Sermon Tone Analysis

Good Morning, last week we started this series entitled 20/20 Vision… This mornings message is entitled “Direct Hit.. Getting our mission right.’.

In the 2004 Olympics...Matt Emmons had the gold medal in sight.

He was one shot away from claiming victory in the 50-meter rifle event.

All he needed was a score of 8.1 or more and he would have taken the gold medal...Which for an Olympic Athlete like Emmons would be relatively easy.

Emmons however, made a huge Mistake... Standing in lane two, he fired at the target in lane three.

He had an excellent shot and hit the target perfectly, but it was at the wrong target... Instead of walking away with the Gold medal, Emmons ended up coming in eighth place.

What we learn from Emmons is that it doesn't matter how accurate you are if you are aiming at the wrong target... it still a miss.

If we want a direct Hit.....What we aim at really matters!

When we use the word mission we are using it as a verb… We asking what do we do with what we know?

Last week we talked about clarifying our vision and the book of Acts is the sequel the continuation of the ministry of Jesus… The Church was born on the day of Pentecost… and the Holy Spirit fueled the apostolic mission… The early church was an enthusiastic church… they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to meeting in homes, to breaking of bread and to prayers… and we told that the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved… The church existed to make Known Jesus and His Kingdom… Mission asks what do we do with what we know?

Getting our mission right or wrong can be the difference between success and failure… it is the difference between a direct hit and a miss.

Several years ago, Church growth consultant Win Arn conducted a survey in which he interviewed the members of nearly one thousand churches in regard to what they perceived to be the mission of the church.

Eighty-nine percent said the church exists “to take care of my family’s and my needs.”

Only 11 percent said it existed to win the world to Christ.

What happens when you have 90 percent of the church believing that the church exists for them?

As soon as those needs are not met they loose their purpose...

T/S This morning we are going to be looking at the calling of the first disciples.

In Matt 4:18 we have the record of the initial calling of two sets of brothers… Peter and Andrew… James and John son’s of Zebadee…

Jesus begins his ministry in the region of Galilee…What is interesting is that Matthew mentions Isaiah prophesy that that a great light would shine upon the land of Zebulun and Naphtali… beyond the Jordan.. on the Galilee the land of the gentiles..

Even though Jesus ministry was primary to the Jews…we see the seeds of the great commission is planted that Gospel is going go from Jerusalem outward to the ends of the earth…

....One day Jesus is walking on the banks of the lake of Galilee…and He has plan and a purpose this particular day and that is find two sets of brothers and call them into ministry.

He finds Peter and Andrew fishing close to the bank… in fact they are busy working when Jesus arrives… the scripture tells us that Andrew was casting a net into the sea… This was hard and laborious work… it entailed throwing this drag net with weights on the edges that would trap the fish and then hauling it in and repeating the process.

T/S Jesus calls both Peter and Andrew to leave their nets and follow him and be his disciples.

Now, Jesus request of these men to follow him might seem strange to us in the 21 Century… but this was a common practice during the first Century… Rabbis often had disciples who followed them…it was primary method of train through mentoring and equipping spiritual leaders… The main differences was that Jesus is called Master not Rabbis… and instead of the students choosing whom they were going to apprentice under… Jesus elected or chose his disciples…

Jesus frames the invitation by using the image of fishing… He wanted to simply what he was calling them too… they were fishers of fish, but now he was calling them to be fishers of men… While fishing for fish is making living things dead… fishing for men is the reverse ....its making dead things alive...

We see that there is an immediate response to the call…

Matthew tells us that after this.. Jesus continues to walk further down the shore where he finds another Pair of Brothers ---James and John the sons of Zebedee…and he ask them the exact same question… “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” and they also leave their nets and follow Jesus...

What amazing willingness we see in these disciples!!

This is not the first encounter between Jesus and these brothers.. Luke has already mentioned that Jesus had healed Simon Peter mother in law... and another contact with Simon and Andrew..

This is at least the third time that they have an encounter..

There is great willingness on their part… but at this point they don’t fully understand what is required....

JESUS is asking them to make a huge commitment… That was to leave their trade, their business, their lively hood.. and join him in this mission of making dead people live.. fishing for men ...

We know these brothers don’t understand the full implication of this calling ing --- Because in Luke 5 we are given a totally different scene where these brothers are back on the lake fishing… There is often this gap.. space between unknown and the known… After the Spirit fell on the day of Pentecost the question was what does this mean?

After Peter brings some clarity on the subject… this is the outpouring that Joel spoke about and the Spirit was testifying about Jesus whom they crucified… there is this moment of understanding and the question changes to what must we do?

We need to understand that some time what God is calling us too… might take time… what we going see is that it is going to get clearer.

lets read out text together.

This section of scripture is about the Disciples rediscovering their mission… There are serveral lessons on discovering our mission in this text...

T/s If we going to have a direct hit we have to....

1. Clearly Define whom we are Reaching.

The power of light depends on focus.

Light that is diffused does not make much of an impact, but if we put that light through a magnifying glass, we can set something on fire.

If we concentrate and focus that light even more, it becomes a laser that will cut through sheet metal.

As light becomes more powerful as it is brought into focus, so the church becomes more effective as it clearly defines whom it is trying to reach..

The story begins with the crowds pressing around Jesus eager to hear the Good News

Jesus is standing on the banks of Galilee teaching and the crowd is so large that it is pressing on Jesus and its becoming difficult to communicate…to the point where standing on the bank and teaching is not an option…Jesus climbs into Peters boat asks Peter to launch him a little way out... so he can teach the crowd…”

What we learn from Jesus ministry is that it is never limited to a place… Jesus spoke in the synagogue, he spoke in homes, here Peters boat becomes Jesus pulpit.. what a beautiful picture of Jesus sitting on the side of the boat…teaching the crowd… You can imagine that Jesus preaching was very engaging… You can imagine this back-and-forth dialogue, with questions, pauses.... speckled with object lessons, stories and parables.

Who is Jesus reaching through his ministry?

Who is Present in this Audience?

We don’t know exactly but we know that it is most probably a good cross section from those in the immediate geographical area…You had both the Elite and the poor… The religious, atheist and agnostic…also to those who were believers…

Jesus Christ was clear about whom he was reaching...

In Matt 9 the legalistic religious sect the Pharisees accuse Jesus of hanging around the wrong crowd… they challenge the disciples and ask, “Why does your teacher eat (fellowship) with tax collectors and sinners.”

What kind of Rabbi does that??? Now, Jesus responds...

When we talk about whom we are going to reach as a church...

There are basically 4 kinds of people we can focus reaching as a Church.

We can focus on BELIEVERS..

Believers are those who are already part of a church or is at best temporarily unchurched may be through a relocation.

This person has already made a decision for Christ and is committed to church involvement.

Most of the kind growth today is by transfer growth… people moving from one church to another...

A second type of person a church can target is the churched nonbeliever.

This is the person who attends a church but has never given his or her life to Christ.

A third type is the unchurched believer.

This seems to be a growing segment of people… these are people that have given up on the church for some reason… normally some conflict… but still believe in God and the bible.

The final type of person unchurched nonbeliever.

This is the person who is both outside the church and does not have a relationship with Christ.

When we think about our Mission we need to ask who is the Crowd.. Maybe there are Christians that don’t have a spiritual home… or those who have been hurt… Jesus clearly spoke about targeting unchurched nonbeliever.

The acronym F.R.A.N.’S is going to help us… Who are our FRANS.. these are FRIENDS, RELATIVES, ASSOCIATES, AND NEIGHBORS...

Lifeway resources did research that showed that 82% of people will respond to an invitation by a friend or someone they know to attend a service…

82 percent of all unchurched people would come to church this weekend if invited by a friend.

Lifeway Resources

How do we get a Direct hit when it comes to mission?

1. Clearly Define whom we are Reaching.

2. Know where to Expend our Resources and Energy

Max Depree is an author of many leadership books and sort after conference speaker… One time he was speaking at a conference and at one session somebody asked him - what the most difficult thing was that he personally had to work on.

This was Max's response: "It's the interception of entropy."

Entropy is a term from physics that has something to do with the second law of thermodynamics and the availability of energy.

It speaks to the fact that the universe is winding down.

John Ortberg discribes it like this..\

If you have ever bought a new car and driven it off the lot, you've witnessed entropy.

You lose several thousand dollars as soon as it goes off the lot, because things have a way of deteriorating on their own.

If you've ever seen a group of kids on summer vacation, you've noticed that by late August, when they're sitting around somebody's house and one of them says, "What do you want to do?" everybody else says, "I don't know; what do you want to do?" That's entropy.

Everything when left on its own—when not given attention and energy—has a tendency to deteriorate.

That's the way it works in human life.

When you become apathetic or complacent or settle for the path of least resistance in some area of life, entropy sets in and dreams die and hopes fade.

Then a terrible thing happens: you learn you can live with mediocrity.

It's not a great life, but you can tolerate it.

In Luke 5....

Jesus is speaking to the crowd but he is also speaking to these to pairs of brothers..

We need to know that it is no coincidence that Jesus is preaching next to the “Zebadee Sons and Co Fishing enterprises” …

Jesus has called them to join him on the mission of proclaiming the kingdom of God… but they have not fully grasped their calling and mission...

Here they are on the side of the banks of the Jordan .. cleaning their nets after a long hard night of unproductive fishing… They are ready to pack away the nets and call it a day… Jesus makes another Request of these disciples that is going to take faith is going to stretch them..

One of the problems that we have when we miss our target in mission… Is that takes more resources and energy to miss your target than to get a direct hit..

Lets take a moment to consider the resources and the energy that these disciples had expended… They had been on the water all night… Fishing with a circular dragnet was a tireless job of casting and retrieving…and repeating… This is back breaking work… and to add insult to injury they had to clean their nets of all the sea weed and debris before they started the process again… When we miss our target it costs us in resources and in energy… We get burned out and having nothing to show for our work… these disciples were fighting the law of entropy..

What Jesus does is Resets the mission..

Jesus says to Peter... Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch."

As you can imagine.... Peter is totally unmotivated... Simon says Master/teacher... we have been out all night toiling and the fish aren't biting... message says we haven’t even caught a minnow… I think every fisherman in the room can feel the disappointment… get the boat out the water it time to go home...

Jesus is using this fishing trip to teach some spirtual lessons..

The first is that we only grow when we are stretched.. the other is that it take Faith to be a follower of Jesus..

It is to take more energy and resources to get back on the water… they have to take the nets that they have just cleaned and push out again and go into the deep..

These are seasoned fisherman…We can imagine what is going through their minds…Jesus is amazing Spiritual leader and miracle worker..

He may be able give some advice of carpentry…… but what does Jesus know about fishing ?