The World is Smaller than You Think
Notes
Transcript
I think many of us don’t like the word evangelism.
For me I hear the word and I go back to my younger days — Door knocking, develop how I did and didn’t do evangelism
Yet I go to pages of the Bible and read like the book of Acts and how easy they made it look.
Then I read — Ephesians 4:11-12
11 And He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers,
12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ;
Are you ready for the message God has for us today?
Cool, let’s dig in!
World Changers!
World Changers!
Consider Acts 17:6
6 When they did not find them, they began dragging Jason and some brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have upset the world have come here also;
“have upset” - to disturb that balance or stability of..
In our case the world. They were literally world changes~
Paul and Silas are known as men who upset the delicate balance of the world!
At some level we all want to world changers!
Would you agree that the world is a big place?
In fact to change the world the way Paul and Silas did might seem an impossible task.
What do we do with our mission as a church?
Matthew 28:19–20 (NKJV)
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
Statistically only about 5% of us have the gift of evangelism mentioned in Ephesians 4:11.
For Amazing Grace Church that would be about 5 of us.
Great what about the other 95% of us?
What if we narrowed our vision of the world?
Our Worlds are Smaller
Our Worlds are Smaller
Let me share something with you
In Mark 5:1-13 we have the healing of the demon possessed man, you know the one with the Demon Legion? — Develop the narrative in my own way!
When it was over the demon possessed man wanted to follow Jesus.
Notice what Jesus says: Mark 5:19
19 And He did not let him, but He said to him, “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.”
Jesus says, “Go home” — hyage oikon
Oikon is a form of the Greek word oikos.
This word oikos will become very familiar to you in this series.
An oikos is the extended household of a person, including their friends, relatives, neighbors, their people.
Jesus is telling the man to go to his people, people he knows, his family, friends, his extended household, and tell them what happened.
Think about that for just a moment.
Each of us have an oikos, people God has strategically placed in our life.
On average an oikos is about 8 to 15 people.
The people in your oikos might be Christian, might be one time church attenders, they might be atheists, or agnostics — develop
We should recognize that they were put there by God.
Over our lifetime our oikos will change, people go in and out.
As you watch the migration patterns you finds its less about your personal magnetism and more about divinely orchestrated circumstances!
The Oikos Principle
The Oikos Principle
The oikos principle is about the conversations we have with the people we are close to.
Oikos is really another way of saying community.
Community is where life change happens.
By a show of hands how many of us are a Christian because of someone in our life at that time?
Tom Mercer in his book 8 to 15 put it this way: “You and I have the same job to do today. And we will have the same one again tomorrow. The oikos principle creates a church full of partners all pulling their own weight, all pulling their oars in the same direction.”
Isn’t it true that our households have always been the natural place where testimonies can be clearly and powerfully communicated?
Sharing Christ was never intended to be complicated Mark 5:19
19 And He did not let him, but He said to him, “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.”
Oikos is not a program, it is an approach to sharing Christ so can all fulfill our responsibility of Matthew 28:19-20!
The purpose of our church, our statement to Love people!
Our job is not to come up with it, our job is to execute it!
Conclusion:
Let’s go back one more time to Ephesians 4:11-12
11 And He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers,
12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ;
The sole purpose for the church is to prepare us to better fulfill our purpose of Matthew 28.
The church is like an essential training camp, equipping and empowering us to fulfill the mission given to us in Matthew 28.
When we can see that and understand it suddenly the church becomes a more compelling place to be!
Tom Mercer, “When people live in the ‘every day of the week’ reality of sharing life with their oikos, then going to church on the weekend becomes a ‘want to’ not a ‘have to.’ It becomes more compelling, because the rest of the week depends on it!”
God wants all of us involved!
If you feel that your job is to witness to everybody, the you probably aren’t witnessing to anybody.
God has gifted us for our individual niche oikos, so niche yourselves!
Begin witnessing to your people, your oikos!
Let’s want to prepare every generation to change their worlds for Christ!
Open your bulletin and pull out the oikos card.
I want each of us to have a card.
Remember your oikos is friends, neighbors, relative, schools peers, work peers, maybe others.
Let’s begin by making a list, the pray for them, invite them, and prepare ourselves for the oikos God has put in our lives.
Invitation:
What are we going to do based upon the passages today?
Are you going pray that God will help you talk to your oikos? Come to the altar! And let’s pray!
Maybe you are here today because of your oikos and you want to give your life to Jesus, recognizing how much He loves you! Come to the Altar and let’s pray!
Prayer and Invitation