July 10 Sermon

Below is the text for my first ever sermon. Enjoy!

Living a Missional Lifestyle
Sharing the Gospel in Your Culture
John 10:10-10-16


Two Sundays ago, Pastor Jerry launched a series speaking on missions. In the past couple of sermons, we have dealt with everything from being called to be a missionary, to living a lifetime of missional living, to giving and supporting others who have sensed the missional calling on their lives. What I want to do this morning is to help you become a missionary, not overseas only, but in everyday life. As seen from so many scriptures in the New Testament, we are going to talk about this morning, the urgent calling on our lives to share the gospel in our culture. When we understand God’s heart for His glory and the joy of His people across every tribe, tongue, and nation, we will start to see the urgency on our lives to proclaim the Gospel. And in fact, we know that the word nations in the Greek (ethna) isn’t referring to groups of people bound by political and geographical boundaries; what it is talking about is cultures. How beautiful is it that God has called not just people from the North Eastern Culture or the Filipino Culture or the Southern Bible Belt culture, but he has called men, women, students, and children, from every culture. So let’s go to the text and read about what I’m talking about.

Read John 10:10-16.

This passage may sum up the mission Christ came to this earth to accomplish more than any other in the Word of God. What we are going to do this morning is walk through this text, and draw from it, how it is that we share the gospel in our cultures. So let’s pray and ask God to do mighty things this morning and that we would be doers of His word.

Pray

If we want to share this gospel we are talking about the first thing we are going to have to do is to live the gospel. The word gospel is literally translated good news. So what is the good news? Simply this. Let’s read verse 10:

“The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come that they might have life. And have it abundantly.”

This is a huge verse. You might find this verse on more Christian tee-shirts, coffee cups, I mean, come on--we put this verse on our church van. So obviously we not only believe it, we are living an abundant life in everything we do, right? I mean Christ came for that purpose according to verse 10, so why do we struggle so much with this. We claim this verse, memorize it, display it, teach this verse to our children, but we fail to really walk in this verse. I mean this next statement with all my heart. If we are sharing the Christ Jesus the way, the truth, and the life, and our lives look no different from anybody else’s except maybe we don’t drink, smoke, or cuss, what part of that does the world want. A basic response from a conversation with someone who needs Jesus would look something like this: “So you’re telling me that I can’t get drunk, I can’t do drugs, I can’t have sex with whomever I want, in fact I can’t do anything that brings me pleasure, and yet your life is just as screwed up as mine. And you want me to believe in Jesus? No Thanks.” And I think that many of you have been taught your whole life that being a Christian is about delayed gratification. This concept of delayed gratification is not necessarily a bad thing, but from this verse, we know that Jesus came not to give us a terrible life now a home in heaven. He came so that we may live abundantly! And so you would probably say to this person something to this effect, “yeah, but you get to go to heaven.” Please don’t miss hear me…If that was all Christ promised, it would be so, so, so, much unfathomably more than enough. But I believe passionately, that He has promised us so much more. Do you believe me? Let’s look. If you have your bible, turn with me to the book of Jeremiah, chapter 2, verse 13.

“For my people have committed two evils, they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters. And they have built for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns that can hold no water.

So what we have here is God proclaiming to Jeremiah the sin of Judah. That they have turned from the Author of Life, the only one who can give anything that truly satisfies, and they built for themselves idols ands gods who don’t give any pleasure. Isn’t this the story of the Old Testament? A group people chosen by God to follow Him; this goes good for a while, but then they turn and worship idols—golden cows on the foothills of Mt. Herod, Baal, Asherah, and many other gods. But this was 3000 years ago and this spirit is dead in Christianity, right? I don’t think so. And so how does this manifest itself in the 21st century. Here’s one example. Last year in the United States, the pornography industry made more money than all four professional sports combined. I mean is that unbelievable or what? That blows my mind. What does that say? I think it means that a lot of men and women are digging and digging, it’s good for a while, but what are they finding? Just sand, the water that was so good is now just sand. What is the fundamental difference between God and gods in Jeremiah 2? This—God is a fountain, a well, a spring that never stops, is always flowing, always bringing life, and always pure. What is a cistern? A cistern is a reservoir, a holding tank, something that man digs, and it is meant as a temporary holding place for water. God refers to all others that the Jews placed their hope in as broken cisterns that can hold no water. Isn’t that awesome? That God is actively seeking worshippers and giving them the thing that they are most looking for: pleasure. I think this is so different from how many of us view Jesus. We see Him as not as the Giver of joy, but the taker of everything that previously gave us joy and pleasure. However, if we are not living a lifestyle that is constantly being filled with the living waters of Christ Jesus, and full of joy, what is going to stop them from digging? Nothing. And I think that maybe even a lot of us are digging in some area, and we know that it’s not satisfying us. I just want to contend to you this morning, that if you are not living the gospel you preach, your words are impotent. If you are not dwelling in the infinite abundant life of Christ, but digging a cistern that the thief has told you is better, or if you are not drawing from the well, but trying to adhere to a strict moral code, two things are going to happen: you are going to find this life very frustrating, and you are going to fail in engaging your culture.
This brings me to my next point. So lets go back to the text. John 10:11-14
“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
The second point, the second thing we must do in order to share the gospel is to Follow Jesus. And live by the example that He set. Acts 17:26 says this:

“And He (referring to God) made from one man, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation.”

According to this passage, not only has God created all men, but he has appointed where each one is to live. In fact, Ephesians 2:10 tells us that we are created by God to do good works which He prepared for us in advance. In God’s perfect foreknowledge, He created us, set us apart as His child, and gave us a mission. And what’s the mission. Simply, let’s look up to our brother, our coheir, Jesus. We see here that He defines a missional lifestyle. He came to this earth to accomplish a mission. We have seen this in John 10, now let’s look at another passage in John 6:35-40.

Read John 6:35-40

It’s clear that Jesus came to this earth to accomplish a purpose, to rescue His own, right? And we have a mission too. To make disciples--simply to lead people to the saving grace of Jesus Christ. To live lives that point to our beautiful King in everything we do and say. Let’s look at another familiar passage of scripture. It’s found in 1 peter 3:15.

“Set apart Christ Jesus as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you.”
Man, I don’t understand why so many Christians have watered this verse down to use as combat for arguing atheists on the existence of God. That’s not what its talking about is it? No. It’s talking about non Christians being baffled and dumbfounded by the hope that those who are partaking in the Life of Christ experience. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, do not leave here thinking you have the okay to not proclaim the gospel with your mouth. You do! But what I am saying to you this morning is that if you are living a life so filled with Christ and so full of joy even in the worst of circumstances, people are going to ask. And that’s when: you profess the reason for the hope that’s in you. That’s what this verse is telling us. So if we are to share the gospel in our culture, not only do we have to live the gospel, we have to follow Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God. If we had time, I could take you to so many places in the Old and New Testament where men and women of God are losing everything, getting beaten, being killed, dying of hunger, thirst, seeing their families taken and they still to cling to the Joy of knowing Christ and making Him known. And when that happens, the Gospel is no longer a spark, but it spreads like wildfire, consuming everything in its path. And its beautiful.
Alright, so looks look at one more thing, and we are done. To share the gospel in your culture, you must engage the culture. Engaging the culture means stepping out of your comfort zone of BCI and meeting, building relationships, and sharing Christ with those that need Him but would never step foot in the door of a church. So how do we do that? Let’s read the last verse of our scripture this morning and see what Jesus is telling us.

Verse 16 says, “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice, and they will become one flock with one shepherd.

This is one of the first references in His ministry that Jesus Christ makes to the global calling of the Gospel. If you remember, he tells his disciples in Matthew 10, to only go to the lost sheep of Israel. But here in John 10, Jesus is hinting at the proclamation He will make at the end of His time on earth, what we know as the Great Commission.

So how does this verse get accomplished? Lets look one of the last things that Jesus said before the crucifixion. Its found in John 17, and it’s a prayer, not only for Himself, but an intercession for His disciples, as well as for us. Lets go there, John 17: verse:15-18.

Ok, if you haven’t listened to anything I have said today, hear me out on this and will done. According to this passage, it was never the intention of God for His children, His sheep to form for themselves an entirely different, set apart sub-culture; rather, it is His desire that we engage the culture that He has placed us in. Going back to John 10:16, Jesus tells us that He has other sheep not of this fold. In fact every fold, every culture, contains Jesus’ sheep. So answer this, if we are not actively engaging our culture, and instead we are forming a culture for ourselves complete, how are the sheep lost in the culture going to hear His voice. They’re not. Cultures are dangerous, are they not. In fact, Jesus told his disciples he was sending them out as sheep among wolves. How dangerous is living a missional lifestyle that engages culture? Usually when you put a sheep in the middle of a bunch of wolves, it doesn’t go well for the sheep. So how do we not get eaten in engaging culture? Christ prays for us. He prays that we will be protected from the evil one. In fact, Romans 8 tells us that He is actively interceding on our behalf. Isn’t that cool? That we can be the voice of Christ and that others will hear that voice and follow Christ. When we live a life that is full of the abundant life Jesus came to give us, when we follow Jesus and the example He gave for us during His time on earth, and when we go out from our comfortable pew in BCI and seek the lost sheep in our folds, we are truly living a missional lifestyle, and I don’t know of a greater calling. Let’s pray.