Sermon Tone Analysis

Purpose Driven Life: Message 6

Jeff Jones, Senior Pastor

February 20~/22, 2004

!!! Made for a Mission

 

Good evening~/morning Fellowship!

It is good to see you, and you have made it to the 5th of 5 purposes in the PDL…and it has gone fast, but gone wonderfully well.

When we put up these sails, I prayed that God’s Spirit, his divine wind, would blow through this place, and God has done so.

And when we look at those sails, I want us to pray for God’s wind to continue to blow strong and to blow long.

We have looked at the purpose of worship, that we are planned for God’s pleasure, at the purpose of connection, that we are formed for God’s family,  at the purpose of growth, that we are created to become like Christ, and last week the purpose of service, that we were shaped to serve him.

Now, all of these purposes are vitally important, but the one we are looking at today…sharing, how we are made for a mission…is the one purpose that we cannot fulfill in heaven.

It is for this purpose that we are still on the earth…and it is this mission that unites all of us who have been drafted to serve on God’s team.

We are here with a God-given mission.

Occasionally Christy will send me to the grocery store with a list of things to get.

And I get in the car, a man on a mission, to go attack the store and come out with all the stuff I’m supposed to get.

Now, about 98% of the time, I get in the store and realize that I forgot the list.

And most of the time, I can maybe remember one or two things but that is about it.

So, I do the best I can.

And for some reason, I’m always drawn to the ice cream section.

When all else fails, ice cream is always a good thing to get.

So, I come home from the store with my chocolate mint ice cream and maybe some Diet Cokes…and she says, “Where’s the stuff?” “Right here!

See…right in the bag.”

And she says, “Ice cream and diet coke?

Are you kidding?

Where’s the real stuff?

Where’s all the stuff you were /supposed/ to get? Where’s the broccoli and celery?

(I never remember things like broccoli and celery…selective memory).

Where’s the milk?

Where’s the sweet potatoes?

The Romaine lettuce?”

Then I explain that I did the best I could, but I forgot the list…I forgot what I went to the store to get.

And she’s not exactly experiencing marital bliss as she stares at me in disbelief that I have once again gone to the store and forgot the list, even though she reminded me to take the list as I was going out the door.

Now, it is one thing to face my wife when I’ve gone to the store and forgotten why I was there in the first place.

But one day you and I as Christians and you and I collectively as a church will stand before God, and he will say, “What did you do with all the time, ability, and resources I gave you?

Did you do what I asked you to do?” What are we going to say? Are we going to say, “Oh, yeah.

Well, we did a lot of stuff.

We had a great time together, and we made some memories, had some laughs.

But we kind of forgot…what did you want us to do again?

Oh yeah—that’s right.

We did some things associated with the mission, but we were pretty busy just living life.

It is crazy down here, you know…it’s not like it is up there in heaven.”

Hey, that’s not what I want to say.

It’s one thing to mess up with your wife, another thing when we realize that one day we will give an account to Jesus Christ.

So, why did Jesus send us to the store?

Or in other words, why are we on this planet?

What is our mission that we are made for?

What is our mission as a church, and how does God want each of us to be a part of it?

Jesus said to his followers, including you and me, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).

We are a sent people…we are people on a mission.

Our privilege and responsibility is to share God’s love and life-changing message of grace to a world that desperately needs to know him.

Jesus did the hard work of dying on the cross for the sins of the world, so that people could be forgiven and come into relationship with God.

He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, but before he did, he gave us the ball.

He said, “Now it is up to you.

I’m giving you the ball.”

Jesus has placed his mission in our hands.

Matthew 28:19-20 says, /Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

And surely I am with you always to the every end of the age.”

/He will be with us, but he won’t do it without us.

He has designed the church composed of people like you and me to be essential to his plan to reach people for Christ…and there is no Plan B. He’s not going to send angels to the do the job.

He’s not going to drop down a few billion pamphlets.

He’s not going to write messages in the sky.

He has chosen to use his church and Christians whose lives have been changed to reach the world.

He wants to use you.

We have good news to share, and God has made you and me the core of his communication strategy.

How do we do this as a church and as individuals?

How do we fulfill this mission?

And let me say that what we are talking about today is core to our church.

As elders, as we have been in the process of formulating our vision over the next years in the life of our church, it is this that God is impressing on our hearts.

Many people are wondering what is our church going to be like?

What crazy thing is Jeff going to do? Am I going to like it or not?

Well, what we are talking about today is central to our vision moving forward.

We know biblically that what God is doing in the world is reaching the world through healthy churches.

That’s what he is doing.

And we believe that by God’s grace and a lot of great leadership in the past, that we have a healthy church, where the Word of God is taught, where godly leaders lead with unity, where people are growing spiritually and serving faithfully…it is a healthy church…which is an awesome thing, and we want to do all we can to maintain and strengthen that health.

But we believe that is only part of what God wants to do.

He wants our church to be internally healthy, but not internally focused.

We believe that the next step for our church is to turn our focus outward…to place our focus and effort on reaching this community and our world for Jesus Christ—which is what he asked us to do.

Our vision is to build a healthy church that profoundly impacts the world around it…that is not focused on us, but focused on those God has called us to reach.

We want to do all we can to reach people for Christ, so that we can grow them in the faith, connect them into community, and equip them to serve in God’s kingdom—and then to share God’s love and life-changing truth with a world that God wants to reach.

Our future is going to be about reaching people right where God has placed us, and then the world beyond.

If you are willing to go this next step with us, we are going to be learning how to be an externally focused church, that has at the forefront of our hearts Jesus’ mission and God’s heart for those who are the least and the lost in our community…that is focused on reaching this community and impacting our world.

We want to be fully the church for the sake of the world.

Today I want us to focus on our individual responsibility to make this happen.

What is God calling each of us in this church to do as we fulfill our God-given mission.

How do we do this?

Jesus gave us some strategic advice just before he left for heaven.

Turn with me to the book of Acts, and we’ll look at Acts 1:8.

This is just after the resurrection and before Jesus went up to heaven, and the disciples were very excited and very curious about when Jesus would return to set up his kingdom on the earth.

That was their preoccupation, and a lot of people get very preoccupied with that today to.

But Jesus corrects them.

Look with me in verse 6, where the disciples ask Jesus, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?

He said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.”

Jesus is saying, “Hey, don’t be preoccupied with the coming kingdom and the end times and all that…that will happen when the Father wants it to happen.

In the meantime, you need to focus on what your job is—not the Fathers.

He’ll set the dates, and here’s what you need to do—and if you do this, you’ll be plenty busy.

“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 uttermost parts of the earth.”

Acts 1:8 He gave both a job title—witness—and a job description—to go to Jerusalem, where they already were, and then on to Judea and Samaria, and then the whole world.

So, Jesus says, “Look, don’t waste a bunch of time trying to figure out when I’m coming back.

You focus on your job.

You be my witnesses.”

What is a witness?