Pastor Jonah said that our mission is to reach people with the gospel, build them up as Christ’s church, and send them into his world. Lector: Kristin Paine
Pastor Jonah said that our mission is to reach people with the gospel, build them up as Christ’s church, and send them into his world.
Lector: Kristin Paine
This morning we will be talking about our mission: Reach, Build Send.
Each aspect is important in and of itself, but it’s true significance comes when we learn to hold it together. Each point necessarily requires the other, necessarily leads to the other.
Seasons of maturing are often accompanied by great fear.
How did you feel when you left home for college?
How did you feel when you brought your first child home? Your SECOND child?
Excited, new step…but a little afraid.
When we talk about the future of our church/mission, we have to acknowledge some fear is understandable.
We liked what happened before. Good things happened before.
We liked living at home and having bills paid for…we liked when it was just the two of us…the past almost always fears safer than the future.
Pay close attention to the way Jesus begins his Great Commission:
I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.
-Matthew 28:18
Let’s go slow now. Who has the authority? JESUS.
Whose mission is this? JESUS. We are not innovators nor are we in control.
Whatever this mission will be, it is Jesus’, and it is rooted in his authority.
Did you notice how much authority he was given? ALL of it.
Where does he have all authority? EVERYWHERE.
If we have a mission given to us by Jesus who has all authority/everywhere, we can step into his mission with confidence. We will be frightened, yes.
Faith is not the absence of fear. Faith is trust.
When we are afraid, we remember who is in control.
This trust is the foundation of our mission. Jesus begins his next sentence with therefore. BECAUSE I have all authority…
go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Because Jesus has all authority.. we GO. This is the first aspect of our mission.
We reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
That was the mission and message of Jesus, so it is with us.
We proclaim good news to people, no longer bound by geography or nationality, this message goes to the nations. All people, all tribes, all tongues.
In Christ, there are no more those people. The ones we would avoid, the ones who don’t belong.
There is no one anywhere in the world that this good news does not apply to.
But try to put the BIGNESS of this mission in the context of Jesus’ own life
Jesus’ earthly mission was intensely relational. He focused on a small group of people
He would teach to large crowds, but the MAJORITY of his time was spent with a very small number of people.
3 years with a handful of people, call it 18 hours a day…and we have a few dozen pages telling that story. Why so little? Probably because most of it was unremarkable
The mission of Jesus begins with people in the ordinary rhythms of life.
It’s an invitation to a new relational reality, sealed in the name of the F/S/HS
The mission of JEsus invites people into a trinitarian dance…learning to live and love like God does.
So, our reaching people must be reaching them for relationships.
At its core, the gospel is the announcement that we are at PEACE with God and e/o
We are now adopted children, part of his family.
If we neglect this, if we make the mission of God only go go go and big big big
What happens? If we have an idealistic sense of this mission, where it will all be great…can we take a break from comparing ourselves to the 1st century church?
Where we say, “I just want to be like the early church”
A few verses before this Matthew refers to the eleven disciples. Why 11?
Because #12 sold out Jesus and got him killed. This is a limping 11
This 11 acknowledges we are not the dream team, there will be hurts and failures
If we don’t see the mission of God as ordinary and relational, we’ll become idealistic and exhausted.
And if you’re idealistic and exhausted for too long, you become angry and bitter.
The mission is not just going, it’s also staying. It’s ordinary life with a no aim
Look at what Jesus says next:
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.
We aren’t just saying words to people when we reach them
We’re inviting them into an entirely new way of being human…that’s the good news
Because our sins are forgiven, because we are now at peace with God and each other, we can learn to live the way God designed us to live.
This requires new information: teach these disciples
This information leads to a new way of living: teach them to obey all the commands
So, we reach people with the gospel, then we build them up as his church
We learn, we serve, we equip…this is what Christ has commanded us to do.
The primary way we are built up as the church is through gathering on Sundays
This is not a command, this is a reality. I referenced our survey last week…
Nearly 80% of us say we attend nearly every Sunday. We are here!
With the stage of life most of our church is in right now, evenings are full/chaotic
But we are here on Sunday. A phrase you’ll hear us say more and more as we move forward is:
Sunday belongs to the Lord
Yes, every day belongs to the Lord. What we’re saying is that, moving forward as a church, the expectation is that being a part of this family means we give our Sundays to this family.
Sunday is family day, specifically this family.
We’re going to start increasing our efforts to teach, to learn, to fellowship together on this day, because the vast majority of us are already here and the greatest challenge most of us face in our schedules is already taken care of…namely childcare.
More on that next week…but here’s what I want you to see.
Christianity is not a static acceptance of information.
It’s a new life, a journey of growing, maturing, changing. Being BUILT UP as Christ’s church.
Your week is filled with lies and accusations, have you noticed?
You need this, you should fear this, what about this and THIS AND THIS!
Do you have any idea how many industries, how many people, stake their entire livelihoods on keeping you afraid? Of keeping you thinking something is wrong with you, that you are lacking?
Being built up as the church is a coming home…it’s learning who you really are in Christ so you can become that.
A place to hear truth, to remember and experience you are loved, that you have enough, that you are enough because Christ is in you.
You cannot get those realities into your bones quickly.
Sunday belongs to the Lord. This must become our way of being so we can become who we truly are in Christ.
There’s a danger in becoming a church that’s only a “build” church, though.
Remember when Peter saw Jesus turn into shining light? Moses and Elijah showed up? What did Peter say? “Let’s live here forever!”
There is a genuine sweetness to our church. I’ve never experienced anything like it.
Warmth, kindness, generosity, hunger for holiness. What we have is a gift.
And when you have a gift, there’s a temptation of holding onto it, not sharing it.
This, too, is birthed from fear, though.
It’s birthed from a fear that there is not enough to go around.
When we planted this church, I would often hear people say, “I hope we never grow”
I hope it stays just like this. There’s fear there.
If we huddle up, if we close our doors and our hearts and our lives, if we become only a build church…we will grow numb and arrogant.
Numb to the world’s sufferings and pain. Numb to the darkness we are supposed to light up, numb to the face of Christ in the least of these all around us.
And we will become arrogant, thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought.
Forgetting we are recipients of grace and mercy, too.
In short, we will be become a bunker, huddled together for protection, rather than a city on a hill, shining in the darkness as a beacon of hope and safety.
Jesus begins this great commission with a word of hope and confidence, and he ends with the same
And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
-Matthew 28:20
He does this, because he knows that as we grow, we too will go.
We will end where we began. We who were reached will be built up and then sent.
Listen to how Jesus puts this to his disciples, this is the pattern of Christianity!
Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.
-John 20:21
Again, he begins with a word of comfort and confidence: peace to you.
Shalom to you, wholeness and safety to you.
The Father sent me, so I am sending you.
Sunday belongs to the Lord.
We will commit to this day, prioritize this day, invest in one another on this day, so that we might be sent this day to go and live lives of faith in the world around us.
What does that mean? We say it every week, go and live lives of faith…
Do you notice how different that is than go and win? Go and convince?
Go and fight? No…lives of faith.
Can you think of some of the metaphors Jesus uses to describe his people?
You are light. You are salt.
Have you ever noticed you don’t have to “Activate” light and salt?
you don’t have to tell them what to do…they just do it. Because that’s what it is.
Light illuminates just by being there…what else can it do?
Salt enhances flavor, it preserves, just by being there.
That’s our invitation. The way we announce the gospel, the way we live, the way we love…it’s salt and light. So we leave this place to go and be that in the world.
People are drawn to us, because people are drawn to Jesus.
They are welcomed home, built up, and sent out.
We reach people with the gospel, build them up as Christ’s church, and send them into the world.
Jesus begins his great commission with a word of authority, and ends with a word of peace.
Each Sunday, we rehearse this promise and embody it through our remembrance of the Lord’s Supper.