Back to the Basics: Our Mission

Music.

And now here's today's message.

There once was a small lighthouse that was on the coast, a rugged coast.

For years, it was critical. It served a critical, important purpose.

And it guided ships safely through the treacherous water.

And countless lives were rescued from crashing into the jagged rocks below the lighthouse. house.

The light keepers were always alert, and they worked hard at shining the light

and keeping the light and the glass shined so that it was bright.

They knew that every time a ship safely passed by or a life was spared,

it was a reminder of the importance of their mission, which was to rescue those in danger.

Over time, the lighthouse keepers began to lose sight of why they were there.

They became more focused on the maintenance of the lighthouse's appearance.

And so they repainted the exterior and they added some modern comforts inside.

And they began hosting social events there and weddings and gatherings.

And over time, this once bright beacon that had shone so brightly and been so

crucial to the safety of others and their well-being,

it began to get dim as their attention shifted to everything except the light itself. self.

One night, a violent storm rolled in and a ship was desperately searching for

that light to guide them.

But the beacon was too faint and the light was no longer visible through the darkness.

And so the ship struck the rocks and it sank and everyone on board lost their lives.

The lighthouse keepers had forgotten

their mission, not to preserve the lighthouse for their own comfort,

to add their amenities, but to keep the light shining so that the lost could see and be saved.

Like that lighthouse, many churches have gotten distracted by amenities,

by production, by culture, by events and programs, that anyone and everyone

can come and feel comfortable in their sins.

Because churches have forgotten that the mission that Jesus gave us is to rescue the dying and lost.

God has given us a mission, and it's to be a light, and it's to rescue people

from death and to point them towards Jesus.

Today, we're wrapping up our series called Back to the Basics,

and we're going to go back to the basics of our mission.

We're going to look at the mission Jesus gave to us, the body of Christ.

And so we're kind of gathered together as family, right? We're family here.

We're gathering to sit and listen and remember.

Remember what God called us to. This week, I began to think about the last year and a half.

If you're new, we just opened. in. We're still a baby.

We opened a year and a half ago on January 8th.

I'm going to sit in my lazy boy in my living room. We opened.

Our grand opening was January 8th.

And in this room, we had 160 people crammed in here together.

And we went and we celebrated. We went to Amigos and we had Mexican and we took a bunch of volunteers.

And a lot of you were there and we celebrated together. God,

you're amazing. Look what you did.

Yet I found myself unhappy, disappointed, and not satisfied.

And that was sin on my behalf. See, we were aiming for at least 200 because

that's what we were told success would be.

If you launch with two to 300, then you're a successful church.

And each week for the past almost two years after the service,

or sometimes on Monday, I'll come and I'll sit at my desk and I will look at

the numbers that the men give me of our attendance and our giving,

and I have to enter them in to a church metric database.

And last week when I entered our attendance in, I was sad.

I was heartbroken. just being honest.

And I was embarrassed at the numbers that I had to give to the organization that helped launch us.

I typed in the number 57.

57! In the line right above it was the number from our attendance one year ago

last week. The number was 104.

That's almost double of what we've been running. Almost a 50% decrease.

And all week, the enemy did a job on me.

I believed the lies of the devil.

It was eating me up. Why are we shrinking? Our worship team does a fantastic job.

Our greeters and welcome center, they're all doing a fantastic job.

We have great student Student ministry is going on, and NextGen Youth is now

going on every other Wednesday.

And it's been life-changing for my kids. I know it's been literally life-changing

for the kids that are there.

I shouldn't call them kids, 6th through 12th graders, the students.

Everyone's friendly and loving. So the only thing that it could be is me.

And I confessed to the team this morning. I said, I had thoughts all week.

Not the first week I've had these thoughts, but it was the first week that I thought,

we're not gonna make it we are not gonna make it we're not surviving financially,

we're dwindling nobody comes and I was having a pity party and I started looking for jobs,

I'm not telling you that to scare you. I'm just telling you that's where my

heart was this week, that I wrestle with my significance and my purpose just as much as you do.

And then the Lord intervened and slapped me.

Aren't you glad when the Lord slaps you?

For the past few weeks, I've also been wrestling with the direction and the mission of our church.

I started to ask myself, what's a win look like for Generations Church?

What's it look like? If we have 400 people show up, is that a win?

If we have a million dollars come into play, is that a win? If we have 10 people

saved on Sunday, is that a win?

If we baptize 45 people and then they're gone the next week,

is that a win? What exactly is a win?

And we can only go one place for that. And that's the word of God.

We began to talk about this theme in our family, in my wife,

and in the leaders here since coming back from the SEND Network church planners

gathering in California.

Because when we were there, we visited the Great Commission.

We revisited the purpose and the mission.

And so we've been asking ourselves, are we fulfilling the mission that Jesus gave to the church?

The church, not just generations, but to the church.

See a lot of churches that focus on programs and events and what has now been

termed, as you'll hear this phrase, the attractional church,

because they build an attraction that people come to.

And here's the thing. It works.

You can have a circus and you'll have lots of people. You can put on something

and you can draw in a crowd, but is that a win?

You can be a mile wide with 3,000, 5,000 people, but if you're an inch deep, is it a win?

The church at large has become so comfortable that we can attend church and

never feel the responsibility of personal ownership.

And so here's the big idea. If you have your notes today, day,

here's the big idea that we're going to talk about.

Jesus didn't call us to make converts.

Jesus didn't call us to make converts. He called us to make disciples who make

disciples who make disciples.

That's what God calls us to. Is evangelism part of it? Absolutely.

Huge part of of it. Is conversion part of it? Absolutely.

But he's called us to make disciples.

Something that I've learned over the past year and a half really is that church

growth was never meant to happen through means of addition.

And what I mean by that is hopefully we'll get someone new to come into the

church and hopefully they'll want to become a member.

That's addition. We'll add. You know, we could have a big event and get people

to come in, but again, does it meet the mission?

Wasn't meant to happen through addition, but by multiplication through discipleship.

This morning, if you have your Bibles, I want to ask you to turn to Matthew

Matthew 28:18–20

28, verses 18 through 20. It'll also be on the screens.

But I want to encourage you to bring your Bibles to church so you can write

in them, so you can highlight, circle.

But this is what it says. Read with me together. It says, Jesus came near and

said to them, all authority, excuse me, has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

So he starts this whole process by saying, hey, if you're listening to anybody,

you need to be listening to me.

This is the mission. I've started, we're starting this church,

and this is the mission that I have for you.

All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of

the Father and the Son and of

the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.

And remember, and I love that Jesus is so great about doing this throughout

all the gospels in the New Testament.

You always find that when there's a commandment that he gives you,

he always reminds you, hey, I'm with you to help you through what you're going to try to accomplish.

We will never be successful at discipleship or evangelism on our own. I don't have it in me.

You don't have it in you, apart from the power of the Holy Spirit that's alive

and actively working in us.

So he empowers us. So here Jesus gives us the mission of the church.

See, the methods will change.

Hymns, praise songs, choruses, you know, small groups, connection groups,

Wednesday night prayer, like things change, methods change, but the mission never changes.

And here Jesus gave us four parts to this mission.

He said, go, he said, make disciples, He said, baptize. And he said, teach.

That's the mission of the church in a nutshell. Now let's look at this a little

bit deeper. The first thing he said is go.

It's interesting when you study the original language, you'll see that go in

the Greek language is not actually a command.

It is a present participle. It's like I'm revisiting college English all over again in seminary.

It's a present participle, which makes it mean going.

So the literal meaning would read like this, while you are going,

make disciples of all nations.

So no matter where you are, no matter where you go, as you go,

we are to be witnesses for Jesus and seeking to win others to him.

Discipleship is the responsibility of every Christian. Every Christian. Say every.

Every. Every Christian has the responsibility of discipling other Christians.

Wherever we go, when you're at the football game, I struggle there, I'll admit it.

When you're at the grocery store, when you're at the movie theater in line getting

your tickets or your popcorn or your $12 drink.

You are to be discipling and teaching and witnessing and representing Jesus everywhere you go.

It's our God-given mission and responsibility.

And I would say also this, it's a privilege to be an ambassador for Jesus.

You are an ambassador. You represent Jesus to those people around you.

So when they come in contact with you, do they know who you represent?

Is it obvious? If discipleship is the responsibility of every Christian,

then it's probably pretty important for us to understand and know what discipleship is.

The term disciples actually was the most popular name for early believers.

It meant more than what we think of just being a convert or even a church member,

a closely related word in our culture would be an apprentice,

that we are to have an apprentice in our faith.

We're supposed to link arms with someone and teach them and live with them and

do everything with them in that manner.

I love how Warren Wiersbe talked about discipleship. He said this, Thanks for watching.

Disciple attached himself to a teacher, identified with him,

learned from him, and lived with him.

This is very important. He learned not simply by listening, but also by doing.

Jesus called 12 disciples and taught them so that they might be able to teach others.

And now here comes our definition of what a disciple is.

Excuse me. A disciple is one who has believed on Jesus Christ.

He's a convert, right? He's made that decision. I want to live for the Lord Jesus.

I understand that he paid my penalty for sin, and I'm asking him to, I want to follow him.

He's believed on Jesus Christ. He's expressed this faith by being baptized.

Once you get saved, once you make a commitment and a confession of faith,

the next step for your Your obedience is to be baptized, to say,

I am identifying now as a Christian. That's what it is. It's like a wedding ring.

This tells everyone else that this fine piece of man is all hers, and aren't you lucky?

That's right. Give one. I'm just kidding. Being baptized is telling others,

hey, I no longer identify with the world.

I'm born again. I'm going to wear that wedding ring that says, I am now a Christian.

So he's baptized. And then he remains in the fellowship of believers that he

might be taught the truths of faith.

That's gathering, coming to church, right?

He is then able to go out and win others and teach them. This was the pattern

of the New Testament church.

That's a very clear pattern set out for us in the New Testament.

You accept Christ, you're baptized, you're disciples, you learn and you grow

in community and in fellowship, and then you disciple someone.

Acts 2 in verse 41, 42 says, they accepted his message.

There's that exception of Christ. They've come to Christ now.

And that day, about 3,000 people were added to them.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship,

to breaking of bread, and to prayer. That's community.

Discipleship, as I said earlier, changes our mindset from addition to multiplication.

See, the current mindset of most churches is that it is the responsibility of

the pastor to grow the church by making the church attractive.

And we want all the amenities, but none of the personal responsibility,

so churches don't grow. Here's the addition mindset.

It's bringing new believers, but with a focus on numbers and not discipleship.

Now, do we want to be about numbers?

Absolutely, because every person is a soul that either is headed to heaven or to hell.

So we absolutely want to be about that, but we want to be about discipleship.

Numerical growth happens if someone shows up who regularly doesn't come,

but discipleship will never take place if we're just a mile wide and an inch deep.

Unfortunately, most church growth that's happening in the United States is not

because we're getting off of our rumps and going out and discipling others.

It's because people get unhappy.

And so, churches that are growing, they're not new disciples.

They're not new converts. They're not new believers for the most part.

It's by church transfership. I'm bored here. I don't like that they don't have

this. They don't have this. They don't have this.

You know why it's hard to plant a church?

You know why there's so few of us right now? Can I say thanks again for being here?

Because in order to plant a church, we have to work.

Go to a large church and you can sneak in and you can leave,

you can worship and you can avoid responsibility of the mission that Jesus gave us.

But in a church plant, if you don't accept the mission that God's gave us,

and if you don't put your hands to the plow and start working, guess what?

We're going to last two years, three years most.

That's just the truth. And so as we gather in our family room together as family,

I'm saying, guys, there's a personal responsibility that each one of us has to bear.

We have to have a multiplication mindset, which says this, we're going to equip

believers to disciple others.

Why are we starting up some more connection groups, little Bible studies here

and there? Because we want to equip you.

We have a new 10-week discipleship class that I'm going to be teaching every

Sunday night. it's 10 weeks.

Why am I doing that on a Sunday evening? Because I want to equip you.

I want to equip you. Let me paint a picture of what true discipleship is.

Hi, I'm Jeff. What's your name? Lisa. Lisa. Hey, awesome.

And I present the gospel to her. Hey, do you have a church you go to?

Have you ever heard about Jesus? I don't care how you do it.

Put your stuff down, because you're now my disciple.

Of course, I'm going to do it with a guy, not a girl, because that would not

be perfect. Now you go and we're doing life together.

This is Joe. Just pretend this is Joe.

I'm so thankful for our relationship. I'm so glad. Thanks for having coffee with me this morning.

How are you doing with that Bible reading plan that I invited you to on YouVersion?

Is it going well? Do you have any questions for me?

Can I help you? How are those kids of yours?

Are they making you more like Jesus? Are they pushing you towards hell?

And so we do life together you're in

my you're in my discipleship class now that's awesome and in 10 weeks guess

what you're gonna be ready to go hey there's there's a girl why don't you go

introduce yourself to her and

she now you hi beautiful girl it's the only person i could say that too.

I don't do that. Well, hello, they're gorgeous.

And then now she's discipling her. Hey, buddy.

Hi, how you doing? Do you like the Vikings? No. Oh, okay. Then you can go to,

I'll get someone that likes the Vikings.

I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I do like you, even though you're a Packer fan.

And my dad's, my dad's a Packer fan. So he's going to the same

place you are so we we are walking and walking and now guess what oh he sees

a friend right here and you're gonna do life together yeah okay stand up did

you know do you know his name his name is.

Kenny, nice to see you. Pretty bright for a Packers fan.

So now you're doing life with him. And then Kenny is going to go get somebody.

And then he disciples somebody.

And instead of one and one and one, now we have multiplication happening because

of the personal responsibility that I am to make disciples.

So I disciple someone who disciples someone who disciples someone,

who disciples someone, who disciples someone, and the kingdom of God grows.

Church, that's multiplication, and that's what we need to be about.

Addition is great, but we have to be about multiplication.

It's got to be growing exponentially, exponentially, but that only happens through

personal responsibility.

Now, let me remind you, because now you're saying, oh man, he wants me to do something.

Yeah, but that verse that we just looked up a few minutes ago,

Matthew 28, and remember, I'm with you.

Is it our natural response? Do I want to be like, Like, hey,

excuse me, I know I don't know you, but do you know your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

Naturally inside of us. But what you see is as you begin flexing those muscles,

you start working out that weight.

Oh yeah, look at those.

Look at those. You're scaring me, Austin. You start flexing muscles that you've

never used before, and you're going to grow yourself exponentially as well.

He doesn't expect you to do it without his Holy Spirit empowering you guys.

I want to give you five priorities of disciple makers, and then we're going

to wrap up and we're going to have, at least I'm going to have pizza with some folks.

And again, if you have any interest in finding out more about Generations Church,

stay and hang out with my wife and I and have some frozen pizza.

It's the best. It's the best frozen pizza you'll have today.

Day. This is the priority, five priorities of disciple makers.

Number one, they're all about Jesus.

Jesus is their priority. Jesus is their priority. In their going, Jesus is the priority.

Disciple makers demonstrate a passion to know, to love, and become like Christ.

Philippians 3, 8 through 10. I'm just going to read verse 10 because of time,

but it says, my goal, Paul's talking, my goal is to know him.

I hope that's your goal this morning. I want to know him because I know he'll change my life.

He'll pull me out of the pit. I know he's going to do something incredible in my life.

My goal is to know him and the power of the resurrection and the fellowship

of his sufferings being conformed to his death.

Disciple makers are followers of Jesus who have a passion to know and love him and make him known.

They are purposeful to deepen their intimacy with him.

Ministry to friends and to family overflows from their time alone with Jesus.

And their focus is more than just knowing about God. It's knowing Him personally.

It's doing life with Him personally.

Number two, not only are they all about Jesus, but they are all about the Word of God.

The Word of God is a priority for them.

A disciple maker knows and lives from the Word of God.

What the Word of God calls sin is sin.

What the Word of God says we should do, we should do.

We just talked about this a few weeks ago, going back to the basics of Scripture.

If you missed it, go listen on the podcast.

All scriptures inspired by God is profitable for teaching, rebuking.

A lot of times those discipleship moments, hey, you want to get together with me, Jeff?

You want to have breakfast? And I was just thinking maybe we could bring your

Bible and let's just walk through Timothy together or Ephesians, okay?

You teach from the Word of God. Disciple makers can accurately handle the word of God.

They know how to read it. They know how to study it, to talk about it,

and to pass it on to others.

And you may be sitting here and you're like, I don't know how to do that.

That's okay. Come to my rooted class. We're going to talk all about that.

Let's grow together. They're about Jesus. They're about the word of God.

And third, they're about community.

Disciple maker pursues biblical community. Hebrews 10 says, let us consider

one another in order to provoke love and good works.

To provoke each other, usually you think of provoke, and I think about my kids

are provoking my wife and she's going to beat them. But this is a different kind of provoke.

This is, I'm going to spur on, I'm going to nudge them, I'm going to push them

into love and into good works.

Not neglecting to gather together as some are in the habit of doing,

but encouraging each other and all the more as you see the day approaching.

Where in the Bible does it say you should be in church? Right there.

Now, all the believers were together. They're doing life together, right?

And held all things in common. They sold their possessions, property,

distributed their proceeds to all as any had need.

Every day, they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple.

We're not even calling you this. A few times a week. Come on.

Every day, they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke

bread from house to house.

They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts praising God and enjoying

the favor of all the people.

When you do life together in community and you love each other, guess what?

That's attractional. When I see a group of people eating together and laughing

together or at a pool together and hanging out in someone's backyard,

that's attractional. And that's what people want.

People want to do life with like-minded people that are going to make them better.

The Lord designed us to walk with him in community with others.

And I don't want you to think that I'm just coming down on everybody because I'm not.

Some of you guys are so amazing at community.

You're incredible. You host things, you're taking people out to lunch and dinner, and you're amazing.

And so please hear me. You guys are awesome. them. The Lord designed us to do life in community.

Disciple-makers will be intentional to seek, pursue, and create community among

believers and spur each other toward love and good needs.

Number four, their fourth priority is the lost, people that don't know Jesus yet.

The disciple-maker will go out of their way to spend time with those who do not yet know Christ.

Let me put a parenthesis here, please.

Be among the lost, right?

Don't make that your primary community, though. They are the mission field.

You should be drawing them in, them not drawing you to them.

1 Thessalonians says this, We cared so much for you that we were pleased to

share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives because you had become dear to us.

They're doing life with people that don't know him and they're giving him the gospel.

They're giving them the word of God. Be intentional.

Disciple makers are marked by a strong commitment to the great commission and

a strong compassion for those without Christ.

And that's one of the things we pray for on Wednesday nights here.

We're praying that we'll have compassion for the lost, that we'll be burdened

for those who don't yet know him.

Disciple-makers proclaim and affirm the gospel with both their words and their lives.

That means their actions speak louder than their words.

They're not just empty words. We talked about that last week.

And then finally, Finally, disciple makers make spiritual generations a priority.

A disciple maker will make it a priority to make disciples. That makes a disciple.

That makes a disciple. That makes a disciple. That makes a disciple.

You're not even responsible for all of them. You disciple one.

And do you know the rewards that you will get in heaven because you disciple

someone who disciples someone who...

That family tree for generation after generation after generation after generation,

we'll be able to go back and say, man, Billy discipled me, and so I discipled you.

And guys, we have to think more than just addition.

We have to multiply the body of Christ.

I know that the first time you hear this, it can be overwhelming.

You don't think you have it in you to be a disciple maker.

But here's the deal. If you're a Christian, it is your responsibility to make

the confession of faith, be baptized,

learn and grow, and then disciple someone else. and repeat.

That's the mission that we've been called to as Christians.

We have to multiply.

Teach. We have to reach everywhere we're going.

And as we're going, reach and teach.

I'm telling you what, studying this stuff this week, I mean,

I've been mauling this and going over this,

multiplication and discipleship stuff for the last couple of months,

but I am convinced that if we were going to build the kingdom, we have to disciple.

I started off with the story of the lighthouse.

We've got to keep the main thing, the main thing.

You know what? Being part of a church plant is not an easy thing.

I know some of you want ministries. I know you want this and you want this and you want this.

Guess what? I want those too.

But it's going to take all of us. I can't do it alone.

Sherry Dean, you can't do it alone.

It takes all of us discipling others and being obedient to follow the mission of Jesus.

Would you pray with me?

Lord, I ask for your forgiveness,

in that I have not made discipleship the number one priority in my life in years past.

And I fought you even to bring this message because I want to say things to

my friends and to the people that are here that they're going to like and that

will make them feel good.

I don't want to speak hard things because they may not like it and they may leave.

You've called us to. It's what you've called each of us. We are your disciples if we know you.

So please convict us. Put a passion in us to reach one person.

One person. If we each reached one person this week or this month,

we'd have 120 people here.

And it would just grow and grow and grow and overwhelm the Cedar Valley and

Iowa and the country and the world.

Because instead of addition, we're multiplying because we're each owning the mission you gave to us.

If you're here this morning and you haven't accepted Christ as your Savior,

I want to just say, God loves you.

Christ died for you. He has a great plan for your life.

And you come to him in complete surrender, confessing that he is Lord,

repenting from your sins.

Repentance just means turning from and going the opposite direction.

He says, call on the name of the Lord Jesus and you'll be saved.

If that's you this morning and you just say, I want to give my heart and my

life completely to the Lord, just, I'm all in for you, Lord. Just slip your hand up.

Anyway. and maybe you're here and you're just saying God I'm convicted I know

I'm supposed to be a disciple maker,

would you help me to own the mission they've given to us.

God I pray that you just convict hearts today,

we want to shine we want to be a city on a hill rescuing the lost lust,

pulling people from darkness into light.

We want you to pull them up and give people a firm foundation.

We know that you can transform marriages, that you can transform lives.

You can transform financial situations. You can heal diseases and sickness.

Convict us to own the mission that you gave us.

In Jesus' name, amen.

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You've been listening to the Generations Church podcast. If you'd like more

information about Generations Church, feel free to get in touch with us at info

at generationchurch.us.

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