I am delighted to welcome to our pulpit once again, Dr. Richard Pratt. I think this is Richard, probably your third or fourth time here, maybe five, six or seven. He says he's been here several times with a good friend to our church. I first met Richard when I was thirty-eight and I enrolled in the Doctor of Ministry Program at RTS Jackson where he was professor of Old Testament. He grew and he had some of the courses that he taught us and then he moved on to teach the same courses at RTS Orlando. While it was there, he became convinced and he's correct that seminaries are kind of a western paradigm that most people in the world, most other people groups, other than Europeans and North Americans, don't have pastors who go to seminary because there's no seminary to go to. And yet they want their pastors to be well trained in the Bible and in history and in theology and ecclesiology and pastoral ministry. So Richard began in his garage, believe it or not, third millennial ministries. It has grown in an exponential manner over the years. It now has a complete curriculum in five major languages, English, Russian, Spanish, Mandarin, Chinese and Arabic and it is building that curriculum in thirteen other languages like Swahili and other places so that a man who's already somewhere in China or in the underground church somewhere where he can't get to a seminary or in a hostile place like a Muslim country can go online and can have someone teach him the Bible and systematic theology and church history and so forth in his own language and be prepared for ministry. Richard's vision has enriched a lot of people and blessed literally thousands who've been the beneficiaries of these well trained pastors. He is a man who loves the church and loves Christ and has a great heart for the world. He has a missional heart and we're glad to welcome him here again this morning. Would you welcome Dr. Richard Pratt to our Pope's Club. Good morning everyone. It's the light to be with you today. If you have a Bible you'll want to turn to me to page eight or Genesis chapter 12, page eight in your Puebibles and we'll be reading there and as you turn, let me say that it's a great pleasure to be here. Some of you have been here a long, long time and you will remember me from years and years and years ago. We did all kinds of conferences and things together and I'm glad to see you but I'm glad that there are people who are not so old as that here. How's that? I'm delighted to see all of you who are new faces to me and who are new to this church. So I thank you for that. Let's turn to Genesis chapter 12. We'll read from the Bible beginning in verse one of that chapter. Here now the word of our God. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we've heard words spoken to our father Abraham thousands and thousands of years ago but we turn to you now because we call no one our teacher but you. We hope in no one the way we hope in you, we trust no one like we trust you. We long to see no one like we long to see you and so we're praying now that you will send Holy Spirit and that Holy Spirit will come and fill each heart in this room. May our eyes be open to see and may our ears be on stop to hear you speak and may our hearts be softened, pliable to do your bidding. And as you do this we will give you the praise, we will honor you for it, Amen. Did you know this was missions week? If you did and you came anyway way to go, you're brave people because if you've ever been around the church when it's during its missions emphasis you know what's coming. Now if you didn't know, I'm sorry, this is what's coming. You know that what I am going to say to you is that the mission of Jesus to take the truth of Him, the message about Him to every single man, woman and child in the whole world is of crucial importance to the Christian faith and crucial to every single follower of Jesus. And this mission of taking the word of Jesus everywhere in the world is one that requires God's people to be people of prayer. It requires God's people to be people who are willing to give money. It requires that God's people be willing to sacrifice their whole lives because this mission is enormous spreading out to every part of the world including our own right here in the United States of America. Now one of the most remarkable things about this is that this mission is something that didn't begin with you and me. It's been going on for a long, long time and in many respects you and I are part of something that's been going on from generation to generation to generation, to generation throughout history. And knowing that is important because we just looked at a passage where Abraham, the father of Israel, Abraham, the spiritual father of everyone who loves Jesus is given a baton, a baton that was first handed to Adam and Eve and passed from one generation to another and then handed to him. And it reminds me of a time when I was in high school when I wanted to play basketball. Now to play basketball in my high school, you had to run track. Okay. So I went out for track and it didn't take long before the coach could tell I wasn't very good at this and wasn't very fast or anything like that so he put me on the relay team. I guess he figured I couldn't mess it up that bad if I was just on the relay team. So this is what he said to me. He said, Rich, this is what you got to do. You run this relay team and the only thing you have to do is don't drop the baton. Take it from the person behind you, handed to the person in front of you, and your team might actually win the race. Okay. So we had our first track meet. Guess what happened? I dropped the baton. That was the end of my track career, into my basketball career, now I'm preacher. What can I say? That's the way it is. If you're in a relay race, don't drop the baton. And in many respects, that's what God is saying to Abraham in the passage we just read. In a variety of ways, you're saying to Abraham, look, Abraham, I'm giving you something now that I gave a long time ago to the human race, a mission, a mission to take my word to the ends of the earth, to turn the world into the kingdom of God. Now your role in this Abraham is don't drop the baton. Now the way he said that in this passage is to focus on certain things that are hard for you and me, as followers of Jesus, and hard for people that don't know Jesus, to grasp. And so what we're going to do is take a look at several things that he says here. This is the first thing that God says to Abraham when he tells him, you're on a mission, don't drop the baton. The first thing he says to him is this, Abraham, you have to figure out, for once and for all, in whom are you going to put your trust? In whom are you going to put your trust in life? Listen to the way you did that in verse 1. Now the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I don't know where we get this idea, whether it's from children's books or from movies or something like that, but a lot of people have the impression that at this stage in his life, Abraham was little more than a wanderer. He was like an ancient Bedouin. Now I don't know if you've ever been around Bedouin. I've been around some in Jordan and Bedouins live a transient life. They live in tents and they have lots of children because they have three or four wives usually, some sheep, some goats, things like that. Nowadays they will always have a Nissan pickup truck behind the tent with a satellite dish. Abraham did not have that, that's for sure. But a lot of people think that's the way Abram lives, that he would just move from place to place and you know why because there's not much grass, not much water, so you have to keep on moving. Now if that had been the case for Abram, when God comes to him here and says, you've got to get up and go somewhere, it would not have been a very big deal because he was going to do that anyway in just a matter of weeks. But that's not the kind of life Abram had. Abram lived in a city called Er of the Caldeans and we actually know where that city is. It was one of four or five different cities in the lower Tigris and Freides Plains. We know where they are and in fact they were very sophisticated cities around 2000 BC. In 2000 BC in the days of Abraham, those cities actually had running water in the homes of the middle class. That's how sophisticated they were. And if Jewish tradition is right, Abram's father Tara was an idol maker which meant that he traded in silver and gold, admit his family had money. And when you read the story of Abram in this book called the Bible, you discover that he had lots of money. He was able to buy camels, able to buy servants, he had an army of mercenaries that he hired. It's amazing really to see that in this story, Abram is not a wanderer, Abram was well healed. He was a part of a sophisticated city. He was a wealthy man. So when God comes to him and says, Abram, I want you to leave all of this behind. He was being called upon to leave everything, everything that his mother ever told him was important. Everything his father told him he should value. He was leaving stability behind. He was leaving safety behind and he was going somewhere else. Now if that's not enough to make you realize that God's calling Abraham to trust him, notice where God said he was going to take Abram. I've got you going somewhere, Abram, but I'm going to take you to this land called. The land I will show you, great. You see, it's not until about verse 6 that God finally says, okay, you're here. This is the place I'm showing you. When Abram left, he was one of many who were on a migration pattern going from the east to the west, so he knew basically go west otherwise you'd run into the Persian Gulf, can't go very far that way. So go west, but he did not know where to go after that. Abram did not know. And this also shows how much it is that God is calling Abram as the one who's receiving the baton to trust in him. I think that tells us something. For every single person in here. The reality is that the Christian faith, loving Jesus, following Jesus, it really is a matter of trust. And if you're here today and you don't know Jesus, this is what it amounts to, giving up on trusting in you, giving up on trusting in the things that are around you, giving up on the things that everyone around you, it seems, is telling you are important, that secure your life, that make it good, that make it wholesome, and turning your trust and turning your faith to Jesus. But that's not just the way it begins. It's also the way it continues for every single one of us. No matter how long you follow Jesus, it's all about figuring out once and for all in whom you are going to put your trust. Let me think about it this way. If I pull up here after service today in my rental car and I open the passenger door and I say to you, as you're coming out, I say, come on, let's take a ride. What's the first thing you're going to say to me? Where are we going? And if I smile at you and I say, oh, don't worry about that, just get in the car with me. You'd be a fool to get in the car with me. I mean, you don't know how many preachers or axiomers you might end up in the mountains out here in 15, 16 pieces. You don't want to get in the car with somebody who won't tell you where they're going to take you. But right now today, in Jackson, Mississippi, there are three children who are more than eager to get in the car with me. And if I were to pull up in their driveway, open the passenger door, they would fight to get in the car first. They would fight over who's going to sit in the front seat. They would not ask their parents, can we go with him? Not at all. They would jump at the chance to get in the car with me. Now who are they? They're my grandchildren. And what's the difference between my grandchildren and you? They know me and you don't. Now I don't mean by that that they know me as some theoretical thing, like this is our grandfather. No, no, no, no. They know me this way. When troubles have come, someone's shown up and has taken care of it. When they've gotten really sick, someone has shown up and took care of everything. When there was sadness, somebody showed up. When there were trials, somebody showed up. That's why they trust me. They know me that way. And do you know what that tells us about you and me and our involvement in the mission? It tells us that for you and me to be willing to do what God called Abram to do here of trusting him, trusting him in a way that's risky. It means that you and I have got to be people who know that God shows up in our lives and that he can be trusted. So if your Christian faith has become a little more than a theory, just something, yes, I believe in God, yes, I believe in Jesus. And you don't see Jesus at work in your life, it would be no wonder then that you really don't want to be involved in this thing called the mission. And so, if you're a person here today who has heard the message of this church that all of us in one way or another are to be involved in this thing of spreading the word of Jesus to the ends of the earth, it begins with you and me learning how to take a little risk. Now maybe God is actually calling you to do something weird like go to Connecticut. I don't know. That's a long trip. It's a strange place. But God is calling every single person that follows Jesus today to let go of the world, to let go of all the things you find so safe and comfortable, to let go of those things and to follow him into the mission in one way or another. And the way you can develop the ability to do that is to take just a little risk and watch God show up. And you'll be able to take another risk and let God show up. And you'll take another risk and God will show up. And as you do that, as you learn how to do that, you will learn that God actually is worthy of every bit of your trust. And then the call to mission. However radical that may be in your personal life and in your family will not be a problem because you will go to the land that he will show you. Play it safe and you'll never be a person that trusts God. Take a risk and you will see that God can be trusted. Is this not exactly what our Lord Jesus did? Every day of his life. He risked it all. He risked it all for the sake of the mission and God showed up in his life. And the same can be true for you, okay? What will happen if you don't learn how to trust God? You'll drop the baton. Now don't worry, the race will continue, but you'll be out. But in addition to telling Abram, Abram, if you want to be a part of this race, this baton carrying this relay race of the mission. In addition to telling him that he needs to trust God, God also said something else to him in these passages. He said to him, Abram, if you want to be a part of this mission, you're going to have to get your expectations straightened out also. Listen to how he talks about expectations beginning in verse 2. And I will make a view a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. Now I don't know about you, but when I hear those words, I think that's a pretty good deal. I mean God is calling Abram to leave this great city where he had a reputation, where he had money, where things were going well for him, but God says to him, don't worry about what you're leaving behind, Abram, because you're going to go from a city to where I'm going to make you Abram into a great empire. Don't worry about the money you have there in Er the Caldians. I'm going to bless you, which basically means I'm going to make you rich. And don't worry about all the connections you have, all the reputation your family has developed and all the name that you have in Er the Caldians because I am going to make your name greater than you can possibly imagine. It sounds like a good deal to me. But if Abram was anything like you and me, he probably left Er the Caldians thinking to himself, you know, all I've got to do is take this little trip and everything's going to come up roses. It's going to be fantastic. It's going to be unbelievable. In fact, that's the way many people start considering involvement in the mission, consider serving Jesus. They think that if I'll just do this, then man, it's going to be great. But I have a question for you. How many legitimate errors did Abram ever have his entire life? The answer is one. He had a child and God said, not him. He had another child. God said, give him back. Abram was willing to do that. So God says, okay, he's the one, one child, a great nation, one legitimate heir. How much real estate did Abram ever own his entire life? One burial plot, one cave in which he buried his wife, in which he was buried some of his children and a couple of grandchildren, and that was it. And he had to buy that from a headtight, even though it had been promised to him by God. So all through his life, Abram had to readjust his expectations. He had to get his expectations right. That life was not going to be good for him just because he was on the mission. That life was not going to be rolling out, blessing upon blessing upon blessing, simply because he was willing to trust God and involve himself on spreading God's blessings to the ends of the earth. In fact, the thing that Abram learned was to be involved in the mission means you have to be willing to suffer. How did he do it? How did Abram make it his entire life was so little to show for it even though he was walking by faith in the ways of God? Well, the New Testament book of Hebrews in chapter 11 tells us how he did it. It says that rather than focusing his eyes on what was going on on this world, on this plane, Abram set his eyes on the celestial city, on the heavenly city. And the book of Hebrews tells us that this city, which will one day come down out of heaven into the new heavens and the new earth and the new creation, that that is where Abram set his heart, that is where he set his dreams, that's where he put his expectations for the blessings of God to be poured out on him immeasurably, not in this world, but in the world to come. And think about Jesus for just a minute. If ever there were a person on mission who should have been blessed by God every nanosecond, I mean, he observed God faithfully, he obeyed him in every way imaginable, so we would think that every moment, just blessings would be poured out, poured out, poured out upon him. But let me ask you the question, how much money did Jesus ever have? None? How much real estate did Jesus ever own? If you own a house, you own far more real estate than Jesus of Nazareth ever owned his entire life? Well, how did he do it? How did he remain on mission? How did he remain on this task, this privileged task that he had been given? The book of Hebrews tells us that too, the same chapter. He says that Jesus, like Abram, set his eyes on the world to come. He endured suffering, he endured sacrifice, he endured deprivation, even the deprivation of death on a cross because he set his eyes on the glory that was before him in the world to come. And the same must be true for you and me, if we hope to be a part of the mission of Jesus. One of the very worst things that American missionaries have perpetuated around the world and our generation is this, is what we call prosperity gospel. And maybe you don't know what the prosperity gospel is, but all you have to do is turn on Christian television today and watch for about ten minutes, you'll see it, and it's everywhere in the world. And you know how it goes, it basically goes like this, that if you just have faith in Jesus, if you just trust Him, if you trust Him enough, if you'll put it out there in words, if you'll just name the promises of God, then God will pour out His blessings on you. He'll make your husband handsome, your wife beautiful, your children will be angels, your bank account will rise, you won't even know how it came that way. You'll get a new house, a new car, and it'll be great. Prosperity comes to those who have faith in God. Now we hear that kind of gospel message and we say, that's crazy, we giggle at it. We say, well that's ridiculous, we know better than that. But the reality is, is that you and I, in our own version, in our own way, we believe in it too. Oh, don't misunderstand me, now I'm talking to a Presbyterian church, so I know we're not going to have faith, that's for sure. We're not going to name anything and claim anything, no, that's not the way we think prosperity comes to us. Here's what we think. We think that if we just study the Bible really hard and obey the Bible very well, then God will pour out blessings on us that are unimaginable, that's what we think. If we just study the Bible and obey it, then things will go well for us. If we study the Bible and obey it, then our jobs will work out well, that will have the kind of money that we want, that will have the kind of relationships we want, that will have the kinds of dreams that we want, and that will see them now. If we just obey the Bible, if we just learn about it and just obey it, then all that prosperity will come to us, but it is not true. And so long as that is your expectation for life, you will never be involved in the mission, because the mission of Jesus, just like for Abram and just like for Jesus Himself, involves self-denial, it involves sacrifice, it involves letting go of the things of this world in order to see the blessings of the world to come. We live in such a prosperous land, despite all the financial troubles, despite all the economic trials that we're facing, we live in such a prosperous land that we can hardly imagine that this is true, but it is the truth, and we need to have our expectations about this life straightened out, so that we set our eyes not on this world but on the world to come. I don't know about you, but if you've been around in this world for very long, you know something about the things of this world, the money you have, your health, your relationships, the house you live in, the cars you drive, the jobs you have, you know something about all of them, and that is that they all go away, and they all go away very quickly. I don't know what happened, I got married at 19, I blinked twice, I became a grandfather. It makes you not want to blink again, doesn't it? So what wisdom is it when we hold on to the things of this life, making sure that all those things are secure, making sure all those things are safe, and that we are prospering in this life, and ignore the world to come where the blessings of God will be poured out and measurably, and those blessings will be eternal. You are no fool to give up the things of this world in order to receive the things of the world to come. That is the way of wisdom, that is the way of the mission, and the reality is this, if for the sake of the kingdom of God, if for the sake of the mission, you never see Paris, just wait until you see Paris in the world to come. If for the sake of the kingdom of God, if for the sake of spreading the word of Jesus, you don't buy that next bigger house, just wait until the mansions you have in the world to come. If for the sake of Jesus, you give up that illegitimate relationship you are in, and you hold on to the relationships that you have, and you struggle your way through them, don't worry, wait till you see the relationships that you will have in the world to come. If you give up anything in this world for the sake of the kingdom, great will be your reward when Jesus returns. It's time. In our day, when things are such critical mass in our own country and in other parts of the world, it is time for ordinary Christians like you and me, not the great missionaries only, not the ones who are already out there doing the work now as we sit here in comfort and safety, but you and me living here, living now as we do, it is time for us to change our expectations of what this life has to offer for those who follow Jesus, and to set our hearts on the world to come and not on this world. That is the way of the mission, and if you don't do it, you'll drop the baton. You worry the kingdom will keep going without you, but you'll be on the sideline. So God says to Abram, Abram, you want to be a part of this mission, this relay race? Then what you've got to do is figure out in whom you're going to put your trust, but you also have to get your expectations straight, but now He says a third thing to Abram. He says to Abram, Abram, you're going to have to set your heart and set your mind on why I have chosen you. Out of all the people on this planet, why did I choose you? What is the purpose for all of this? Putting you in this relay race of the mission of God, listen to the way he puts it, starting in verse 2, and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and Him who dishonors you, I will curse, and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. That last verse, verse 3, is one that many of us know that the New Testament says is all about Jesus, that Jesus is the one who has brought the blessings of God here, offered to Abram to the ends of the earth. And it is remarkable, isn't it? Now in 2000 BC, Abram was worshiping the God of heaven and earth and now all of us here are now worshiping the same God. Let me think about it this way, what were your ancestors doing in 2000 BC? Unless you're Jewish, the answer is they were pagans, and I mean bad pagans. I know about my ancestors in 2000 BC, they were worshiping rocks and chasing after demons, raping and pillaging, many of them were even cannibals. The reality is that in 2000 BC, your ancestors and my ancestors were against the God of heaven and earth. They were the enemies of the God of heaven and earth, but now look at us. Here we are in a land Abram did not even know existed and you and I are worshiping the God of Abraham. It is the most amazing thing in the world. How did it happen? How is it possible that you can go from 2000 BC to 2000 AD and you can have that kind of change in the world? The answer is this, Abram got the message and the message was, Abram, I did not choose you for you. I chose you for others. Abram, I'm not giving you my blessing so that you can enjoy it. I'm giving my blessing to you for the sake of you spreading it to others. Abram, you're not supposed to be living your life for you, you're to be living your life for the sake of the world. I grew up in a home where my father worked very, very hard. He was a breakman on the railroad which was a very difficult job and often he would work seven days a week and sometimes do double shifts on the Norfolk and Western Railroad. Day after day he would work, 16 hours a day at times and I can remember as a child asking him, why are you never home? Why are you working all the time? Why do you work so hard? And he always gave the same answer, it was a very, he was a man of few words and he would always say the same words back to me, Richie, I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing this for you. A lot of you have parents who are like that, grandparents perhaps who grew up during the depression and through World War II and they were people who knew the mantra, you don't live for yourself, you live for others, you don't live for yourself, you live for children, you don't live for today, you live for tomorrow, that's the way my father lived. That whole generation in many respects modeled that kind of living and that's what God is saying to Abram, Abram, your life is not for you, it's for others. And aren't we glad that Abram took the call? If Abram had not taken that call and followed in the ways of God on this mission, then you and I today would still be left in our sins. But generation after generation of Abraham's descendants understood they were living for something much greater. And after generation knew they were living for others, Jesus himself walked on this planet every day, not living for himself but for the sake of others. And it wasn't just Jesus, his apostles did the same thing and it wasn't just the apostles but generation after generation after generation of Christians have given their lives, given their lives for the sake of spreading the good news of Jesus to others. But I fear that with all those generations in the past, that my generation, my generation of evangelical Christians may actually be the first generation that lives for itself. And if that is true of you, it needs to end today. Here the word of God to you today, God did not choose you for your sake. He chose you for the sake of something much, much bigger than you. He did not even choose you for the sake of your spouse or for your immediate family. He chose you for the sake of the world that the blessings of God might spread through you to the ends of the world. So I don't care how much money you have. I hope you have so much money in the bank that you never even have to worry about what money you're spending. I hope that's true. It's not a question of how much money you have. It's a question of how you're using that money for the sake of spreading the kingdom of God. I hope that the two of you, even after all these years in your marriage, just love each other so much you just can't stand it. It would be unusual, but I hope you have that, okay? It would be great if you do. But I don't care what state your marriage and your family is in. What I want to know is how are you using your family, how are you using your marriage for the sake of spreading the good news of Jesus to your neighbors, to the people at work, to the friends you meet at the grocery store, to the people at the club, to the people at the sporting events, how are you using your opportunities as a family to reach the loss for Jesus, to be a blessing to them? I don't care how big your house is. I hope you have a really big one. I hope that you have several houses, one up here, one down at the beach. I hope you own a chalet in France and that you'll invite me. It does not matter how much you have. The only question is, how are you using what God has given you for the sake of spreading His kingdom to the ends of the earth? You see, that's the relay race. Abram did it, Jesus did it, generations before have done it. And the baton has been handed to you and me. Don't drop the baton. I wish I could have run track. I wish I could have played basketball, but I was disqualified because I could not hold on to the baton and pass it to the next person. This church, you as families, you as individuals, have been called into this relay race. The relay race of the kingdom of God, the relay race of the mission. And the question today is this, will you once and for all put your trust in Jesus? Will you once and for all set your eyes, not on this world, but on the world to come? Will you once and for all realize that God called you to Himself, not for you, but for the sake of the world, let's pray together. Our Lord Jesus, we delight in you. Thank you for trusting the Father. Thank you for setting your eyes on the world to come. Thank you for living for us. Holy Spirit, our prayer is simple. Make us like Jesus. Amen.