[0:00] Let me pray for David and for us, and then I'll hand over to David, who's going to take us through our talk tonight. Heavenly Father, we thank you now for the opportunity that we have to look at your word together, to consider what it is that you're calling us to as a church.
[0:15] We pray that you'd help David help all of us as we listen. In Jesus name. Amen. David, over to you. Thanks, Dave. Cool. So we're continuing to go through the church values, and this is the final one.
[0:33] It's in some ways a continuation of where we were last week. So as is our habit, let's go through our church values and see if we can name them all.
[0:47] Go. Kingdomly minded. Kingdom minded. Okay, very good. Kingdomly minded. That's today. So let's do the other ones. Locally rooted. We're going in reverse order. I like this. Can we keep going?
[1:02] Locally rooted. Servantly led. Gospely centered. Two left.
[1:16] Prayerfully dependent. Servantly led. Servant leadership. Was that that? Just one more. Lovingly diverse.
[1:26] Yes, very good. Well done. Good stuff. So we are going to talk about kingdom mindedness today, which in a sense, I've framed as sort of part two of last week, which is the locally rooted.
[1:46] Right. So looking at ourselves as a local church in a specific area at a specific time. Serving this this part of the world.
[1:57] Right. So but then there's this idea of kingdom mindedness. And so what what does it mean to be kingdom minded? Broad question.
[2:11] But it's an interesting one in the sense that there's probably a lot of things that go under that that you might say, oh, well, it means this or that. Right. But one thing.
[2:22] And we prayed it in our group and many others probably played it in your groups and probably otherwise. But we pray for revival in our city, in our area.
[2:34] Right. We recognize that the majority of our neighbors and colleagues and friends and people that live in the city don't follow and worship Jesus.
[2:45] And so we pray that they would and that our church would have an impact and be able to connect with those who live near us or that we might come into contact with. We we do that. That's normal.
[2:56] And so one way to think about kingdom mindedness is to play that forward and say, OK, Lord, if if you answer that prayer, if you do send revival to northwest London.
[3:10] But he does it primarily through another church. And that church grows and has a major impact. And our church feels like it stays the same.
[3:21] How do we how do we feel about that? Right. Do we want thy kingdom to come or do we want our kingdom to come? Right. And so kingdom mindedness is really it's.
[3:36] Taking a zoomed out kingdom level view of what God is doing and allowing us to have a bigger picture than simply what Wes Kilburn is doing or what we are involved in or things that get attached to to all of us.
[3:53] Right. And so. It's it's looking beyond with with kind of God level imagination at what he might be doing in the world and in our area.
[4:03] That doesn't necessarily.
[4:33] In Acts one. In Acts one. We'll turn to Acts in a minute. You don't necessarily need to go to one. Go to 13. We'll start there. But in Acts one, when Jesus ascends and the believers, the people who are following Jesus gather in a room.
[4:51] It says that there was 120 of them at the time. Right. A couple of weeks ago, I think I did the count and there's about 120 people in this room. Right.
[5:02] On a Sunday morning, not on a Sunday evening yet. But the idea is that within two generations of that moment. The church was cross continents was like on an ascendancy at a level that was would have been unbelievable to those 120 people.
[5:25] Right. And so it's not that small is incapable of doing anything. Obviously, God is in control and he's moving those things.
[5:36] And so I just just framing it. That is a pretty interesting spot to say there was 120 at one point and it made a worldwide difference. And so there's no reason that kingdom impact doesn't come from a small group of people in a small in a specific place.
[5:53] They were in a room in Jerusalem. So turn to Acts 13 and we'll start there. It'll be a continuation of what we talked about last week, looking at the church in Antioch.
[6:05] So last week we talked about how there was this one church that after Stephen's stoning, the church was persecuted, obviously, and spread out of fear.
[6:23] And so they ended up in different places. One of those places was in Antioch. And in Antioch, the people there, the believers there started preaching and teaching non-Jews.
[6:34] And that was a new thing. And it was the first place where people who followed Jesus were called Christians, little Christs. And so there was this really interesting thing.
[6:47] And then they sent the church in Jerusalem, sent some people to see, Barnabas, to see if what they were doing there was on the up and up and made sense.
[6:58] And he comes back with a great report. And so what we see in Acts 13 is the continuation of that. And it says, we can read it there. We'll actually start, why not, at the end of 12.
[7:10] The way they cut it off on this one is funky, but you can see 12.25. It says, When Barnabas and Paul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark.
[7:21] Now, in the church at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon, called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul.
[7:32] And while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
[7:43] And so after they fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. And so we see the church in Antioch, right? There's kind of these five men who are named as sort of their prophets and teachers.
[8:05] So the leaders that are there, there's five of them. They're all from various different backgrounds. That's a whole other sermon or talk. But what we want to look at is what they do when it says that God called them to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work that I have, right?
[8:22] God called them to send Paul and Barnabas. And Paul and Barnabas, obviously, we know who Paul is and we know what he would go on to do.
[8:33] Earlier in Acts, it talks about Barnabas and tells us a little bit about him. And he's framed with some really high praise.
[8:48] He sells a farm in Cyprus to give to the church. And what did it say?
[8:59] Barnabas. What did I do? I can't find the... Indephor, yeah. Yes. Which means son of encouragement.
[9:11] And he sold the field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet, right? Barnabas, right? Son of encouragement, right? What an amazing thing to be called.
[9:22] If that... Not only, you know, they go, he's an encouraging guy. They actually give you a nickname to be son of encouragement. It's pretty good, right? And so the point that I'm trying to make here is that Paul and Barnabas are two of the best leaders at this church.
[9:40] Two of the ones that they look at and they say, these guys are the best, right? Jerusalem, they are sending Barnabas around to go check, right? So they trust him.
[9:51] And so when God calls Paul and Barnabas, there would have been a understood reaction that the church says, not those guys.
[10:02] They're some of our favorites. They're some of our best guys. And so what we see them do, though, is that they start by fasting and praying to consider God's call and not what their own wishes would be, right?
[10:18] They look at it and they say, you know what? We love Paul. We love Barnabas. We wish they would stay with us. But God, if you're calling them to something else, it's your decision, not ours.
[10:29] And so they fast and they pray and they say, God, is this what you're doing? And when God confirms it, it moves them to the next thing, which is they lay their hands on them, commissioning them and send them out and say, go and do what God is calling you to do.
[10:45] Right? So we see these two things and it shows us that being kingdom minded necessarily means sending our best out. There's no way around it.
[10:57] The Great Commission we talked about last week says, go and make disciples. Well, what do we know about discipleship? What is discipleship?
[11:07] Well, it arguably is leadership development. Right? You're growing someone to know and love Jesus such that they can then become a disciple maker themselves, leading others to know and love Jesus.
[11:22] Right? And so the necessary end of that, if you play that forward, is there's not enough leadership seats at any one church for all of the people to be involved in.
[11:34] Right? So they've got to go somewhere else. There's no way to keep them all in one place. And God, that in his intention, this is his design, is that the church grows new disciples.
[11:45] They grow them up into leaders and then they get sent out into the world to do it again. Right? This is how the church grew from that 120 number to being all over the known world.
[11:58] And so there's three things that I would say that we have to do in order for this to become true. So that one, we have to look at our members and look at each other.
[12:09] And I would say, you know, this group, the group that gathers on Sunday night. Right? A lot of us are the ones who are effectively leading here. And so we have to look at those around us.
[12:22] We have to challenge our fellow members to grow into leaders. Right? To look and understand the scripture better. To live it out more fully.
[12:33] To lean in and become leaders in the church. And then we have to empower those members to have access to leadership capacity. Right? So we have to give people things to do and little ministries to help guide.
[12:46] And small groups to lead and those things. And so they can flex those muscles and figure out how it goes. And then we have to then be courageous enough to send them out.
[12:57] Right? Once they've become key members of this body, we have to then be able to say, Okay, God, do what you will and send them. Right? And so this is the core part of how the church is built.
[13:10] And so if we're going to be the church that God has called us to be, we have to understand that this is our task and this is the necessary consequence of that task. Is that some of the people that we love and that we have grown to enjoy are not going to be with us anymore.
[13:27] Because God is going to use them in an even greater way to do that again in some other place. And so success in church looks like disciples growing up and leaving.
[13:40] Right? Like if we wrap our heads around that, that success in church means that most of us are going to be somewhere else at some point in time. Because God is using us in doing that.
[13:51] Right? If we're all still sitting here 10, 20, 30 years from now, we've done something a little bit wrong. Right? That's the truth. And it's like we've got someone, this has to look different.
[14:03] Because we've got to have gone and done something else. So that's point one. Right? We've got to look at kingdom-minded means sending our best. So before we move on to point two, I want you to discuss quickly, what are some implications for us as a church in light of this truth?
[14:22] Right? If success looks like disciples going out, if we are called to make disciples and to give them opportunities to lead, if it means sending our best, what does that mean for us as a church?
[14:33] A couple of minutes to talk about that amongst yourselves. All right. What are some of those implications?
[14:43] What are some of the things you talked about? What does it mean for West Kilburn if this is true? You've got to be like Jesus.
[14:54] In what way? If you want to go out, you've got to be able to hear the difference between what the flesh is saying, the enemy might throw at you even more than any people might throw at you and then what the Holy Spirit's telling you to do in this situation so Jesus said I do as I hear my father do as I hear my father so you have to be connected with Jesus with God and the same way Jesus is yeah so it leads into the discipleship to growing in knowledge and faith and trust in Jesus and if we are doing that and we're encouraging others to do that then we'll have a good working knowledge of what he's up to what else it might have a commitment to praying and fasting and leaning on the Lord but it's not just it's not just a mathematical process we've got five years at 17 it's a a fruitful engagement with the Lord yeah it's not it's not just you know spray send people out kind of indiscriminately but there is a prayerful and a thoughtful intentionale way of doing that anything else no one thing we thought do you have one
[16:24] Lola that's right yeah absolutely one thing I thought of no absolutely that it's not just global that it's could be local could be anything in between right could be down the street and anything all the way to Kazakhstan one thing I was thinking about if if if we believe our servantly led kind of every member ministry value and we lean into that that means all of us are prepared and God could call any one of us to do something and move us to another place and so while we see Paul and Barnabas were ones called out at this moment we know from history that many others from the church in Antioch were called to go different places at different times and so these things work together right we're growing the church not just for our own good but for the kingdom good great so let's look back again at this church in Acts so after they had fasted and prayed they placed their hands on them and they sent them off and then the two of them sent on their way by the Holy Spirit they went to Cyprus and then after they had been in Cyprus for a while they left there and went from Paphos up to
[18:06] Perga and Pamphylia and then ended up in a place called Antioch also but in a different area of the world called Pisidia which is kind of like more western side of Turkey more central Turkey whereas Antioch is very eastern side of Turkey anyway and so then they went from Pisidian Antioch to Iconium and in Lystra and Derbe so I'm moving really quickly this is chapter 14 and then they end up back in the city of Antioch later on Acts 14 23 let me read that one so if you can find that that's at the bottom corner of 1109 it said Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and with prayer and fasting committed them to the Lord in whom they had put their trust so Paul and Barnabas go around not just preaching the gospel not just you know standing in synagogues or what were synagogues and preaching the gospel not just standing on the you know the Hyde Park corners of the world preaching the gospel but they're forming little churches and not only are they forming churches they're putting leaders in charge of these churches so that they can carry on once they leave and so the second thing in addition to this
[19:31] I said kingdom minded means praying for supporting and actively revitalizing or planting churches the great commission as we talked about earlier it continues it says go and make disciples baptizing them and discipling them but where in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth right so the idea is that as you said Lola like locally we have a call to the kingdom nationally we have a call to the kingdom and internationally we have a call to the kingdom there's the church is a thing that's much bigger than our little piece of the world it's no less than our little piece of the world but it is not just this it's wide and in God's way of doing he connects these things in ways that we could never imagine or predict we were just talking about what's her name in Serbia
[20:33] Allison right so church member from here living in eastern Europe doing the work of the ministry right there's countless moments like that and it's like well what's the connection to that place or this place well God is the connection right the gospel is the connection and so he moves us in that way and particularly when we look at local kingdom mindedness in some ways globally it's easier to think about how we can think like kingdomly about the church across the world but when you think about the church across the street it's very easy to become like an us versus them to think that their growth necessarily means our diminishing or that you know our growth might mean their struggle right and so you get this kind of zero-sum mentality that can come from that and so it's not right it's not an us versus them it's not a zero-sum game if you indulge me to Corinthians
[21:43] Paul is talking to the church in Corinth and he's encouraging them to support one another in the verse 1 of chapter 8 this is on 1163 he says and now brothers and sisters I want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches this I think Philippi is one of these that he's speaking of in the midst of their severe trial their overflowing joy even in their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity right they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability entirely on their own right so you see this dynamic of churches supporting one another in different areas but just in general that you've got churches looking to one another saying you know what like your growth your benefit is ours because we're part of the same kingdom we're part of the same thing and so you've got that supporting one another if you flip to chapter nine verses six to fifteen let me read that briefly
[22:51] Paul again he's saying remember this whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver and God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times having all that you need you will abound in every good work as it is written they have freely scattered their gifts to the poor their righteousness endures forever and now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness you will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion and through us your generosity will result in the thanksgiving of God I'll keep going this service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people but it's also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to
[23:52] God because of the service by which you have proved yourselves others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else and in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you because of the surpassing grace God has given you thanks be to God for his indescribable gift right we've read that a thousand times I'm sure and we think about it in terms of our personal generosity particularly with our financial resources but if we think about it in the sense that Paul is talking about churches supporting one another and if you think about it in all the ways of being generous in sending of our all of our resources our money our time our people right that kingdom mindedness means we are cheerfully giving to the kingdom in a variety of ways and we are what this promises is that we will be blessed when we do give generously and that it's not us who supply the seed but it's he who supplies the seed and he will increase the store of seed right so if you think about that as an individual who you're like oh man it would hurt to get rid of to leave to have that one go that God supplies the seed and he will fill the storehouse and so we we trust him to continue to fill the storehouse of people of resource right if we are giving to the kingdom if we are putting ourselves out there and risking for his glory he will reward that and we will not be in need so gospel ministry kingdom mindedness it's praying for supporting and actively revitalizing and planting churches both here and afield and this is what we've said we look at and we say God you've called us to look and be kingdom minded in this way so before we end like we did the first time what are some implications for us as a church to being generous and praying and thinking and supporting and even potentially participating in the revitalization or planting of churches locally nationally and internationally a couple of minutes to talk about that nice one what are some of the things that it means for us if we're going to be this sort of kingdom minded church sacrificial in what way just in general yeah yeah no it's good yeah being sacrificial just kind of thinking about that whether that's resources or people and understanding that trusting that God will sustain in any case what else does it mean for us to live this way to be this way as a church yeah yeah particularly yeah the global mindedness
[27:53] is to think how do I wrap wrap my head around it but it's yeah having a few or hopefully a lot of partners and people that we know and know us in some way and there's a relationship formed such that you know you see you know where Paul is sending a letter and receiving letters from these churches right it's that sort of relationship obviously we don't have to do letters anymore but you know that we could keep up with and know what's going on with partners across the world wherever we have partners such that we hear from them and we understand what's going on we have concrete things to pray for we know what their needs are such that then we can we can go right and we can send people like Clifford to go preach in other places right so that's really good and we talked about open doors as well knowing and having some a few things like we know there's people across the world that are persecuted for their faith but having a few stories and a few reminders every so often helps us keep those things front of mind enough to pray and to consider what
[29:06] God might want us to do in that you know he might want us to just pray he definitely wants us to pray but he might want us to do more than that and if we're not praying and we're not reminded we'll not lean into that so yes making it concrete what else anything else doesn't because God is building the church to make sure we're not tearing it down in a sense because if you have a huge influence of people for example that's money and all of that we can sometimes write them that way it feels like everything's so good we have a history of these people when things are good we mess it up how do you protect yourself I think it's by being connected so you are always facing transgressions in a sense because if someone else they connected to is going through that love will tell you that you are also suffering and then might practically create you opportunities that contribute and support like Nick was saying for example if we have so that would be something that could help money or leaders yeah that's good being aware of those things even if it's not our struggle because we're connected we feel those struggles and can maintain a groundedness you know obviously there won't be a moment where we don't have our own struggles but it helps to be aware of them as well anything else before I pray we close
[31:03] I think it's I probably didn't bring anything that you didn't know and that's not really the point but to remind us of of what God is doing we're a small part of it and we're thankful for it but if we we make it about us and not about the kingdom God's kingdom then we're we're going to miss out and so we need to to keep this in mind so the kingdom kingdom minded means sending our best and kingdom minded means thinking praying supporting and planting churches around the area across the country wherever they're needed right around the world supporting those who are doing it so shall we pray let's do it father we come to you and we thank you for being the king the king of your world and that regardless of what we might see with the blinders and the the things that keep us from seeing what you're doing
[32:22] God you are at work in the world bringing people to yourself Lord we we trust in your promise that that your church will thrive and even the gates of hell will not prevail against it Lord it's your church and it's much bigger than us and we want to keep that mindset to understand that it's yours and that it's not us it's not ours and that like the Corinthians and the Philippians who are supporting one another Lord would we be supportive would we send our best would we look at your kingdom and participate in it and to trust you with it and not hold things you know grasp them for our own purposes even if they're people we love dearly Lord would we send them for your glory and so we pray make us these people help us to build leaders that we can send help us to join with you and what you're doing in our city and in our world we pray in Jesus name amen amen