Leading People to Life-Changing Connections . . . With Our World
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Roy Christian Church
I appreciate all of your sermon idea submissions. It was hard to narrow the list down to three as there were several interesting ideas. I’ll hold on to some of them for next year’s preaching schedule. Next week we’ll be starting “Bodywork,” a series that comes out of Romans 12. We’ll be talking about the service we offer to God, the drive behind that service, and the “divine appointments” God throws at us along the way to serve. You’ve provided some challenging ideas, and I’m excited to flesh those out in the next few weeks.
Bur for now, we are still diving in to our mission:
Roy Christian Church Is Leading People to Life-Changing Connections
With Jesus, His Family, and Our World.
The last piece is the logical conclusion of the mission: A person’s life is changed when they connect to God. Their lives are changed as they connect to the church. Connecting to the world further stretches and changes each person who ventures out.
“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’” Matthew 28:18-20, NIV.
So . . . Go, Make Disciples, Baptize, Teach. Wherever you go, show people the way to Christ, connect them to Him, and share with them His amazing lessons for life. He’s got the authority to send us, and He promises to be with us as we carry out His plan.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8, NIV
Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the Earth. With His parting words, Jesus gives His disciples the direction to fulfill His plan. Start here at home with those you know best (Jerusalem), spread out to those who are just like you and prepared to listen and accept the truth (Judea), branch out to those who are unlike you—those you may even see as opponents—and get out to the farthest reaches of a whole wide world. Take the name of Jesus with you, wherever you go, near or far!
What if I’m not going to go?
I will Pray. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves” (Luke 10:2, 3, NIV). Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore to send out workers into His harvest fields. People from my small group. From my church. From my family.
I will Support. If I cannot go, I will support those who are ready and willing to go. Paul writes a thank-you note to a congregation willing to support his missionary work. Philippians 4:15, “Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles. 15Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; 16for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid more than once when I was in need.”
I will Send. If I cannot go, I will send someone else who is ready and willing to go. Peter and Cali Ledger have been in Thailand and now Bolivia, working to change the lives of children. Mariah Winslow grew up here at Roy Christian Church, has studied at Boise Bible College, and she spent the summer in Spain, working with a missionary family. Yesterday, Bolt and Donna Wilson’s grandson Dayne Ventrone to spend a year and a half in China with his wife. Who will be next? Will it be your son or daughter? Your grandchild?
I will Repent. If I will not go, I will reconsider, rethink, and repent. In the Old Testament, we read a story—one that is very familiar—about an unwilling missionary. God told Jonah to take a message of repentance to the people of Nineveh—residents of a city in Iraq who had been aggressive and violent enemies of God’s people. Jonah ran in the opposite direction, as far and fast as possible. His disobedience brought about a terrible storm that resulted in his being dumped in the middle of the Mediterranean, swallowed by a huge fish, carried back to shore, and vomited out to carry out his God-given mission. Bold disobedience and rebellion against God.
I will Go. In Luke 9, Jesus sends out the twelve disciples. “When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.”
If I had the power to heal, then I would go . . . Isn’t the power to change someone’s life and eternity greater than the power to heal from a temporary illness and here and now?
Uneducated. Untrained. Unqualified. Unhesitating. Unrelenting. Unbelievable.
Let’s go back to the words of Jesus: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20, NIV.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8, NIV
Commissioned and Empowered by Christ to Go.
Leading people. The mission comes full circle. At the beginning of the series a month ago we talked about our involvement in leading people to life-change, and now again at the end, we’re looking at personal, individual involvement in reaching the world. What will YOU do? Write a note to one of the missionaries we support somewhere in the world? Send them a care package? Make a donation to help their work? Will you go on a mission trip? Buy supplies for those who are going? Will you commit to pray for a missionary or mission organization? What will YOU DO to help people make a life-changing connection to our world?
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