Made For Mission Week 1: We Are Called

Music.

Jesus calls a tax collector named Matthew to follow him.

It's more than a story about a man in the first century. It's a reminder that

God calls unlikely people for an extraordinary purpose.

That includes you. You were created on purpose for a purpose.

And the mission God has for your life doesn't start someday.

It starts right where you are in your home, at your job, in your school,

and in your relationships.

So as you listen, ask yourself, what if I truly live like I was made for a mission?

Let's jump into week one. We are called.

This morning, if you have your Bibles or your favorite digital Bible app on

your phone or tablet, I want to invite you to turn to the book of Matthew.

It's the first book in the New Testament, and we're going to look at that passage that was just read.

It's the calling of Levi, also known as Matthew, the tax collector.

You should have been handed a handout, a fill-in-the-blank sheet when you came in.

If you weren't, or if you weren't handed one, raise your hand.

We'll make sure to get you one.

All right. Can someone, Kev, if you want to grab some, back,

I guess Joy's the only one. Joy, Joy, Joy.

But, oh, and Paul, too. Well, you know, when you come in late, Paul.

I can say that because he's my buddy. Well, he used to be until today.

Let me give you the big idea for today's message.

And here it is. You were created for a purpose.

You were created for a purpose called by Jesus to follow him and live a life

on mission wherever you are.

God didn't create you and just set you here on planet earth to spin and twiddle

your thumbs and fingers and just roam about trying to find purpose.

Purpose is found in Jesus Christ.

You see, God has a mission for your life, but he also gives us free will, doesn't he?

And so we can choose to follow him or we can choose to live for ourselves.

And unfortunately, a lot of people in today's world and society,

we just live for ourselves.

And that's not what we were created for. But then we're going through life and

we're looking for a meaning and we struggle to find meaning and purpose because

we're trying to live for a purpose and a meaning that you and I, we were not created for.

We're all seeking purpose in our lives.

In fact, Stanford University recently did a study to find out if people truly

desired just happiness or if they're also looking for meaning in their lives.

I could have told you this.

Ultimately, they want both.

That's what Stanford says. They want both. But they did say they want meaning more than happiness.

Don't we all want to make a difference?

With the life. I mean, we're, we're here for just a short period of time on this earth.

I don't know about you, but I want to be remembered as someone who loves Jesus.

And because I love Jesus, I love people.

I want people to say, hey, Jeff, man, he really loved serving people. He did the soup kitchen.

He washed windows. He served people because he loved Jesus.

Over the next few weeks, we're going to be looking at a series that I've entitled Made for Mission.

And we're going to spend some time looking at that mission and see what it is.

And so we're going to read Matthew 9 again.

And read about Jesus's calling on Matthew's life.

And I believe this passage has incredible significance for our lives today.

Matthew 9, 9-13 says this, As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew

sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, Follow me. And he got up and followed him.

While he was reclining at the table in the house, many tax collectors and sinners

came to eat with Jesus and his disciples.

When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, why does your teacher

eat with tax collectors and sinners?

In other words, why is this good teacher, this good prophet that we follow and

that we see, why is he with them?

They're dirty. They're the lowlifes in society, the sinners, the tax collectors.

They steal. They steal from us.

And so Jesus said, it's not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick.

Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice,

for I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners.

I came across this video clip this week. It's from The Chosen.

The Chosen is not the Bible, okay? Let me just say that.

But I wonder if it looks something like this. Mother of a son with talent like yours should be proud.

She's ashamed that I could use the talent that God gave me against God.

Next. You're good at something. You found a way to make a living doing it. Sat simp.

Must be nice to live in a world so simply ordered. We live in the same world,

Matthew. Next. Besides, what else are you going to do with a mind like yours?

Matthew. Matthew.

Matthew, son of Alphaeus.

Yes? Follow me.

Me?

Yes, you.

What are you doing? You want me to join you? Keep moving, street preacher.

Do you have any idea what this guy has done?

Do you even know him?

Yes.

Listen, I said to get you.

What are you doing?

Where do you think you're going, guys? Let me go.

Have you lost your mind? You have money.

Quintus protects you. No Jew lives as good as you. You're going to throw it all away.

Yes. Oh, my God.

I don't get it. You didn't get it when I chose you either. But this is different.

I'm not a tax collector. Get used to different.

I'm glad we passed by your booth today, Matthew. Yes.

Shall we? We have a celebration to prepare for. You will regret this, Matthew.

What's the tablet for? I grabbed it without thinking. I can put it back.

No, I'll keep it. You may yet find use for it.

Where are we going? We did our party. I'm not welcome at dinner parties.

Well, that's not going to be a problem tonight. You're the host.

It may have looked like that. It may have not. But either way,

the very God of the universe who spoke creation into being approached Matthew, a tax collector.

And tax collectors were seen in that culture as the worst of the worst.

They were the Jews who had sold out their own people in order to become wealthy.

They were seen as traitors and sinners due to their role in serving the Roman

authorities, and their tendency was to extort funds from their own people.

People hated the tax collectors. If we could go back in time and freeze that

scene and pick out of the hundreds of people that were there in that scene,

I bet none of us would have picked out, including the disciples,

Matthew, the lowlife, the sinner.

He would have been the last person that we would have thought Jesus would pick

up and train and then send out to change the world.

But here's why this is important. Because if Matthew is called,

it means that Jesus doesn't simply call the righteous ones who think they're

all this and that. He calls everyone.

And if he calls everyone, it also means that we are all called.

That's number one there. We are all called.

J.D. Greer is a pastor out east, and he said this, there's a widespread myth

in the church that calling into ministry is a secondary experience that happens

to only a few Christians.

Their job is to do the ministry, and everyone else's job is just to show up and foot the bill.

Few lies cripple the mission more than that one.

Each believer is called to leverage his or her life for the spread of the gospel.

The gospel means the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins.

The question is no longer whether we are called, only where and how.

You see, the call to follow Jesus is not just a call for a pastor.

It's a call to each and every one of us.

You are called by God, and he's chosen you to be an active part of his mission,

an active part, not just to come and to sit and to soak and to sour and to watch

other people serve and watch other people go to Saturday serve and watch other

people go to small groups.

No, we do this together, following hard after Christ.

He gave you assets to bless others, and he gave you talents to use,

like the worship team that is up here almost every week.

And they use those for the gospel and for the kingdom of God.

And so if you're a stay-at-home mom, ask yourself, what role do I play in the

advancement of the mission of Jesus Christ?

If I work full-time, ask yourself the question, how at my position in my job,

am I here for the advancement of the kingdom of God?

It applies to you no matter what stage of life you're at.

See, the word vocation, it's interesting. It comes from the Latin word called

voca, which means to call.

So what if you started seeing your job as an actual calling from God?

Because that's what it is. It's a calling.

God has put you where you are for a specific mission.

Regardless of where you're at, you were put there by Almighty God for a mission.

Your classmates, your friends, your neighbors, God puts you where you're at for a purpose.

Imagine waking up with the expectation of everything that God has in store for us today?

What if instead of just waking up in the morning and going about our job and

doing the daily grind, we actually were excited about,

man, God, give me some divine appointments today that I can encourage someone,

that I can serve someone, that I can love someone, that I can do something for

someone so that they would know your love.

That's the kind of prayer that we need to be praying when we wake up.

Jesus' invitation to Matthew, he doesn't just say, hey, get in line or do what I do.

He simply says, follow me.

Jesus invites Matthew first and foremost into a relationship.

The relationship was not the byproduct of them doing ministry together.

The relationship is the assignment.

The ministry came from spending time together.

You see, being a Christian is not about doing stuff for God.

It's about being in a relationship with Him.

Being a Christian is not about doing things. It's not about a list of rules that you have to keep.

It's about being in a relationship with almighty God.

And it's that relationship that begins to change who you are.

And as he changes who you are, it changes how you speak.

It changes the things that you say, the tone that you use. It changes the way we use our resources.

Why drop everything if you're Matthew? You got a good job.

He didn't have to work hard. He collected money all day. He was being protected by the Romans.

And on top of that, the invitation seemed a little vague, didn't it?

Like just coming up to somebody, Lisa, follow me.

I don't think so. No. I'd be asking, hey, where are we going? What are we doing?

Are we going to have food? What about clothes? Is there a 401k?

What about our children?

I would have a ton of questions. And so I think one of the most interesting

things about the call of Matthew is that Matthew gets up immediately and he follows Jesus.

If you look at the first words of verse 9, it says, As Jesus went on from there.

Verse 9, that's what it says. This was written by Matthew himself.

And so Matthew says, as Jesus went on from there, that means Matthew saw where Jesus was coming from.

So if we look at chapter 9 and we go back to verse 1, you see that Jesus is getting into a boat.

And what happens in chapter 9 at the very beginning?

Jesus heals a man, a paralytic. He'd been paralyzed. Jesus healed him.

And then not only did he heal him, he said, your son, your sins are forgiven.

I think Matthew was sitting there watching the events and seeing what was going on.

And because he saw the power and the influence that Jesus had,

because Jesus isn't just a good man or a good teacher, but he's God.

He's God. He's God. He's God. He's God. He's God. He's God.

He wanted whatever Jesus had. And as you live your life differently than everyone

else around you, people are going to want to have what you have.

Why is Dean always happy? He's got something maybe someone else doesn't have.

Why does Dean yell and shout like a weirdo? I'm not calling you a weirdo. I said, like, like.

Because Jesus radically saved him. And when you come to know God and he saves

you, life forever will be changed when you follow him.

I need to keep moving. Otherwise, we're going to be here all day.

Unless you're all right with that. I heard a yawn.

Number two, we move from observing to following.

Matthew was sitting there and he was observing the things that were going on.

And once Jesus came to him and said, Matthew, follow me.

He went from observing to following. Jesus' invitation to follow is the same for you today.

Matthew was just standing there collecting money, and he was observing what Jesus had done.

And Jesus came over and he invited him to follow him.

And Matthew had to get up, or he had to walk out that booth,

and he had to use his feet and his legs. He had to get up.

He had to take a conscious decision to move.

When we accept Christ as our Savior, if you have, if you've yielded your life

to God, the mission of God becomes our mission.

And it takes faith. It takes a step of faith.

What about you guys? Is God calling you to get off the sidelines?

Is he saying, hey, man, it's time. It's time. You've been observing a long time.

You've observed church. You've observed serving. You've observed loving.

You've observed giving.

But God's calling you to something greater. And he's saying,

I want you to experience the blessing of yielding your life to me fully.

So what would that look like if you were to be all in and get off the sidelines?

It requires a conscious decision. And guess what? Odds are it might make you uncomfortable.

But how do we live on mission? Check out what takes place next.

Verse 10, while he was reclining at the table in the house, many tax collectors

and sinners came to eat with Jesus and his disciples.

And so here we find Matthew is now the host of the dinner party.

Remember in the video, Jesus said, oh, by the way, you're the host.

We're going to your house.

You're going to throw a party for all these, your tax collector friends and for these sinners.

And so we find that Jesus is there eating with all of these tax collectors and sinners.

Jesus used Matthew's resources and assets for his mission.

Now I've heard people say, well, Jesus, oh man, Jesus, he always hung out with the sinners.

Yes, Jesus, his mission was transformation of broken hearts,

broken lives, sinful hearts, sinful lives, broken families. That was his mission.

He didn't go there so that he could be like them.

Okay. He didn't go to sinful places to hang out with them.

He went there on mission to call them out of the place where they were.

Complete different mindset.

Number three, when we follow Christ, we are transformed.

We begin to follow Christ. There's a transformation that begins to take place.

And there's several areas that that happens, but the first one,

God will transform how we use our resources.

I didn't ask Danny's permission, and I don't even know if he'll hear this because

they're gone this weekend on vacation up in Wisconsin. But there's a guy in

our church. You guys know Danny Geary?

We love Danny and Lisa.

Danny has a business, A1 Lawn Care.

And it's booming, and it's exploding. And I had a friend that needs his lawn done.

And so I called Danny and said, hey, how much would you charge?

He's like, I am too busy. I am like the blessings are overflowing on Danny,

but do you know that Danny and Lisa use that lawn care business and that snow

removal business as a ministry?

They do our lawn care year round, absolutely free because it's not just his business.

It's what he does, but he's in the business of being a Christian and following Christ, right?

And so he leverages what he does for a living for the kingdom of God,

and he blesses Generations Church by removing snow in the middle of the night

in the winter so that we can come into church.

And we don't bat an eye at it, and we're like, oh, thank the Lord that it's done.

But behind that, there is a man and wife who are living out their mission through their workplace.

When they came to Christ, it transformed how they use their resources.

Not only will God transform how we use our resources, but God will transform

how we see our relationships.

I'm sure Matthew had many meals with the tax collectors and his buddies before

deciding he was going to follow Jesus for the first time.

How do you think Matthew introduced these two groups? Like, hey guys,

this is Jesus, the one you've heard about that's going around doing all the

miracles and that's teaching us and he's from God and these are his disciples.

How do you talk about awkward introductions.

God sinners. Let me tell you, God wants to use you for those introductions,

just like he used Matthew for those introductions.

God wants to use your relationships.

Are you investing your time and your resources into people who can pay you back?

Or are your eyes on something more eternal?

Because when you begin to live on mission, people will notice.

Verse 11, when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples,

why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

He knew what people thought about him. But after Jesus called him,

something else changed inside of him too.

He was no longer living for the approval of the other people that he did life with.

He began to live and seek approval from God.

And God will transform who I seek approval from.

When you come to Christ, I'm no longer wanting to just make myself look good.

No, I aim to please my heavenly father.

It completely changes in us who we seek approval from.

In Galatians 1, Jesus calls us to stop seeking approval from everyone.

He says, for am I now trying to persuade people or God?

Am I striving to please people?

If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Ain't that the truth? Because most of the time when we try to follow Christ,

it goes against culture.

It goes against what a lot of people think or feel.

But I'm not out to please them. I'm out to love them. But I'm out to please the Lord Jesus Christ.

Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 5. He said, blessed are those who are persecuted

because of righteousness.

For the kingdom of heaven is theirs. You are blessed when they insult you and

persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me.

The call to follow Jesus is not an easy peasy, lemon squeezy kind of call.

Yes, I have four children.

And I've heard that come out of their mouths.

It's a hard call. It's a call. You're swimming upstream against culture,

but it's worth it. It's worth it.

Matthew 9, 12 says, now when he heard this, he said, it's not those who are

well who need a doctor, but those who are sick.

What is Jesus's mission? I want to invite you back next week.

We're going to talk more about that, but he's a spiritual doctor healing physically

and spiritually wounded and sick people.

And he wants to meet each one of us where we're at.

And he wants to bring healing to our families and he wants to bring healing

to our relationships and he

wants to bring healing to our minds and to our hearts and to our emotions.

He didn't come for the self-righteous and the pious people that think they got it all together.

He came for people like me and like you who know we are sinners,

in need of grace, in need of transformation, in need of a Savior.

Matthew was spiritually sick, and God saved him, and he became one of the 12

disciples, and he wrote the book of Matthew.

How many millions of people have been saved because they picked up a gospel

of Matthew, and they moved from observing and watching to following.

Jesus Christ. You have no idea the impact that God might want to make through your life.

As we wrap up, I just want to show you, it's actually Hudson's favorite movie, I think.

I'm not sure if it still is, but it's been one of his favorite movies. He likes war movies.

And this comes from a movie called Hacksaw Ridge that takes place during World War II.

And the main character is a medic and he refuses to carry a weapon because of

his spiritual beliefs and his battalion is pretty much left for dead up on this ridge.

Everyone else retreats except this one medic and he stays behind all throughout

the night trying to rescue just one more person.

We're going to show it and I have to warn you that it's a really,

really dark scene. And when I say dark, I don't mean, I mean like light,

like it's really hard to see.

I thought, I thought it was just the copy that I was looking at.

And I, then I looked through like five or six more.

It's how it was in the theater. It's how it is on the screen.

So it's, it's dark. It's hard to see.

Just listen to it, but go ahead and play it. Yeah.

Music.

I got you. Are you in? Yeah. I can't see. Be quiet. Just be quiet.

Hold us down now. I got you. Hold tight. There you go. Try now. Try now.

I thought I was blind.

Shh. Keep it down. Can you walk? Oh, no. We gotta get out of here.

Music.

I don't know if you could hear what he was saying the whole time he's praying.

He's like, Lord, help me get one more. Help me get one more.

And he'd stop and rest. And he'd say, Lord, help me get one more. Help me get one more.

Man, when I saw that, I was like, God, may that be our prayer as a church and

as individuals that we can rescue one more.

And we can bring him in here. We got plenty of room. God, help us get one more.

And we bring them. If we all had the attitude that said, God,

help me get one more, we would double next week and double again the next week.

But it takes each one of us owning the commandment that God says, follow me.

Rescue those who are perishing.

Man, that video, it'll make you tear up.

I'm not even a cry person normally.

God, may you give us a passion to love people that they would see you by the way we live.

One more. Just one more. every day when you wake up God one more,

because here's the real reality,

the Bible says and it's God's word we know that the Bible says man dies once,

faces judgment and it's either heaven or hell for eternity,

that's not a scare tactic the meanest thing I could ever do is to not tell someone

who's about ready to get hit by a bus.

Hey, there's a bus coming.

The most loving thing I can do is go tell them that Jesus came,

that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,

that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. if no one comes to me except

through, or comes to the Father except through me.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes?

Maybe you're here this morning, you never known that God so loved you that he

sent Jesus to take your penalty and my penalty of our sin.

And that if you call on the name of Jesus, you will be saved.

I want to challenge you and encourage you, if you've never done that,

it's not about a prayer, it's not about saying certain words.

It's about relationship with the Lord.

It's about yielding your will and your rights and your desires.

To his.

And to say, Lord, please forgive me. I know I'm a sinner. And I ask that you

come into my heart, into my life. I want to live for you.

I want to live for you. I pray that's the desire of your heart this morning.

If you prayed that prayer, or if that's you, that's right where you're at,

where you want to give your life completely over to the Lord,

or you wanna be more active with your faith, I wanna challenge you.

Take a step in faith. He loves you. He wants to meet you right where you're

at, and He will not hurt you.

Music.

Maybe you're a Christian and you've just never,

done more than say a prayer and it's time that you get,

active with your faith and start loving people the way that Christ would love people.

Wherever you find yourself this morning, I just, Lord, I just ask that you would

help us to have the desire and the goal to get one more. To get one more.

Before we close on a final song, you should have been handed a communion little packet.

If you didn't get one of those, raise your hand and Mason's in the back and he can give those.

At Generations Church, we practice open communion, which just means this.

If you have a relationship with Jesus Christ,

you are welcome. There's nothing magic about taking communion. It's juice.

And a little wafer, but it's a reminder of what Jesus went through on the cross

for you and for me and for each person.

Luke 22, 19 says, and he took bread and he gave thanks and broke it.

And he gave it to them and said, this is my body, which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. Take and eat.

In the same way, Jesus took the cup after supper and said, this cup is the new

covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

Take and drink.

Father we love you we ask that you would be with us as we go out on mission this week,

as we love people as we serve people whether we're at school or whether at work.

Or whether at home may we live in such a way to give you glory and give you

honor help us to be active with our faith,

that more will come to know you.

We ask you in your name I pray. Amen.

Music.