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For those of you who might have missed it, last Sunday we began our “Call of Duty” series based on the book of 1 Timothy. And in this series, we are looking at our responsibilities as Christians, as Paul lays them out for us in this letter to Timothy.

So we started off by looking at our responsibility not to waste our time in meaningless discussions, but rather to spend out time helping each other to live a life of faith in God. And sometimes that involves asking each other the hard questions: Is you conscience clear, is your heart pure, are you being genuine in your faith?  Hard questions to ask – but they are absolutely essential in keeping each other on track.

Now today we pick up where we left off – in 1 Timothy 1:18.

18 Timothy, my son, here are my instructions for you, based on the prophetic words spoken about you earlier. May they help you fight well in the Lord’s battles. 19 Cling to your faith in Christ, and keep your conscience clear. For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked. 20 Hymenaeus and Alexander are two examples. I threw them out and handed them over to Satan so they might learn not to blaspheme God. 1 Timothy 1:18-2:7

Ok now, hang on a minute. Before we get too far, let’s back up a bit. Verse 18:

18 Timothy, my son, here are my instructions for you, based on the prophetic words spoken about you earlier. May they help you fight well in the Lord’s battles.

What’s this talk about fighting the Lord’s battles? We don’t do that sort of stuff anymore. The ancient Israelites fought the Lord’s battles. Joshua, Samson, King David – these guys fought the Lord’s battles. Wiping out Jericho, slaying the Philistines – It would make sense for God to instruct these guys to fight well in the Lord’s battles. But Timothy – the pastor of the church in Ephesus? Or us – citizens of the tiny hamlet of Mirror in 2010? What kind of battles are we suppose to fight for the Lord?

Ephesians 6:10-12 will give us some insight:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

So our battles are not physical battles like we read about in the Old Testament – where David kills the giant or Samson wipes out 1000 men with the jawbone of a donkey. Paul’s instructions to Timothy were not to help him defeat the Philistines or Amalekites or even the Romans.

The battle that Paul is equipping Timothy to fight is a spiritual one. A fight against (as Ephesians 6:11 puts it) – a fight against the devil’s schemes. And I don’t think we fully realize what a fight that is. According to 1 Peter 5:8, this is a fight that we had better take seriously. It says…

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

Satan wants to devour you. He wants to destroy you. He hates you because he hates God. And the best way He can assault God is by destroying what God loves – that’s you and me. But that is why we fight. And that’s why Paul goes on to continue in verse 19 and He tells Timothy…

“Cling to your faith in Christ, and keep your conscience clear.”

These are the two ways that Satan is most successful in knocking Christians out of the battle.

He causes us to lose our faith.
He causes us to cloud our conscience.

Let’s look at those two things for a few moments: First of all what is faith?

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1

Now some people have used the example of sitting on a chair as an illustration of faith. You sit down, having faith in that chair, that it will hold you up. But that doesn’t really fit the definition of faith that we see in Hebrews 11:1. Because is says faith is being certain of what we do not see. I can see the legs underneath the chair. I can’t say for certain that it will hold me up, but it sure looks like it. So that’s not really faith. Perhaps a better illustration of faith would go like this.

[ask a blindfolded person to sit on a chair]

That’s faith. [____________] was sure that there was a chair there – He was certain even though he did not see it.

Now let’s get back to our verse: “Cling to your faith in Christ”. Hold on to it. Don’t let go of it. Why? Because Satan is going to try to take it away. To use our chair illustration, he is the voice in the background of your mind that whispers “Are you sure you can trust this guy? There probably isn’t even a chair there. He’s gonna get you to fall on your backside and you’ll look like a idiot.” Had [___________] listened to those doubts, he probably wouldn’t have sat down.

And Satan casts the same kind of doubts on your faith in God. “Are you sure you can trust this God? Is God even real? Is what the Bible says really true? Am I really saved? Is there really a heaven – is there really a hell? Does God really love me? And Satan will casts all these doubts in your mind.

But Paul says “Cling to your faith in Christ.” Don’t give up an inch. When those times of doubt come, you have to hold on to your faith for dear life. But of course, that means we have to know what we believe in the first place. We have to be in our Bibles, checking it out for ourselves. Don’t just go by what I say or what your parents say or your friends say. You need to “be sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see.” If you’re going to cling to your faith, you had better know what you have faith in.

In our men’s group we’ve been talking about being bold enough to speak the truth. Being man enough to tell others what you believe is true. But maybe the reason that we don’t do that very often is because we aren’t certain of what we believe. We can’t debate with others about important spiritual truths because we aren’t sure of them ourselves.

We need to be “be sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” And then when those doubts come, we need to cling to our faith in Christ. Otherwise, Satan will render us powerless and we’ll be useless in battle.

“Cling to your faith in Christ, and keep your conscience clear.” 1 Timothy 1:19

The second thing that Satan will do to render us ineffective in battle, is he will cause us to cloud our conscience.

In other words, he will cause us to sin. Now, he won’t “make us sin” – the choice is ultimately ours whether we sin or not – but he will do everything He can to cause us to sin. He will tempt us. He will deceive us. He will distract us.

And more often that we’d like, it works and we sin. We no longer have that clear conscience. And everyone of us knows that feeling of guilt – emptiness – distance from God – that we get when we sin. Our conscience is no longer clear. And I want to show you what happens. [Glass of water]

This clear, clean water represents your clear, clean conscience. Everything is right between you and God. Now when I look through this glass, I can see all of you quite well. In fact, if this glass wasn’t curved, I’d probably be able to see you as clearly as if there was nothing between us at all. In the same way, when our conscience is clear, we can see God clearly too. We can clearly hear what He has to say to us. We can clearly see where He is leading us.

But when we sin, our conscience becomes cloudy. [baking soda] Suddenly, it’s not quite so easy to hear or see God anymore.

That’s why Paul exhorts us to “Keep our conscience clear.” If we are in battle, we need to be able to clearly see our leader. We need to clearly hear his voice. But we can’t do that with a cloudy conscience. And as long as we let that sin lay unconfessed and un-repented of, there will be a barrier between us and our commander – and we’ll be useless in battle.

So I encourage you this morning to keep short accounts – with both God and man. If you sin against someone, deal with it right away. Confess it and make things right. If an apology is required, do it right away. If restitution is required, make it happen as soon as you can.

Being a Christian doesn’t mean that you’re never going to sin anymore, but when we do sin, we need to deal with it and make it right. We need to keep our conscience clear.

And it is then, as we cling to our faith in God and keep our conscience clear, we can fight well in the Lord’s battles. We have have victory over the devil’s schemes and we can advance the kingdom of God.

Now I can’t speak for you, but I sure don’t want to live a defeated life. I want to live a victorious life. I want to live in such a way that God can use me however He sees fit, to accomplish great things for Him for as long as I live on this earth.

If you want to live that victorious life too, then I would ask you to join with me as we pray today.

Trumpets are one of the oldest of instruments. In the book of Numbers, we find that God instructs Moses to make two silver trumpets – perhaps somewhat similar to this one.

1 The LORD said to Moses: 2 “Make two trumpets of hammered silver, and use them for calling the community together and for having the camps set out. Numbers 10:1-2

So the idea was, they would sound the trumpet to assemble the people and they would sound the trumpets to tell everyone that it’s time to move out. With a crowd of two million people and no cell phones or walky-talkies – trumpets were an effective way of communicating simple instructions to a massive crowd of people.

And after thousands of years of history, not much has changed. Right up until the invention of the radio, the military still used bugle calls to communicate with the troops.

You probably even recognize a couple of calls today.

[Play mp3s]

Today we begin a series on the book of 1 Timothy and the series’ title is “Call of Duty – Our Responsibilities as Christians”.

Through this book of 1 Timothy, Paul is giving Timothy his marching orders. In it, He lays out his (and our) responsibilities – in our personal lives, as leaders in the church, and in our community. It is as if Paul is sounding the horn, calling us to action. So as we go through the book of 1 Timothy, I want you to think of it as your call of duty. I trust that as we look at what God has to say to us through this book, we will hear the call, accept the responsibilities that God has given us, and then act accordingly.

So let’s get started.

1 This letter is from Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, appointed by the command of God our Savior and Christ Jesus, who gives us hope.
2 I am writing to Timothy, my true son in the faith. May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy, and peace.

3 When I left for Macedonia, I urged you to stay there in Ephesus and stop those whose teaching is contrary to the truth. 4 Don’t let them waste their time in endless discussion of myths and spiritual pedigrees. These things only lead to meaningless speculations, which don’t help people live a life of faith in God.
5 The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith. 6 But some people have missed this whole point. They have turned away from these things and spend their time in meaningless discussions. 7 They want to be known as teachers of the law of Moses, but they don’t know what they are talking about, even though they speak so confidently.
8 We know that the law is good when used correctly. 9 For the law was not intended for people who do what is right. It is for people who are lawless and rebellious, who are ungodly and sinful, who consider nothing sacred and defile what is holy, who kill their father or mother or commit other murders. 10 The law is for people who are sexually immoral, or who practice homosexuality, or are slave traders, liars, promise breakers, or who do anything else that contradicts the wholesome teaching 11 that comes from the glorious Good News entrusted to me by our blessed God.

12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength to do his work. He considered me trustworthy and appointed me to serve him, 13 even though I used to blaspheme the name of Christ. In my insolence, I persecuted his people. But God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief. 14 Oh, how generous and gracious our Lord was! He filled me with the faith and love that come from Christ Jesus.
15 This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all. 16 But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life. 17 All honor and glory to God forever and ever! He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God. Amen.
1 Timothy 1:1-17

Now there are a whole lot of sermons packed into that first chapter of Timothy, but I’m going to leave some of them for you to discover on your own. In fact, I would challenge you to begin your own personal study of 1 Timothy as we go though it together for the next six weeks or so. My plan is to tackle about one chapter each week, so if you try to do the same in your own Bible reading – or perhaps even get together with someone else and go through it together – I think that would really help you get the most out of what God is saying to you though this book.

But for today, I want us to focus on verses 3-6.

“3 When I left for Macedonia, I urged you to stay there in Ephesus and stop those whose teaching is contrary to the truth. 4 Don’t let them waste their time in endless discussion of myths and spiritual pedigrees. These things only lead to meaningless speculations, which don’t help people live a life of faith in God.
5 The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith. 6 But some people have missed this whole point. They have turned away from these things and spend their time in meaningless discussions.”
1 Timothy 1:3-6

How many of you have had a meaningless discussion with someone? How many of you have argued with conviction over a point that really doesn’t matter? That sort of stuff happens in marriages all the time. Should the toilet seat be left up or down? Some people have very strong feelings about this. Or how about “Does it really matter how you load the dishwasher?” We were with some friends the other day and we were discussing laundry. (I’m not really sure why we were discussion laundry, but for some reason, we were…) The ladies said you had sort out everything into colors and according to the type of material – whereas the guys would just throw it all in the machine at once and get ‘er done with. It’s those types of discussions that people feel very strongly about, but either way, it’s really not a life-impacting issue.

And those kind of debates are common in our churches today. In some churches there’s the endless debate over hymns vs. courses. In some churches it’s the issue of drums or other instruments. There are all kinds of different denominations because we all hold to a slightly different theology. We disagree over methods of baptism. We disagree over speaking in tongues. There are all kinds of these non-essential issues that we seem to get stuck on.

But Paul is telling Timothy, “Don’t let people waste their time in meaningless discussions that don’t help people live a life of faith in God.” Now, is that to say we should never discuss these things? No. It’s important to talk about these things. But let’s not dwell on them. As Paul says in verse 6 – let’s not miss the whole point. There are other discussions that we need to have. Things that WILL help people live a life of faith in God.

That’s why Paul says in verse 5…
“The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith.”

This is what being a Christian is all about. It’s not about discussing our baptism methodology or arguing about what instruments we can play in church. It’s about being “filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith.”

So let’s not have a meaningless discussion this morning. Let’s talk about things that will help people live a life of faith in God. Let’s have a conversation that will help you have a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith.

This past week we started going through a DVD series at our men’s time. And the key verse that we talked about was Proverbs 27:17.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

So as we talked about that verse, one of the things that came out was that as men in the church, it is our job to  keep each other on track. We need to be accountable to each other. We need to sharpen each other. We need to challenge each other – and sometimes, if necessary, confront each other. But usually, we’re a little timid to do that. We don’t want to cause conflict. We don’t want to ruffle the feathers. So instead of the discussions that really matter in life, we talk about the weather. Or we talk about work. Or we talk about cars or fishing. And those are all fine things, but in the big scheme of things – it’s a meaningless discussion. Today’s weather won’t matter in 1000 years. But, a Christian brother or sister’s spiritual well-being is a discussion that has eternal ramifications.

When was that last time that someone in the church came up to you and asked you “Hey, is your conscience clear? Is your heart pure? Are you being genuine in your faith or are you just faking it?”

These are the questions that we need to ask. These are the discussions that we need to have. Let’s care enough about people to ask them the hard questions. Let’s be bold enough to get beyond the chit-chat and discuss the things that really matter in life.

If you have someone like that in your life – someone who asks you the hard questions – you know how valuable the are. They are like guardrails along a steep mountain road. If you start to go off track, they’re there to catch you before you go completely off course and have a huge wreck.

I didn’t share/already shared during our sharing time earlier, but I’ll tell you what I’m thankful for. I’m thankful that I have at least three good Christian friends who are not afraid to come up and ask me “Hey, is your conscience clear? Is your heart pure? Are you being genuine in your faith?” They ask me those kind of questions on a regular basis – and they play a huge part in keeping me on course. They keep me sharp – like iron sharpens iron.

So I would challenge you in two ways this morning – this is your “Call of Duty” if you will:
Find a trusted Christian friend and give them permission to ask you the hard questions. Give them permission to ask (and then answer them honestly) the questions that really matter in life. Is your conscience clear? Is your heart pure? Are you being genuine in your faith?
Be that trusted Christian friend who is not afraid to ask the important questions. Be that friend that will get beyond the chit-chat and discuss the things that help each other live a life of faith in God.

This is your responsibility as a Christian. This is your call of duty.

This morning I’d like to start off by taking a poll. By show of hands, how many people here have served God as a missionary?

Perhaps I should remind you of what exactly a missionary is: As we said last Sunday, a missionary is “ anyone who shares the Gospel with others”.

So that means, you would be a missionary if you traveled to another country, learned another language and shared the Gospel with someone who has never heard about Christ. But that also means that you would be a missionary if you went to Bible camp and told the kids in your tent about God’s love. And that also means you would be a missionary if you talked to your neighbor across the fence about how Jesus has changed your life.

The fact is, God has called all of us to be missionaries. The command that we read last week in Mark 16:15 applies to all of us:

15 And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.” Mark 16:15

God wants everyone of us to proclaim the Good News where ever we go. But I told you all this stuff last Sunday. What’s the message for today?

Well, today I want to get a little more specific – a little more personal. Today I want you to consider your personal, unique call from God to be His missionary.

Have you ever wondered why God made you the way He did? Why are you the way you are? Why did God give you certain talents? Why did He make you really good at some things and not so good at others? Why did He give you your unique personality? Why are there some jobs that you really enjoy and some jobs that you really don’t care for?  And why did God give you the family that you have? Why where you born in the place and at the time that you were?

Why did God make you the way He did? Was it just some random rolling of the DNA dice? Or did God make you that way for a purpose? Let’s see what the Bible says…

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 29:11

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. Psalm 139:13, 16 (NLT)

That doesn’t sound like random chance to me. It sounds to me like God made you with a specific purpose in mind.

How many people here like to bake? When you are baking, do you just start throwing random ingredients together, bake for 1/2 an hour and see what you end up with? Or do you start with a final product in mind, and then choose your ingredients accordingly?

That’s what God did with you. He didn’t just randomly throw you together to see what you would become. He carefully, thoughtfully, and specifically created you how He did, where He did, and when He did for a very specific purpose.

Do you believe that? It’s true.

We read earlier from Acts 9 about Saul.

15 But the Lord said, “Go, for Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel. Acts 9:15

Saul (soon to be “Paul”) was specifically created by God to bring the message of the Gospel to the Gentiles and to Kings, as well as to the people of Israel. God set it all up. He gave Saul just the right personality, He had him born at just the right time, he gave him just the right parents and just the right training. And He allowed just the right circumstances to come into Saul’s life. And He did all of that so that Saul could fulfill his purpose.
He does the exact same thing for you. If your still not sure if you believe me, then let’s look at another example: Jeremiah 1:5-8. God says to Jeremiah…

5 “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.? Before you were born I set you apart? and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.”

There it is again! God creates us for a purpose. We are built to order. God has a job for us to do, and he builds us exactly the way we need to be in order to successfully accomplish that job.

That alone should be very encouraging. We are built for success. God has prepared us in such a way that if we follow him and do what He asks us to do, we will be a smashing success.

So what is our job? What did God create us to do? Well, I’ll have to give you two answers for that.

Answer #1. I can’t answer that question, because I’m not you. I don’t know what specific role God has for you. But if you look at how you’re built, you’ll probably get some ideas. If you look at a waffle maker and how it’s built, you’ll probably get some idea of what it’s purpose is. If you look at chainsaw and how it’s built, you’ll probably get some idea of what it’s purpose is.

So in the same way, if you want to know your purpose, start by looking at how you’re built. How has God equipped you? What are you good at? What experiences of life have you had? What are you passionate about? That’ll give you a good start. The rest comes when you listen to God and follow his leading.

Answer #2 (to the question, What did God create us to do?) He created us to be missionaries. To share the good news. To make disciples. That’s everybody’s job – but how you do that is dependent how God has specifically built you.

For example, God specifically built Beryl and prepared her in every way to be a missionary in India. He created her to have a heart for the people of India. He put her in the right place at the right time with the right circumstances and gave her everything she needed to be a successful missionary in India.  But He didn’t build Walter that way. That wasn’t his purpose. His purpose was to work on the trains – being God’s witness to all the people that He would meet over his lifetime. But He didn’t build me that way. Or you that way.

We are all called to be missionaries, but we are all created do that in very different ways. So my question for you this morning is “Are you doing what God created you to do?”

For too many Christians, the answer is “no”. Too often we set our own agendas and try to do what WE think will make us successful. Or when God shows us what He wants us to do, we make up excuses. The Bible is full of that. Moses claimed he couldn’t speak well. Saul & Samson both said their families were too insignificant. Jonah just got up and ran away. And even in the passage we looked at today, Jeremiah had an excuse.

5 “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.? Before you were born I set you apart? and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.”
6 “O Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I can’t speak for you! I’m too young!”

But how does God respond to that and all our excuses…?

7 The Lord replied, “Don’t say, ‘I’m too young,’ for you must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you. 8 And don’t be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and will protect you. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

God will be with you. Not only has He equipped you and prepared you to do exactly what He’s asking you to do, He will go with you every step of the way.

You’re not too young. You’re not too old. As long as you are still on this planet, God has a purpose for you. You’re not too poor. You’re not too busy. And believe it or not, you’re not too sinful. God will do amazing things in our lives when we start using our lives for Him.

So all excuses aside, will you submit to God’s plan for your life and be the kind of missionary that He wants you to be?

Maybe at this point in your life, God’s asking you to be a missionary to your family. To take responsibility for the spiritual well-being of your children. To teach them and to train them to be disciples of Jesus. That’s a huge responsibility, but God has placed you as their parent – will you be a missionary to your family?

Maybe God’s calling you to be a missionary to your town. Maybe He wants you to share the Gospel with your neighbor. Maybe He wants you to be His witness in a community organization. Maybe He just wants you to be His witness at the Jolly Seniors. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to boldly share the good news with the people in your community?

Maybe God’s calling you to be a missionary in a new ministry. Maybe God’s equipped you and put it on your heart to start some sort of new work. Maybe there is some need in the church or in the community that God wants you to step up to the plate and meet that need in new way. If He’s created you to do that, will you do what you are created to do?

And maybe God’s calling you to be a missionary in the traditional sense. Perhaps God would have you travel to another country and get involved in bringing the Gospel to the people there. Perhaps to Columbia working with the disabled? Or maybe to Mexico City planting churches.

Last Sunday we were introduced to such a family. Jim & Shari Cottrill live and work in a suburb of Mexico City with their two kids Nathaniel and Hannah. And as we saw in their video last week, God is using them in some very cool ways to start churches in places where no church exists. They are doing what God created them to do.

Well, this week we are going to hear from them again. If you remember we took a little video of ourselves and we sent that to them this week, and now today we’re going to learn a little bit more about how we can get involved with what God’s doing down in Mexico.

[video]

Four ways we can be involved:
Commit to pray for the church in Ixtapaluca. It’s interesting that they are going through some of the same issues as our church – building projects. I think we can relate very well.
Write a letter/note stating your support. What an encouragement we can be to them by simply writing a note saying, “We are for you. We serve the same God. We are building the same church. You are our extended family.” Hope to collect them by Wednesday so I can email them, but any letters any time I would be happy to pass on or give you the mailing address for yourself.
Next Sunday, I’d like to collect a special offering for their building project. God has blessed us so much with our building project, wouldn’t it be great to be a blessing to them in their project. Consider this week what you could give towards this project.
Jim extended an invitation to us come down in person and help them out. So I’d like us to begin planning to send a team of us to go down to Ixtapaluca, Mexico and spend a week or so serving the people there. It would be a fantastic opportunity for God to use us in a totally new way.

For the past twelve weeks we have been learning what it means to be a whole church – what it means to live and work together as the family of God. And if you remember at the very beginning of the summer we had a puzzle and we each held a puzzle piece. And that puzzle piece reminded us that we want to “engage”. We want to become connected and interlocked like puzzle pieces, with our God, with each other, with our community, and with our world. And so today we begin the last leg of our journey with a focus on engaging with our world.

Now this morning we are going to be a little interactive. I want to start off with asking you a question. What is a missionary? How would you define a “missionary”? After all, we are affiliated with the “Christian and Missionary Alliance” denomination – so we should have an idea of what a missionary is.

For our purposes today, I would define a missionary as “anyone who shares the Gospel with others”. Very simply stated, that’s a missionary in a nutshell. And that leads me to my second question for you: Who was your missionary? Have you ever thought about that? Who was your missionary? Who was it that shared the Gospel with you? Who told you about Jesus, the Son of God, coming to earth as a human being, living a sinless life, dying on that cross for the sin of the world, and then rising again to life three days later, so that you could have eternal life? Who told you? Who was your missionary?

For me, I had lots of missionaries, but probably the first and most significant missionaries in my life were my parents. From the time that I was very little, they taught me the stories in Bible and how to put my trust in Jesus. So my parents were my missionaries.

This morning I want to hear some of your stories. Who was your missionary?

[sharing time]

Everyone of us has had a missionary. Somebody took the time and made the effort to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with us. And are we ever thankful!

Where would you be today if no one had ever shared the Gospel with you? What if no one had ever told you about how much God loves you and how He died on a cross for  you so that you could have eternal life?

I can’t even imagine what my life would be like. And yet, in this big ol’ world of ours, there are millions of people – even billions of people – who have no missionary. They have had no one tell them about God. They have had no one to tell them how much He loves them. They have had no one to tell them that they can have eternal life by simply trusting in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. And because they’ve had no one to tell them, they don’t know. Millions of people in this world live and die without ever knowing the way to eternal life.

That’s where we come in.

47For this is what the Lord has commanded us: “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” Acts 13:47

God has given us a responsibility. In fact, He lays it out quite clearly for us in Mark 16:15.

15He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”  Mark 16:15

We are called to be missionaries. We are called to be the ones who share the Gospel with others. Just like somebody was a missionary for you, you are called to be a missionary to others. Now that may be in your own backyard, but it also may be in a different town, or it may even be in a different country entirely.

We talked this morning with the kids about beautiful feet bringing good news and I want to read the passage where that verse comes from.

11 As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” 12 Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. 13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14 But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15 And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”
Romans 10:11-15

So over these next few weeks I hope that God will lay it upon your heart to develop beautiful feet – feet that bring the good news of Jesus Christ where ever they go – be that in your back yard, in the nearby towns, or perhaps even in an entirely different country.

This week I want to introduce you to some friends of ours. These are folks with beautiful feet. Right now they are down in Mexico – working to start at church in a suburb of Mexico City where there are no churches of any kind.

We met these guys a few years back when Jim Cottrill was a speaker at Camp Little Red. About a year after that, they left for Mexico, but we’ve kept in touch with them through the internet. Over the next few weeks I want you guys to really get to know Jim & Shari so that they’re not just another missionary that you’ve heard of, but I want you to think of them as some good friends – real people that you know that are sharing the Gospel with people in a different country.

Now of course, showing you a picture of them and telling you they work in Mexico probably doesn’t make you feel like you really know them. And since they aren’t slated to come back to Canada for about a year and since I’m not sure if we all have a current passports, we’ve had to get a little creative.

So over the next few Sundays, we are going to have video conversations with the Cottrills. First, they’ll make a video and send it over the internet, and then we’ll make a video and send it to them over the internet. It won’t be quite as good as meeting face to face, but I hope we’ll get to know them and they’ll get to know us in a unique kind of a way.

Have you ever noticed that everybody likes to win? Everyone likes being the best or the greatest. That’s why you see bumper stickers or license plates that say “World’s Best Grandma”. That’s why the world watches the Olympics – to see if their country will be the best. For some reason, we like being the best. We like being the greatest.

So this morning I want to talk about being great. Because deep inside of us, I think each of us wants to be great. That’s why we have heros. We look at our heros and say, “Man, I wish I could be great like that.” As I’ve mentioned before, one of my heros is a man named George Mueller – a man who had tremendous faith in God and through an amazing life of prayer, God did incredible things through this man. So I want to be a great man like my hero, George Mueller.

Now when we talk about being great, I don’t mean “great” in a prideful way where it’s all “Hey, look at me! Look how amazing I am and look how pitiful you are.” That’s not what we are talking about at all. In the dictionary, “great” simply means “considerably above average”.

So here’s a question: Should Christians strive to be great? Should we desire to be considerably above average?

Well, if you look at the Old Testament, we find that God was actively involved in making people great. Look what He promised to Abraham:

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. Genesis 12:2

And then there is Solomon. God came to him in a dream and told Him that He would make Him Israel’s greatest king. And indeed, it happened.

Solomon son of David established himself firmly over his kingdom, for the LORD his God was with him and made him exceedingly great. 2 Chronicles 1:1

God made Solomon exceedingly above average. And then there was Job.

1 In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. 2 He had seven sons and three daughters, 3 and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. Job 1:1-3

It seems that God is not opposed to people becoming great. In fact, it seems He usually has a hand in helping them become great. Now of course, we’ve only looked at the Old Testament – Let’s look at the New Testament too. First, Mark 9:33-35:

33 After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, “What were you discussing out on the road?” 34 But they didn’t answer, because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.” Mark 9:33-35  NLT

So how did Jesus react to the disciples wanting to be the greatest? Did He reprimand them? Scold them? It doesn’t say that He did that at all. In fact, instead of scolding them for wanting to be great – He told them what they needed to do so that they could be great. Then look at Matthew 20:25-28

25Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:25-28  NIV

Here it is again – Jesus tells His disciples, if you want to be great, here’s what you do. So it seems to me that Jesus has no problem with us wanting to be great – to be considerably above average. In fact, He seems to be encouraging us to become great.

So now that we’ve established that God’s ok with us being great – let’s look at HOW God wants us to become great. And that’s really the key.

What must I do to become great? How can I be a great parent? How do I become a great leader in my community or at my work place? How do I become a great Christian? How do we become a great church? How can we make this a great community?

If you’re starting to wonder why we’re talking about “being great” in the middle of our series of engaging with our community, I think you’ll see the connection very soon.

Look with me again at Matthew 20:26…

Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

As backwards as this seems to the world, this is God’s formula for becoming great. If you want to be great, you must become a servant. You must serve others.

Jesus illustrated this for us in His life time and time again. How many times does Jesus – The God of the Universe Who created All things – how many times does He serve the people? How many times does He feed them? How man times does He heal them?

One great example is when He washed his disciples feet.

1It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.
2The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. 3Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

12When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13″You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. John 13:1-5; 12-15

So here’s Jesus, the King of the Universe – the greatest person to ever walk on this earth – doing the work of a slave and washing the filthy feet of his disciples. If you want to be great, you must become a servant.

If you want to be a great husband – then serve your wife. Put her interests before your own. Help out around the house. Tackle those jobs on the “honey do list”. You might even want to put the seat down in the bathroom. If you want to be a great husband – serve your wife.

If you want to be a great dad – then serve your kids. Read stories to them when they’re little. Go on camp-outs with them when their bigger. Give them piggy-back rides. Fix their bikes. Change the oil in their car. If you want to be a great dad – serve your kids.

If you want to be great at your work place – serve the people there. Clean the lunch-room. Take someone’s shift when they’re in a pinch. Do what you can to make your boss a success. If you want to be great at your work place – serve the people there.

If you want to be great in your community – serve your community. Pick up the garbage you see on the sidewalk. Volunteer and get involved in community programs. Do what you can to make your community a better place. If you want to be great in your community – serve your community.

And this is really where I want to focus this morning. Our challenge this month is to engage with our community – and there is no better way to do that, then to serve them. God has called us to be a great church in our community. And we don’t become a great church by building a new building. We don’t become great by having fantastic worship music. Our church will only become great as we serve our community.

And that’s why next Sunday, we will not be having our regular church service. Instead of coming to church, we will be the church. Instead of worshiping through songs & sermons, we will worship by serving our community.

So this morning, we want to take a few minutes to be very practical. In order for us to effectively serve our community next Sunday, we need to be a little bit organized. What we need this morning is ideas for how we can serve our community and then we can work out the details through this week. So I’m going to divide you up into four groups and give you a paper and pencil. I want you to come up with as many ideas of how we can serve our community in that hour and a bit time frame that we’ll have next Sunday morning.

Maybe you know a single mom who needs her lawn mowed or fence repaired. Maybe you know someone in the hospital and their family could use some frozen casseroles. Maybe there is an older person who needs their rain gutters cleaned out, but they can’t do it themselves. Or maybe there is someone who can’t get out and about and would love to have someone come over for a coffee.

Think of as many of these ideas as you can, so that we can make the most of our two hours next Sunday morning as we serve our community.

The other thing we want to do this morning is to celebrate communion together. This is where we remember that the greatest way that Jesus served us, was by dying on that cross in our place. He took the punishment that we deserved so that we could have eternal life, if we only put our faith and trust in Him.

This week we continue to look at “engaging with our community”. If you missed last Sunday, we began this new section of our whole church initiative by first recognizing that there is a gap between the church and the community. Somehow over the last 100 years the two have separated and our job now is to somehow bridge that gap so that we can again engage with our community and bring them to the saving knowledge of Christ.

So last week we looked at two stories in the Bible – the first was the Samaritan woman at the well and second was Jesus having dinner with tax-collector Matthew and his disreputable buddies. And through those stories we learned two lessons.

Jesus met people where they were. He didn’t wait until they came to the temple or the synagogue – He went to them. We need to do likewise. If the people aren’t coming to our church, then let’s take the church to them. Let’s be the church in our community.
Jesus had compassion on them. He didn’t see them as lepers to be avoided, but as lepers to be healed. And so we need to have that same view of our community. We need to go to them and have compassion on them, show them God’s love, and treat them as pre-Christians. As friends who are not yet believers, but will soon come to know and love the Lord Jesus.

So that was last week. Today I want to take things a little further and a little more practical. And a couple of the questions that I want to begin to address are: What are the actions that we need to put in place in order to bridge that gap between church and community? What are the first steps we need to take in order to win our community for Christ?

First of all, we need to understand that this is a spiritual battle.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12 NIV

And

“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4 NIV

Satan is the adversary here. Not unbelievers. They have been taken captive – Satan has blinded their minds to the truth. This is a spiritual battle.

That means it doesn’t matter how great our efforts are, or even how clear our message is, if God is not at work in the hearts of unbelievers, they will not be able to see the truth. But the good news is, on the flip side of that, no matter how feeble our efforts are and how poorly we present the message, if God IS at work in the hearts of unbelievers, then nothing will stop them from seeing the truth of the Gospel.

That’s why our first and most powerful strategy in reaching our community for Christ is prayer. Because only God can open the eyes of the spiritually blind. Yes, He certainly uses us in the process through our words and deeds, but it is He who changes the heart. That’s why…

“The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” James 5:16

We talked a little bit about this verse when we talked about engaging with God. And it’s not that our prayers are magical or anything special, but for whatever reason, when God’s people pray, God seems pleased to answer and to act on our behalf for his glory.

“14This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.” 1 John 5:14-15

So it seems that the only catch to having answered prayers is that we have to pray for things according to His will. We need to ask God to do the things that He already wants to do. If we do that, consider it done. That’s why the prayer of a righteous man is so powerful and effective. Because He is praying and asking God to do the things that God is already eager and willing to do. It’s like God is just waiting for an invitation to step in and do great and marvelous things.

So, how do we know what God’s will is? Well, thankfully, God’s given us a little book called the B-I-B-L-E. The Bible.

I’m not sure how many of you have seen this acronym before, but I think it’s rather fitting. Bible – Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.

It’s in the pages of the Bible that we find God’s will. He’s spelled it out for us. It’s almost ironic that all those deep questions that everybody asks like “What’s the mean of life? Is there life after death?” – all those questions are very clearly answered in the Bible.

So what is God’s will for our community? How do we pray for our community according to the will of God? I think we’ll find the answer in 1 Timothy.

“I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. 2 Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. 3 This is good and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. 5 For there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 2:1-5

This passage lays out five ways that we can pray for our community. First of all, according to verse 4, it is God’s will for everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. So this is probably the most obvious way to pray for our community.

Pray for their Salvation.
Pray that they would understand the truth.

Don’t forget – these people are captives. They are blinded by Satan. There is no way that they can see the truth unless God removes those blinders from them. God may use our witness or our words to do that, but our words and witness apart from God can do nothing.

But since we know that it is His will that they be saved and understand the truth, and since we know that God hears our prayers when we ask according to his will, then let us earnestly pray for the salvation of our community. Let us pray that God would intervene in their lives and remove Satan’s blinders so that they would understand the truth – the truth that there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity – the man Jesus Christ.

This is probably one of the most important things we can pray for as a church – for the salvation of our community. But this passage also lays out a few other ways that we can pray as well.

In verse 1:

Ask God to help them.
Intercede on their behalf.
Give thanks for them.

These are ways we might pray for each other, but how often we do pray that way for the lost? For our unsaved neighbors? For those who maybe don’t like us? For those who are blatant sinners? Do we ask God to help them, intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them? And yet this passage clearly states that is exactly what we are to.

Now when I was preparing this message, I got stuck on that point there for quite a while. Because from the way this passage reads, it almost seems like praying this way for our community (asking God to help them; interceding on their behalf, and giving thanks for them) just might lead to them becoming saved and understanding the truth. That’s just how this passage struck me. So I dug a little deeper and found a few other verses.

27 “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. 28 Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.

35 “Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.
Luke 6:27-28; 35

As I read and re-read that verse, it really struck me. How does God treat sinners? Here’s a hint… “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” He is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. So it’s no wonder that we are called to do the same. To pray blessings on our community, to ask God to help them; to intercede on their behalf, and to give thanks for them. That’s doing exactly what Jesus would do. That’s living out the Gospel right there. When we pray like that for our community, that’s literally preaching a sermon – proclaiming the Good News that Jesus died for sinners like you and me and everyone else.

So this morning, I want to preach a second sermon – not to you guys, but to our community. I’m going to invite you to join me. I want us to step outside for a few moments, get out of our walls so that we can actually see the community around us, and I want us to pray blessings on our community. So get up out of your seats and let’s go outside and do some praying.