Every Member Going

Every Member Going Matthew 28:16-20 INTRODUCTION: This morning we’re going to conclude our series called The Every Member Church – The Way it Ought to Be. We’ve been looking at the church as an ideal – as a goal that we’re striving for in which every member is involved, instructed, included, and invested in the life and mission of the church in terms of the five functions of the church. As you know, our Transitional Team is made up of 5 working teams based on these 5 functions of the church, and they’ve been working hard over the last several months seeking God’s leadership concerning goals and strategies in all of these areas. And tonight the whole Team is meeting, and we’re going to hear each team as they share an update on their goals and strategies. But this morning I want you to imagine with me a church that is intentional in becoming an Every Member Church. That’s really the goal of our Transitional Process – being intentional about becoming all that God intends for us to be and do as a church. It all starts with Coming. It all starts with coming into the presence of God and being rekindled by the fire of his holy presence in the spirit of true and genuine Worship. But the end result of our coming is our ultimate Going. It culminates with our going out with the message of the Good News of Jesus. Last week when we looked at Fellowship, we talked about the bond of love that we share as members of God’s family. But one of the great dangers of this wonderful love is that we allow it to become the end rather than the means. In other words, we lose sight of the fact that this bond of love we call fellowship was never meant to be a limitation of our love. It was meant to be the motivation of our mandate from God to go and make disciples. Remember our Mission Statement: To be torchbearers of the Good News to Walterboro and to the ends of the earth. So let’s dive into this a little deeper. Our main text for this morning is Matthew 28:16-20, which is so familiar to most of us. It’s so familiar that we need to ask the Lord to give us a fresh understanding and hearing of this his mandate to the church. I don’t want you to just hear the words. I want to pray that you will hear the voice of the Lord in these words. PRAYER. READ MATTHEW 28:16-20. A key word in this passage is the word GO. It is the Lord’s command, his mandate to the church. Hear this: The Lord’s mandate to go is the church’s mission to make disciples. I want to try and help us this morning by offering: I. THREE APPLICATIONS TO THE MANDATE TO GO: 1) We should apply the mandate as a lifestyle. In fact, a literal interpretation of the mandate to go is: Go, and as you go, be sure to make some disciples. Or, to expand that a little, it wouldn’t be wrong to hear Jesus saying, “As you go about your daily lives, make it your priority to make disciples everywhere you go.” Listen. If we’re not making disciples, we’re just making excuses. And one of those common excuses is our lifestyle. Some of us have slowed down a bit, but most of us are constantly on the go. We’re always going somewhere, right? Going to the grocery store, the hardware store; taking the kids to school, to ball games; going to the doctor’s office, or to get your car serviced; going to civic meetings, or to social events. Going, going, and going. But is this a positive thing or a negative thing? It depends on how we see it. We can see it in one of two ways. We can either see it as an excuse, or we can see it as an opportunity. Think about how many people we run into and encounter in a typical day of going about our business. What would happen if every morning in our quiet time with the Lord we asked him to open our eyes to see the people who need the Lord and to also open our mouths and give us the words to say that will impact those people with the Good News they need to hear? A friend lived in Moncks Corner and taught school in Mt. Pleasant. Scott’s story. We can incorporate this same mission mindset in our own lives as we go about our daily lives. 2) We should apply the mandate to our witness. If we know Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, we have a personal, irrefutable, and, therefore, powerful testimony. Of all the evidences for the Gospel, none are more powerful than the testimony of a life that has been changed. This takes lifestyle to a whole new level. We’re talking about a lifestyle that moves beyond being a Christian example to being a Christian witness. What is a witness? A witness is somebody who can personally testify to the truth. He or she has first-hand knowledge of the truth. He or she can testify to what they have personally seen, heard, or experienced. A Christian witness is someone who can personally testify to the truth of the Gospel. He or she has first-hand knowledge of the truth. He or she can testify to their personal, life-changing experience with the Living Lord. But how many of us make witnessing a priority of our lives? How many of us are telling others about what the Lord has done for us? How many of us are going to those who don’t know Christ and sharing our story? Do we need well-planned strategies for evangelism and missions? Yes, we do. Do we need witness training? Yes, we do. And I have confidence that our Evangelism and Missions Team is going to help us in those areas, but what we need first and foremost is are people – Christ-followers who are personally burdened and brokenhearted for those who are lost in their sins. Let’s revisit another well-known proclamation of our Lord before he ascended to heaven. Again, hear what the Lord is saying to us in Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Listen. Witnessing is not something we do in our own strength. The Holy Spirit will empower us to share our testimony, and the Spirit who lives in us will lead us to where we need to go – whether it’s Walterboro, Colleton County, South Carolina, or South Africa. He will lead us to where we need to go. Several years ago, the Lord convicted me to change the way I prayed. I began to pray, “Yes, Lord,” even before I knew what he was asking me to do, or where he was sending me. So when, for example, the invitation came for me to go to South Africa, I didn’t struggle with a decision. I already had agreed. I had already said, “Yes, Lord.” And the same thing is true about the opportunity to come and serve as Transitional Pastor here. I had already said, “Yes, Lord.” And this leads us to the third application. 3) Going means taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth. This is MISSIONS. Missions is going with the Gospel across all cultural, racial, social, and geographical boundaries to every people group. That’s what Jesus is saying in Acts 1:8 and in the Great Commission. He said, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” That word nations is not what we think of as a country, like, for example, Bangladesh. It means something more like tribes or people groups. We can find these tribes all over the world, groups of people who have never been touched with the Gospel, and many, many others who are largely unreached. I know enough about this church to know that it has long been a mission-minded church. This church has supported missions and missionaries through the years with sacrificial giving and earnest seasons of prayer. And in just a few weeks, we’re going to enter into our season of prayer for international missions. And all this is absolutely essential to the work of Southern Baptists and the work of the Kingdom. But don’t you think we can do more? Don’t you think we can do better? And I don’t mean giving more or praying harder. I mean, don’t you think we can do more in terms of going ourselves? Listen, the mission field begins at our doorsteps. There are people groups right in our own backyard and across Colleton county and beyond. These are people who are just as lost and just as much in need of Jesus as the aboriginal people of South America. I believe God has called us all to be missionaries and emissaries – some to foreign shores and some to foreign doors right here in Walterboro. So why aren’t we going? It just might be A QUESTION OF LOVE: The Scripture is a window into the heart of God, and he invites us to look through this window, and when we do, we see exactly what motivated the Father to send his Son. What we see is the heart of Divine Love. “For God so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten Son.” This love of God is a redeeming love for all people. This is the same love that he “lavished on us.” And if our hearts are lacking that love, we are lacking the motivation to be his witnesses. So here’s what we need to do: We have to humble ourselves and pray and ask the Lord to fill us with that redeeming love that motivates us and inspires us to be faithful witnesses for him. This love answers every excuse and every question: • It answers disobedience: Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commands.” (John 14:15 NLT) • It answers prejudice: Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 19:19 NLT) • It answers hurt. Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” (Matthew 5:44 NLT) • It answers uncertainty: Paul said, “Love never fails.” I Corinthians 13:8 NLT) • It answers fear: John says, “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear.” (I John 4:18 NLT) • It answers why: Paul says, “For Christ’s love compels us.” (II Corinthians 5:14 NIV) This is the passage in II Corinthians 5 where Paul talks about being reconciled with God, and being given the ministry of reconciliation and becoming ambassadors – emissaries - for Christ, and he says that this is what we have to do because “Christ’s love compels us.” The word compel means it leaves us no other choice. So, listen. When we are filled with the love of God in Christ, we are compelled to go and share the message of reconciliation because this love leaves us no choice. RESPONSE: Wayne’s story