Last Words - FUMC

Last Words

Welcome to worship today. We have once again survived a Texas Blizzard and now we are on to warmish weather. But keep in mind, it could snow all the way to Easter.

This week will be my final sermon before I take my Sabbatical. Over the next 4 weeks you will hear from some great preachers, Joey will be leading our Communion Service next week, my friend Mark Winter will be here on the following Sunday. On the 20th you will have the joy and privilege of hearing from our own Priscilla Monson as she continues to listen to God’s call on her life. The final week of March, Alex will be sharing with you.

But today, I had to decide what I wanted to share with you today. Over the next 4 weeks I will be working on my dissertation on Evangelism, so that’s where my mind is already… not to mention the amazing Evangelism Summit I and some of you had the opportunity to participate in.

So, what better thing to talk about than Evangelism and the Great Commission. For those of you who attended the Howard Payne Chapel Service this week, you may hear some things that are familiar… your job is to identify the differences, and I hope you will find this sermon a little more directly aimed at you, and not the college students.

Today’s passage is a familiar one. It is a passage that we should know like the back of our hands. It is a passage that should fill us and drive us and propel us in mission and ministry to the community and beyond. These are some of Jesus final words to us… and I hope you feel that the words of Jesus are important!

In every great movie, we hear the Last Words of the hero and remember them…

It is the word “Freedom” yelled by William Wallace as he is drawn and quartered as a Martyr for Scotland.

It is Humphry Bogart as Rick Blain in Casablanca, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

It’s Dorothy saying, "Auntie Em, There’s no place like home."

It’s Vizzini’s final words to The Dread Pirate Roberts, “Never mess with a Sicilian when death is on the line!”

And it is

Scarlet O’Hara’s, “After all, Tomorrow is another day.”

Would we not agree, last words are important! Amen!

So let us turn to the last words Jesus shared with us as recorded by Matthew.

Let’s turn to the Great Commission found in Matthew 28:19-20. I’ll be reading today from the New Living Translation.

“Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:19-20 (NLT)

[Prayer]

I know some of you have heard this story before, but it is good enough to share again so those who haven’t heard it can get the full effect!

Larry was a hard-working truck driver that enjoyed his time off. On his Saturdays off, Larry would usually sit in his back yard in his lawn chair and enjoy a six-pack or more of his favorite adult beverage. One day, I’m sure it was after he had enjoyed most if not all of his beverages of choice, he came up with a plan. Larry wanted to fly!

Now this is your first clue… when a friend consumes adult beverages then concocts a plan to fly, he or she needs intervention… Anyway, Larry ran down to the local Army Surplus store, bought a few weather balloons (45 to be exact) and some tethers, and headed back home by way of the local packaging store where he likely purchased another six-pack of his choice beverage.

On July 2, 1982 Larry tied the balloons to his lawn chair, tied his lawn chair to the roof of his girlfriend’s house, loaded his lawn chair with a portable CB radio, an altimeter, a pellet pistol, and his beverage of choice. He then, with the help of a couple of friends, filled the balloons with Helium, cut the tethers and began what he thought would be a gentle ascent to about 300 feet.

BUT… Somewhere in his extensive planning he had miscalculated how many helium-filled weather balloons it would take to get an adult male in a lawn chair off the ground.

It seems that 45 balloons will rocket a man in a lawn chair to 16,000 feet rather quickly. Rather than drifting inland toward the Mohave Desert as planned, Larry found himself 16,000 feet high, drifting toward Long Beach and into the approach path of the Airport. Pilots from passing Delta and TWA flights reported to the tower, “*+*+* Delta 212 to tower… We have a man flying or floating or something in a lawn chair up here… and be advised, he has a gun!”

Authorities were alerted but no one was sure how to get him down. By this point the beauty of the view had grown old, Larry was getting cold, and the altitude and lack of Oxygen (and no doubt the adult beverages) had made him dizzy, so, he pulled out his pellet pistol and began shooting out the balloons until he began to descend.

By this point the National Guard had been activated and was tracking and following him, along with State police, the FAA, and I’m sure every local police department for miles around. Everyone wanted a piece of this action.

As Larry descended uncontrolled, he became tangled in some High-Voltage power lines outside of Long Beach where he succeeded in knocking out the power to all of Long Beach. Rescue crews from the power company and the National Guard came to cut him down and of course, law enforcement officials arrested him.

At some point in this ordeal the local papers were advised of “The Flight of the Lawn Chair” and were on hand when Larry finally reached the ground. As he is being carried away by the authorities a reporter asked him why he had done it, to which Larry replied,

“Well, I couldn’t just sit there.”

We are living in a time where we as Christians can’t just sit here. We can’t just sit by, sipping our favorite beverage, watching the world pass us by.

Last week I gave a lot of statistics about Gen Z. But here is some more data for you to consider…

A Pew Research study from 2019 showed that 26% of the US population consider themselves to have NO religious affiliation – they are affectionately known as the “Nones.” This is up from 17% just a decade before. What makes that even more dramatic is the fact that COVID has led to an even higher number than 26% though they don’t have hard data to share yet.

Nearly ½ of the Millennials – that’s our young adults born between 1984 and 1998, feel that it is wrong to evangelize.

Most Christian’s today, well over half, report that they have not had a conversation of any kind about faith with a non-Christian in the past year.

I have been doing some research for my D.Min. on Evangelism. I have surveyed pastors of the Central Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church as well as a few non-Methodist pastors.

64% of these pastors do not feel that they were adequately trained for evangelism in Seminary or whatever pastoral training program they participated in.

The most alarming statistic though, is that 1 in 10 pastors surveyed have never led anyone to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

When asked to rank the importance of a person personally giving their life to Christ, the average response was only an 8 out of 10. Meaning, that it’s only 80% important… It’s mostly important, but for some pastors, there’s something else that is 20% more important than personally giving your life to Christ!

The church in the United States is in peril! We can’t just keep sitting here sipping our Mocha Latte’s and watching the world go by. We must have a renewal in evangelism! But it has to be different than it once was!

When I was in college at Stephen F. Austin State University, I was a part of the Campus Crusade for Christ. One Spring Break we took a mission trip to Daytona Beach, Florida. Now, we called it a mission trip, but for the most part it was a cheap trip to the Beach. BUT, we did go out, seeking to introduce people to Christ. One of our methods was the old bait and switch survey. We would walk up and down the beach with a little clip-board to “survey” people. We’d ask questions like, what’s your favorite Ice Cream flavor, what did you eat for breakfast today, what was the last movie you saw,… like we were really surveying them for some professional company, then toward the end of the survey we might ask if they attended a church and what they think of spiritual things, all leading to the final question – “If you were to die tonight, where would you spend eternity?” If they didn’t know where they would go, we could share with them that we have a way of knowing, and would share the 4 Spiritual Laws with them.

I have to admit, it kinda worked, but the problem was that none of those people we “evangelized” were a part of a worshipping community. None of them were introduced to people who could disciple them. Yes, we got their name and number and passed it along to a local church in their area, but it wasn’t an effective means of making disciples.

That isn’t the kind of evangelism I’m talking about.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are people all around you, in this community, in your family, at the restaurants and businesses you frequent… there are people everywhere that are looking for the truth that you have. They are looking for a peace that surpasses understanding. They are looking for the unconditional love of God, the good news of Jesus Christ. They are dreaming of an abundant life, now!

I know some are called to GO to other countries and make new disciples, but not all of us are called to be a foreign missionary. Some of you will want to go on one of the mission trips we put together over the next 24 months to places like Maua Methodist Hospital in Kenya, or the Caribbean Christian Center for the Deaf in Jamaica, or the water missions taking place in Belize and Honduras. But some will want to be involved in the missions and ministries around Brown Co.

The Great Commission isn’t calling everyone to Go to some other country. That isn’t what the Great Commission is about. Some of you and your children may be called to Sub-Saharan Africa or the Amazon to live among the people and share Christ in their culture. But some are called to be teachers, or accountants, or pastors, or parents or grandparents right here in Brown County, or Texas or the US. You are called to share Christ in this ever-changing culture.

When you analyze and exegete these verses from Matthew, the emphasis is not on the word GO. Growing up, that was where every preacher in my little Baptist church back home put the emphasis. We have to GO.

Where is God calling you to GO?

So often we talk about the GO and being SENT. And there’s nothing wrong with that… but what about here? What about now?

When we read and study this passage from Matthew, the emphasis is not on the word GO, it is on the work MAKE. In fact, a possible better translation of the verse may be along the lines of , “As you go about your everyday life, make disciples of Jesus Christ…”

I think the church has been so focused on going that we have forgotten about the importance of making. When I was 19 I went…. I made someone pray a prayer, but I didn’t make a disciple. Disciple making takes effort.

Disciple making takes time.

Disciple making means we build relationship with people, we get to know them where they are and help them come to know Jesus…

not because we want to build our church…

not because we want to keep them out of hell when they die…

but because we want to help them out of the hell on earth they are living.

We want them to know the abundant life that Jesus can give them now!

Friends, the fields are white for harvest. Did you know Mexico is sending missionaries to the United States? Did you know that Africa is sending missionaries to the United States? You don’t have to go to Haiti to find the mission field. You are living in it!

Do you realize that on any given Sunday, there are about 6-7000 people in attendance at some local church here in the Brownwood/Early community? That’s pretty good, right?

Well, that means there are about 15,000 people not in attendance.

There are about 15,000 people in this community that do not have a church home.

There are about 15,000 people around us that are not growing in their relationship with God.

There are about 15,000 people within a few miles that may be living without the abundant life promised by Jesus.

There are about 15,000 people that surround this campus who are in danger of dying and going to Hell as they live a real hell on earth right now.

The churches in our community have done way too much sheep swapping. You know what that means, right? People get mad because a new preacher comes in or the preacher says something they don’t like, or uses the wrong bread for communion, or they put drums on the altar, or whatever. They get mad and move to our church and we call it church growth.

Well, that’s not church growth that’s swapping sheep. I want to say, I welcome any and all who want to come here to grow in their faith and share in the ministry we have here at First… But I also want us to welcome in those who have never been part of a church. I want us to welcome in those who have been far from God and through your work in the community, they have been brought near to God.

Because, while we are celebrating the swapping of sheep, there is an entire generation walking away from their faith. Our children and our grandchildren are walking away from their faith. There are more than 15,000 people within walking distance of this church that need Jesus.

You know, Luke recorded the final words of Jesus a little different than Matthew. In Acts 1:8 we see the version of the Great Commission recorded by Luke.

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 NKJV

I love the way the New Living Translation says it, “You will be my witnesses everywhere you go.”

Jesus last words before he ascended into heaven are undisputed. The witnesses all tell us that he told us to make new disciples near and far.

My friends, it’s time to tether some helium balloons too our lawn chair and get out there.

We can’t just sit here anymore.