The Mission: Authentic

Good Morning Harmony!

Ok, last week we said it was time to get started, and although that was a message for us as individuals, today we are starting a four week series that talks about our mission as a church.

Now I know what you might be thinking - we did this last year, and we did, but since then and over the past year what has been consistently coming to mind is what that mission meant to Harmony. And so first up, there has been a slight change or revision to the mission statement. And I hope it’s one that will make a positive impact on the way we see our role in fulfilling the Great Commission.

So as we get into today’s message, please keep that in mind as we start off the new year as Harmony. Let’s pray and get started -

Ok, so let’s get this out of the way right now, how many here like change? If many of us were honest, we really don’t like change. Sure, some of us may say that we do, but that’s when we want others to change, but we don’t actually like change that affects us. A lot of us would say that change is necessary, but then they’ll either push back when change occurs or they’ll change reluctantly. Usually that is about 50%ish of people within a church setting according to research.

Then there’s the group that embraces change, they can see that end goal or that end result right away and they are ready to go.

And the change that we are making is just a minor tweak to our mission statement, but before we do let’s look at a little bit of history in our mission statement.

Our Original Mission statement from when Harmony was first established back in January 1979 was this:

An organized fellowship for the purpose of:

“Worshipping God, witnessing to His saving grace, living as Christians in the world, and ministering to the needs of people wherever we observe such needs, to the glory of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

Why is it important to know our original mission statement? Because that is supposed to be our DNA. It’s supposed to remain the foundational statement for the church, and it really isn’t supposed to change all that often, and when it does it should be for clarity and for updating the language. Its supposed to continually reflect who the church is and be the guiding principle of the church.

Somwhere along the lines it was revised to the current statement:

Current Mission Statement:

“Taking our cue from the words of our Savior, Jesus, our mission is simply to be a church of disciples which is committed to making disciples. We accomplish this through three essential principles: connect, engage, and multiply.”

Hopefully you can see the undertones of the current statement in the original statement. A church of disciples - well, to worship God we have to be disciples, to witness we have to be disciples that are connecting, to minister we have to be disciples engaging, and when we do all of that we do it to the glory of God - if we are true disciples. It has been a great mission statement and it has driven the church for the past few years - I’m not sure when this became the mission statement, but it still met the aspect of being a mission statement.

So why make a change or a revision to it?

First, that isn’t the whole mission statement, there are three additional paragraphs below that sentence that define connect, engage, and multiply. Most of us probably never really memorized or could memorize the current mission statement, and there is a way to clarify it to be what we mean when we use those words. So here is the new Mission Statement:

New Mission Statement:

“Our mission is to develop authentic believers who strive to connect people to Jesus, teach them to engage in discipleship, and multiply the Kingdom in the process.”

So if we take this new mission statement and apply the same principles as we did to the last mission statement we can see that if we are developing authentic believers then wee should be developing believers that worship God and that are witnessing to His saving Grace and that are living in the world as Christians and ministering to others by connecting with them and engaging them in discipleship and in the process bringing glory to God through Kingdom multiplication.

So what’s the purpose of a mission statement?

It’s supposed to be the guiding principle for how the church is going to do ministry. Everything we do as a church should be related to the mission statement. If something is not and we are doing it or are considering doing it, then the mission drives the answer that we shouldn’t be doing it and we stop doing it or we just don’t do it. It works the other way too, if there’s something we should be doing that we aren’t, then if we have the resources to do it then we should be considering it based upon the mission statement.

Everything gets the mission statement treatment - the budget, the building, the curriculum, the worship - all of it has to align with the mission statement.

And there is a new word in our statement, authentic, and that is the word that we are going to focus in on today.

And we are adding a vision statement that addresses how we desire to be authentic:

We desire to be authentic in our walk with Christ, following His example to the church. – John 4:23-24

John 4:23–24 CSB

But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”

And what we mean by that is simply that who we are outside the church walls should be the same as who we are inside the church walls.

And let me start here by saying that within a Mission Statement this is where we believe we already are. We already as a majority are “authentic” believers, and so the first point is what we are not or should not be. There may be a few here today or joining us online and this may be where you are, but I believe that the majority here and watching are authentic believers, who want to develop more authentic believers.

So the first thing we are going to look at is

1. WHAT BEING FAKE AUTHENTIC LOOKS LIKE:

What would you consider fake? What’s your go-to when you describe something as fake, or as a poser?

How many here can remember in the late 80’s or early 90’s when reebok shoes came out with the pump shoes? You know, they had this little thing in the tongue and when you squeezed it it would pump air into the shoe?

My parent’s couldn’t afford those, so I got the knock off version from walmart - now I’m not complaining, I had good shoes that were on my feet, but they were posers. They had a pump on the tongue too, but it just put air into the tongue, and that was it.

Or how about this - back in the 2005-2010 range, and they may still be doing it today, there were these cheap knockoff iPhone posers that you could order from China, and they kinda looked like an iPhone - but couldn’t function like one at all. You could look cool, that was about it.

Or how about anything you buy on amazon because the real one is too expensive. And I’m not talking about the major brand stuff that you can buy on there, I’m talking the way off brand stuff that you can get on there - the stuff that can do the job, but may not do it as well as the original, or the real thing.

Soda - we prefer the real stuff, but sometimes we settle for the cheap stuff.

And when it comes to God, He wants the real stuff. He sees right through that fake poser stuff that we can try to do and He is saying what on earth are you doing?

And here’s the thing - a poser isn’t fooling anybody. Everybody knew the difference between my shoes and the real thing. Everyone knows the difference between an iphone and a cheap knockoff, everyone knows the difference between the real soda and the knockoff.

If someone’s a poser, we all see it. and there are two types of posers:

A. Those that are lost but want to act Christian at church.

Those folks that will walk into church and try really hard to be religious. Or they don’t try at all, they try to avoid everyone.

The ones that try really hard to be religious may think they have a relationship with God but they are missing out - they’re trying to do everything a good religious Christian does, without having a relationship with God.

Matthew 7:21–23 CSB

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’

To do the will of the Father means that we have to have a relationship with Him. you can’t do the will of God without having that relationship, because you’re not communicating with Him if you don’t have that relationship.

And verse 22 notice they’re doing good things - things that can still bring glory to God, but they are doing them without the communicative relationship with God.

They preached, they cast out demons, they counseled, they did a lot of really great stuff. It says many - so there are a lot of preachers, a lot of counselors, a lot of worship leaders, youth pastors, children’s ministers, there’s a lot of people in a lot of church leadership positions that are in this group that will say they did all kinds of things in the name of Jesus.

But if you aren’t doing them all to fulfil the will of God, that you can only know through a relationship with Him, then you’re doing it for self, and worse you’re leading others astray in the process.

I’m not trying to cast stones at other churches, but there are a lot of churches that do not have authentic believers leading them if we read this correctly, and they are going to hear verse 23 - depart from me. I never knew you, you never were in communication with me, you did all of that for yourself, depart from me.

Authentic believers see you and know the difference between a fake and a real believer. If this is you, let’s get this taken care of - I know this isn’t normal to do this in the middle of the message, but let’s get you connected to Jesus, I don’t even mind if you have to step out now, just grab someone that can get you there and head to another room and let’s get authentic.

The second group of posers are

B. Those that are Christian but want to act like the lost.

This one is a conundrum, because if we are true believers the world sees that regardless of how we act - they see right through the facade and they call us hypocrites.

And this is different from those that are new in the faith and haven’t had a lot of discipleship, this is the group that wants to be friends and hang out with the world on its terms. But here’s the thing - you still aren’t fooling anyone, because if this is you, then the world or those friends that are of the world - they still won’t like you, in the sense that they did before -

John 15:18–19 CSB

“If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.

Instead the world uses you as an excuse for not being a Christian or not going to church. They’ll acknowledge you as a Christian, you probably aren’t getting invited to everything, but they will absolutely use you as an excuse for why they don’t need to go to church.

What do I need to go to church for, Suzie is drunker than I am. Ted says dirty jokes too. Bob is no different than me. Now I don’t know people by those names, but if you can fill in your name for any of those or anything else that can be coupled with I don’t need to go to church because your name here is no different than I am, understand 2 things -

This does not mean that they like you, you are an excuse for them, and

You still aren’t fooling anyone.

But I do those things to get them to Jesus - no, you don’t, because that doesn’t work.

I’m not telling you not to have worldly friends, actually I encourage it, but only if you are able to be authentic with your faith and authentic with your witness. If you are going out into the world and you are acting like the world, maybe it’s time to wake up and be real.

Either you need an authentic relationship with Jesus or you need to be authentic in your relationship with Jesus. Who we are outside the church walls should be the same as who we are inside the church walls.

So let’s look at

2. WHAT BEING REAL AUTHENTIC LOOKS LIKE:

First, we’re a new creation -

2 Corinthians 5:16–20 CSB

From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.”

A real, Authentic Christian looks at everyone from a Christ perspective, we can’t help it. As Christians we are different, we’re new, and our job is to bring as many to Him with the witness that He provides as we can. We’re ambassadors -

What does an ambassador do?

They represent the country that they are from. Everything that they do is in accordance with the country that they are an ambassador for. Their actions, right or wrong, reflect on the country they represent. They have an effect on the host country that they are residing in, by reflecting the country they are citizens of. An American ambassador in a foreign country represents America to that country, and they do it in how they speak and how they respond to the world around them.

We are ambassadors for the Kingdom of Christ, and that is a far bigger kingdom than the US of A ever was or ever will be. Every church that proclaims Christ is an embassy for the Kingdom of Christ - so how are you representing the King of Kings?

Second, an authentic believer is free from what others think of us.

2 Corinthians 3:12–18 CSB

Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness. We are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from gazing steadily until the end of the glory of what was being set aside, but their minds were hardened. For to this day, at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains; it is not lifted, because it is set aside only in Christ. Yet still today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Moses hid his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the Glory of God departing from him. His face was like those glow in the dark things, the ones you hold in the light and then turn off the light and it glows. Whenever Moses would go into the presence of God, his face would shine with the Glory of God, then he’d go deliver the message from God, then he’d cover his face so the people would not see that the glory was gone.

But we don’t need a veil or a mask to cover God’s glory in us. Verse 16 - whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. There is freedom in that. We don’t have to worry about what others think because we have Jesus on our side.

And the Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit is there is freedom.

We don’t need a mask - the glory of God is in us, and its always in us and its transforming us - we are a new creation that is constantly being made new, and we have freedom in that because when we turn to the Lord we have the Spirit and we are being transformed through His Spirit that lives in us. We are free and when we understand that freedom and take that freedom and obey God to live in that freedom we are going to do some great things for the Kingdom.

I gotta tell you, right now I feel like Mel Gibson in those movies, I don’t remember which one, maybe both, but where he’s just screaming freedom from the top of his lungs - Authentic believers have that kind of freedom. We’re free from what the world thinks of us, we’re free from what satan tries to do to us, and we’re free from everything that this world can throw at us because we are ambassadors for the winning Kingdom and there is absolutely nothing this world can do to change our eternal destiny - if that doesn’t get you excited then I don’t know what will.

Ok, so an authentic believer is a new creation, are free from what others think, and third, we worship in truth, and we show that to others - and this is where we get our main supportive verse for this, John 4:21-26 -

John 4:21–26 CSB

Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”

Jesus first tells her that location is not important for where we worship, then he tells here she doesn’t even know what it is she worships - it’s not that she is worshipping false idols or anything, it’s just she doesn’t have the full story yet.

Then He tells her, and this is important, verse 23 and 24, “But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”

A truly authentic believer will worship in Spirit and in truth. They have to. It’s not a choice. It bubbles over, you can’t contain it - everyone sees it, and the posers will say you’re nuts, the world will say you’re nuts, but you aren’t going to care, because you’re an authentic Christian who lives life as a new creation that is free from what they think of you - you are free to worship the God who loved you so much that He sent His son, Jesus to die for you, you are free to worship the God you love who set you free from the bonds of this world and you just want to worship Him - at the store, in the car, at work, wherever you are.

She still didn’t get it, not yet though. Because even though Jesus is speaking in spirit and in truth she doesn’t yet. So she says that they know the Messiah is coming, and Jesus says it’s me, and then as the conversation goes on He tells her to go and find her husband, she says I don’t have a husband, and then Jesus speaks to her spirit in the truth - and speaking in truth and Spirit changes something -

John 4:28–30 CSB

Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They left the town and made their way to him.

Come see a man who told me the truth of who I am - come see a man who spoke to me in spirit and in the truth that I needed to hear, come see a man who is different, He’s new, He doesn’t get bothered by who I was, and He’s changing me.

She leaves the purpose she was there for to pursue a new purpose - worshipping God in Spirit and in truth as a new creation who is more interested in worshipping God than she is in what others think of her.

Because once the stuff that was in the way was out in the open, the woman at the well was authentic, she was real, and she told others. Jesus does that - He sets us free, and that freedom comes when we set our hearts on being authentic believers in Christ that show that in our daily lives.

So I ask you today church, are we authentic? If we are, let’s be committed to that and stay that way - let’s not become fake. If we’re not, then let’s resolve that today. Let’s be the new creations we are called to be, let’s be free, let’s worship God in Spirit and in truth, let’s be ambassadors for the Kingdom and bring glory to God. Let’s be authentic.

Father, we love you. Father help us to be the authentic believers that you have called us to be. We don’t want to be fake, we don’t want to be the stumbling block for the lost, we want to be a light in the darkness, we want to see your light shine. Help us to shine as bright as you made us to be Lord, and Lord when the evil of this world and the words of others are beginning to strike, remind us of the freedom we have in you and the strength you provide.

As we remain in a state of prayer, with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, there may be someone here that says you know what, If I’m honest, I’m not authentic. I’ve been trying to live my life with a foot in both doors, and it’s exhausting. Right now I’m ready to commit to being authentic in my walk with Jesus.

Father, as there may be those here today that have struggled with the thought of being authentic, Lord I just ask that you speak to them Lord. I ask that you give them the strength and the encouragement that they need to be authentic. Lord just walk closely with them and lead them to someone else here to help them along the way.

Finally, as we close out today’s service, maybe you’re here and you just, you know what, you just know you’re not in a relationship with Jesus. You’ve been trying to fool everyone around you, you’ve been playing the game, so to speak, you’ve been going to church and you can use all of the Christianese you want, but there’s something still missing. You haven’t been made a new creation, and you have been going to church because that’s what you think good religious people do.

God is speaking to you today, and He’s saying come, follow me. Come, find rest. Come, and I can set you free. You have to be reconciled with God, it was earlier in the message. How do you reconcile things with God?

First you have to be willing to admit you were wrong. You admit that you are a sinner, because everyone of us is one. Second, you have to be willing to trust, so we place our trust in the belief that Jesus did exactly what He said He was here to do - He lived a sinless life, He died without sin, and three days later He rose from the grave defeating death hell and the grave for you to live and be free. He died the death He didn’t deserve to save us from the eternity we did deserve. And then third, you have to choose to follow Him. You confess that Jesus is Lord and you choose to follow Him. That’s it - you don’t have to give money, you don’t have to physically DO anything because that’s not what he wants - He just wants the relationship with you.

To start that relationship is as simple as having a conversation in your own words with God that goes something like this:

Dear Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner. I believe You died for my sins. Right now, I turn from my sins and open the door of my heart and life. I confess You as my personal Lord and Savior.

And the you just add at the end of that personal conversation, in Jesus name, amen.

As the music continues softly for just a moment longer, as the Spirit moves you, right where you are or here up front at the altar, give it all to Jesus -

Father, thank you for Your message today, help us to live our lives for You, walk with us as we desire to be true to you and your mission you have given to us.