12.28.2014 God With Us - Emmanuel - On Mission

12-28-2014 from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

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Lord, thank You that we can worship You – and You open our hearts to know you – show us a new light of You – things that can repair and restore our souls – maybe even in areas we don’t even know we need restoring. May You be the King of our lives.
This is the last Sunday of the year – and I want to read The Great Commission –
Matthew 28: 18 Then Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
We have been looking at God With Us – Emmanuel – and this week – God with us ON MISSION. God is with us in order that we might be involved in His mission. I want to focus on how we can be on mission with God in our context – where we live, go to work, go to school – how to be on mission to the people we see in our everyday lives. God only blesses us where we are – He will never bless us where we are not. That does not mean that he will not move us to another place – but the place you are now it where God will bless you, be with you and make Himself known to you.
Tony is involved with H2O in Columbus – he and his wife, Janelle, graduated a couple years ago, but they remain with the plan, as in the working world – and a couple weeks ago launched an H2O for the community – for the 60-70 ex-students who have graduated.
Campus ministry is unique – there are these tried and true methods of ministry – people all the same age living in the same area and in similar patterns – and they are discovering that things don’t work the same way – they have to find new ways of doing things.
The good news is this – We can be on mission with God even if we are working 50 hours per week with an hour commute. We can be on mission with God as a single mom. Or as a retiree. The life He has given you is the one where you will experience His mission.
Some brief theological foundations:
God is a missional God – He is on mission Himself –
John 3: 16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His [a]only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Luke 4: 43 But He said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.”
His whole purpose was proclaiming the mission of God.
We are on mission WITH God
John 20: 21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
John 17: 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.
The Father, on mission, sent the Son. The Father and Son sent the Holy Spirit.
If God is a missional God, we must become a missional people.
When we think of mission, we often go to the traditional missionary concept. This is an important concept – it is critical that we go overseas and reach those who have never heard – but it is just as critical that each of us is on mission wherever we are.
Matthew 28:19 – Go and make disciples – this is the core emphasis, the FORCE of the Great Commission. The rest of it explains HOW they are made.
The job is to make followers of Jesus – disciples – students of Jesus – and we do that by going and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom – and baptizing them into the faith, and teaching them to follow all that He commanded.
A conference speaker – national – John Piper – if people went to heaven immediately after being saved, I would just preach the gospel, but most will live years later, therefore, we must address all issues of life – and teach people how to be disciples in those circumstances and in those contexts
This is a mission of reconciliation:
2 Cor. 5: 18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and [a]He has [b]committed to us the word of reconciliation.
We are on mission to bring people into a right relationship with God – to reconcile them. People who don’t know Christ do not have a right relationship with God. God does the connecting – but our mission is to bring them into that right relationship with God.
If we think it is just that, we don’t truly understand the gospel – reconciliation is putting things right – in our hearts, in our relationship with God and toward others in the world. It is a full and complete reconciliation. Sometimes the problem with our mission is it is very limited. We tend to think that our goal is to get them out of here and get them up to there – and yes, we want to make things right here and there. But where will our future take place? Here on earth – the end of revelation is clear – there is a new heaven and a new earth.
In the garden, God was with Adam and Eve – it was not so distinct of a separation – and The Fall happened, and there became this chasm between God and humanity – and God was not pleased with that – so He immediately began a plan to bring it all back together – a prophecy that their seed would crush the enemy – but things have gone from bad to worse – and then God chooses Abraham and Sarah – and He starts with them.
This is how the Jews viewed things – Heaven and Earth MET in the temple.
John 1 – and the Word became flesh – and ‘pitched his tent’ – moved into the neighborhood – the word is tabernacle – and heaven and earth came together in a body – in Jesus.
Jesus died – and what happened? He sent the Spirit – so that He could be with us – and that is where heaven and earth meet.
It can take place in us because the spirit has moved inside of us.
Romans says that the earth is groaning – waiting for its redemption. The EARTH is waiting for its redemption. Jesus started it – our mission is to carry out the restoration of all things.
It will only happen in small ways until the future. Little bits and pieces will take place. In general, the world will get worse and worse, but in our lives we can see it come.
Mission of Restoration:
Luke 4: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
19 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”
Jesus has come to fix what was wrong, to fix what was broken. Good news to the poor! To the poor, life is bad news – but he will make it whole – good news – that is restoration! Release to the captives! Something that is trapped needs to be freed!
Sight to the blind – to take what is broken and to fix it. To set free the oppressed. What we have is a taste in the mission of how things are meant to be. It won’t happen fully. He didn’t heal ALL the blind – but there were constant tastes of how it will eventually be.
Even nature – Jesus was sleeping on the boat – and the waves rose up and they said, don’t you care and He said, BE STILL and it was!
You can give a taste of the kingdom of God to those you work with.
How do we do this?
1 Make it a practice to choose to be a disciple of Christ.
The disciple or apprentice of Jesus, as recognized by the new testament, is one who has firmly decided to learn from him how to lead his or her life, whatever that may be, as Jesus himself would do it. And as best they know how, they are making plans, taking the necessary steps, progressively arranging and rearranging their affairs to do this...
Wherever we are – in whatever situation He has placed us – we need to be His disciple. This requires reflection. What life has God given me? Then we live that life like Jesus would. It is a process – it is a struggle – there will be failures, for all of us, daily. So we adjust – correct – confess – learn – move on.
Second – We can only go on mission with others. If we want to be on mission with God, then we must be on mission with other people – to be a part of God’s community. Small groups – that is one good way to be on mission. There are other benefits – fellowship/friendship/care. Ministries – being involved with ministries puts you together with others – building relationships to be on mission with God together in those ministries.
Third – Personal initiative – gathering with other believers – friends – to be on mission together. These are three ways to accomplish this.
This is an incarnational mission – God became a man to live with us – moving into the neighborhood. Our mission is to move into our neighborhoods – into our workplace – not just showing up – but investing in your community – there is a difference between having neighbors and being a neighbor!
We are not God in the flesh, but we are the gospel being lived out – wherever we are.
Alycia will send out in the newsletter – a 4.5 minute video by Jeff Vanderstelt – being incarnational – Verge network – you have to sign up with an email, but when you do – you have some access to parts of the videos. There are some great 4 minute clips out there – from Francis Chan to Tim Keller – snippets of other messages – and they pop it on there – when Alycia sends that out, watch that link.
Tim Keller – being on mission with God – is connecting the gospel to the culture we live in, in a way that the culture understands it, and sees it lived out.
There are ways that we can take the gospel so that they DON’T understand it – but Tim Keller is good at making it understandable – it involves not attaching baggage to the gospel. When we bring our cultural baggage into the gospel message, we miss the message of God.
Tim Keller – Missional Church – another 4-5 minute clip.
4th – God is on mission to outsiders – those who are lost, broken, empty – on the margins. This mission – being on mission with God is a mission of love, compassion and justice.
Justice – this is important to our context right now. Turn on the news and it is all about justice right now. This is a hard concept to define. It is defined based on your background, your tribe, your status, and maybe most importantly – your race. We all think our definition of justice is right. But it is not. None of them are. There may be parts that are right – but they are not God’s.
Laws will never bring about Justice. Rome was an empire of law – but there was not justice.
The leaders of Israel were people of laws – but what did Jesus attack most? Justice is putting things right – making things whole – it goes way beyond fairness and equality and law. It includes compassion, always. He connects them so often, they are totally connected. The way we do justice is simple – by loving God with all of our hearts and loving our neighbors as ourselves. THEN we do justice.
When you discuss current issues – race relations – Ferguson/undocumented immigrants/abortion /healthcare – ask – what would it look like if we loved God and loved our neighbors? That is where we will discover justice.
What we tend to do as evangelical Christians? We explain justice with Bible verses. The ones we like. If you are an African American Christian – you will explain justice with Bible verses. The ones they like. There is no way of manipulating love God and love others.
So to close, when we love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength – in our everyday life – we do justice – and we are on mission with God.
Let’s pray- Lord, thank You for a new year about to come – thank You for what You have done in this previous year. There were difficulties and struggles and there will be in 2015 – but help us to see that we can be on mission with You in any context.