Luke 9:1-6
I have a confession to make. When my daughters get older and they are on their own, I don't want them to go to church. I know. You're shocked. "How can the preacher say he doesn't want his girls to go to church?" I really want more than that for them. I don't want them to just go to church. In fact, I never pray, "Lord, I pray when they get older that they go to church." I have never, ever prayed that for my daughters.
Here's what I have prayed: "Lord, I pray that they love you and love the gospel more than their own lives." That's more than just going to church. I don't want them to go to church. I want them to desire to reach the world for Christ. I want them to be willing to give their lives, to go to the ends of the earth with the good news of Jesus Christ. Some parents are afraid their kids will go on the mission field. I'm afraid they won't. I'm afraid they'll just go to church.
So here's what I pray. I say, "Lord, I want them to love you more than life, and I want them to be on mission for you." Christy and I don't teach them to just go to church. That's important, obviously, but it's not. Not in the way we understand it. I want them to see every aspect of their lives as a mission field. I want them to see every relationship they have, now and for this side of heaven, as an opportunity to reach someone with the gospel.
Therefore, I want my kids to build relationships with people who are not following Jesus Christ. Yes, I do. Now I don't want them to be influenced. I'm just like any other parent. But I do want them to have such a heart for lost people that they will build relationships with them. So what's important now is that the parents are on mission with Jesus. It's important that we build relationships with people who don't know Jesus so we can reach them with the gospel.
Let me tell you, it's really easy to do that when you have kids, because they get involved with soccer. They get involved with band. They get involved with a lot of things. All of those are opportunities to build relationships with people who do not know Christ Jesus. I'm thankful to God that God has used my wife's bus driving to build relationships.
We had a birthday party for Caroline in June, and it blessed my heart to see all of the people who were there. Except for one or two, they were there because they built a relationship with Caroline on the bus, and none of them go to church. That's what I want my kids to be. I want them to be on mission for Jesus. I don't want them to just go to church. I want them to be the church.
We're starting a new series called Sent. This whole idea of being on mission with Jesus, just so you know, wasn't something the Southern Baptist Convention just developed. It's really the biblical requirement of those who follow Jesus. Whether you know it or not… You may not be one who follows the statistics like I do. I do. I like to know what the church is doing today.
Let me tell you, there are churches that are dying. I would say "closing the door," but that would imply the building is the church. It's not the church. The people are the church. They're dying at a rapid pace. On the other side of that, there are churches being planted right now, and there are multisite campuses that are increasing and multiplying at a rapid pace. Believe it or not, I can count probably at least six church plants in the Bryant and Benton area that are happening right now.
Now the temptation… I know. We're human. "Oh my gosh, they're getting on our turf." Do you know what I've found out? That's a good thing. If we're not going to be the church, God is going to raise up people to be the church. That's why these churches are dying, because they're not being the church; they're going to church, and as you go to church, God is going to lift up laborers who may not be you. He can work around us.
God is not really concerned about our preferences. He's really not concerned whether we sing off the wall or from a hymnal. He's not as concerned about contemporary music or hymns as you are. In fact, I've never seen him weep over a church service, but I've seen him weep over people who were going to hell. He's weeping today, and he's raising up people who will not just go to church.
There are churches that are going to church and they're dying left and right, but guess what? God is lifting up people who want to be missional, who want to impact our culture and reach the lost community with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what this is all about. This is what Community Groups are all about. It's really being on mission with Jesus. We often say as Baptists, "We are people of the Book." Well, if we're people of the Book, let's live by it. Let's actually do what the Bible tells us to do. Let's actually do what Jesus has laid out for us.
So we're starting this series. It's called Sent, and it's called Sent for a reason. If you were to ask me to define what it means to be on mission with Jesus in one word, I would use that word. Sent. Here's why: it all begins with Jesus. Jesus said in Luke, chapter 4, verse 43, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose."
Jesus was sent to proclaim the kingdom of God, and now he sends out his people. He sends out the church. He says, "I send you out." Of course, Jesus became the good news of the kingdom of God, but now he says, "You're my disciples, and now I'm calling you. I am sending you out to proclaim the good news of the kingdom."
So as we begin in chapter 9… Chapter 9 gives us timeless principles. They are meant to be applied to the church throughout the ages. Though the times have changed, the principles do not change. What chapter 9 teaches us is if you follow Jesus, you will be on mission with Jesus. Look at the very first part of verse 1. This is Jesus. It says he called the Twelve together.
Obviously, if you know your Scriptures, the Twelve he's talking about are the twelve apostles. He is calling them not to follow him. This has already taken place. The call to take up their cross, the call to follow him and leave everything, has already happened. This is a call to mission. It's a call to action. It's a call to become fully functioning followers of Jesus Christ. But what precedes that is the call to follow.
Go back to chapter 5. We see Jesus calling some of his first disciples. It says in the first 11 verses of chapter 5 that Jesus is teaching the multitudes, and he asks Peter to get in his boat. They set out a bit from the shore, and Jesus continues to teach. Then Jesus looks to Peter and says, "I want you to go out into the deep waters, and I want you to throw your nets over." That's when Peter said, "Well, Rabbi, we've been fishing all night, but at your word I will do what you say."
We can't see it there, but here's what Peter is thinking: "Lord, you don't know what you're doing. You're not a fisherman. But I believe you. I'm going to trust you." They go out, and he throws his net over, and there's a miracle. That's when Peter realizes Jesus is more than a rabbi; he is Lord. Then Jesus says to him, "'Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.' And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him."
They started following Jesus, and then in chapter 6, Jesus actually appoints twelve of them to be apostles. It says in verse 12 of chapter 6, "In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve…" Which means there were more than just twelve there, but he chose twelve specific men to be his apostles.
Their names were (verse 14): "Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor." Jesus is calling these twelve together, and now he's going to send them out on mission.
Now there's an interesting truth here that when it comes to being on mission with Jesus… By the way, Jesus says, "If you're following me, I will make you…" What? That's why the first point. If you're following Jesus, you'll be on mission with Jesus. You see, you can't follow Jesus and not be on mission with Jesus. You can go to church and not be on mission with Jesus, but you can't be the church and not be on mission with Jesus. Do y'all understand that?
You can't follow Jesus and not be on mission with Jesus. But I want you to see here, as soon as he called them, notice he didn't immediately say, "Okay, go. You're on mission." There was this process of spiritual growth. They have now witnessed the power of Jesus. They have seen his miracles, and now Jesus is saying, "It's your turn."
There is a point in our spiritual lives where we begin to multiply ourselves. We actually become parents, and we actually begin to see people come to Christ. Then we actually mentor them in Christ, and then we send them out to multiply. This is what's happening. This is where many churches are dying, because most Christians are stuck in this area called a child, and they're not reproducing themselves. They're going to church, but they're not being the church.
He calls them, and he's going to send them out on mission. Now here's the truth. We want to think, "Well, that's the apostles. Of course. They're supposed to be on mission." But every Christian is called to be on mission with Jesus. You know that, right? If you don't, today you do. Every Christian, everyone who says, "I am going to follow Jesus…" If you are following Jesus, you will be on mission with Jesus.
That's what we see here. It says he called the Twelve together. Notice he didn't say, "I want you to hang out with me." No. "I'm calling you together because I'm eventually going to send you out. I want you to go out into the world, and I want you to go and tell people about the kingdom of God." Every Christian is called to be on mission with Jesus.
People who want to be the church will be on mission with Jesus. People who go to church… Well, it's very possible to go to church and not be on mission with Jesus. That's why I tell you I don't want my kids just to go to church. As a pastor, I know that's most of the problem with the church today. We have too many people going to church and not enough people being the church.
Now here's some good news. You think, "Well, I can't do that." Yes, you can, because Jesus equips every believer for the mission. Do you know that? He does it for the apostles. It says in verse 1, after he called them together he gave them power. He equipped them. He gave them everything they needed to do the ministry God had called them to. It says he gave them power and authority.
The Greek word dunamis where we get our word dynamite is the same word Luke uses in Acts, chapter 1, verse 8, when Jesus said, "But you will receive power from the Holy Spirit." It's not your power. It's not your ability. It's not your adequacy. It has nothing to do with you except your faith and obedience. It's all about the power of the Holy Spirit in your life.
"You will receive power. He will come upon you in a mighty and powerful way, and you will be my witnesses. In Jerusalem and in all of Judea, in all of Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, you will be my witnesses. I've given you everything you need. Not only that; I give you authority, which means you have the right to do it." Jesus says, "I've equipped you. I've given you power." He has given us all power.
That's why we have to also get past this mindset that it's the preacher's call to do all that. The staff is called to do all that. No, it's not. We are the body of Christ. Guess what? Every member is called to be on mission with Jesus, and Jesus equips every member of the body of Christ to do the work of the ministry. Can I get an amen? Yeah, it's the body of Christ. He equips us. He gives us the power we need.
I was talking with a church member last week. He's going to be teaching one of our Community Groups. When he was asked, he said, "I don't know if I'm adequate enough." Then he realized he doesn't have to be adequate. In fact, that's where God wants him, because it's not about him; it's about God giving him the power to work through him. See, the mission with Jesus is all about Jesus working through you.
So Jesus calls every Christian to be on mission with him. We're all called to be on mission with him. He equips every one of us, and when he equips us, he then sends us out. Jesus will never, ever send you to do something without giving you the ability to do it. Then he sends us out to proclaim the gospel. Verse 2. Here's their commission. He says, "I'm calling you. I'm equipping you, and now I am sending you out."
It says, "…and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal." It's interesting. Here he sends out 12, and then in chapter 10 he sends out 72, and then in Acts, chapter 2, you see them empowered and they go forth. Before, I believe God gave them power and authority for this specific mission and again for the one in chapter 10, but when the day of Pentecost came, they had that power at their disposal. All they had to do was surrender and trust and allow the Spirit of God to empower them. The same is true today. God sends us out with his power.
What I find here is a very interesting principle that we need to really grasp if we're going to understand what it means to be on mission with Jesus as a church. The Greek word sugkaleo is translated called together. Sun meaning together; kaleo, called. Here's what we learn from this, that he calls his disciples together. What we know about them, obviously, is in the Scriptures, but I believe they had opportunities to go home. I believe they had opportunities to get away from the Twelve for a while.
He calls them together. "I want y'all to gather around me." He doesn't say, "Good. This is the goal of life. I just want you to worship me." No. "I am calling you together. I'm calling you from all walks of life to gather together, and when you gather together in my name, then I send you forth into the world, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ."
Oftentimes we feel like this is the end goal. "Let's get people to go to church." No. Let's get the church to be sent out into the world to tell people about Jesus. He says he calls us together, and that's what he does here on Sunday mornings. Most of us think this is it, that what we do here is it. No, it's not. This is just where Jesus puts us all together and says, "Okay, here's the plan. Go. I'm sending you out. I'm sending you to your neighbors. I'm sending you to the people you work with. I'm sending you anywhere you occupy to be on mission with me."
He gives us a message, and the message is, "The kingdom of God is at hand." We've lost that in the church. We've lost this idea that when we leave here, every one of us who knows Jesus, who follows Jesus, in essence is taking the kingdom of God to a people who aren't in the kingdom of God, who need to know there's only one kingdom that lasts, and that is the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
When you're not on mission with Jesus, when you just go to church, you're expecting them to come here. There was a day in our culture when that worked, but times are changing. Those who aren't going to be on mission with Jesus are going to die, but those who catch the vision of the kingdom of God, who believe we have a responsibility, that we are sent out from this place to build relationships with people who need Jesus, are the ones who are going to make a difference.
If you follow Jesus, you'll be on mission with Jesus. Jesus gives a strategy for the mission. Listen to what he says in verse 3: "And he said to them, 'Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.'" There are three things Jesus gives as a strategy.
First of all, seek his kingdom first, not your comfort. Did you hear what he told them not to take? "Don't take anything for your journey, no staff or bag or bread or money, and do not have two tunics." By that, Jesus is saying, "I want you to go and proclaim the kingdom of God, and I want you to totally depend upon me. I don't want you to be so bogged down by your creaturely comforts that you allow that desire to be comfortable in your life to become first in your life and you fail to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ."
There's an element to being on mission with Jesus. It's called dying to self. Most of us, if we're honest, allow the creaturely comforts of living to get in our way with being on mission with Jesus. We don't allow ourselves to die to those comforts. Instead, those comforts become preeminent, and we put off being on mission with Jesus. What Jesus teaches us here is you seek first the kingdom. You make priority being on mission with Jesus. You seek the kingdom first, and all of these things will be added unto you.
The second thing he tells us to do is build relationships with people who do not know Christ. You take nothing for your journey, you trust him, you seek him, and then you go house to house, which means you have to build relationships with people who do not know Jesus, people who offend you. I know there are a lot out there, but we have to be willing to build those relationships with people who don't know Jesus, to take the kingdom of God to them.
Here's the third strategy. This is the good news. Leave the results up to God. You can't save anybody. All you can do is plant. All you can do is water. It's God who brings the harvest. That's what he's saying. Verse 5: "And wherever they do not receive you…" They're going to reject you. Christianity is not a popular message. They're going to reject you, but don't worry about that. They're rejecting Jesus.
"And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them." In other words, let God handle them. Leave the results in his hands, because you can't save anybody. There's nothing you can do to convince somebody to follow Jesus. It takes a work of the Spirit of God. Period. The Spirit of God working in their life, the Spirit of God working through your life. It's really not about you; it's about Jesus working through you.
Let me show you verse 6. It's personal, it's practical, and it's powerful. Look at verse 6: "And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere." First of all, it was personal. They had to decide, "Are we going to go out? Are we going to go and proclaim the good news? Are we going to be on mission with Jesus?"
Being on mission with Jesus is personal, because each one of us has a responsibility before Jesus. If we follow Jesus, we're to be on mission with Jesus, and it is a personal choice we have to make. That means we don't seek our own comfort; we seek his comfort first. It means we try to build relationships with people who do not know Jesus, and we leave the results up to God. It's personal. We have to decide, "Am I going to be used by God?"
It's practical, because he says, "I want you to go," and it says they departed and went through the villages, which means wherever they were going, they allowed that to become a mission field to work and to proclaim the kingdom of God. You don't have to go overseas to be on mission. You're on mission right now.
You're on mission when you leave this place today. You're on mission when you go to work tomorrow. You're on mission when you're eating at Cracker Barrel. You're on mission in your family. You're on mission at sports activities, sports games. You are on mission with Jesus. They were going and proclaiming as they went through all the villages.
It's personal (they had to decide), it's practical (it's just as you live your life), and it's powerful. Notice what happened. When they went out, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, it says people were healed. Lives were changed, and the change came because they were willing to leave Jesus and go out and be on mission with Jesus.
I'm here to tell you our community can change when we catch the vision of being on mission with Jesus. That's why we're doing Community Groups, because our groups need to be multiplied. If your life group hasn't multiplied in years, I'm sorry; something is wrong. We need to go out into the community and give people an opportunity to come to a place, and that becomes our front door to the church because we built the relationship and we can share Jesus with them.
I'm going to be leading a Community Group in an apartment complex. Let me tell you, there is a mission field. Ask any police officer in Bryant. They'll tell you most of their calls go to apartment complexes. I know Coach Marvel playing golf has seen a couple of domestic disputes in the apartments just playing golf. That's where they need Jesus. They're not coming here. That's why we have to go beyond going to church. That's why we have to be the church.
That's why we do what we're doing, because I believe that's what Jesus would do. I really do. I believe he would be hanging out in apartment complexes. I believe he would be hanging out at Starbucks. "Well, you know they don't like people who hold up traditional marriage." Well, all the more reason we need Jesus at Starbucks. If we're boycotting them that's probably a good sign we need to be building relationships with them.
I think he would be at Chick-fil-A. I think he would be in the community trying to tell people about the kingdom of God. That's why I don't want my girls just to go to church. I don't want the generation that comes behind me to get a false impression about what it means to be on mission with Jesus. I want them to understand that Jesus calls us together on Sunday mornings to send us out.
See, our goal isn't Sunday morning. Our goal is what we do in between Sundays. When we make that our goal, these gatherings we do on Sunday will grow. It's just natural. When you reach people where they are, then you bring them. That's the culture we live in. That's what it means to be on mission with Jesus.
We want to define that a little bit more over the next several weeks. What does it mean to be in community? What does it mean when Jesus says, "The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few"? What does it mean to us? This is one of the challenges I'm praying for. "Lord, make us a church that wants to be the church." It's a challenge. Of course, it all begins… If you're going to be the church, you have to be a part of the church.
I find it very interesting that Judas went on mission with Jesus. You can be a lost person and tell people about Jesus. I think it's important that we understand that to be the church, for me to be on mission with Jesus, I have to be a follower of Jesus. I have to give my life to Jesus. That means I understand I'm a sinner and I can't save myself, that Jesus died for my sins, and I turn to him and place my faith in his saving work and commit my life to him and follow him.
For some of you, being on mission with Jesus begins right there, giving your life to him and following him. For others of you, it begins right here. We have to get over that mentality of going to church. We have to allow God to make us people who are the church, who want to be on mission with Jesus. Let's bow our heads and our hearts before God.
In a moment we're going to sing a song of invitation. It's an invitation for you who do not know Christ to say, "I need Jesus. I want Jesus. I want to follow Jesus. I need to be saved from my sins." If that's you today, we're going to stand, and I'm going to invite you to walk forward and just grab me by the hand and say, "Pastor, I need Jesus."
But the invitation is to us as a church to really allow the Spirit of God and the teachings of Jesus to formulate our hearts and formulate our thinking and to help us, as a church, understand what it means to follow Christ. It means we're on mission with him. It means we make his kingdom priority, not our comfort. It means we build relationships with people who need to know Jesus Christ, and we leave the results up to God.
We plant and water but allow him to bring about the harvest. He is the Lord of the harvest, but what he needs are laborers. What he needs are people who claim to follow him to be on mission with him. He's inviting us, church. He's inviting you. He's inviting me to be the church. How will you respond this morning in your heart? How will you respond when you leave here this morning? Will you heed the voice of Jesus and go forth proclaiming the good news? How will you respond? Take some time to make that commitment to Lord Jesus right now.
Father, these decisions are being made by all of us, and I just pray that they glorify you. I pray that your Spirit moves in a mighty and powerful way. In Jesus' name, amen.
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