We Are New City and We Are Missionaries

We Are New City and We Are Missionaries

A. Sermon Big Idea:

As missionaries living in the midst of a variety of cultures, we all are to find ways to proclaim the message of the gospel and demonstrate its power to bring about God’s good design.

Introduce myself w/ my testimony & background.

Start audio recording

Good morning Northridge! Allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Greg Wood, and I am one of the pastor / elders for New City Church.

We have been praying for you all for months now, and it is great to anticipate the further work the Lord is going to do in our midst.

It is a pleasure to be with you all again this morning.

A little about me: I have been married to Wendy for 19 years, and we have 4 children: Father of 4. Elijah, 15, Asa’s almost 13, Anna is 7, and Cameron is almost 6.

I am an engineer and work at Robins AFB, working to ensure the structural integrity of helicopters.

My wife and I have been part of New City from the beginning, way back at the stage of planning to plant, so we have been around for 13 years and I have served as pastor/elder for the past 8 years.

We currently host a Missional Community (MC) at our house; in the past we have led MC’s led the group, we’ve led the children’s ministry, the connect team for hospitality, and I’ve served on the worship team. And we get our kids involved in these things with us where possible.

As far as my whole spiritual journey, I grew up going to church, but I was not a follower of Jesus until later.

My parents had us at church at least 2 of 4 Sundays while I was a kid.

But my identity was in being a guitar player, being cool, and probably in having a girlfriend. I found my worth in these things. We could say that I made an idol of those things.

I was drawn to the church, but probably would’ve told you (wrongly!) that the main message of the Bible is that we are to be good and God will accept us if we are.

So, I tried that, and in the end, it left me empty, without assurance of salvation, and feeling distant from God. I know now that I really just had a self-righteousness that fell short of God’s requirement.

So, it wasn’t until I was 18 while at Mercer, about 23 years ago, involved in the Baptist Student Union band, that I truly believed the true gospel and acknowledged Jesus is my Lord.

See, I was serving already, but I was still the same old Greg, trusting that I had been good enough for God to have to accept me. But my good acts did not outweigh my bad deeds! Even if I had only sinned once, they wouldn’t.

It wasn’t until I had trusted in the gift of the righteousness of Jesus - and even forsaken my own righteousness as a means of getting right with God – only then was I saved.

God gave me a new identity as a son, with a new heart as a gift from the Spirit. That’s when I became a Christ follower and my life has been on a different trajectory ever since.

Now I am drawn to Jesus, I trust Him, I rejoice in the good news of what He has done through His living, dying, coming back to life, and ascending to the right hand of God.

I love spending time with Him and studying and sharing His Word.

And I love trying to help the church rejoice in the good news of the gospel, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and to live in light of that glorious truth.

Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.

· Praise you, for you are holy, and you have been so gracious to us.

· Thank you for the work you are doing here among your people.

· Would you bless the time we have together?

o May your Spirit apply the Scripture to our hearts

o Help us to see our sin more like you do

o Help us to repent

o Comfort the hurting

o Convict the idle in your mission

o Embolden the timid

o Strengthen the weak

o Help us to find more joy in walking with you than in the pleasures of the world.

o Help us not to be satisfied with our own self-wrought righteousness, but trust whole in Jesus’s blood-bought righteousness.

· We love you, and ask that you help us to love you more.

· In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Start my timer

Sermon Introduction

When you think of your life mission, and the mission of your church, what Bible text comes to mind?

For me it is Matthew 28:18-20. The Great Commission.

After Jesus was crucified, and 3 days later was raised from the dead, he spent a little more time on earth and appeared to more than 500 people. And his parting words to his disciples are recorded here:

Matthew 28:16–20 (ESV)

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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 all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The command in v.19 is to make disciples. And he uses 3 participle verbs to guide how we will do that:

· Going (As you go)

· Baptizing in the Triune name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

· Teaching the new disciples to follow Jesus

This is what Jesus has sent us to do.

So this command is given to us all, not just the original 11 apostles (said “to the end of the age”).

You and the people you represent who follow me, “make disciples.”

And my question is this: How do we do this by faith, walking by the Spirit, in a God-honoring manner? You see, I can try to obey the Great Commission by my own strength. Or, I can do it in the strength that God supplies. And there is a WORLD of difference in the two ways as far as which one honors God!

Let me illustrate one way this is done…. And you answer some questions for me:

Earlier this month I had pears growing in my back yard. What kind of tree do I have? Yes, pear tree. Why does a pear tree make pears? It’s what they are and what they do! Being leads to doing.

If I had oranges, what tree? Apples?

So, the fruit is connected to what part of the tree? Branches – which are connected to what part? Trunk – which are connected to? Roots.

The same is true for us: our works and the fruit of our labors in the Lord are connected to a branch. It is analogous to our identity. And our identity is connected to the trunk of what God has done. And God does what He does because of Who He Is.

How is this helpful in walking by faith rather than sight? When I try and bear fruit for God in my own strength, it is like when Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” He was talking about being disconnected from Him, the vine. So if we cut the fruit from the identity God has given, away from what He has done in Christ Jesus, away from who He is… We have stopped believing what the Scripture says, so there is no promise for us to be trusting – we couldn’t be walking by faith!

If you hear us talk about gospel fluency, this picture is at the heart of it. Fluently applying what God has done, who He is, to our lives.

We are in a short series talking about the identity that God creates in His people, and specifically who we are as New City church.

As we, New City Church, seek to be the people that God wants us to be, what is the identity that God is forming in us?

We started out last week seeing the fact that the Bible shows us God has made us Family.

This week we continue talking about who we are, about our IDENTITY and we discover that we are not only Family, but we are also MISSIONARIES….

And we are not so much talking about what we do… But Who We Are

I. Gospel-driven mission flows from identity and purpose (5:10, 14-19)

Here I’ll trace fruit of what we do (persuade, v.10) to branch of who God has made us (our new identity), to trunk of what God has done (God’s reconciling work in Christ), to root of who God is (God of love and justice)

First let’s ask, what even is this mission?

A. Your Mission (v.11)

2 Corinthians 5:11 (ESV)

11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. [But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. ]

Persuade others – One of the early steps in making disciples, right? We tell them the truth so they too can believe it. And he will elaborate further in the verses we’ll read in just a moment.

One of our convictions is this: Our doing flows being, so… what is our being? Your identity?

B. Your Identity (v.16, 17)

2 Corinthians 5:16–17 (ESV)

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

“according to the flesh” – based on outward, natural, circumstantial characteristics. Not on the basis of appearance, possessions, amount of melanin determining the skin color.

They did look on Jesus this way, and we all naturally do.

For us as missionaries, and for how we view others… what matters…

What matters is something completely different from the flesh. What matters is the heart, meaning the true self. The heart is metaphorical, representing the center of a person’s being, the “place” which holds the mind, the will, and the emotions.

So, what matters is the core of who we are, which we’ve been saying is our identity - heart. And the most important thing is whether we have been made new in Christ.

This will change the way I look at co-workers. Not by class, appearance, or what’s in it for me. But, how are they in relation to Jesus? Are they a new creation?

Down in v. 20 we’ll see this whole passage is progressing to show we are ambassadors – representatives – messengers for the one we represent…. In other words, we are MISSIONARIES.

So then, maybe you’re asking, “Where does identity attach in the tree? Where does being flow from?

Our being flows from believing God’s work, so…

C. God’s reconciling work (v.14, 15)

2 Corinthians 5:14–15 (ESV)

14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

Boom! That’s good news. Christ died to give us true life! Believe that message today, follower of Christ, so that you can bear fruit and live for Him!

And anyone else – believe! Jesus desires to give you more joy in Him, joy that transcends circumstances.

God’s doing flows from His being, so…

D. God’s character (v.18, 19)

2 Corinthians 5:18–19 (ESV)

18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

God is a God of reconciliation, He wants to bring us into His presence because He knows it is there that we would have fulness of joy.

God is holy, and so He must deal with sins which are essentially statements of despising His glory.

God’s being flows from … I AM WHO I AM!

Gospel-driven mission flows from identity, and even out of the very character of God, who purposes for us to live for Him.

E. So what is it to have a gospel-driven life?

In brief, it is to be always connecting what we do to what we believe about what God has done (giving us a new identity, reconciling us in Christ’s work, and pursuing us as a God of love and justice).

We will say things like, living in light of the gospel.

So, if the gospel of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection is driving our actions, how do we live?

How do we see everything through the lens of the gospel?

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What are the alternatives to being gospel-driven?

· Law driven, or works righteousness

· Driven by fear, never secure in having done enough

· Trying to earn an identity by doing

· Claiming an identity on some basis besides believe God’s works

· Trying to have God’s work and our identity based on making God in our own image, rather than taking His revelation of Himself in Scripture.

The gospel shows us that we cannot save ourselves, it took Jesus to save us. It was much bigger than we could handle because we are more sinful than we ever dared to imagine. But God! He has loved us more than we could have ever dreamed by substituting Himself in our place on the cross, satisfying the wrath of God that rightly belonged on us, and putting it on Jesus instead.

So, eternal life is ours from this God of love and Justice if we will repent and believe.

God gives us a new identity as His child as we saw last week, and He makes us missionaries.

And we get to lovingly carry this message everywhere we go – not just here on Sunday mornings – be we live in light of this gospel, being first, so that we can then do the work of sharing the good news of the hope we’ve found.

]

Oh the dangers of simply skipping this foundation (vv.14-19) and jumping straight into trying to be ambassadors (v.20)!

And Oh the dangers of merely doing without being and believing – simply going through the motions without first being filled by the gospel ourselves!

What need we have to be gospel-saturated ourselves, which we will see more as we look at 6:1-2 in a few moments. So, …

II. As missionaries, the gospel is life for us and others (5:20-6:2)

i. Gospel for salvation! (v.20, 21)

2 Corinthians 5:20-21 (ESV)

20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

What is our appeal, our invitation, our message? Appeal is this: Be reconciled to God!

Message: God wanted to do good for us, so when we had spit in His face, He put our sin on Jesus and nailed Him to the cross. Perfect Jesus, the one and only Son of God, took our place and became sin.

Why? (last part of v.21), “so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

2 things in this phrase:

1) Sinful humanity can be reconciled to God, having the righteousness of Christ given to them instead of the guilt of their sins. This aspect is like Romans 5:19, 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

2) But, it also carries the aspect of growing in increasing likeness to the one we adore: “so that in Him (Christ) we might become the righteousness of God.”

So it is also the message we need, so that we can live lives that please the Lord and bring honor to Him!

F. Gospel for life!

Sometimes we use big words like “sanctification”, which might not be helpful in a culture that used to be Christianized, but really isn’t any longer. We should really teach/define our terms or use common language.

So it would be better to say that the gospel is for believers, and it is by the gospel that we grow.

My in-laws live on a lake and have a lush yard. Why? They get to pump ask much lake water into their yard as is good for it. So it can be saturated!

When we are saturated in the gospel – when we behold the glory of the Lord (2Cor3:18) – we are changed into His likeness.

2 Corinthians 6:1-2 (ESV)

6 Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says,

“In a favorable time I listened to you,

and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”

So this message is for the ongoing life of the believer.

As we mentioned briefly earlier, the gospel continues to confront us as well. Our sin is a failure to believe, so we are effectively worshipping some idol (maybe ourself, wanting praise due only to God; or it may be our comfort, which we won’t give up for the good of others).

We need to continue to go deeper and deeper in our belief of the gospel, confronting our own idols, that we may grow in likeness to Christ.

[

As His, “we are left with no honourable alternative but to ‘die’ to sin and to live for Him who, as our representative and substitute, died and was raised.”[1]

]

Now, how do we do this in Macon? in Shirley Hills? In Gray? Let’s put some feet on it.

III. As missionaries, our character and practice matter

2 Corinthians 6:3–4a (ESV)

3 We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,

Let me share this: one obstacle for Sunday mornings that I’ve observed and we’ll need to address: Would a visitor feel obstacles to knowing where to go walking in here? Do we have signs marking the street entrance? Marking parking? Directing families where to go with their kids? Measures in place to help them feel safe leaving their kids there? Or do we make it comfortable for just the people who have been here in the past?

We’ve mentioned that we want this to be a place where people feel safe to come and investigate Christianity, to see what this good news is all about, and find out whether or not they can believe it. So:

· Is our language understandable to people from the cultures we are trying to reach?

· Do we connect the truth in ways they can understand?

That’s here. And that’s part of where our mission happens, but it needs to be happening outside as well.

Back to the text…

Paul shows us here another obstacle that is often in the way of someone believing is the character they think Christians have.

i. The missionary’s character matters

Character / Ethos is so important to our culture. This generation may be willing to give you a hearing if they know your character backs up what you say. And if they know you are real, genuine, and not a faker or merely a hypocrite.

So, you as a sinner need to be honest about your struggles, be relatable, but able to point out that God is a gracious God who is transforming you to be more and more like Jesus.

And this:

You say God is love. Do you care? Do you know the needs of the community, seek to meet the needs and shine the light of the gospel?

Do we do this…

3) Knowing our own need for grace

And return to it again and again, confessing your sins, and preaching the need

ii. Proclaiming the need for the gospel to believers

Not just you guys, be we need this gospel.

iii. Living in light of the gospel to win a hearing

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to God.

iv. To be a missionary, or missional, includes being counter-cultural

We don’t imitate culture, and we don’t withdraw. We are in the world, but not defined by it.

Which means … :

v. We must be able to see culture, appreciate parts (not throwing out everything that didn’t start in the church walls), challenge parts (sin and the false assumptions of peace and joy)

[

5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; 7 by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

]

What then are more practices of the missionary?

G. The missionary’s practice

And I mean practice in the sense of the way doctors practice – not a trial run, but the exercise of their calling.

I want to run through a few examples for you to make it very concrete how we can be missionaries in our everyday practice.

· A coworker notices that you work hard, have a good attitude, and don’t get caught up in talking bad about management. So, when you invite this person who never goes to church to meet you here on a Sunday morning, they accept your invitation.

· You play cards with a group of other ladies. When one lady mentions a need she has, you ask your missional community if you can all pitch in to help her. When you take her the gift, you let her know that it came from the church and you guys wanted to express the love you’ve received from Jesus.

· Your MC puts a care package together for front line responders at the hospital along with notes taped to the box sharing how Jesus has cared for you, and you want to do this for them.

· At work you regularly share how the gospel is convicting you, and you share what the gospel is. Your employee steals from you, and you respond in a way that this unbeliever can see a picture of this Jesus who you have been proclaiming. You let him know it is because of Jesus that you can respond this way.

· You exercise at a gym, and the owner is an atheist from France. You learn that he wants a bike to be able to get to work, but doesn’t have the money. So, you ask your friends if you all could help, and one friend volunteers to give him his $2,000 bike to show the extravagant love of Christ. He posts on his facebook page for all of his French buddies to know that a Christian church did this for him.

These are just a few examples based in what I have seen happening in New City. And the thing is, these are just the ones I know of. Many I never hear about because it doesn’t come from leadership. It comes from every believer living out their identity in their everyday places.

IV. Conclusion

What is it to be a missionary?

We are rooted in the gospel, connected to what God has done because of who He is.

And it’s practice?

· Yes, it is to evangelize

· More, it is to approach the culture we are in as a missionary would

Worship - worship is missional in that it makes sense to nonbelievers in our culture, even while it challenges and shapes Christians with the gospel.Knowing and addressing the needs of the community. Would the area around Northridge miss us if we were gone?Contextualize the gospel for the surrounding cultureExpect non-believers to be in our midstAsk ourselves what we do that assumes all believersLanguage understandable to nonb?Challenge believers and nonb with gospel?Shocked when we learn their story isn’t Christian?Do we share our testimony of Gods grace? Is Jesus the center and the hero of an unworthy sinner, or do we come across as “we are better?”

What could this look like?

· Loving people who are different from us (race, socio-economic, outcasts of society

· Understanding the surrounding culture

Hedonists – hold out a lasting joy in Christ to themSacred secular divide – integrate your life and help them see theirsLonely people who long for community that loves well

· People caring for their unbelieving co-workers, seeing where there are opportunities to share the difference Jesus has made to them.

· Letting our light shine everywhere.

· Challenging those who have known our bad and see the change as we look at life with new creation lenses

As missionaries living in the midst of a variety of cultures, we all are to find ways to proclaim the message of the gospel and demonstrate its power to bring about God’s good design.

[1] Paul Barnett, The Message of 2 Corinthians: Power in Weakness (The Bible Speaks Today; Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 119.