Believing for More Church Planters

it’s good to be with you and uh if you haven’t met me, I’m derek rim, p one of the things that we’ve been believing for is for the gospel to continue to go out and to send out church planters and and God has been leading me in that direction and uh we’re gonna be, I’m gonna share a little bit about my heart and what, what guys doing um in in a second charlie is gonna be coming up here and talking about going, being about jesus’s mission uh and I’m excited to be a part of that and for you guys to uh to be a part of that as well and and that’s one of the things I wanted to say is just thank you, thank you too to this, this body, this people that has been a blessing to myself to uh bringing in our church Restoration City, my family, it’s been a huge blessing being a part of this community, serving with you all, getting to know you all and, and I’m sad too to be moving on, but you know, excited to be going and what God is calling us to. So one of the things I want to share uh is Matthew 13 44 so God is calling us to go to highland Kansas. Uh it’s kinda in between here and Kansas city, it’s a town of 1000 people. Uh we’re going to plant a church there and and see what God is gonna do, making disciples, we’re going to talk about, but Matthew 13 44 says this says the kingdom of Heaven, it’s like treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and covered up and then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Now that verse that reality, that idea here is what God really did in my life. When I was 19 there was a church and Lawrence Kansas uh college ministry as a part of that church dan was a part of that dan. And Lori was one of the first people I met when I was a student there got connected and they were there seeking to share the gospel of the Kingdom of God, sharing christ this treasure with others. And I was uh I’m grateful to be a recipient of that. Uh God showed me and I was able to find the treasure of christ and his kingdom and I went in my joy and sold everything and they’ve been serving him growing in him and he led me to come to Lincoln to help plan a church and now going to highland to do the same thing to help people find the treasure of christ and his kingdom. And and there’s nothing better, nothing more worth doing giving their lives to helping people find christ and to find his kingdom. So that’s really the heart of what we’re doing. That’s the heart of, of what God has called us to and with that I want to invite charlie Robinson to come up and and share with us. So my name is charlie and I’ve been in sabbath to Kansas for a little bit more than 28 years. Um I am old, right. The gray hair reflects, its just had my seventh grandchild. Little girl named Norah. Right. And so uh yeah, she’s a little cutie. And uh and so we’re gonna be talking about the mission um sabbath and Kansas is a small town, not quite as small as highland where Derek’s going and you know, people might look at at Northridge Church and and this is actually our sixth campus uh church that that we’re gonna have um so we’ve planted five times or this is the fifth time, technically it sounds romantic, but it’s not, you’re going to need to pray for Derek because You know, there’s no starbucks within 45 minutes, there just isn’t right. There’s not even a coffee shop in, in, in in highland. Right, So he’s got to go all the way to Hiawatha to get a cure ick thing or whatever, you know at Casey’s. And so uh it’s gonna be hard, uh there’s there’s there’s no grocery store there, You know, they’re gonna have to travel 20 miles to the nearest grocery store. It’s it’s not gonna be glamorous for him. And there’s there’s, it’s, it’s just a broken down little town. And yet there are many people, there’s not really a good solid bible, believing missions Church really operating there. Uh there’s a college campus there with lots of college students that are unreached, about 800 that are unreached, about 1000 that go there. Um, and so it’s a, it’s a great mission field. Uh, and he has answered the call. Uh, and so we’re excited about that, but I want to talk to you about that this morning because we’re gonna go through some famous verses, some verses that, you know, in the olden days, you know, like when I was your age, um, they talked about at mission conferences to cite people up to, to go out and if you didn’t go out, you sat there and you felt guilty or you know, or you sat there and go, well, this doesn’t really apply to me or as my wife says, my wife is an introvert, like way introvert, like, like way introvert. I had to keep invite, I had to keep inviting her to come to church where I was pastoring, right? It’s like really honey, if you just show up, you can show up late, you can go home early and basically that’s what she did and a lovely woman of God. She’s, she’s an awesome awesome example and race live great girls, all who know the Lord and follow him and, and um, and my youngest is gracie, I think I pledged pledged her to Wayne Wyatt Wyatt. So, um, uh, so meanwhile we’ll meet later. Uh, but if there’s any other guys who are like 20 to 25 26 years old that you know, are, are, are, are looking for a good Godly woman, apply here, apply here. Okay, This doesn’t get like recorded or live streamed or anything, does it? Okay, I am in trouble. Yeah. So, uh, so even if you’re an introvert, can I just talk to you for a minute? Because I know because my wife tells me, uh, that you sit there a lot of times on sunday and you go, that’s not for me. Right? And, and I want to stretch your brain a little bit. I want to stretch all of our brains today. Two to look at the mission a little bit different, a little bit different. Some of the errors that we do is is sometimes we come to church and we think the mission is someone else’s like, it belongs to the elders of the church, it belongs to mike, belongs to dan. But you know, that’s not my thing. And then, because somehow we think, and that’s what my wife says. This question is an introvert that, well, I don’t have those gifts, I don’t even know what my gifts are. So how can I be part of this mission? I just want all of us to try and lock in, even as we share these three familiar verses and you have the verses, if you, if you have an outline, there’s some outlines, there were gonna be filming that. Um, there’s a couple up here. If you, if you’re brave enough and you and you want one, you don’t have one to come up and get one. I’ll make sure I call you out by name. So don’t any introverts move. Right. So I want to start at the very beginning with Matthew Chapter nine, verses 36-38. He should be mostly familiar to you if you have been been around church, but I don’t want that to poison you just because you know it. Here you go when you saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep only without a shepherd and then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to do what to send out laborers into his harvest. So in this first section though, this has been a famous verse to challenge people to go out on missions. It really isn’t. This, this is a challenge, especially for a church body to send people out on mission and send your at least I hope your best and your brightest. Right? So we have the opportunity we just did about two weeks ago we sent Zach robson. This guy was a rock star and I wanted him to stay and be one of our pastors but we couldn’t because he went with his wife to Malaysia. So he sent it out, send out the best. Right? And then uh in a couple weeks, two weeks next week we’re sending out a couple to Japan and she just had a baby and, and so they’ll be going over and then in the beginning of june Mitchell and Emma, Emma roomed with my daughter, one of my daughters as her freshman year in college and her and Mitchell, they met at church. Good place to meet. Right, okay. Don’t be looking, don’t be looking in places you don’t be looking okay. Right, if you want good fish, you go to a good fish pond. Right? You don’t go in some scum lake. I’m just telling you, okay, where was I, what was I teaching about? Uh yes, sending out missionaries. Yeah. So anyway, they met at church, they got married and now we’re sending them to Myanmar at the beginning of june uh and by the way as we’re going through this, I don’t want you to think that there’s got to be some mastermind plan, right? You’re gonna come to church and dan’s gonna stand up and dan’s gonna talk about this great plan that we have and and and the openings and and hear all the pegs squares and he just, he just wants to get you and boom plug you into things and we’ve got a great plan, we’ve got a great vision for your life. Right? See this is something that the spirit of God moves in each one of your hearts. So you say, oh Northridge, how did, how did you do this? How did you get Derek? How did you? We didn’t do anything. We don’t have a strategy. I know that makes people nervous. We don’t have any strategy. When Derek said you want a partner, I knew you were talking about Highland, I said sure, right. When, when a couple came from fall city and said, hey, we would like a service up there. Could we figure out something? I said sure, right, see then is in dwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. Amen, Amen. And every believer in this room isn’t dwelt by the same spirit of God. Okay, does dan have more? No, the spirit of God is a person. You can’t have more or less than the Holy Spirit. Right, lisa, I hope that’s what you’re teaching. Right? And so the Holy Spirit of God is just as live and active and powerful in your own life prodding you. And so as we go through this, my prayer is that we realized that the mission is all of ours and that we don’t even have to plan it out. But I know there’s a big thing, I’m figuring out your gifts, your spiritual gifts and exercising them in the church. Okay, okay, I want you to exercise them in church, but a lot of you might go, I don’t know what they are. It doesn’t really matter. Just start doing something. Right, start looking. This is what this is what I wanted to just keep our eyes open for how the holy spirit is leading, right? Don’t structure your life so much to structure the spirit right out of it. So he says he was moved with compassion. So I take it from the first service. There are not a lot of good cavers here, people like go caving okay, yeah, same girl there you are. Way to go baby. Right, why are you here again? You’re right. So so I noticed all your friends on that side left, right, Are these all different friends? Right. Yeah, yeah. So we call caving back east. I’m from philadelphia. So if I talk a little fast or get a little, you know, that’s that’s that’s that’s some of my accent. But uh we call it spelunking spelunking right? Because you’re going down into a cave, Do you know what’s really cool. This greek word for compassion is spelunking now, that’s where we get it from. So when you read compassion, this was just not like a oh I feel bad for them, hmm, you know, oh gosh, you know, we need to pray for them over there or if you look at them over there they need jesus right? This is a compassion that goes deep down now. I confess to the first service as well, I need jesus to give me this compassion, I don’t have it naturally. I just don’t, my wife uses with compassion right? And I’m like yeah, they made their bed and sleep in it lead follow or get out of the way, you know, I’m just like, you know, I and and she prays for me. Um because I do I need compassion. You know us guys, you know, girls go, they see a spider, they capture it, they like let it out in the yard, you know what I mean? I’m like kill them. All right? Just I mean if it gets within 300 yards in my house, it’s dead. That’s the rule I have, right? So I’m not very compassionate, you know, suffering animal, I just take it out, right? My wife said no, no, let’s here let’s take it to the vet. Right? Okay, so anyway, so, so but we do we do need this compassion, this this thing that goes deep and and by the way in your outline, right under that first verse this heart attitude that we do need is compassion. We do need compassion. We have to have compassion on the lost. They are like sheep without a shepherd. They are without christ. Now, I don’t know how many of you have been saved. Uh been a christian understood what it means to have a relationship with God through jesus and all of that for a long time. But you are probably the most susceptible for have not having compassion. And and so if you’re like me, we need to ask God God give me a heart of compassion, help me to hurt for the unsaved, I’ll tell you this. If one of my girls had rejected christ, If one of my girls didn’t know christ, that would that would drive me with compassion. And I’ve asked you is I need that compassion. You know, the compassion I have for my grandkids to come to know, jesus, that’s the compassion I need to have for the whole world, even the people that I don’t really get along with. And so what’s the action there? The challenge that we have is to send, That’s what it’s saying to send to do exactly what you’re doing with there. But this should not be a singular event. This should be event that you’re that you’re doing constantly, right? Oh man, Faith and her husband, they’ve been great here. Now, they’re going off to so and so, man, we’re losing all our good people praise the Lord if you’re losing for a good reason, right? Because this is what the body of christ is to be doing, inviting them in seeing people get saved, building them up, equipping the saints to do the work of the ministry and then sending them out. So this versus I’m not challenging you to go on this verse, I’m challenging you as a church to be senders to be thinking, not, not, not necessarily even planning, but taking every opportunity. So when a young man says, you know, I’m kind of feeling led to go good, pack up will equip you? Well, we’ll we’ll support you, get out of here. Right? I’m telling you, you know, people say, what’s the secret? There’s a secret to church growth. Well, there’s a lot of secrets to church growth, but I’ll tell you one of the things that we have found the most effective is a church that sends is a church that grows. It doesn’t make sense, does it? I mean, you would think of the opposite you’re sending people and so your church getting smaller. No, no, I’m telling you, we have over the past 23 years, we’ve sent uh 15 people out. It’s not quite, you know, one every other year, but that’s that’s it’s natural. It’s dangerous, careful, careful. If you go to that sewer church, next thing, you know, you’re gonna be in India right? Uh next thing, you know, jesus is gonna call, you don’t don’t go to that church. It’s dangerous to go there. That’s what you want, because there’s a lot of people who are tired of living standardized namby pamby normal lives and they want some good God action and they want a church that is doing something in the mission. Not just meeting together. The next verse is a classic one in Isaiah chapter six verse eight. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, here am I send me This is the second verse, right? So God has a message that he wants out and he says, who’s gonna who’s gonna do it? Who’s who’s going to go and actually take this message that I have? And Isaiah says, here, am I send me? What’s the hard attitude should be obvious willingness, willingness to just be willing. That’s the blank. Right willingness. Thank God. I don’t know where you’re calling me. Be careful, stop. Don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t jump to conclusions until we get to the 3rd verse year. Don’t jump to conclusions that I’m thinking or that you’re thinking that I’m challenging you to go out of the country for that. I’m challenging you to go to highland. So you are all welcome. Right? Right. If you come that boost the population by one Right? If you come with your wife 2% right, we could take over the town with this crowd right here. Right It’s funny, but I’m serious. We really will take any of you. So he says, here, am I send me willingness and the action obviously is to go, that’s the action challenge. Is to go again, Be careful. Just wait for your mind before you shut that off. Right, Let’s look at this last one because this last one I hope will really challenge us to not just have compassion and not just have the willingness, but where I’m talking about going as well? Matthew 28 19 and 20 go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and behold I am with you always to the end of the age, a great promise, a great challenge. There’s only one, there’s only one command there, you know this, right, make disciples, it’s while you’re going, so he’s not saying go get out of here, he’s saying while you’re going wherever you’re going, you’re gonna be teaching you, you’re gonna be baptizing right, right, on a sunday, right, we teach, we baptize right we’re going. But the point is to make disciples okay, stop, let’s do a little parentheses here because if you’re like me, I used to think yeah, make disciples, what the heck does that mean? Like what does that really mean? What does it look like? Is it a class? Right, go to dance class six weeks ping I’m a disciple. Right, right, I mean is that is that how it works? Right, I mean I know sometimes I, I really hope I never checked with you, I hope you know some churches have like these checklists, right, if you do this and this and this and this, you have gone through the discipleship process, Hey right, discipleship is a lifelong process, what is it, I wrote it in your outline there discipleship, I wrote it somewhere there, it is helping one another, be more like jesus, okay, can you grasp that? It’s pretty easy to grasp that, that decide bullying someone is helping them become more like jesus in two ways, there are the two blanks in character, right? We want people to be more like jesus and character, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, generalist, meekness, faithfulness, self control, right? We want them to be more like jesus, we want us to have the compassion of jesus, the integrity of jesus, all of that, we also want them to have the priority of jesus simple. What is discipleship? It’s two girlfriends helping each other while they’re going through life to be more like jesus in his character, right? And in his priorities. So what matters to Jesus matters to us if the unsaved right matter to jesus, he said he came, why did jesus come? He came, don’t get confused, Jesus said it, I came to seek and to save that, which was lost if you ever get confused on why Jesus came, just listen to jesus, right, don’t listen to the preacher that gives his own ideas, right, you know Jesus said I came to seek and to save that, which is lost if it’s lost, it’s important for him then it’s important for me and so this is our, this is what discipleship is while we are going, this means that the mission is for all of us, so what is our heart attitude towards number one, obedience obedience that we simply obey because it’s the command we are to make disciples. So that means that you’re helping someone become more like jesus. If you’re not helping someone become more like jesus than you’re being disobedient to the mission that God has given us. Okay, we got that. But be careful. Don’t let guilt slip in yet. Don’t let shame come in yet because you’re not in china trying to learn a foreign language to tell them about jesus. Okay, what does this mean? It means that uh well the action, let’s talk about the action. You know what I’m gonna wait, I’m calling an audible, I’m gonna wait. Let’s go to the conclusion. I know I haven’t given you a number to action challenge yet, but conclusion point number one, The mission is the same for all of us. It’s the same for all of us. It’s it’s it’s it’s that we’re all going while we’re going, you can write this, it’s to everyone, there’s the first blank build into everyone to everywhere all the time. Now for Derek and Shannon, that means they feel led to go to highland and while they’re going to highland and while they’re in highland, they’re going to meet people and everyone they meet, they’re going to try and share christ with or or find out if they know christ they’re trying to just encourage them to be more christ like to everyone everywhere and all the time? Everyone everywhere all the time, say it with me, everyone everywhere all the time again, everyone everywhere all the time. Okay listen okay, you know we sometimes make the christian life very complicated relationships and and and what we believe and and the bible studies and and all that’s good. But sometimes the the christian life and then and then we have life right? We have car payments where we have insurance, you know just had next and I mean I didn’t but you know you know how do I do this? I have relationship issues uh this that the other thing life just seems so crowded. Sometimes people say how how do you be effective to be effective by just changing your mindset to say? Which by the way is the word repentance to change your mindset to say, Okay my mindset is this my mindset dans mindset is not to have a big church, right mike mike’s you know, dream isn’t just to have a bunch of people and money kind of but see here’s the thing when I think that the mission is my mission. Mission is your mission is your mission, it’s your mission, it’s your mission, it’s your mission, this is our mission. See then the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. Right? As we keep our eyes on you, what does it mean? Keep our eyes on jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Well what it means is I stay on mission, I I have a relationship with God, I have the indwelling of the Holy spirit, I have the power of the word of God so that I can what? So I can meet everyone everywhere all the time for some of you, your entire mission is with your Children first and foremost, right? Every mom, every dad, your Children are your number one disciples. Don’t try and don’t try and reach the world. If you’re not reaching your own family live the life, right? Reflect jesus character reflect his priority because your kids will pick it up, they will know what’s important to you. They’ll know whether money is more important because you’re always telling them right behavior, behavior versus heart, right? See if I’m, if I’m disciple and if I’m trying to make someone more like jesus, but they’re misbehaving sometimes my priority is more for them to behave, especially like when you’re in public and and it’s embarrassing right? If your kid, you know, and so sometimes our priority for them to behave is a lot higher than it is for them to know, Jesus would be great this guy right here, Pew, for the jesus, pew, that’s an old guys chairs right here, right? There’s row, right? For jesus isn’t that great? Now I’m sure they behave perfectly all the time as well. Right. Yeah, I saw you buy the donuts. Yeah, yeah, but do you see what I’m saying is if this is our constant thing, this will help your marriage. Do you know why? Because husbands, you know your number one priority mission in life is to disciple your wife, wife. Guess what your number one priority is to disciple your husband. It’s all of our mission. Everyone everywhere all the time, Taking every opportunity to and this is the number two that I skipped to engage to engage, simply look for where God has given you opportunity to engage. If everyone here in this room just paid attention to every opportunity that God had for you to engage while you’re going through life with anyone at any place at any time, you would have to have a third service next week Because God wants to build a church, right, Jesus Matthew 16 I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. He wants to build his church right? He’s got the power, he’s got the authority to build the church. He has put it in our hands and arc my constant prayer with our pastoral staff is that we don’t screw it up. He wants to move, he wants to move through sewer church, he wants to raise up some of you to go, he wants to raise up some of you and strengthen you to send, he wants to raise up you to love God and to disciple your kids so that they will grow up this thing doesn’t happen overnight. You know, you look at, you, look at even the church of northridge and you go, wow, wow, wow. Yeah, like almost 30 years damn. You’re gonna be old in 30 years, right? But now I quit right right to everyone everywhere all the time. You see this shouldn’t just be an event. The very last line in your outline, it shouldn’t just be an event today. This should be our sewers lifestyle, both individually in your life and corporately as the body of christ. So whatever opportunity you have, whether it’s with your kids, whether it’s with your neighbors, if it starts to get a little bit out there, come talk to mike or dan or or some of the other elders I just haven’t met yet. Right, come and talk to them and say, hey God’s leading me here, hey, I have this opportunity, You never know what’s gonna happen. The hague adorns some couple in fall city who just thought, hey, can I could, could we do something in falsity, Can I just engage for for this minute? I, they would have no idea that 10 years later there would be a disciple producing church up there that has already sent out one of the guys to this area Wesley Farwell, Wesley far away, you probably don’t know him, he’s with a mission called ratio Christi. He came from fall city church who didn’t right? So just look for the opportunities God wants to grow his church, He wants to go through you. He wants to be your mission. So let’s be our mission together Father. I pray that you would move our hearts. Make us be willing. Give us that heart of compassion, help us to engage in what you have for us to do. Just keep our eyes open. God I pray that the things of this world and the and the troubles that they would not affect. Our eyes being fixed tightly on you to see what do you have for me today. God change diapers, right? Sing a lullaby. Sing sing some worship songs to my kids, point their hearts towards you. We go to the other most part of the earth, wherever it is in Jerusalem, judea samaria wherever it is. God I pray that you would and site this church, this sewer church to do what it’s named after and that is the plant seeds from our home to the end of the earth. I pray in jesus name, Amen