All three of those messages are vital to the place that we end up today. And if you haven’t listened to all of these messages, I encourage you to go back and listen to them because they will all help you understand the context behind what I will be talking about today. They all work together, to help us to further develop a culture of outreach at Northgate Baptist.
Today is the last message of this series, and we will be talking about how Jesus gave His followers a mission, which is the same mission we are called to live out today, He equipped them, and then He sent them out. I get the job of talking about one of the most challenging pieces of scripture today…not because it doesn’t make sense, but it is challenging because it is hard to live out. I am talking about Matthew 28:18-20, and it is in this passage…as well as a few others throughout the Scriptures that Jesus gives His followers their mission. Before we talk about this passage though, I would like to talk about why having a mission is important.
I read a quote a little while ago, and I am not really sure who it is by because many different people have gotten credit for it so I don’t really know who to give credit to…but the quote is a man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder. For those of you that don’t know what a rudder is…a rudder is a flat piece of wood, plastic or metal that is hinged vertically at the back of a ship or a boat and it is used for steering the ship in a particular direction. So, when we don’t have a mission we are like a ship without a rudder, we don’t have anything to move toward or a way to steer in a particular direction…we don’t know where we are going or why we are going there. We would be aimlessly wandering through life without a direction.
Let’s enter into this picture together for a moment and hopefully it will help demonstrate why we so desperately need to have a mission and live out this mission as followers of Jesus. So let’s just imagine for a moment being on a ship without a rudder, without a way to steer you in any direction…it would be scary, you would literally go wherever the wind blows. If it blew to the west you would be going west, and if it blew to the east you would go to the east. It would have no sense of direction and it would have no way to navigate the trajectory of the ship. At any moment you could get blown out into the middle of the sea or get blown toward land. You would have zero control, and zero sense of direction. You would just be going wherever the wind blew or wherever the current would take you. It is dangerous to live this way…to live life without a mission. It is detrimental to our spiritual lives. And this mission we have wasn’t fabricated by us, but it was something that was given to us directly from Jesus.
At the end of Jesus’ ministry here on earth he gives his followers a mission. There are various places to read about this, but we are going to be focusing on the Great Commission. I am sure lots of you have heard this passage before, but I encourage to allow the Lord to speak to you today through this passage. Allow Him to challenge you today with this passage. If you have your Bibles, will you open with me to Matthew 28:18-20. Let’s Pray. “Illuminate Your word to us”
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore 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 very end of the age.”
This is our mission. We are called to GO. As followers of Jesus, as disciples, we need to be living life on mission. As we can see from this passage, this mission that Jesus gave us is not about us. We are called to make disciples, to baptize them, to teach them. The disciples were called to make their lives about other people, not about themselves. If the disciples decided to make this mission about themselves, rather than about Jesus, and other people, we would not have the church as it exists today.
In order to live this mission out we need to understand a few things about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. So, I want us to look at a few of the characteristics that the disciples displayed in order to adopt this mission that Jesus lived out while He was on earth, and the mission that He commissioned the disciples with.
In order to live this mission out, the disciples had to live lives that were selfless.
At the core of this mission is selflessness….it isn’t pride, it isn’t our ego, it isn’t our desires, it’s not our money, our comfort or our agendas...when we decide to follow Jesus we decide to lay all of that down at His feet. We choose to die to ourselves every day in order to live for Jesus. Paul tells us in Galatians 2:20 that “I have been crucified in Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” This mission isn’t centred on us and our desires…it is centred on other people. It is a call to look beyond ourselves, and to invest ourselves into the lives of others. It is centred on dying to ourselves and following Jesus into the world around us and it is ultimately all about Jesus and the sacrifice He made for all of us on the cross. Jesus says in Luke 9:23-24
“whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”
This is part of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. A disciple learns from Jesus, follows Jesus, is immersed in the things of Jesus. Jesus’ call to discipleship is all or nothing…it should permeate every area of our lives. It is a massive call. Jesus didn’t say…hey if you want to follow me today that would be great, but only if you feel like it. He didn’t say…hey I get that life is really busy, and that money is really important to you, and you only have a little bit of time for me so if you just give me a little bit of time on a Sunday morning…that’s okay.
Instead, He tells us to deny ourselves in order to follow Him. We must lay everything that we are and everything that we have at the feet of Jesus. Jesus continues in that passage by asking the question: “what good is it to gain the whole world, and yet forfeit your very self.” This is tough stuff, but when we live this way we will see a transformation in ourselves and in others. It is worth it.
Developing a culture of outreach at Northgate is not just a nicety that we want to talk about sometimes. It is something that we want to live out. We want to be a church that reaches out beyond our walls, into our community, and into the city of Edmonton. We want to give everything that we are to follow Jesus. As followers of Jesus we can’t have one foot in the things of the world, and the other foot in the kingdom of God. This isn’t a call or a mission to just sometimes follow Jesus when we feel like it. It is a call that should and will consume our lives when we decide to live it out. A call to selflessness where we point people to Jesus and that life that is found in Him alone. Jesus gave us a mission. Jesus commanded us to GO. He gave us something to live out and to strive towards. He sent out His disciples, and He is sending us out.
This is the mission that He gave His disciples. This is the mission that He has given His Church, and we are His church so this is the mission that He has given us. This mission is the last thing that Jesus gave us while He was still on earth. And in order to live this out we must deny ourselves, and live lives that are selfless, not selfish.
The second characteristic that the disciples displayed was that they lived radical lives of faith.
I am currently reading through the book of Mark in my personal devotion time, and every time that I read the calling of disciples I am challenged by their radical faith. Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee where He sees Andrew and Simon casting their net into the lake, and Jesus says to them, “come and follow me.” And the Bible says that “at once they left their nets and followed him.” It doesn’t say they waited around and deliberated for a bit. Or that they had to get their things in order and pack their bag, and make sure that their nets and boats got put away.
It says that at once or immediately they left their nets. They left their livelihood, their way of making money…they left it all behind to follow Jesus.
Imagine if Jesus asked you to do this. What if He asked you to leave all of your earthly possessions behind?
This isn’t something that is unrealistic for a lot of people right now. Close to 90,000 people in Fort Mac had to leave everything behind…they had to leave their houses and their stuff. They didn’t even have a choice. But Jesus is calling us to be willing to surrender everything that we have for the sake of the kingdom.
If Jesus asked you to leave all of your earthly possession behind, would you be willing to?
The disciples did this, so that they could learn from Jesus. And through their learning process they made a lot of mistakes, but Jesus taught them and equipped them, empowered them and then before He ascended to heaven He sent them out. And they lived radical lives of faith. They spread the Gospel of Jesus to the world around them. They loved people, they healed people, they taught people, and they baptized people. They did this because they were filled with the Holy Spirit like Pastor Bob talked about last week. They were sensitive to His voice and followed the leading of the Spirit in their lives. They stepped out in faith and they saw the Lord work in amazing ways. They saw people healed, and they saw people surrender their lives to Jesus. They lived radical lives of faith. When we follow Jesus the abnormal becomes the normal. This is challenging stuff, but when we step out in faith we will see God work. When we begin to pursue this mission that He has given the Church we will see Him move in amazing ways.
The disciples were able to be used by Jesus because they were fully surrendered to Him. They allowed Jesus to be the one to lead them. They allowed Jesus to be their rudder, and they displayed hearts of humility and sensitivity so that they could live out the mission that Jesus gave them. They took this mission seriously, and the literally gave their lives for it.
And this is the really cool thing, and it is my favorite part about the great commission. The last line of the great commission is “and surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” This is the most encouraging part for us.
This isn’t something that we have to do alone. In fact we shouldn’t do it alone. We need other people around us. We need to partner with what God is already doing in other people’s lives. He is at work and we have the privilege to join Him in that work. Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit. He wants us to be filled with the Spirit. He didn’t come, and give us this mission, and say good luck…I hope it works out for you. He is with us. He is working in the hearts of men and women all over the world. And we are able to join Him in this mission. When it doesn’t seem that tough…He is with us, and when it is extremely hard, He is right there with us. He was there before us, and He will be there long after we leave. But we need to decide to be faithful, and take steps to live out this mission that He gave us.
So with that thought in mind let`s talk about some ways that we can practically apply this mission to our lives.
The first thing is that we need to be courageous.
Living this mission out takes courage. To live a radical life of faith takes a lot of courage. There are lots of things that we could allow to hold us back. We have various fears. What if we get rejected by someone? We have various inhibitions like personality types. If we wanted to we could come up with a lot of reason to not live this out. But that stuff is not of Jesus. And all of these reasons will bind us and scare us, and will hold us back from living this mission Jesus gave us. The Lord tells Joshua in Joshua 1:9 to “be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” We need to remember that we are not alone. That no matter where we go, God is with us.
We need to follow the example of Jesus, and love the lost, the broken, the needy, the marginalized of society. We need to love our neighbors. We are able to have courage because we have Jesus, and we know that He will never leave us.
The second thing is that we need to make space for people and for the Spirit to work.
In our culture it is so easy to be consumed with busyness. We always have the next thing to do, or the next thing to be at. But when we live life this way we eliminate any extra space for God to work in our lives and in the lives of others. We close the door to interactions that we could potentially have because we have made our agendas most important thing in our lives.
A few years ago, when Alisha and I were first married we lived in an apartment building in Red Deer. I don’t know if you remember this or not, but that was the year it snowed a ton. It snowed more before Christmas that year, then it had the whole previous year. Thankfully, for me it was pretty minimal shoveling because we lived in an apartment, but we would always shovel out our parking stall so that we wouldn’t get stuck getting out of there. One of our neighbors in the parking stall right next to us was a senior lady, and there were a few times when there was so much snow out there that it was super heavy for me to shovel. So I would just shovel out her stall as well. It wasn’t that big of a deal to me…it took a few extra minutes, but after the first time that I shovelled out her stall she was absolutely elated. She came and knocked on our door to thank us, and she was really grateful. It was something that actually opened the door for us to have more conversations with her. Before that, she didn’t want to talk to us, but after that, she would always say hi. That opened the door for us to make another relationship with a lady in the building who was unable to shovel her stall out as well because of an injury she had. I was able to shovel out her stall, and because of that Alisha and I were actually able to engage in a way with these people that we were not able to before. When we would see them we would actually have conversations, whereas before it would be just a quick hello. Because I was able to create space in my day…and it wasn’t even that much extra time…we were able to engage in relationships with these ladies that would not have been possible. We were able to share what we did, what was important to us, and we were able to love and serve these ladies in a way that wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t made space.
We need to make space for people. If we are sensitive to the Spirit’s leading in our life, and make space for Him to move, He will. He will lead us in to conversations that we never would have had, we will hear people’s stories, we will be able to speak life into people’s situations, and we will be able to demonstrate the love of Christ to the world around us. The Lord will open doors for us that we never imagined would be opened when we make space for Him to move.
And finally, if we don’t live out this mission, we will be the ones who miss out.
We will miss out on seeing the image of God in various people if we decide to ignore this call that Jesus has given us. We will miss out on opportunities to be blessed by other people, and to learn from people who are different from us. We aren’t better than anyone else. God has created each one of us equal and unique. We all have unique things to offer, and we have the opportunity to get to know people from different cultures, financial situations, and people from different generations. We have the opportunity to bless them and be blessed by them. The Great Commission says to go and make disciples of all nations…that means people from all different cultures. We have a unique opportunity to be a part of a church with so many different cultures and countries represented. We live in a multi-cultural city where people are here from all over the world. Northgate puts on an ESL course where people are able to come and learn English. We host an international Christmas banquet. We have the Asian Christian Church and the Fresh Manna Church that meet in our building and we are partnered with a Cambodian Church. We have a lot of opportunities to engage with people from different places of life.
We will miss out on a huge opportunity if we just stick to hanging out with people who are the same as us. Instead of doing the easy thing, let’s choose to get to know people who are different from us.
And that is what my challenge is going to be to you today. Make a personal connection with someone from a different culture that attends Northgate. Get to know them, invite them over to your house for lunch or supper. Serve each other.
And don’t forget about the other challenge that Pastor Bob gave you either. Get to know someone from a different service. Take missions trip to the opposite service that you normally attend, and take the time to get to know someone that attends that service, that you didn’t know before. And then get to know someone from another culture.
Living out this mission is not always easy…but it was never promised to be easy. We were promised to be persecuted, and we were promised that it will actually be difficult. But this is the mission that Jesus Christ gave us. He was willing to give up everything for us. Jesus came to earth as a man, and died one of the most brutal deaths a man could die so that we could be saved. But not for just us. He died for us all. He died once for all is what Paul tells us in Romans 6:10. We all have an opportunity to be in relationship with Jesus.
So as we close this series, let`s not have it come to an end. Let`s continue by living this mission out in our daily lives. Let’s continue to develop a culture of outreach at Northgate. Because Jesus lives we will always have the most compelling purpose for our lives…the fact that Jesus died for us and rose again, and lives today needs to be the centre of this call to make disciples. It is not about us. It is all about Jesus and the life that we have found in Him, and the life that we desire our friends, families, colleagues and neighbors to find in Him. He is offering eternal life. He is offering a life that is beyond all imagination. This mission is all about Jesus and the love that He demonstrated for the world by suffering and giving his life so that we can be in relationship with Him. As followers of Jesus we all need to take on this mission, we all need to be moving toward something. We don`t want to be ships without rudders that are lost in the night going in circles. We have this mission that Jesus gave us—to GO and make disciples; to GO and love people; to GO and spread the name of Jesus to the world—now let`s go and live this out.
Let’s Pray.