there. Frank and Marie Drown. But they were close friends with Jim Elliot in that group who were killed. Their stories are all interwoven and you read about them. Read about David Brainard and Adonim Judson and William Carey.

All of these great missionaries that went, and sometimes we can read about some who are pretty obscure, but those things can stir, those stories and reading can stir in our minds to help us see the need. But let me show you something better. Since we get to know anchored and truth missionaries, email them, call them, talk to them, and they might not have a mission's career like a Frank Drown or like a Jim Elliot, but yet their ministry is just as valid. So for me, talking to people who are in the work stirs in my heart and helps remind me and helps me see that the need is there, that the need is there.

And you know ultimately we can read and study and call and talk. It needs to be a work of the Spirit in us. And then number three, number three, the question will we offer ourselves? So not only must we see that this is God's heart and it has been God's heart all along, not only must we see the need, we must see that we are included in the great work, that great work to take the gospel to them. Missions and the work of the gospel is an expectation. It's been given by God to the church. Now get this folks, get it. Missions and the work of the gospel is church work.

Not a work of a board, not the work of a committee, not the work of an association or a society. If you really want to get really biblical, if you really want to get strictly biblical, you must see that missions and the gospel, the work of missions and the gospel is the responsibility of the church. Of course churches may organize and network to do this. It's okay for a church to organize and have a board and have an association and a society. There's nothing wrong with that, but we can never take the responsibility of missions off the shoulders of the church. Here's where I want you to turn to the book of Acts. Acts 13.

This is one of my favorite portions of scripture. I have prayed through this throughout the years. I want to read it and then kind of briefly show you what's happening here. Acts 13 verses 1 to 3. Now there were at Antioch in the church that were there prophets and teachers. And then there's a list there, a list of individuals. Verse 2, "While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said," see the spirit moved in the church and he said, again, I said something like this Sunday morning, these are verses that make us Baptist nervous. "What does the spirit say?

Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul, that would be Paul, for the work to which I have called them. Then they, then when they," this is the church, "when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away." Now what's happening here? This is Paul and this is his first missionary journey, the very first one. And what did we see here? It came out of a church, out of Antioch, not even the church at Jerusalem. So God burdened the church, burdened Paul and called them to that first great missionary work, first missionary journey.

And it came out of the church and if you study that missionary journey, they came all the way back to Antioch to give a report. His work never left the church. My point is this, Paul never disconnected from the church and we must see that the responsibility of missions is on the shoulders of the church and those who go out should be connected to and under the authority of the church. Now I want to be quick here and I want to show you four ways we should offer ourselves. I'm just going to state them and I'm just going to pray and expect the spirit to move on you according to how you need to hear it.

First we should offer our church to this task and that falls on our shoulders as leaders, yes. But our church should be offered to the task, our church should be available. I'm going to come back to that. And then second, we should offer our lives to the task. We should, we should offer our lives. Lord, how do you want me to fit into this puzzle called missions? We should offer our families to the task. Lord, how does my family need to fit into the puzzle? We should offer our children to the task. Oh, timeout pastor, not our children. It could be that the next Frank and Marie Drown are being raised in the back of the church now.

I mean, we study these missionaries, parents sent them off. Because they weren't very happy. Could it be that the next Mary, Peyton, or Patton, John Patton's wife, could it be that she's back there? Well, if you study that story, you see that as soon as John Patton got to the mission field, the first child was born, she died and the baby died. And did you know his, her parents had to deal with that? You took my daughter off. But you know, could it be that the next future pastor is back there? Could it be that there's a pastor and a pastor's wife that God raises up, we send them out?

Sometimes we can focus on the great and wonderful missionary stories. But what I'm trying to show you is the future is back here in the back of our church. And listen, men and women, like the ones I just mentioned, will never come out of a church unless that church is truly offered up to missions. I'm not going to turn there, but the Philippian passages that we looked at Sunday, study the man at Paparditis there. They had reconnected, the church at Philippi had reconnected with Paul and he's in a Roman prison. And what did they do? They sent one of their best men to Paul and Paul bragged on him. He called him a wonderful servant.

He ministered to Paul so much so that he almost died for the work of Christ. Then God gave him health and Paul sent him back. What am I trying to show you? The Paparditis does not come out of a church that's not missions minded because Philippi, the church at Philippi had a real heart for Paul and that apostolic work. Well then they sent one of their best to Paul. Now as I close, just wrapping up what I'm sharing with you, I want to talk to God's expectation of our church and missions. Let me just talk about this a little bit more. Three major things here that I want us to see.

First we should be more missions minded, more evangelistic locally. And I'm speaking kind of on this personal level, but yet it's corporate. This should be our hearts. This should be our thinking. This should be our church's vibe and desire and our heartbeat. To explain that, I've just got to illustrate it. When I came to faith in Christ, there was a church in my hometown, Highland Baptist Church, that oozed a love for lost people. They oozed evangelism. I'm telling you, they had a heart for anybody and everybody. It didn't matter what color. It didn't matter where they came from in society.

And look, when I came to faith in Christ, I'd never been to that church other than a wedding. I was not a member there. But when I came to faith in Christ, I had family that had gotten saved and started going there. I grabbed a Bible out of the top shelf of my closet that a girl gave me in high school. And I went to Sunday school and I learned this whole huge church. Half of them knew me because they'd been praying for me. And I realized later they'd been weeping tears for me. And they knew that people were witnessing to me. And they were just ecstatic. Not that I was there, that I had come to faith in Christ.

You see, it was in the fabric of their being. So we should be more missions minded and evangelistic locally and personally. And this all gets mixed up together. We should be praying for the lost and witnessing and engaging in evangelism. Everything here, you can't do it there until you do it here. And then second, we should look for God to give us a mission's footprint locally and beyond footprint. Maybe God raises up somebody who has a heart for jail ministry and our church gets involved in jail ministry because somebody leads the way. You know, we went to a nursing home here a while back.

A few people said, "Pastor, we need to be coming back here." Maybe we're able to go into the nursing home because God raises up somebody in our church to be the point man or the point couple. You know, the people that will spearhead that and help facilitate that. Maybe that's where we need a footprint. Let me give you an example. You know, we've been praying for our friend, Ed Lacy. Please pray for Ed. He's still in a bad way with COVID. He's a missionary and an evangelist. He's been all over the world, but he lives in Mobile. And you know, when he is not preaching off somewhere, he goes to Sunday school. He goes to church.

That's revolutionary because some guys who are on the road don't. But you know what else he does? He goes faithfully to the Mission of Hope Drug Rehabilitation Center there in Mobile. Faithfully. See, they have a footprint there. They're missions minded in Mobile. So we need to pray and we need to look for God to give us a mission's footprint locally. And I can't do all of that. For some of that, it might be God burdening you and calling you and I support you. And it becomes a work in our church. And then the third thing, we should look for God to give us a closer relationship and an involvement in anchored in truth.

Let me tell you our prayer goal. Our prayer goal is that one day our church gets to the place where there's a missionary or a missions point somewhere in the globe and it is ours through anchored in truth. Now when we give anchored in truth dollars, it gets divided up and sent out anchored in truth dollars come to us. But they talk about, you'll hear this language personalized and strategic. And that's one of our prayers that one day there's just a point on the globe and it is ours and we're pouring resources in there and it's ours. And we're sending people and we don't know what that would look like, but that is our goal.

You might say, pastor, that's an audacious goal. We're not a very big church. Antioch wasn't very big. Which wasn't. None of these churches were. So that's our heart. And look, I believe our participation in the true church conference is just going to do that and a whole lot more. And this is what I say to you as I begin to close. If you're not going live stream the messages, listen to the messages, we're going to arrange for some testimonies afterwards because we want to bring all of that back to you and to us. And again, we're being more proactive to bring anchored in truth people into the life of our church.

Brother John is coming in April and then there are going to be some other things like that because we want everybody to get to know the family. Let me do this. And then I want to mention some prayer needs, and then we'll close.