Having a Missionary Mindset Dr. Steve Walker

Transcription

1 Series: Global Outreach 2016 March 6, 2016 Having a Missionary Mindset Dr. Steve Walker God is worthy, and that's what got us out of bed this morning, and that's what should get us out of bed every morning. He is worthy to receive glory from our lives, and we want to spend this time hearing from God now, in his Word. I think most of us in this room who call ourselves followers of Jesus believe God loves the whole world. That's the mantra of our faith, John 3:16. We believe Jesus came to die for the sins of the whole world, not just our part of the world. I would guess and assume most of us in this room who call ourselves followers of Jesus also believe God calls every believer to the privilege of being an ambassador for the message of repentance, forgiveness, and eternal life in Christ Jesus. I really believe most of us in this room believe those things. Yet here's the challenge I want to try to overcome today. These are the questions I want to answer today. How do I encourage all of us, not just most of us, who are followers of Jesus, to actually enlist and engage as an ambassador for Jesus? How in the world do I help all of us realize we are not exempt from God's great privilege of being his ambassadors? That's the first challenge I want to try to overcome today. I want to meet that challenge. I want to convince us that every one of us has that privilege placed on our lives by Jesus. The second challenge or question is How do I help us overcome the real obstacles to engaging our lives in the spread of the gospel? You see, I believe what we tend to think are the real reasons why we're hesitant to go to the mission field, go on a Global Encounter Trip, give more money sacrificially to the spread of the gospel, or really talk to our neighbor, friend at work, or that family member who doesn't know Jesus I tend to believe the reasons we think we don't do those things are really not the reasons at all. Let's just talk about what the reasons are. First of all, one of the big reasons we all have is that we just don't have the time. The demands of family, careers, school, or whatever it may be To get away or to go away There's just no way. It's the busyness of life. For some, it would just be, "I don't have any money. I can't miss work. I don't have paid vacation. I'm trying to save up Canyon Hills Community Church 1

2 for retirement. I'm trying to pay off debt. I'm trying to buy a house. I have to save for the kids to go to college." We look at our finances and we say, "I can't do that." For some, it would be the reason of, "It's just not my gift. It's not my passion. I'm not outgoing enough. I don't have enough knowledge about all this stuff, going to other parts of the world, even if it's for a couple of weeks. I certainly don't know enough about the Bible to hold my own if I were to go somewhere to talk about Jesus." That's a real reason. For others, it's, "I'm too old. It's too late for me. I'm retired, or I'm close. I'm 70, 75, or 80, and God can't use me in that way." For others, it would be, "I'm too young! I don't want to die yet. I haven't even gotten married. I want to have kids, and then I want to have grandkids, and then I want to have great-grandkids. I'm too young to do something like that." For others, the reason might be, "You know what? I've tried that. I tried to share my faith at work and it backfired. I went on a trip one time, and it was a bad experience." I want to propose to all of us that these are not the real reasons. They're reasons, but they're not the real reasons we tend to be resistant to the idea of being an active ambassador for Jesus, an active participant in the advancement of the gospel. Here's what I think the real reasons are. There are only two. If we were all honest, there are only two real reasons why we won't engage. First, we love our lives too much. We absolutely treasure the things of this life and in this world so much that the sacrifice of any of it, let alone all of it, seems overwhelming. The expectation that we should actually consider giving up all of our personal comforts and conveniences for the sake of the gospel is nearly offensive to us. That's the first real reason. We just simply love this life too much. Secondly, we fear death too much. We are too afraid of dying. The thought of being persecuted or rejected is unbearable for most of us, but the idea that God may call us to go toward the danger and toward death for the sake of the gospel is just unthinkable. If I'm correct that these are the real reasons so many of us hesitate to be involved in the spread of the gospel, then how do we overcome them? How do we get past these things if we really believe God loves the world, Jesus came to die for the sins of the whole world, and God calls all of us to the privilege of being his ambassadors. How do we get over those things? I think the best way is to spend some time with someone who has gotten over them. For the few minutes we have left, I want us to spend some time with the apostle Paul. I want us to get into his head. I want to get into his heart to find out what it was, what changed in him that allowed him to have this mindset of a missionary. What is that? I want it and I want you to have it because God wants you to have it and God wants me to have it. Canyon Hills Community Church 2

3 The best place to find that mindset of Paul is in Philippians, chapter 1, so I'm going to ask you to get your Bibles open to that if they aren't already. When you have Philippians, chapter 1, let's go ahead and stand for the reading of his Word. We're going to pick it up in verse 12, where Paul says "I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the [Holy] Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." God, I pray that somehow those words make sense to us before we leave here. I pray, God, that they would be more than just an amazing quote, but that they would actually be our own mindset. I pray, God, that you will surprise us today with courage and joy at the thought of engaging in the advancement of your gospel here and around the world. I pray in Christ's name, amen. My main focus is going to be on verse 21, but we're not going to get there for a while because there are several mindsets that the apostle Paul kind of exposes for us to see and, I hope, to embrace. Let me give you some examples. 1. Rejection actually opens new doors for the gospel. Nothing spreads the gospel better than our persecution and rejection. It's actually what keeps the gospel moving throughout the whole world. We know Paul wrote this letter from prison. In fact, his trial was most likely going on as he was writing this letter to the Christians in the churches in Philippi. Yet from Paul's perspective as we read here, his arrest and imprisonment actually gave him access to people he would have never been able to reach unless he was actually in jail. He says, here, in verses 12 and 13, "This has happened to me, and it has actually served to advance the gospel. It has become known throughout the whole imperial guard." These are the people who actually guarded the palace of Caesar or the Emperor. Canyon Hills Community Church 3

4 He saw his persecution as a doorway to advance the gospel of Jesus. What an amazing mindset this is! Being in jail and on trial was not a failure. It wasn't a disaster for Paul at all, we see. It was actually an open door to the godless Romans to hear about Jesus! They would have never given him an audience. They hated Judaism. They were suspect of every religious sect that had risen up out of Judaism, and now here he is with a captive audience with all the guards and they're talking about it amongst themselves and going over to the palace and talking about it some more. I just thought, "What about us? What if we weren't so afraid of rejection? What if, instead, we were thinking that if they reject Jesus and they reject us, it might mean a completely different and surprising opportunity for us to take the gospel to someone else?" Let's say you were sharing your faith with someone at work. Maybe you were on a break and it just came up and you started telling them about Jesus and they just rather quickly said, "Hey, whoa. That's not for me. Time out. Keep your Jesus to yourself. That's just not for me." Total rejection, hand in face What if they walk away and a couple of hours later, they're talking to someone else and they're saying, "You're not going to believe it, man. Joe, over there, starts preaching at me, telling me I need Jesus and Jesus saved him. What a knucklehead. I told him to just keep it to himself"? What if the person to whom that guy said that goes home that night, and while he's lying in his bed, he realizes, "That's exactly what's missing in my life"? What if, a couple of weeks later, that guy walks up to you quietly and says, "Hey, I heard you were telling this guy over here about Jesus. I guess you're a Christian. What can you tell me about that?" All of a sudden, this whole other door opens up for a guy who you maybe never even thought was remotely open. What if you go on a Global Encounter Trip for a couple of weeks in a certain context? Maybe we're going to reach children, refugees, tsunami survivors, or something like that, but God opens the door to a military officer, a taxicab driver in that country, or to a fellow passenger on the plane ride home. What if that was the surprise? Maybe you went on the trip and had nothing super amazing happen with the gospel, but some completely sideways opportunity came up? Opposition to the gospel divinely opens hidden doors where souls are ready for salvation. This just happened on one of our teams. We just had a team return from India a week or two ago, and they were telling this story about how one morning they were on their way to wherever they were going that morning, and one of the team members said, "You know what? I just feel like we need to go this way." They needed to go down this kind of off-the-beaten-path alley. It wouldn't have been a natural way to go. Maybe it wasn't even the safest way to go through this part of town, but they went anyway. Sure enough, they're down this little alleyway, remotely, and some Muslim guy named Mohamed comes out and just starts questioning them. "Who are you guys and what are you doing here?" Right about then, I would have needed a new diaper or something, but he's so Canyon Hills Community Church 4

5 enamored by who they are and why they're there that he invites them into his house and starts feeding them and talking to them. This guy happens to have just retired as a police officer in that part of India, and he says, "You know, I know a whole bunch of people who could help you do what you came to do." He's sharing with our global partners over there that he has connections in places that will help them set up the ministry they actually want to set up in that part of the country. That's what I'm talking about. What if we had the mindset that rejection isn't the end, but may be the beginning of a new opportunity? 2. Our faithfulness in persecution actually fuels more missions. Remaining faithful in the face of being rejected can sometimes inspire greater boldness in others to witness. That's what verse 14 is about. Paul is absolutely excited when he hears that being in prison actually helped others be more bold for Jesus. For you and me, our mindset can be the same. We can believe that if we don't shrink in shame or embarrassment when someone just tells us off, says no, or doesn't accept Christ, or when we're persecuted or rejected, the mindset is that God can use that to set off a chain reaction of boldness in others. We don't know how. We don't know when, but we see it happen all the time. Someone hears about your attempt to share your faith with a neighbor, or maybe it's a family member who has been really resistant. You share in a group, or you're with some people, and you tell them, "Man, I tried. I poured my heart out and they still just said, 'Forget it.'" How do you know that make those people who were listening to you tell that story think, "You know what? I need to be bolder. I need to talk to my family member or my neighbor." It's a great mindset. Be faithful. Remain faithful in the face of persecution and rejection. 3. Don't be discouraged by the Christians who don't support you. In verses 15-18, Paul starts talking about some people in his life while he's in prison. I think what I get out of this conversation from Paul is that sometimes our greatest discouragement doesn't come from the actual people who are persecuting us or rejecting us. It actually comes from a Christian parent or some brothers and sisters or a Christian friend who's not supportive of you going on a Global Encounter Trip, packing up and leaving for six months or a year, or giving of your money to missions. "I mean, come on, look at you. You need to have more money in your emergency fund. You can't do that. You can't give money to someone going on a trip and support them. You can't take off work. You have to keep your retirement going." The discouragement actually comes from each other, not from the people who say no to Jesus. Paul says here that there were some Christians in his life who were envious of him. They preached out of rivalry and envy. They were envious of his respect and the effectiveness he had. Out of one side of their mouths, they started accusing him of things that weren't true so people would think less of him and more of them. On the other side of their mouths, they just kept on Canyon Hills Community Church 5

6 talking about Jesus. Paul says, "Hey, what do I care? Christ is proclaimed. I rejoice. I don't care what they say about me." I think the application is twofold. A. Don't be discouraged by people who don't understand, especially your Christian friends and family. One of the peculiar things I'm seeing happening in the church right now is the biggest obstacle to more of us, especially the generations coming up underneath us, going on trips and thinking about the mission field is they have moms and dads who are saying, "No way! I don't want you going on a mission trip. I want to see my grandkids! That's too dangerous!" or, "Wait, you haven't even bought a house yet!" or, "You just got out of school!" They're saying things like that. The greatest obstacle to more people engaging is us! It's not them! All you moms and dads just got quiet right now, didn't you? "I hope God doesn't call my kids!" Yes you do, because if he's pointing them and leading them, he will provide what they need. He has people waiting for them. It's not about them going; it's about them coming to where God is doing a work and calling them to him. B. We can't be the discouragers. Don't be discouraged by that, but don't you be the one saying, "Oh, what are you, crazy? I can't believe you want to give some money to that project over there in that part of the world. You want to take two weeks off work and sacrifice your own vacation? You only have three weeks. Why would you do that?" Don't you be that person. 4. Spreading the gospel has to be a team effort. Paul knew he couldn't be an effective ambassador for Jesus without the help of others. I think this is really a huge reason why we don't talk about Jesus or share our faith with our neighbors, coworkers, or friends, and it's certainly a big reason why the thought of relocating to another uncertain cultural context seems too frightening. "I can't go over there and be all by myself and afraid." Look what Paul says in verse 19. He says, " for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out " He's relying on the prayers of his friends and the power of the Holy Spirit because he knows personal evangelism and mission work is not an individual sport. That's what I love about our church. That's what I love about our team. We have a bunch of members of the church, volunteers who team up with Pastor Corey and his staff, and they guide, direct, and strategically involve us in ministries and partnerships around the world where God is active. These people are well-trained, there's leadership and accountability, and they have a strategy. We're not just calling anybody in the church and saying, "Hey, why don't you go over here? Here's a ticket. Call us if you need a ride home." I think that's kind of how we feel. It's like we just randomly pick these countries and say, "Hey, start walking around. See if you can find someone to talk to." No! We're partnering with what God is already doing and providing training and equipping so you go and you are on a team. We don't send you by yourself. Canyon Hills Community Church 6

7 This is what Jesus did. The first team had 72 people on it. The second team had 12 people on it. He always sent them two by two. We trust that God puts these teams together and they balance each other and complement each other and they go to another context and team up with our partners who are already there on the ground. Together, we bring the gospel a little farther into the world. It's a team effort. What if, each week in our Life Groups, we shared the name of one unbeliever for whom we just have a burden and we just started praying for that person together in our Life Groups? Then each week, we would come back and report back to our Life Group if we had any progress just developing our relationship with them, with the hopes of someday leading them to Jesus. What if we prayed for help together that God would open doors, give us wisdom, or just give us love and compassion for that person? What if it truly was a team effort? Guys, let's say there's someone at work who you get along with. He doesn't seem too terribly closed to you being a Christian, and you're trying to just witness to him. What if you find out he loves golf? Invite him to go golfing, but don't go alone. Ask a friend, maybe from your Life Group or from church, who's a better golfer than you, hopefully, and go together. While you're out in the woods finding the ball you hit off the tee, your buddy can be walking alongside, developing a friendship as well. It's a team effort. We need each other. Spreading the gospel is a team effort. It's not a solo sport. That has to be a mindset. That starts with your own friend, neighbor, or even your own family member who doesn't know Jesus. Engage some people with you to pray and help spread the gospel to them. 5. Courage, not safety, is the most powerful asset we have. In verse 20, Paul's worry was not that he wouldn't be safe in prison. His worry was that he might lose courage and be ashamed of being rejected and in jail. That was his worry. He was worried that the people outside of prison, his fellow Christians, would be ashamed of him, or that he would be embarrassed. Ultimately, I think he was worried that he would lose courage and be ashamed of Jesus and cave in to the pressure of denying him altogether. He wanted his witness to be strong to the very end, unwavering. That's why he says here, in verse 20, " it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage " I confess to you, I know if I were more committed to praying for courage than I was about worrying for my safety or being rejected, I probably more than likely would share my faith much more joyfully, naturally, willingly, and maybe even effectively. I'm just going to confess to you that this week, I asked myself (and I guess I ask you the same question), when was the last time I actually prayed to God that he would give me courage to witness to somebody specifically? I couldn't even remember the last time I prayed that prayer. I'm embarrassed to say that to you. Let me ask you that question. You don't have to raise your hand. I think the mindset of Paul is He's so honest. He says, "Man, I just hope I'm not ashamed. I hope I have courage." What if we just started praying that prayer? "God, give me more courage." That's the mindset. Canyon Hills Community Church 7

8 6. Treasuring Jesus above all else is what compels us. It's what moves us. It's what inspires us. It's what motivates us. I picked that word, treasuring. I know it's starting to be overused in our Christian vocabulary these days, but I think it's the best word that expresses the mindset we need. I think one of the reasons we struggle in engaging in spreading the gospel personally with the people around us, and ultimately beyond our walls, is because we just don't feel a compassion for the souls of those who are lost and going to hell. We just don't. We see pictures on videos and we look at those people, strange-looking, different from us, in other parts of the world. We don't know them. We don't even know where that is on a map. We've never been there and we just don't feel any emotions for them, and therefore it's hard for us to get out of our seats and do anything, go anywhere, and even to give, because, you know, out of sight, out of mind. "I have my own issues here." Although that's very true and convicting, I don't think that's the highest motivation for us engaging in the gospel. See, years ago, I confess to you, these times in the pulpit, I used to try to convince you all to weep and cry for the lost. I talked about how hot hell is and how many people are going there. "How can we possibly say we love Jesus when we don't care about that?" I did that for a few years and I realized it wasn't working. You just left mad at me. You left feeling bad, but it didn't change anything. I realized that can't be even our highest motivation, even though it's a good one. Look at verse 21. Paul says, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." What does " to live is Christ " actually mean? Why does he say that? I think we get the " to die is gain" part, but the " to live is Christ " part is a little more challenging. We all agree, I hope, that this world is relentlessly always trying to tell us what our lives ought to be about. The triune gods of our generation are security, comfort, and pleasure. Those are the three things with which we constantly get bombarded by our world. "This life is all about acquiring, achieving, or pursuing whatever it takes to eliminate our fear, discomfort, and unhappiness." That's what this world says. "That's what you have to get up every day for. You are working and doing everything you can to protect yourself from unhappiness, discomfort, and fear of the future." I believe when Paul says, " to live is Christ " his mindset is that he has a deep conviction that all of these pursuits of the world are bankrupt, every one of them. The world's path will always lead us directly into the quicksand of self-absorption and fleeting happiness. That's why he says all those things the world says are there for you to try to pursue and get It doesn't work. At the very least, it won't last and you stress out so much getting there by the time you get to that place where all those things are eliminated in your life, it's time to die and go to heaven anyway. Look at Paul's words in Philippians, chapter 3. You'll remember them. Starting in verse 4, he says, " though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh " In other words, he says, "If anyone has reason to brag about his accomplishments, it's me." That's what he says. Canyon Hills Community Church 8

9 He says, "If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews " He's saying, "Hey, if you're going to be religious, I was the most religious." He says, " as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless." He's just saying, "Perfect! I kept every law perfectly." "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." What is Paul saying here? What is his mindset? " to live is Christ " I think the mindset of a missionary, the mindset of an ambassador of Jesus, which we are called to be, is a belief that knowing Jesus, being forgiven by Jesus, being made righteous by Jesus through faith, and even suffering for Jesus is beyond everything else this unbelieving world exalts. That's what he's saying. Here's the struggle you and I have. Let's be honest. The majority of us this morning would agree with Paul's statement, " to live is Christ " You may even have a pillow on your couch with that embroidered on it, but the reality is that very little of our lives is actually about Jesus, percentage-wise. Very little of our lives is driven by his purpose and his plan for our lives as it and we are concerned with the spread of the gospel throughout the world. We all struggle, to some degree, with the fact that we may say, " to live is Christ " but we actually mean, "To live is my version of Christ." It's not the Christ of the Bible. It's not the Christ who we find in Scripture, but it's the Jesus who will make us safe, secure, comfortable, successful, loved, respected, healthy, and happily married. That's the " to live is Christ " meaning I think a lot of us have. For most of us, me included, it's really hard to admit that. Paul's mindset was different. He didn't say, "Christ lives for me." He said, "For to me to live is Christ " I think one of the best things we can do for the gospel to advance in our lifetime is to repent of this sin of loving the world and this life too much. That doesn't mean all the blessings and gifts of God are bad. It doesn't mean we have to walk around with sour faces, somehow proving that we don't love the world. No, we know God blesses us. All good things come from him above, Scripture tells us, for our enjoyment. Yet it does mean we fully believe God gives us our blessings so our worship and enjoyment of Jesus may increase, not decrease. " to live is Christ " means we welcome and enjoy the blessings God bestows on us, whatever they may be, not so we could serve him less or go less or give less or pray less, but that so we should do that more! We have to reverse that! Canyon Hills Community Church 9

10 Loving Jesus more than this life will free us to go wherever he may lead us to take the gospel, and it will free us to give sacrificially for the cause of the advancement of the gospel. We have to recognize that we need to desire the mindset that we must treasure Jesus above anything this world says to pursue. 7. Believing there is a better day coming is what keeps us going. The second half of that little statement is just as important. " to die is gain." It sounds pretty strange. You don't hear a lot of sermons on that verse, " to die is gain." We just don't. I checked. I have not preached a sermon titled "Hey, come to church today. We're going to talk all about dying. Let's get excited about death!" No, we don't talk about it even amongst ourselves, just for fear of sounding morbid or suicidal, yet the truth is Paul talks about it often. Here's what we know about dying, or death, in the Scriptures. First of all, we know none of us die before our time, and we also know God knows all the days of our lives before we were ever born. We get that out of Psalm 139, verse 16, don't we? The psalmist writes to God, "Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." We know before we were ever conceived, God knew the days of our lives. He put them in place. He knew when we would be born and when we would die, and none of us are going to die any sooner or any later than he has planned. Here's what we know about our lives. Scripture tells us, in Psalm 39, that our life is like a breath. In Psalm 102, our lives vanish like smoke. In the same Psalm, 102, verse 11, it says our lives are like a fleeting shadow. In James, chapter 4, it says our lives are like a mist, here one minute and gone the next. The hope of the ambassadors of Jesus is that this life isn't all there is. " to die is gain." Instead of the brevity of life and the certainty of death paralyzing us and keeping us from engaging and enlisting in the advancement of the gospel, it actually motivates us because we know the other side of this life is eternal. The other side of this life will be void and free of all sin and all evil. It will be eradicated. All crime, disease, suffering, hunger, homelessness, hopelessness, lying, greed, and political campaigns will all be gone. Thank God! That's what Paul means when he says, " to die is gain." Justin Martyr, the second-century Christian apologist, captured Paul's words perfectly when he says, "You can kill us, but you cannot do us any real harm." There's a fearlessness in this mindset, because although we can be persecuted and we can die for our faith, we believe that in those moments, the Holy Spirit will be present with profound power for courage and strength. He has been throughout all of history, starting with Stephen, the church's first martyr, in Acts, chapter 7. Canyon Hills Community Church 10

11 I love Paul. He was one of the most frustrating missionaries the world has ever known, because his enemies didn't know what to do with him. They put him in prison and he's converting guards. They beat him up and he counts it an honor and a privilege to suffer like Christ. They put him in chains in the deepest dungeons, and he's singing songs. They take him out to the edge of town and they pelt him with a pile of rocks until supposedly dead. An hour later he wakes up and he goes right back into the same town. Could you imagine the frustration of his haters? His mindset was, "Hey, to die is gain!" To believe our death is gain is really to finally be free from fear in any capacity. I want to be so convinced that a better day is coming, church, that I'm not worried about missing out on tomorrow. I'm not worried about missing out on this weekend or next weekend. I'm not worried about missing out on the next vacation. I'm not worried about missing out on retirement. That's what it means to have this mindset, " to die is gain." Wouldn't it be incredibly freeing to live like that? I mean, I can't even imagine. Eventually, our weak and decaying bodies are going to go into the ground and then Christ is going to return and we're going to rise up from the dust and ashes in a moment with imperishable bodies forever and ever. That was Paul's mindset. That's the mindset I want. That's the mindset I want you to have. It's our only hope for the gospel advancing under the privilege we have of being ambassadors for Jesus. To live is Christ; to die is gain. Here's my challenge. Every year, I want to give us challenges like this. First, if you're open to these mindsets, to thinking this way, I want you to commit to giving money to the advance of the gospel. Flat-out. I have no shame in asking that. All of us together, giving over and above our mission and ministry work here. This is our first mission, ministering to each other and to all the thousands of people we're reaching and caring about here. But giving more than that for the gospel to go out into the world Last year, we gave collectively almost $775,000 to the work of the gospel going to the world. What if this year we could give a million? What else could happen with the advance of the gospel? You have a little card in your bulletin, just giving you an opportunity. Go home. Think about it. Talk about it. Pray about it. Change your mindset. You can engage in this. Don't love this world so much that your excuse is, "Well, I'm saving to buy a house. I have debt. I have retirement." Blah, blah, blah. Don't live like that. It's a miserable way to live. Bring those cards back next week. Drop them in the offering. Express your commitment and that your mindset is changing. Give over and above your giving. Secondly, I want to challenge you to go, this year or next year. Our goal every year is to send at least 200 new people from our church on a two-week Global Encounter Trip, 10 days, 2 weeks. Many of you have gone. Praise God. In fact, let me see. I'm going to take a risk here. How many of you have gone on a short-term mission trip here at Canyon Hills, two weeks or less? Some of you have gone on trips, just not with our church. That's cool. Canyon Hills Community Church 11

12 Some of you went on a trip when you were like in the third grade and you're still hanging on to that as your, "I did that. I've done that. No thanks." And you're like 55 years old now. Okay, we know you went to Vacation Bible School across town. We get that, but I want to challenge you more to go. You're not too old. You're not too young. Between now and the end of this year, we have, I think, at least 10 trips going. It's 10 days and 2 weeks. Get online and look that up. We have information meetings coming up like next week and the week after, just getting you some information. The following year, 2017, we have another 10 trips or more coming. I want to call you to go sometime in the next couple of years, all of you who haven't gone yet. Wouldn't that be incredible? What could happen for the advance of the gospel if you finally realized, "That includes me! God can use me!" Absolutely. The mindset I want you to have is "to live is Christ; to die is gain." You will go with joy and expectation that God can use you in a mighty way on a team of people with the same powerful mission to take the gospel. Father in heaven, I just pray that while our heads are spinning now and our minds are churning, you would speak clearly into our hearts and that many, many people in this room would consider sacrificing financially and sacrificing their time for the cause of the gospel. God, give us the mindset of Paul, more and more so. God, we pray that you will use this church; use us in meaningful ways to take Jesus wherever we can. I pray this in his name, amen. Church, we have people up here who would love to pray with you before you go home, especially if you're facing something really serious or scary this week. They're here also to talk to any of you who want to talk about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. I pray you'll come and talk to them before you go. We'll see you next Sunday. Canyon Hills Community Church 12