Have you ever heard the expression, “Too many irons in the fire”?  In two weeks this church will be going out to Don & Paula House’s Amish-built barn for our third annual Country Fair.  One of the things I enjoy about this event is that Don is a blacksmith.  He will have the fire stoked and the irons forged, but he knows that if a blacksmith tries to do too much he will have substandard results.  It is around the blacksmith shops in the 1500’s that this month’s key phrase originated – too many irons in the fire.  Dictionary.com (the dictionary for those of us too lazy to get up and grab a book off the shelf) has this explanation about this phrase, “This expression originally referred to the blacksmith heating too many irons at once and therefore spoiling some in the forging.”  I get that.  How many times have I tried to do too much and therefore spoiled some in the forging?

For the next few weeks I want to suggest that you consider moving from having too many irons in the fire to having two irons in the fire, at least in regards to this church.  Those two irons can be labeled missions and service.  The distinction is made by who benefits from your ministry.  If people outside of the church benefit from your ministry, we call it mission.  If people inside the church benefit from your ministry, we call it service.  I am certain that there are more sophisticated definitions, but for this month, please keep these simple elements of distinction in mind.  Mission benefits people outside the church.  Service benefits people inside the church.  These are the two irons in the fire that I want to encourage each of you to have.  I’m not asking you to do everything, but if everyone has two irons in the fire, then this church will explode in meaningful ministry.  Let us pray.

The church’s story has always been one of mission and service.  Last month I spent some time in the book of Acts, re-reading this great book that describes the genesis of the church.  It is like looking through your grandparents’ photo album.  I want to take you to one of the pictures that has impressed me deeply, but first let me set it up.  The church was empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and started doing some amazing things, mostly in Jerusalem.  This was fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus and about ten days after his ascension into heaven.   Saul was an opponent of the church, seeing it as a threat to his beloved Judaism and did all that he could to stop it.  Christ stopped him on the road to Damascus, blinding him with a bright light, calling him to cease his anti-church behavior, and become a Christian.  He did and he was just as zealous for Christ as he had been against the church.  It took some time for the disciples to trust him, but eventually he rose as a leader and teamed up with his first advocate, Barnabas.  Saul and Barnabas wound up in Antioch of Syria (this is where followers of Jesus were first called Christians).  One night during worship Saul and Barnabas were called to ministry beyond the church – mission.  In particular they were called to Asia Minor, today’s beautiful country of Turkey.  They landed in the Perga/Attalia area, which is spectacular, and went north to Antioch of Turkey. From this time on Saul is referred to as Paul.

Paul and Barnabas followed the same pattern in their missionary efforts.  They started in the synagogue, if there was one, and then went out into the city.  Things went very well in Antioch of Turkey, so well in fact, that the religious leaders became jealous and started spreading lies about Paul, Barnabas, and the message that they preached.  The opposition increased and the missionaries went south to Iconium – today’s city of Konya.  Things went well there until the religious leaders who chased them out of Antioch of Turkey caught up with them and “poisoned the minds” of the newly converted believers.  Things got so tense that threats were being made on Paul and Barnabas, so they went further south to a little town of Lystra.  It was apparently so small that it did not even have a synagogue.

As Paul was teaching a group of gathered people he couldn’t take his eyes off a man who was disabled.  He had never walked in his life.  Paul felt faith from this man and told him to stand up.  The man sprang to his feet and walked.  The people were so amazed that the miracle intended to confirm the message of Jesus’ love for them became a message of misunderstood magic.  The people started speaking in a language unfamiliar to the missionaries, but they soon discovered that the people of Lystra had mistaken them for Zeus and Hermes and were preparing sacrifices for the visiting gods.  Paul barely restrained them from worshipping Barnabas and him and tried to turn the message back to God’s love.  It is here that we pick up the story in Acts 14:19-23.  Hear now the word of the Lord:

¹⁹But Jews came there from Antioch and Iconium and won over the crowds. Then they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. ²⁰But when the disciples surrounded him, he got up and went into the city. The next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.

The Return to Antioch in Syria

²¹After they had proclaimed the good news to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, then on to Iconium and Antioch. ²²There they strengthened the souls of the disciples and encouraged them to continue in the faith, saying, ‘It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God.’ ²³And after they had appointed elders for them in each church, with prayer and fasting they entrusted them to the Lord in whom they had come to believe.  

This is the word of God for the people of God.  In this passage Luke reported to his readers the resolve of the early missionaries.  How quickly things turned for Paul - from being mistaken as a Greek god to being stoned as a charlatan.  I love how John Stott described Paul when he wrote, “His steadfastness of character was upset by neither flattery nor opposition.”  It is in this passage of scripture that I see the characteristics of a mission minded church.  It won’t surprise you that there are three.  The mission minded church is resilient, courageous, and persevering. 
 

The mission minded church is resilient.

Verse 20 seems so matter of fact, but what amazing power is in this one short verse – “But when the disciples surrounded him, he got up and went into the city. The next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.”  Look at the resilience in this verse.  Look at the resilience in this phrase, “he got up.”  He had just been pelted by so many rocks that he was unconscious, dragged outside the city limits, and left for dead.  Then all Luke tells us is, “he got up”.  Now that’s resiliency.  It would have been easy for Paul to have laid there and said, “This isn’t going as planned.  Let’s call the whole thing off and go home.”  This was a memorable moment for Paul.  He mentions it at least three times in his writings (2 Corinthians 11:25, 2 Timothy 3:11, Galatians 6:17), describing the scars incurred from this event in Galatians 6 as “the marks of Jesus branded on my body.”  I love how he put it in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 where he wrote, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed”. This means a mission minded church will stretch far enough to risk failure and have the faith to carry on if things don’t go as we had planned – and resilient enough to get up

Bruce Wilkinson has a line in his book the Prayer of Jabez that even the critics of the book agree is a faith-filled, biblically sound line, “Attempt something large enough that failure is guaranteed – unless God steps in.”  In that same vein, Bishop Robert Schnase wrote, “Christ’s ministry requires our willingness to risk failure.”

A couple of weeks ago the leaders of this church met for a three day retreat to look at how we have done in reaching our goals we set two years ago and reviewed last year.  They were lofty goals and looking at some of them left me feeling as if I was on the outskirts of Lystra.  I am convinced that God has called us to do extraordinary things outside of this church.  Not every venture will be met with what we refer to as success, but one thing we will do – we will get up.  We will commit ourselves to being a mission minded church that is resilient.
 

The mission minded church is courageous.

Let’s not leave verse 20 yet.  Look at it once more, – “But when the disciples surrounded him, he got up and went into the city.”  He went right back to the place that had just thrown rocks at him.  Paul trusted so much that he was called by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit that he did not shrink from the risks or the dangers. This is the mission spirit.

A couple of weeks ago I was shaking hands with people as they exited the sanctuary.  One of the visitors stood back and waited for me to have time to listen to her story.  I’m glad she did, because it was a great story.  She told me that her son was the reason that she was visiting a Methodist Church.  He is employed at a power facility on an island that has a Methodist Church.  Shortly after he arrived on the island the people told him how the Methodist missionaries saved their culture.  The island had been remote and fairly primitive when the missionaries arrived.  The dress was what we would consider immodest.  The economy was quite poor.  Women would swim out to passing ships and trade sex for goods and money.  As a result many of the women were sterile from disease and the population on the island was shrinking fast.  They were on the verge of extinction.  Then the missionaries arrived and like Paul and Barnabas proclaimed a new way of living.  They preached forgiveness and eternal life in Christ.  They taught about sexual purity and a caring community.  Soon the island began to recover from its diseases and the population began to rebound.  This kind of ministry takes courage from those who land on the island and from those who financially support such efforts.  Did you know that every time you put something in the plate on a Sunday morning, part of that goes to support United Methodist missionaries?  Did you know that this morning when you place money at the altar, you are partnering with courageous missionaries responding to critical needs of a society?  The mission minded church is courageous.
 

The mission minded church is persevering.

I know there is a lot to this passage that I read, but I simply can’t leave verse 20.  Look at it one more time, “But when the disciples surrounded him, he got up and went into the city. The next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.”  The next day he went to the next place and had a remarkable ministry, where they made many disciples.  This prompted Bishop Will Willimon to write in his commentary on Acts, “Luke would not know what to make of a church no longer in the business of making more disciples.  While the mission of the church is more than growth, it is not something other than growth.”  Then Paul and Barnabas retraced their steps returning to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Turkey before going back home.  Verse 23 informs us that “they entrusted to the Lord” leaders for each church.  That word, entrusted means deposited as in a bank.  These persons were the sound investments of Paul and Barnabas.  They were not content that the church endures hardships, but that they persevere through them with purpose.

Last month I received a report on the Nothing but Nets effort with which we have been involved for the last couple of years.  The year 2008 was one of the sharpest economic downturns this country has ever seen.  It was a troubling time for the housing industry, the automobile industry, and employment.  In the midst of these financial hardships the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church was recognized by the United Nations as engaging in the largest net distribution in the history of Nothing but Nets.  Over one million nets were distributed and millions more have already been purchased for the country of Cote d’Ivoire.  This is not simply enduring; this is persevering, even in times of economic uncertainty.

I’m not asking you to do everything, but if everyone has two irons in the fire, then this church will explode in meaningful ministry.  One of those irons is labeled missions and benefits people outside of the church. What will you do that will benefit people outside of the church?  Is it large enough, risky enough that failure is possible – unless God steps in?  I wonder how great of a risk it must have seemed to Jesus when he gathered at the Table with the twelve, knowing that it was in their hands that he was leaving the declaration of the kingdom of God.  Let’s commit ourselves to being a church of risk taking missions.  Amen.