MISSION POSSIBLE
TITUS 1:3
VILLAGE MISSIONS SUNDAY
You are all aware by now that today is Village Mission Sunday. Some maybe asking, well what does that mean. Once a year the missions asks that we focus on the important role of missions, not just overseas mission but the mission field that is right here at home in our own backyards.
Even though today is Village Mission we will be still looking at the book of Titus. However we are going to skip verse 2 and take a look at verse 3. We will however come back to verse 2 next week. Please turn with me to our passage today, that Titus chapter 1:3. That would be found on page 1032 of your pew Bibles.
"but has in due time manifested His word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior;"
Here Paul points out the importance of preaching. He states that God has manifested His word through preaching. Which he committed to Paul according to the commands of Jesus Christ. God not only uses the Bible to bring froth his word, but the preaching of the Bible as well. It seems as though God knew that we as his children would not read His word as we should so God establishes preaching. Preaching the Word of God is ordained by God, it is used by God, and it is something that each one of us, as we see needs to play a part in.
Every true preacher of the Word of God can say along with Paul that preaching the Word of God "was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Saviour". As we look over this verse I want to cover three areas, Village Missions, the importance of Preaching the Word of God, and Missions in general.
I want to begin by telling how I got involved with the VM. I have been with VM for about 6 years now, 5 of the years have been here in Milford Center. I am thankful to God for placing me in VM they have been very good to my family and me.
The first time I heard about VM was at Montville Union Baptist Church. We had been going to church about an ½ hour away when someone invited us to MUBC to come and here the new Pastor, a fellow by the name of Jim Cook. We agreed to go. The Sunday in which we visited happened to be VM Sunday. Jim preached of the need there is for qualified leadership in rural America and Canada. I was very moved by the sermon although at the time I had no thoughts of becoming a pastor.
We continued to attend that church after that Sunday. I was taking courses for my degree in Biblical studies at that time, and as I grew to know Jim, Jim got it in his mind that I would make a good pastor. So he began to look into ways to get Darleen and I into the missions. Along with Bob Liesy, whom a lot of you have meant they came up with what is called the ACT program. Which basically is on the job training for pastors. To make a long story short Darleen and I were the first ones to go through the ACT program and be accepted into the missions.
Jim left Montville to go pastor a church in Vermont, leaving me to pastor at Montville. Because it was my home church it was rather difficult. After a year pastoring at Montville God sent us here.
I am legally a employee of VM, while a private contractor to MCCBC. Most of my pay come through the Missions. Many of you may not know how our relationship with the Missions works. The church has agreed to give 10% of their offering to the missions. In return the missions provide the church with leadership, and a base pay of 1400 a month. The church is also responsible to provide the pastor with housing and pay for his utilities.
The hope is is that as the church grows it pays more towards the base of $1400, and the missions pays less. Thus freeing up money for other missions to go to other churches. Our church which begin it’s relationship with VM by receiving $250 from outside sources, now pays all of my insurance, and $400 a month toward my salary. We can praise God that we have come a long way.
Our goal is to become self-supporting. If you have any other question regarding our relationship with VM I will be happy to answer them for you after the service.
VM was founded by a man by the name of Walter Duff in 1948. Rev. Duff saw that to many church were closing due to the lack of leadership. Rev. Duff was CEO for many years. He retired in 1991, and had since gone home to be with the Lord.
Our current CEO is a man by the name of Jack Canady. While a board of director oversees the policies of VM.
I would ask that you would pray for Jack and the board for wisdom.
There are approximately 300 VM couples now serving the US and Canada. While that may seem like a lot of couples that are many fields which are open and waiting of Village missionaries.
As our Lord Jesus stated, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few."
Now all that may seem a little boring to some, but the reason I present that to you is because we need to realize that we need organizations like VM. Organizations that emphasis what Paul is speaking of in our verse, and that is the importance of preaching the Word of God.
Listen to some statistics, In 1900 in North America the were 28 churches for every 10,000 people. By 1996 there were only 9 church for every 10,000 people.
There are 170,000,000 people in North America who do not claim Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour! What missions field.
Approximately 80% of church growth is by transfer, not adult conversion.
It is estimated that 52% of those who presently go to church are not born again by the Spirit of God.
Approximately 10 churches close in North America every day! (Right here at home our Rotary meeting we just honored the last 4 members of the Pres. Church in Milford for donating the building to the Historical society)
Can you see the need for VM, can you see the need to be preaching the Word of God. Can you see the need of not only overseas missions but missions right here in North America.
In our passage Paul states that God has manifested his word through preaching. God uses sinners such as myself to proclaim the message of Salvation the message of grace which is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even people with a very limited knowledge of the Bible know that preaching is ordained by God.
Some of the greatest man who ever lived were preaches of God’s word, missionaries in some sense of another.
I think of Noah whom Peter calls a "preacher of righteousness". Noah proclaimed the word of God. Scripture does not tell of Noah traveling to some foreign land, but preaching to those around him.
Paul who was according to 1 Tim. "appointed a preacher’. Given the task of preaching the gospel. Paul was certainly a missionary traveling to many places preaching the Gospel. Paul preached not only in the big cities but in the rural areas as well.
Of course there is the greatest preacher of all times, our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus as you may well know did must of his preaching not in the big cities but in the country side, in the rural areas of Israel.
Proclaiming God’s word is something we all need to be a part of.
There are two purposes of preaching the Word of God that I can see. The first is to win souls to Christ.
Listen to Rom 10:13-17;
For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!" But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?" So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
God as ordained the preaching of gospel as His method for bring people into his kingdom. Rom. 1:16 tells us the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel must be preached to unleash that power!
Preaching is also used to edify the saved. As Paul states in Acts, "So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified."
Preaching the word of God is also done that those who have placed their trust in the blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin, might be build up and edified. That they may grow in the grace of God, that they may become godly saints, holy saints, useful saints.
While preaching is important there is the right kind of preaching. God’s word must be preached in a pointed and direct way. We cannot expect to see the power of the gospel at work if we candy coat it. I may offend people at times when I mention fornication, homosexuality, abortion, or the fact that if you die without Christ as your Saviour you go to hell. But we call expect sinners to be convicted if we do not preach to them what God states in a very honest and pointed way. If I am to be true to the task God has committed to me, then I must preach what the Bible states..
Preaching must be done to please God, not man. When I preach I do seek to win souls to Christ, I do seek to edify His saints, but first an for most I seek to honor God, to bring Him glory. Because when souls are won, when saints grow, God is indeed glorified!
There is a quote in my office that I look at every now and then to remind my what I am called to preach. These words should me remembered by every one who as ever preached a message. "Every Christless sermon is a sin against God and a sin against humanity. Any sermon destitute of the saving blood of Christ resembles the offering of Cain. God rejected his offering because the blood of the slain lamb was not in it, was not represented by it. Christless sermons do not prick the heart and convict of sin, and lead people to ask, "What must I do to be Saved?"
Every sermon that is preached, to honoring to God must contain the blood of Christ, the blood that cleanses us from sin, the blood that give eternal life!
Not only is there the right kind of preaching, there must be the right kind of preachers. Preachers who love the word of God, who love what is pure and true.
I am not talking of perfect man, none of us perfect, but men who love the word of God, men who strive to do the will of God. Men who spend time in God’s word, time with God.
We need preachers who preach to full gospel the whole council of God. Paul stated in Acts "For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God." There have been times I am sure that I have stated some things that you have not agreed with. But I cannot let whether someone will agree with our not be a factor in what I preach. What is the only factor I concern myself with is "is it in the Word of God" does God say it true.
Preacher must preach with conviction. Someone once stated, "A man that will not preach his convictions, either is not a man or had no convictions".
So we see the importance of preaching. That it is God ordained. But a preacher can be of no use unless he preaches. He must be sent to preach as Rom 10 tells us. This bring us to the importance of missions. Missions is vital to the church. Whether it be a home missions group, or a foreign missions group we must play a part in missions. We either are the one being sent, or the one doing the sending.
We need to support missions through our prayers, through our $$, and through our actions and our words.
We need to understand the missions itself as it origin in heaven. We all know John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
God sent His Son to give eternal life. The greatest mission endeavor ever was when God sent His only begotten Son down to earth to die to pay the price for our sin. Jesus was the greatest missionary ever. And He is the reason for 1000’s of missionary since that time.
Missions is important because it is the work in which our Lord was engaged in. Over and over again with in the gospels we are told of the Lord Jesus preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.
In Matthew we read "Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom…,"
Jesus states in the gospel of Luke, "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor…"
If preaching the gospel was the work in which my Lord was engaged in, then it is the work which I want to be engaged in.
Missions was also the work in which the Lord engaged is disciples. In Matt. 10:5,6 we see He sends the twelve in the Galilean villages. Why? To visit relatives, no He sent them there preach.
He sent the seventy out to tell of the coming kingdom> Jesus sends them out as missionaries!
Jesus continues to sent our his disciples in the mission fields. In Acts 1:8 we are told, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."
Missions was important to our Lord, may it also be important to us.
So we have see how important preaching is, how is it ordained by God. We have brought that a step further and looked at the importance of sending our preachers through missions. Missions such as Village Missions. I hope you have learned something today about the importance of groups like VM. The importance of preaching, the importance of Missions.
But I want to tell you that it does not end there. You may think that this sermon as had little to do with you, because you are neither a preacher or a missionary. Well I have some good news for you, if you have professed Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour, you are both a preacher and a missionary.
Every time you to the store, every time you go to work, anytime you have contact with an unbeliever you are on the mission field. You have the responsibility to present the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do I mean break out your Bible and show them from Scripture as to why they need Jesus. Yes sometimes you need to do that. But more often then that you are a preacher in how you live. The words you speak, the way you act.
Every time we step out the door to our home, and some of us do not even need to do that, we enter the mission field. We need to preach Christ in all we do. As St. Frances of Assisi once stated, "In all you do preach the Gospel, if need be use Words".
LET US PRAY
Prayer for us to be the missionaries God would have us to be. Pray for the unsaved. Opportunities.
