John Paton | Jon Payne

In order to make disciples in accordance with the Great Commission, one must first be a disciple. In order to make disciples according to the Great Commission, one must first be a disciple. In order to be a disciple, one must be soundly converted by the Holy Spirit and afterward respond by faith to the sobering words of Our Lord from Matthew chapter 16 and verse 24 and following.

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." This is the clarion call to authentic Christian discipleship, the kind of Christ-centered discipleship that molds and shapes believers into serious disciple-makers and to Christians who, in one way or another, are willing to be living sacrifices for the sake of Christ, to give their all for Him, to give their all for the sake of the gospel and the spread of the gospel to the nations.

Discipleship, of course, is not easy. It was never meant to be. Discipleship is neither easy nor safe, but there is no greater privilege, no greater honor, no greater joy, and no greater adventure than following Jesus Christ and obeying His mission mandate. What an adventure we have before us! What opportunities we have before us as God's people to be light, to be salt, to share this good news with our friends and our family and our neighbors, to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. What a wonderful opportunity and adventure is before us!

Even as we were singing, "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah," what popped into my mind was this old movie I watched. I can't even remember who the missionary was, but there was this missionary walking along in this new territory, and tribesmen were gathering in the bushes, and he was singing, "Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah, guide me through as a pilgrim in this barren land."

Throughout church history, of course, there are luminaries who have exemplified this life of earnest discipleship, men and women who have modeled a sincere love for the lost and a passion to reach out to them. John G. Payton, our subject for this afternoon, is one of those godly luminaries. If you're not familiar with his life and ministry, you are in for a treat. Of course, for many of you, John Payton, missionary to the New Hebrides Islands, is a familiar figure. Perhaps you've read his famous and deeply engaging autobiography. Maybe you've read his wife Margaret's interesting letters, which I mentioned a moment ago. Perhaps you've learned about him in Sunday school as a child. Whatever the case may be, we can all gain from hearing about great men like this, this extraordinary missionary, this remarkable disciple of Jesus Christ, who was willing to risk all to take the precious gospel of grace to the cannibalistic tribes of the South Seas. Spurgeon called him the "King of the Cannibals." One biographer rightly asserts that, "Missionaries like Payton need to be heard afresh. Our slumbering congregations, devoid of zeal and passion, need heroes with his kind of evangelistic pluck." Isn't this true? Don't we need the great cloud of witnesses to spur us on to greater faithfulness in mission? Indeed, we do.

John G. Payton was born in the southwest of Scotland, near Dumfries, in the spring of 1824. He was the eldest of 11 children and was raised in a home devoted to confessional Presbyterianism. His family was even known to have direct ties to the 17th-century Covenanters. The Paytons were a relatively poor family, his father, James, being a weaver who made socks for their village wool socks. But while Payton's family was poor in worldly riches, they were abounding in spiritual riches. They lived by faith and thus believed that to have all things but not to have Christ is to really have nothing at all, and to have nothing at all and to have Christ is really to have everything. Wasn't it King David who expressed, "Whom have I in heaven but you, O Lord? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you"? (Psalm 73:25). This was the heartbeat of the Payton family home.

Their family walked no less than four miles to church every Lord's Day. We complain about the traffic on the way to church in our 15-minute drive, right? Four-mile walk to church every Lord's Day. Though their frail mother was often unable to come, John Payton later wrote that, "Each of us, from very early days, considered it no penalty but a great joy to go with our father to the church. The four miles were a treat to our young spirits." This commitment to Lord's Day worship was in tandem with a devotion to family piety in their home. Indeed, John Payton's father was earnestly committed to leading family worship at the beginning and end of every day. Theirs was not just a Sunday religion. James Payton would lead his wife and children daily by reading the scriptures, catechizing them from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, praying, and singing the Psalms.

This is the testimony of John Payton as he reflects on these years: "When on his knees, and all of us kneeling around him in family worship, he poured out his whole soul with tears for the conversion of the heathen world to the service of Jesus, and for every personal and domestic need. We all felt that we were in the presence of the living Savior and learned to know and love Him as our divine friend. As we rose from our knees, I used to look at the light on my father's face and wish I were like him in spirit." What a precious, precious gift it is to every family when their father will open up the scriptures and read the word of God and introduce Christ to his children and pray with them and pray for them. Some here will have children who have been raised in such a home and have walked away from the church. Let us pray that those prayers they heard their entire lives would haunt them in the best way possible and bring them back home.

Well, later John wrote that neither he nor his siblings could remember a day when their father did not lead their family in this way. He was extraordinarily consistent. And a lesson we learn here, isn't it, is that where a heart for Christ is nurtured and cultivated through faithful attendance unto the means of grace every Lord's Day, and coming to the family altar daily with sincere Bible reading and catechizing and singing and prayer, we raise and nurture our children to have the kind of heart that Payton had. You see, we confuse our children, I believe, when we only give attention to God's word one day a week. Our children are confused, and we say, "We love God. He's the most important person in our lives. He is. He is our life and salvation. Our greatest joy is in Him." But we're only going to think about Him and talk about Him and sing to Him and pray to Him one day a week.

Family worship was a staple in the Reformed community, and it's something that's been lost on us in our modern day. We must recover. We see a wonderful example of this in the Payton home. We need to recover these practices today. Sabbath observance. The first sermon in this church, in All Saints, when it was first opened back a couple centuries ago, it was on the Sabbath day, "Sanctify the Sabbath," and we need to recover the Sabbath observance as well as family worship. It was Samuel Davies, the great American pastor, colonial pastor, who said, "Consider family religion not merely as a duty imposed by authority, but as your greatest privilege granted by divine grace."

Well, in his early years, Payton attended school and was a diligent and gifted student. But due to the nature of his large family and the needs that attended it, he began to work with his father at about the age of 12, often working from six in the morning until 10 at night. During breaks and free time, however, he would read and study, and it was during this time he began to study the classical languages, and he studied the word of God, and he really began to reveal a heart for Christian mission. One biographer explains that, "Missionary service was no boyish dream for Payton," and that, "When a government official guaranteed him a promotion and special training if he would simply sign a seven-year contract, Payton refused." The agent was irate. "Will you refuse an offer that many gentlemen's sons would be proud of?" Payton replied, "My life is given to another Master, to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want to prepare as soon as possible for His service in the proclamation of the gospel."

Those of you that are called to gospel ministry, perhaps that are studying here at the seminary or in another theological institution, there will be things that will come that will look very inviting to draw you away from the calling the Lord has placed on your life. You must be ready to refuse. You must be ready to refuse. And to make a fifth of the money you would make somewhere else and to be involved in gospel ministry, if that is your calling, is the greatest blessing. Just a teenager, and already Payton's heart was set like flint towards the Lord and towards serving Him in some special way. And if I can have a quick word with all of the teenagers here, it's wonderful to see all the young people here. It's never too early to begin a serious walk with God. Josiah, when he brought about his great reforms, was only 16 years old. We want to encourage all of our young people to think about and to pray about how the Lord might use you in the future, maybe on the mission field.

Well, over the next several years, Payton would hold different jobs to earn money. He distributed gospel tracts for our congregation in Glasgow. He taught school to young children, and at one point, he led classes for older students after they completed their day's work at the mills. He did it all with a sincere heart for the Lord and a desire for future ministry. In his 20s, Payton went to work for the Glasgow City Mission. His work included home visitation and street evangelism, and leading a Bible study and a prayer meeting and doing other ministry tasks. He worked in and among the slums, pointing people over and over and over to the saving work of Jesus Christ. And it was during this decade of work in Glasgow that he grew to have a deep, deep love for people and a heart to reach them with the gospel. His own words, his single purpose during those years was to, "Become qualified as a preacher of the gospel of Christ, to be owned and used by Him for the salvation of perishing men."

It was in the years between 1847 and 1856 that he attended the University of Glasgow, as well as the Reformed Presbyterian Divinity Hall and some medical classes at a local college. Like a soldier, he was preparing for the spiritual battle of foreign mission. During the same period, in 1846, there were missionaries named John and Charlotte Getty, with their two children, who left Halifax, Nova Scotia, to go to the New Hebrides Islands and to bring the gospel, to do pioneering work among these tribes. The New Hebrides, now Vanuatu, are constituted of approximately 80 small islands just east of Australia. Not only were the tribes uncivilized and unreached on these islands, they were also known to be cannibalistic. Indeed, they not only killed those whom they saw as a threat, but they cooked them and they ate them.

The Gettys began their work on the island of Aneityum, an island where there were four thousand people, a people who were more welcoming than in many of the other islands and tribes around them. They began evangelizing, holding worship services, creating a written language, and then translating the Bible into that written language. And the Lord was doing great things through the Gettys and other missionaries laboring with them in that region. And word got back to Payton, and Payton then knew where he wanted to go. This is where the Lord was leading him. He later wrote this: "I saw them perishing for lack of the knowledge of the true God and His Son Jesus, while my green street people in Glasgow had the open Bible and all the means of grace within easy reach, which, if they rejected, they did so willfully and at their own peril." Payton had the godly ambition of the Apostle Paul, who wanted to take the gospel to the unreached, to take the gospel where the gospel had not yet been preached. And there were islands and tribes in the New Hebrides which had yet to be evangelized.

Now, when Payton began to make his desire known to go to the New Hebrides, many in the church discouraged him. "You've heard this story over and over with other missionaries as well. What about your successful work in the Glasgow Mission?" they asked him. "Why would you leave it when God is blessing it so? And will you just leave all these families that you've been ministering to? Don't they have needs? Aren't there needs here in Scotland too?" And predictably, they warned him of the peril that he would face. In fact, one of them, a Mr. Dixon, declared to Payton, "The cannibals! You will be eaten by the cannibals!" And Payton's response is memorable: "Mr. Dixon, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms. I confess to you, if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I'm eaten by cannibals or worms, and in the great day, my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our Risen Redeemer."

Here we see the heart of a genuine disciple on display, don't we? A heart again that joyfully heeds the word of Christ: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

Well, it was in December of 1857 that Payton was licensed to preach by his Presbytery, and for the next several months, he visited churches and raised support. He was later ordained, and in the following year, in the spring of 1858, not long before his 34th birthday, John Payton, with his young wife, was ready to embark on their journey to the South Pacific. But not before saying goodbye to the family. One of the most touching and powerful scenes in Payton's autobiography is the scene of him leaving the father whom he loved so dearly and his family, but particularly his father. Remember, he was the oldest of 11 children. He would have had great responsibility within his home. He would have looked to his father not just for spiritual leadership, but in every kind of leadership. And he explains what happened when he finally knew it was time to say goodbye.

I want to read this scene in full. These are the words of Payton: "It was hard to leave the happy home, but at length the day of separation arrived. It was about 40 miles to Kilmarnock, where he would take a train to Glasgow. The journey to Kilmarnock had to be taken on foot because he could not afford to travel by stagecoach. All his possessions were tied up in a large handkerchief, but he did not think of himself as poverty-stricken, for he had with him his Bible and his Lord. His father walked with him the first six miles. The old man's councils and tears and heavenly conversation on that parting journey were never forgotten by Payton. Payton and his father lapsed into silence. The father carried his hat in his hand, and his long yellow locks fell over his shoulders, while hot tears flowed freely and silent prayers ascended. Having reached the appointed parting place, they clasped hands, and the father said with deep emotion, 'God bless you, my son. Your Father's God prosper you and keep you from all evil.' Unable to say more, his lips kept moving in silent prayer, and tears. They embraced and parted. Continuing down the road past a curve, John climbed the dike for a last look and saw that his father had also climbed the dike, hoping for one more glimpse of his boy. The old patriarch looked in vain, for his eyes were dim, then climbed down and started for home, his head still bared, and his heart offered up fervent supplications."

"I watched through blinding tears," says the son in his autobiography, "till his form faded from my gaze, and then, hastening on my way, vowed deeply and oft, by the help of God, to live and act so as never to grieve or dishonor such a father and mother as He had given to me." What is extraordinary here is not just the deep love and respect that Payton had for his father and the difficulty it was to leave him, but how difficult it must have been for the father to say goodbye to his son. It's extraordinary. It's extraordinary when we see parents sending off their children onto the mission field because you know that they are putting Christ even before their children, which is something that is a very difficult thing to do.

Now, my congregants and my church, they know that John Payton and church picnics don't go together very well. I'm always forever getting injured at church picnics. I tore a calf muscle a couple of years ago at a church picnic. I had a terrible muscle pull at a church picnic. But it was several years ago that I was walking with my son, who was, I think, three years old at the time, and there were some kids playing down on a creek, and I said, "Hans, do you want to go play with the other kids?" He said, "Yes, sir, I would love to." And so we began walking down this slope, and I slipped, and Hans flew out of my hand, out of my arms, and I tried to catch him. We were both head over heels, and we both hit this granite cement, and Hans was knocked out, and my face broke open with blood everywhere, and my wife was screaming from the top of the hill, and it was just a horrible, horrible incident. Finally, we got the ambulance was called, we rushed to the hospital, and my son is getting checked out. He has hit his head very hard on this granite rock. He didn't say a word all the way to the hospital, just groans, was half conscious. And I remember sitting in the hallway, blood all over me, crying out to God, "Save my son, save my son, O Lord!" knowing that it may be the Lord's providence to take him, or that he might have brain damage or something. And I just, God, please, please! I was weeping and crying out to Him. And finally, went into, later, a couple of hours later, I went in. The doctors invited us in, and I was standing there. The doctor said, "You know, he's going to be okay." And they gave him some medicine, and Hans said, "I don't like it." And they were the most beautiful words I ever heard. And I remember praying, I said, "May I pray and give thanks to God?" There were all these doctors in there, and they said, "Sure." And I so I prayed. And it just dawned upon me so powerfully: here I was crying out that God would save and protect my son, but God the Father was pleased to crush His Son in our place. The giving of a son by a father for the sake of mission is reflective of our Father giving His Son in mission. This is a very powerful and moving scene that we have here in Payton's life and reminds us that Christ and His mission come first.

God will call us to all different kinds of vocations, and few in a room this size will be called to such a radical kind of calling as going to the New Hebrides Islands. But we all have callings. We all have vocations, and we all must put Christ and His mission first and not make idols out of our families or our children. It's when we love God first that our children will most be blessed in our homes.

It was time to go, and as one biographer explains it, behind them was a homeland of lochs and glens, and before them was an island of spears and blood. The Pattons, along with a couple of other missionary families, finally arrived on the island of Tanna. Initially being well received. Now, contrary to the foolish notions of those who believe that people are inherently innocent and that we should just leave them alone, the people on the island of Tanna were deeply depraved and without God in the world. They were described as those who practiced infanticide with baby girls. Sons of a certain age were required to strangle their widowed mothers. There were no widowed mothers amongst these people, and if there were, they were soon to be strangled by their sons. They beat their women into subjection. Young girls were often put in cages, sometimes for years. False gods were worshiped, mainly the creatures were being worshiped, basic elements of creation were being worshiped rather than the one true God. And as I mentioned earlier, they were cannibals. Inter-tribal conflict and revenge killings usually ended with devouring the enemy. These Islanders needed Jesus. And in Romans chapter 10, we are asked the question rhetorically by Paul, "How will they hear without a preacher?"

And so Payton takes up his ministry, and it didn't take long for great loss to enter the picture. Only after three months of landing on the island of Tanna, John Payton's young wife, Marianne, died of malaria, and just three weeks later, their baby died. He buried them himself and was stricken with tremendous grief, but he labored on. He trusted in the Lord through his suffering. It is extraordinary that while some urged him to go back and to rest, to take time after the death of his wife and his child, he said, "No, I want to stay. I want to continue laboring on. These people need Christ." What courage it took to endure! You see, one writer put it this way, that Payton embodies the Pauline spirit: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; struck down, but not destroyed." When we recognize that this life is but a blip, a breath in comparison to eternity, we begin to think about these things rightly, don't we? Payton certainly lived by faith and with his eyes set on eternity.

Over the next four years, Payton endured much suffering and hardship, brushing against death time and time again. Of course, we don't have time to talk about all these extraordinary stories, but I encourage you to go to his autobiography. He began translating the Bible into the language of the people. He preached the word of God, and he established six mission stations filled with converted cannibals from Aneityum. The progress among the people of Tanna, however, was extremely slow, but the Lord was at work. And as a matter of fact, Payton saw almost no fruit from his time on Tanna, his four years there, but the seeds were being planted for a later time.

Peyton spent the next four years as a kind of missionary statesman, tirelessly raising money and sharing his story and recruiting missionaries from all over the Western world. He raised money for ships that would be able to transport people and supplies to the various islands, and he remarried in 1864. Margaret Whitecross became his bride. You can read her letters, as we mentioned earlier. They were married for over 40 years. Two years after they were married, they moved to the New Hebrides, this time to the island of Aniwa. They labored there for 15 years and saw, unlike Tanna, they saw much fruit in evangelism and the planting of biblical churches. You see, it's in times where there is little or no fruit, and in times where there is extraordinary fruit, in both situations, we must trust the Lord. Amen. We must trust the Lord. We must keep doing what God has called us to do because the Lord's word is going forth, and it is accomplishing God's purposes. Sometimes it's for the purpose of judgment, sometimes it's for the purpose of salvation. As it concerns numbers or growth, sometimes it's he wants those people before you to be nourished and strengthened and preached to and discipled, and there may be little growth, but you keep carrying on, and you trust Him. Other times, there's extraordinary growth, and the Lord is sovereign over it all.

And a moving testimony of some of their first converts in Aniwa, Payton wrote the following: "At the moment when I put the bread and wine into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, but now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer's love, I had a foretaste of the joy and glory that well, and it broke my heart to pieces. I shall never taste a deeper bliss till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus."

For the remainder of Payton's life, he served as a missionary statesman, raising awareness for the need for missionaries in the New Hebrides, raising thousands of pounds and American dollars for the needs of the work, and sharing his moving testimony. In a letter from New York in 1893, he wrote, "I am not losing an hour. My audiences range from 300 to 3,000 or more, and a deeper interest is being awakened in foreign missions." And in 1899, at the age of 76, Payton took his third and final missionary tour around the world. Now, get this: he traveled over 44,000 miles, raised over 13,000 pounds, and addressed 820 meetings. The work ethic, the tireless work to recruit missionaries and to raise money and to raise awareness was indefatigable. He was tireless for the cause of world mission.

Now, it has been brought to my attention a wonderful little fact that touches home right here in Newcastle. Mr. Peters, of course, Dan Peter's father's grandfather, so Dan Peter's great-grandfather, was in 1897 during one of John Payton's tours to share about the work and to recruit and to raise money, was having a meeting right here in Newcastle. And he wrote down, Dan Peter's great-grandfather wrote down in his diary, "January 3rd, 1897. Reverend John Payton at Dilston Road this night." Not a whole lot of detail there, but it was his scribbled diary, as I've been told, or he just wrote down different thoughts. But if you would just shake Dan Peter's hand, or Dan Peter's father's hand, then you will, through a series of handshakes over the last 120 years, be shaking John Payton's hand. How fantastic is that? And it's extraordinary, isn't it, to meet people who have had physical contact with and have been ministered to by certain individuals?

I read many years ago a wonderful biography by Elisabeth Elliot called "A Chance to Die." It's about Amy Carmichael. Some of you may have read it, and it set my heart ablaze for India. And so I went and spent a good bit of time in India in the mid-90s. Thought I was called there to be a missionary, and I was up ministering in an orphanage and preaching to the children there. And this orphanage was an orphanage for the children of lepers. You see, they would go into leper colonies, and the children who no longer had not contracted leprosy were brought to these orphanages and raised in the Lord. It was beautiful. One of the house mothers who was there was a granddaughter of a woman who was rescued by Amy Carmichael in the south of India from temple prostitution. Extraordinary the way the Lord works and how He gives us these encouragements along the way.

Well, it was in 1904 that Margaret's life ended, and three years later, the Lord brought her husband, John, home as well, on January 28th, 1907. There are so many more things we could say about his life, so many incredible stories, so many life lessons we can learn. I would urge you to again read his autobiography, read Margaret's letters.

I do want to end by just talking about a couple of applications to our lives as we think about John Payton's life. Number one, he counted and experienced the cost of discipleship and mission. He counted the cost, and he experienced the cost of discipleship and mission. God does not promise us an easy life. He doesn't promise us a clear road. We live in a valley of tears. We heard a wonderful message yesterday about the fact that we're living in that in-between time, between the times, between the now and the not yet. We are no longer in heaven yet. We shouldn't expect to enjoy all the fruits of heaven now. Now we labor as God's redeemed sons and daughters. Now we labor as soldiers with the armor of God upon us. Now we labor knowing we're going to go through difficulties and challenges. We live in a thorny wilderness as we make our way to the promised land. Payton counted this cost, and he experienced it, and he kept going, and he counted it all joy. He counted it all joy. James 1. Even in the midst of the pain and the suffering, he kept his eyes on the Savior, and the Lord supplied him with great grace and strength to persevere. And here's the good news this morning, brethren: the Lord supplies that great grace and that strength to you as well, by the same Spirit that filled Christ and the same Spirit that filled John Payton. And so, perhaps you're feeling discouraged this week. Hopefully not by the messages, but perhaps you came here beat up for various reasons. Maybe you're a pastor, maybe you're in a ministry, maybe you're a missionary, maybe you're just in your job, in your family, you just feel beat up and tired. Well, here's the good news: God's grace is sufficient for you, and His power is made perfect in weakness. This shows up so clearly in the life of John Payton. So don't give up. It's the message of Hebrews. Don't give up. Keep going by the grace of God. Yield to the Spirit. Draw upon His strength. Toil and labor in His energy, as did Paul, as he expressed in Colossians 1. Keep going. This is not a sprint; it's a marathon. Sometimes you feel like you hit the wall. Keep one foot after another. Keep going. Don't stop. Trust the Lord. Trust Him for His grace. Look to Him for joy, and the Lord will supply it in due time and measure.

Secondly, John Payton put God and His call to mission above everything, even comfort and safety. Once again, I'm not going to stand here and say that we're really not serving God unless we all pack it up and move to ministry to cannibals. That would be ridiculous. It's an extraordinary calling that Payton had on his life. But we need to say that, however, as I mentioned earlier, wherever God has called you to, whether it is in full-time ministry or in a secular vocation, God and His call to mission must be above everything. And I spoke yesterday, or whenever it was, a couple of days ago, about how laypeople support the work of mission through prayers, through encouragement, through financial support, through sometimes visiting, through writing letters. These are all ways to get involved and to put God first and His mission above everything. I'm afraid it doesn't even occur to a lot of Christians that there are lost people around them on the tube, or next to them at the restaurant, or wherever. Do we have a consciousness that recognizes that there are people with souls around us who will live either in eternal hell or in eternal heaven? Do we want God glorified in their lives? And so we need to be encouraged to be more brave.

And one Payton biographer writes that, "In a world of diplomacy and emotional sensitivity, the South Seas missionary comes with bare-knuckled bravery. We need men like Payton to put steel in our spines, love in our hearts, and assurance in our minds that there are times to double the shot and shorten the fuse." Urgency, perseverance, love, commitment, devotion—all the things that the world is not focusing on now. We heard it earlier, but we as Christians ought to embrace these marks of true discipleship. So let's pray that God puts steel in our spines and raises up more men and women like James, like James Payton and his wife, and John Payton and his first and second wives, and men and women who are ready to give all for Christ, even life itself, if necessary.

One thing I talk to my wife about often, I think I mentioned it a couple of days ago, is that we always want to hold everything that we have with an open hand. "Lord, I am Yours. I am not my own. I've been bought with a price, with the precious blood of Christ. I came home from a church one Sunday, this is about 15 years ago, in my former congregation, and this is back when we had answering machines. You know, some of you younger kids don't even know what that is. Go look in a museum somewhere. But you get home, you hit the answer machine. We were over at another family for lunch, so we hadn't been home for, you know, a couple hours. So Sunday afternoon, hit the answer machine, and it's one of our church members going hysterical on the other side of the line: 'My house is burning down! My house is burning down, Pastor! My house is burning down!' Why, I immediately called her, and to my great sadness, the house was almost totally gone at that point. It eventually was completely burned to the ground. But to my great joy, I found out immediately that there were five or six deacons from our church already there, praying for her, calling the insurance companies, arranging a place for her and her family to stay. It was beautiful to see the people of God coming around her. But what was most extraordinary is what she said to me on that very day: she said, 'Pastor, my house just burned down, and everything valuable to me was in that home, but really, I have lost nothing because I have Christ, and He can never be taken away from me. And I've really learned that lesson now, and I believe it with all my heart, Pastor.' And it's always stuck with me. We focus so much on the accumulation of wealth and security and comfort, when it's all nothing compared to knowing Christ and being found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that's in accordance with the law, but a righteousness that's found in Christ through faith in Him. 'To live is Christ, and to die is gain.' Do we believe that?"

Sometimes the greatest hindrance to our growth as disciples and our evangelistic witness is our selfish commitment to comfort and our obsession with entertainment and leisure. This is true now more than ever because now more than ever we have it at our fingertips. May we take this lesson from Payton's life and from the lives of all of those cloud of witnesses that call out to us to keep going and to stay focused on the Lord, to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, to not give in to this greater commitment to comfort for ourselves than the glory of Christ.

Thirdly and finally, notice that Payton was committed to church planting and the means of grace. He mentions in that one passage I read about the Lord's Supper. Payton was a Reformed Presbyterian. He was confessional, and he didn't forget that when he went to the islands. And so on this island, when there began to be converts and people were being drawn in, disciples, he planted churches. He preached the word of God. He administered the means of grace, just like the Great Commission commands. And so we see that conviction, and we ought to follow his example.

Well, we began this message from Matthew 16 with a call to discipleship. I'll read it again as we close and as we think about our own lives and how we would support, pray for, encourage, and ourselves be a part of the mission of Christ. We must first be disciples. If we are going to make disciples, and if we're going to be disciples, we must be born again by the Spirit, and we must heed the words of our Savior: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Amen.

Let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for the life of John Payton and for his first wife and his second wife and his parents, and for the missionaries who labored along with them, whose names we will never know, and for all of the thousands of missionaries around the world who will never have a biography or autobiography published about them, but who are faithfully laboring away. We ask, Lord, You'd give us a deeper passion for the Great Commission and for all that it entails, and all that we've learned this week. Help us, by Your grace, Lord, to put it to action, empowered by Your Spirit, walking in humility and love. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.