Mission: The Danger of Mission Drift - Part 2

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Let's pray together.

Lord, we believe that you've come to do that today, to speak to us in a language that we understand through the Bible.

You speak loudest and most clear through your written, revealed word of God.

This is not the thoughts of men.

The Bible says of itself that men spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

The Bible also says that all scripture is divinely inspired.

It's God breathed.

It's breathed, literally, it's breathed out by God.

So we're not reading a book that men came up with.

We're reading a book that God inspired.

That God kind of says, This is this is my heart.

I want you to understand me.

And I want you to understand you in light of me.

And so we don't trifle with the Bible this morning.

We have we're like scarecrows coming to a bonfire.

This could burn us down today.

And that would be great because Jesus, you said that if you lose your life, you find it.

The problem with most of us in this room is not that our marriage is hard, we don't have enough money, our kids are not obedient enough.

The problem for many of us is we've never lost our life.

And so may we get close enough to the burning white, hot center of the truth of the Bible so it melts all the unnecessary in our life.

So we can lose our life like the Bible talks about.

Now, Lord, I want to do what the what the what the great hymn said earlier when it said, shout it brightly through the gloom.

I have not come to shout this morning, but I've come to be clear and to be passionate about what the Bible says.

It is our privilege to be who the Bible says we are.

We are not perfect people, but flawed, forgiving people who live lives of mission.

Talk to us about that this morning, God.

We ask that in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you have a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up if you would to Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row.

I'm on page 835.

Now, I was with you two weeks ago, and then I went on vacation.

My friend Chad preached last week.

Chad uh Cunningham is a member of our church.

Uh he is uh he works at Houston Baptist University, and so I appreciate Chad filling in for me.

But uh I I I did just half the sermon two weeks ago, I want to finish the second half because we're talking about the danger of mission drift.

The danger of mission drift.

We're talking uh, we have four core values as a church.

If you're new to our church or you're this is your first or second time, let me just remind you there's four things that we really value as a church.

That's the gospel, community, mission, and blessing.

And we've been kind of walking through gospel in June, community in July, and this month we're just talking about mission.

Mission is about being intentional.

You hear more about that.

And then next Sunday I'll talk about the practicality of mission.

The practicality of mission, because it's not this ethereal kind of out there thing.

It's very down-to-earth, as you'll see uh next week.

But I want to finish this morning uh talking about the danger of mission drift because read in Matthew chapter 28, this is kind of summarizes all that Matthew's gospel says.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Okay, right here in about three or four sentences, Jesus kind of boils it down and says, here is what it's all about, men and women.

Here is what if you're gonna if you're gonna focus on anything, it's kind of when you're in college and the professor's lecturing, there's always the guy that would raise his hand and say, Is this gonna be on the test?

Jesus is saying, Yeah, this is gonna be on the test.

You might want to get your head around this.

And and and I said last time that the that the Great Commission, as this is known, is basically it breaks down three parts teach, baptize, and teach.

And Jesus says in Matthew's gospel, well, let me just read in Matthew chapter 28, verse 16.

Matthew 28:16

He says this.

Now Jesus has lived a sinless life.

He died on the cross, he's now risen from the dead after three days, just like he said he was.

He appears to his disciples, he's getting ready to go back into heaven.

So we're between the resurrection and the ascension, him going back into heaven.

And Jesus says this.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which he had directed them.

And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.

And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

I just want to dig in in verse 19.

He says, Go therefore and make disciples.

That word make disciples is in in the Greek, it's the word teach.

The way you make disciples, the way you peep people, we don't go try to save people.

Jesus does that.

Well, we we know the story, as we'll talk about next week.

And we kind of tell the story.

We tell the truth.

That's what we said teach.

You you you you teach the the truths of Christianity.

Now, let me just kind of say this by way of reminder.

Every once in a while, I say things in a sermon that people do not agree with.

I know it's shocking.

I know.

I know.

Uh and and last time I preached was one of those times because remember, I put up the thing, the ten steps, and said the order of salvation.

It starts off with election, it goes all the way through glorification, regeneration, repentance, and someone came to me.

And by the way, I don't mind if you don't agree with me.

I'm not put off by that.

You should never listen to me or anybody teach from the Bible without questioning, about saying, hey, well, now does this line up with the Bible?

We welcome that, okay?

So don't think, oh, you just gotta sit and take.

No, this person came up, and it's a it's a lady that attends this church that I love, great lady, and she said, I just I just don't believe uh uh all that.

And and and I just said, Well, just stay with me.

I said, and by the way, she's like, when are you gonna teach this class?

Because I want to come to the class.

I got lots of questions, and I'm like, I can't wait for that.

But anyway, uh in the spring, on a Wednesday night, I will teach the order of salvation's 10 steps, and we'll just take one each night.

We'll kind of walk through it.

You'll be able to ask all the questions that you want.

Uh but let me just say this, just by way of summary, and I've tried to say this to I said, missions is just a means to an end.

Mission is not the goal of the Christian life.

Because if you read in Revelation chapter 7, they're around the throne.

Revelation 7 · chapter mention

This multitude of all nations, all kindreds, all tribes, all tongues, all people are around the throne.

That means that God, that means that God is saving people in Iraq right now.

You know that, right?

I mean, you Saeed Abedini is not in prison for no reason.

He is preaching the gospel there.

He's being severely beaten, he's being persecuted.

We found out last week that some ISIS prisoners are in the prison he's in, and they've kind of said, Oh, yeah, we've heard about you.

We're gonna kill you.

So there's bigger problems than the line is too the drive-thru line is too long at Starbucks.

That's a first world problem.

Just want to say that.

Uh and and and and and but God is saving people, okay?

And you see in Revelation chapter 7, there's this picture around the throne of this thriving mass of humanity from all over the world, and they are singing, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.

Revelation 7 · chapter mention

And you say, What do you mean?

See, in Revelation, when all this mission comes to an end, by the way, this is the only life where you and I get to be on mission.

Because there will be no need to be on mission in heaven, because it will be a gathering of the redeemed from all over the world.

So you better get busy being on mission while you still got time.

You say, Well, what do you mean?

Because it becomes clear when you read the Bible that missions is a mean to a means to an end, and the end being the total focus on the worship and the glory of God.

Well, this sometimes people ask me questions and I start talking and they get frustrated because they think, you're not answering my question.

And that happened two weeks ago.

This lady's like, what's this got to do with my question?

And I said, Your question, I'm getting to your question.

I said, You disagree with what the Bible teaches because deep inside you want to be worshiped.

And clearly she didn't want to hear that.

I thought that would like make it all clear for her.

It didn't.

She said to me, and I quote, You are so frustrating.

I wish sometimes I could hit you.

Standing right here.

And I said, You think you're the first woman that's ever said that to me?

I live with a woman who thinks that probably two times a week.

And I said, But hey, I'm I'm I'm not trying to win a theological argument.

I just say the goal of all of this is to worship of Jesus.

That's where this all ends.

And so the reason we go make disciples, the reason we teach, you can't teach something you don't know and don't believe.

Okay?

How many times have you found yourself in a situation where you're having a spiritual conversation and you wish, I wish I knew what to say right now?

That's because you don't know the story.

And I'm not getting on to you.

It's like when Tom, by the way, and and and I I that was Tom Allen that read scripture earlier.

You've heard me say this before.

The best part of this place is the people.

You ever heard me say that?

Tom and his wife Mary are some of the kind of people I'm talking about.

If you don't know them, you should introduce yourself to them.

And just ask them.

Tell them what you've been through in life.

And then you'll just look at me next Sunday and be like, you shut up.

We don't want you, we want that man to talk.

We want his wife to talk.

They're just a great reminder.

I'm just saying, don't miss.

That's what I mean when I say the best part of this place is the people.

So we did teach, and today I want to do baptize and teach, because that's a great commission.

We teach what's necessary for people to come into a relationship with God.

They get baptized, and then we teach them to obey.

Okay?

And let me just kind of give you, I want to pick up the danger of mission drift.

I want to give you three introductory thoughts.

Number one is simply this unless you have a proper definition of mission, then you'll succeed at a lot of things that are less than mission.

Unless we have a proper definition of mission, we'll succeed at a lot of things that are less than mission.

So it behooves us to ask the question, then, what's the mission?

And here, this was scrolling earlier on the screen, I don't know if you saw it, but the mission of the church is to go into the world and make disciples by declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit and gathering these disciples into churches that they might worship and obey Jesus Christ now and in eternity to the glory of God the Father.

That's the mission of the church.

It's why we do what we do.

The mission of the church is not to win elections.

This is a pregnant pause.

This is me looking at you, saying, Stop sending me your political emails.

I'm all for politics.

I'm all for vote.

Get off your blessed assurance and vote.

But let's don't shrink the mission of the church down to getting good godly politicians elected, because I'm not sure there's as many of those as you might think.

Get you some of that.

Secondly, mission is not thinking in terms of addition, but intentionality.

It's a big word.

As my oldest will say, Oh, dad, SAT word.

I never took the SAT.

Anyway, uh what do I mean?

Mission is not thinking in terms of addition, but intentionality.

Relax.

I don't want you to come to church today and think, great, does he not know that school's starting?

I got enough to do.

I'm not asking you to do more.

I'm asking you to just how many of y'all this past week you had conversations with people?

Could I see your hands?

Just about anything.

Okay, put your hands down.

How many of this past week were around people?

Okay, it's all you gotta do.

The life you're living and the rhythm of your life already is one of mission.

You don't have to add anything to it.

You just gotta be intentional with the life you're currently living, okay?

I was around people, we were on family vacation this week and this past week, and and and we were there, we went to and stayed with some friends, and it one morning I was drinking coffee, and the lady said to me, Is this restful for you?

And I said, Not really.

And then I was at the fork of the road where I do I tell the truth or do I lie?

And I said, I love my children, but when I go on vacation with them, it's not restful.

It's like a four-day errand.

Now, some of y'all are like, What a weasel! Remember when your kids were like, hey dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad.

I got complain.

I'm their dad.

I want them to come to me.

My my youngest came to me last night and was like, Dad, you think we could go to Ikea tomorrow after church?

What?

What?

Because what I heard was, Dad, you want to walk through a corn maze made of furniture?

And they think they're helping you by saying, follow the arrows.

We could be walking to hell right now.

I don't know where these arrows go.

But I'll go home and eat lunch, take a nap, and then I'll go to IKEA.

Which, by the way, is like way down out of 10.

Yeah.

Is that a complaint?

I'm their dad.

That's what I do, okay?

Men stop crying about being asked to be the dad of your kids, alright?

So it's just, I gotta be intentional.

It's not taking on more stuff, it's just being aware with the stuff you already have, with the life and the rhythm you already have.

Thirdly and finally, mission requires motivation.

I told you about my vacation because I didn't want to come back.

I want to send my wife and kids back and stay for about another week all by myself.

Mission requires motivation.

So I motivated myself with these thoughts.

I wrote these things down this week.

Number one, you don't have to write these down, just hear them because I want to motivate you.

Number one, there's something worse than death.

And until you embrace that, you won't start living.

Because if you live in fear of dying, your whole life is going to be about not getting hurt, not falling and skinning your knee, and hey, let your kids fall and get hurt, and then say, hey, that's a price of adventure.

Get up, let's go.

Stop babying your kids.

There's something worse than death.

Secondly, there's something better than personal prosperity.

There's something better than having a lot of money in the bank and a nice car and a nice house.

And by the way, nothing wrong with any of that.

Nothing wrong with having a lot of money.

If you're sitting here this morning, you're a millionaire, glory to God.

I'm not gonna hit you up for a donation.

Stop feeling bad, like, oh, I did something.

No, hey, if you're good at what you do, God says, and you do it God's way, He says He's gonna prosper, He's gonna bless you.

But there's something bigger and better than just that.

That's not enough.

Thirdly, there is not, nor will there ever be anything better than heaven.

I just think we've lost sight of it.

Now, I'm writing this sitting on the second story porch or it's uh of a house of friends of ours.

It's 59 degrees in the morning.

And my wife's bringing me coffee every 20 minutes.

And I'm just thinking, I could become a putz right here.

I could just enjoy this.

And so I gotta gouge myself and kind of goad myself into activity.

Why?

Because sometimes mission requires motivation.

So I gotta think about heaven and tell myself, hey, going to the ocean and and surfing and hanging out with my kids and eating out.

This is great.

And going to Ben and Jerry's, that's the devil, by the way.

Oh man.

They got like, oh, that's that's like crack.

I can't do that anymore.

I gotta fast this week.

I ate too much.

Um but hey, there's nothing ever gonna be better than heaven.

And finally, just for motivation, there is not, nor will there ever be anything more agonizing than hell.

And I just sat there and just thought about that for about 30 minutes.

And and all of a sudden, I'm not afraid to bring up spiritual things in a conversation.

Why?

Because someone going, I don't want to talk about that, leave me alone, doesn't bother me.

That's not near as agonizing as hell.

It's just not.

And so well, that that's that's why we're people of mission.

We don't, we don't, what we just live with intention to our lives.

Last time we talked about teach this morning, Jesus says, hey, you go make disciples by teaching them the gospel of all nations, and then you baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I want to just read from Acts chapter 2 because I just want to say that baptism has always been part of the deal for for a believer.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Uh, Acts chapter 2 is kind of the birthday of Christianity.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

I mean, the birth of the church.

I mean, this is where the eagle has landed.

God kind of sets it down because this man named Peter preaches this great sermon in Acts chapter 2 in a thing called Pentecost.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And he uh and this is kind of the end of it.

This is how he sums it up.

He says, Let all the house of Israel, therefore, know for certain.

By the way, no one's helped by your uncertainty.

Don't go out in this culture and just plather on.

Well, this is my opinion.

I don't want to, I don't want to act like, you know, because here's the greatest crime you can commit in this culture of tolerant indifference is certainty.

That is a hate crime nowadays.

Just to say, oh no, this is the truth.

Oh God, who do you think you are?

No one's cut to the quick by your uncertainty.

He says, Let all the house of Israel, that means all you religious Jews, all of you people listening, Peter says, Therefore, know for certain that God has made him both Lord in Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

Translation, you didn't just kill a Jew, you crucified the Son of God, and God ain't happy.

And he's come to say, if you believe in the hereafter, you know what I'm hereafter.

And look what happens in verse 37.

Now, when they heard this, when they heard men and women of certainty, not some babbling politician looking for a handout and another chance to change the world through Washington.

Not gonna happen.

Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?

And Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

And with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation.

And so those who received his word were baptized.

And there was added that day about 3,000 souls.

See, here's how you know who's received the word.

They get baptized.

See, love does not negotiate the terms of its surrender.

In other words, you don't become a Christian and then go, well, I don't think baptism is necessary.

Not in the Bible.

Nowhere in the Bible do you see anybody that comes to Christ, that gets saved, that becomes a Christian, that says, hey, I want to surrender to the truth of Jesus, and then doesn't get baptized.

That's a modern-day phenomenon.

That's not a biblical phenomenon at all.

Never has been, never will be.

Jesus says you teach, and then what you do is you baptize.

And here's just a few things about baptism.

Number one, baptism implies repentance.

When a person comes to be baptized, what they're saying is that I have repented of my sins and I've put my faith in Jesus.

And I'm coming today publicly to out myself, to go on record as saying, I've died to who I used to be.

I've been buried with Christ, and I've been raised up to walk as a new person.

I'm not going to be perfect, I'm going to screw up sometimes, but I'm going to keep walking in newness.

That's what baptism is.

Secondly, baptism is observed only after conversion.

I meet a lot of people who come to faith and they go, I don't need to get baptized.

I got baptized as an infant.

And I mean no disrespect to some of you're religious tradition that you were raised in.

But your parents who baptized you as an infant might as well put a wedding ring on you and told all your friends that you were married.

I didn't start wearing a wedding ring until I got married.

Because it signifies that I'm in a relationship.

Baptism is a signification that you're now in a relationship.

It's after conversion.

Thirdly, in the New Testament, baptism was by immersion.

I'm being very basic on purpose because people ask me all the time, hey, why do y'all baptized by immersion?

Is that a Baptist thing?

No, we understand it to be what the Bible teaches.

Jesus was baptized, the Bible says that he and John went down into the water and they were baptized.

Philip, as Tom read earlier, Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, the Ethiopian eunuch says, Hey, why why should I not be baptized right now?

Why how about right now?

And he didn't say, Well, the preacher's not here.

We can't do it without the preacher.

People ask all the time, hey, I notice that sometimes not just the pastor is baptized, other people baptize.

Yeah, yeah.

We believe and just preach to the believer.

Matter of fact, let me give you the application part of the sermon right here in the middle of it, okay?

You ready for this?

Here's my here's my my take this home and think about this.

It is my desire that every one of you in this room baptizes somebody this next year.

Some of you are like, all right, and some of you are like, pinch the baby, it's time to go.

Here's what I mean is it is that you are so used of God that you're integral in that person coming to faith because when people come to faith around here, we ask the question who do you want to baptize you?

Some of you were here about a month or so ago when Amy Miller, lady in our church, was baptized by Desiree Cooper.

When y'all here for that?

Uh yeah, and people come up to me like they were selling drugs, kind of sideways, go, hey, I saw you let that woman baptize that woman.

And I said, Yeah, don't tell.

Anybody.

He goes, I've never seen that before in my life.

I mean, this isn't a liberal church or anything.

It's very conservative, but that boy, you're getting edgy there.

And I was just like, I love church people.

You say crazy stuff.

And I was like, edgy, no.

I mean, no, I mean, that's nowhere in the New Testament.

And we talked about an elder man.

We're like, the Bible never says you got to be this to do that.

It's like, hey, when we sit down, Amy came to faith, the relationship with Desiree Cooper.

They had a friendship and they just in the natural warp and woof, and she comes to Christ and she wants to get baptized.

And when one of our pastors sat down with Amy and said, Who do you want to baptize you?

And she said, Desiree Cooper.

Why would God use her to bring me to Christ and then get one of you professional Yahoos to baptize me?

You had nothing to do with this.

That's like the preacher that does nothing and shows up on picture day and gets in the front row.

Everybody there wants to punch that guy in the face.

We had nothing to do with it.

And so that's why Desiree baptized her friend Amy.

And people are like, Man, I've never seen that before.

So here's the application.

I want you to begin to relate to somebody with such an intentional way that when they come to faith this year and we say, Who do you want to baptize you?

They say your name.

When's the last time you saw a 74-year-old man baptize another 74-year-old man?

You're never done.

You don't check out and just get to come write checks.

Keep writing checks.

I love that, by the way.

But don't quit on, don't quit on the gospel.

Don't quit being a man or a woman of mission.

That's what the Bible teaches about baptism, okay?

Then he says teach.

He says, you teach, that's salvific.

That's what's necessary for a person to understand.

Listen to what it means to be a Christian.

I'm not a Christian if I just believe there's a God and I try to be a moral person.

That's not Christianity.

That's moralistic therapeutic deism, but it's not Christianity.

So we've got to be clear about what the gospel is, okay?

That's the first teach.

And then you baptize.

That identifies you publicly as a follower of Christ.

And then Jesus says this in Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

He says, Teach, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit.

And then verse 20, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you.

So the great commission is teach, baptize, and then teach.

You say, What do you mean?

By his use of the phrase, teach them to obey.

By the way, look at me, beloved, there's a lot of them still out there.

You realize that, don't you?

There's a lot of them.

There's a lot of people who don't know Christ.

There's a lot of people who were created by God for a relationship with God.

And no one's ever just been intentional and just said, hey man, are you a part of a church anywhere?

Have you ever considered the claims of Christianity?

Are you a spiritual person?

Or however you get into the conversation.

They've never, no one's ever had that conversation with them.

But by Jesus using this phrase, teach them to obey, he's letting us know that he wants more than initial response.

He wants more than you pray in the prayer and then coming to church every once in a while, unless you get a better offer.

He wants mature, obedient followers.

And this is a process which takes time, which is why he says, hey, by the way, I'm with you to the end of the age.

Jesus never envisioned his 12 disciples getting the job done themselves.

So that privilege falls to you and I.

That's why there should be a wide variety to what we teach.

And we get this from Jesus' words, everything I've commanded you.

And teach them to obey, to observe everything I've commanded you.

Now, when you hear the word everything, it's easy to feel like, oh man, here comes the title way.

No.

This past week I just I just was thinking about today, and I just said, you know, I want to just kind of look back at some things Jesus said.

And I want to end this morning just by giving you three things that Jesus commands us.

Jesus says, do these things.

And I want him just to kind of lay them over your life as a template, and you just kind of say, okay, because before we teach these things, we need to do these things.

That makes sense?

This is John chapter 13, verse 34 and 35.

John 13:34

He says, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.

Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

Now Jesus doesn't say you love people as long as they act like they're deserving of it and they understand what a big deal it is that you love them.

He doesn't say you love people and kind of keep score.

Matter of fact, he says this is the standard by which we love them, just as I have loved you.

Have you thought recently about how God has loved you?

See, because we come at this the wrong way, we come at this kind of like, hey, I'm gonna love you in as much as you reciprocate or you love me back.

And so if I'm not getting a return on this investment, I'm cutting you off.

Does God ever cut you off?

Have you ever knelt down to pray and just sense God saying, I don't know why you're talking to me, I'm not talking, I'm not listening to you.

You and I would the other night and got hammered drunk and made a fool of yourself.

Come on.

Not loving you anymore.

You're on your own.

No.

See, it's it's not the it's just very simple, just as I've loved you.

Let me ask you a question.

Who you who you want to quit loving these days.

That question makes sense.

Some of you are like, well, he's right here beside me, so let's just keep going.

Sure.

Absolutely.

Start there.

Some of you got an adult kid that you raised and they know better, and they went off and did it anyway.

You just gotta keep loving them.

Can't give up on them.

They're 21, they don't know any better.

You just gotta keep loving them.

Here's another thing Jesus says.

Jesus says in John 17, I do not ask for these only.

In other words, talking about his disciples.

This is his high priestly prayer.

He's in the Garden of Gethsemane.

He's fixing to go down the cross.

He's praying to his Father.

He says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.

That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The Bible calls us not to unity, but to oneness.

And Jesus says, I pray that not just them, but all these people who believe in me through their message, through their word, that they would all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you.

In other words, regardless of how big the church gets, that the church is always going to be one.

It's always going to be a united body.

You may be a hand, you may be a thumb, you may be an eyelash, you may be an ear, whatever.

You got different gifts, different offices, but it's one.

You say, well, I don't get what the big deal about that is.

Think about how fragmented and divided our world is these days.

Think about going to Ferguson, Missouri and saying, God wants us to be one.

Or how about this one?

This is from John 17, or excuse me, Luke 17, verse 3 and 4.

Luke 17:3

Pay attention to yourselves.

Exclamation point.

I love that Jesus says practical stuff like that.

If your brother sins, rebuke him.

And if he repents, forgive him.

And if he sins against you seven times in that day, and he turns to you seven times saying, I repent, you must forgive him.

You withholding forgiveness from anybody today?

If your brother sins, rebuke him.

You need to rebuke anybody this week?

You need to call anybody and say, Hey, what are you doing for lunch on Tuesday?

I need to rebuke you.

Wouldn't you just love to get that phone call once before you died?

Wouldn't you just love just to somebody love you enough to say, hey man, I got concern about you?

Let's have lunch.

Well, what is it?

I want to talk about it over lunch.

Well, tell me now, I'm not gonna come.

Hey, man, and by the way, I've had that conversation.

Well, tell me now, and I'll decide if I want to come.

You want to come?

Hey, who loves you more than I do?

Well, sometimes you don't love me like I want you to.

What are you, seven?

Grow up.

And me and that friend had lunch.

Met downtown center at Guru, burger and crepe.

Awesome.

Highly recommended.

And I just had to say, hey man, I'm here as your friend, not just as your pastor.

I'm here as your friend.

The way you talked to your wife the other night, that was not okay.

And he just put his head down.

He said, Man, man, I just got a bad temper.

I said, I'm not mad at you, I'm not trying to shame you.

He says, You're capable of more than that.

Here's what I mean.

When Jesus says teaching them to obey, some of you have ingrained patterns of behavior because someone's never loved you enough to teach you how to obey.

To say, hey, you don't treat a woman like that.

You don't come home and say, I'm the king of my castle, woman.

What are you, Conan the barbarian?

But sometimes, ladies, here's the truth: we don't know what to do.

And so when men don't know what to do, we just kind of default to macho.

Instead of saying, I don't really know how to love a woman, all the men in my family are screwed up.

But I'm open to advice.

I'm open to someone coming along beside me and saying, hey, let's think about how we love our wives here.

How we relate to our children.

Pay attention to yourselves.

If your brother sins, rebuke him.

If he repents, forgive him.

And if he comes to you, if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times saying, I repent, you must forgive him.

Why must I forgive him?

Because God forgave you.

That's why the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32, be kind, tenderhearted towards one another, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Ephesians 4:32

How did God forgive you completely?

Well, that's the way you gotta forgive people that sin against you.

Now, by the way, I read this this past week and I just thought, oh man, I see a lot of that, especially in marriage councils.

Let me just let me just read this quote from a man named John Piper.

He's a pastor, he's retired now.

Oh, he's not retired, he'd get mad if I said that.

But uh he uh he's a writer and a thinker.

But he says this uh he talks about emotional blackmail.

A lot of people, that's why I love when Jesus says, hey, pay attention to yourselves.

Because some of you, you you somebody didn't sin against you.

Uh you you you just you you think they did, and so you relate to them out of that.

But here's the quote: He says, I've seen so much emotional blackmail in my ministry.

I am jealous to raise a warning against it.

Emotional blackmail happens when a person equates his or her emotional pain with another person's failure to love.

They aren't the same.

A person may love well and the beloved still feel hurt and use the hurt to blackmail the lover into admitting guilt he or she does not have.

Emotional blackmail says, if I feel hurt by you, you are guilty.

There's no defense.

The hurt person has become God.

His emotion has become judge and jury.

Truth does not matter.

All that matters is the sovereign suffering of the aggrieved.

It is above question.

This emotional device is a great evil.

And so sometimes people are going to come to you and say, You sinned against me.

And the truth is gonna be you're gonna have to stand up for yourself and say, No, I didn't.

Because you're being emotionally blackmailed.

And that's a part of what Jesus means when he says, pay attention to yourselves.

Pay attention.

Pay attention.

Some of you, your spouse sinned against you years ago, and you still haven't forgiven them.

You still got that wound.

And every time there's a disagreement, it goes back to that place of woundedness.

Why?

Because you're emotionally blackmailing that person because you want them to feel as bad as you felt when they wounded you in the first place.

And that's impossible.

It's impossible.

So just three simple things that Jesus says.

And in the Great Commission, he says, Hey, teach them to obey everything I've commanded you.

He says, Hey, here's, you gotta love one another just like I loved you.

You gotta be one, just as I and the Father are one.

And you gotta forgive.

You gotta forgive.

Now you should be asking yourself.

I told you in the beginning that I was gonna begin with with a word picture analogy, and I'm gonna end with a word picture.

You should be asking yourself, well, what would that look like?

I'll tell you what that would look like.

It will be done this morning.

A model home.

You mean like a perfect?

No, no, no.

A model home, like in a subdivision.

You ever gone to a how many of y'all have been to a model home?

You kind of walk in and yeah, every once in a while we just go look to a model home just to lust a little bit.

Just to go, oh, a game room.

So you can say to your kids, go upstairs.

Uh no, you say, well, I I don't get it.

A model home, if you like if you go to the like a new subdivision, there's nothing there but just fields like right over here, all the honor is just slowly coming this way.

And it started off just some model homes up in there, okay?

And then just dirt everywhere.

But a model home is an indication of what's possible and what is to come.

And when you and I live and we observe, we obey all that Jesus said, guess what?

You go to work tomorrow, you're like a model home to your coworkers.

You're not perfect.

They look at you though and they see an indication of what's possible and what is to come.

Does that make sense?

They see, oh wow, yeah.

Okay.

So Christians aren't a bunch of mean-spirited people that believe the Bible and are mad about it.

No, not at all.

Some of the most winsome, joyful people you know are Christians.

Some of the most successful, financially prosperous people you know love Jesus with our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And you get to be the model home.

There's not a time my wife goes to a model home.

She doesn't come back and say, you know what?

I'm like, oh no, no, no, no, no.

But when you see the model home, it kind of stirs things in you.

It stirs things in you.

And God created you to live in such a way that it stirs things in people.

It makes them want what they see.

And then all of a sudden, you get to open your mouth and just explain.

You don't have to persuade.

You don't have to, hey, whoo, uh, uh, if you die, then no.

It's not fear, it's understanding, it's desire.

That's what it means to be a people of mission.

Stand to your feet.

Hold your hands out.

I'm gonna speak a blessing over you.

On the days when you feel fat, and none of your clothes fit, and your husband's been a jerk, and your wife didn't give you enough of whatever it was you needed, on those days, your God and Father has a deep and abiding trust in you.

So much so that he's committed to you the ministry of reconciliation, and he makes his appeal through you.

Depart now, and let the appeal be made through you and your model home of a life.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you, you're dismissed.