“WE WERE MADE FOR A MISSION”
Text: 2 Peter 3:9; I Timothy 2:4; John 3:16
Sunday, May 30, 2004
Welcome back to 40 Days of Purpose; it has gone by fast. There has been a lot of content, a lot of material, but it has gone by extremely fast. You will want to take out your outlines at this time if you want to follow along. It might be helpful. This week we are on day 36. Today is day 36. There are five more days and we are done. The five purposes really sum up what Christianity is all about; what God desires to do in our lives is summed up in those five purposes
What have we learned about those purposes? One thing we have learned is that the key to life is God. The starting point for making meaning out of our life is realizing we are created by God. It is all about God. It is the first phrase in the Bible in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God . . .”. We learned also that the image for life is not an hourglass, the sands of time simply running down, but actually life is more like a gym, a health gym. This is preparation for eternity. How we do in this life determines what happens in our next life. God is using this life to make that determination and also to instill practices which we will use in eternity for all time.
For those practices we have covered so far the first one is worship, simply loving God back. We love God back through corporate worship, through personal worship, and through acts of obedience. We learned about fellowship. Fellowship means simply that we need each other. We were created for each other, not to be alone. We learned that the third purpose is discipleship, meaning God desires to restore us in his image. God is more interested in our character than he is in our comfort. Last week we learned that the fourth purpose is ministry. We were not created to consume, but we were created to make a contribution. All four of these purposes can be used for all eternity. We will practice them in heaven as we are doing on Earth. This fifth purpose, however, is one that is limited in time. It is not one that is practiced in heaven. It is simply a purpose which will be expressed here and now. It is captured in John 17:18 and here is what it says. Jesus said: “In the same way that you gave Me a mission in the world” [this is Jesus praying to his Father in the final prayer in Gethsemane], “I give them a mission in the world.” Note the phrase “in the world,” this is something that takes place in the world. Last week we talked about ministry to believers, today we are talking about mission to unbelievers, mission to those who have not yet come to a saving knowledge of Christ. We all have a specific mission and we also have a common mission.
Today we will be talking about our common mission. What is that common mission? That common mission is captured in Acts 20:24. Paul says it very well and it is listed there. The most important thing is that I complete my mission: the work that the Lord Jesus gave me to tell people the good news about God’s grace. You’ve probably heard it differently -Matthew 28:20 is the common one. The great commission was to go into all the world and make disciples or, better said, it really is a participle. It begins with a participle: as you go, as you go out in your daily life, make disciples, tell others about me.
So the fifth purpose in our lives that God has is simply to share the gospel or share the good news with others. It is fitting that we are talking about this on Memorial Day weekend and on Pentecost Sunday because Memorial Day is captured in two words – remembrance and responsibility – and on the Memorial Day weekend we remember those who have sacrificed all for us and we reap the benefits of their sacrifice. As Christians, we remember the sacrifice of Christ and we reap the benefits of his sacrifice. We also are called to responsibility, as we have experienced freedom ourselves, we have the responsibility to help others experience freedom, and it’s the same thing as Christians. We have experienced freedom in Christ and it is our responsibility to share that freedom with others so other people experience the same freedom that we have.
The word for it is and it is a dirty word, it is an awful word, people just cringe when they hear this word. It begins with the letter ‘e’ and it is evangelism. I think Rick Warren is probably right, both believers and unbelievers hate this word. It is because of our conception and our image of it. We have a lot of reasons why is gives us problems. Some of the reasons I have heard: we are unable to do it, we feel like religious hucksters, it just seems cheap, kind of selling something like vacuum cleaners. There is the fear of the response, the fear of getting a ‘no’ actually, and then the guilt of what did I do wrong, what did I say wrong. There is the fear of not having the answers to tough questions and then there is the sense in our culture that it is just impolite or arrogant to say I know the way to God or have the truth. There is the sense that good people really don’t need it. Well, good people do need it because all of us have fallen short of God’s glory. All of us have a sin problem. Just as we have a sin problem, everyone has a sin problem and is in need of God’s forgiveness and the need of God’s grace in their lives, so we still need God.
There is probably an overarching reason, though, why we should share the good news with others, and that reason is caught up in the word itself. It is a good word. We’ve simply got to recapture it and put some new images to it. The word in Greek is euangelion - that is the word evangelism. It simply means, the whole phrase means “good news.” Have you experienced Christ as good news? The “good news” really is good news. If you have experienced the gospel, if you have experienced Christ, it is really good news. When I think of good news, I think of this one poster I saw. I think it really captures it well, a little trite, but it captures it well. The picture was of a big hundred cup coffee pot. Now that is a great image for me, a big hundred cup coffee pot. You can see it on the poster, and in the caption it says: Good coffee, eternal life - membership has its privileges. Something that is kind of warm. It is right. The gospel is good news. Eternal life is good news, isn’t it, or is that bad news? Eternal life - is that good news? Is forgiveness good news? Is God’s presence in your life good news? Having hope and a purpose and meaning, is that good news? Is having someone to talk to with your problems, someone who can take even the unbearable and making it bearable, taking those things which are impossible and making them possible, taking those things that can’t be done and making them doable, isn’t that good news? Having God in our lives, it has been for me, and having an extended family, isn’t that good news? Anywhere you go around the world you can find an extended family.
I think the Bible also makes sense about life and understanding life, it just connects for me. I think Christianity makes you a better person. The world, though, makes you a bitter person and I prefer to be a better person. I want others to have that same experience and that is why I entered the ministry. I know all of you want to do the same thing. You have experienced God in your life and you want others to do it as well. The question is how.
I think it begins by changing our image of evangelism. Right now think of the religious huckster and then remove the image from your mind, and in place of it think of Red Robin, the new restaurant down in Bear. Have you been there? The first week the Red Robin opened, one of our members, I won’t tell you who, went there, came into my office and said let me tell you about my experience at Red Robin. They were telling me everything about their experience, it was a good experience and they wanted me to go too. That is what evangelism really is, simply getting excited about what we have experienced and sharing that experience with others. We do that pretty well with a new restaurant, don’t we? Isn’t the news about Jesus Christ better than a new restaurant? Restaurant food only lasts you two to three hours at best, it may be momentary when it hits your taste buds. But Christ lasts for eternity. If we can only think of sharing the good news as much as telling someone about a great experience at a new restaurant we want them to go to, if we can think of that being the image of evangelism, it will be a lot easier to share.
The best way of spreading the good news about Christ is to simply share your story. Share with people what God has done in your life. But Pastor, you know what I heard that people just aren’t interested in spiritual matters. Well, actually, they are, that is a false notion, a lot of time we don’t share the good news because we believe that people don’t want to hear it and the reality is, poll after poll after poll, they discovered that people do want to know, people will respond to an invitation, but they’ll only respond to something that is real, something that is genuine. They are not interested in a sterile, dead type of church experience. If they have had that, they want something better. They want real Christianity, (which I think is caught up in these five purposes), something that is real in their life. There are 65 million people, the Gallop poll says, that have no church affiliation. In Newark that computes to 20,278 people who live in the 19711 zip code. The Gallop says half of the population, in fact, when asked the question, half of those who responded said they would be willing to go and would respond favorably if asked to attend a church service. Fifty percent, so fifty percent, one in two of everyone around you who doesn’t have a church home, will attend, will say yes to you. That is pretty good odds.
When I look at the demographics of Newark and this church, they are a complete fit. The average age in Newark is 34. They are affluent, they are highly educated, they are diverse and they are largely families with children. That is White Clay. They will respond and they will not only respond, they will come to White Clay and they will feel as though they fit in. All we have to do is make an invitation.
Well who, who are we called to share the good news with? If we are going to fulfill this fifth purpose in our lives, who are we called to share the good news with? First and foremost, as we have already been talking about, to fulfill this mission, if we dare to accept it, [and I can imagine right now the Mission Impossible theme going on], and it is quite possible, it begins with sharing the good news with those in our world, those closest to us.
We are going to look at Acts 1:8. It is in your bulletin. “You will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” That is a good model for sharing the good news. It begins in Jerusalem. Who was Jerusalem for the disciples? It was those who were closest to them. Now before we go any farther I am going to ask for a word of prayer together.
To fulfill God’s mission in our lives it begins with sharing the good news with those near us. Jesus touched a demoniac in Luke, and he wanted to go with Jesus, but note what Jesus says to him in Luke 8:39: “Go back home and tell people how much God has done for you. So the man went all over town telling how much Jesus had done for him.” Note the word in Acts is ‘witnesses.’ We are called to be witnesses. What is a witness? A person who simply shares what they saw or in the case of sharing our faith simply sharing with others what God has done in our lives. We are not called to be defense attorneys. God did not call us to defend him. God does not need us to defend him. We are not defense attorneys nor are we God’s salesmen as though we have to close the deal every time we have to share the good news. We are called to be witnesses and if you are a witness to what God has done for you, people can’t argue with it. Don’t be afraid of getting caught up in some argument - how can anyone argue with your experience? Who is more of an authority on you than you? Something about sharing personal faith- it is hard to argue with. It is great for our day because people will argue doctrine ’til they are blue in the face. They will argue truth because most people believe that there are no absolutes, there is no such thing as truth, but they will talk about what your truth is. So sharing our faith with others eliminates all the arguments, plus there is nothing to memorize. You know your story; you don’t need to memorize it. It helps sometimes to put it in a kind of picture frame.
When I share my faith, I usually use this simple device of B.C., the cross, and A.D. In fact, there are information sheets downstairs on a lot of ways of sharing your faith. They are on the 40 Days of Purpose tables. The technique that Rick Warren uses is called the BASE card. It is printed for you in the bulletin. You can look at that. That is how he shares his faith with others. I think it is just better to go back to the basics and just share what our lives were like before Christ, B.C., how we made a decision for Christ, and A.D., after that decision, what Christ has done in our lives. It is better that you do it naturally. It is better that you do it genuinely and that you don’t push for a decision every time you share, and you don’t push for the opportunity, it simply should come up in the conversation.
In sharing our faith with others, we don’t have to tell the whole story all the time. There are a thousand ways to share the good news. I think part of it is getting caught up in the word ‘salt.’ We are called to be salt and light. Now what does salt do? Salt makes you thirsty. So in a lot of people’s lives we’ve just got to make them ask the question- we need to put salt in their food. How we do that is simply by being like Christ, being an example of the Christian faith so that people will ask, Well, why are you so weird. Why are you so different? I think random acts of kindness are a way of sharing our faith and I’d like to see the whole church twice a year do random acts of kindness. What is that? It is just raking a neighbor’s leaves, mowing someone’s yards, passing out hot coffee on a cold day, passing out cold drinks on a hot day, giving out newspapers – all for the grace of God. It’s having free car washes, it’s doing anything where it is free, simply because God’s grace has touched our lives and we want to extend it to our community and to others. It is a great way of sharing our faith -- just doing a random act of kindness for someone else simply because of grace. You simply want to do it because of how Christ has touched your life.
We can share our faith in snippets. You are talking around the water cooler about parenting and you say You know what, there is a parenting course in my church and I heard that . . . You can do it in snippets or simply by invitation. Half of the people will respond to an invitation to church, or softball, to social events, or whatever.
I think that Presbyterians are best equipped for sharing their faith. Why do I say that, because we have been kind of quiet about it, haven’t we? The key to sharing our faith is developing a trust with and being a friend to other people. I know that all of you have people whom you have been friends with for a long time, you have developed that trust and it is those people who, in knowing you, will be receptive to your simply sharing your faith or inviting them to church. Why? Because you have done the necessary work so that they are willing and open to hear what you have to say. When you simply get into a relationship, and try to convert people without developing that relationship, they just kind of turn you off.
2 Timothy 1:7 says this: “For God did not give us a timid spirit, rather He gave us a spirit of power, love and self-control.” I am excited what God will do when Presbyterians lose their timidity and begin to share their faith with others, and I know a lot of you have and there has been a lot of fruit as a result. Pray that God will lift the spirit of timidity, that he will give you an in-filling of the Holy Spirit, which is great for Pentecost because it is Pentecost that enables us to share our faith; the Holy Spirit’s enabling makes it possible. So pray for the Holy Spirit’s enabling in your life.
That is not the end of the story. Simply sharing our faith with those around us does not fulfill our mission to the unbelieving world. It begins with sharing within our own world, but we must also share God’s word beyond our world which is the second part, Acts 1:8 again, Judea and Samaria. What is Judea and Samaria to the early church, the early disciples? There are people who are near, but very different. They were different in background, in education, in neighborhood, in language, in ethnicity, in color, in age, in social status and they went to those people who were different from them. We talked earlier about cancer and how much cancer there is. Imagine that if you had the cure for cancer but kept it to yourself, wouldn’t that be criminal? Well the same is true for eternal life. We have the way to eternal life and to not share it with someone would be criminal.
1 Corinthians 9:22b says this: “Whatever a person is like, I try to find common ground with him so that he will let me tell him about Christ and let Christ save him.” James 1:27 says: “Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight.” One of the things that attracted me to White Clay was not only is it a church that does preach God’s word but it also preaches it in action. It is not only involved in the spiritual lives of people and the spirit of nurture, it also is very involved in the social needs of its community. Some of you know that but a lot of you don’t. You would be amazed by the social outreach of this church as it tries to touch the Samarians in our lives and in our community. For instance, we have a food closet which provides food for those in the community - for members and also nonmembers. They also provide meat and other products you can’t get from the government programs. We also offer assistance, rent, electricity, help with temporary housing, utilities, emergency needs, we pay for counseling, we also have a program called One Church/One Family, which takes one, two, even three families who have been in a cycle of poverty or just haven’t been able to make ends meet, and makes a one-year infusion in their lives, and gets them to be independent - it’s a great program.
Those three combined equal about $25,000 a year in assistance to our community but it doesn’t end there. We have Hope Dining Room (and there is information on that downstairs) where we provide nutritional meals to the needy on Mondays. We have seasonal events, Angel Tree which provides Christmas presents to local families whose parents or one of the people in the family are in prison; Thanksgiving baskets; Adopt-a-Family, in fact, we adopted an extra family; there is Habitat for Humanity who provides housing; there is Urban Promise which seeks to bring renewal to the inner city. We support AA, prison ministry, our youth go on mission trips. I just said we pay for free counseling, and we are salt and light to our Presbytery and our Presbytery needs the Lord as well. That combined equals about $41,000 in mission work on top of the $25,000 but there is more to be done. In fact, one of the things we have been anguishing over is the question of Lord, what is White Clay’s mission? I mean a lot of churches have missions which they are identified with, like some churches are identified with a day school. What is the mission that identifies White Clay? Right now we don’t have one. There is nothing that really stands out. We have a lot of like bebees, but nothing that identifies the church. We have been struggling with the question, Lord, what mission do you have for us where we can make the greatest impact in our community and that really touches a real need? That is our prayer. Maybe you have the answer and maybe you would like to share that with us. Downstairs there is a table for sharing ideas. I encourage you to share them.
Lastly, (we still haven’t finished) our mission to the world means sharing with our whole world, it means sharing beyond our immediate world and caring about the whole world as well. Acts 1:8 talks about going to the ends of the Earth. That wasn’t simply something that God desires for the collective church to do, but the early church thought Jesus said ‘in my generation’, so they went to the British Isles, India, Spain, Northern Africa, they went all through the world- that is what God calls us to do as well. It simply is to care about what God cares about. John 3:16 explains it well: “For God so loved the world . . . .” Mark 16:15 says Jesus said to His followers, “Go everywhere in the world, and tell the Good News to everyone.” There are a lot of ways we do that. We do it through missionaries and that is a cost effective way. We support Bret Macaleer in the Dominican Republic, Mark Palmer in Kyrgyzstan, others in India and Africa. We also do it through mission organizations, through One Great Hour of Sharing, through UNICEF, this past year we did Samaritan’s Purse, which provides all kinds of great treasures for kids in Third World countries. We can go ourselves. You know one advantage for our modern day and transportation is that you can get to just about anywhere in the world within a couple days. You can spend a week doing missions and get back in a week and a half and, I tell you if you have ever been part of a foreign mission, it changes your life, it is a great opportunity. There is also email. The world is just a click away today. You can use email to touch the world.
There is another opportunity we have in our area and that is the world has actually come to us - the University of Delaware campus contains internationals from across the world. Imagine what would happen if we impacted UD campus for Christ and then they went back to their countries and impacted their countries. UD is a wonderful opportunity and it is right here, local, where we can make an impact on the world. I have heard that there are a lot of internationals who don’t have any place to go in the summer time or have no place to go at Thanksgiving or Christmas, simply opening our homes to international students or a student who can’t go home, and having them over for Thanksgiving or over for a summer or for a Christmas meal, or having our nurture building a study hall during finals time and providing food and refreshments, saying come to a quiet place. When I was a college student I looked everywhere for a quiet place so I could study. That is a great opportunity. There are a lot of things we can do.
If anything, 9/11 taught us an important lesson and that is we can’t neglect the world. When you neglect the world, the world’s problems come to you. The same thing happened 20 years ago. Someone said if the gated community doesn’t open itself up to the inner city and touch and heal the inner city, the urban problems will come to the suburbs and that is exactly what happened. We have neglected the city and the city’s problems have come to the suburbs to the point that urban culture is part of youth culture today. We must reach our world. We must preach the gospel to our home, to the highways and bi-ways, and to the hemisphere. That is God’s calling. Let’s pray.
