← ArchiveSunday, September 14, 2014DateSeptember 14, 2014Speaker—TextPsalms 103Passages in this sermonMatthew 280:45Proverbs 11:307:38Jonah 1:1–39:04Jonah 1:39:15Acts 1:814:09Psalms 10321:41Romans 1222:36Hebrews 1224:47Hebrews 1124:55TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00Thank you, thank you Miss Jessica. Wow, what an amazing song. Way to go Greg. Way to go worship choir and instrumentalists and thank you so much. You brought your Bible. Turn with me to a very, very familiar passage of scripture. Most of you can quote this passage from memory. It'll be0:28our launch text today and while we're in this message series called Purpose, we're looking at the several purposes of the church, but I want us to look at this particular passage as our launch. Matthew 28 verses 19 and following, actually verse 18 and following, all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth, Jesus said. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I command you0:57and lo, I'll be with you until the end of the age. When we start talking about missions, there is some connotations about that. There are some things that we get, we conclude a number of different aspects of that. When we say missions, a lot of times from our denominational perspective, we think about global evangelization and those kinds of things, which are excellent and well and what's what we're1:25supposed to do. We, when we lock into the context of, of business though, from a business perspective, and you business minds out there and I have a business background, we bring it to different plays and different words like meeting our goals or closing the deal or accomplishing our company's mission statement and plan and, and all of those things. When we talk about it from the business perspective, when we talk about it from the church examination, we get so many different listings of1:52things that we should do on missions or about missions or we get a different, a diverse type of explanation of missions. I was sitting this week in my study knowing that I was going to preach on missions and evangelism today and I started listing some things that I thought about when we, when we put it in the church context, we support our denominational list of missions. That's well and good. I'm going to read2:19this list to you. We support our list of missional work through our denomination. We invest outside ministries. That's the best, that best suits our taste as a congregation. Missions is done here on our campus, not abroad. Just, uh, let's just give money at it and let's let the experts do the missional work. That's a, a lot of people think that that's the way a church should do it. Let's just throw money at it2:47and, and let's let the, the missional people, those people that are, are experts and trained and gone to school for that. Let's let them do the work. A missional. Now that's a new buzzword. M-I-S-S-I-O-N-A-L. If you type that in, it's going to redline that in your Microsoft Word, but it's not a word, but it's becoming a buzzword in church work. Missional. That's what we do here. That's what, uh, is the3:12new buzzword for doing the work. We must be missional in our. Seeker friendly. Now that's a term that's been around for a while. Thanks to Dr. Rick Warren and Saddleback Church. I, I think we ought to be, uh, seeking to be friendly. Don't you think? Uh, seeker friendly. I, I'm not altogether crazy about that, but I'm not, uh, I'm not against it. I think that's a good idea. Non-confrontational church. That's what we want to be. We don't want to confront anybody with their sins or anything like3:39that. A non-confrontational approach to doing missions. I don't have to say a word. This is a new one on the block right now. I don't have to say a word. God's going to save those who he wants to save. Somebody does say, say, uh, I just don't have to say anything. I can just, that's called osmosis evangelism. Just stand there. People are going to get saved, folks. That's not going to happen, right? That's not what the word tells us. International missions. That's the way to go.4:06We should do that. Or no, no, no. Local missions. We should support just our local thing. Which is better? Identifying a particular people group. This is a new buzzword as well in our denomination. Let's identify a particular people group and let's just go after that particular people group. Programs or international efforts or trips to locations with a specific plan or a goal or,4:30or is that the way we should do missions? Should we just go and just throw money and get, raise up money and go on these trips and we do these trips and we come back and we don't have a strategic plan. Partnerships. Is that the way to go? Should we have partnerships? How do we, how do we do missions in that direction? Do we develop relationships? Now that's got to be the way to go, right, brother Dan? Some say discipleships is missions. I know a church right4:59now that they think that discipleship is clearly nothing more than a missional effort. The discipleship, so we, we, we really don't have to go very far to do that. We can do that. That's true, but oftentimes those who think that discipleship is mission, what they really want to do is get in their holy huddles and do nothing. They want to sit around and do nothing. They want to sit around and5:23they, yes, study the word of God. There's nothing wrong with that and I highly recommend that. That's the way we grow. But God says, go make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I command you and lo, I'll be with you always, even to the end of the word, into the earth. Now, when it comes to the word missions and when it's brought up to the analyst or the stewardship folks, they want to know one thing.5:52How much is it going to cost? Don't they? Now, how many of you just say, when you say, well, how much going on? That's the first thing we want to know. How much is it going to cost? Not, is that where we're called to go? Because I can tell you every time I've been on any kind of mission effort for the last 32 years, I never worried about what the cost was. And this is a guy with a business marketing background. You would think that's what I want to know first, what it's going to cost. I really don't6:22care what it's going to cost because I know that my God shall supply all my needs every step of the way. So is that what we should do? Should we worry about how much do we allocate for missions? How much do we throw money at while all of those listings are absolutely good? And we should explore those and we should examine those. Missions means so much more to so many other people. I truly believe6:47that we all support in this room. We all can agree on this one thing. We believe in supporting missions. Amen? If you don't, you need to get right with God today. I can just tell you that right now. Every one of us in this room, we believe in supporting missions, whether it's here locally or around the world, whatever it might be. The strategy for missions needs to be an ongoing work inside the7:15New Testament church. But what does it truly, when you peel the onion all the way back, what does missions mean to you personally? What does it mean to you personally? I love what Jesus said, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. I love what Proverbs chapter 11 verse 30 says,7:38the fruit of righteousness is the tree of life for he who wins souls is wise. A great music entertainer, a great Christian artist named Steve Green of yesteryear. I love Steve. He's great. I've done several events with him and a tremendous vocalist Steve Green is. He wrote a song and he recorded it. It was called the heartbeat of the mission. He said to love the Lord thy God is the heartbeat of the8:06mission. So we first must fall in love with Jesus, completely sold out to him and then let him direct us on this thing called mission. And that's a daily opportunity. English word for missions comes from the Latin word of sending. Being a Christian includes being sent into all the nations, into all the world as a representative of Jesus Christ. As the father, Jesus said, has sent me, I am sending you. Now when8:33I started thinking about this whole topic of the sermon on missions today, I started thinking about this whole idea of missional churches. And I didn't like that term. So I'm going to come up with a grab missions. And I'm going to reach over for my friend Rick Warren and use the word driven. And I'm going to tie those two words together. Mission driven church reminded me of the book of Jonah. Jonah was8:58a real guy. He wasn't an allegory. Wasn't a parable. Jonah was a real guy. And Jonah chapter one, verses one through three tells us of the mission that God called Jonah on. I'm going to get to the message in a minute. This is kind of setting you up. But Jonah chapter one, verse three says, verse one says, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai said, arise and go to Nineveh, that great city and cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah9:24rose to flee to Tarsus from the presence of the Lord. So he went down and found a ship, which was going to Tarsus from the presence of the Lord. He went down into the ship from the presence of the Lord. He went down into the bottom of the well from the presence of the Lord. Listen to me, folks, if we're going to be a missional driven church, we got to stop thinking from an inward focus and move us to an external outreach. We need to get into this community. We need to re-identify9:51this church with this community. A mission driven church is from moves from program driven to people development. It moves to people development. It means we need to talk about how do we go about sharing our faith? Folks, let me tell you something. We do not in note that not just this church, but the entire Christian, we don't need another program for evangelism. We do not need another written document10:17to teach us how to share what God has done in our lives. The greatest thing that we can do is to know the story of salvation, our story of salvation, and to be able to prepare that and write it down and be able to deliver that in a conversation. Go have gospel conversations about your story.10:39We don't need another program. We need to develop you as a missional force into the world. So a from a missional, a missional driven church moves from internal focus to external outreach from program driven to people development. And it moves from Christ, a church centered programs to kingdom based leadership, meaning we're raising up an army. That's what Jesus was saying. Go make disciple. The action11:07word go, it actually means as you go. That means everywhere you're going, wherever you're working, whatever school classroom you're in, whatever occupation that you're in, we are to go. And then let's come on Sunday mornings and celebrate Jesus. Amen. Now, that brings me to the thought pattern of what is missions. What is missions and evangelism? Our mission actually is a continuation of Christ's mission here11:34on earth. We have the privilege and the command to go and make disciples. It's a continuation of Christ's mission on earth. Our mission is a wonderful privilege. He reached down from the halls of heaven and tapped your wretched soul, reached you out of the pits of hell and put you on mission. Every Christ follower is called to call people to the saving knowledge of Jesus. Not just pastors, not12:01just ministers, not just evangelists, not just deacons. Thank you. But we are all called, every one of us. And it is a wonderful privilege to just share our story. Our mission has eternal significance, has eternal significance. When you think about the balance of someone's life, spending eternity, separated from God's love, the balance of that is hanging. And it could be hanging on the word that12:30you share with them. The story you tell them, your personal story of salvation. Our mission has eternal significance. Our mission gives life meaning. So we are called and we are commissioned to be on mission at salvation. The moment that you receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord,12:52your mission statement began right then. Not when you go to class, not when you join a small group, not when you sign up for Sunday school, not when you start giving tithes and offerings or join a worship service, you are called and commissioned on this great mission of winning the world to Jesus Christ at the13:18moment of salvation. Some of the greatest soul winners I know are brand new believers. I don't want them to get too deep and steeped in church work. You know why? Because we'll mess them up. We get them in a program right out of the gate, you know. Now we need to know what we're talking about. We need to know enough scripture that we can stand firm and stand firm on that. We should grow our people up. But13:46folks, let me tell you something. Most of us have got more knowledge than we're sharing anyway. And if we want to see this build and feel to capacity, then we got to get on mission. It is a privilege. It's a life-changing meaning opportunity. It gives us a wonderful privilege. Acts chapter 1 verse 8, very familiar passage. The Bible says, you shall receive power when the Holy14:09Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, even the remotest part of the earth. I had the privilege of speaking at an evangelism conference up in Kentucky several years ago. And I was one of the guest speakers. They sent me the list of the speakers that were going to be on this particular conference. And I've spoken at several of these state evangelism conferences. I don't know why. They must have hit the bottom of the barrel. And they14:37said, well, this guy could help us. He can fill a slot, you know. And he probably won't mess us up too bad. So I was invited to Kentucky to speak. And my mentor, one of my mentors is an evangelist from Hartsell, Alabama named Junior Hill. And he's just an amazing old, old Southern Baptist evangelist. Just one of the greatest guys. I mean, he is just an anointed evangelist. And so he was on the program. And I noticed that I was on the program. And there were some local pastors from the state15:03of Kentucky on the program that I did not know. And then there was another guy who later became the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, a guy by the name of Fred Luter. And Dr. Luter is from New Orleans. And he's an African-American pastor. And man, I mean, he can preach. I mean, this brother can bring it. I'm talking this brother can bring it. And so I immediately did not see the listing of who was following who. And I began to pray in earnest, Lord Jesus, please don't let me follow either one of15:29those two guys. Lord, I have nothing to say compared to these two giants in ministry. And so I called the director, the guy, my contact person. I said, hey, I need to ask you a question. Can you, can you tell me what the lineup is on this thing? He said, well, you're going to be first. And I mean, Junior Hill is going to be first because he's coming in from speaking in the Illinois Convention. And so he's15:56coming in. So he's going to speak, then you're going to speak. And then Dr. Luter is going to finish up that evening. And I said, praise God, I can follow Brother Junior. That's okay. I've done that before. It's not going to be too sporty, but I'll do it. So Brother Junior preached and then I preached and I sat down. And then Dr. Luter got up. And I'm sitting over there like right there with Brandy. It's a place about 2000 people in the room and it's a up in Kentucky and is a prominently16:20all starched shirts and ties and preachers with their big, you know, family edition King James version under their arm. They're all standing there, you know, they're all doing the whole church look thing, you know, the denominational thing. And so I'm there and I'm fired up, man. I can't wait to hear Dr. Luter preach. And he gets up. Now there's one thing about Dr. Luter. He has a unique style of preaching. He has a cadence to his preaching. It's a, it's amazing. It's a, I wish I could get16:47that. I mean, I just don't get it. But anyway, he has one and he had one phrase that he went through the entire sermon with Brad. He said this phrase, can I get a witness? Now here we are. We have a bunch of white folks over here, bunch of white Baptist preachers and their families sitting in there. And we're all sitting around stuffed shirts, you know. Oh, we're all formal at the Kentucky evangelism conference, you know. And so he says, can I get a witness? And it's real quiet. And a guy17:15over here in the corner says, amen, brother. So he preaches another four, five, six, eight minutes and he walks over. He says, can I get a witness? And a guy over here says, amen. He preached a little while longer and he says, can I get a witness? And a guy right there that says, amen. That's about it. And so on his fourth try, he said, can I get a witness? I jumped up, Brad. I'm not kidding you. On the pew, jumped up and whoa, I'm it right here. When I read that verse of scripture17:42this morning, I thought of that illustration because that's exactly what Jesus is asking can I get a witness? Can I get a witness, church? We don't need another program. We don't need17:55another plan. We need the body of believers called Bethel Church stand up and say, I'm it. You got me, Lord. I'm that witness. You see, when we say, I'm in, I'm all in, I'm that witness.18:19God gives us that power to overcome the wicked one. Our call has God given power from the Holy Spirit. When you break Acts chapter one, verse eight says, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit. I love what old King Jay said, the Holy Ghost comes on you. Woo. When the Holy Spirit has18:46come upon you. Brad did not get more Holy Spirit than I got. I got no more than anybody else in this room. I got all the power of the Holy Spirit I'm going to get when I asked Jesus Christ in my life at age 17 in Trustful First Baptist Church. When I invited Jesus into my life, he gave me all the power of the Holy Spirit I'm ever going to get. Now the, the, the evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit19:12becomes more prevalent as I grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, obviously, but I got all the Holy Spirit I'm ever going to get. So our call has God given power from the Holy Spirit. We must, we must rediscover our passion for that power. We must rediscover our passion for that power. Secondly, we must, our God, our call has God given purpose in its direction. We must redefine the19:36direction that we have. The location is which he says he gives us the plan. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the remotest part of the earth. I'm not telling you something that you hadn't heard a thousand times. I'm reiterating what you've read over and over and over again. Church, it's a decision that we must make. If we're going to be all God wants us to be. If we're going to be the church that God is calling20:05us to be, we've got to redefine the purpose that he's called us to. We must rediscover the passion of the power. And our call has God directed plans and it begins right here at home. Right here. I've said it once and I'm going to keep saying it because it's haunting me. In a six mile radius of this campus, a hundred new families will join or will move into this community, a hundred new family units.20:33That could be one person or more likely it could be three or four. Then it could be an aggressive family. It has five or six. A hundred new family units within a six mile radius in one month. That keeps me awake at night. Our call has God directed plans and it begins at home. So we must recommit20:57to the plan that God has called this church to do. That is to reach this community and the surrounding areas and then expand the bandwidth all across the state, across the nation, and around the world. So how do we do that? Now here's the message. How do we sustain our mission? Number one, fill the blanks in21:24with me. We must place our faith on the spiritual things, not the cultural things. We must place our faith on the spiritual things, not the cultural things. Turn with me quickly to Psalms 103. Psalms 103. It's center of the book. You know where it is. Psalms 103. If you don't have a copy of God's word,21:50then look over with someone. Psalms 103. Somebody ought to put this to us, to a song somewhere along the way. Listen to what it says. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his benefits. Who pardons all your iniquity, who heals your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion, who satisfies your years, who satisfies your years22:17with good things, so that your youth is renewed like an eagle. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Look with me to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12. A very familiar, most of you have already memorized this, but Romans 12, verse 1 and 2.22:44Listen to what it says. I urge you, therefore, brother, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. We must place our faith in the spiritual things, not the cultural things.23:09Culturally, we would say, let's do another program. Let's have another plan. Folks, if every one of us reached one person, we couldn't put them in this room. We would have parking space problems. We would have issues with Sunday school space. Folks, let me tell you something. We must place it on the spiritual thing, the power of the Holy Spirit that is indwelled in us, our spiritual service of worship.23:36So we must place our faith in the spiritual things, not cultural things. Number two, we must place our faith in the timeless, not the timely. Now, here's what happens to churches during transition. We go, oh, my goodness, we're without a senior pastor. Okay. That snuck up on God, didn't it?24:04He went, oh, my goodness, I let that happen to Bethel Church. Mm, my goodness gracious. We let this, oh, what am I going to do? He's sitting there patting his face like I am. We go, oh, my goodness, what did I do wrong? What did I do? Nothing gets by God. He knows exactly where we are. He knows exactly we needed to go through this season of life. Nothing gets by him. He is timeless.24:34Why? Because he owns the time. He created the time. We shouldn't worry about the timely. Now, turn with me to Hebrews chapter 12, one of my favorite passages. Hebrews chapter 12. You'll know this. Hebrews chapter 12. Follows Hebrews chapter 11. Here we go. Listen to what it says. Therefore, since you have so great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every incumbents and the sin which so easily entangles us.25:04Let us run the race with endurance, the race that is set before us. Fixing, looking unto, a gazing at, fixing our eyes on the timeless. I paraphrase. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy is set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.25:32For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself. Church, listen to me. We need to keep our eyes fixed on the timeless and not worry about the incidental, timely things. Well, we have a staff for that. Amen? We have deacons for that. Amen? We have leadership teams for that. Right? We're going to get the work done. But sometimes we're so worried about getting the work done when we need to keep our eyes fixed on him and watch what God does.26:02We need to place our faith on the timeless, not the timely. And thirdly, and I'm finally done. We must surrender from the world to stand alone, even if we have to stand by ourselves. That one chapter, epistle named Jude. Listen to what the word says. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling26:32and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forevermore. Amen. We must place our faith on the spiritual things, not the cultural things. We must place our faith on the timeless,27:01not the timely. And we must surrender from the world to stand alone, even if we have to stand by ourselves. So what is your life message? What is your purpose statement? What is your life message? God has given us a clear direction that we must recommit to the plan.27:31We must redefine the purpose and we must rediscover that passion of the power of the Holy Spirit that is indwelled in our lives so that we can be on the mission that God called each and every one of us to. As you go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son,28:01the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I command you. And lo, I'll be with you always, even until the end of the age. Several years ago, I had the privilege of visiting a senior adult lady in the nursing home. She was a godly lady in the church that I was serving and they asked me, would I be available to do that?28:29I said, absolutely, I'd be happy to do that. I would be honored to do that. And they said, well, she's just about gone and she just loves for you to come by and read the word to her or just pray with her. I said, I'd be happy to do that. I'd be happy to. So I went by, it was an afternoon and I went by to see this sweet lady and there she sat in her bed. The bed was tilted up and she was sitting there and she had that big family Bible sitting in her lap.28:58She probably weighed maybe 75 pounds and the Bible weighed 175, you know. And she was sitting there and she said, I said, hello, Miss Ella, this is Pastor Dan. She said, oh, been waiting on you to come by, brother. She said, I can't find my glasses. They were sitting on her head. I can't find my glasses. I want to read some scripture to you. I said, ma'am, would it be possible that I read out of your Bible?29:28What passage would you like for me to read? She said, where are you reading? I said, well, I just finished the book of Matthew and my personal reading and the gospel of Matthew and I'd love to just kind of read there. She said, oh, get over to the end where he's talking to us. I said, okay. So I read Matthew 28, 18 and following and I said, make disciples of all the nations,29:54baptizing them all the way through, teaching them to observe all I command you and lo, I'll be with you always, even until the end of the age. And I closed her big King James Bible up. I said, wow, what a beautiful promise. She slapped my hand. She said, preacher, that's not a promise. That's a fact. Church, that's not a promise.30:26That's a fact. We got to make the decision. Are we going to be a mission-driven church or are we going to do the same thing that we've been doing over and over and over again? God's given us this opportunity. Will you commit to it? Let's pray.30:57Let's pray. God's given us this opportunity. Thank you.More sermons on Psalms →
