The Church of Eleven22 - Saturated 2020 - Wednesday: Pastor Matt Carter

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

Dr. Matt Carter said, Here I am, Lord, send me at an early age. He led a small group of people to plant the Austin Stone Community Church in 2002. And it has grown to over 7,500 people with over half active in disciple groups. Over the last 18 years, God has also led Pastor Matt Carter to take the gospel into the neighborhood by planting six different campuses all over the city of Austin. In 2009, God led him to launch the church. the 100 people network.

From the very beginning, we have really defined our success, not so much by how many people we can get to come into the doors, and then don't just stay in the doors of a church, but come and get equipped to the church and then are sent to the community and to the nations. There are unreached people groups in this world that have never heard the name of Jesus Christ, and it is absolutely our biblical responsibility to engage in that.

And so from our church, we're going to be sent in 100 people from the body to those unreached people groups. Called goers to date, 270 full-time goers or missionaries have been sent to the ends of the earth. And over 3,000 goers have gone on short-term mission trips.

This original movement led to the development of For the Nations, an organization that plants churches and places that desperately needed. While leading the Austin Stone, Pastor Matt Carter also co-founded for the city, a nonprofit that connects us to me, people in their home city of Austin to opportunities to serve people all over the city in many different

ways. And now he has a new opportunity as the lead pastor of Sagemont Church to focus on sending a whole new congregation. Please welcome Dr. Matt Carter. Oh man. Y'all have a seat. Well that was hands down the coolest intro video I will ever have before I walk on a stage of my life. I feel like I should be going to play a football game in the name of Jesus. I'll tell you what, just for the fun of it, let's open up our Bibles to the book of Matthew chapter 28, verse 19, which is the Great Commission. And we'll be there in just a minute, Matthew 2819. You've all heard it, but we're going to look at it together quickly tonight.

It is good to be here. I love this church. I love your pastor, and so it's an honor to be here. This is hands down the worst sermon you're going to hear out of all these preachers. It's going to get better from here, so y'all hang with me. But I tell you what, let's do something crazy. Let's pray together. Is that all right?

We do that. Father, tonight, I pray that you would begin something in this church that years from now, when we look back on it, we would be in awe of what you did. Father, there are people in this room, and there are people at campuses around the city, and there are people listening literally all over the world tonight, and you have a call in their life and they don't even know it yet. I pray you would speak loudly to them. God, I pray that my preaching would not be in persuasive words of wisdom, but a demonstration of the spirit and power so that our faith would not rest on the wisdom of man but the power

of God. I'm going to ask that in Jesus' name. Amen. So as the video said, I planted the Austin Stone Community Church 18 years ago. I recently won't bore you with a story. He felt a call on my life to move to Houston and pastor a church there. But I want to share with you tonight some of the ways that God moved during my time at Austin, specifically in calling people there to live on mission, wherever they are, and then leaving the church and going to the nations. I want to talk about that. And, you know, one of the, I said it just a second ago, one of the primary aims that I had

from the very first of the Austin Stone was to create a missional temperature in the church. I didn't want folks to be consumers. I wanted them to come in the doors and get trained and equipped and then eventually sent from our church to their neighborhoods, their office buildings, or their schools, or the nations even for the glory of God. That's sort of been our desire and my desire from the very beginning and God did it. And I want to share with you tonight sort of the heartbeat behind that and then some of what God did, with the hopes that it will inspire God to do some of the same things here. But I want to start off this evening,

and I want to give you just four primary reasons why I felt led as a pastor to call my people, to live on mission for the glory of God everywhere they went, even to the unreached people groups around the world. So really quickly, I want to share those, and we'll go into some other stuff. I want to give you four reasons why we are called to go. And here's the first one.

And this is a really simple one. It's a really easy one. We're called to go to the nations because Jesus commanded us to. It's very simple. The scripture tells us that one of the primary reasons that Jesus came to this planet was to establish a new kingdom. And when he came, he established a new kingdom that wasn't built on the stuff that most kingdoms are built on, power and wealth and all that, but it was built on love and service and sacrifice. And he came and established a new kingdom. And the scripture tells us that Jesus, who was God in the flesh, is the king.

of this new kingdom. Y'all with me, do you all agree with that that Jesus is king? Okay, so he's king, right, right? He's king. So he's in charge. He's ruling. He's reigning. He's the king. With that in mind, I want you to listen to the command, rather the final command, that our king gave us before he left the planet in Matthew 28, 19. Our king said, go. Go. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptized in them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Church, the word go there is key. And I want to remind you tonight that that statement, go and make disciples of all the nations is not a request of our king.

It is a command of our king, and it's on every single believer's life. And so one way or another, however you engage, whether you go, go or whether you stay and you fund or whether you pray or whatever you do, every single person in the sound of my voice tonight that's a believer and has in them the Holy Spirit of God, you are called to fulfill the great commission in some shape, form or fashion. So the calling does not escape anyone tonight if you claim the name of Jesus Christ. So number one, Jesus commanded us to, here's the second reason that we're called to engage in reaching people in the name of Jesus Christ.

Number two, because of the impact of the gospel in our lives, We are compelled to go share the gospel with other people. And that's really simple. But here's the reality of it. The gospel is the good news that we were dead. We were dead and our trespasses and our sins. But Jesus came to this planet and he died on a cross to pay the penalty of our sin. So if you trust, and I trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will be forgiven of your sin completely.

You receive citizenship into this new kingdom. when you die, you're going to spend eternity in heaven. That's pretty good news, right? And so if you've done that tonight, I want you to realize something, you are going to spend eternity with the creator of the universe in heaven. Your sin is forgiven. You're a new creation. And if that is actually, I got a question for you, if that's actually happened to you, how in the world could you not tell their people about it? I mean, if that's really your story, that you were dead, not sort of, dead, not mostly dead, but you were dead and your trespasses and your sins, but he made you

alive, and you're going to spend eternity with him in glory. That's your story. How in the world could you not tell that story to other people? I was thinking about this quote. It's a really famous quote, preachers of Ward Out, but I'm going to say it again. It's from Charles Spurgeon. And it might even turn out J.D. that Charles Spurgeon didn't even say this, and J.D. will tell me later. But anyway, it's said that he said this. that as a Christian, you're either a missionary or an imposter. Now, think about that for a second. As a Christian, you're either a missionary or you're an imposter.

In other words, there's no such thing as a non-missional Christian. It doesn't exist. Here's the third thing. And this is a big one to me. It's compelling. You and I have future brothers and sisters. sisters in Christ who have not yet heard the message of the gospel and it's up to us to tell them. I want you to think about that for a second.

One of the things that the scripture teaches us is that when we trust in Christ is our Lord and Savior that the Lord adopts us into his family and we become a son or a daughter of God. And so what that means is that those people out there, those seven billion people out there, that are not yet believers, what? that means is that there are, here this, future brothers and sisters in Christ that we will spend eternity with that have not yet heard the message of the gospel and it's up to us to go tell them. I mean, these are people that you're going to spend eternity with. You're going to know their names. You're going to love them. You're going to care about them. You're going to love

and care about them just as much as you do your own brothers and sisters right now. And they're out there in some country, some place, they've never heard the name of Jesus, we've got to go tell them. Now, think about it. If your brother or your sister here in this world were lost, if they were in danger and they were lost, and it couldn't be found, what would you do? Would you depend on other people to go find them? No, you would move heaven and earth to go find them, and you wouldn't stop until they were found. You and I have future brothers and sisters. and it's up to us to go find them. Here's the fourth reason.

We're compelled to go to the nations and ensure that people are going to the nations in the name of Christ, and this is a big one too for me. Church, our generation has such a small amount of time to make our mark on the Great Commission, and then it's over. Our generation, the people in this room,

we have such a small amount of time to make an impact, to make a dent on the Great Commission, and then it's over. I want to show you a picture of a, it's a picture of a baptism. A friend of mine gave this to me. Now, I want you to look at it, study it for a second. This was taken near Cedar Creek, Texas, and I believe it was 1902, 1904. The pastor on the left with his hand in the airs, his name is Jeremiah Benjamin Moon. He was the pastor of this little Baptist church.

And this guy gave me this picture, had it framed, and I leave it up in my office. And I study it sometimes. It's fascinating. If you look, nobody's smiling. There's actually one little kid. He's back in the background who's smiling. He's probably disobeying his parents because supposedly he didn't smile in pictures back then. But I studied at times.

Most of these people in the picture are young. They have their whole lives ahead of them. They're just probably some Sunday afternoon after church. And they're going to be baptized, a picture of them. them being buried with Christ, rising again to walk in the newness of life. But one day I was studying that picture in my office, and I noticed something that I'd never noticed before. There's something in that picture that every single one of those people in that picture have in

common. And if you look closely, you'll see it. Can you tell what it is? There's one thing that every single person in that picture has in common. And here it is. What every single person in that picture has in common is that they're all dead. every single one of them. This was over 100 years ago.

They're there having an amazing day, whole life in front of them, but at some point in the next 117 years, they died, they passed away, and they went to be with Jesus. I leave that picture. It is right in front of my desk,

and I leave it there to remind me that my time to make a mark on the Great Commission is short and it's getting shorter every single day. You and I have, have a small and closing window. You as an individual have a small and closing window

to make a dent on the Great Commission, to do your part and your role in the fulfilling of the Great Commission, and then you're going to pass the torch, and we're going to pass the torch to the next generation, and we're going to go home and be with Jesus. And so those are kind of the four main reasons that drive me and compel me to raise

up the missional temperature of the church and to call people to live on mission. And I want to spend the rest of my time tonight talking about a specific vision that the Lord gave us at the Austin Stone of sending people to the nations. Back in 2002, I moved to Austin. I planted the Austin Stone. Church began with about 15 college kids in an apartment and a couple of young couples. And back in the day, we didn't have any money. We didn't have a building. We, nobody He was coming, and I was just a 28-year-old scared-death church planner, and I prayed a prayer one night. And it just sort of came out of me. I remember the night that I did it.

I was on my knees because I didn't know if this church was going to work. I was making $12,000 a year the first year. I could barely feed my family. I was scared to death, and I was just so dependent on God. But when I was praying, I was on my knees. I remember I was sort of leaning against my couch, and this prayer came out of me, and this is what I prayed. I pray, God, would you do something through this church that's so big and it's so significant that many years from now, when we look back on it, that the only explanation for how it happened,

God, is that you were the one that did it. It just came out of me. God, would you do something so big? Would you do something through us that's so significant that's so large that we're years from now, when we look back on what happened, the only possible explanation is that it didn't happen because of our talent or our ability, but it happened because your spirit moved.

We prayed that prayer. It's a bold prayer. And we prayed that prayer and prayed that prayer, and God began to answer that prayer about 11 years ago. I'll sit in my office one day. This young guy walks in my office. He was one of our missions, pastor. Pastors, he came to me, said,

Matt, I feel like I have a vision from the, the Lord that I want to tell you about. I said, all right, tell me. He said, Matt, what if, what if over the next few years at the Austin Stone that we raised up a hundred people from our church to leave Austin and go to unreached people groups somewhere in the world for two years as missionaries for the glory of the name of Christ? 100 people, two years, unreached people group. I looked at him and I said, man, that's a, that's a bold vision. And here's why I said that's a bold vision. Because when you look historically at churches that send missionaries, the overwhelming majority of churches throughout history over the course of a 30, 40, 50 year

window, maybe send two, three, four, five, six, seven, maybe eight missionaries. And so when he said 100 people, I thought, that's crazy. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, that's impossible. Because on top of 100 people leaving Austin and going to the mission field, he specifically talked about 100 people going to unreached people groups. An unreached people group, you'll probably hear it talked about over the next couple of days, but it's a group of people or a tribe of people or a country or someplace in the world where there's almost no representation of the gospel. I'm talking about places, tribes, countries where they don't even know who Jesus is. They've never heard the name. And if they have, there's no presence whatsoever of the church. And so the vision was to send

100 people to crazy places where it's not even safe to talk about Jesus. In the back of my mind, I thought, that's crazy. But we kept coming back to that prayer. God, would you do something that's so big that when we look back on it, it's so significant that when we're, you're look back on it. The only possible explanation is that you did it. And so here's what I told the guy. True story before the Lord. I'm telling you, I'm telling you my faith was small if non-existent in the back of my mind. I'm like, that's never going to happen. But I tell him, I'll tell you what, buddy, you organize everything, you get the team together that'll make this happen, and I'll preach on it. So several weeks later, I did a three-week series on going to the nations. And I did a three-week series on going to the nations.

I knew God was up to something. I knew God was up to something because after the third week, after the night that I preached on it on the third week, we held an informational meeting real similar to you guys responding. Jobie, what's the word they're supposed to send me on the text, except I don't think we had phones back this. I don't know. It was a long time ago.

And I think we were like, hey, show up and get information in a room kind of a thing, old school. And I thought maybe 10, 15, 20 people might show up to just get information about going to the nations. And I knew God was up to something because that night after I preached, there were 517 people that showed up to get information. And I was like, all right, God, you're up to something. Most of them were young folks, but it wasn't just young folks. It was retired folks. It were doctors. It was lawyers. Let me show you a video here in a few minutes. It shows you a bunch of them.

And as I stand here today, since we cast that vision 11 years ago, I need to confess to you that God did not fulfill our vision to send a hundred goers. Instead, what God did was blow our vision out of the water. And since that day, since that day that we cast that vision all those years ago from the Austin Stone, we've sent over 300 full-time missionaries for two years to unreached people groups all over the world. You guys go to this church where big things happen all the time. And so you're like, yeah, cool, that's awesome, man, 300 missionaries. You have no idea. That's such a God thing. I mean, there's just a couple of churches in the country.

They're doing anything like that. But it all came back to that prayer. God, would you do something that we can't explain? I just want to, I'm not bragging here. If I'm bragging anything, I'm bragging on God. But I want to show you just how God sort of start. started fulfilling this vision. Again, these are unreached people groups.

In 2018 alone, I'm just going to give you this stats from 2018. And when I saw these the first time, the first time I'd ever really saw like significant stats where somebody slid them on my desk and said, here's what the 100 people network are doing. 2018, they had 16,855 intentional spiritual conversations, 601 Bible studies were started. Here's what it starts getting good.

342 new churches that were planted among the unreached. And over 2,800 people in 2018 alone gave their life to Christ. Guys, that's in one year. Similar stuff happened in 2019, and that didn't even count the other 10 of the church. And again, when I read those statistics, I came back to that prayer. God, would you do something so big that we? When we look back on it, the only explanation is that you did it. I just think God loves that kind of prayer.

I do. I think God loves it when we say, hey, God, would you just show off? Would you just do your thing? And we're going to get out of the way, God. You just do your thing. What if it happened here? What if y'all started praying crazy prayers? What could God do?

And so that brings us to a question tonight. It's a question that I'd like for every single person in this room to answer this week. And here's the question. How does God want to use you? How does God want to use you? How does God want to use the short time you have left for his glory in the fulfilling of the Great Commission?

I want to give you one quick verse, one quick verse tonight that just help you get your mind around how God might want to use you. And don't turn there out. I just want you to watch, Ephesians 320. It's a verse we've heard at 1,000. thousand times. Paul says this. He says, now to him, now to him who is able. And so Paul is saying that God is able to do stuff. He's like, hey, put your seatbelt on because I want you to know something about God. He's able to do some things. What is God able to do? It says, now to him

who is able to do far more abundantly. That's crazy in the original language. Paul doesn't say, hey, God's able to do stuff that's more abundantly than you can think of. He says, God is able to do far more abundantly. It's some crazy phrase in the Greek that's like, God's huge and he can do awesome stuff. He says, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we can ask. So I want you to think about this. if you could ask the Lord to use you for anything, what would it be? If you could say, God, use me for your glory in my time left on this planet.

And you could ask him for anything. What would you ask him? The scripture just said that he is able to do far more abundantly than anything you could ask for. He keeps going. He says, not a him who's able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think. Paul says, whatever you can imagine. God using you for for his glory. He's able to do far more abundantly than anything you can even think of.

Check this out. How's it going to do it? Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we can ask or think according to the power that is at work in Jobi. Not to him who's able to do exceedingly abundantly more than all that we can ask or think of according to the power that's at work in J.D. Greer or Bishop or David Platt or Matt Chandler. No. He says, now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than anything we can ask or think according to the power that's at work in

everybody say that at work in at us and you and you. What that just said is that you have inside of you the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Have you ever thought about that? You have right now sitting in that chair or sitting in your home, you have inside of you the power that raise Jesus Christ from the grave it is in you.

So in light of that reality, let me ask you one more time. That's a question whether you're young or old, whether you're rich or poor, whether you're male or female, whether you're married or single. I hope every single person in this room will answer this question

in light of the reality that you have inside of you the power of the resurrection and light of the fact that God is able to do far more abundantly than anything you can ask or think, how does God want to use you? And the short time you have left on this planet for the fulfilling of the Great Commission. Now listen carefully to what I'm about to say, church. Not all of you are called to go to an unreached people group. Some of you are. Some of you in this room right now, you don't even know. You don't even know. yet you're going you wait and see am i right joby they're going but not everybody is called but make no mistake and i'll say it again every single person that claims the name is christ is called to help in some way

to fulfill the great commission the bible simply does not create or talk about a scenario where it's okay for a christian to spend their lives coming to church and listening to sermons and singing songs but never getting in the fight it just never never says that. That's okay. One more, sorry about the Spurgeon quote. Let me give one more Spurgeon quote here. Pastor Spurgeon, he said,

if I never won souls, I would sigh until I did. I would break my heart over them if I could not break theirs. Now listen to this statement. He says, though I can understand the possibility of an earnest sower, never reaping a harvest of souls, I simply cannot fathom the possibility of a sower being content not to reap. Pastor Spurgeon said,

I can't imagine a scenario where a Christian would be content not to want to see souls one for the glory of God. And guys, here's the thing. And I want you to remember this today. In order for the great commission to be fulfilled in our lifetime,

which would be amazing if that happens, I don't know if it will, but God's big. Do exceedingly abundantly more than we can. ask or think, I honestly don't think we need more preachers. When I mean preachers, I mean like guys like me and Jobi. I don't think we need more megachurch pastor type guys. There's more megachurches right now. Did you know this? There's more megachurches right now in the United States than any time in the history of America and there are less people per capita going to church

in the United States than any time in the history of America. I don't really think the megachurches great, but I don't think that's really what we need in order to reach the nations. I don't think we need more programs. I don't think we need better worship leaders. I'm convinced that if we want to see our generation make a significant debt in this thing called the Great Commission that what we need is just every day normal, common people that realize they have inside of them the power of the resurrection and they raise their hand and say, Lord, here I am. Here I am. Send me to my neighborhood. I'm in. God, here I am. Send me to my workplace. God, here I am. I'm not talented, God. I'm not a great speaker. I'm not that smart, but I'm available. God, here I am. Send me. Some of you may be thinking,

well, Matt, I'm just a college kid. I'm just an old retired guy. Not talented enough, not gifted enough, whatever, not smart enough. I want you to remember something again. God doesn't choose smart, talented, and gifted. He chooses available. And he equips those that he calls. It's a true statement. But the thing I want you to remember tonight, because I'm telling you the truth, some of y'all are going. Y'all don't realize that you're going, but regardless of where you go, I want you to never forget the fact that the promise of Jesus Christ is that he says he will go with you. Some of y'all are going to go crazy places. It's okay. You will not go alone. Let me just read this too. We're almost done here. Matthew 2819, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. Baptizing him in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, Jesus said, I am with you even to the end of the age. Did you catch the always part? You will never be alone.

No matter where you go, no matter what you do, if you go in his name, he will always be there with you. You, wherever you go, you will go in the power and the presence of the living God of the universe. And I'll end with this today. The book of Revelation paints a picture of a day that's coming. Paints a picture of a day that's coming when everything is said and done and every tribe and every tongue and every nation is gathered around the throne of God and you'll be there. I actually want you to do this. I want you to imagine real quick for like three seconds. I want you to imagine what that's going to look like,

every tribe, every tongue, every nation around the throne of God. And there in front of you is the Lord. The king of kings and the Lord of Lords and Jesus at his right hand and, like, the Lord, God, he's there. And all the nations are gathered around the throne. And over to your right, imagine this. There's several thousand Persians from Iran. And right there in front of you, several thousand from the, peachy and Papavo tribe of Amazon. And over to your left, there's this huge group of the

Dolgan people from Russia. And all around you are all these people, thousands and thousands and millions of people from crazy places you've never even heard of in your life. I want to tell you what the worst possible scenario is on that day. The worst possible scenario on the day is you're not there that you never trusted in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. That's the worst possible scenario. but there is another scenario second worse only to that is that you're standing around the throne that day seeing faces from every tribe tongue and nation worshiping the king of kings and the lord of lords and as you stand there it hits you that you had nothing to do with it can you imagine that standing there on on that day of days basking in the glory of almighty god and it hit you that you were too busy

you were too busy spending the best years of your life building your social media platforms and climbing the corporate ladder and spending your weekends at the lake instead of getting in the fight which at the end of the day is the only fight that matters. I'm going to end the day. I want to show you a quick video. It's just a couple minutes long. It's a video that we showed to celebrate the day that the hundredth person at the Austin Stone signed up. And man, we parted. Show this to you real quick. At the Austin Stone, we talk a lot about being on mission. We believe we're joining God's plan for redeeming this city. And we believe we're being sent by God as missionaries here. We also believe that we're being sent to the nations where there's little

to no presence of the gospel at all. So in the fall of 2009, we asked everyday ordinary people from the Austin Stone to step up to a great task to go and participate in God's mission to renew and redeem unreached people groups, to go to people from every tribe, tongue, and nation who have never heard the good news of Jesus Christ, to go in order to be obedient to the Great Commission, to go to the ends of the earth at great risk to their comfort, their security, and even their lives. Teams of goers, senders, and mobilizers are all taking part in what God is doing at the Austin Stone and around the world. We prayed and ask to send 100 people from our church to go.

And God answered our prayers. Hi, I'm Max. I'm Ronnie Busch. My name is Brianna. My name's Molly. We're the Albright's. I'm Paul. And I'm Jeanette.

Fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, teachers, artists, college students. And people from all walks of life woke up to the daunting reality of leaving all that was familiar, all it was known and are joining God's mission to make disciples of all nations. And we're going to be serving the people of Central Asia. We're going to serve the people of South Asia. I'm going to serve the people of Southeast Asia.

I'm going to serve the people of Southeast Asia. The people of the Middle East. We're going to South Asia. I'm going to serve the people of Central Asia for two years. For two years. For an indefinite amount of time. And I'm number two. We're in numbers five and six.

10 and 11. 28 and 29. 35 and 36. 63 and 64. I'm number 100 of the 100 people. Will you join me? Will you join me? Will you come join us? Will you join us? Will you join us? Will you join us? What number are you? I'd like to tell you that it's been easy. That it's this glorious thing where you go and people just fall on their knees and worship Jesus. Some of that's happened. But there's also people that you just saw on the video that have given their lives for Christ on the mission field.

But I promise you that every one of them would tell you this. They'd tell you Jesus is worth it. If there's ever been one, he's worth it. So 1122, what number are you? Father, I pray that when we get to heaven, that we would look back on this week and realize that literally millions of people are there because of what happened during these days.

because people raised their hands, shaking hand to the sky and said, Lord, here I am, and me. God, I pray that you would speak clearly to those that are called to go, that you would speak clearly to those that are called to stay, but to support those that go. And that you would speak clearly, Lord, that none of us are called to stand on the sidelines. Father, we love you.

God, we praise you. forward to the day when we stand around your throne and see that you did far more abundantly than anything we could ask or imagine according to the power at work in us to you be the glory in the church forever and forever.