Don't Neglect Your Mission!
Let's Pray...
Okay, tonight we will finish the Don't Be a Fool series and I am not starting in Proverbs tonight, I am starting in a familiar passage from Psalms 51:1-15. We've read through this at least 4 times in the last year and I'm going to take you back to this at least as often as you hear John 3:16. There is so much clarity here, let's just go through it. (Read, then unpack 1-2; 13-15)
That's what I want to press into tonight. I want to push you – YOU – to realize that biblically you were not simply saved FROM your sins and the punishment for those sins. No you were not ONLY saved FROM that; you were also saved TO serve God, specifically on mission to carry the Good News – the Gospel to the lost locally and globally. And not only that, not only to make converts to Christianity, though that is key. You and I are commanded by Jesus to make disciples.
So the message is Don't Be A Fool: Don't Neglect THE Mission. Let's turn to Jesus now and see where we are going...
Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV)
We know this passage. We can recite this passage. But are you LIVING this passage? Honestly, to ALL THE NATIONS?
Jesus, who died for you and me, Jesus who has complete authority over EVERYTHING in the Universe, including the ocean tides and the rotation of the earth and the path of comets through space and the functioning of the our hearts and lungs and minds to keep us alive – THAT JESUS was very clear. He didn't stutter, He didn't say if you feel like it, HE said, John, Peter, Bart, Thomas, Ryan, Mike, Ken, Andrea – ALL OF YOU, Go and make disciples!
That's why He came down from Heaven; to begin the movement with that rag tag bunch of disciples in a backwoods part of the world, he said I've started it and now I'm going up to the Father and I'm giving the gift – giving the MISSION - of Kingdom building to you.
Jesus said, I'm starting local, and you and I are going to take it global, we are going to take it to the Nations! The Nations doesn't mean this country and that country, it means every people group. EVERY people group.
Just looking around here in Madison, Hanover, Jefferson County and Indiana, we've got hundreds of people groups: including the jocks and preps and geeks and Emo kids and teachers and cooks and janitors and administrators in the schools and to the haughty-doughty rich folks and the down-and-out cast aways in the city and to the farmers in the country and the racists and the bigots, and the drunks and the addicts and the homosexuals and the adulterers and the captains of industry and the community leaders and the jailers and the prisoners and the countless unsaved church-folk, and the republicans and the democrats and the libertarians and the unaffiliated and the animal lovers and the animal abusers and the child abusers and the spouse abusers and the sick and the dying and the old folks in the nursing homes and it goes on and on and on.
All the Nations means all the people. We, YOU and ME are called out of our sin and called out of our path to Hell and we are saved into the family of God by the grace of God SO THAT we could show others the way to the path by sharing the good news, Amen?
And while there have been major blips on the radar where growth has been ridiculously fast and hard to track, it all comes down to someone SPEAKING the Gospel and lost people being saved through hearing and believing in Christ.
Now, we're going to jump around to some different passages in the Bible. This collection of 66 books in one binding is where we find God's perfect will for you and me and His people.
You want to know God's will for your life? It is SO much BIGGER than what house you buy, what college you go to, where you work or even who you marry. All of that falls into this: How can you glorify Him most?
For some of you it MIGHT mean a fairly “normal” life with a 9-5 job, 2 and a half kids and a dog. That might be God's will for you.
But some of you might spend 70 percent of your time in a tour bus.
And some of you are going to see the meaninglessness of all the stuff you've accumulated and the dissatisfaction of all the things that you've pursued in the past and you're going to declare- maybe this week – maybe TONIGHT – you are going to declare that you will not waste another moment on you and that you are going to pursue full time ministry, as an oversees missionary, or as a soup kitchen administrator or something else.
Now that was a little rant of where you are going and who you are going to. But again, getting people saved is not the end all and be all of the Mission any more than giving birth is the end of your duty as a parent. That's the beginning.
In Matthew 28, Jesus is talking to His disciples and He doesn't tell them, go and get them to say a sinners prayer for salvation or fill out a card or come to an altar, No! He says Go and make disciples.
To understand that we need a working definition of disciple. What is a Disciple?
Matthew 10:24-25a (ESV)
A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for a disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like the master.
We are to teach people to be like our teacher, like our master (or Lord), we are called to teach people through the Word and the leading and enablement of the Holy Spirit to be like Christ, and not the world.
Now, you can't do that, you can't give away something that you aren't. So first YOU have to be a disciple.
When life comes up against you – whether that means a deadbeat husband, or a misunderstanding wife or a string of bad health or losing your job, or family – you know just family being family – or whatever else, YOU are to respond like your master, like your teacher, like your divine and perfect example.
YOU respond like Christ. That is what it is to be a disciple. Back in the day, the way you could tell what rabbi a disciple followed, was by listening to the way they talked, and taught and watching how they acted.
It's like my son is physically recognizable as my son because of his facial features. That is similar to how a disciple is known to be with a rabbi. And more importantly, that is how we are to be recognized as followers of Christ.
To be a disciple maker you have to be a disciple.
Now some of you might write this message off right here and now and say, “Well, I can't do it because I keep messing up.”
If you say that I'd say you haven't read your Bible. You see, in the church we sometimes like to put the disciples up on a pedestal. You go down to one of the churches here in town and look to the ceiling and what do you see, the names of the Gospel writers and they have pictures painted next to each name of lions and other mighty animals and next to each name it says “Saint” and so we look to the first Christians and say, well I can't be like them they're mighty saints, I'm a fumbling failure who falls into the same sin over and again.
But, if you read this for yourself, just read through the gospels and the book of acts to start, and you will see God using a bunch of morons and sinners to push His kingdom forward.
Then, even if you want to self-deprecate and call yourself a failure, a moron or a rotten sinner, I'm not going to coddle you, I'm going to say awesome, that's the same type of people I want you to reach with the Gospel.
Let me ask you this, how many times will preachers have to remind us that all of history all of creation, all of the Bible and all of your life is about Jesus before we believe it?
I had to ask myself this question in the mirror this week, “Ken, how many times do you need to be reminded that this is not about you? Ken, I said to myself in the mirror, you are a piece of the puzzle, it is so awesome that God is letting you be a part of the big picture of redemption and reconciliation of the world. Ken, get over yourself and get back on mission.”
Like I tell myself, Jesus didn't give you an out because you don't feel adequate. He said, YOU! GO and God's strength will be seen in your weakness.
And here's the other deal. We had a major hurt in our family this week. We thought that we were going to be able to bring Monica's cousin into our family and it fell through literally less than a day before she was supposed to bring her home from Iowa.
Now, we had prepared our home and our hearts and we had made all the arrangements and we were expecting this blessing. And for reasons we may not know on this side of Heaven, God has chosen for this not to happen. At least not yet.
So, on Saturday night, I'm trying to prepare this sermon and get ready to preach a different sermon at Kent Baptist Church that Sunday.
But all I wanted to do was stew in self-pity and anger toward the other people involved in the process and on and on and poor little Ken, right.
But, God didn't say, Go and make disciples when you are feeling okay and everyone is following your plan and life makes sense. No, He said go and Make disciples and by the way, He also said over and over that if we carry out this mission, we are going to be persecuted for the faith we are proclaiming.
That hardship above and beyond the trials of the workaday, non-Christians of this world.
Through the trials, we push on in the mission to go to all the world and make disciples.
So, how do we do it? How do we make disciples?
We baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and we teach them to obey all that Jesus commanded.
First let's look at Baptism.
In Acts 8, as soon as Philip explained Christ to the Ethiopian and the man believed, he right away found some water and asked Phil to baptize him.
In Acts 10 the gentiles began showing evidence of their faith and because of their faith Peter was like, let's get some water, God is with them so let's go. And Cornelius and his crew were baptized.
And later as soon as Lydia and the jailer in Acts 16 believed, they were baptized, they went public with their faith.
Now, we could argue all night about baptism, but here's the point, it should be a starting point of your Christian walk. If you believe and can profess your faith, we are going to celebrate that and obey God and baptize you. You don't have to go through a class or jump through any other hoops that the Bible doesn't require. If you are ready to confess that you are a sinner and you are trusting in Jesus alone to save you and you are ready to sell out to His Lordship in your life, then praise God, let's get you in the water.
Again, this is a first crucial step in the mission. YOU as a believer should be walking with people in Gospel intentionality to bring them to faith and then get them to the water, Amen?
But don't stop there. Again, if you have a newborn baby and you just give him a book and best wishes, that kid is going to die. We are told to keep walking with our new believers and discipling them.
This is why the Billy Graham crusades had so many people working behind the scenes. They knew that a lot of new Christian infants were going to be born, or more correctly born again, born of the Spirit, so they wanted to point them into a family, a church that could care for them.
Discipling is a long process. Just think about where you were as a young believer and where you are now. It's a process and even for those of us who have been around for a while, the process is not over.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NIV) says it like this:
(by we Paul is saying those of us who have been born again, those of us who are in Christ)
...we, who with unveiled faces all reflect (better translated contemplate and reflect) the Lord's glory, (We) ARE BEING transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Paul is saying we have had the veil of sin soaked spiritual death removed, we have been made alive in Christ through faith. And we know Scripturally that as we continue to kill the residual sin that hangs on us on this side of eternity, we still don't see God perfectly.
But as we continue to walk in God's light, as we are discipled by the perfect teacher and Lord, Jesus Christ and made more like Him, He will make himself clearer and clearer, in ever increasing glory.
This is a process folks. A beautiful process. And as you and I walk with Him and see him clearer and clearer, it WILL create in us a passion to show others what we have found.
Last week, Andy said that anger is a “whole-body response” that is usually negative, and we are usually so gripped by that anger that we let others know about it .
In the opposite direction, our mission as Christ followers is a whole-life response to the Holy Spirit's work in us to reflect Christ. As we are discipled by the Holy Spirit and by mentors in the church, we will become so gripped by Jesus Christ, that we will be compelled to let others know about it and show them the road that can bring them out of their lostness.
So here we are, in 2010, almost 2,000 years later and the call of Jesus to the first disciples is the call to you and I, the newest wave of the Way of Christ. Go and make disciples, lead them to faith through the proclaiming of the gospel (God made everything perfect, we sinned and broke it and brought on the punishment of death, He promised a savior, Jesus came and redeemed us and paid our sin debt at the cross and has been reconciling His people to himself by faith –through the work of the Holy Spirit ever since.
How? You might be asking, I am praying that you are asking that question right now. I am praying that you are not saying yes, but I've got my own stuff to deal with. I'm praying that you see this Call, this command from Jesus as the Point of your Life from here on out.
Actually if you are still wrapped up in you, I want healing in your life, so that you can get back on mission, but if there is no desire, if there is no prompting of your soul to reach out to the lost because your stuff is so much more important, then let me just drop a quote from a guy who was a lot more bold than me, in a sermon from March 1873, Charles Spurgeon said, “Every Christian is either a missionary or an impostor.”
If you say you love Christ, but do not love your brother, The apostle John wrote, you are a liar.
And if you do love your brother you will do what ever is in your power to share the Gospel, that God uses unto salvation from sin and death and Hell.
Jesus taught it this way, if you see a man beaten and bloody you get down into the mess and you put yourself and your comfort aside to be the good Samaritan who gives the salve that heals. What's the salve? It's the Gospel. The gospel SPOKEN into the lives of the lost.
It is vital that you care for their physical needs as you are able, but never do so without also Speaking the Gospel.
Now, you may have bought into the live the Gospel only teaching and I'm here to say that is bunk.
How important is the Gospel proclamation? Do we
really need to say it, or can we just “live” the Gospel?
I believe that we do need to “live discipleship”, that is the ongoing work of growing the Christian into Christ likeness, but the power TO SAVE, the first piece that everything else spring out from, that power is found in the Gospel proclamation:
In Romans 1:14-17 Paul says it like this:
Romans 10:8b-15
“The word is near you: it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth that “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.” (from Isaiah 28:16) For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile – the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on Him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (from Joel 2:32)
As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.” (from Isaiah 28:16) For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile – the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on Him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (from Joel 2:32)
Now listen, this is key. Once you hear this there is no longer any excuse.
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Brothers and sisters, consider yourselves sent.
Go, tonight tomorrow and for the rest of your life and LIVE ON MISSION!
You will do this badly at first, but, you learn by doing. Start small, start by bringing people to church here next week or to another Gospel saturated church on Sunday.
Or start by taking one nugget of this sermon or your quiet time in the word and starting conversations with the lost people around you. (And assume everyone is lost, as a Christian I am always happy and blessed to hear the gospel again outside of the church walls).
OR start looking at the biblical pattern of creation, the fall, redemption and restoration and look to the complaints, and worries and praises of your friends and family – all the while listening to how their present circumstances fit into God's story of salvation.
It will be awkward, some people may start to shy away from you, but – in ever increasing glory – you will absolutely begin to feel alive in Christ when you are doing what He has called you to. Just keep pushing to greater things by the power of Christ.
When it gets hard, call me and I'll encourage you and as needed, I'll advise you. But see yourself for who you are: An agent of Christ, on Mission to save sinners like you and me from Hell by the power of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel.
Let's pray...
