Joining God on Mission

Welcome to the look of weakly podcast.

Visit us alive at the lookout of church.

To kick us off in our teaching for this morning, if you don't have your Bible, um, we will have it on the screens.

So this is starting in verse 26.

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, Rise and go toward the south, to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

This is a desert place.

And he rose and went, and there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candice, queen of the Ethiopians, who is in charge of all her treasure.

He had come to Jerusalem to worship, and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah, and the spirit said to Philip, Go over and join this chariot.

So Philip ran to him and heard him reading, Isaiah the prophet, and asked, Do you understand what you are reading?

And he said, How can I unless somebody guides me?

And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this Quote, Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before his shear is silent, so he opens not his mouth.

In his humiliation, justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation?

For his life is taken away from the earth.

And the eunuch said to Philip, About whom I ask you, does the prophet say this?

About himself or about somebody else?

Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told them the good news about Jesus.

And as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water.

What prevents me from being baptized?

And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way, rejoicing.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

What a beautiful passage.

This last year, uh I had an interesting experience.

My wife and I and our son Noah were in North Carolina, and uh we go a couple times a year, and uh we were flying out.

We had a late night flight from Charlotte back to Denver, and uh we were getting text messages from the airline that and the the the flight was changing.

It was delayed, then it was not delayed.

We had no idea what was happening.

So we're rushing from one part of North Carolina back to Charlotte, and uh and as we were uh coming back, um we decided that to be a little bit more efficient, we were gonna I was gonna drop off Megan and Noah at the curbside check-in, and I was gonna go return the car to the rental.

So I dropped them off at the curb, they go in, I go and take the car rental back into this parking garage, and while I'm there, I get a call from Megan.

She says, I have bad news.

There is nothing that you're going to do to make this flight.

And I was like, You've got to be kidding me.

And she said, Yeah, they shut down security, and that was the first we'd ever heard of that.

Her and Noah made it through security.

They shut down security, and nobody else could make it to the flight, even though the flight was for another couple hours, and so.

Um, so I had to talk to Jesus about that one for a little bit.

Um, but then I had to come up with a new plan uh because it was the first I'd ever heard of that.

And so got online, ended up booking a hotel that night.

They couldn't get us on any flights out of North Carolina until the next day.

So I had to go book a hotel, book a flight out the next day, and uh I had some time to kill the next day.

The next morning I woke up, it's just me, myself, and I sitting in a hotel near the Charlotte Airport, and I, you know, I I I Google, what is there to do in Charlotte?

Right?

Um, I had never even thought about that.

So, what is there to do in Charlotte?

And I was looking at some of the normal tourist recommendations, but then I found out that Charlotte is the home of the Billy Graham National Museum.

The Billy Graham National Museum.

I'm like, oh my gosh, that's crazy.

I like I wonder, I wonder where that is.

Now, I I will tell you this, that's typically for most people, not at the top of the things to do list, right?

But I was like, man, Billy Graham National Museum, that's crazy.

I wonder where it is.

Look it up.

It was literally half a mile from my hotel.

The hotel I think was half a mile.

So I felt like God gave me a special gift that morning.

And while my flight was delayed, he put me right next to the Billy Graham Museum.

So I took an Uber and went over to the Billy Graham Museum.

Now, if you don't know Billy Graham, Billy Graham uh uh was a prolific evangelist, uh, global evangelist in in the United States and beyond.

Um he was he he really pioneered a new way of preaching the gospel through radio and through new technological mediums all around the world.

Um Billy Graham was estimated to have preached to 215 million people in live audiences across 185 countries and territories.

Okay.

He ministered to 13 U.S.

presidents and many world leaders.

13.

He also reached a total audience of 2.2 billion through radio, television, books, and events.

More than 3.2 million people are estimated to have made a personal faith decision at as a result of his preaching.

So uh I got to go tour and be a part of this property, and it was amazing.

I got to go to his childhood home and actually walk through his childhood home.

There's a photo right there, they had relocated it.

So we got to kind of see what were the origins of a man who would be possibly, arguably, one of the most influential people since the Apostle Paul as it relates to evangelism on planet Earth.

Um, and then the museum itself is fascinating because every detail is designed to reflect Billy Graham's kind of ministry.

When you look at this building, what you're gonna see is a cross of windows, and at the bottom of the cross is the doors to go into it.

Because everybody enters at the foot of the cross.

Everybody enters.

The foot of the cross is level ground.

Everybody enters the foot of the cross, and and this is where the pres, you know, former U.S.

presidents would come and gather with Billy Graham, that same image there that I took.

And so uh his his impact has no end, and because he was faithful everywhere he went to boldly declare to any audience he was given that God's power is still good, that the blood never loses its power.

I mean, I don't know why I'm already weepy.

Um the blood doesn't lose his power.

But what with the uh the amazing thing with Billy Graham, though, he was humble enough to admit that it wasn't by his strength or by his uh intellectual prowess or by his influencer charisma that people came to God, that God was already at work in their life, and he had the opportunity to name what God was already doing in their life and then call them into and surrender, surrender to Jesus, right?

And he had this hypothesis that for most people it takes around seven interactions for someone to become open to the message of God.

For every person, it it's not just a one-time thing.

For most people, there is a lead up, there is a journey that leads to that decision.

And likely that was the case for many of you as well.

Um that when you surrender to Jesus, and it's the same with me, that there was it wasn't just a one-time isolated event, there was a journey unfolding.

And in much the same way, uh we see this in the scripture that when God calls us to go preach the gospel, when God calls us to go be evangelists, so to speak, he's not asking us to do something that he hasn't already done or isn't already doing.

And when so going back to the passage we read together, um, the apostle Philip, he was he had heard from the Lord, go to the south end, to the south end of Jerusalem, go on this road, go to this lonely, solitary place.

And it was on his way, as he's listening to God, is on his way, he comes across a eunuch, which is a somebody from Ethiopia, who was in servant of the queen there.

And when he approaches this eunuch, a story was already unfolding.

Did you guys catch that?

Something was already in the work.

See, this eunuch was already in Jerusalem there to worship and to explore, and he was trying to catch up with what he was hearing about of who is this Jesus?

What is this news?

What is this prophet?

He was reading the scriptures in his chariot while he was driving away and asking this question, what does this mean?

And at the exact time he's asking this question, in comes Philip.

And God sent Philip to the eunuch at the exact moment he was asked this question, what does this mean?

Who can guide me to understand what this means?

And because of God's mercy, he sends Philip not to go kick-start a new evangelism project, to be show up to what God had already been revealing in the life of this eunuch.

Philip was there not to just close the deal, so to speak, he was there to be a part of what God was already doing in this person's life.

How many of you guys know that evangelism isn't starting something that God hasn't yet started?

Evangelism is showing up where God is already at work and joining a minute.

See, for us, that needs to be really good news to us.

Because I think this is where oftentimes we get have got evangelism wrong.

This is why we have such an awkward relationship with it, because we have many of us have been arrogant enough to believe that evangelism is all about me doing something for him.

God is trying to use me to go be a bullhorn and to go get something started.

No, that's not true.

God is inviting you into what he is already doing.

So when we say, like as a church, we say our mission or our vision is Jesus, because our vision isn't a project or a plan, it's a person.

Our vision is Jesus, abiding in his presence, growing in his family, that's this, and living on his mission to transform the world with all-inspiring love.

Now, when we say living on his mission, this is what we're talking about.

We're not talking about let's go do great things for God because he hasn't got there yet.

It's let's go find out where God's at work and by his spirit join him there, not assuming we have all the answers or have all the goods or the good looks or any of the stuff.

Let's go join him where he's at work because the Spirit of God is already showing up in the lives of the people that are surrounding you every day of the week.

Do you guys know that?

He's already at work.

Evangelism isn't all about us initiating to bring to completion, it's joining where God is at work.

This is what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, as he's writing to a people that they're following different leaders.

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

They have Apollos, they have Paul, they have all these different leaders in the church, they're disciples of different people, and they're kind of some factions and divisions are showing up in the church.

And Paul writes to them, he says, What then is Apollos?

What is Paul?

Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

So neither the one who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

This is so good.

Because I think it's so easy to take ourselves way too seriously.

Paul's saying, listen, God's gonna call some of you to water and some of you to plant, but you're not anything.

Because it's God, God is the one who has given himself to the growth.

It's God's responsibility to grow that person up.

That's what he's doing.

Right?

When Jesus sent his disciples out and he said, Pray for the harvest, he prayed the Lord of the harvest that he would send out laborers.

He would he didn't say, Go pray that there would be a harvest.

He didn't say, go, go, go pray that these people can do all of the right things in order to bring the harvest in.

It's like, no, the heart, something is already at work.

I've been growing, I've been showing up in the lives of people all around.

The field is white.

Just send the laborers out to go be ready for the white fields when they see them, that they can see it and recognize it and harvest it in.

Who are the ones who are willing to see and to recognize that God is already at work?

You guys with me?

So, what if someone's journey to Jesus was like what Billy Graham talked about?

What if it had seven touch points?

What if touch point weather number one was one that that person never saw?

It was their grandmother, the grandmother's prayer whispered at night as the child was growing up, and that grandmother was praying, that was her touch point for her grandchild.

Praying over her grandchild at night.

And that child's a teenager now, he still rolls his eyes at religion, but she still prays.

What if that's touch point number one?

What if touch point touch point number two is the friend who shows up in a season of loss, not with answers but with presence?

Someone who listens without judgment, who carries the ache alongside, who loves in a way that feels different than what the world is offering.

What if touch point number three is when they turn on their favorite podcasts and there is somebody new being interviewed, and this person ends up sharing their story about encountering Jesus in the middle of a deep depression, and that person doesn't know why it moves them, it just does.

And so something is clearly at work.

Touch point number four, a coworker who lives just does a really good work, who lives with the quiet integrity.

They don't talk about their faith all the time, but there's something unshakable and different.

There's a different essence and substance and spirit with the way they they do their work and they treat people and they know I kind of want to be like that.

What if touch point number five is God showing up in a dream in the night to that person, which happens all the time, and they don't know what the dream means, and much like the eunuch, they have these dreams that they don't know, but they need to meet somebody who actually has spent the time developing how to hear from God and in a biblical way help them interpret a dream and they find out that God was trying to get their intention.

What if touch point number six was then somebody else saying, Hey, would you come to church with me?

I've got I'm saving you a seat, and we're saving you a lot of seats.

Um, we're saving you a seat, and I'd love for you to come sit with me and check this thing out.

You can go sniff, sniff around the church a little bit, see if this is for you.

And then number seven may be something that isn't even visible.

Maybe number seven is a moment of surrender quietly in a room, not dramatic.

They just finally, before going to bed, said, Jesus, I think you're trying to get my attention.

And I'm I want to say yes to you.

What if God is already showing up in the lives of everybody around us?

And it's not on us to have to say all the right things or to do everything perfect, but just be curious enough to ask the question, God, how are you already working through the circumstance and the details of their life to invite them into your eternal plan?

And what is my part to play so that you can get the glory?

Come on.

God is already at work and we're joining him in the work.

We're joining him where he's already at work, and and it takes the pressure off, it removes even again the sense of pride or arrogance that God would ever call us to do something that he's not doing.

This is what God is doing, and this is what the Spirit of God is still doing all around the earth.

What if Philip didn't ask the what if Philip wasn't attentive enough to the Spirit of God to even hear that I want you to go to this part of this road out in the wilderness and just be ready for anything that I send your way.

See, it required for him a life of steady attentiveness to be in the right place at the right time.

So that when somebody said, What does this mean?

He says, Let me explain this to you and walk him through the scripture and be just just be there when this eunuch says, I'd like to be baptized even today.

And that he would go away rejoicing.

And and church history would say that that eunuch, even that that particular encounter with the eunuch had seismic effect as the eunuch would go back to Ethiopia.

There was over the next two, three hundred years, massive revival, massive awakening in North Africa because of the gospel going back in power because one person was ready and willing to be in the right place at the right time.

Do you guys want that?

That's what I want, and that's what I believe.

God is wanting to continue to get our attention.

He's saying, I'm not asking you to go be a Billy Graham on a stage.

I'm asking you to find out where I'm already at work in the lives of the people all around you and just be there long enough to see where I show up.

That's why relationships are so important, right?

Because the only way to walk to journey with somebody in a transformative way is not just not just uh um to be impressive or to be a notable, it's to have a quantity of time over a long journey.

Have you ever walked with somebody long enough to where life happens to them?

This happened to me this this you know in the last couple years, a good friend, we had been building relationship with the neighbor, and then all in one moment, I was there when uh he got a call from his wife when she realized that uh he had been keeping a secret from her for a long time.

And I was there when his whole world started to collapse.

And it was there long enough that I could walk with him through one of the most difficult parts and then a journey of restoration and transformation in his life.

Who are the people that God has called you to walk with so that you're there when life happens to them when they start asking the question?

We want to be joining Jesus at work when the harvest is ripe.

So, how can we do that?

I'm just gonna walk through just a few things here.

How can we be the kind of people who are ready to join God at work?

Do you guys want to join God at work?

Do you guys want to join God at work?

Come on, okay.

So we do that through attentiveness, we do that through slowing down our life to be attentive to the Spirit of God and the people He's highlighting.

But there's a few other things I just want to offer to you.

Number one is to simply live in a way that begs the question.

Live in a way that begs the question.

I think one of the tragedies for the church in the day that we lived in is we've so normalized Jesus that he's basically, for so many people, he's disguised in our life.

And I think some of this was a reaction to like over-the-top Bible thumping fundamentalism, you know, like zealous evangelical Christians who were, you know, just just way too much, way over the top.

And so what our generation has done is we're like, okay, let's, let's, let's course correct from that, and uh, let's make Jesus cool again.

We're gonna make him so cool that he's hardly recognizable anymore.

He's just like me.

And it as if he's up in heaven, like, man, you've done such a good job normalizing me.

People can barely even tell that you're a Christian now.

But what if we actually, what if the call for Christians is to live in a way that would actually beg the question, why are you doing that?

Why did you why are you inviting those people into your home?

Why are you giving that much away?

Why would you go to that country?

Uh why are you doing that fundraiser?

What you know what I'm saying?

What why why in your marriage, why do you, why do you pray like this?

Or why do you do this with your kids?

To live in such a way that somebody would say, that is unusual.

Tell me why you're doing that.

And I love that.

I love people who boldly live counterculturally in order to provoke questions, not to draw attention, so but Vote questions.

Our good friend that again that we said that we celebrated this last week, John Freeman, he he lived in a way that begged a question.

Every morning, uh, you know, every every every Sunday morning when I would come into church, he would immediately see me put his hands on me and just start declaring, you know, who I am and God, and just right away.

We're not no small talk, we're just going straight, straight at this, all right?

You are a mighty man of God, and you do this with everybody.

I invited a friend to one of the fire nights, and uh and he came in, and John Freeman he did he has no regard for whether you know Jesus or not.

He's gonna declare the same thing over you.

So he can I bring my friend in and I introduce him to John, and John does what John does.

He he puts his hand on my friend's shoulder and said, Young man, you are a mighty man in the Lord, you are righteous, and you are holy.

My friend's like, there's like just no category for this kind of interaction.

Zero.

Right?

He doesn't even know.

He's like, is this guy praying or is he speaking to me?

He's like, Do I look at him or do I look at the ground?

This is way too intimate.

So he's looking at me kind of like, you know, but John's like, you are home, you are set apart for the purposes of God.

And he's like, okay, you know?

But it's like there's no category for that.

You're gonna be that kind of person, guess what?

People are gonna ask the question, where did that come from?

Where did that come from?

Who prays like that?

Who talks like that?

Who lives like that?

Live in a way that begs the question.

If every part of your life is just as normal as everybody else, let me just ask you the question: where has God actually transformed you through and through in your life that would cause you to live dramatically different than the way of the world?

It's a good question.

It's a question all of us have to wrestle with because God has put a light in you that He intends for the world to see.

Thank you, John Freeman.

We live in a way that begs a question, but we also want to be open to initiate those spiritual conversations, to ask curious questions.

Instead of asking questions like, hey, are you a Christian?

Or what do you believe?

People are actually more willing these days to talk about their stories and experiences than what they believe.

People oftentimes don't even want to talk about what they believe, but they're they're willing to share about their background.

So sometimes I think even a good conversation starter is like, hey, do you did you come from a religious background?

It's a much softer way of starting a conversation, like, hey, are you a Christian?

Right?

Because it's it's not a yes or no thing.

It gives them a chance to talk through their story.

People want to talk about their experiences.

A lot of people will even say, I don't believe in God, but I did have this wild experience as a kid that I don't know what to do with.

I did have this, and people want to share their story if we're willing to ask, hey, what's your story?

What's the story what God's doing in your life?

Um and there's a lot of creative ways to generate those conversations.

Um fortunately, because we live in like a tattoo culture, um, have you guys noticed that people rarely get tattoos of frivolous things?

It usually has a story behind it.

And so even come up to somebody, hey, what's your tattoo mean?

Even that simple question just unlocks a whole conversation that potentially is very meaningful to that person.

There's a story behind it, or there's a person behind that tattoo.

It reminds them of somebody.

Um, my my friend in the area, Eric Swanson, um, he is he's just like a genius when it comes to initiating spiritual conversations.

One of the things that he does, and he was just telling us the other day, one of the things that he does when he's with people, he's he asks the question, hey, there's a story in the Bible, he sets it up like this.

He's like, There's a parable in the Bible, and it's about a shepherd who uh has a hundred sheep, but one of them goes goes missing, and he goes and he goes, he leaves the 99 and goes find look and looks for that sheep until he finds them.

And he says, Have you ever felt like God is pursuing you?

Have you ever felt like somebody is pursuing in your life?

And he kind of frames it in different ways.

And and and oftentimes the person's like, Yeah, actually, I felt like God is pursuing me, right?

And he he uses it as a way to introduce them to a parable, but then gently help them understand and just initiate a conversation of where is God at work in your life?

Have you ever had that experience before?

And let me tell you, the shepherd is not just a shepherd, that shepherd is God, and he is after your heart, and he's willing to leave the 99 to come find you, because that's what he's done for all of us, right?

So it's creative ways to initiate conversations.

One of the one of the ways I've been doing this even out at uh at lunch, um, which is fun, because I'm gonna pray for the food anyways, whether with my family, I've been doing this with uh uh any lunch meeting I have or dinner meeting.

When the server comes out and brings the food, um, I I asked them, I said, Hey, um, we're about to pray for our food.

Uh, we're we're Christians here, we're about to pray for food.

Is there anything that we can pray for you today?

And it's it's awesome because uh they're not gonna go anywhere.

They're not gonna leave you because they're serving you.

Um, and almost every time it goes like this, when he asks somebody, hey, how can I pray for you today?

Or is there anything I can pray for you about?

Almost every time they say, uh, not really.

Well, actually, you know, give it like three seconds.

And then, well, well, actually, I'm flying home to be with my family on Friday, and I'm really nervous about the flight.

Pray for safety.

Or uh, I we were with the staff the other day at at lunch, and we did this, and the woman uh our service comes back, she says, she says, Actually, I'm in the middle of a lawsuit right now.

Can you pray for this lawsuit?

We're like, Yes, we will pray for the lawsuit.

And it's awesome because in just one moment it creates a window of opportunity for a person to know that uh there's somebody ready and willing to pray.

Almost everybody is willing to be prayed for if they're asked, right?

So finding creative ways to come up with moments to show up in people's lives and generate the things, but it requires us to think like that, to think creatively.

God, what's one question that you want to give to me that I can ask this person right now that might help us see where you're already at work in their life?

Are you guys with me?

The last one is just very simple, guys, and I and I think this one um this one, I just I just want to offer this as a community to not forget to just invite people to church.

Invest in their lives, and when they're ready, invite them to church to come and see.

Come and see what God is doing and what God has done.

And this is this is what happened when Philip invited Nathaniel to come follow Jesus in John chapter 1, verse 43.

John 1:43

It says this the next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee.

He found Philip and said to him, Follow me.

Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

Verse 45 says this Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Nathaniel said to him, Can anything good come of Nazareth?

Philip said to him, Come and see.

Come and see.

Like, hey, do you want to come to church?

Can anything happen?

Can anything good could happen in church?

I don't know, come and see.

Come sit with me.

And guys, listen, I just want to continue to remind us that what we do here on a Sunday morning, I know for a lot of people, they need to, there's needs to be a readiness, but most people are willing to come to church if they're invited by a friend to come to church.

Do you guys know that this is good not just for us, but for the people in our lives as well?

And I just want to I want to offer this to us as we are leaning into God's instruction to us as a community to live for the sake of the world, for the sake of others, to be bold witnesses.

There's times where it's just as simple as come to church or come into my home or come into my small group, come into my Bible study, come to our guys' night, come to our women's night, find the right environment and just invite them to go just get in the stew, get in the pot, come join the party in the right time and see what God might do.

Come and see the Jesus of Nazareth who changed my life, and I think he can change your life too.

Do you want me to keep going on that one?

See, this is this is fun.

I think this is this is so good, especially as we're coming into the summer months.

There's so many opportunities, guys, that we have in our neighbors and on the streets and on the sidewalks to make, to initiate spiritual conversations, to show up with where God is already at work because it's not all on us.

Our job is just simply to plant the seed or to water the seed.

But guess whose job it is to grow that seed?

That's God's job, and He's doing it, and He's gonna continue to do that.

The question is are you willing and are you able to go with Him where He's at work?

Amen.

All right.