11-13-05Sermon_Week6
11-13-05
Dallas Baptist Church
Pastor Jerry Branch
Made for Mission…Evangelism
Week 6
Sermon Transcript
These past many, many days we've been in this 40 Days of Purpose.
Have these days gone by as fast as it seems?
Over these days, we've been looked at God's 5 purposes for our lives.
We discovered several things…
First, that life is preparation for what? For eternity.
Life is preparation for eternity.
And we’ve found out that there are 4--four things, we’ll be doing
in heaven forever.
And God wants us to practice these here on earth.
First is worship, which is “to know and love God.”
The Second is to fellowship, to learn to love each other.
The Third is discipleship, learning to become like Christ.
And the Fourth is service, or Ministry…using my SHAPE,
my Spiritual Gifts, My Heat, My Abilities,
My Personality, and My Experiences for God in serving Him.
Now, we come to the fifth purpose, and this is the ONLY purpose
we can ONLY do here on earth.
You and I were made for a mission.
VIDEO CLIP: Made for Mission
In John 17, verse 18, Jesus said, Just as You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. John 17:18 (HCSB)
"In the same way that you gave Me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world."
"In the world."
Last week we talked about how we each need
to be part of the ministry in the church.
But that’s NOT where we stop…we also need a mission in the world.
In other words, we need a ministry to believers (in the church)
and we need a mission to unbelievers. (reaching out to the world)
So today we're going to look at the ‘common mission’
we all share together with every believer.
In John 20:21, Jesus said, Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! Just as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” John 20:21 (HCSB)
"As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."
What are we being sent to do?
What is our mission?
Paul is real specific in Acts 20:24, where he says,
But I count my life of no value to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of God’s grace.
Acts 20:24 (HCSB)
"the most important thing is to complete my mission, the work the Lord Jesus gave me” – which is: “to tell people the good news about God's grace.”
In your outline, then, OUR fifth purpose is to share the Good News.
So, once I know that God is in control,
once I know that God made me to love me,
once I know that my life isn't an accident,
once I know that life has a purpose,
all the things we've been talking about,
God expects me to share that with other people.
There's a word for this, and just like all these other words we’ve looked at every week, it too, is often misunderstood.
It is the word "evangelism.”
One thing Christians and non-Christians have in common is that
neither of them like that word
because it makes you think of the dudes on TV
with really big hair who shout real loud about the Bible on TV
and end up saying, [loud, Southern accent] "Send me your money!"
But that's not what evangelism is at all, nor is that an evangelist. Evangelism is just the Greek word for “good news.”
That's all it means.
And so the Bible says that once I know the Good News,
that God loves me, has a purpose and plan for my life
and all the things we've talked about,
God wants me to pass it on, sharing the Good News with others.
So, where am I supposed to share it?
Let’s look at Acts 1:8:
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8 (HCSB)
"You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
Now, when Jesus told this to his followers, do you know where they were? They were in Jerusalem.
So what’s the point?
First, Jesus is saying, I want you to start at home.
Start first with the people closest to you,
right there in your own city, your own community.
Then Jesus says go out to Judea and Samaria,
that's like the county next door,
and Samaritans were different culturally and different racially.
So that means, go to people nearby,
but these people are different from you.”
And then Jesus says, “Go to the ends of the earth.
I want you to go reach everybody else.”
I want you to notice 2 things here…First…Jesus doesn't say,
“You will be my defense attorney.”
He doesn't say, “You will be my prosecutor.”
He didn't say, “You will be my salesman.”
Folks…YOU DO NOT have to defend God.
All God wants you to do is He wants you to be a witness.
So what is a witness?
A witness is somebody who just tells what they have seen.
I saw this, and then I saw this; and this is what happened.
You see, you are the expert on your life.
And NO ONE is a better witness on your life than you are.
So God says, “I just want you to tell other people what's happened to you, what's happened in your life.”
And He says, I don’t want you to do this just in the church, but I want you to go out all over the place;
go to the people closest to you,
go to your families and friends, your co-workers…
But also go to the people who are near, but different,
and go to everybody else.
And the second thing, is that Jesus doesn’t say, “Go FIRST to your Jerusalem, and THEN go to your Samaria, and THEN go to your Judea, and THEN go to the ends of the earth.
Jesus does NOT use the word ‘then’ at all…
which means we are to go about this ‘simultaneously’…
each one is just as important as the next.
Now…Look at the next verse. Eph 3:11 says,
"This was God's plan for all of history which He carried out through Christ Jesus, our Lord."
Here's the amazing part: God has chosen us to complete the mission. The mission that Jesus Christ started when He came to earth,
He says, “I want you to finish it.”
There’s a story that says,
“God is in heaven and an angel comes up and God says, "My plan is to give the Good News to my children on earth and ask them to share it."
And the angel says, "What if they don't? What is plan B?"
And God says, "There is no plan B."
Folks…we're God’s PLAN.
Being on mission is the greatest privilege we're ever given.
So, how do you get on God's agenda and let God use you
and bless you so that you can be completing your mission?
There are three things.
First, In order to to complete my God-given mission,
I must share with those in my world.
I must share with those in my world.
In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 8, there's a man whom Jesus healed.
After Jesus healed him, the guy wanted to go with Jesus,
but Jesus said, "No."
In Luke 8:39 Jesus said to the man…
"’Go back home and tell people how much God has done for you.’
So that man went all over town telling how much
Jesus had done for him.”
The man went "back home."
That’s also where our mission starts…Right at home…
that’s in our own neighborhoods, and right here in our community.
The Bible says
And off he went, proclaiming throughout the town all that Jesus had done for him. Luke 8:39 (HCSB)
This guy literally went all over town.
Folks…that's what God wants us to do.
HE wants us to go to our friends, our family,
our coworkers, our neighbors, anybody who crosses your path,
the person who delivers the paper,
who person who helps you with your groceries,
the clerk at the gas station.
God says, "I want you to share the Good News
with the people in your Jerusalem, the people in your home.”
So why don't we do this?
Actually there are a couple reasons.
One reason is we believe the myth
that people aren't interested and we might offend them.
Nothing is farther from the truth.
A fairly recent George Gallup poll showed that
65 million Americans have no church home,
but 34 million of them said they would attend
IF somebody would just invite them.
34 million people just waiting for an invitation!
Another Gallup poll said teens would rather talk about God
than sex, drugs or music.
There are opportunities to share the Good News all around us.
We just have to be ready for them.
Sometimes it takes a little persistence, but there are opportunities
all around us here in our home, in our Jerusalem.
There are thousands of ways that you can be a witness saying,
“This is what God did for me in my life.”
You can give cds,
you can e-mail people,
you can give them books, Christian books, like Purpose Driven Life. There are all kind of tools you can use to give to people to tell them about God's love.
God wants us to pass on the Good News…
2 Peter 3:9 says, The Lord does not delay His promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9 (HCSB)
"God doesn't want anyone to be lost, but He wants all people to change their hearts and lives!”
That brings us to another reason we sometimes don’t share…
Some people in churches today are content
to have a nice little fellowship…
I know we at Dallas don’t think that way,
but there are churches who do…
and they have all sorts of excuses…
I won’t know anyone if the church grows…
I don’t want their kind in here…
I don’t like big churches…and so on.
But the truth of the matter is that the church that doesn't want to grow
and reach out is basically saying to the world,
“You can go to hell.”
That's what they are saying.
In fact, anytime, when you and I don't ever share our faith,
we are saying to the world,
“You can go to hell. If God wants you in, He’ll have to get you in,
because I’ve got my own life to live. I’m in. So good luck to you.”
But…God made us for “mission”…that is the fifth purpose of our lives.
So, I must share with those in my Jerusalem…my community.
But Jesus said that's not where it stops.
It is not enough to just care about the people who are around you.
Number two, we must also reach beyond my world.
You see, LOVE demands that I move beyond my comfort zone
to people with different background, different education,
different language, different economics.
You see, our mission has such eternal consequences,
I’m talking about where a person spends his or her eternity…
“heaven OR hell,”
So we must be willing to risk anything to get the message out.
I’ll bet that IF you or I had the cure for AIDS,
we'd be shouting it on the street.
But we have something even more important than that,
we have the way to eternal life.
And, it has been given.
Somebody cared enough to tell me,
and I've got to be caring enough to tell others.
The Bible says this in I Corinthians 9:
"Whatever each person is like, I try to find common ground with him so that he will let me tell him about Christ and let Christ save him."
In other words, don't just hang out with people like ‘us.’
We Christians are called to build bridges, NOT walls.
Over and over in this book, the Bible, we're told to reach out.
And this is the one place that God expects us to make the first move.
God says over and over using one word: "Go."
We quote the ‘Great Commission’ a lot,
especially when we’re trying to reach a goal for
a mission’s offering…but the Great Commission is NOT about supporting missions…
it is about personally DOING MISSIONS.
We have to dare to reach beyond my world.
Look at this next verse, Galatians 6:2, Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Gal 6:2 (HCSB)
"Stoop down and reach out to those who were oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ's law."
So…What is Christ's law?
It’s LOVE YOUR neighbor as yourself.
Who are our neighbors?
Are they just the people like us?
I don’t think so.
When you read this book, the Bible, and you read about Jesus,
you read that Jesus reached out to the real underdogs of society…
The people society wanted to ignore;
the powerless, the poor, the left behind, the imprisoned,
the orphaned, the widowed, the aged, the mentally ill,
the social outcasts, sick, the lepers.
One way we’re doing just that here at DBC
is through the Operation Christmas Child box.
Operation Christmas Child is sponsored by Samaritan’s Purse.
Operation Christmas Child is a project where shoe boxes
are filled by ordinary people like you and me
and they are sent around the world.
The shoe boxes are sent to children who live in very dire circumstances.
Another way is through our Prison Ministry
to the inmates at the state correctional facility.
One day we're going to stand before God and
He's going to do an audit of our lives,
and He's going to judge if we really learned to love
or if it was just all talk.
In other words, DID we ever really do anything that showed love
or did we just say we loved?
In Matthew 25: 35-36 Jesus said, “I was hungry, and you fed Me. I was thirsty and you gave Me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited Me into your home. I was naked, and you gave Me clothing. I was sick and you cared for Me. I was in prison and you visited Me.”
If you go back and read the rest of that verse, Matthew 25, people are going to say, “When did we do that for you, Lord?” And He says, “When you have done it to one of the least of my brothers or sisters, you've done it to Me.”
When you give a cup of cold water to somebody who is thirsty,
when you give a shoe box of toys to a child on the other side of the world who has never had anything,
Jesus said, “It is just like did you it for me.”
God says, “Whatever you do for me is not in vain.”
It is not enough to just share with those in my world;
it is not even enough to reach beyond my world, to dare to reach beyond it. If I am going to be like Jesus Christ, I must care about the whole world.
This will take you to a new level of spiritual maturity.
Mark 16, verse 15: “Jesus said to His followers, ‘Go everywhere in the world and tell the Good News to everyone.’”
Notice a couple things about that verse.
Who was Jesus talking TO?
Was He talking to JUST pastors there? No.
Was He talking to JUST missionaries there? No.
He's talking to just normal followers.
If you're a Christian, Jesus said, “Follow Me, and I'll make you a fisher of men.”
Rather bluntly, IF you're not fishing, you're not following.
Jesus says to His followers, GO everywhere, because everybody needs
to hear the Good News.
That used to be impossible.
Back when Jesus said it to His disciples, they didn't even have airplanes
to get across to other continents.
In Jesus’ days, people had two means of transportation,
they either walked, or rode a donkey, or maybe a camel. That was it. Today though, we have ships, jet planes, and high speed trains, along with automobiles and buses; not to mention, we even have the internet, and with that, the world has even gotten smaller.
You can sit in your pajamas and communicate around the world now.
It has never been easier to fulfill your mission.
You can literally go around the world from your home now.
It has never been easier to care about the whole world.
When you get to heaven, is anyone going to say thank you, thank you for telling me the Good News?
Or did you personally know the good news, and kept it to yourself?
Pass it on.
In the next 365 days, 2.4 million Americans will die, and most of them will go into eternity without Jesus Christ.
In the next 365 days, 54 million people in the world will die;
most of them will go into eternity without Jesus Christ.
If we care, we must share.
Here's the test question to know whether or not you’ve completed your mission.
Are you still alive?
If you're still alive, your mission is not completed.
As we close, each of us has several possible responses today.
We can say like Jonah, "Not me."
Or we can say like Isaiah, "Send me."
Let's bow our heads.
I know you're calling all of us to accept our mission from you,
and I pray you'll give each one of us the courage to do the right thing and not walk away in disobedience.
Thank you for the privilege of being invited to be a part of the greatest cause, the building of your family and to be a history maker.
Now, you pray. Say, "Father, more than anything else, I want to fulfill the purposes you made me for. So today, I accept this fifth purpose, my mission to tell others. I want you to use me any time, any way, any place. I want to bring others to you. I want to serve your purpose in my generation. And I want to be a part of what you're doing in the world. From this day forward, I want to build my life around Your eternal purposes, and I want to help our church do the same. Help me to reach one more for Jesus. In your name I pray. Amen.”
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