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Oh God, we do come to
you now and pray that your Spirit would rest upon us as we listen to the
word that is preached. We pray that you help us to hear it and see it
and know it. That it would grab our hearts; what you want to say to us,
may we hear it. We pray, Father, that it would also prepare our hearts
for the communion that will happen in just a little while. Be with us
Lord, we pray. May you be glorified. In Jesus name. Amen
Well, everybody does
want to go to Heaven, because as we have learned over the last few
weeks, life is a preparation for eternity. Life is a preparation for
eternity. When you get to heaven, you are going to do four things that
we have learned about over the last few weeks. We learned about
worship; in Heaven we are going to worship. I do want to say to you
that sometimes we have this belief that we are all going to sit around
on clouds with harps and sing all the time. Well, I don’t think so, but
if you think worship is good now…just wait ‘til then. The second thing
we are going to do, of course, is fellowship. It does say something
about the feast of the kingdom of God…we will eat as we always do, but
the fellowship will be very deep there. We will know each other and
won’t be afraid. The third is discipleship; we are still going to learn
in Heaven because God is infinite, there will always be something to
learn about God, even in Heaven. The fourth is ministering to one
another; we learned about ministering…we will serve one another there.
But, there is a fifth thing which we will not do in Heaven, and that is
the subject of today. The subject of today is mission and evangelism…we
won’t need to do that in Heaven. We won’t need to share in Heaven about
God’s love in the way of telling people who don’t know about it, because
everybody will.
In the verse that we
are going to start with today, Jesus is praying to the Father and he
says, “In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I give
them a mission.” The same mission that Jesus had to tell about the
Father, to tell about God’s love, is our mission. It is the same
thing. Our mission is to be sent. Let’s read this together: “As the
Father has sent me, I am sending you.” That is not just those apostles
back then, not just ministers, not just those who are “holy,” it is for
everybody…it is for you and it is for me. Paul will say later that the
most important thing is that I complete my mission; the work that the
Lord, Jesus, gave me to tell the people the good news about God’s
grace….that is our mission. Now, we have come to call that mission –
evangelism. Now the problem with evangelism, or at least the word
evangelism, is that Christians and non-Christians alike don’t like it.
We have become conditioned to believe that the word evangelism has
become associated with those guys with really big hair on the T.V….
“Just send me your money and I’ll see that God blesses ya.” (I could do
a whole sermon like that…it kind of comes natural, actually. When I get
real tired I get real Southern, so you have to forgive me.) But that
isn’t what evangelism is. Do you know what evangelism means?
Evangelism means simply, good news. The word from the Greek means, good
news. It means that what our job is, is to share good news about God’s
love and God’s grace. Where are we supposed to do that? That is our
fifth purpose, by the way, is to share the Good News.
When Jesus had been
raised from the dead and been with his disciples for 40 days and
teaching them and showing them things, he was about to leave again and
he leaves them the following instructions…. “You will be my witnesses in
Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”
Now, if you know anything about the geography of Palestine, you have
Jerusalem which is where they were; then there is Judea, the countryside
around Jerusalem; and then there is Samaria which is just outside of
Judea. In other words, he is saying, “You will be my witnesses at home,
around your community, your state, and your area, and to the ends of the
earth. You will be my witnesses.” He doesn’t say, “You are going to be
my defense attorney.” You know there is some sense in which we do
apologetics. In theology it is called apologetics, as we do defend our
faith at times. But the bottom line is, God doesn’t really need
defense. He doesn’t say, “You are going to be my prosecutor.” In other
words, we aren’t to go out into the world and shake our finger at people
and judge them. Again, that doesn’t mean we don’t stand up for what is
right; we don’t try to make our society better; we don’t stand up
against evil. But Jesus said, “I came into the world not to judge the
world, but to save it.” We also don’t need to be God’s salesman. It
says, we are to be a witness. A witness is just someone who just tells
what they have seen; what they have experienced. I saw this, I
experienced that, and this is what happened. A witness tells what has
happened to them.
I remember when I
became a Christian at age 20. I told you my story, I am not going to go
through it again, but I had a very colorful before Christ life. I was
living in a fraternity that could out-drink the whole campus, and I was
right in the middle of it (I won’t go into details). But when I met
Christ, God took the desire to do all of that away. He doesn’t take
away all of our problems, but in that context, he did take away all of
my desire to do that kind of thing. I was living in this house and not
doing this stuff anymore, and they were going, “What is wrong with
him?” “What is wrong with Chris, he has got religion!” And you know
what? I just had this natural desire to tell people. Now, I was a
little bit of a pain, and I have hopefully gotten rid of that....I don’t
know, maybe I haven’t. But that is the desire – when you know Christ,
you want to tell somebody, because that is about going to Heaven. No
offense to the song earlier, it was a great song, but we don’t get into
Heaven by being nice to people. We get into Heaven by knowing Jesus,
and then He makes us nice. That is what we tell people, we just
witness. Telling people what has happened to us. God has as His
purpose building a family. The whole purpose of history is God is
assembling people to go to Heaven forever. Billions and billions of
people….lots of people. He is assembling a family.
So, how do we become
part of this history, this purpose in God’s plan? The first thing we do
is go back home. A man was healed by Jesus and he was so excited that
he wanted to follow Jesus right then and there. He said, “Can I go with
you?” and Jesus said, “No, go back home and tell them what has happened
to you. Tell them what God has done for you.” So the man went all over
town telling how much Jesus had done for him. You know, sometimes the
hardest place to witness is at home. It is hard to be a prophet in your
own country, but that is where we start…we start in our own households,
in our own neighborhoods, we start in our own community. God says, “I
want you to share the Good News with people first in your Jerusalem…with
people in your house.”
The question is, “Why
don’t we do this?” I think there are several reasons. One is, we don’t
think anyone is interested, or we tend to think, “Everybody I know goes
to church.” Well, to some degree that may be true, but in every single
poll…every single survey in America, says that Americans are very
interested in spiritual things. The same polls, particularly the Gallup
poll, discovered that 65 million Americans do not have a church home,
but 35 million of them said they would attend if someone would just
ask. If someone would just ask. You know, a lot of times in sales,
they tell us that it takes about ten askings to get one “yes.”
Sometimes we feel like, I have asked one person and that’s it. We just
need to ask sometimes; or help others ask, if you will. Sometimes we
don’t appreciate why we are here. Bottom line for many of us, our lives
are about our own fulfillment…our own happiness. Those things aren’t
bad in themselves, don’t hear me say that. But the reason we are here
is to witness.
We heard the song,
“Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven,” you might ask yourselves a question….
“Why are you still here?” Why doesn’t God take you to Heaven the moment
you become a believer? Because that is the best place, after all, to
be. Because God is leading us here, to work for him. We have a mission
– it doesn’t matter how young you are; how old you are…it doesn’t matter
who you are. You have a mission for God. Often we don’t appreciate
God’s love. If someone hadn’t shared the Gospel with you, you would be
lost. You may not even remember someone sharing the Gospel with you;
you may have grown up in church and you just went to Sunday school and
you heard it along the way. You may not even remember when you made
your commitment, and that is okay. But someone shared with you. There
are no second generation Christians. Just because you have been born
into the church doesn’t mean you are a Christian. Somewhere along the
line you have to make a commitment. You may not remember the day or the
hour. A friend of mine used to say that is it like when you fall in
love, you may not remember the day or the hour or the minute but you
are. If someone hadn’t shared with you, you would be lost. So God
wants us to pass it on. I know we are Presbyterians and we think that
everybody is chosen…I believe that. I do believe it. I’d be glad to
have a Sunday school class on it; we’ll talk about it. I get asked
about it all the time. But I also believe that God has a heart for the
lost.
2 Peter….”God does
not want anyone to be lost, but He wants all to change their hearts and
lives.” God is not willing to see anyone perish… “God so loved the
world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever should believe in
Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” The church that doesn’t
want to grow and doesn’t want to reach out basically is saying to the
world, “You can go to Hell.” When we don’t ever share our faith we are
saying to the world, “I’m in and I don’t care about you. Best of
luck.” The real reason I think, in the end, is that we are just not
comfortable with this idea of sharing our faith. We are Presbyterians,
after all. We are just not comfortable with the idea; the modern world
has brainwashed us into thinking, “Who are we to tell someone else that
our faith is better? Are we better than any other people?” Well, I
think we have to say that Jesus is better. We don’t have to say that we
are better, that would be false. I would encourage you not to say
that. But if we believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the
Light, he is better. I don’t know the ways of the world…why we are here
and other people are there…but we are here. I don’t even know who is
going to Hell and who is going to Heaven, all the time. God is the
judge and God is just; so whatever happens to folks who don’t hear about
Christ, God will be just with them. God is loving. But we do know that
people need Christ. People need Jesus.
We must dare to reach
beyond our world, not just our own house, but around us. Someone once
said, “It was a Jew who brought the Gospel to Rome, a Roman who took it
to France, a Frenchman who took it to Scandinavia, a Scotsman who
evangelized Ireland, and an Irishman in turn made the missionary
conquest of Scotland. No people have ever received the Gospel except at
the hands of an alien.” We must reach out to those around us, and we
must dare. It takes courage to witness. It is hard, when you are
sitting on an airplane and you are having a conversation, to bring up
your faith. It is hard to tell your neighbor who may scoff at you. It
is hard to witness sometimes, but we must do that. We must seek to make
contact with people who are outsiders. You know we heard that in the
Bible, insiders and outsiders. The Scriptures are not really saying
that. We think about insiders…we are privileged, we know something, we
have secret knowledge that no one else knows, and you have to go through
a lot of hoops to get into our club. We are insiders because we know
Christ, but we want like crazy for other people to come in. It is kind
of like a circle, people hand-in-hand, and we are always breaking the
circle to bring in another hand to hold. We do that by going out and
being missionaries.
The definition of a
missionary is someone who learns another’s culture, their language, and
who they are, and goes and lives with them. There are people all over
this town, all over this country, who have never heard the name of
Christ. Oh yeah, they have heard about Jesus on television; they see
churches all over the place; and they may have even heard stuff, but
they really don’t know Christ. As a church, we need to think about what
our mission is in this community and personally as well. Real religion
is the kind that passes muster before God, the Father…reach out to the
homeless and loveless, and everyone, really. We must reach out to those
around us. We must care about the whole world.
You know, in my career
as a pastor, I have always heard people say, “There are a lot of folks
around our own place and we need to take care of home first.” Well, I
just said that…we need to take care of those around us first. But, our
vision must be not only in Jerusalem, but in Samaria and the whole
world. One day we are going to stand before God and He is going to
audit our lives and He is going to judge and will ask us what we have
done. The attitude is going to be, “Have you reached out?”
I want to give you a
perspective on missions. Someone once wrote, Ralph Winter, “Americans
give 700 million dollars per year to mission agencies (I am sure more is
given in other ways). However, they pay as much for pet food in just 55
days.” In the end, it is a question of priorities. I gave you a couple
of nickels…I want you to take those out. I also want you take out
whatever change you have in your pockets…now, you don’t have to do this
and please don’t stare at anyone who doesn’t do this. We are not here
to make people feel guilty today. But if you have some change in your
purse or your pocket to add to these two nickels, I want you to take
them out. There is an old saying about not having two nickels to rub
together…well, we have much more than two nickels to rub together. We
not only have a lot financially, we have a lot of time as well. Really,
time use is a matter of priorities…we can do anything we want, and we
have more time than anyone. What I would like you to do, is take your
change and throw it on the floor…go ahead. Those two nickels mean
nothing to you…the change in your pocket means nothing to you…you will
not miss it. Yet, we are going to pick this up and give this money to
the folks in Pakistan. We have given to the tsunami, we have given to
the hurricane, we are going to give this money to whatever mission
agency we can. We might be surprised at how much it is. This change
that you have just given can support a child everyday.
When you go out into
the Mission Fair there are all kinds of things that you can do, you can
be a missionary today. There is Compassion International – they sponsor
children, I think for $25.00 per month – you can be a missionary. There
is stuff out there, you can sign up to do and it will only cost you a
couple hours a month or a week. That hour means nothing to you.
Personally, I burn 15 hours a week on the television…I am ashamed of it,
but I do. It is easy to sit. I know everyone struggles to make a
living and pay their bills. I am not trying to make you feel guilty.
Folks who say that America burns up all the fuel and all that kind of
stuff, I just don’t buy into all of that…there is no sin in being
affluent. But being affluent means we have a responsibility to help
those who aren’t. To reach out to those who don’t know Jesus and we
reach out in missions to better the world, and we should do that, but we
also do it in the name of Christ because we are called to do that. This
change means nothing to you….it is all over the floor…you may remember
doing this, but you won’t miss the money. That little bit of money
could make a big difference in someone’s life. Be a missionary, it
doesn’t take that much. That is what I want to encourage you to do
today…think about what God is calling you to do. What is your mission
in life other than just surviving, paying your bills, and going to work
everyday? What is your mission?
Let us pray.
Father, we thank you
that you have chosen us in Christ and we are yours. We thank you that
we know Jesus. May that knowledge excite us to share Him. May that
knowledge give us a vision for those around us. Help us to pray for
those around us; help us to work for those around us; help to be
missionaries at home, around our community, and all over the world.
Give us the desire to say “Yes” to you. More than anything else, help
us to fulfill your purposes you made us for. Help us to accept this
fifth purpose, our mission, to tell others and to help others. Help us
to use our time. Help us to our finances. Help us to use ourselves for
you. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
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