Vision 10: Outcome #5—Sharing My Journey
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Matthew 28:19-20
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Bye, kids!
Good morning, and welcome to family worship with the church body of Eastern Hills. Whether you are here in the room, or online, thanks for being part of our celebration of Jesus today. Thanks, choir, for singing that blessing over us this morning.
If you are visiting with us for the first time today, thanks for choosing to worship with Eastern Hills! We would like to be able to thank you for your visit and to pray for you, so if you wouldn’t mind, please take a moment during the sermon to fill out a visitor card, which you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you. If you’re online, you can let us know about your visit by filling out the communication form at the bottom of our “I’m new“ page. If you’re here in the room today, you can get that card back to us in one of two ways: you can put it in the boxes by the doors at the close of service, or I would love the opportunity to meet you personally, so after service, you can bring that card to me directly, and I have a gift to give you to thank you for your visit today.
I want to recognize and thank our Family Services ministry this week. They really take a load off of the staff in how they serve the church in a bunch of different ways. Deanna and Family Services team, thanks for your ministry to this church family!
Announcements
Announcements
AAEO Goal reached! ($24,767.20), Video of thanks
Opening
Opening
Today marks the last message of a series that I pray is a pivotal time in the life of Eastern Hills. We have spent 10 weeks (not including Easter) considering the Vision of EHBC: What are we doing? Why are we doing it? How will we know when we’ve done what we have set out to do? Our Mission, Core Values, and Desired Outcomes answer these three vital questions.
Our Mission as a church is (say it with me from memory, then we’ll put it on the screen): People helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day. Can we do our Core Values from memory as well? Authentic Family, Real Truth, Transformational Growth, and Practical Impact. I’m not going to try and make us do the Desired Outcomes questions from memory. The first four were:
How am I drawing near to the unexpected love of Jesus today?
How am I learning to see myself, others, and circumstances as God does?
How am I growing Christian friends who are growing me? and last week:
How are my hands open for God’s use today?
We looked at the great passage in Exodus 35 and 36 that show us how the people of Israel first gave their hearts, then their wealth and their talents and skills, for the purpose and glory of God in the creation of the Tabernacle, and considered how we might do the same with our hearts, materials, talents, skills, time, and attention.
Today, we look at our last Desired Outcome question: How am I sharing my faith journey with neighbors where I live, work, and play? This question is where we consider the impact that we are having as a church in the community around us, both this immediate community, and the communities where we find ourselves when we aren’t here in the building. Our faith journey is more than what happens in this place. It’s all day, every day, 24/7/365 if we’re in Christ. We’ll see why in our text this morning.
Our foundational passage today will be a very familiar one. So please stand as you are able to do so in honor of the reading of the Word of God, and turn in your Bibles or Bible apps to Matthew 28, as I read just verses 18 through 20:
18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
PRAYER for the church as we finish this series
In the 1984 film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, the title character gives a reflection on our existence with a line that sounded awfully deep to me when I first heard it: “No matter where you go, there you are.” But Dr. Banzai isn’t the first person to have said this, and in fact, if you trace it back, you land on the 15th century Catholic saint Thomas à Kempis. The saying seems to be a modification of something that Thomas wrote in his devotional book The Imitation of Christ. He wrote in Latin, but an early translation of this work has the following:
“The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself with you and shall always find yourself.”
—Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), The Imitation of Christ
The reality of life, whether the life of the Christian or any other, is that we are all on a journey, and all of us share that journey with the people around us. However, for the Christian, this journey is a faith journey that is described by Jesus as us denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and following Him (Matt 16:24). PUT THAT PASSAGE UP Thomas captures that thought in this passage from The Imitation of Christ: No matter where we go as Christians, whether its where we live, where we work, or where we play, that location is an opportunity for us to live out the unexpected love of Jesus by sharing our faith journey with the neighbors (which is everyone) we find there.
This is what our last Desired Outcome question gets to. Our five Outcome Expression statements for this Desired Outcome are as follows:
I pray daily for Neighboring Moments to care for and share my faith with those around me.
I know the names of my neighbors and spend enough time with them to know their current joys and struggles.
I frequently serve in EHBC neighboring events to have fun and build new relationships with people in our community.
I can’t help but share my love for EHBC with others and regularly invite them to attend with me.
I take every opportunity God is giving me to proactively share the gospel in a clear and compelling way.
Notice that these paint a picture of a pathway of sorts: praying, knowing, serving, inviting, sharing. That’s not to say that we can’t do them out of order, but it at least gives us a framework to hang our hats on as we think through this together today.
Now, the Great Commission is our foundational passage this morning, but we’re not going to unpack the whole thing in detail. We’re going to look at the life of Paul for our points. But I want to make clear what Jesus is saying in Matthew 28:18-20.
He said that “all authority has been given to [Him] in heaven and on earth.” That’s all authority. And He immediately follows that statement with our commission, saying therefore (because He has all authority), “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Many make a really big deal out of the fact that the command here (the imperative) is “make disciples,” and not “go.” They aren’t wrong.
However (I’m going to Greek grammar out for a second here), “go” is an aorist passive participle that is an attendant circumstance directly connected to and preceding the command to “make disciples.” Therefore, it carries the imperatival force of the command, even while being able to fairly and accurately be read as a passive “as you go.”
Grammar lesson done. In other words: Jesus wasn’t telling us to passively wait for possible disciples to come to us and then make disciples. It wouldn’t make any sense to assume that “all nations” are going to bump into His first disciples simply “as they go:” This was first century Israel! “All nations” didn’t go there to be passively discipled, so “going” is commanded for at least some, or the command could not be fulfilled. The “go” here is both-and, not either-or. It’s that we are to be about making disciples “as we go” about our lives, because that’s a part of the day-to-day that we MUST do, but ALSO, Jesus assumes that we will intentionally choose to go across the room or across the street or across the town or across the globe and make disciples. Remember, He has all authority. It is completely His right to give us our marching orders, and as His servants, for us to obey them. No matter where we go, there we are, and there is the cross.
And HOW do we make disciples? We share with them the gospel, and when they believe it, we baptize them into the church. And it doesn’t stop there: we then teach them to observe everything that Jesus has commanded us—which includes the Great Commission, right?—we don’t merely evangelize them, we disciple them. All the while remembering that He has all authority, and that He is with us for all time (until He comes back to wrap time up).
So I guess where this really starts, our point ZERO if you will, is that if you’re going to share your faith journey, you’ve got to be on one. That is, if you’ve never believed the Gospel, trusting in what Jesus has done to save you, the spiritual journey that you’re on leads only to hell because of sin.
Let me explain: God made us for His glory and for relationship with Him. And we choose to do things our way, not His, even though He is both Creator and God. This is called sin. And the Bible tells us that sin kills us spiritually. It kills our relationship with God, because He is the source of life. The penalty that sin deserves is death. So Jesus, the Son of God, came as a man and lived a sinless life so He could die to pay the penalty that we owe for sin. According to Scripture, He died on the cross, and then through the power of God overcame death and rose again. And the Bible says that if we believe: if we trust in His death for forgiveness of our sins, and surrender to His authority as Lord by following Him, then we are saved from our sins and have been made right with God again, restored to spiritual life forever.
Believing in Jesus is the starting line of that faith journey. Will you believe the message of the gospel even now, in your pew, or online? Trust Christ.
And for those of us who are already in Christ, already saved, we need to understand something about the Gospel. It’s not that our journey includes the Gospel: It’s that our story is included in the good news of what Jesus has done! The Gospel is STILL GOOD NEWS, and is still spreading, and is still impacting not just the lives of those who come to faith, but OUR LIVES every single day! If we’re in Christ, then Jesus is our life—the most important aspect about us.
We don’t share our faith journey because we’re awesome, but because Jesus is! We aren’t worthy of getting any of the credit. One way that Paul summarized his faith journey—his experience with the Lord—was in one verse to his protege Timothy:
15 This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them.
This is why Paul’s journey is such a great picture for us this morning as we consider the rest of the story. We’re going to look at three “snapshots,” if you will, of Paul’s life and see how he lived out the Great Commission wherever he went. He intentionally went places to share his journey, and he also shared his journey as he went places.
1: Share your journey where you live. (Acts 19:8-10)
1: Share your journey where you live. (Acts 19:8-10)
We all live somewhere. Not all of us live in Albuquerque. Some live in Edgewood or Rio Rancho or Sandia Park or Tijeras or Cedar Crest… I’m sure I missed somewhere that someone in the church lives. Not only that, but there might be people here this morning who live somewhere else completely, but who are in town visiting. Furthermore, we’re streaming this out to the internet. You might be watching this even in another country. And to be honest, it might be hard for you to engage in all of the Outcome Expression statements. But you can share your faith journey wherever you live. This is what we see in Paul’s life as well.
8 Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly over a period of three months, arguing and persuading them about the kingdom of God. 9 But when some became hardened and would not believe, slandering the Way in front of the crowd, he withdrew from them, taking the disciples, and conducted discussions every day in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. 10 This went on for two years, so that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.
The total time that Paul spent in Ephesus when he went there the first time (not this time) was very short (perhaps less than a week). But on his third journey (this passage), he was there for around three years (this particular passage only speaks to about 27 months of that time—read the rest of the chapter for the remainder). He lived there. He became known to not only the people who lived there, but people who came through there as well.
Ephesus was a major city, well situated on the coast with a good harbor and one of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the Temple of Artemis. Boasting a population of 250,000, it was the chief city of the Roman province of Asia at this time, and was extremely important commercially. Many people came to Ephesus on business, and many people passed through it on their way to somewhere else.
And as Paul lived there, he preached the Gospel and shared his faith journey with everyone he could. He was engaged in it daily. He even rented out a lecture hall so that he had a place and a time set aside to engage in sharing the Gospel. He did this so effectively, in fact, that the Scripture we just read says that “all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.” In 1 Corinthians, which Paul wrote during his time in Ephesus, he explains it in his own words:
8 But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, 9 because a wide door for effective ministry has opened for me—yet many oppose me.
Ephesus was where he lived, and he saw it as a “wide door for effective ministry.” Likely where he lived while he was in Ephesus was with Aquila and Priscilla, who he had brought with him to Ephesus the first time he traveled there. The two of them were instrumental in Paul’s ministry, and they even took the idea of sharing your journey where you live one step further, as they had been living in Ephesus for quite some time:
19 The churches of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla send you greetings warmly in the Lord, along with the church that meets in their home.
They not only had been a part of planting the church at Ephesus, but they hosted the church of Ephesus in their home. They literally shared their faith journey with others where they actually lived. We will hear more about them in a moment, but let’s consider for a second the examples of Paul, Priscilla, and Aquila in Ephesus:
First of all, consider how we view New Mexico, how we view Albuquerque, how we view our neighborhoods, how we view the neighborhood around the church building. The old saying “familiarity breeds contempt,” is usually true: we see all of the problems with our state and our city, and so we can become jaded to the people and the needs around us. Often, we think about ministry or evangelism as something that we have to go somewhere else in order to do effectively.
And I guess when we’re talking about the state, that might be true. For example, we have an opportunity this September to engage in ministry just on the other side of the Sandias. The BCNM is organizing a One-Day Mission Trip in the east mountains and in Roswell on Saturday, September 26. Start praying about serving that day in one of those locations. Registration doesn’t open until July 1, and we will have more information for you as that gets closer. This is a great opportunity to not only share our journey where we live, but also to build relationships with other believers and churches in the area and in the state.
Opportunities to share your journey with neighbors abound throughout the city. Where do you get your hair cut? Where do you bank? Where do you shop? Where’s your favorite place to go out to eat? All of these are places where you can engage in praying, knowing, serving, inviting, and sharing.
It gets even more specific when we think about our own neighborhoods. Reflect on these questions: Do I pray for my neighbors and for opportunities to serve them? What are the names of the neighbors closest to me? Have I met them when I’ve been out taking the trash to the curb or checking the mail? How can I serve my neighbors in simple, practical ways? How might I show hospitality to my neighbors? What about inviting them to come and be a part of Family Worship? A recent study showed that about 80% of unchurched people said that they would attend a church service if they were invited to go by someone they know. 8 of 10! And one last question for us to think on: Do my neighbors know that I’m a Christian? Just sharing my faith journey with someone can be the means of God opening the door to sharing the Gospel with them.
Don’t forget that we have the resource of the BLESS app at our disposal as a church to help us be more intentional in engaging with people in our neighborhoods.
And one thing I need to remind us of: in our fifth message in this series, on our fourth Core Value: Practical Impact, we looked at the parable of the Good Samaritan. And in that message, we considered what the identity of our neighbors is. Where we landed was that it doesn’t matter who we’re with—we are called to be good neighbors to whoever we’re with who has a legitimate need that we can meet. Strangers, friends, even family members, can ALL be our neighbors.
So consider this: our very closest neighbors are the ones who already live in our own houses. How are we sharing our faith journeys with our families—telling them about how God is at work, or the things we’re learning in the Bible, or answering their biblical questions, or engaging in Scripture with them, demonstrating our love for the Lord and our commitment to our walk with Him? Sharing our faith journeys with the people in our homes should be a regular part of daily life.
For our next look at Paul’s life, we will step backward in time a little bit.
2: Share your journey where you work. (Acts 18:1-4)
2: Share your journey where you work. (Acts 18:1-4)
Many of us have jobs that we go to in order to make a living, and where we have the opportunity to build relationships with others in an environment other than our homes. For me, this part is easy—it’s actually kind of my job description! But for some others, this part might be difficult, or even risky. We should look for opportunities to share about what God has done in our lives with those we work with (perhaps not during actual work time). Again, we see that Paul shared his faith journey, and a that he did so as a part of his working:
1 After this, he left Athens and went to Corinth, 2 where he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul came to them, 3 and since they were of the same occupation, tentmakers by trade, he stayed with them and worked. 4 He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade both Jews and Greeks.
This is actually the record of when Paul met Aquila and Priscilla. While it says that Aquila was “a Jew,” he was almost certainly a Christian before this meeting, and history suggests that the ejection of Jews from Rome was because of the conflict between Judaism and Christianity. Paul met them in Corinth, and as they were all trained tentmakers, he worked with them in their workshop and stayed in their home. He truly shared his journey with them, and likely deepened their faith as they worked together and lived together.
Paul customarily preached the Gospel first in the synagogue (if there was one) when he came to a new town. He did the same here. But just because he was going to the synagogue once per week to try and persuade those who were there doesn’t mean that Paul didn’t share the hope of the Gospel as he had opportunity when he was in the workshop or the marketplace. In fact, we see in 1 Thessalonians (which he wrote from Athens) that his common practice included working in the marketplace so that he could support himself financially.
9 For you remember our labor and hardship, brothers and sisters. Working night and day so that we would not burden any of you, we preached God’s gospel to you.
8 we did not eat anyone’s food free of charge; instead, we labored and toiled, working night and day, so that we would not be a burden to any of you.
And he also encouraged the Thessalonians that they should work so that those who are “outsiders” would see their pious behavior:
11 to seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, 12 so that you may behave properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone.
Again, by way of application, we reflect on Paul’s engagement with Gospel living where he worked. He lived with Priscilla and Aquila in Corinth for about 18 months, and then they traveled with him to Ephesus for that first very short visit, and remained there. Clearly, Paul shared his faith journey with them, given that they were a part of his physical journeys as well. It’s a great thing to find those at our workplaces who are fellow believers, because we spend a LOT of time at work. If we can do so with brothers and sisters, holding each other accountable and encouraging and supporting one another, that’s a bonus.
But there’s also the things we’ve already mentioned: Praying, knowing, serving, inviting, and sharing. We can usually do these things where we work—often just by looking for the opportunities that God brings to us to just talk about what He has done in our lives. Share your own personal story, and give God the glory for it. Work well to be an example to those who don’t believe, as Peter said in 1 Peter 2:
12 Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that when they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day he visits.
Our workplaces are such a major part of many of our lives. And students and kids: for many of you, school is your workplace. It makes sense that we would share our faith journeys with those we come into contact with there, because of how much time we spend with them. And we perhaps don’t spend quite as much time with our last group, but this last one can be a much more social, natural setting for sharing our faith journey:
3: Share your journey where you play. (Acts 17:21-34)
3: Share your journey where you play. (Acts 17:21-34)
Now, if you know your Bible, you might be scratching your head going, “I don’t recall Paul ever doing any recreational activity.” You might even be thinking, “I don’t recall there being a whole lot about recreational activity in the Bible in general.” You are correct. So I know that my terminology might feel like a bit of a stretch. However, let’s look a the passage I’m referring to for this point, and I’ll explain:
21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new. 22 Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, “People of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. 23 For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it—he is Lord of heaven and earth—does not live in shrines made by hands. 25 Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. 26 From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. 27 He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
While Paul was in Athens, he was in a way, a tourist. He walked through the city, and was bothered by how many idols there were (v 16). He did what he normally did—he went to the synagogue and talked with the Jews, but he also went to the marketplace every day and shared the Gospel there. This is how he ended up speaking at the Areopagus.
The Areopagus (or Mars Hill) was recreation for the people of Athens. It was the TikTok of the day: a platform where anyone could share their thoughts about whatever topic they wanted to share about, provided their thoughts were “new” and interesting.
Paul had looked around with “gospel eyes.” Even as he wandered around the city, he was seeing things the way God sees things. And then, when the opportunity arose for him to engage in sharing his faith where these Athenians played, he was ready to do so with boldness, and in a way that connected with the people he was talking to. He contextualized the message of the Gospel. He didn’t change the message, because everything he said was still true. He shared it with the people that he was talking to using truth that they could grasp in that moment. He even used their own popular literature as he made his argument:
28 For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’ 29 Since, then, we are God’s offspring, we shouldn’t think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by human art and imagination. 30 “Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” 32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to ridicule him, but others said, “We’d like to hear from you again about this.” 33 So Paul left their presence. 34 However, some people joined him and believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
And while not everyone cared about what Paul said, some believed. Was Paul playing? No. But were they? Many of them, yes.
Here’s my point: Let’s say that you go to play tennis with a friend, whether that friend is a fellow believer or not. That friend’s primary purpose in the outing might be to play tennis. And while you are also playing tennis, you’re looking at tennis with “Gospel lenses” on as well: looking for an opportunity to share your faith journey, and perhaps to speak about the Gospel, as you spend that time together.
Please hear me: I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with doing recreational things for the fun and fellowship of it. I’m saying that deepening our relationships with our neighbors (who might be our best friends) is a natural outflow of playing together—therefore, it’s a very natural place to share our faith journeys—to talk about things of God and what He has done in our lives. We’re called to glorify the Lord in whatever we do, whether it’s in a restaurant or on a golf course or in a coffee shop or across a board game or on a basketball court.
17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.
Not only that, but there is a time for having fun and doing recreational things with each other. The teacher in Ecclesiastes makes this clear in chapter 3:
1 There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven:
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance;
So use recreational activity to build your relationships with others. And as you build those relationships, share your faith journey, and listen to theirs. And if the opportunity demands, share the Gospel and call for a response to it.
Honestly, sometimes the best quality of time together comes from spending a particular quantity of time together. And often, quantity time comes as we engage in something fun together. Spiritual engagement doesn’t have to be a Bible study. It’s praying. It’s knowing. It’s serving. It’s inviting. It’s sharing.
Closing
Closing
So the question remains, “How am I sharing my faith journey with neighbors where I live, work, and play?” Paul did. And like him, we are to be neighbors to the people around us wherever we are, and in this Desired Outcome question, we wanted to capture the totality of life—wherever we go, whatever we do. Because no matter where you go, there you are. Be a neighbor there, and share your faith journey.
And as I said at the beginning, if you aren’t a follower of Jesus, the outcome of the journey that you’re on is eternal separation from God because of sin. But I truly believe that you being here today is not an accident, but a move of God to call you into a new direction on your journey—one with hope and purpose and meaning that can only come from Him, and whose end eternal life. Believe the Gospel this morning, and surrender to Jesus as Savior and Lord. And come share with us while the band plays in a moment.
And church family, it might be that today we are convicted by how passively we are approaching the sharing of our faith journey with others. I know I am. The only right response to being convicted of our sin is repentance. So get with God during this time of response, and do business with Him about where you need to submit in obedient faith.
Baptism
Church membership
Prayer
Giving
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
I’ve written a summary of this series, which appears in the Informer (our monthly church newsletter), and you’ll find in your EHBC Life (the weekly bulletin) a half-sheet which contains our Mission, Core Values, and Outcomes. I pray that these things are helpful for you as you reflect on the journey that we’re on as a church, and that they encourage us to be people helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day.
Neighboring Moments:
I caught another member in the act of neighboring! Two cars were involved in a wreck not far from one of our member’s houses, and while driving past, I saw her take the time to talk with one of the people (a young lady) involved in the crash. This church member was a kind, considerate, and lighthearted presence. Good job being salt and light!
Bible reading (Num 3, Ps 37, Song 1, Heb 1)
Pastor’s Study tonight: Finishing up discussion on loving our enemies
Prayer Meeting this week
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
1 Let brotherly love continue. 2 Don’t neglect to show hospitality, for by doing this some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it.
