Hear O Church, One Lord, One Life

Cultivating Missional Living

Hear O Church, One Lord, One Life

Theme: Committing Our Whole Lives to God

Deut. 6:1-9, Mark 12:29-31, Romans 12:1-2

Response: Seeing and Responding to Gods Missional Work

Lord Over All

Ours is a culture totally different from the audience that sat at the feet of our Jesus. His listeners were not comprised of twenty-first century Westerners who are mostly a reasoning and scientifically- minded society. The ancient Near East people were deeply spiritual and consciously aware of sacred, mystical, and even magical realms. Theirs was a culture that was filled with a number of gods and demigods. They were pluralists. Virtually every sphere of life had a god that was seen as ruling over it. There was a god of the forest, family, river, sun, moon, and harvest and so on.

So it is within this culture that one of the local scribes approached our Jesus to ask Him what the most important commandment was, (Mark 12:29-31). Can you imagine that? Out of all the commandments in the Old Testament, this guy wanted Jesus to narrow them down to the one. How could this be possible? I mean, God Himself issued each and every one of the commandments. Aren’t they all important? Every single one came from the lips of God! How could one commandment stand above all the rest?

And typically, in the Gospels when Jesus was asked a question, He answered it with another question, or sometimes even a parable. This as we have seen often in our Wednesday night Bible study was a very typical rabbinic method of teaching. But, on this occasion, departing from His normal way of responding, Jesus not only answered the question posed to him; He did so quickly and plainly.

It would not have been unreasonable to expect Jesus to respond. As He so typically did, by asking another thought provoking question. It is easy to imagine Jesus saying something like, look around you, look to the field and mountains, look to the sea. Which of all these creations of God is the most important. Our Jesus could have said, every commandment is God breathed and not one is more or less important than the other. But immediately Jesus answered without hesitation. And He went even further, he gave the guys a two for one deal. Jesus told the scribe the number one most important commandment plus the number two most important commandment.

‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

Listen Up

The commandment that Jesus proclaims as the most important is known as the Shema, which means “hear.” What we are to hear is that there are not a multitude of gods (polytheism). The implication is that one God is Lord over every part of our lives, no exceptions. Nothing lies outside of His claim or His power. So, this idea destroys the concept of there being sacred and secular places in our lives. (Dualism) Our God is God from the bedroom to the boardroom, from the work place to the play place, from our living room to the school room, and everyplace in between.

The Shema (“ Hear, O Israel . . .”) in Deuteronomy 6: 4 is the claim of Yahweh over against the competing claim of the many other gods in the polytheistic religious environment of the day. It is a call for the loyalty of the people. The claim has direct and concrete implications: It is a call for the Israelites to live their lives under the Lordship of one God and not under the oppression of the many gods. In other words, it is a practical call not to live one’s life as if there were a different god for every sphere of life— a god of the field, a god of the river, a god of fertility, a god of the sun, and so forth.

The Word of our God loudly proclaims that there is only one God and He is Lord of every aspect of life. Again, here the concrete and practical nature of Hebraic thinking comes to the forefront. Polytheists can compartmentalize life and distribute it among many powers. But the man or women in the Israelite world who has faith is not distinguished from the pagan worldview by a mere spiritual view of the Godhead, but by the exclusiveness of his relationship to God, and by his reference of all things to him. So, Biblical believers have only one reference point. This is the biblical mode of thinking— concrete and practical. The implications are far reaching, not as simple theology, but as practical missiology. A re-Hebraizing of Christianity is so vital for the emergence of the missional-incarnational church.

This claim to unify our lives under the one God has truly radical implications for us today as we struggle to find new ground on which to base our discipleship. Biblical monotheism means that we cannot live like there is one “god” for the church and another for politics and another in economics or still another for the home. No, all of life, every aspect of it, every dimension, is to be brought under and unified under the ONE God, Yahweh. Seen in this light, the Shema is a claim of God’s exclusivity and a direct challenge from God about the role of idols in the believer’s life.

So, especially, in a culture like ours, where a lack of integration in every sphere of our lives is the norm, the importance of understanding and acting on the truth of the Shema cannot be overstated. Our society is one that lacks connection between the people and the places that make up our lifestyle patterns. The people we work with are not the same people we see in our favorite coffee house. The folks that we see in the park are not the same people we see in our grocery stores. And for the most part, none of these people are members of our own local church.

There are only one or two types of places most people, Christian or not consider to be sacred. These spots are official places of worship, a church, a synagogue, or a mosque and the home. The remaining places are called secular territory. If you ask most Christians, they consider their places of work, recreation, education, commerce, and the marketplace to all be secular places.

Lord of All

Secular, by definition means “non-sacred” or “apart from God” Theologians call this idea dualism, a terribly dangerous precept that not only limits God, but limits missions. The subconscious result of the dualistic divisions means that most Christians compartmentalize spirituality into two sacred boxes of church and home. So, we consider the people we encounter in differing territories the same way. Especially in Evangelical circles, the people that occupy “non-sacred” spaces often become categorized as “them” within the them vs. us delusion that has become part of the sacred-secular divide.

With the Shema, Jesus is saying that all dimensions of our lives are under His care, joy, and rule. God gets out of the stained glass box of church and moves into every sphere of society. We-those filled with His Spirit-can (should) begin to understand all of life as ministry and worship. This idea was echoed in the legendary movie, Chariots of Fire, in which Eric Liddell says, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast, And when I run I feel His pleasure.”

So as we seek to Shema (to hear) we aim to recognize God’s activity throughout our daily routines. By understanding that God is everywhere and that He is seeking to restore and redeem broken people and the brokenness throughout all of creation, our lives take on new meaning-spiritual meaning. …. See, there is this real tendency to think of the spiritual life as a life that will begin when we have certain feelings, think certain thoughts, and gain certain insights. …. The problem, though, is not how to make the spiritual life happen, but to see where it actually is happening. We will then work on this premise… that our God acts in this world and in the lives of individuals and communities. That God is doing something right now. So this work, this chipping away and sculpting by God is taking place whether we are aware of it or not. Our task is to recognize that, yes, it is God who is acting and we are involved already in that spiritual life.

This sacred-secular divide as a mindset, or a paradigm, has enormous implications for the life of a Christian. And when one lives under this misguided belief, we leave God out of the equation of the majority of our actual daily living. But when we seek to hear God in our daily routines, believing that the Lord is bringing His Kingdom to earth, we hear and see things we might have never observed beforehand.

For you who are Christian business men and women this means that the phrase, “This is a business” is no longer an acceptable term. Understanding the Shema means that we understand that God is just as much in on a business deal as He is on the Sunday Morning Praise and Worship.

Understanding God is one Lord over all things and beings keeps us tuned in to-hearing-His voice in every situation. He is Lord of the restaurant, Starbucks, where you work, play, and the neighborhood.

Romans 12:1-2

On the basis of the fact that God is overall and in every situation, Paul appeals to us to offer our whole world up to God in worship. He is Lord over every dimension of life. Since God is One we have the obligation to “bring every aspect of our lives, communal and individual, under this One God.

The Shema is one of the most practical and catalytic passages in all of Scripture. It is no wonder that Jesus calls it the most important commandment of all. It calls us to bring our minds, hearts, and bodies under the complete lordship of Jesus. God is no longer understood as involved in just the “spiritual” dimensions of our lives, because we have eliminated the sacred-secular divide from our concept of God and life in general.

This is the cornerstone precept of a Biblical Wordview. …We commit our whole life to God. Nothing is off limits. And, ..If the entire world, including our immediate world, and all that is within it is truly under the ownership of God, then there can be no part of my life that is not open to His rule.

But, honestly it is very easy to profess belief in one God, but in practice, live as though there are many. To confess Jesus is Lord, means we are loyal to Him throughout every sphere of our life, as consumers, as neighbors, workers, and friends. We live one life, under one Lord!

Response:

This week, decide how you can demonstrate your love for the Lord with your heart, (inner passion), soul (Mind and spirit) and your strength (Body). Give yourself an assignment every day. Prayer for your heart, reading for you mind, and serving someone for your strength. 

Turning His Way; Living a Kingdom of God Agenda Sunday May 11th

Turning His Way; Living a Kingdom of God Agenda

Matthew 6:25-33; 3:1-2; 4:17

A Different Way of Living

Jesus invites us to live our lives very differently from the non-Christ-following world around us. I have called this the upside-down nature of the Kingdom of God, and it is within this kind of counterintuitive nature that Jesus so often spoke. He told us that if we want to be first we must be last. If we want to be greatest we must choose to be least. These concepts look great on Bible pages where we read them but become very difficult to actualize in the realities that make up our own day-to-day living. There is something different about this way of living. A Recalculating of sorts has happened.

Recalculating

At times in my life I have been driving down a road and noticed I had already passed where I was going. Have you ever done that? Sometimes it was because I was sleepy, sometimes I simply found myself day dreaming. I think probably there have been times I was simply listening to a good song and got lost in it. But for whatever reason I suddenly discovered I was going the wrong way. I was going toward my destination and then all of the sudden realized I was going away from it. You know, you see an exit sign or building and you realize you have gone too far.

Or today, I have done this maybe you have had it happen. While using a GPS, all of the sudden you miss the exit. And it immediately says “Turn around when possible”, then the screen says “Recalculating.” You know this may surprise you, but if the GPS would have said Repent, you’re going in the wrong direction, it would have been correct. Repent means turn around.

Repent!

The word comes across as a rather stern, kind of austere word-one that is not used very often in today’s language. You rarely ever see it in print unless you are following someone on the road and see it on a bumper sticker, they will also have others warning about the fires of hell…right. But as we look at the Gospels, we see that of all of the words the writers could have used, both Jesus and John the Baptist chose to use the word repent as the first commandment regarding the arrival of the Kingdom of God. Both men issued a stark warning to the entire region of Galilee that its citizens were going in the wrong direction and that they needed to turn around immediately.

The Kingdom of God is not something we build or establish. It is a realm, it is God’s realm of rule-which we can enter into, that we receive. Just about every area of the Kingdom of God that we want, or should want, to enter into requires us to repent, to turn around. So, ….what is it that we are turning from? And, then, what are we turning toward? Well, the first thing is from our own ways and means of command and control. We are turning from our own demands to have our way and to accumulate all that we can for our own selfish stockpiles. We are turning to God and saying you are in control of my life. Your supply is sufficient for me. Lord if you want me noticed, or promoted, you can make that happen. If we want to experience the realm of God’s peace, we must become peacemakers. If we want to inherit the earth, we don’t fight for it. We learn meekness. If we want to live in the realm of God’s mercy, we become merciful ourselves. 

So in direct contrast to the kingdom of men, which are established and sustained through accumulating more and more by way of force and power, Jesus’ Kingdom is authenticated and perpetuated by the authority of love. The Jesus kind of love lays down its rights and privileges every day. This is what it means to pick up our cross daily.

Love is not merely a stepping back or a pacifistic stance. It does not stop at, “Don’t return evil for evil.” Rather, it moves forward, proactively we might say. It says, Return good for evil.” We could say the silver rule is “Do not do unto others what you do not want them to do to you.” But, The Golden Rule, Jesus’ rule is “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” So Jesus tells his Jewish listeners that when a Roman solder acts upon his legal (but oppressively and morally wrong) right to have them carry his gear for one mile, to smile and carry it two miles.

The ongoing effect of the Kingdom of God is that it constantly brings a holy disruption to our lives. It messes with our plans and definitions of both what is needed in life as well as who is worthy of our attention and devotion. This is the essence of servant hood in the Kingdom. 

In our case, we have signed our lives over to Jesus as Lord and Master. The glorious irony of it all is that rather than going into bondage, we move into the deepest essence of freedom we could have ever have imagined. We are free,…. free… from the never ending loop of always trying to get ahead.

So what it is not, is, that it is not a freedom from powerlessness, but instead is a freedom from our own form of predominance. What do I mean…I mean

It frees us, not from the state of being dominated, but from being dominating;

not from our sufferings, but from our apathy, our indifference towards suffering;

not from our guilt, but from our innocence, or maybe from the delusion of innocence which the life of domination has long ago spread throughout our very souls.

We do not have to read very far into the Gospels to see that Jesus clearly expects His followers to remain fully active within all aspects of culture but to do so from a different set of values and motivations. ..Right?!... I mean Jesus never wants us to leave our worlds. But, He wants us to live in them, but to live firmly grounded in the center of all things. Jesus never talks about a change of activities, a change in friends, or even a change of pace. He always talks about a change of heart. And this change of heart changes everything. Even when everything else in our life appears to remain the same. This is the meaning of “Set your hearts, “Minds” on His Kingdom first….and all these things will be given as well. What counts is where our minds are!

See, it is the redemptive nature of the Kingdom of God that shapes our values and motives. God wants us to possess and exercise power, but power from Him, not worldly power. This is demonstrated in a very powerful way in Mathew 4:1-11. Matthew records the motives and means of Jesus and the Kingdom in deep contrast to the motive and means of the kingdom of darkness. Satan temps Jesus in three ways.

Food- that which sustains life itself.

Satan attempts to bring the focus upon us as the only trusted provider for our livelihood. Jesus models the posture of the follower of God. It is the word of God that is the overarching sustainer of life. By feeding on and obeying the Word, we will be fulfilled and sustained in all aspects of life.

Safety and Security-who and what controls our life.

Fear and anxiety are at the top of the list of tactics that minions from the kingdom of darkness use to control us. Jesus was firm in His faith, radically trusting the Heavenly Father. He looked to God as the one who was in charge of His life and destiny.

Glory- our source of meaning.

Satan offered Jesus the Kingdom of the world if…if…He would only fall down and worship him. Hear me….that offer is still on the table for all of us. The truth about worship is that what or who we worship shapes our identity. Some people worship fashion, cars, a lifestyle, a home. They want to identify with a certain brand or status. Often the obsession becomes idolatrous. ….True Worship of God means that we derive our identity from Him.

The wilderness experience that Jesus overcame provides us with an idea of what to expect on a very consistent basis during the power encounters between two very powerful but opposing kingdoms. But we as children of The Kingdom live by a different set of values. We are guided by a different set of expectations. We live out of a different source of power. And, this confirms the character of the Kingdom of God. Those who follow Jesus must realize they are entering into a cosmic sized conflict with the enemy, a conflict they can only win by the power of The Spirit.

There is no doubt that most of us fail to maintain a conscious awareness of the spiritual battle we are in as children of the Light. The kingdom of darkness is as real as the chairs you are sitting in right now. It is unrelenting. So, drawing our strength from the Lord is not our only hope for victory; it is a sure hope for victory. You know, think about it, our only fight is that of faith. The rest of the battle is up to God. Living a lifestyle whereby we seek God’s agenda first and foremost is the initial and ongoing step toward the missional journey. If we are serious about entering the kingdom of God here and now, then we agree to God’s terms and God’s turns. What counts is where our minds are.

Response

This week I ask you to do your best to keep these two questions in mind:

First, what areas do I need to concentrate my repentance on in order to lay hold of the Kingdom of God?

Second, how can I assume the posture of a servant today? How can I serve in the situation at hand?

God’s Mission Has a Church!

John 3:16-17; 5:24; 14:26; 16:7; 17:18; 20:21

A third very key element in our desire towards Cultivating Missional Living is our understanding of the concept of missio dei. Our English rendering of this Latin term is, the Mission of God. It is God who has a mission to set things right in a broken, sinful world-to redeem and restore it to what he has always intended. This language emphasizes that mission is not primarily an activity of the church, but rather the activity of God. The church is God’s instrument sent into the world to participate in His mission. So, the church exists because of God’s mission, and not the other way around.

So mission is not the invention, responsibility, or a program of the church. Instead…it flows directly from the character and purposes of our missionary God. So….it is not the church that undertakes mission; it is the mission of God that establishes the church. Or, it is not so much that God has a mission for His church in the world, but that God has a church for His mission in the world.

It is not only crucial that we understand that our God has a mission, but equally important is it that we understand that His mission is larger than the church. We in the church often, wrongly, assume that the primary activity of God is in the church, rather than recognizing that God’s primary activity is in the world, and the church is God’s instrument sent into the world to participate in His redemptive mission. Instead of thinking of the church as an entity that simply sends missionaries, we should instead view the church as the missionary. Among other things, this shift in perspective will bring about radical changes in two particular areas.

First, a mission of God perspective will shape our thinking about the form and function of the church.

Typically, churches view missions as simply one program or activity among many other equally important functions of the church. So, the missions “program” is seen alongside other programs such as music, Bible Study, men’s and women’s ministry, youth, and children’s ministry and so on. When missions is viewed in this way, the main business of missions is to determine how to spend the mission budget rather than to view the entire work of the church as an exercise in mission. But, when a church begins to define itself as an agent of God’s mission, it will begin to organize every activity of the church around the mission of God….So, missions as the organizing principle means that missions goes beyond being some sort of optional activity or program for our church.

Actually it is the organizing axis of the church. (missions) The life of the church revolves around it. This is not to say that we do not have worship, develop community, and make disciples, but that these are catalyzed by and organized around the mission function. Only in this way can we be truly missional. Merely adding events or special outreach days to our church schedules will not develop missional people nor make us a missional church.

So to help clarify this issue of God’s Mission as the organizing principle for all other activities of the church, I again say I do not want to minimize the need and importance of the other functions of the church. But I’m simply stating that no other function of the church can rightly be the organizing principle, or the reason we come together in the first place. Worship should not be the reason. Fellowship, what I tend to call community these days, should not be the reason. Even, discipleship and evangelism should not be the reason.

Instead, worship, community, discipleship and evangelism. And every other important activity of the church are properly understood and initiated only when viewed through the lens of mission. And, please hear me, this is my passion in this life, it is what I beg God for, God help me give them the vision you have given me for Your Mission. 

I wish there was a pair of glasses I could buy for you that, would give you the vision God has given me of Worship, and Small Groups and Bibles Study and Discipleship, when seen through Missional Glasses. Without them everything is blurred.

The Second significant shift that occurs with a mission of God perspective deals with our starting point for missional activity.

When we begin to see the church (individually and collectively) as the sent, missionary people of God, we no longer view the church as the jumping-off point when thinking about mission. Instead, we look for God’s activity in our local setting as the place to begin our missional engagement.

Among other things, what this means is that the nature and shape of mission cannot be decided beforehand, but must be discerned in relation to God’s participation in a local context. Instead of front-loading mission plans and strategies with what we think the people in the community need, we begin by listening and learning to what God is already doing. Then, and only then after our discerning what God is doing in our particular setting do we then ask how God wants us to participate with Him.

Our Response

Consider these four D’s of Missional engagement.

Discover-If it is truly God’s Mission and not ours, then we must discover where God is at work.

The first step in discovering what God is doing is through listening. Individually and collectively we must cultivate our ability to listen well on three fronts-to God, the local community, and each other.

It is simply impossible to ascertain the movement of God without carving out significant time to listen to his voice through prayer and scripture as well as the voices of those we desire to serve.

Discern- In addition to listening, participating in God’s mission will involve the very difficult task of discernment. Not only will we need to discern what God is already doing, but we will need to ask the follow up question, In light of our gifts and resources, how does God want me to participate in what he is doing? The fact is we can’t do it all, which is true for both individual followers of Jesus as well as local church members. But it is also true that God has gifted us all to do something! The point of discernment is to determine where and how to participate in God’s mission.

Do-This may seem obvious, but the process of discernment is useless if we do not obey what God is calling us to do. When God prompts us to participate in what he is doing in the lives of others, we must be obedient to respond.

Why is that, because no matter how great our plans for a community might be, it may not be what the community really needs? We can’t assume we know. Instead, we must listen-listen to God and listen to the community. Then we must act.

Debrief- Throughout this process of engaging God’s mission we must create opportunities to reflect on our missional involvement. Sometime this may simply mean individual down time to reflect upon our activities. We may need to ask God to affirm our involvement, or to ask for clarity of direction. But it will also mean we must carve out time to reflect with others in our faith community. We need to hear what others are seeing and sensing concerning God’s activities and to hear the stories of how others are engaging God’s mission. In this way it is important for us to be in the position to offer feedback.

See to participate in the mission of God is to play a personal and vital role in the movement of God’s redemptive mission. Ridgecrest our God is moving us into His missionary adventure.

Cultivating Missional Living - As the Father Has Sent

As The Father Has Sent Me

In the first sermon of this series, we examined the missionary nature of God and the “sentness” of us, His church. Our God is a missionary God who sends a missionary church. We learned the word missional is the adjective used to describe the church as sent, it is a missionary entity. But, this is only half of the story.

I want to make you aware of something known as the “missional-incarnational pulse.” Here the word missional expresses the sending nature of the church, while the incarnational represents the embedding or implanting of the Gospel into a local context. So, in other words, missional speaks to our direction-we are sent, while incarnational is more about how we go.

The Incarnation

The word incarnation comes from a Latin word that literally means “in the flesh.” The Incarnation, refers to the incredible act of love and humility where God took it upon himself to enter into the depths of our world so that the reconciliation between God and humanity may be brought about. The Incarnation is God’s ultimate missional participation in creation. (John 3:16-17) When God entered into our world in and through the person of Jesus, He came to live among us. John 1:14 …The Word became flesh and dwelt among us….Might I offer you an alternative translation…The Word became flesh and blood just like us, and then moved into the neighborhood.

Incarnational Living

The Incarnation not only qualifies God’s acts in the world, but must also qualifies ours. Hear this, If God’s central way of reaching the world was to incarnate himself in Jesus, then our way of reaching the world should likewise be incarnational. Now let me just say that “The Incarnation” was a unique historical and theological event. There is absolutely no doubt that “The Incarnation” of Jesus was a special, unrepeatable event. And to be clear as we enter the world of others, we most certainly cannot take on another’s identity in the fully integrated way that Jesus did. But we most certainly can make a distinction between “The Incarnation” and incarnational ministry, the asking of believers to model their lives after the life of Jesus.

The Apostles did. They insisted that Jesus is to be the model for Christian living.

1 Peter 2:21 for to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in His footsteps.

1 Corinthians 11:1 be imitators of me, (Follow my example) as I am of Christ, (as I follow Christ)

Peter makes clear that Jesus’ life is to be our example. And Paul states simply that we can follow his way of life because he is so closely following the way of Jesus.

Paul makes this point even more strongly in the letter to the Philippians. In Chapter 2 he tells us that our attitude should be the same as that of our Lord’s.

Phil. 2:5-7.

It is often assumed that this passage commends Jesus’ humility, which absolutely is clear in this text. But Jesus’ humility is commended insofar as it is expressed in his giving up of his identity as God, and of his divinity)

So first, to follow Jesus’ example means that we should share his profound humble identification with sinful humankind (v. 7b-8a) being born in the likeness of man, taking on the form of a servant, and being found in human form….

Second, those of us who wish to emulate Jesus should be aware of His equally humble willingness to empty himself and make himself nothing for the sake of God’s redemptive purposes (v. 6-7a) …who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant…For us to embrace an incarnational ministry, we must then be willing to relinquish our own desire and interest in the service of others.

      So this speaks to two very important ideas related to incarnational ministry-the concepts of “proximity” and “presence”

Proximity

Incarnational ministry must involve living in close proximity with others. We cannot demonstrate Christlikeness at a distance from those whom we feel called to serve. So, just as Jesus took on flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood, we must do likewise. This for some requires moving geographically to be closer to those whom God has sent them. But at the very least, it demands that we create time and space to be directly and actively involved in the lives of the people we are seeking to reach.  (God entered into Time and Space and for 33 years Time and Space were constant for God, He got involved in a very real way, with the lives of those He created)

Presence

The Concept of presence moves beyond mere proximity to identification and surrender. Jesus identified with and advocated for those he was called to. As Paul says, He humbled himself. He literally emptied himself for the sake of others. This realization suggests an incarnational approach that calls us to relational identification with our neighbors that will lead to tangible acts of love and sacrifice.

It is helpful to recognize that Jesus’ words from John 20:21, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you,” are most often used to emphasis the sending of the disciples, and subsequently the church. But we must not neglect the first half of the passage. Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me.” The word translated as (Or in some cases just as) means “like” or in a similar manner.” In other words, we need to be sent “like” Jesus was sent. ….To whom, and in what manner was Jesus sent?....He was sent to the down and outers of society. ….He was with and for tax collectors, the oppressed, the poor, the diseased. Again, taking Jesus as our example, we are called to do “Likewise.”

In my life the concept of incarnational witness has always been relegated as a way of expounding on the character of Missions, specifically in the vocation or calling of being a missionary. And I accepted that because I lived much of my life with this idea that some are called to be missionaries. But hear me, in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God revealed himself as the One who is with and for his creation. And now, as the Risen Lord sends His Spirit to empower His church, I see that we, the church, not just some who are called to missions, but we the church, are called to become God’s People. People who are present, to have a presence, in the world, with and for the world. Like John the Baptist, pointing always to Jesus.

Incarnational witness is then, a way of describing not some calling. It is instead a way of describing Christianity in terms of Jesus Christ as the messenger, the message and the model for all, all, who follow Him. So, for us to speak of the incarnation missionally is then to link who Jesus was, what Jesus did, and how he did it, in one single great event that defines all that it means to be Christian.

Our Response

So, what does all this talk of identification, proximity, and presence have to do with our daily living?

Well I know you might get tired of me saying this, but it is all about relationships. It is about getting close enough to people to listen. Getting close enough to understand their hopes and dreams. And close enough to actually like and love them as individuals.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus was a friend of sinners…..a friend of sinners. What constitutes friendship? That is a good question. I do not have time to answer it. But let me just say. When a person invites you to meet and spend time with their friends, you can assume that that is what a friend is. A person whom you spend time with. There was a sense of quirky holiness about Jesus that drew people to him. It has been said that people who were not Like Jesus, liked him. ….So, as followers of Jesus, shouldn’t that also be true of us? Well, this will not happen in our life without our living among people.

So ? what is it going to take for us to incarnate the life of Jesus in our neighborhood? What is it going to take for us to really move into our neighborhood, maybe, for the very first time?

When I talked last year about our mission here at Ridgecrest and have shared on several occasions with individuals. I spoke about the DNA of who we are in Christ. I asked what should that be, I answered well a couple of things it should be is lovers and blessers of other people.

And From the very beginning, God’s way of reaching and restoring the world has always been through a blessing strategy…so how do we in a very practical way that’s theologically grounded explain to people how they could bless people in places they are incarnating?

B- Begin with prayer. We want to ask, ‘God’ how do you want me to bless the people in the places you’ve sent me to?’

L- Listen. Don’t talk, but listen to people, their struggles, their pains, in the places God sends you.

E- Eat. You can’t just check this off. It’s not quick. You have to have a meal with people or a cup of coffee. It builds relationships.

S- Serve. If you listen with people and you eat with people they will tell you how to love them and you’ll know how to serve them.

S- Story. When the time is right, we talk and we share the story of how Jesus changed our life.

Genesis 12:2-3 says, “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. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Look for the complete Sermon at rcbcdallas.org

LTGs are for people who love Jesus and seriously want to move forward in repentance, faith, and joyful obedience.

   For several years now, since learning about an incredible discipleship tool from Neil Cole, I have praised the effectiveness of Life Transformation Groups. I have never discovered a better method for implanting the DNA of Jesus within new disciples. But recently I have gotten only resistance when trying to pass on this method.Then I read this today in a post by a Pastor at Austin Stone....  I'm thankful; for the affirmation and validation.

Going Deep

“Where do we go deep?”

This is a common question when we start describing the MC practices. Most American Christians are used to weeknight Bible studies being the place where we try to dive deeply into the Bible together. There are a few serious limitations to this practice:

It’s easy to let this be our only time of Bible study and even allow others to do our Bible-thinking for us. We become overly dependent rather than becoming self-feeders in God’s Word.

In large groups, studying the Bible often feels like you've obeyed it. Knowledge is not necessarily obedience, however, and we need specific accountability to help our hands obey what our head and hearts know.

The group is too large for intimate confession and correction.

There isn't enough time to cover everything each person needs to hear and say.

The Bible, our personal holiness, and our mission are critically important and deserve much more attention. LTGs are where we go deep, raising the bar of personally following Jesus.

What is an LTG?

LTGs are simple. There are only three parts to remember:

Hear & Obey – Everyone shares what they have heard from God in the 15-30 chapters of Scripture we agreed to read together over the past week and how they obeyed.  We suggest using the REAP (Read, Examine, Apply, Pray) reading plan.

Repent & Believe – We each repent of our sin, sharing how you have sinned against God this past week. Don’t forget to spend time speaking out loud, to yourself and to one another, the good news of Jesus’ work for us; this enables us to believe.

Pray for Unbelievers – Talk about how you've been praying for your unbelieving friends and mention them by name. Explain your plan to weave them into your community.

Thinking Practically

LTGs are simple, but they’re also hard. They take discipline. LTGs are for people who love Jesus and seriously want to move forward in repentance, faith, and joyful obedience.

Keep the group size small for intimacy and time - two or three people of the same gender. Once it grows past three, you multiply. You should be able to finish your meeting within an hour or so. LTGs need to meet separately from your MC’s family meeting. As LTGs are taking off in many Missional Communities, we've found that our love for the gospel grows, and our obedience to Jesus in mission grows as well.

Capturing a Missionary Vision

Cultivating Missional Living

Sermon 1 Capturing a Missionary Vision April 6^th, 2014

Isaiah 6:1-8, Isa. 61:1-2, Luke 4:18-19, John 20:21

When we hear the word missionary; what thought comes to mind? I use to think of people going into the jungles, Indiana Jones style and fighting lions and tigers to save people for Jesus. I thought of the lost as people in the jungles of Africa or the Amazon basin of South America. ...Well, in the dictionary for “missionary” it says it is a person undertaking or sent on a mission. Well that’s not very helpful, obvious but still not very defining. So then we look up mission and it says something like…the act of sending or being sent.

And this I think is very helpful. It is in fact very insightful. The idea of mission can relate to either sending or being sent. The problem for the church with this definition is that we tend to focus almost exclusively on the idea of sending rather than being sent. We tend to think primarily of sending and supporting missionaries in faraway places rather than seeing ourselves, both individually and collectively, as being sent. This reality leads us to the first essential that must strengthen and support all of our missional activity….the understanding that God by His very nature is a missionary God, and we as the church, are His missionary people.

The Missionary Nature of our God

Mission is the grand narrative of God’s Word. The entire Bible is generated by and is about God’s mission. The word mission comes from the Latin word ‘missio” meaning sending. It is the central Biblical theme describing God’s activity throughout history to restore and heal the creation. And while it is often over-looked, God’s word is full of sending language that speaks to the missionary nature of our God.

From the sending of Abram in Genesis 12 the sending of His angel in Revelation 22, there are hundreds of examples of God as a sending God. But, perhaps the most dramatic illustration of sending in the Old Testament is found in Isaiah 6. ….In this passage, we catch a glimpse of God’s sending nature. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” Is 6:8.

Later in the book of Isiah there is a passage that is fascinating. It is where the prophet recognizes that God’s Spirit has anointed him to “proclaim good news to the poor” and “sent him to bind up the brokenhearted” (61:1).  In the larger passage of Isaiah 61:1-3 it is interesting to note that there are no fewer than six redemptive deeds that proceed from or are dependent on the verb “sent” or the phrase “he has sent me.” To emphasis the centrality of the sending theme, the passage could be rendered this way:

He has sent me, to bind up the brokenhearted;

He has sent me, to proclaim freedom for the captives;

He has sent me, to release from darkness the prisoners

He has sent me, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God;

He has sent me, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion;

He has sent me, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair. (61:1-3)

If this passage is familiar it may be because Jesus applies it to His own ministry in Luke 4:18-19 as He claims to be the fleshly embodiment of Isaiah 61:1-2. It becomes, in a sense, the closest thing to a personal mission statement for Jesus.

As we move through the New Testament, sending language is found throughout the Gospels, the book of Acts, and each of the Epistles. However, the most comprehensive collection of sending language is found in the Gospel of John, where the words “send’ or “sent” are used almost sixty times. The majority of uses refer to the title of God as “one who sends” and of Jesus as the “one who is sent”.

In the final climatic sending passage of John’s Gospel, Jesus makes clear that He is not only sent by His Father, but now He is the sender, John 20:21, As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”

With this statement, Jesus is doing much more than drawing a vague parallel between his mission and ours. Deliberately and precisely he is making his mission the model for ours, saying “As the father has sent me, I am sending you.” So, our understanding of the church’s mission must flow from our understanding of Jesus’ mission.

The Missionary Nature of the Church

So, the purpose of this brief survey of sending language is not merely to emphasize the missionary nature of our God, but to highlight the importance of understanding the church as a sent missionary entity. God is a missionary God who sends a missionary church. This is why the word “missional” when properly applied is helpful. The word is simply the adjective form of the noun “missionary.” It is used to describe the church as those who operate as missionaries in their local context. So, at the core of the missional conversation is the idea that a “genuine missional impulse is a sending rather than an attraction one. ..In other words, we should be sending people of the church out among the people of the world rather than attempting to attract people of the world in among the people of the church. This is so helpful because most people do not think of the church in sending, missionary terms.

Let me offer to you 3 ways is seems people view the nature of the church in our day. First comes from our heritage in having been birthed out of the Protestant Reformation. We have inherited a particular view of church that emphasizes:

the proper preaching of the Word,

the proper administration of church ordinances,

and proper church discipline.

This view tends to give us the impression that the church is a place where things happen at. So the church is thought of as a place a person goes to, to hear the Bible taught, to participate in the Lords Supper and baptism, and in some cases, though rare today, to experience church discipline.

    A second view is our Contemporary Variation on the first. While we are not far removed from this first view as a place where certain things happen, a more accurate description of the way people view the church today would be as a vendor of religious goods and services. Members are viewed more as customers for whom the religious goods and services are produced. Churchgoers expect the church to provide them with a range of services. These might include great worship music, dynamic children’s programs, small groups, seminars on parenting and marriage, and so on.

     One of the major problems with both of the first two is that the church is seen as an institution that exists for the benefit of its members.

A third view of the nature of church we might call the “Missionary Vision of the Church”… a body of people sent on a mission. Central to this view is understanding the church as a people called and sent by God, to participate in His mission for the world. The church still gathers together, but the difference is that we don’t gather for our own sake, but instead for the sake of others, or…better yet, for the sake of God’s mission. We come together as a collective body of believers to be equipped through prayer, worship, and the preaching of and study of God’s Word in order to be sent.

So why does all this matter:

Well for one reason, consider the concept of cultural distance. What is cultural distance; it is how far a person in our neighborhoods and communities is from a meaningful engagement with the Gospel of the Kingdom.

Let me explain. Our cities have changed so much in the past few years culturally.  And there are four distinct levels; we might say barriers to engagement with our community.

Level 1- Contains those with some concept of Christianity who also speak the same language, have similar interests, most likely share the same nationality. And are from a similar class grouping as us and our church. Most of our friends would probably fit into this group.

Level 2- Contains the average non-Christian in our context. A person who has little real awareness of, or interest in, Christianity and is somewhat suspicious of the church. This category might also include those previously offended by a bad experience with church or Christians. We call them de-churched.  We encounter these people every day in our extended relationships, school, work, the park or mall….

Level 3- contains people who have absolutely no idea about Christianity. Or they might be part of a fringe subculture or ethnic group with another religious impulse. We might include those marginalized by Christianity, the gay community, drug abusers and alcoholics, ex-inmates from prisons or even people with mental disorders. This would also include people with an agnostic approach to Christianity. (I do not believe personally in God, but admit He might exist.)

Level 4- contains ethnic and religious groups with a bad history of the church. Muslims and Jews. The fact that they are even here in the west, might help reduce the distance between us and them and sharing the Gospel. But just about everything else gets in the way of a meaningful conversation about Jesus.

Why this matters is that our church has operated almost exclusively in the first level. And doing church the attractional way where we do things to get them to come to us works pretty good at the first level.  Although churches around are operating at this level so it becomes more about who is the most attractive church.

But the population in Dallas Texas is increasingly defined by descriptions of those in the level 2, 3, and 4 category. So, more and more people who call Dallas home find themselves further and further away from the influence of our church.

This means that if we remain in our attractional posture, those outside the church, and outside our reach, will have to do the cross-cultural work to find Jesus. What? ….What I’m saying is that those who are far away from God are being asked to become like missionaries and cross over the cultural barriers to come to us. We are asking lost and de-churched people to become missional when we are the sent ones.

It would be like Isaiah answering back to God, don’t worry, if we wait long enough those disobedient Israelites will see their own way back to you God.

But I believe this is a pivotal moment Ridgecrest, a moment when we as followers of Christ will rediscover the heart God gave us for himself, one that loves our neighbors and communities. One that longs for the journey of Going, as the church, instead of just coming to the church!

Complete Sermon Video

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDWTjOK24Es

World Missions a foretaste for this Sunday,

What is the Purpose, the Promise, and the Price of World Missions. The purpose of world missions is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God into people groups where there is no indigenous, evangelizing church. This assumes something about "disciples" and something about "nations." These terms are used in Matthew 28:19, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations."  My assumption about "disciples" is that they are people who have seen "the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6), and who cherish "God in Christ" as the supreme value of their lives (Philippians 3:8). My assumption about "nations" is that they are not geographic, political countries but "tribes, languages, peoples and ethnic groups" (Revelation 5:9; 7:9). Based on these two assumptions, then, the purpose of world missions is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God into people groups where there is no indigenous, evangelizing church.

   According to one research group are still over 500 peoples in the world with populations over 10,000 which did not have any church planting missionary effort in them. All but less than 200 of these peoples are targeted by mission agencies. This is remarkable progress toward finishing the real missionary task of the church.

   But the real source of hope in world missions is not the statistics of man; it's the promise of God. Namely, Matthew 24:14 - "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations." The "shalls" of God are backed by omnipotence. This great work of spreading a passion for God into people groups where there is no indigenous, evangelizing church cannot fail. This is the great hope of the missions enterprise. The word of God will not fail.

    But the price will be very high. Not so high that it is not worth it. But very high. Jesus expresses it in Matthew 24:9: "You will be hated by all the nations because of My name." The purpose and the promise will not happen without the price of opposition and suffering. In fact, the price is not just the result but the strategy of the purpose. God has a certain number of martyrs appointed (Revelation 6:11). Jesus said that when you are arrested and taken before governors, "this will be a time for you to bear testimony" (Luke 21:13). The purpose, the promise and the price are all bound together.

    Notice the phrase, Matthew 24:14 "all the nations,"…. in the purpose, the promise and the price? "Make disciples of all the nations." The Purpose

"This gospel . . . shall be preached . . . to all the nations." The Promise. "You will be hated by all the nations." The Price. I call all of you with the writer of Hebrews 13:13 (again!) to "go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach."….. What will this mean for you?

   I do not know, but it will have to do with "all the nations."

Pastor Greg