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[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. It is our prayer that you will be blessed by the preaching of God's Word. And take your Bibles if you want to open to 1 Thessalonians 1 and verse 8.

[0:10] I am so glad that you're here today. Today is Vision Sunday, and so today is the day. The idea is that I would pour out my heart to you and let you know where I want to go and what I want to see God accomplish as a church.

[0:24] It's a day I would share a pastor's heart, so we won't be in Matthew. I don't know if you ever noticed when you're looking up here, I don't know if you've ever paid attention, but on that side there is a picture of the world.

[0:36] That is a gift given to me. The last church that I pastored in Idaquipa, Peru, it was a Faith Baptist Church. On the right side is our logo. It says Faye, which means faith.

[0:47] And the words across the top say, reaching the world and our generation. And on the night that they were saying goodbye to us before we packed our bags and flew back to America, this is one of the gifts that they gave us.

[0:59] There are several others. There's a Peruvian flag signed with their names and so on. And so I have been teaching that we ought to reach the world and our generation for a long time, probably about 30 years.

[1:10] About 20 years has been a major emphasis. On this side, you come in and you constantly see, be, do, serve, train. And unless you're involved in foundations, you may not fully understand what that's about.

[1:21] Maybe today you'll get a tad more view of that. We have the summit. The summit is a big event that we have that we put on with the intentions of telling other churches how they ought to have the vision that we have as a team of missionaries and pastors to get the gospel around the world.

[1:38] And I'm going to share with you a message about world evangelism. World evangelism. I want you to know that our God wants the entire world to know that Jesus died on the cross to save sinful men.

[1:53] If you believe that, say amen. You will have plenty of Bible verses by the time we're finished. You'll have plenty of Bible verses to back that up. And you'll understand it is God's plan. You can go to the majority of churches and you may never hear world evangelism so stressed.

[2:08] You may come to our church and find it a very unusual thing that 20 families now call Vision Baptist Church their home and they serve around the world as missionaries carrying the gospel and new ones are being birthed every year.

[2:22] So this year we should add a couple more to that number, maybe more than that, and we'll watch as God grows things. If you turn in your Bible with me to 1 Thessalonians 1 and verse 8, this is the verse that was chosen by Trent for our summit theme.

[2:39] And it says, For from you, from the church, from the church there at Thessalonica, sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God were to spread abroad so that we need not speak anything.

[2:57] And that was our theme verse. From you, from your church was spread abroad everywhere so people knew about Jesus and they knew what was going on. Now I'm going to, if you write things down, and I don't know if you do or not, but if you do, write this down.

[3:11] I want to simplify the problem for you. I want to simplify the problem for you. We have a big world that we live in and there is a way. We're commanded, and I'll prove that in just a second, we're commanded to take the gospel to the entire world.

[3:26] And you've been hearing it, and I'm going to go over enough of this between now and the time you're finished after lunch today that I hope you'll understand this. We as a local church, little old Vision Baptist Church with just under 200 people on a Sunday morning, we are commanded to take the gospel to the world.

[3:43] The world now has over 7 billion people on the planet. And God wants them all to hear the gospel. So I want to have a word of prayer with you, and then I want to walk you through simplifying this problem.

[3:55] Father, I love you, and I praise you for your goodness and your kindness and your generosity towards us. I thank you for the privilege of allowing me to be the pastor of Vision Baptist Church.

[4:07] I thank you for these wonderful people in the sacrificial way that they have given so that we could get the gospel around the world. I thank you for them surrendering their children to go to the mission field.

[4:18] I thank you for them being willing to give up time with their grandkids for their children to take the gospel to the world. And I pray, God, that Vision would become more and more every day a world evangelism church that would bring you honor and glory.

[4:31] And I'll praise you for it all. In Jesus' precious name, amen. I titled this Simplifying the Problem because I used to travel all the time.

[4:42] I've been eight years here as a pastor. You probably have noticed that I travel more than most pastors travel, and I'm on the road more than most. I traveled for 20 years, and the last maybe 12 years of that I've traveled a whole bunch all over the world, and especially the churches.

[4:58] And when I would get there, they would always say to me, you tell us we're supposed to evangelize the world and our generation. I might write that down. We ought to evangelize the world and our generation.

[5:09] I can't do anything about the generation behind me. They're already gone. And I can't do anything about the generation that comes after me because they're not here yet. But I can do something about the time I live in.

[5:20] And we're to evangelize the world. We're to tell the whole world about Jesus. We're not to win them to Christ. We're not to get everybody saved. We're never commanded to make people be saved. But we are commanded to tell people about Jesus.

[5:32] So let me give you, if I could, the first thing you might write down, the task before us. The task before us. And just jot these things down. The guys may keep up with me, and they may not.

[5:44] Number one, the task. The task before us. We were commanded to take the gospel to the world. The Bible says in Mark 16, 15, that we're to take the gospel to every creature.

[5:56] If you have your Bible open, or somewhere you ought to underline or write it down there, it says to preach the gospel to every creature. That means every person on the planet ought to hear how to go to heaven when they die.

[6:10] In Luke chapter 24, verses 46 through 49, the Bible used the term all nations. He said, I want all nations. That's all people groups. Now there's different nations even sitting in this room.

[6:21] One of the missionaries who's a member of our church is a member of the Cherokee Nation. He is actually a Cherokee Indian. Tyler Masters is a Cherokee Indian. And he has enough blood in him to get a part of the casinos.

[6:33] He just never did. He just carries the gospel. But he is a part of the Cherokee Nation. He said, take it all peoples, all nations, all groups of people all over the world.

[6:44] Luke chapter 24. Matthew 28, 18, 19, and 20, we're to disciple all nations. This is like the most powerful verse for me in the whole Bible when I think about being a pastor.

[6:57] Look at Matthew 28, 18, and look at what it says. The Bible says in Matthew chapter 28, verse 18, Jesus came and spake, saying unto them, all power is given to me.

[7:08] Jesus is finishing up the gospel of Matthew, and he says, I have all power. Well, he has all power because he's God in human flesh. Amen? He has all power because he died on the cross, he was buried, and he rose again.

[7:19] He has all power. He is the creator of the universe. He has all power. He has all authority because he can say anything he wants to say. And if our founder, our founder, we're standing here on this platform right now, and we're going to make a speech to us to tell us what he intended for us to do as a church, he would tell us, verse 19, go and teach all nations.

[7:43] Go and teach all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. You say, why do you all baptize? Because we were commanded to. We're to teach them first, then we're to baptize them, and then we're to teach them in verse 20 to observe all things, whichever I've commanded you.

[7:57] We're to get the gospel to them, make sure they know how to go to heaven when they die. In Acts chapter 1 and verse 8, we're to go to the ultimate, to the ultimo, the father's corner, the uttermost.

[8:08] The Bible says in Acts chapter 1 and verse 8. In John chapter 20 and verse 21, One, the Bible said that we are to go and live among them like Jesus. He said, as the Father sent me, so send I you.

[8:20] That's why I'm ensuring he's leave. That's why we don't just send money here. We have people that go over and learn to live among the people. They learn to speak another language. They learn a whole new culture.

[8:31] They learn how to greet people in different ways. They become a part of the culture because Jesus was sent by the Father who spent so many years living among us, people really thought he was a Jew. And when he started speaking, they said, who is this guy?

[8:44] Don't we know him? Don't we know his mother and his father? Don't we know he's the son of the carpenter? But there was something very special about him. He was God in human flesh. So we send missionaries to become a part of the culture and carry the gospel to them.

[8:58] One man summed it up like this. The unfinished task is to evangelize all individuals, to proclaim the gospel to all peoples in all geographical regions of the world, and to disciple them.

[9:10] The world is extremely large. The current world population is approximately 7.14 billion people. Net growth in world population.

[9:23] We add one person to the planet every 16 seconds. Counting all that die and all that are born and leveling it out, we add one new person every 16 seconds.

[9:34] China is the world's largest country with 1,349,600,000 people. Less than 4% of them are probably born-again Christians.

[9:46] That means that over four times the population of the United States of America that live in China are not saved, not going to heaven, not hearing the gospel. India is the world's second largest country with 1,220,801,000.

[10:04] Only 1% of India is probably saved, meaning another four times the population of the United States that haven't heard. The next seven countries after the United States, we're the third largest country.

[10:15] The next seven, almost, again, very few except Brazil, have a Christian, much Christian witness at all. Well, taking care of our own church and ministry seems to be a daunting enough task, much less to think about the world.

[10:30] See, when we sit here as a church and you're here and Austin Gardner is your pastor and you come in and you wonder, why are we in a warehouse eight years later? You wonder when you come in, why do they do things the way they do? Why does Austin do things like he does as a pastor?

[10:43] We want to help so we can pray some and give some, but we never consider as a church that we are personally and corporately responsible. Almost all of us would agree, yeah, we ought to get the gospel of the world.

[10:56] Yes, we believe in missions. Yes, we believe we ought to give, but we are a very small people with a commandment to do something so much bigger than anything we could ever do.

[11:06] How could little old Vision Baptist Church reach the entire world with the gospel message in our generation? How could this little church get the gospel to everybody?

[11:17] We all want all to hear. All of us want that to happen, but we don't know what to do. So here's the test case. Number two, write this down. This is the test case.

[11:28] The test case. The Lord gave us the how to do it. He showed it to us. And I want you to get that with me if you would. The Lord would never have commanded us to do an impossible task.

[11:40] How many of you would say amen to that? Would he command us to do something and laugh and say you can't do it? No, he would never do that. He told us in Matthew 28, 18 through 20, I have all power, all authority.

[11:51] Go and teach all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost and teach them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you. The reason it appears impossible is that we have not followed the biblical mandate, the biblical pattern mentioned above.

[12:10] Now I'm going to talk about you. This message is prepared for everybody and our church does better, but you'll get a vision of where I am, where I want us to go. The reason the world's not getting evangelized is churches aren't following a biblical pattern.

[12:23] It's impossible for one person or even one church to reach the world. If we continue steadfast to doing what it tells us to do, however, we could get it done. And here's your test case.

[12:35] Let me prove that to you. How many of you are sitting there looking at it going, 200 people, 7 billion people, limited finances. We move, at this church, we move maybe a half a million dollars a year.

[12:47] How are we going to get the whole world evangelized in our lifetime? Come on. That's beyond us. Let me give you a test case that the Bible gave us. Genesis chapter 1, verse 27.

[13:00] Genesis chapter 1, verse 27. So God created man in his own image and in the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. And God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.

[13:14] Now I want you to back up in your mind with me just a second to a completely empty globe. All the world's empty. Nobody is on the planet. There is no New York City.

[13:25] There is no London. There is no Tokyo. There's no Japan. There's no Israel. There's no Jerusalem. There are two people. And God says to them, to this two people, He said, they're just hours old.

[13:38] And He says, you guys get with it. And replenish, fill up the entire earth. Now you know, I don't think you get any idea in the Bible where Adam and Eve looked at each other and said, well that's ridiculous.

[13:51] It's a big place. I haven't even seen the whole garden yet. He wants us to evangelize the whole place. They were told to replenish the earth. Even though they lived hundreds of years, they could never have that many children.

[14:04] However, you should write this down. They could raise a family that would raise a family. They could raise a family that would raise a family. No one in his family received the same instruction.

[14:18] Jesus never traveled far and apparently didn't try to get the gospel to the world. But those that he trained did. Something big to learn here.

[14:30] How can we simplify the problem? Adam and Eve didn't seem to have a problem with it. They were supposed to go in there and have a family. And as they had a family, the world would be replenished. Noah was told go in there and have a family.

[14:41] There were eight people this time, four couples, and they were to replenish the earth. And by the way, they got busy and it happened. I mean, the world is full by Genesis 6. The world is full again by Genesis 11. I mean, people are being born like crazy.

[14:55] They're getting the job done. Then you get to the New Testament. And Jesus, who wants the whole world evangelized, says, Jesus, who wants the whole world evangelized, never left his country, really.

[15:07] I mean, he goes in the area, he goes through Samaria, he's in his country, just a little bitty bordering places, doesn't travel more than a couple hundred miles in any direction, and yet he's the one that's going to get it done.

[15:20] Jesus never traveled far, but apparently he did try to get the gospel. Well, it seems to you that he didn't try to get the gospel to the world, but he was. Listen to this one.

[15:31] Money was never the greatest need in world evangelism. Money was never and has never been the greatest need in world evangelism. If our church could take up an offering today of seven billion dollars, we'd have one dollar per person on the planet to get the gospel to the world.

[15:50] So money wasn't the problem. Jesus dedicated himself to, write this down, life on life, discipleship, that would prepare other men to get the gospel to the entire world.

[16:03] Jesus spent his life doing this. Come here. Let me spend time with you. Let me hone you. Let me shape you. Let me form you. Let me direct you. Let me teach you so you can take the gospel to the world.

[16:16] our problem is that we dedicate ourselves to doing ministry and not reproducing ourselves. Now this is what I want to tell you, church, would you listen quickly? You may say, man, Austin's not at everybody's birthday party like most pastors are.

[16:29] You might say to yourself, Austin seems to be going from the pulpit a lot, not like other pastors are. You might say to yourself, Austin seems to not always be at every hospital visit like other pastors are and you might be wondering about that.

[16:42] Well, here's what the deal was. It is so easy to get so consumed with taking care of us that we never have time for them. It could be so easy to get so consumed with taking care of this church that we never get it done.

[16:54] But every pastor, every layman, every church must see it as their responsibility to be reproducing pastors, missionaries, and full-time servants of God.

[17:07] Look this way. Here's the vision. You ready for this? This church's measuring stick of how good we're doing is how many young preachers we're producing. The measuring stick of this church is how many young preachers we're producing.

[17:22] If a man and woman got married and accumulated millions and millions of dollars and money and things and had no children to leave it to, it would kind of be pointless.

[17:36] Our goal is to be parents. Most of us want to be parents. Most of us, our hearts break when we're not parents. I've known young couple after young couple who couldn't have children who cried themselves to sleep at night.

[17:51] My son and his wife, they couldn't have children for almost eight years and they laid in the bed with their head on his shoulder crying at night and saying, young girls get in the back of the seat of a car and they can get pregnant, but I'm a godly woman trying to serve God and I can't have children.

[18:04] We want to have children. We want to reproduce. That's what Adam and Eve did. We want children. Every church needs to understand. There's a major difference in what a church ought to be and what you see around this church.

[18:16] You see a church where you come and there is entertainment. You see a church where you come and there is a show put on for you. The best singing you can get, the best dancing you can get, the best light show you can get.

[18:27] You come and you see a place where the best preacher you can get can preach to you, but what you don't understand is how we judge our church ought to be. How many young people are we producing that will carry the gospel?

[18:38] Go back with me. What did he say to the church? He said, I want the world to know that Jesus died on the cross. He was buried in roads again. I want the world to know that. If you know that, say amen. He wants the world to know that.

[18:49] And so if we had the best exercise program on the planet and if we took care of our widows better than anybody else took care of their widows and we did everything, we wouldn't be getting the job done. You could have a fire truck and you could polish it and you could wax it and you could put oil on every part, but if you never take it out and fight fires, that fire truck is a wasted piece of investment.

[19:14] Is that true or not? A church is to get the gospel to the world. A church is to get the gospel to the world. Our priority ministry then must be to train other men to follow Jesus.

[19:26] Look at what that says there. Train. That's why it's always on top. Let me show you some verses. Ephesians 4.11. Ephesians 4.11 and 12. Follow with me if you would. Ephesians 4.11 and 12.

[19:38] He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and pastors and teachers and I want you to read with me if you would. Help me read this out loud with me this verse right here. For the what?

[19:48] Help me out. For the what? I can't hear you. For the perfecting of the saints. For the work of the ministry. For the...

[19:58] Now watch this. I want you to understand something. Typically the way it works in most churches is I'm the pastor and so I'm supposed to be around everybody's ingrown toenail that needs fixed.

[20:09] I'm supposed to be there to pray for them. Somebody's got an ingrown toenail. Austin should be down there praying God please get them through this surgery. Please take care of their toe. Lord this whole has got to be hurting them. Please pray. Hey somebody needs somebody that's over here having a marriage counseling or marriage problem.

[20:22] Austin should be running over there. Just got through with a toe. Come over here and say I'm here to talk to you about your toe. I mean not your toe your marriage. Good, good. I'm running over here. You've got psychological problems. You do.

[20:33] I'm here to talk to you about that and I'm supposed to be running but that's not what the Bible told the church to do. In Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 look at the verse again. He gave gifted people to the church.

[20:44] He gave gifted people apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. He gave them to the church and look what their job was. Look at the next verse. Look at verse 12. Their job was to perfect.

[20:56] Write down mature. Mature. Write down teach. Write down prepare. To teach them to prepare them for the work.

[21:07] For the work. For the work of the ministry. Now let me ask you a question. Who was supposed to be doing the work of the ministry in the verse if you could help me say it. Who's supposed to be doing the work of the ministry?

[21:19] I didn't hear you. Who's supposed to be doing the work of the ministry? Saints. Not preacher. Saints. For the perfecting of the saints. You know what? The preacher's supposed to be. He's a coach. He's supposed to be over saying come up here Matt with me.

[21:31] If you would Matt please. Boy you don't follow instructions good. Are you supposed to be sitting here saying alright Matt let me teach you how to visit ladies who have ingrown toenails at the hospital. So you need to come over to this lady who's got an ingrown toenail and you say I'm going to pray for your toe.

[21:46] Don't touch her toe. Not that she's going to have plastic gloves. Just a joke. And I teach him how to pray and I teach him how to work and then here's what happens. So me and old Matt are over here and I get word so and so's got a toenail problem oh you've been trained for toenails take care of that.

[22:02] And I'm walking across through there coming out here and this guy says this guy says they're needing a church set up get all the tables set up. Hey you've been trained for setting up tables take care of that would you?

[22:12] And so what's happening? Look at the verse for the perfecting of the who are the saints in this room? Hold your hand up. We're the saints all of us are the saints. I'm supposed to work too but my job is really to help the saints.

[22:25] My job is to mature the saints for the perfecting of the saints for the what? Now I grew up in little country Southern Baptist churches and you know what little country Southern Baptist churches do don't you?

[22:37] They hire a pastor to do the bulletin to open the door to sweep the floors I used to help our pastor we waxed the floors we redid the furniture I mean he was I was his only helper me and him it's like you going into ministry you better learn how to flush toilets good because that's what your job is this verse doesn't say that this verse says I am to perfect you so that you can do the what?

[23:05] work of the what? ministry for the growing for the growing of the church so it is life on life discipleship it is training people it is so other people can be involved Ed did not move back to his seat because he was afraid I would use him again look at Colossians chapter 1 and verse 28 they'll throw it up here for you look at Colossians chapter 1 in verse 28 Paul's goal was to present every man mature now I am the father of four the dad of four Chris Stephanie Joy and David are our children Chris is 38 years old David is our youngest and he is 28 years old do you know what every dad wants to have happen when they have children?

[23:53] he wants to grow them to maturity he wants to teach them how to live life on their own they should be able to pay their bills get a job take care of their car there is a commercial on TV right now I don't know or maybe it is on I saw it on internet so I am not sure it is on TV but I saw it on internet on a blog but there is this dad and his daughter is out in the out in the some fancy car I can't remember what fancy brand name it was but the car is out in the rain and the girl is changing the tire has anybody seen this commercial?

[24:25] ok thank you Sherry you are the only one me and you are the only people up to date in this whole room they need to they need to get on you saw it another Sherry that is why alright watch this so she is changing the tire and there is nobody to be seen and she is having a struggle and she is working on it and finally she gets the tire off and then she is struggling and she gets the tire back on and then dad comes around the car and says I think it was an outie said I got her a really good car I want her to be safe but I got to prepare her and he had taught her to change a tire that is what a dad wants to do what is a pastor supposed to do he is supposed to train a church to be able to do the ministry do you realize how much more fun it is to go to church where you are busy do you realize how much more fun it is to know that you have such a job here this morning that some people got here earlier than I did and they were preparing music for you they were preparing a baptismal some people one guy told me I was teaching my Sunday school class and I loved it I got ready for my Sunday school class that is what is going on we are to teach and prepare every man to be perfect mature in the Lord making a disciple or training a person does not mean that everybody will be a preacher or a pastor or a missionary that is not what is going to happen but we ought to be training people so we can get them to that position now watch this what is our business model what is our command what is our goal any business you have the founder had a purpose make money that is probably his main purpose but if we were to go to the Apple company

[26:01] I am an Apple fan Apple user and you know they charge extra money for everything they do and they are very proud of every product they make but when they I mean you know and when he is giving a presentation his job is to sell Apple computers and they will work at it they will do whatever it takes to sell them Walmart everybody has got a job to accomplish if our founder came back you know what he would say what is the job I left you to do and I need you to help me what is the job he left us to do somebody tell me what is the job he left us to do he left us the job of evangelizing the world he left us the job of evangelizing the world he left us the job of evangelizing the world and so our job is to get the gospel of the world so he comes by Vision Baptist Church he stops in on a quick visit to check on us and see what we are doing and he walks in and he says Austin tell me what you are doing and I say man you ain't going to believe it I am just telling you we have got a new exercise ministry going on here and we have had our people have lost 2,000 pounds since January 1 and he would and he would say okay good deal

[27:04] I don't recall telling you to do that or maybe he would walk over and he comes in and I say hey well we are studying we have memorized the entire book of Matthew and I think he would go that's fantastic are you going to do anything you memorized like go I mean you memorized it you reckon you might do some of it when I was a little boy when I was a little boy my daddy used to leave me a list and on this list he would say to me what he wanted me to do every day I lived on a farm I milked a cow every morning milked a cow every night I checked on pigs and chickens and all kinds of farm work that would do and then daddy would always leave a list and in that list he would write down pick up a load of rocks check the electric fence on the back field find cow number 22 who I'd never found she died and he got really mad about that because I never found her and she was having a baby and I couldn't find her I really didn't try but don't tell him that he's dead now but anyway when daddy came home I want you know when daddy came home if I looked at him and he said what did you do with my list and I said I memorized it he decided to ask you to memorize my list

[28:10] I didn't ask you to memorize my list my daddy would have said did you do what I wrote down for you to do and my daddy was not a nice 2014 dad he didn't do time outs and he wasn't sweet to me he did knockouts he punched me he really did and so he'd have come in and I said dad just be honest with me I'm tired of your list I think you're a legalist I think you shouldn't be giving me so many rules to accomplish my dad my dad would have said good bam in fact he did that to my brother my brother is the funniest guy in the world my daddy punched my brother and my brother got mad and joined the navy the next day so nobody else would ever tell him what to do here's how we measure our success please listen to this and I've got three other things I really want to say but I'll stop we measure our success by how many men of God we have trained and sent out as a church I want to tell you how we know when we're successful if we had the nicest prettiest little church building that wouldn't make us a success

[29:15] I wish we did now can I tell you you ought to go to Mableton Lord help me God just not Mableton now it's Smyrna Vision Baptist Cobb County they have got a gorgeous building a fellowship hall fully set up with all the chairs and all the tables two showers one for the men and one for the women a kitchen you can cook can you believe that and they got parking spaces and a permanent sign and they could seat about 200 people in the auditorium and they got five other classrooms but that's the church that was there until August died you don't measure your success by getting a building if you did that the businesses of the world would be further along than us you don't measure your success by how many you have in attendance the Mormons would beat us you measure your success by how many men you trained to get out it changes every process in our church every one of us know that we must find and train men because our job is to get the gospel to the world our joy comes in watching our people grow and share their faith our joy comes that they step up and go out for us on and on to the world carrying the gospel every church member must have as his or her goal to get the gospel to the world though you know that you might not go you prepare others to go you pray you give you encourage you do all you can to get as many as you can to carry the gospel of the world you know that's important to our founder to the

[30:55] Lord Jesus I was a little boy and I got saved at Wrigley Baptist Church just a few days well in May on May the 6th 1962 I turned 8 on August the 21st 1962 I was baptized on May the 13th 1962 you say how do you remember that so well my mama wrote it in the Bible I remember it happening but mama wrote down when it happened I know I got born but I only know what day I was born because they wrote that on a sheet of paper for me too August the 21st 1954 they put down a little piece of the fact it's black with white letters that's why they used to do it back in the dark ages but guess what in that little church I can remember some Sunday school teachers teaching stories about people in Africa who wouldn't hear the gospel message if somebody didn't go at 11 years of age I'm now a member of Trace Creek Baptist Church and I'm hearing in vacation Bible school I'm hearing in Sunday school classes and I'm hearing in children's classes that God wants the gospel to go to the world from the time

[31:56] I can remember my pastor always walked around rubbing my little burr head because I wore one of those crew cut like it's in style now but you know back then they weren't really in style and the pastor would always rub my head and tell everybody here's our little preacher boy you like to meet our little preacher boy this is our little preacher boy I was that little preacher boy he's doing stuff wrong I mean I was not the ideal kid but Sunday school teachers chased me and disciplined me and called my attention and trained me and kept me motivated and kept me going to church and one day I grew up and I actually did do some ministry that's what the goal of a church is the goal of a church Jesus said take the gospel to the world we make some big mistakes and I'll give you a couple of them real quickly we make some big mistakes one of the big mistakes we make is we discourage people in our church from going to the ministry

[32:58] I'll try to cover some of this later today but did you know if somebody in our church wants to be an engineer we all applaud if they want to study at Georgia Tech we're like life because we don't understand God's place God wants the world to hear the gospel it's great that you study anywhere you study do anything you do I'm glad you do but you ought to be here to say hey if God didn't send me I'm going to give a chunk of change to get the gospel to the world I'm going to grab a hold of some young people I'm going to put in their heart you will do things for God I'm going to dedicate my children to care of the gospel I'm going to share that's what the Lord told us to do as a church if he were here preaching today he would say I have all power I have all authority and I can tell the church to do anything

[33:59] I want to tell the church to do and the Son and the Holy Ghost and teach them to observe all things whatsoever I command you and lo I'm with you all the way to the end of the world I'm with you now some Greek scholar in the room is going to say brother those were gerunds and they meant that meant as you go well let me give you a hint it it's used in a command form but not that I don't know how many of y'all are going to all the nations so as y'all are going to all the nations all the nations preach the gospel to all them and baptize all them and start churches all over the place here's the truth this church has a job I have a job as pastor you may decide today that you don't like my vision you want me to resign and I would fully understand that but I tell you this the church of Jesus Christ has a job to do every nation of the world is to hear the gospel you say we can't do that can you disciple one can you get involved in foundations and say

[35:14] I can train one guy in the basic things of Jesus I can train one person how to be faithful to church I can train one person how to give I can train one person how to pray I can do that see it's never about how big a family you have we judge the greatness of a pastor by how many people come hear him preach then Jesus was a failure he had big crowds twice he had 5,000 one time and 4,000 other time and there was probably a big crowd at the church on the mount but every time he had a big crowd he always said stuff that made them mad he turned around and said you guys want to follow me then take up your cross and by the way you got to hate your mother if you follow me you got to hate your brother and your mother and your daddy and your stuff and hate your own life also and if you y'all wanting to leave too he wasn't big on how many he got he was big on having 11 who would carry the gospel to the world are you understanding anything today say also what's your vision for vision here's my vision for vision the biggest training teaching preparing church you can imagine you say man we've lost enough our first song there

[36:33] Philip was a great guy and he left us to go to Thailand he's in Thailand today preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ praise the Lord that's what I wanted that was our goal to begin with then we brought Jonathan Marks in and he's on his way to Japan and he's already leaving and Ed's about to walk out the door he said what are we going to do I don't know but our job is to figure out what to do because we're sending them out to take the gospel message of Jesus Christ around the world that's our job you say I've never heard that I know isn't that sad it's right in the Bible it's in the Bible it's clear they need to hear the gospel message of Jesus Christ so you might say also where do you want to see us in 2014 more missionaries more money but more of but I live my life to train young men and young women and to carry the gospel message of Jesus Christ listen to this some of you need to sign up to help go to the hospital and visit people when they're sick because

[37:38] I really won't have time because I mean my time is eat up with some other stuff some of you need to learn how to take care of a lot of the stuff that goes on around the building here because the pastoral staff has a bigger job our job is to get you doing things everybody in this church has got to be busy we're all busy and what we're busy doing is helping train more guys train more guys train more guys I don't remember the statistic but Peyton looked it up for me but it's something like one out of four or one out of five soldiers it takes four or five soldiers and people to keep one guy in combat that's not counting all the taxpayers and all the people that work for the government that aren't soldiers we got to get the gospel to the world so what's your goal China China China's got to have the gospel China's got to have the gospel what's your goal India India has got to have the gospel what's your goal Indonesia I'm begging God for somebody to after us they're like the fifth country in the world

[38:44] I'm going to Brazil I'm going to start more churches inside of Atlanta I want to see more churches started that will carry the gospel to the world churches will take any gimmick they can not to lose their children supposedly I can find it for you a Mexican mother lost like eight children in the Revolutionary War and Juanito Benito Juarez I believe that was his name said to her asked her how she felt about it and she said I only have one regret that I didn't have more sons to give for the republic and today some of our church families have kids on the mission field Betty and I have children on the mission field some of our families have children and grandchildren on the mission field but there's a whole world needs to hear the gospel also what do you want to see vision do ten times more than what we've done

[39:45] I want God to let us have a hundred families out of this church that's only five times I want to let God to let start a whole bunch of vision Baptist churches Cobb County that'll go reproduce what we're doing because you see as my family Austin and Betty got and we drove away from our wedding in my Cor Vare not Corvette and you have to be old enough to understand that car was a joke don't shake your head like that Lamar you're just making fun of me it was a joke I didn't want anybody to put a bunch of junk on it and mess up my paint job it was a joke of a car but we drove away two years later Betty was I they get married that's going to be a pass a young 18 plus a spouse that's 36 not counting what they have kids you see you don't have to reach the whole world but if you could train somebody some of you in this room in

[41:23]  Europe you are a praying machine help some people learn to pray some of you in this room you are a witnessing machine help some people learn discipline help people know how to do that we got one goal let's raise up some young people and send them to the world with the gospel message of Jesus Christ let's do what he said do father in heaven I pray your name would be glorified and magnified and I thank you for all you do I pray that you would work in our church God that some people would get a hold of the vision and say I'm going to get involved in carrying the gospel to the world and I'll give you praise this message was recorded at vision Baptist church in Alfred Georgia for more information log on to www.visionbaptist.com where you can find our service times location contact information and more audio and video recordings