TGP Distinctives: Mission

I can say for myself, and I hope the same is true for you, as I have grown spiritually over the last few years, and these distinctives have much more meaning to me.

They hold more value in my life than they did before.

I would akin it to having been in a relationship for a long time, and at the beginning, you think you know the other person, but then years down the road, you realize how much more you know them than you did previously.

I agreed with our distinctives before, but now they not only define our church but my life as well.

As wrestle with them, I believe you may find the same to be true for yourself.

We are going to spend the next several weeks going through our six distinctives which are...

Mission

Motivation

Message

Methods

Ministry

Multiplication

We spent the last twenty-three weeks looking at what True Faith is and how it impacts our daily lives.

On the heels of that study and the idea that our faith will reveal itself, God wants us to refocus on who He has called us to be.

If we are unclear on who we are and what we are called to do, we will struggle in fulfilling God’s call.

If we only know what we are supposed to do but not why we will fail to understand the significance.

In the same way, if we understand the why but not the how we will fail to realize the goals that God has for us.

Last week I had two very significant meetings with QuikTrip.

We are completing a fueling center for them in West Monroe and they want us to build some more in Louisiana.

Petron is hesitant because this project hasn’t been the smoothest.

Our struggle isn’t with QT it is with the General Contractor.

A GC is responsible for the coordination of the entire job and hires subcontractors to do some of the work.

For this project, we are a sub.

This difficulty with the GC came up in our meeting with the head of construction for QT.

The example that our foreman gave was that he would ask a question about the plans and the GC would just say, “that’s just how we do it.”

Now, our foreman has been installing fuel systems for over twenty years.

He is very smart and is by far our best installer.

This guy knows his stuff.

As you can imagine, he felt quite disrespected with that answer.

Rather than giving our foreman the why, and just the how, it frustrated him.

He could plainly read the “how” from the plans.

He need to know the why so he could understand the overall scope of what the owner wanted.

I think we see the same kind of thing happen in our churches all the time.

People are asked or strong-armed into doing something, and they don’t understand either the why or how, yet they are supposed to accomplish the task they were assigned.

While it is our goal for this never to happen at TGP, the reality is that it sometimes does.

It happens for various reasons, but by going back through our distinctives, we can all get a refresher on who we are, why we do the things we do or don’t do, and how God has organized us to accomplish His goals.

Are y’all tracking with that?

Our goal in this short study is to understand how God has molded our church and our personal lives to accomplish His goals.

So, today we are going to start by talking about our Mission which is…

Leading people to know God.

Knowing God is our most important distinctive.

If our members don’t know God, the rest of the distinctives won’t matter to them.

I’ve mentioned this before, but all too often, some people regularly attend church and participate in its activities, yet they don’t know God.

What does it mean to “know” God?

We believe that God created man to enjoy a close, personal relationship with Him.

God did not create us to keep a bunch of rules and to focus on “right” living.

He created us to live with Him.

Genesis 3:8 CSB

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

God desires you, not your best behavior.

Even when we do make mistakes, which the Bible calls sin, God still loves us.

Genesis 3:21 CSB

The Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them.

Because God loved Adam and Eve, He still took care of them after they chose to disobey.

However, we still live with the consequences of our sins, but it does not change God’s view of us.

As we remember from the rest of the story, God removed them from the garden, and their relationship with God and the earth changed.

They were separated from God because of their sin, and the only way to fix that problem was for God to make us perfect once again.

The beginning of us knowing God begins with God saving us from our sins.

We know God by experience through salvation.

What is salvation?

John 17:3 CSB

3 This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent—Jesus Christ.

When God created mankind, he created us to live in perfect union with himself and one another.

Unfortunately, Adam and Eve took the free will that God gave them and chose to disobey and run from God.

But God, because He loves us, took it upon Himself to fix the problem that we created.

John 3:14–21 CSB

14 “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 19 This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. 21 But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”

All humans have the same problem, we don’t seek God.

We are all born with an inclination to sin.

Paul testifies to this point in Romans.

Romans 3:9–12 CSB

9 What then? Are we any better off? Not at all! For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin, 10 as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. 11 There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.

God created us to know Him in a personal, joyful relationship.

It is only through a relationship with God that we can enjoy life as it was intended.

But, because we do not seek God, He seeks us and prompts our hearts.

John 6:42–44 CSB

42 They were saying, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered them, “Stop grumbling among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

This is such incredible news!

Not only has God done all the work to save us from our disobedience and sin, but He also draws us to Himself!

We will talk about this more in a minute, but God uses us, His church, to draw people.

The danger we face when talking about our call to lead people to God is that we will feel like it is up to us to bring people into the fold.

We don’t have to go out and make this happen because it is God’s job to draw people in.

In fact, if we press a decision on someone, we are trying to do the Spirit’s job.

While we play a role in the process, we should never feel that the timing is up to us.

Trust God to finish the work He began.

He will draw them in.

Our job in the process is to know God for ourselves so that we can testify to His goodness and love.

We know God by experience through abiding.

If you and I just met and spent a few days together, could you, with integrity, be able to say to others that we know each other well?

Of course not!

We all know that it takes time and experience for us to know one another.

The same is true with God.

Philippians 3:10 AMP

10 [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope]

If God created us to enjoy a close, personal relationship with Himself, what would make us think that just a handful of experiences could accomplish that?

God wants us to know Him deeply, and that happens over time.

So how does a person come to know God deeply? Where do they begin?

You are not the first to ask this question.

In fact, Jesus, when teaching His disciples about what it means to know and be loved by God, said this…

John 15:10 CSB

10 If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

We begin to know God by obeying His commands.

Walking with Him daily, hearing His voice, and obeying what He says.

John 15:1–8 CSB

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

By listening to God and obeying what He says, we learn about who He is, and the natural response is to want to know Him more.

We are drawn to God as we experience Him.

Every time we experience God, we want more.

The people in our lives also see God’s activity, and that draws them to God as well.

1 John 4:12–15 CSB

12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God.

As we live in obedience to God by loving one another, God reveals Himself to us and the world.

His love is made complete in us, and the world gets to see it.

But as John is pointing out in verse 15, part of people seeing it is us telling them about what is happening.

The people in your life will often see God working in your life, but unless you tell them that it is God, they will assume it is good luck, karma, or any other thing that the world can come up with to explain what they don’t understand.

We help others experience God by sharing our stories(testimony) of what God has done in our lives.

Hopefully, all of us are clear on this by now, but for most of my life, I thought it was the minister’s job to tell others about God.

I know I am not alone in that.

As we have seen over the last few years, God has clearly called us to share the gospel with others.

There is no doubt that God calls some to make ministry their vocation, and we see Paul speak of this in his letter to the church in Ephesus.

Ephesians 4:11–16 CSB

11 And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness. 14 Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. 15 But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head—Christ. 16 From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part.

God also makes it clear through the ministry of the early church that all are to share the good news of Jesus.

John even says it in 1 John 4:14-15.

In the past, only the priest had direct access to God.

But now, because of Jesus, all believers have that access, and all are able to talk with God for themselves.

1 Peter 2:9–10 ESV

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

God has delivered us from darkness, and in response, we declare to the world the goodness of God.

We “proclaim the excellencies of Him...”

The word here that is translated as “excellencies” is ἀρετή aretē.

Arete also means virtuous actions.

We are literally telling others of all the amazing things God has done and will do in our lives as we live in obedience.

Let me give you an example.

Craig shared a testimony last week, but he left out part of the story.

So, in the famous words of Paul Harvey, “and now, for the rest of the story.”

Craig ask the couple that he met, who only speak spanish, if they go to church.

The lady tells him, “no, they haven’t found one.”

Craig tells them that he has a friend who is planing a hispanic church.

That is where Craig left off.

The rest of the story is that JJ and Mayra reached out to them.

JJ hired the man to come here and work on the kitchen.

In the process, JJ shares the gospel with him and he gave his life to Christ!

All of this happened because Craig followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

God spoke that he need to tell them about Punto de conxion.

Craig heard, obeyed, and then got to see God do what only God can do.

The man came to faith in Christ because Craig obeyed.

This is not an experience that can only happen to Craig.

God wants all of us to have these same kinds of experiences.

This only happens as we obey God.

We have been called to share what it means to know God progressively and the joy that comes from knowing Him.

We share our stories of God’s love and how it has changed our lives.

1 Peter 4:8–11 CSB

8 Above all, maintain constant love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Be hospitable to one another without complaining. 10 Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God. 11 If anyone speaks, let it be as one who speaks God’s words; if anyone serves, let it be from the strength God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.

We do all this through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Not because we have to but because we can’t help but share.

It is not an obligation, it is a joyful privilege to tell people about the best thing that has ever happened to us.

The same God that loves us and that is active in our lives is available to them.

Several months ago I went to get my oil changed and when I pulled up to the 5 minute oil change on Jackson, David Hill was in front of me.

Now, I had a digital coupon for $15 off.

I got an email from the oil change place and the coupon was on their website.

So what should I do in this situation?

Keep my mouth shut an not give David the info.

Of course not! I sent him a link to the coupon!

I had access to a great deal that literally everyone had access to.

David had the same access, but he didn’t know about it.

So, I told him and then he got to save $15 as well.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

God has made himself available to all of us.

This is the greatest deal in the history of all deals.

Because God loves us, He sacrificed his son to save us from ourselves.

Not only that, but if we will accept that gift, God will not only save us but will walk with us through life.

He will guide our decisions, and we don’t have to stumble through life trying to figure it out on our own!

As we deal with the brokenness of the world and all the heartbreak it brings, we have access to the God of the universe, who can redeem all those horrible experiences.

Our Mission is to lead people to know God by experience.

As you experience God for yourself, obey God by sharing that with others so they can experience both salvation and an abiding relationship for themselves.

Don’t hoard the coupon.

Share it so that others can know about the best deal ever.

Let’s pray.

Announcements:

Budget time is upon us - please pray for our staff as they are seeking God for His plans for the next year.

Our annual Christmas part is coming up, please begin praying now that God would use that to help us connect with the community and share the gospel.

Related Media

Related Sermons