Caring Enough to Give Our Best

Lightly Cleaned Transcription

Introduction

Next Sunday is World Mission Sunday. It is a date set aside to receive a special offering for national missions. Danny frames the moment as both practical and pastoral: the church is being asked to care enough to give its best. He also connects that offering to a local act of sending, noting that Lindsay Lane Baptist Church would soon commission Anthony Miller as a church planter in Washington, Missouri.

That setting drives the title of the message: Caring Enough to Give Our Best.

1. Appreciate Your Uniqueness

Working from Acts 13:1, Danny points to the unusual diversity of leaders in the church at Antioch. He notes that the group appears to have included very different ethnic, social, and personal backgrounds, yet they were serving together in one church.

“All of life’s experiences and all the things that make you you, are unique. There’s no one else like you.”

Rather than flattening those differences, Danny treats them as part of God’s design. The church does not become stronger by erasing personality, history, or background. It becomes stronger when those differences are placed in service to Christ.

2. Appreciate Your Differences

Danny follows that first instruction with a second one: difference must not be allowed to turn into division.

“What I mean is this, do not let your differences or uniqueness become divisive or break up the unity of the family.”

He warns that even when believers care about truth, they can let non-essential disagreements fracture the church. If a congregation is going to give its best to the work of missions, it must stay united as a church family despite its uniqueness.

“If we are to give our best to the work of missions or to any of God’s work, then we must stay united as a church family despite our uniqueness.”

3. Serve Your Lord By Serving Others

From Acts 13:2, Danny stresses that the Holy Spirit’s call came while these leaders were already ministering.

“Notice that the Holy Spirit accomplished His work of calling out missionaries to people who were serving the Lord.”

His point is practical: those who want to know God’s heart should begin by serving faithfully where they already are. Service is not a distraction from discernment. It is often the place where discernment becomes clear.

“The Holy Spirit shows us two things in this verse: God has a work to do among the lost. God has chosen servants to do that work.”

4. Exercise Your Gifts Where You Are

Danny returns to the example of Antioch to argue that calling is usually clarified in motion, not in isolation.

“Exercise your gifts where YOU ARE.”

He pushes back against the idea that people must wait for some unusual spiritual experience before doing the work in front of them. These leaders were already teaching, serving, and ministering when the Spirit called Barnabas and Saul into missionary work.

“Folks are looking for some special experience to help them determine what they are supposed to do. These men were prophets and some were teachers. They had special gifts and they were exercising those gifts by serving others.”

The application is direct: if we want to care enough to give our best, we begin by using the gifts, talents, and abilities God has already given us.

5. Support the Work of Missionaries

From Acts 13:3-4, Danny turns from internal church life to the outward work of sending.

“The whole church got involved.”

He emphasizes prayer, fasting, and practical support. Missionaries need more than admiration. They need a church that comes behind them with real backing. Danny explicitly connects that need to World Mission Sunday and to the special offering before the congregation.

The manuscript becomes more fragmentary at this point, but the sermon’s main direction is still clear: Acts 13 shows the gospel moving outward, opposition rising, and God still advancing his mission. Danny uses that missionary movement to press the church toward generous participation in God’s work.

“We are involved in planting a church in Washington. You need to understand that God is doing things there that only He can do.”

Closing Movement

Danny’s appeal is simple and direct. Care enough about the mission of God to give your best. Care enough to stay united. Care enough to serve. Care enough to use your gifts where you are. Care enough to support those God sends.

The sermon stands as both a missions message and a church-life message. A congregation that wants to participate in God’s mission must become the kind of community that can send generously, serve faithfully, and celebrate what only God can do.