Untitled Sermon

Introduction

Mission impossible. Follow, form, fulfill. Today we’re focusing on the fulfilling his mission. Ezekiel getting called, Jesus returning to his hometown it can feel like mission impossible. We’re all called to “go.” Today we hear:

Fear not: the mission and the missionary belong to the Lord.

The Mission belongs to the Lord

The mission belongs to God, he gives us the power, the people, and the proclamation

The Power: Ezekiel 2:2 “And as he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me.”

The People: Ezekiel 2:3 “And he said to me, “Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day.”

The Proclamation: Ezekiel 2:4 “The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’”

God gives us the people to go to, he’s given us the words to speak, the gospel, and he’s given us the power to accomplished gospel ministry - the Holy Spirit. Friends we have so much to offer the world! We know the reason for life, we know the origin of life, we have eternal life, we carry the antidote to death and eternal separation from God, we actually know God and have a dynamic relationship with him, more then that spiritually we connect to him, he lives in us and we in him. In the Gospel we have everything you body, your mind, your soul needs. We have something for your yesterdays, todays, tomorrows, and forever.

The service of laying on of hands with confirmation is like our baptism into missions - its when we remember we’ve been empowered for mission/ministry.

Do not be afraid. God has given you everything you need for every single senerio, every circumstance, every person, every conversation you will ever have about God. Don not be afraid. Do not fear. Do not be afraid. The mission is his. He put those people in your life. It’s his gospel your sharing. It’s his power that will work through you. Do not fear.

We get into trouble when we, our of fear, substitute the mission of God with another purpose in life and loose our way, or personalize the mission as if it is ours and not Gods and get defeated, or try to morph God’s mission, God’s gospel to ourselves, our culture and lose it’s effectiveness.

Friends it’s so tempting to give up, to shut up. Because I want to give up. At times I want to shut up too. When that comes up within you, take a step back. Give those people to God in prayer. Listen to the Lord in prayer. Refresh yourself with the gospel. Take a bath in the gospel. Remember - the mission belongs to God. When that’s the case - whatever peoples response is between them and God. I was encouraged by Archbishop Mbanda of Rwanda at provencinal assembly who was very tempted to give up the mission of God..

Archbishop Mbanda. Grew up a refugee, came to america, got degrees, became a vice president at Compassion International - A multi million dollar organization, was doing so well he and his wife bought a lot in Colorado Springs, 2.5 acres of land, they were building a custom home-when the Lord spoke unequivocally that they were to return to Rwanda. What? Leave all this? From a refugee camp to custom home? Yes. So they did- And the Rwandans didn’t even really know him- but when they found out about him they made him a bishop, and then the archbishop. And as the archbishop he and his wife traveled to NYC one day to meet with a friend. A certain american church who has given into fear and made the mission their own, the gospel their own, heard about him being in town. Invited him and his wife out to diner. While at dinner they offer him and the Rwandan anglicans to join in their version of God’s mission their gospel, and at the end they sliped him an envelop. After leaving the looked inside and there was a check with a large sum of money inside. Quite a few zeros, which they ex-ed out, put back into the envelop, and marked return to sender. I daresay Archbishop Mbanda said no to that pay off, that fear, that watered down cultural gospel when he left his custom house in Colorado and gave himself over yet again into God’s mission.

Friends I want to stress especially in an election cycle, do not substitute the mission of God with the mission of America. Do not substitute the kingdom of God for the Kingdom of America, do not substitute the gospel for the american dream, do no substitute the power of God for the power of politics, do not substitute our Lord for a president. As the Apostle Paul says we live in the world, we are not of the world. Live in America do not be of America, instead - Reach America with the saving love of Christ. Do not fear, it’s God’s mission.

Not only is it God’s mission, but we, the missionaries belong to the Lord.

The Missionary belongs to the Lord

With the Apostle Paul we see the inner life of a missionary that belongs to Jesus.

In the midst of facing difficult circumstance, the missionary is tethered to the Lord, belongs to him, and has a dynamic relationship.

Two things: The Lord will reveal himself more and more as we serve him, and the Lord will keep you in the most important way: to himself.

2 Corinthians 12:2–4 ESV

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

Then there is the apostle Paul who wades deeper into God then any human has ever delved. If we say yes to carrying on the mission of Jesus Christ, you will wade deeper and deeper in knowing God. He will reveal, or better said, make you ready to understand, his heart, his nature, his character.

Secondly, God will keep us tethered to him!

2 Corinthians 12:7–9 “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Paul sees the messanger of satan as a mercy of God to keep him from being conceited and instead content.

Bs. Steve is an example of someone who has given his life to fulfilling the mission of God and has this dynamic, deepening relationship with God the Father. On June 9th when Bs. Steve was in Cairo for Anglican Global South Conference Sally, his dear wife, got helicoptered to the ER for a brain bleed. He flew back and she recovered enough to attend and even speak at Provincial Assembly. As the week was winding down though, Sally got worse. They went to the ER and her brain bleed had grown from .9 cm (June 9) to 2.6 cm. They rushed back to N.C. to she her doctors but had to stop in VA for her to rest. In a hotel room in Winchester VA at 4am watch over his sleeping wife, Bs. Steve turned to the Psalms and to prayer. He says

“Psalm 116:17-19 jumped out as God’s word of assurance directly for Sally: I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem.

In answer to the specific prayer I was praying in the dark, God had promises that Sally would be able to give praise and testimony to him in this life, on this earth.

Scroll forward to Sunday morning: we have been carried by the Spirit and the prayers of his people through a gauntlet, and she was waking up, groggy from anesthesia after major brain surgery. Before drifting back to sleep, literally her first whispered words were, “I’m here. I will offer God the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on his name. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the Lord.”

Here’s a man whose dedicated his life to God’s mission. What does he learn from the Lord?

“God’s mercy takes different shapes at different times in our lives. This time, his mercy has been to spare my wife. Another time, another situation, it may look very different. Years ago, he chose to take Beatrice Rose, our granddaughter, at age 90 days. But the sure word of God is that he is a God of mercy.

My encouragement to myself, and to all of us, is to ALWAYS ask God to reveal his mercy that stands behind his providential love and will for our lives. Whatever the tears and difficulties, whatever the deliverances and delights, his character is always to have mercy.”

Do you see the dynamic relationship Bs. Steve has with the Lord? Hearing God/s word, hearing directly from God, seeing his promises fulfilled dramatically, but most importantly, he wades even deeper into the character of God.

The missionary is kept by God within God

The Lord provided in his mercy paul with a messenger from satan that constantly annoyed him to keep him from being conceited and instead content.

Content and confident that when he is weak, the Lord shines through him.

Application: When Jesus sends out his 12 disciples he tells them: Take nothing! No food, no money, no nothing. Why? To learn how to rely on God, to learn that the mission and the missionary belong to the Lord, so do not fear. I wonder if we carry too much money, too much food. East african revival. What are you carrying that’s weighing you down? That’s keeping you from fulfilling Christ’s missions?