Sent
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Daren and some neighbors began a children’s ministry outreach in their neighborhood. Soon, three brothers ages 4-10 caught their attention. These young boys were often locked out of their home. The team noticed that their mother was frequently in and out of the house. The team began picking up the boys for church each Sunday. The boys became a part of the house church where they learned about the love of Christ. Seeing this outpouring of love and care for her children touched their mom’s heart. Within a few months she accepted Christ and became a member of the neighborhood church. This inner-city neighborhood church shared the love of Christ with three little boys and now their mother and little sister will grow up to know the hope found in Jesus. Can you imagine a world where every child has a church where they are loved and introduced to Jesus?
Stadia, a church planting organization, is preparing to start fifteen inner city churches next year in places where there are no churches. Next Sunday we will be taking up a special offering to help Stadia start those churches.
This morning we are finishing our series on fulfilling the mission of God by surprising the world. This has been a series to encourage us to be more missional and more evangelistic. What we’ve seen in this series is that while there’s much in New Testament about talking to people about our faith, there’s much more in the New Testament about living out our faith in such a way that people ask us about it. Peter wrote:
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. (1 Peter 3:15b)
And Paul wrote that we should:
. . . know how to answer everyone. (Colossians 4:6b)
To be able to answer someone must be asking. Are we living surprising lives? Or are we living just like everyone else taking care of ourselves and keeping up with the Jones? Are we just going along to get along and doing whatever we can to fit in? Or are we living in such a way that people are asking us about our faith, because that’s the way the Bible says we should be living. Isn’t that what Jesus was talking about when he said we should walk a second mile?
If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. (Matthew 5:41)
Roman soldiers could make you carry their gear, which could be quite heavy, for a mile. It didn’t matter what you were doing or where you were going before the soldier tapped you on the shoulder, you had to carry it. Jesus not only says to not resist the demand, but to do more than demanded. Can you imagine the shock on a shoulder’s face when someone carried his stuff for two miles? Near the end of the first mile he’d start preparing to have to carry his own stuff again, but the guy keeps going. At first maybe the soldier thinks they guy just doesn’t realize the mile is over, but after a hundred yards he begins to wonder. At the end of the two miles the soldier asks, “Why did you carry my stuff for two miles? You only had to carry it for one.” And then the guy has an opportunity to answer, “My Savior, who carried my sins on the cross has changed my life and blessed me. I now want to be a blessing to others.” Jesus was teaching us to live in such a way that people would take note and ask them about it. Jesus said:
34A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35)
And that’s exactly what the early church did. In Acts 6 the church faced its first conflict – some of the widows were not being taken care of. The church was helping provide food for windows in need, but it seems the Hellenistic widows were being overlooked. The apostles quickly had the congregation select seven men who would oversee this important ministry and we read the result of them showing love and doing more than expected was:
So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. (Acts 6:7)
The early church not only told people about Jesus, but demonstrated their faith in Jesus by the way they lived and the church grew.
This two prong approach – proclaiming the gospel and living grace filled lives – was so effective it literally transformed the Roman Empire. Evangelists, such as Peter and Paul, boldly proclaimed the gospel while thousands of ordinary believers were infiltrating every aspect of society and living the kind of questionable lives that evoked curiosity in the Christian message. This approach worked so well that three hundred years after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus his followers had completely changed the Roman Empire. One Roman emperor became so concerned about the effect Christians were having he wrote to his officials:
We must pay special attention to this point, and by this means affect a cure [for the “sickness” of Christianity]. For when it came about that the poor were neglected and overlooked by the [pagan] priests, then I think the impious Galileans [Christians] observed this fact and devoted themselves to philanthropy. And they have gained ascendancy in the worst of the deeds through the credit they win for such practices. For just as those who entice children with a cake, and by throwing it to them two or three times induce them to follow them, and then, when they are far away from their friends cast them on board a ship and sell them as slaves . . . by the same method, I say, the Galileans also begin with their so-called love-feast, or hospitality, or service of tables – for they have many ways of carrying it out and hence call it by many names – and the result is that they have led very many into atheism [i.e. Christianity].
The emperor was concerned that the Christians’ acts of hospitality and philanthropy were winning too many of his subjects. To counteract the effects of Christians living out the gospel, the emporer decided to launch an offensive against the Christians by copying what the Christians were doing. He wanted his officials and the pagan priests to out-love the Christians. He ordered that a system of food distribution be started and that hostels be built for poor travelers. He wrote:
Why do we not observe that it is their benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead and the pretended holiness of their lives that have done most to increase atheism? I believe that we ought really and truly to practice every one of those virtues ... For it is disgraceful that when the impious Galileans support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us.
Not surprisingly the emperor’s new social program utterly failed. He couldn’t motivate pagan priests or Roman officials to care that much for the poor. He failed to realize that the Christians were filled with the Holy Spirit, they were filled with of love of God, and they were motivated by the grace they had received from God. The message they shared – that God loved the world – was patently absurd to the average Roman. The pagan gods cared nothing for humankind. And yet in the miserable world of the Roman Empire, the Christians not only proclaimed the mercy of God, they demonstrated it. They not only fed the poor, they welcomed everyone regardless of their ethnicity or social status. They were literally the most surprising alternative society, and their conduct raised an insatiable curiosity among the average Roman. You can see how the proclamation of the gifted evangelists would have been far more effective as it worked alongside a society of people living such questionable lives.
Our challenge today is to find what similarly questionable lives look like in the 21st century. I think it’s harder to live questionable lives today. Let me tell you why I think this.
I’ve heard that as the gospel spread to Europe the most difficult people group to reach were the Germanic tribes. There was one point they had difficulty with. It wasn’t that God would come to earth as a man. It wasn’t that God could die on a cross for their sins. It wasn’t that he could rise again three days later. The major sticking point was a command. Of the Ten Commandments they had a problem with the sixth command – Do not murder. They couldn’t see any reason not to murder. Hundreds of years before Darwin they were living out his theory of the survival of the fittest. They killed to keep from being killed and didn’t understand why they should stop. If you wanted to live a questionable life in that day all you had to do was not kill anyone. I think we could all do that. Of course the gospel eventually reached even these people and changed their culture. So living a questionable life now takes more than just not taking someone’s life. So how do we live questionable lives today? How can we live in such a way that people will ask us about our Faith in Jesus?
In this series we’ve talked about some habits we can make a part of our lives to help us do this. Those habits form the acrostic BELLS which stand for: Bless, Eat, Listen, Learn, and Sent. Bless others through words of affirmation, acts of kindness or gifts. Eat with people you might not ordinarily eat with. Listen to the Holy Spirit as God leads you so that you'll know how to live in the world without being contaminated by the world. And learn from Jesus about what living a surprising life looks like.
This morning we are looking at the last habit: sent. This is different from the first four. The first four are things we do; this habit is about recognizing who we are: we are all ambassadors having been sent by Jesus to be witnesses for him.
There are two obstacles we face in carrying this out fifth habit.
The first obstacle is we don’t think about ourselves as being sent.
We know the apostles were sent and missionaries are sent, but we don’t think of ourselves as being sent. Other than when we hear someone preaching about it how often do you think about yourself as being an ambassador for Jesus? How often do you consider about yourself as a witnesses for Jesus? This fifth habit encourages us to think about it not just more often but to see it as our identity all of the time. Just as we are Christians all of the time and not just when we are in this building, we are his ambassadors all of the time. We have been sent.
I’ve told that old joke about the guy being pulled over. When the officer approached the car the guy was a little aggravated because he knew he wasn’t speeding. “What the problem,” he asked. After checking the driver’s license and registration the officer said, “With all the religious stickers on your car and the way you were honking your horn and yelling at the driver in front of you I figured the car must be stolen.”
We are ambassadors for Jesus every day and everywhere we go. We may never leave the country, we may never leave the state, but we are all sent as ambassadors.
Turn to Matthew 28. You remember the Great Commission. This idea that we are all sent is so important that there’s a version of the commission in each of the gospels and in the book of Acts. The one we probably remember best though is from Matthew.
18Then 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)
Most translations mistranslate the first word in verse 19. Jesus didn’t say, “Go,” he said “Going” or “As you go.” That means that as we are to be his ambassadors as we go about our daily lives. We are sent as we go to work. We are sent as we go to the store. We are sent as we go on vacation. Wherever we go we should see ourselves as ambassadors of Christ being sent to bear witness of him.
A news cameraman was told to book flight and take pictures of a nearby forest fire. So he quickly used his cell phone to call the local airport to charter a flight. He was told a twin-engine plane would be waiting for him at the airport. Arriving at the airfield, he spotted a plane warming up outside a hanger. He jumped in with his bag, slammed the door shut, and shouted, “Let’s go!” The pilot taxied out, swung the plane into the wind and took off.
Once in the air, the cameraman instructed the pilot, “Fly over the valley and make low passes so I can get shots of the fires on the hillsides.” “Why?” asked the pilot. “Because I’m a cameraman for the local news station,” he responded, “and I need to get some close up shots.” The pilot was strangely silent for a moment, finally he stammered, “So, what you’re telling me, is you’re not my flight instructor?”
It is important to know our identity. And our identity is Christ’s ambassadors. We have been sent by Jesus to be his witnesses. Do you see yourself that way?
The second obstacle is we don’t see the ones to whom we are being sent.
We don’t see ourselves as being sent and we don’t see those we are sent to. We fail to see the lost. Either we tend to think everyone is saved or we just don’t think about their spiritual condition at all. Either way the result is the same – we do nothing. We aren’t going to be concerned about those we don’t think about.
If we are followers of Jesus we are a sent people, and if we are a sent people then we all have a mission field – a place where we are sent to. So to who are we sent? Here are three questions to help you answer that.
Where are you now and who do we already know? Start where you are with the people you know. We are all surrounded by those who need a closer walk with Jesus. They need to see and hear about the grace, hope and forgiveness of Jesus. Where you live, go to work, to school, a hobby or a club. The easiest place to start is where you already have access. That may be the place where you are sent.
Who does your heart break for? Maybe you heart breaks for certain people: young children, the aged, those who are incarcerated, or the addicted. Maybe it’s for your neighbors, feeding the hungry, or helping the poor. This might God telling you this is your mission field.
Who can you easily befriend? We can over think this sometimes. Your mission field may be closer that you think. People you already have some familiarity with are easier to talk to. These are people you with people see at the gym, PTA, or a restaurant you visit frequently. You might be looking past a vast mission field that is all around you, the people God has already put near you who you could easily share the love of Jesus with.
Turn to the fifth chapter of 2 Corinthians. Consider these words to us found in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.
14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
What is motivating Paul and those with him that they have been sent out for the lost? It was the love of Christ seen in the testimony of his death on the cross. This love where God in flesh dies for us compels us to live for him. Paul goes on to say:
16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:16-17)
Since we are new creation in Christ we need drop the worldly point of view. The world tempts to view people differently that God would. We are tempted to divide the world into all kinds of groups by race, religion, and politics, how people look, where they are from, how they dress or how much money they have. Remember, Paul did a complete 180 on his view of the world when confronted with the truth of Christ.
18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)
We are reconciled to God through Christ that we might be ambassadors for Christ to a lost world. Paul makes it clear there are two groups of people in God’s view: the reconciled and the unreconciled. The reconciled are to be reaching out to the unreconciled and leading them to God. But we must see them and the condition they are in.
Bill Hybles tells the story of getting the mail out of the mailbox one day and stopping at the trashcan before going in his house. He stood at the trashcan sorting out the junk mail throwing away the catalogs and mailers marked to “Occupant.” As he did one postcard sailed past the edge of the can and fell to the ground at his feet upside down. It had a picture of a child on one edge with the words on the other edge, “Have you seen this child?” It then gave a description of the child, where she had last been seen, and a phone number to call if you had any information. As he picked it up he heard a voice – God or maybe his own conscience – asking, “Why don’t you care about this child?” The answer was easy, it wasn’t his child.
But even as he answered he began thinking about what he would be willing to do if it were one of his children. He would have been out there personally knocking on doors, passing out fliers, spending whatever money he had, quitting his job if necessary, giving all of his energy trying to find his lost child. Then he heard the same voice say again, “That’s the way I feel about those who are lost in the world and that’s the way I want you to see them as well.” Do we the lost the way God sees the lost? Do we see the ones to whom God has sent us?
Blessing others, eating with others, listening to the Lord and Holy Spirit, and learning from Jesus help us to accomplish our identity to be sent to share Jesus.