Are we a church prepared for missions? Three indicators
Notes
Transcript
There is an open invitation for every church that is willing to join Him where He is at work and partner with Him to reach their city and state and country and world for His Son. God has a mission. He is a God on mission. He invites us to partner with Him in that mission.
God has a mission. He is a God on mission. He is relentless in this mission. He will not stop until He has a people from every tongue and language and tribe and nation to worship Him for eternity. Who will be among that throng of worshipers? Believers - those who have turned from sin and trusted in Christ for their salvation, their righteousness before God. God has a mission.
He could do this alone. God does not need us. There is not a single thing we bring to the table that God doesn’t already have in abundance.
But, incredibly, He wants to use us in that mission. He doesn’t need us, but He wants us. He wants us to have the joy of being used by God in His mission. And He wants the glory, the credit, for doing it all through weak, sinful, often foolish and rebellious people like us.
So are we a church that is prepared for missions? What does that kind of preparation look like?
If you were to ask this question, what does a church need to be prepared for being part of God’s mission? You would get some interesting responses. Bigger buildings. More staff. More appealing programs. Deeper pockets.
But the Bible does not say those are the things we need to be successful as a church in ministry and missions. In fact, the book of Acts shows the early church in action. No one would say the early church in the first century and in most of the second century was unsuccessful. And yet they had none of these things!
So what did they have? And what do we need? In these first 11 verses, we see four things that are necessary for us to be successful. Four characteristics of a church prepared and ready for mission. I’m going to pose each of these characteristics as questions.
Are we prepared for missions?
Do we live in the certainty of the resurrection?
Do we avoid distractions?
Do we witness in the power of the Spirit?
Do we live in the hope of the return of Christ?
#1: Are we living in the certainty of the resurrection?
#1: Are we living in the certainty of the resurrection?
Notice how Luke opens up his account here in Acts 1:1. This will give us a chance to get a little background on the book of Acts.
In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach
Who is Theophilus?
His name means “lover of God” (Greek)
Most likely a Gentile
Luke’s gospel was also dedicated to him
So two questions here. What is the former book that Luke mentions? And who is Theophilus. Let’s start with the first one: what is the former book Luke mentions here? Well, it’s the gospel that bears his name. Luke the physician wrote the gospel of Luke. And Acts, even though John comes between Luke and Acts, is the second volume of his gospel. The two are not one book. No, they’re two books.
You can think of Acts like a sequel. Think of the Star Wars movies. Star Wars was the first movie then in 1980 The Empire Strikes back came along. Those two movies and then all the sequels that come after them tell one story, but they are not the same movie. And in the same way, Acts is like a sequel to Luke’s gospel. It’s not Luke’s Gospel 2.0. It stands on its own. But it continues the story begun in Luke’s gospel. More on that in a minute.
But who is Theophilus? Well, the answer is: we don’t know a whole lot about him. He was probably a Gentile, because his name is Greek. His name Theophilus means “loved by God”. Because of that, some people think Theophilus wasn’t a real person, just a name Luke made up so that his gospel would be timeless, it would be addressed to everyone loved by God. But that’s probably not what’s going on here, because Luke indicates that he is writing history - actually events that really took place in real places involving real people. We see this in Luke 1:1-4.
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
Acts vs. Luke: similarities
Both written by Luke the physician
Both written to the same person (Theophilus)
Acts vs. Luke: differences
Luke written ca. 50s AD
Acts written in 63-63 AD
Luke describes Jesus’ earthly ministry
“all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Ac. 1:2)
Acts describes all that Jesus continues to do by His Spirit, through His church
So Acts, then, begins that way.
Alright, are we living in the certainty of the resurrection of Christ? The early church certainly did. In fact, Luke wants the readers of Acts to understand that success of the church, the effectiveness of the people of God depends upon the resurrection. If it’s a myth, we have no reason for being here. If we fail to grasp the truth and certainty of the resurrection, we will have no firm ground on which to stand.
That’s why Luke belabors not just the fact that Jesus is risen, but also the fact that Jesus appeared to His disciples. We see that in verse 3. “After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.”
Why does Luke emphasize the appearances of Christ? The reason, I think, is that there was no better way to prove, so to speak, that Jesus is in fact risen. He appeared to His disciples in the flesh so that they could touch and see and hear Him.
Significance of Jesus’ appearing to the disciples:
Since most were still alive, they could confirm that it was true
Since most were still alive, they would have disproven it if true
And here’s the cool thing. Actually, two cool things, and both hinge on the fact that the people Jesus appeared to were mostly still alive:
The first one is that most of these people were still alive when Luke wrote this. It’s almost as if Luke is saying, “He appeared to them. Check it out for yourself. Verify it by talking to them. Confirm it for your own certainty.”
The second cool thing is that the reverse is also true. Since they were still alive, they would have been able to disprove these claims that Jesus had appeared to people. The very fact that Luke is willing to mention these appearances of Jesus after His resurrection indicates how certain Luke was about the resurrection. Because at any moment, any of one of them could dispute his claims.
The truth of the resurrection is the rock solid foundation of the church.
Many of you know that we were looking at a house a month or so ago. We were actually under contract on this house and we were having our inspections done. An inspector had come out to look specifically at the foundation of the house. So he goes into the crawlspace and he finds something disturbing. The house had a crawlspace 2-3 feet deep, but at some point after the house was built, they dug out a significant portion of the crawlspace so they could fit a furnace in there. In this little dug out, there was space to stand.
And in that area, the foundation footers were resting on the edge of that deeper dugout area. And because the dirt was eroding underneath those footers, eventually the footers were going to collapse.
Then the inspector found some water damage in other parts of the crawlspace. The inspector recommended that we replace all the footers around the crawlspace and it was going to cost about $20,000. The owner wasn’t willing to make those repairs, and so I wasn’t willing to buy the house. So we’re still in our house in Vale and that house is back on the market.
The resurrection is our foundation:
If Jesus is risen, He must be God
If He is God, everything He said is true
If everything He said is true, we can live and even suffer for Him
The point is this: and it’s so obvious and cliche I hesitate to say it, but it bears repeating: a church without a foundation will not last long. Without a good foundation, you end up with a collapsed high rise condo building. For us, the resurrection is that foundation. Here’s why: If Jesus is risen, He must be God, because only the God of life can triumph over death.
And if He is really and truly God, then everything He said was true. Everything he said about hell and judgment is true. Everything he said about forgiveness is true. Everything he said about the good news of the coming kingdom of God is true. The gospel - the good news about the God who pursued us even to the point of becoming a man and dying in our place that He, not us, might take the blame for our sins. It’s all absolutely and positively true.
And if we can know it’s true, then we can follow Jesus when it gets hard - even when it gets really hard, really costly. And I believe that it will get costly. But we don’t have to worry, because those who oppose us will not have the last word, and the reward Jesus promised us is coming.
Matt. 10:18-20
Matthew 10:18–20 (NIV)
On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Challenge yourself #1:
Take 5 minutes each day to read 1 Cor. 15:12-20, especially verse 19
“If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1Cor. 15:19 NIV)
Here’s a challenge for you: take five minutes every day for the next 30 days to remind yourself to live in the certainty of the resurrection. How can you do that? Let me suggest that you read 1Cor. 15:12-20 once a day, first thing each day, for the next 28 days.
Are we living in the certainty of the resurrection? Only then will we be prepared for the mission God has for us.
#2: Are we careful to avoid distraction?
#2: Are we careful to avoid distraction?
Are we careful to avoid distraction?
When I was a college, my first year, I was part of some kind of a campus group for Christians. One day one of the guys who was part of that group came in holding an extremely long and extremely wide piece of paper. He rolled it out on the table and it was a timeline maybe extending from the 1970s up through the present, which was 1999, and on maybe as far as 2020.
And on this timeline, he had different events marked. Most of them were political. Some of them involved disasters. There were Bible verses sketched in parenthesis on this gigantic scroll. And there at the end of the timeline was clearly written with an exact date: the second coming of Christ.
I don’t remember what he said exactly. I do remember that it was a distraction. We were there to hear the Bible taught. We were there for fellowship with our other believing students. For some members that group was a lifeline. We needed it.
Yet this man had come in using the group as a platform on which to showcase His spiritual achievement: He had figured something out that even angels didn’t know; he had supposedly figured something out that God Himself had said no one could ever know. He was certain of this, despite the fact that even during Jesus’ earthly ministry Jesus Himself did not have this knowledge.
So let me pose that question to you again: Are we careful to avoid distractions in ministry?
Put it another way: Are we ever guilty of spending our time, money, and energy on things that hinder rather than advance the mission of God in our world?
Let me put it still another way: Do I invest the better part of my time and resources in things that contribute to my growth in Christ?
Sit with that for a minute.
It’s a little uncomfortable, isn’t it?
Of course, none of us use our time and resources always as we should. We always stand in need of forgiveness and grace from God, no matter how well we steward what God has given us. And even if we did do better than others, so to speak, it is God who gives us the power to do that, even that would not be our righteousness before God. Christ makes us acceptable to God, not whether we avoid distractions or not.
But the reality is that we will never be prepared for missions, both individually and as a church, until, by God’s grace, we learn to focus on what matters.
Are we careful to avoid distraction?
Look with me at verse 6: “Then they gathered around him and asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’” Now Jesus, when they ask this, is about to ascend into heaven. The mission is about to begin. Their assignment is on the verge of taking effect. The only remaining step is receiving the Holy Spirit to empower them to get to work with boldness and confidence and consistency. And at this crucial time, the disciples latch on to a distraction. Two distractions, actually.
The disciples’ two distractions in Acts 1:6
Distraction #1: wrong thinking about what Jesus had come to do
Acts 1:6b - “restore the kingdom to Israel”
They thought Jesus would set up an earthly kingdom immediately
The first: they were distracted by wrong ideas about what Jesus came to do. What was this wrong thinking?
Jesus was the Messiah. And the disciples, like the rest of Israel, wanted to see the Messiah defeat the enemies of God - like Rome - and set up the kingdom of God from Jerusalem. That’s what they mean when they ask Jesus, “are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
If you’ve read the gospels, you know that this was something Jesus was constantly explaining to His disciples. They never really grasped it, it seems.
Because this is what they’re saying: Jesus, are you going to lead the angelic armies of God to stage a massive cosmic rebellion against the forces of Rome? Are you now going to defeat them once and for all? Are you now about to take your place on the throne of David in the temple, and subjugate all of our enemies to us so that we rule over them with an iron fist?
This wasn’t entirely wrong, by the way. One day Jesus will defeat His enemies and rule over them and share that rule with us. But the nature of that reign is not physical; it’s spiritual. And it’s not yet - just as Jesus suffered before He entered His glory, the disciples, the church, would have to suffer before sharing in that glory with Him.
This was a distraction to them. It was an idol in their heart that needed destruction just as much as they thought the Romans did.
The disciples’ two distractions in Acts 1:6
Distraction #2: an unhealthy preoccupation with when Jesus would do what He had come to do
Acts 1:6a - “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
But there was another distraction. Not only were they distracted by wrong thinking about what Jesus had come to do. They were also distracted by an unhealthy preoccupation with when He would do it.
And so Jesus rebukes them. Notice what he says. First, “It is not for you,” he says. It is not for you, Jesus says. That’s not your concern, in other words. That’s not what you’re to be engaged in. That’s not your business, in other words.
What is not our business? “It is not for you,” Jesus says, “to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.” Seasons and times give us a fascinating glimpse into the eternal counsel of God. He has apparently divided history into these seasons or times, but note this: that glimpse, as fascinating as it is, is as far as we are allowed to go. Instead, we are to understand that these times and seasons and dates are things, Jesus says, “the Father has set - or fixed - or ordained by his own authority”. It’s a strong statement of God’s absolute sovereign, His complete and total control over history.
There are just some things we are not intended to know. Long ago, Moses warned the nation of Israel against this kind of distraction.
Deut. 29:29
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
It’s natural that we would want to know. I want to be careful to make sure I say that. We long for this day. Come, Lord Jesus! It’s not wrong to want to know when that day will come. What is wrong is spending our time and energy and resources trying to answer that question.
We are to spend our time studying and obeying what God has revealed rather than wasting our time speculating about the things God has not revealed. One of those things God has not revealed is the timing of the return of His Son and the restoring of all things.
So what Jesus is saying here is that the timing of His return is not important.What is important is knowing that He will come, that He will come publicly, that His coming is imminent no matter the age in which we live. Our calling is know this, internalize this, and live our lives in such a way that we be found faithful when He does return. What are we to be found faithfully doing?
I challenge you:
Pick two activities that are time-wasters
Estimate how much time you spend on them weekly
Cut that amount of time in half
Do it gradually if necessary
So here’s your challenge: Pick two things that you do that are time-wasters. Figure up how much time you spend doing those things each week, and then cut them in half. Do it gradually if you want. Cut one item in half this week, and another the next week.
Unless we are ready to put away distractions and focus on things that are important, we’ll never have the time or resources to be on mission.
This brings us to the third question we can ask to gauge our readiness for missions.
#3: Are we witnessing in the power of the Spirit?
#3: Are we witnessing in the power of the Spirit?
Are we witnessing in the power of the Spirit?
This is what Jesus says we should replace our distractions with. After the disciples ask him that question, this is what He says: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set buy his own authority.” Then notice what Jesus says we are to be spending our time on: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8 NIV).
This past Thursday when we were coming back from Central America, my friend Micheal and I were waiting to go through customs in Atlanta. As we stood there waiting, we heard an announcement. The announcement said that there was a passenger who was a minor that was unaccounted for. This unaccounted for minor passenger was also an unaccompanied minor. I’m sure many people searched for this young passenger, and I pray that he or she was found. [Based loosely on Evans p92, but was an actual experience on Sep. 23, 2021.]
Point is: when someone is important to us, we look for them when we can’t find them. We pursue them in love. We love them too much to let them get away,.
Or how about another illustration. If you’ve been to Wal-Mart, you’ve probably seen the bulletin board at the front with the pictures and names of missing children. One day I stopped to look at their faces much more closely. And when I did that, I was amazed at how many of those children are not children anymore. Many of them went missing as far back as 1980. They know that the likelihood of finding them as adults is low. And we also know that most likely if they are found they won’t be found alive. And yet, they still pursue them. They still search for them.
Now if that’s how we treat cases where human beings go missing in this world, how much more diligent ought we to be in going after the lost men and women that we know so that they’re not missing in eternity? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be freed from the fear of sharing our faith? Oh church, how God would use us if we just take the first step.
Evangelism is hard for most people. I’m sympathetic to that. I’m not particularly gifted in personal evangelism, so I have to constantly push myself in that direction. I need to work on this. And I suspect most of you probably do too. IT is fear that keeps us from sharing our faith - fear that they’ll ask questions we don’t know how to answer, or fear of what they’ll think of us. I read this quote by the late J. I. Packer as I was preparing this. Man, it convicted me.
“If we find ourselves shrinking from this responsibility and trying to evade it, we need to face ourselves with the fact that in this we are yielding to sin and Satan. If (as is usual) it is the fear of being though odd and ridiculous, or of losing popularity in certain circles, that holds us back, we need to ask ourselves in the presence of God: Ought these things to stop us loving our neighbor?...We need to press on our conscience this question: Which matters more – our reputation or their salvation?” [Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, p78]
Because, here’s the reality: if we believe that heaven and hell are real, if we realize that divine judgment is a reality, then we will truly take evangelism seriously.
“The evangelistic harvest is always urgent. The destiny of men and nations is always being decided. Every generation is strategic. We are not responsible for the past generation, and we cannot bear full responsibility for the next one; but we do have our generation. God will hold us responsible as to how well we fulfill our responsibilities to this age and take advantage of our opportunities.” [Billy Graham, Swindoll p183]
Probably the thing that most churches struggle with the most is personal evangelism. We can get people here on our campus; that’s not hard. We can hand out Bibles and tracts. We can give away toys and food.
Those things are good and we should do them. But all of that is preparation for the verbal sharing of the gospel by actual human beings. In fact, inviting our unchurched neighbors here to our church and feeding them and having games and prizes and all of that fun stuff — that is a very effective platform for sharing the gospel. But you can do all of those things and never actual evangelize people.
Because, you see, evangelism is bearing witness to the crucified and risen Christ, and the forgiveness He secured for us. Tracts are good. But God intends for His gospel to be proclaimed by actual people. The gospel is a personal invitation to have a relationship with God through the blood of His Son. It’s a personal invitation because God is a personal God. And He wants to extend this invitation through actual persons.
And when we take the first step, we see God doing some incredible things.
In 2007, some missions experts conducted a study. This study surveyed the experience 750 people who once were Muslim but had been saved and were now Christians. The main point of the survey was to find out what it was that induced them to come to Christ. Of course, that’s from a human perspective. Ultimately it was God who drew them. But from a human perspective, what were the factors that led to their conversion?
Some of the answers were expected. For example, the Muslims said that it was the kindness of Christians that drew them, or a changing view of God and the Bible.
But they also found something unexpected: dreams. For all the former Muslims who were drawn by the witness of Christians or a changing view of God, just as many of them reported that it was a dream from God that drew them to Him.
Another study found that out of 600 former Muslims who had become Christian, 150 of them reported the same thing.
Still another Christian scholar reported the same thing. In interviews with dozens of former Muslims who had become Christians, a large percentage of them reported dreams. In this study, the former Muslims described the nature of their dreams, and they fell into four categories. 1) Jesus is speaking Scripture to them, even passages they had never heard before; 2) Jesus telling people to do something; 3) dreams that brought a sense of being forgiven and at peace; and 4) dreams that featured a man wearing brilliant white clothing.
One guy actually told his story in full. This man was a Persian migrant, fleeing for his life. When he got to the refugee center early one morning, a Persian pastor there noticed that the man was visibly upset. When the Persian pastor asked him why he was troubled, he told him about the dream he had had earlier that morning. In his dream, he had seen a man dressed in white who stood up and said to him, “Stand up and follow me.” Much like the apostle Paul, he said, “Who are you?” “I am the Alpha and the Omega. I’m the way to heaven. No one can go to the Father, except through me.”
After telling the pastor his dream, he starts asking questions urgently. “Who is he? What am I going to do? Why did he ask me to follow him? How shall I go? Please tell me.” So the pastor holds out his Bible and asks if he had ever seen one before. He said no. He had no knowledge of the Bible and its contents.
The pastor then turned to the book of Revelation to the passage where Jesus says, “I am the Alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.” This was the very same passage the man had heard Jesus speaking to him in his dream, with no prior knowledge of the Bible passage or even the Bible.
The pastor then led the man in a prayer of salvation. He was born again! The pastor gave him a Bible and cautioned him about showing it to others because it could put his life in danger. You know what the man said in response? “The Jesus that I met today, he’s more powerful than the Muslims in the camp.”
Not only did the man accept Christ and begin to follow Him, he immediately began sharing the word of God with others. Evangelism was the natural overflow of His having encountered Jesus in a dream. [https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/muslims-dream-jesus/, accessed Sep. 26, 2021]
Now the point of this is not that you should seek a vision from God. Nowhere in the Bible are we told to expect that or seek that. The Bible is far superior to any dream or vision. The Muslims who had these dreams had no access to a Bible as we do; they had no church to go to, as we do.
And dreams don’t save anybody. The pattern is usually that a person has the dream and then later missionaries arrive to point them to the God in their dream. And they renounce their old way of life; they place faith in Jesus; and they are born again.
The point of this is that God is at work around the world, drawing people to Himself who have not yet heard of Him. God is a God on mission, and that is his mission.
Do you want to be on mission with God? Here’s how we can be.
How can we become known for this?
Long-term missions strategy
We begin to reach our immediate community
We increase our support for missions/missionaries
We participate in missions both locally and overseas
Short-term missions strategy
Pray daily for a lost or unchurched person
Build/strengthen your relationship with them
Invite them to church
In the short term, though, we can start smaller. It’s very simple. Pick someone who is lost or unchurched and pray for them every day. Befriend them. Build or strengthen your relationship with them. And invite them to church.
Rev. 7:9-10
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
This is God’s goal - to have a people from every tongue, nation, tribe and language who are absolutely smitten with God in joyful worship for all eternity. He will accomplish this. There’s no doubt. He doesn’t need us. He wants to use us. But if we are not willing, He will find someone else.
So the question is: do we want to be used by Him to accomplish this? I want us to be known as a missional church. I want us to become a church known for our commitment to evangelism. I want us to become a church where others can say, “You know what? They say they love Jesus, and they really and truly do, because they share Him with others.”