1 Thessalonians 1:8–10

Christ's second coming is transformative. It gives every moment eternal significance and empowers Christians with profound hope, urgency, and purpose. Discover this compelling truth about Christ's second coming through this series in Thessalonians and see how this changes everything.

First Thessalonians chapter one, I encourage you to locate that portion of scripture, have your journal handy as well, a pen. Here in this room, all of our locations, Lamoni and Carlisle, our gathering in Guttenberg, our homebound audience as well, wherever we are, let's get under the weight of the word this morning. First Thessalonians chapter one, my goal is to help us understand the entire chapter by finishing out the final three verses.

So to do that, let me see if I can give you an illustration visually of First Thessalonians chapter one. This will incorporate all of the chapter. It will serve as a review of last week, but also as a preview for today.

I think as we kind of unfold this visual illustration, especially the last three verses, then as we unpack the verses, it will just make even more sense. So here's the visual illustration for you. This is First Thessalonians one.

It could be pictured like dropping a rock into a pond and observing the ripples. Very simple. You've all probably done this.

You've all seen it, but I think that's First Thessalonians one. It's the dropping of a rock into a pond and then observing its ripples. For instance, First Thessalonians one, verses one through seven, talk about the dropping of the rock.

I believe if you look at the verses, it explains how the rock is dropped. It's God who drops the rock. He loved us.

He chose us. He made sure the gospel got to us. We welcomed it by the power of the Holy Spirit and that landed in us and it made us examples.

Verse seven concludes with this. You were examples to all those in Macedonia and Achaia. Examples of what? How to receive the gospel.

They received it, welcomed it by the Holy Spirit. It changed their life. It caused them to be faithful in their work, to labor in love, to endure in hope.

All of this was because God dropped the rock of the gospel into the lake of their life, we'll call it. God is the one who owns the rock. He loved them.

He chose them. He sent the gospel to them through the Holy Spirit. They heard it, saw it, believed it, and it changed them.

Verse seven ends with this is how you receive the gospel. That's what Paul was thankful for. In fact, that was our Thessalonian truth last week.

Don't you recall? Here it is just to review with you the first part of our Thessalonian truth through verse seven. Let's show that, Craig, can we? There we go. Grateful prayer for change is ultimately linked to the gospel's power to change.

It's one through seven, but eight through 10 described for us how once it hit and landed and changed them, that began to ripple out. That's what we're going to see today. The gospel went out from them, the rippling effect.

We're going to finish our Thessalonian truth by saying this. Yes, that grateful prayer for change is ultimately linked to the gospel's power to change. It's dropping.

Once it lands, it compels us then as models and messengers to spread the message of God's divine rescue. A little lengthier, but not hard to understand. I think you'll see that in the final three verses.

Let's put our nose in the text, can we? First Thessalonians 1, I'll begin reading in verse eight. We'll finish out this chapter. The Bible says this to us, for the word of the Lord, that's just a reference to the gospel, the message of Christ, the word of the Lord rang out from you.

It reverberated. In fact, you'll love this word. The word ring out is a combination of two words, the word out and the word echo.

In fact, we get our word echo from the last half of this Greek word. He's saying, man, the word of the Lord, it echoed out from you. It rippled out, it reverberated from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia.

Those were two nearby areas. Just for those who like geography, Macedonia is north about 120 miles. Achaia was south about 320 miles.

Just think about Thessalonica, then you have Macedonia and Achaia. He's saying from top to bottom, the word of the Lord rippled out from you. He says not just those two places, but in every place that your faith in God has gone out.

Now, I see the words faith in God as similar to the phrase word of the Lord. Paul here is describing the gospel message they received as well as what it did in their life and the stand they took upon it. The gospel of God, the word of the Lord, the message of Christ and their faith in that message.

These are synonymous, very similar terms in which Paul is saying, this is what has gone out. The word of the Lord, the gospel into these places and every place in between, this is what's gone out. You have spread this news, this message.

In fact, the word gone out is quite intriguing. It too means to come out, but it usually is referring to a person that goes out or comes in, someone who's either leaving or arriving. Can I use the word personal word? He says, your faith in God has gone out.

I think what he's saying is you have gone out with this faith, this testimony, this word about the Lord. You've gone out. You're making sure that this is what's rippling and echoing and reverberating.

It's the word of the Lord, the gospel. To which he then says, therefore, we don't need to say anything. It's odd for the apostle Paul to say that.

Most preachers never say that. We've always got something to say, right? Paul says here, you're going out, you're echoing out, you're rippling, you're reverberation takes care of it. I don't need to say anything.

I want to address that more in a moment, but just hold that phrase in your mental pocket. He says, I don't need to say anything for they themselves, this is verse nine, report what kind of reception we had from you. Now, there's a lot of pronouns there, so let's walk through this just to make sure we understand what is being said.

Paul says that their faith was rippling out and spreading and echoing and that they were the ones who were taking this personally, delivering the message, the word of the Lord. He didn't need to say anything for they themselves, that's referring to the people who were encountering the Thessalonians, more than likely the Macedonians or the Achaians. They were meeting up with these Thessalonians from whom the word of the Lord was ringing out.

They were reporting, what it says here now, what kind of reception, that's the testimony, the response or the reaction that we had from you. We there are the planters, the text would say Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy. Can we just call them the planters as an umbrella term? They're the ones who went to Thessalonica, shared the gospel, the Thessalonians gave them a welcome reception, empowered by the Holy Spirit, the gospel landed, changed them, Paul was thankful for that.

This is what, of course, is the essence of what happened to them. And so these folks in these other places were seeing and hearing about this and somehow the planters knew this. And so he says, man, we don't need to say anything because we know that these folks have already told us the way you welcomed the gospel, the way you responded to us, the way you received us.

And how did they receive the gospel? How did they respond to the preaching? That's what the end of verse 9 and verse 10 says. Notice this is their testimony. How you turned, circle the word turned, how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, circle the word serve, and then to wait, circle the word wait, for His Son from heaven.

That's their testimony. That's what they were saying to these people in Macedonia and Achaia that was eventually getting back to the planters. Which is why they didn't need to say anything because it was being preached and reported, we turn to God from idols, we serve the living and true God, and we wait for His Son from heaven.

Here's a neat thing in the passage. You see how this chapter essentially ends with these three types of references to their testimony, turning, serving, and waiting. I think it's a repeat of what he says in verse 3. When he says in verse 3 that he was thanking God for three things, their work of faith, I think that corresponds to turning to God, their labor of love, I think that corresponds to serving the living and true God, and their endurance of hope, it corresponds to waiting for His Son from heaven.

You see how this book ends now? Paul was thankful for the work of the gospel in their life in changing them, but then as it continued to do its work, they spread out and spread this message, and Paul's now saying here's the message they spread. It's exactly what God did in their life. They turn to God from idols, they serve the living and true God, and they wait for His Son from heaven, and then it closes with this beautiful description of the Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that's why He's true and living.

Amen, church? And His name is Jesus, and He rescues us from the coming wrath. Beautiful description of Christ. Of course, His coming is the end of this chapter.

This is what changes everything, and we're so thankful that we are in Christ, that we've been changed by Christ and the gospel, so that we are not under His wrath. Instead, we're secure in Him, and Paul is thankful that this is their testimony. They've been saved by God.

They've turned to this God. They are serving God, and they're waiting for God's Son, who's going to come and rescue them. Beautiful passage of Scripture.

Not hard to understand, wouldn't you agree? I mean, this is not a difficult section of Scripture. In fact, I know we could spend, and we'd probably all like this, we'd spend hours parsing, conjugating, dissecting, diagramming, but it would all lead to the same result, which is where you are now. You know what this text means.

This text is describing, not just the three verses, but the entire chapter, is the rock of the gospel, preached in Thessalonica, and they, by God's power and the Holy Spirit's power, heard the gospel, accepted it, and began to change their life. And as it changed their life, that began to spread out as well. It's just an example of what churches do and what Christians do.

This is just the New Testament in a nutshell, isn't it? How God changes people, and then He commissions people. How the gospel turns people into a going people. How those who believe share.

It's just a picture of what is repeated throughout the New Testament. So I don't want to belabor that point. I think the text is clear.

The question I do want to answer for a few minutes before I make some application is this. What's actually being spread? Because I think, if I can gauge current culture well, just in conversation with Christians for several years about this text often, we often think that what's being spread is a report. Like, well, man, word got around, Todd, about these people.

We think that what rang out, that what went out, that what had gone out, like the sense of the text, we think is like, yeah, they were in Thessalonica, and man, they just really were changed by the gospel, and so everybody heard about it. I don't think that's the text says only. I think what went out were the Thessalonians.

Let me see if I can make a case for that. I understand we could disagree on this and be great friends, but I want to contend with you pretty strongly that I think the text and the heartbeat of the New Testament leans into the idea that what went out were the actual Thessalonians. Three reasons, I'll mention them briefly.

Notice that in verse 8, what rang out was the gospel. You see it twice. The word of the Lord rang out.

See that? It doesn't say a word about how you received the word rang out. It doesn't say that. It clearly says the gospel rang out from you, and that's a thing that is shared person to person.

It also says that your faith in God has gone out, and the word's gone out, of course, referred to really more like a people-to-people conversation. I'll explain more of that in a minute. My first reasoning is that what went out wasn't a compliment or a praise to the people.

What went out was the gospel. How did it go out? Through the Thessalonians. They're ambassadors.

They spread the message themselves. Second reason is this. Paul says here he doesn't need to say anything.

This is a very interesting phrase, isn't it? So is Paul saying, I don't need to say anything about you because they've heard about you? Or is he saying, I don't need to say anything about the gospel because they've heard the gospel? I think he's saying he doesn't need to say anything about the gospel because they have already heard it from the Thessalonians. Let me prove it to you. If he's saying, we don't need to say anything about you.

Your testimony's gone before. They just heard about you. I wonder if you received the gospel, which is true.

They did do that. But if that's all he means, then he's actually being untruthful because he actually does say something about them. In this chapter, he compliments them.

He tells how he's praying for them. He says, I thank God for your work of faith, labor of love, endurance. He actually talks about them.

For then Paul would now say, I don't need to say anything. I'd say, well, you already did. So he must mean he and his partners, the planters, don't need to say anything about the gospel because guess who already did? The Thessalonians in places like Macedonia and Nicaea.

They went out. They took the gospel with them. It reverberated.

It rippled. It echoed. What they received and heard, they took with them.

People heard the gospel and how they received it. Word of that got back to the planters and they're like, man, we don't need to go there now and share the gospel. You already did.

It's a beautiful testimony. The third reason is I do think the word gone out is probably our most textually based reason for seeing this as the fact that the people went out with the gospel, not just a word about the people. Because the words gone out, they really are typically associated with people spreading something.

It literally is the words come out, referring to an arrival or a departure of someone. For instance, Romans chapter 10 verse 18 in 1 Corinthians 14 36, they speak about the proclamation of the gospel through a person by using this very word. Now I want to be textually honest with you as well and say that this word is used at times to refer to something spreading like a rumor.

Now don't think bad rumor, okay? But often in the Gospels like Luke chapter 4, Matthew chapter 9 or Mark chapter 1, John 21, the wording is such that words spread out about him or word about this went throughout the whole town. But understand this, in the first century that didn't happen except person to person. There's no email, there's no texting, and even on the printed reports those were delivered by hand.

So do you see what's happening here? Historically, culturally, textually, I think we have to land in this place. When Paul says the gospel rang out from you, it went out, it rippled, it landed and it spread. He's talking about the Thessalonians who either in their official capacities of being sent or in their unofficial travels through their business and different interests.

In other words, as they went and spread to the towns around them, north to south and everywhere in between, they took the gospel with them so that other people were hearing the message to the degree that Paul would say, you know what, I don't need to preach there anymore. You're doing it. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that just a wonderful template for what a church looks like? If it's the pattern of the New Testament.

Here's a specific profile of really what a church should be about. Receiving the message, letting it land in our life and make us examples. First of all, verse 7 says of how to receive the word.

We welcome it in the power of the Holy Spirit. We let it work in us and make us work and labor and endure. But then as it does its work, it spreads and we share.

It's a beautiful template for churches and Christians. Knowing that this text is about the word spreading through people, not just a good rumor being heard one day about someone far away, but that is actually referring to people who are taking the message. Can I just share with you, first of all, how this affects us, how we experience this within the life of First Family.

Those of you who have been here for a long time, this will be a review for you, a refresher of a lot of our DNA. For those who are new, maybe you've been here two or three weeks or maybe a few months, you'll appreciate this kind of inside microscopic look at really what makes First Family. First of all, in regards to our mission and vision, we have a vision here, have since the earliest days just to become a people ready to reproduce.

You can already feel the heartbeat of First Thessalonians 1 within that statement, can't you? Rippling out, and it's our desire that God just continually develop in us and make us a people all about multiplication. So you can use various words, reproduction, multiplication, disciples, making disciples, those all lean in the same direction. They want to become a people ready to reproduce, to multiply.

Now can we just be honest about this, like physically? You're doing a good job at this, alright? Our church has babies on a regular basis. I mean we have a calendar in the office, and there's a square for each month, and we write the names of the families who are pregnant, and it's usually pretty full. You write in blue for a boy, you write in pink for a girl, and we pray for those families and think of them and ask about them.

So I think we're producing and reproducing pretty good physically. Let's make sure that we're reproducing spiritually, that we're disciples and making disciples. That's the vision of year by year who we want to become so that it's normal, so that when you hear about a new church being planted, a new work starting, or new believers, it's not like an unusual thing to you.

We can rejoice. It shouldn't dampen our enthusiasm, but it shouldn't be a surprise. One of my sweetest moments in 21 years of pastoring among you was when we announced the, I think it was the Lamoni campus.

It may have been Carlisle, but it was one of those campuses, and there was almost like, well, of course, Todd. I wouldn't say it was non-enthusiasm, but there wasn't like a gasp in the room like, oh, we're doing what? It was like expected, and I remember going home telling Julie, that's a beautiful sign in our church that it wasn't a surprise that we're multiplying, and yet your enthusiasm wasn't low. So that's the kind of heartbeat behind the vision, that we are continuously becoming a people ready to reproduce, embracing multiplication.

That is the heart of God. He's a missionary multiplying God who wants his children to make disciples who make disciples. We feel like that's done well by following three things in Acts chapter 2. The early church essentially celebrated the gospel, grew together, and served together.

So we like the three words, same with me, celebrate, grow, and serve. And again, since our earliest days, this has been kind of our strategy, you may say our mission. So we're going to always be asking you, hey, how are you doing in your weekly gathering? Are you prioritizing the body and being here to celebrate the gospel together? It's one of the reasons that we do communion every week for the most part, so we can tangibly celebrate the gospel.

Our lyrics are strong and textually based around the gospel. We preach the gospel. We give gospel calls regularly in all of our ministries.

We want to be gospel saturated, which we want to make sure people know how to be reconciled to God through the work of Christ. We want to grow together in small groups. That's a real heartbeat of our church, is how most of our shepherding and discipling takes place.

And we want to serve the mission, which means we want to be willing to be on a team and put our name on the dotted line and say, I belong to this team and I serve regularly. In some fashion, I can be held accountable. And so all that's kind of summarized in this phrase, celebrate the gospel weekly, grow in community in a small group, and serve the mission of God on the team.

And so we think these habits in some way should be a regular rhythm in your life. Is it weekly? Yes. Is it every eight or nine days? Yes.

There's different ways you can calculate that. But we're saying the devoted follower, this becomes the rhythm of their life. We're just always celebrating the gospel, growing in a small group, and serving the mission.

This is how we live and what we do because it turns us over time into a devoted follower, and devoted followers reproduce. Now you say, Todd, what does it look like more specifically for me individually? What would I do? Let me just give you five words that I think even more precisely can kind of walk you through some steps. We call it our discipleship pathway.

It may become the disciples pathway. We'll see where we end up on that. We're going to be posting a lot of this soon, hopefully by the fall in very visible ways out in the gym area.

But five words that would be more like verbs to describe what we're to do specifically. We want folks to belong to God, connect to the church, grow in a small group, serve on a team, and then multiply yourself. These are the things that comprise celebrate, grow, and serve.

There's some benchmarks and gateways to each of these. I just want to bring them to you generally that as you think about your spiritual walk, we've asked you in times to self-assess. Where are you in this? Do you belong to God? Have you believed in the gospel? Are you connected to church as a member so that there's identification, protection, all these things that go with membership that are healthy and good, accountability and participation? Are you growing in a small group and accountable? And are you known in a smaller setting than just right here? Serving on a team and exercising your spiritual gifts and abilities and talents and then multiplying yourself.

And here's the thing, it's a circle for a reason. As you round the final turn and you're multiplying and you're working with someone, don't just drop them off and say, okay, I'm multiplied. I've got someone into my small group or I found someone to share the gospel with, I'm done.

Walk with them now through the pathway. In fact, I personally believe all of us are always on the pathway. It's just with someone else once we're kind of through it.

And so we get around to multiplying, we find someone, we walk with them through connecting to God in a small group, the church, and at some point we kind of lean on them and say, hey, who do you think you could disciple? We urge them to find someone. Then they find someone, I find someone else, and this is just a consistent loop at church that works. I think it's biblical.

What did Paul say to Timothy? Commit to faithful men so that they then can teach others also. It's the same principle. Church really is a reproduction farm, if I can just call it that.

We're developing others who will develop others because the Word needs to spread, the gospel needs to ring out and echo out. Let me show you how this has happened collectively within our church and within our state. The Lord has seen fit by His grace to give us opportunity and the enablement to plant about six or seven churches here locally.

You see them behind me. There's a few, there's a couple of campuses we've planted. We even have eyed some potential locations.

I know the colors may be a little close, may be hard to read that exactly, but we have other locations even not on there yet that we're still praying about, working with some potential contacts. This does not include our church in Central Asia, which the planter there stayed here about six years and we planted him there and some of our partners are there. We visit there pretty regularly.

This does not include other churches that come out of those churches. There's some other ones that we call granddaughter churches. So just be aware, this is really a first Thessalonians opportunity for first family, that the rock of the gospel landed.

It changed us and then it rippled out. I just really thank the Lord for the opportunity and the privilege of being part of something that's not just thinking of themselves or is not insulated or isolated. Amen.

To have eyes that see beyond just our own four walls. And to be frank, not only just these walls, but into our city and beyond our city. You know, Iowa's got only about five or six real cities.

So we do want to plant there and we're thankful to plant there and we'll plant there. What it has a lot of is rural areas. There's some prime opportunity right now in some rural areas where it may not look traditional like a plant.

It may be like a place we could put a campus and we have to figure out maybe the best way to get a gospel influence into a town that really is just has been devastated spiritually. But there's no real gospel church there. It's smallly populated.

There's just a lot of reasons that things aren't working there in a number of ways. Is there a way to get in there with an influence that's maybe not traditional? So we're open to both. This is a both and church.

We want to plant autonomous churches and we want to look at opportunities to plant a campus and we want to send people as partners outside of our state, across the globe. I think that's the heartbeat of rippling out as a church, which I think is the whole message of First Thessalonians 1. This is what they did. This is how they lived.

It rippled out. 100 miles, 300 miles. And I think that's why I get excited about this chapter.

It's kind of a snapshot. That's the thing that really burned within the hearts of this church. When you think about what God has done and is doing and what's ahead for us, our leaders have kind of put together what we hope to see happen in the next 10 years.

You've seen this before. This has been in place for probably 12, 13, 14 years. We don't talk about this part of it a lot, but we try to put some metrics to what could this look like by 2035.

To become a people ready to reproduce, serious about multiplication and celebrating, growing and serving and seeing folks walk the pathway and then gather someone else to see them walk the pathway. Here's what we're praying for, that by 2035 and by God's grace, we'll send as many people as possible to 100 different gospel outposts. And we're not counting the people that go, we're counting the places they go.

So we hope there'll be a lot more than 100 who will go, but we want to see if we can get people, as many as possible, to 100 different gospel outposts. We do have a practical priority on least reached places. So that's some of our aim.

We want to see 25 of those places be church plants in Iowa. We think right now there's some real traction in rural areas. We're looking at other cities as well and neighborhoods.

You say, well, Todd, that's a good vision. It's definitely got multiplication all through it. It talks about reproducing, sending.

I see First Thessalonians kind of in there, no doubt. Like how are we doing on that? That's a great question. It's a daunting vision.

When I think about it and rehearse it pretty much daily, I think, man, only 10 years to get all that done. Right now we're at 31 outposts. We've sent people to 31 different outposts.

That includes our church and our church plants. They're part of this collective effort as well. This goes back even to our very first year, year and a half, we met in an old cafeteria in Netherlands, smelled like cabbage.

And we sent Faye Haynes to Afghanistan for two years. So we don't count an outpost unless someone stays there at least two years or more. Like I love short-term mission trips, but we're not just kind of stacking those up and make us look good.

We're saying, you know what? Give it a sustainable amount of time. Like go somewhere for two years or more. So far we've sent people to 31 different outposts for two years or more.

That's a rippling. That's the gospel landing and spreading. We've planted 13 churches, nine of those within Iowa.

This is the daunting part. We're still in single digits in Iowa, and we need to get to 25. So I'll chase hard all day.

Will we make it? Only God knows, but I'm hoping you'll join me. That we'll band together and say, man, we just reach more of our state with the gospel and for Christ. I think that's your heart already.

I'm just letting you know that when you see these kinds of things, you hear about us sending our own, just so you'll know, we've sent 10 of our own families to places outside of America, to the mission field. So I have a personal way I phrase this. I've never really written this anywhere that you've seen.

I think I've voiced it maybe a few times. This is not something that comes from our leadership. This is just how I word it.

We good there? You hearing me? My aim is to plant or send annually. That's how much of a multiplication environment I want to see develop within our church. That every year we're either planting or sending or both.

I think that's the heart of God. I think He's a missionary God who sent His best, His one and only Son. I think that's the early church when the gospel was ringing out by the people in it.

They were going out, echoing, reverberating. So when I think about sending 10 of our own families, nine churches, that's 19, that's almost annually. I'm thankful to God for His grace.

I admit to you, I don't know if it started off that fast. We have seen a lot of traction in the last 10 years, but I'll take that, won't you? I just, when I think about these different ways in which we're seeing this as a church, I'm really humbled by it. I hope you are as well.

And I'm also motivated by it because it leans well into really this chapter. It really shows us that no church gets a pass. No church gets to say, well I'm out.

I'm not in for that. No, this is how churches live and operate. This is how the gospel spreads through the ordinary ordained means of people who've experienced the change of the gospel and are so thankful for it that they can't help but talk about it and it spreads everywhere they go.

So hearing this, perhaps you're wondering, what can I do? What should I do? What's an action step, Todd? Let me just share these three things as we land the plane. Number one, pursue internal change. This is highly important.

Hear the heart of one of your pastors this morning. There is no pull long enough to move you to join a multiplying church and to be part of that if your heart's not in that. There's no pull that long.

And I'm glad. We're not trying to build an empire to someone's name. We're not trying to start some organization.

We're trying to follow the Holy Spirit and obey the Lord's command. That's a work of the Spirit. Don't you like how in the first Thessalonians 1, it was the Holy Spirit that enabled them to welcome the message? It's that same Holy Spirit that enabled them to spread the message.

So what we're doing is a supernatural endeavor. So we can be organized. We can be collective.

We can be thoughtful, prudent, disciplined. Amen. But no one has the power to make you do anything in this regards.

I can't produce results. You can't either. I can't put a finger in your chest or you in mine to make something happen.

So we have to be willing to say, God, change me inside. And here's the truth. In a church of people willing to be devoted followers of Christ, who are willing to celebrate, grow, and serve, sanctification is normal.

We are all growing. If there isn't regular growth in your life, perhaps you should ask yourself, am I really a Christian? The Bible says that we grow from one degree of glory to another. Here's that put in plain language.

You're going to grow for sure, but you're going to grow incrementally and you're going to grow pretty slowly. We don't like that. We like quick fixes.

So a lot of us take duct tape and try to make ourselves look like I'm on mission. And we duct tape things to our life and it looks good for a few days, but it never lasts. We all need internal change.

And that is what's happening to God's children. And when we gather as a church, it happens collectively. And as that growth occurs, which is slowly, incrementally, we're growing more and more into the image of Christ.

We're being filled more and more, as the vision says, with the fullness of God. So our heart, our posture, our actions, our attitudes will resemble Christ and God's, which means in a word, we're going to be a multiplying, reproducing kind of people. That's our heart, that more folks will come to Christ, that the message will spread to the places it's yet to go.

Our God is a missionary God. The church must be a missionary church. And by that, I mean about the sending of people with the message of the good news, wherever we go.

And this only happens when we pursue internal change. And we let the fact that we are born again by God actually have its intended effect, which is that we will grow up into Christ. So I mentioned that first because I want you to hear this.

I wasn't sharing those stats and those visions. I wasn't sharing our leadership's heartbeat for the future of our church and how it looks, organization. I wasn't sharing that so we could try to, you know, like crank on you.

There's not a single one of your leaders who wants to do that. That's not our posture of leadership. But we don't want to shy away from urging you towards really the biblical framework and the heartbeat that really is seen throughout the New Testament.

And if that's not your heart, would you be willing to inspect that and evaluate that and ask yourself, why doesn't my heart beat for what God's beats for? Like what's wrong in here? That's the first question. The second step would be this, embrace God's commission. And I think one of the first signs that's happening is when you realize that reproduction is expected.

Most Christians don't agree with that. Oh, they may say they do, but they don't. They consider multiplication optional.

Like the Great Commission is actually the Great Suggestion. But can I just be pastorally blatant with you? Thank you. He works for me, so he better say yes, right? There's no way anyone could take Matthew 28, 19, and 20, or 18 through 20 really, 16 through 20, the Great Commission, and that moment with 11 disciples and Jesus on the Mount of Olives.

There's no way textually, historically, you could take that passage and say Jesus never expected those guys to find new people. It's impossible. He didn't say to those 11, listen, go find your nearest Jerusalem Starbucks, get a study by Jen Wilkin, have a great time until I come back.

I'm pro-Jen Wilkin. I'm pro Starbucks, I guess. I don't drink coffee, but hey, right? Here's what I'm saying.

There's no way Jesus meant you 11, make due till I get back. So it's hard for me when I sense, I don't think we sense this here, but just in general, the Christian culture, when there's pushback against multiplication, I sometimes want to ask, you know, that's actually what Jesus meant and what he said. Like, I'm not, you don't have to talk to me.

You should talk to the one who gave the Great Commission. Talk to the one whose last words were, go and make disciples of all the nations. That's way more than 11.

And the sooner the church gets its arms around this, the Great Commission, this is what we do, the deeper our growth will be. The quicker we'll let go of things like our finances, our children, our hobbies. And we'll ask ourselves, is every single part of my life leaning against the heartbeat of God's? To make disciples of all nations, who make disciples of all nations, so that there are more people in God's kingdom, so that it grows and expands.

And so people hear the news. We must embrace God's commission and realize this is what's expected. This is why the parable of the talents is so moving to me, because he is expecting a return.

To be a good and faithful servant, you're given two, let's use it for the Lord to make sure we get four in return. That's a multiplication. And this is the heartbeat of the Great Commission, that every person in their, in the way God's made them with their role, will lean their life's influence against the wall of making disciples.

And I admit to you, we do that in a number of ways. Some are more pioneering out front, some are hold the rope behind the scenes, some are hospitality driven, some may be more financially supportive and giving. There's all kinds of ways.

We want to applaud all of those. But no one gets to sit the bench. No church member gets to say, well you guys go for it, I'm taking a pass on this one.

Reproduction and your involvement in it in some way is expected. And when sanctification is occurring and inner change is happening, that's the direction you'll find your life moving, towards the commission that Christ left us. And my third action point would be this, as that occurs and happens, seize external opportunities.

In other words, just do something. Action is required once you realize all that God has said to us, what's pictured in the early churches, what's clearly commanded by our Savior, action is required. Here's what I find often we do, we agree with that as well.

You're right, I'll do something once the kids leave home. You're right, I'll do something once I can afford it. You're right, I'll do something once I finish.

Yes, I'll do something once I retire. Have you ever noticed how we always have something in the way of actually taking the next external step towards multiplying? Often we just keep filling that blank with excuses. And I want to encourage you this morning, do the nearest next right thing that God wants you to do to lean your life against the wall of His great commission.

Just what would that be? What's the first next step you could take that would visibly be an external action that would say, you know, I'm going to put this into practice. I have a suggestion for you. Think of that, right? April 1st, the North American Commission Board is hosting a statewide evangelism training and they've asked if they could do it here at First Seminary Church and we said, of course.

Now that's April 1st, I think that's a Tuesday or a Monday. It's like 10 o'clock to noon and then they're going to host a free lunch. Here's who can come, anyone in our state within that network of churches who is a leader in their church.

It's not just for church members who attend and aren't really leading and serving, it's for church leaders. We have a lot of those. We have 50 plus small group leaders.

We have a number of folks who lead ministry teams. We have our leadership, which is we are deacons, elders, staff, finance team, and there's a host of other leaders. People lead different branches of our children's ministry.

They lead small groups in youth. Our campus collective ministry has leaders. I think we have leaders of different greeting and parking lot teams and there's probably other areas that I'm not even aware of.

All those leaders, can I ask you a favor? Would you come April 1st and participate in a free training on evangelism and eat lunch together? Now you can say, well I've got to work. Admittedly that's true for a lot of people but I do know this, a lot of you work remotely and a lot of you take time off for golf. You find ways to make that work.

I think this is more important than golf. I actually think most of you could work out your work schedule if you really wanted to. There's a handful that can't.

Your job does not allow you any flexibility. I get that. But I do think in our culture most people have more flexibility than they want to admit.

So would you just embrace this first opportunity, April 1st. Would you join me and our staff for evangelism training? You say, well what good would it do? I don't know. Let's go find out.

See this is us talking ourselves out of things. Well it probably won't do any good. I've probably heard it before.

And so there you go again. I will but, here let's seize external opportunities. Here's a close near one.

Would you join us April 1st? Let's just say 10 to like 1. That's when lunch will be over. My sense is, as our leaders gain a greater heart for evangelism, disciple making, that will ripple to the church. And as the church gains a greater heart for God's heart, that ripples to our community.

And 1st Thessalonians 1 plays out in our own midst. Here's some other opportunities you should seize that may not be as commonly known. We have mission trips that go every summer, every year actually.

We're going to do a better job at promoting those in an earlier fashion so you know about them. But every year we take several trips to see our partners, other places, to expose you to God's work around the globe. I'm convinced that most of our long-term partners, in fact probably every single one of our own families that we send to the field, all 10 of those, most of them would say to you they got their first exposure on a short-term trip.

And they saw God's heart for the nations of the world and their role. And the Lord began to move and they would come back saying, what would it mean, what would it be like if I could commit to that for four years or maybe eight? What if I lived over there? And that begins that process and that pipeline of God developing another goer from within our midst. Not everyone should go, but more of you should.

And we want to be a strong sending church for those who are willing to say I'll go. One of the ways we really learn and grow in that is through short-term trips. So have you been on a short-term mission trip yet? It will cost you some money.

It'll be well worth it. You spend money on other things, right? What if you spend it on this? The one that I think is the least common is the fact that I am convinced there are church planters and campus directors in our midst. And we've raised up some.

We have some young ones right now that I think are in the pipeline and we'll see what God does with that. But often it's someone that we bring in from the outside who's ready to plant a church and we work with them a year at our residency and that's beautiful, nothing wrong with that. But I'm convinced, especially with the rural opportunity, that there is a number of people and maybe even groups within our own midst who could plant the campus or plant the church, shepherd people.

Now in some places the preaching can come from here, other places there are guys in this church I know who have some preaching capacity, just need a little more training, some reps, I think we can get you there. Here's what I'm saying, God is developing within our body those who can be sent in that capacity too. So I just want to encourage everyone, wherever you are on the spectrum of this issue, seize your next external step of obedience.

What's the opportunity to say, I need to move on that with no excuses. Do that. What's going to happen is this, you'll find that your life will begin to be molded more and more towards the First Thessalonians 1 type of life and you'll be part of a church that's molded more and more towards the First Thessalonians type of church where we are grateful.

In fact, will you read it with me as I use the rock to illustrate it? Let's read our Thessalonian truth, can we? Where grateful prayer for change is ultimately linked to the gospel's power to change and compels us as models and messengers to spread the message of God's divine rescue. That's church. I'm praying that that's first family church.

More and more and more. Won't you join me? Is it costly? It is. Is it at times complicated? It is.

But that's what I want to give my life for. I think this is what matters and I want to live in joyful obedience to God's heart and passion. I want to do this with you as well.

So together church, can we lean our life against the wall of God's passion for others? Let us be changed and let us live commissioned.