Transformational Church Engage: Mission

Text: Acts 6-9

Link: Engage: Mission

I am coming to realize that we allow life to become way to busy and being a "bear of little brain" I am slow to bring about the change needed to deal with that issue...but deal with that one must if we are going to truly Engage Mission.  This is the last message in a series on the we at Faith have been walking through based on the new church scorecard that Ed Stezer and Thom S. Rainer lay out in the book Transformational Church.

If you look at Scripture you quickly come to an understanding that God is a missionary God.  Adam and Eve were created good with the mandate to fill all of creation with God's glory, but sin entered in and separated us from God and the opportunity to fulfill our mandate...did God leave us there?  No God being a missionary God sent His Son to redeem us and get us back on Mission...

The scorecard basically starts with: Discern: Missionary Mindset...once we discern that we need to Embrace it and if we do that we will have Vibrant Leadership, Relational Intentionality and Prayerful Dependence...once we embrace we will need to then Engage...this is where Worship, Community and Mission come in...if we discern something and embrace it the question becomes if we never engage in it do we truly discern and embrace?  You can "know" things, but until you take steps of obedience you are not really engaging in it.

Intro Questions:

- What are the two key terms of the Great Commission?

Go and Make...it doesn't say know a lot about God, but rather "Go and Make Disciples"

- How do you know that you are fulfilling the Great Commission?

Scenario 1: I go to a parking lot and place tracts under the windshield wipers of every car...Have I fulfilled the Great Commission? No, but there are a lot of people that believe that is what it looks like.

Scenario 2:  I go over to my neighbors and invite them to church and they come to church....have I fulfilled the Great Commission?  No, but for so long the church in America has equated invitation with evangelism...for so long we have equated discipleship with pray a prayer...pray some more...show up on Sunday morning, put some money in a plate and if I am just a faithful attender then I am somehow fulfilling the Great Commission or at a minimum my "obligation" to God...we need to move beyond just getting people to church on Sunday morning to disciple making.

When does discipleship start?  When you share the gospel with someone and they "accept" Jesus and pray a prayer?  No...discipleship starts before that...look at the Gospels...read through each one of them and you will see that the disciples were disciples before they professed Jesus as the Son of God/Savior of the world...discipleship starts before evangelism or salvation...

If we understand this we will be intentional with/in our relationships...reaching out, sharing, talking about this great God that we serve we will be in the process of fulfilling the Great Commission.  We do have to be careful that the pendulum doesn't swing so far in the other direction that all we ever do is "relate" to people but never share about Jesus.  We need to be intentional in our relationships that we are looking for opportunities to speak Jesus into the lives of those around us.  The "go" in the Great Commission should be "as you go about your daily lives make disciples."

The two keys are "Go" and "Make"...

Main Point:  The good news of the Gospel should motivate us to be passionate about making disciples.

"Transformational Churches have created a setting where the mature are encouraged to lead the immature.  They help the immature see where they are missing the mission.  Leadership is established along the lines of helping  people see and participate in the mission rather than stagnate at one phase of development."

Paul challenges us in 1 Corinthians that we ought to be moving from milk to solid food...Missional Communities and Life Transformation Groups are key to moving people to maturity...so many people sit in the pews on Sunday morning and say "that was a nice sermon" of "that was an interesting sermon" or "I have no clue what he was talking about."  We sit in our community group and just ask "What questions do you have based on what was preached in the morning"...it is great b/c one lady opens up her notebook and just asks questions and we provide clarity...or what a great opportunity as our kids sit in with us and see the parents wrestling with Scripture and how it applies to life and sometimes the kids teach us what it looks like...why do we do this?  So we move beyond where we are at, becoming so motivated by the good news of the Gospel that you are passionate about talking about Him and how this word relates to your life...at this point we listened to Matthew West's song Hello My Name Is..."  Do you resonate with this song? Do you believe that you are a child of the One True King?  We can get excited about this song but if we are not careful we will let it all be individual and my relationship with Jesus...the fact that I am a child of the One True King...that is great news...that you can be a child of the One True King...but if it is just about me and Jesus I am missing the boat...that truth should motivate me to want to come alongside others letting the broken hearted, down trodden, depressed, isolated (and the list goes on) know that they don't have to stay there...we need to move beyond its about me and Jesus to its me and Jesus and him working through me...that is what we see in Acts...the first part of Acts gives us a picture of community, but community that has part of it hurting b/c a different part of the body was being selfish.  Did the Apostles succumb to rushing to deal with it?  No they stuck to what they were supposed to be doing...no they raised up a bunch of bus boys...but did those bus boys say "Thank God I am not an Apostle, so I do not have to be about pray and proclamation."
 
3 Examples:

- Bus boy to Martyr

Rather Stephen moves from bus boy to martyr, b/c he is about the business of making disciples...now it would be easy for us to say "Thank God I am not being called to be a martyr..." but you are called to be about the business of making disciples and in the midst of that you may be called to be a martyr...there are an awful lot of individuals in Iraq who are being called to lay their lives down b/c they are Christians...you may not be in a place where you experience that, but are we not called daily to lay our self interest/lives down to go and make disciples?

Stephen preaches a message...he takes them through the story from Abraham forward...in the midst of trying to disciple them he lays his life down...I do not know a lot about Stephen, but I do not think that he had a seminary degree or attended the theological school of his day...but what he did have was the Holy Spirit...all believers have the same thing that Stephen had...and if we tune our hearts to listen to the Holy Spirit we too will know what to say and to whom to say it...Stephen was "just a bus boy" and yet he was a child of the One True King who passionately proclaimed the good news and made disciples...


- Bus boy to on the road

If you want to shy away from being a martyr then take a look at another bus boy named Phillip...why do bad things happen to the church?  Sometimes they are allowed to get us out of our comfort zones and back on mission...what are some of the other parts of the Great Commission?  The Jerusalem to the ends of the earth...persecution pushed them out...Phillip first goes to Samaria...a place no good Jew would go...and yet here we have Phillip going and them receiving the good news...they did not stop proclaiming b/c persecution broke out but rather they continued to proclaim b/c they knew that they were children of the One True King...next we see God saying rise and go...and what did Phillip do?  He rose and went...it doesn't say rise and sit...God says go and God works it out in such a way that it was teed up for Phillip to knock it out of the park...many of us say "Yeah, but God doesn't tee it up for me like that..."  What are we talking about?  God sends us daily into places where he has it teed up for us...we just aren't looking or going...Phillip provides is the example to go on the road to wherever and whomever God sends us...Phillip begins by disciplining the Eunuch...do you think that the Eunuch left without the understanding that he was supposed to go and make disciples?

- Persecutor to fully devoted

Chapter 9 God gets a hold of Saul just like he gets a hold of you as well, but he doesn't leave you there...but rather He challenges us to "go and make disciples"...

Assignment:

To whom is God sending you to go and make disciples of them?

Stephen, Phillip, Saul/Paul give us examples of what it looks like to be on mission telling God's story, proclaiming His good news to the ends of the earth...

Who are the 1 - 3 individuals that God is sending you to?  Pray for them by name and start looking for opportunities to speak Jesus into their lives...there are opportunities all over the place...God is in the business of sending us to target rich environments to share His story in such a way that it is good news...the opportunities are out there...go and make disciples.