A Call to Reach the Nations (Part 2) - October 13, 2024

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6, 19, pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

Hey, church. Good morning. Good morning. I got to tell you that I love you.

That's not just preach or talk, but I sincerely love you.

And the words I preach today are from that place of love and just from my desire

to see the kingdom of heaven filled up with people that used to be dirty, rotten sinners like us,

like you and like me, and a bunch more that aren't in this building.

And, you know, I was thinking about all the different things we talked a little

bit about last week about all the

different problems in the world and the people that are in need of hope.

And those of us that possess hope, that have hope in God, that have a reason

for hope, we should just be shedding that from the rooftops.

We should just be sharing that with everyone that we come into contact with.

The hope that we have in Christ, the hope that we have not just in a future

salvation, but in a here and now salvation that we can live the way God wants us to live.

We can live above the fray of sin, above the entanglement of it.

In order to reach out to others, and especially to reach out to others who do

not have any hope, really, any hope of tomorrow.

And so last week I gave you the challenge, the call to reach the nations,

the challenge from Jesus to go and make disciples.

And I left off because it was a two-parter. I left off as to the where do we go?

We come to church to do it? I mean, it's a good place to get excited,

to get enthused, and then to go out, but where, in fact, do we go?

And that's when we come to today's passage of Scripture in Acts,

in Acts chapter 1, verses 7 through 11.

Acts 1:7–11

You want to talk about famous last words. This was Jesus' farewell to his disciples,

and here's what Jesus said.

Hear the word of the Lord from Acts chapter 1, starting in verse 7.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Jesus said to them, It is not for you to know the times or the dates the Father

has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,

and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria,

and to the ends of the earth.

And after Jesus said this, he was taken up before their very eyes,

and a cloud hid him from their sight.

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two

men dressed in white stood beside them.

Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking into the sky?

The same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the

same way that you have seen him go into heaven.

May God bless the reading of his word to your life today. Lord,

thank you for your word, which gives us strength.

Thank you for your word, which gives us encouragement and power to do what you've asked us to do, God.

And we pray this morning that today will be no different, that,

Lord, the challenge that is given, we will accept that, the challenge to share

hope with those that are most in need of it, especially those right around us.

God, we love you. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.

You know, the ascension of Jesus Christ that's recorded here in the passage

that we just read is like the big red launch button.

You ever watch those movies and they say, Mr. President, it's time to launch the missiles.

And usually in those movies, there's a big red button. And all the president

has to do is to hit that button and there goes the missiles trying to attack the enemy.

Well, I want to take it a different direction because the giant red button that

in a sense was pushed when Jesus ascended to heaven was the big red button for

launching the church into a world that needed them,

was launching the disciples out into the world, to share the message of hope,

to share the good news of Jesus.

You know, it's been said that the Gospels show Jesus' movement toward Jerusalem,

which really is Jesus' movement toward the cross.

Jesus moving toward giving up his life, dying on a cross to save all humankind,

but not staying dead and not staying in a grave,

but rising again to bring the power of God to humanity, the power to reconcile

mankind to God, the power to bring about this salvation.

And it's said that the book of Acts then, the story of Acts,

is the church's movement away from Jerusalem, out into the uttermost parts of the earth.

And it's in this that we see the movement of the church is the mission of Jesus

Christ, to go out and to seek and save that which is lost. That means you and

that means me. Aren't you glad about that?

That means that person you can't stand and that person you consider your enemy. Isn't that great?

Oh, that wasn't as enthusiastic this morning.

But this mission that Jesus has given us is to reach out to everyone,

is to bring hope to everybody, even those that, you know, might not be on our

Christmas list this year yet or ever.

But you see what was told in Acts 1.8? It says, but you will receive power when

the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.

You will be. You notice it doesn't say you might be, or it's optional. You can do it if you want.

Jesus said to his disciples, and I believe to us today, that you will be my witnesses.

It's somber when you think about it, that God would choose us to go and to testify

to others about his saving grace, about his miraculous love for us.

But yet that's what God does. That's what did.

It's a command. It's an imperative. You will be my witnesses.

And it's not like, okay, we start at home, and then we get comfortable with

that, then we venture out a little bit further, and then we go even further,

and then we go into all the world.

It's really not an either-or.

It's like either we stay at home or we go. It's like a both-and.

We're here at home witnessing, testifying to what God has done,

but yet we do all we can to get the Word out to the entire world,

no matter where that might take us, no matter where that might be.

Jesus said, you will be my witnesses.

This command that you will be my witnesses, it started in Jerusalem, he said.

For us today, that's our home where we abide, our families.

We're to testify to the hope of God, to the love of Christ,

to the salvation that he brings and the transformation that he brings to us

right in our very homes that could be tough sometimes that could be a little

difficult folks when you're at home everyone knows the good bad and the ugly

about you i mean you live with them for crying out loud.

But you know what? We're called to be witnesses right there in our house.

Not just in our house, but right there in our local communities,

where we live, where we go to the store, where we see people,

where we recreate, at the ballgame with friends.

Wherever we're at, we're called to be witnesses.

Jesus said in Jerusalem, but he also said in all Judea. We think about that,

that all the neighboring communities around us.

When I go down and able to go to a Boise State football game, I'm still a witness.

For Jesus. No matter if Boise State's winning or not, I'm still a witness.

Thankfully, they're winning these days. Wherever we go, neighboring community

states, we're still a witness of Jesus.

It's not just, well, I'm not anywhere near the church, so I can check out,

I'm not a witness anymore. No, we continue to be.

Jesus said, you will be my witnesses.

It goes on to say, in Samaria. Now, Samaria was a place that wasn't really liked by the Jews.

If I could use the term, they were considered half-breeds. They were considered

lower class, if you will.

They were considered people not worthy of God by some.

Jesus said, you will go into all the world. You'll go into Jerusalem, all Judea, and Samaria.

I mean, some place that you're going to be called to might not be the place you want to be.

It might not be the place where you really wanted to go. And like Jonah,

it might be people you really don't want to hang around with.

But don't disobey God and end up in the belly of a big fish. Don't do that.

Rather, what you ought to do is what God calls you.

If he calls you into a Samaria where people are antagonistic,

to the gospel, the good news of Jesus, where people are too smart for God to

go into those places and to stand up for truth, to stand up for righteousness,

and most of all, to bring hope to those that are hopeless in there.

Jesus says we are going to go to the uttermost parts of the earth.

One of the things that I like about attending our district assembly,

usually down at a college church there, was when district assembly begins on

that Wednesday night, there's the march of flags.

And each flag that comes in through the doors represents a nation or an area

where the church of the Nazarene has gone to the uttermost parts of the earth,

has gone to share the good news of Jesus,

sent by offerings that we take, sent by the call of God on people.

And they go out to these places and how many different world areas that we're

in. And yet, there's still some more places that we need to go.

There's still some places that we seek to go that have to be entered into creatively.

And we don't necessarily have a flag that says, we're in this nation where we're

not supposed to be, but yet we are.

Why? Because there's people there that need the hope of Jesus.

There's people there that need to know that there's a Savior.

Even in places where there's oppressive governments.

Christians are there sharing the good news of Jesus with others.

I don't know if God will call you to that, but here in Jesus' farewell,

he does say, you will be my witnesses.

So you know what that makes us all?

In a sense, that makes us missionaries.

Wait a minute, Mike, I didn't answer any call to go to Africa.

I didn't answer any call, you know, to go somewhere. I don't want to go out of this nation.

I'm kind of a picky eater, so I don't want to go to somewhere where there's

going to be strange food, much less strange people.

But no, really, we are all missionaries. Look at the definition in your bulletin

of the missionary that I put.

It may not be totally correct, but it just entertained me here.

Someone who crosses boundaries with the purpose of communicating the gospel

of Jesus and making disciples.

That would make all of us who cross boundaries, no matter what those boundaries

might be, missionaries.

We're taking the good news and we're going and we're going to share it with someone else.

When you think about the different types of boundaries, sometimes it's just

the property lines of our own house, going next door to share the good news with them.

We might not bring a big Bible like this and go knock on their door and say,

let me tell you about Jesus.

We might not do that. We might, I don't know.

But we might bring a plate of food next door and say, hey, I know you're going

to be having surgery this week. Here's something you might like.

You see them out there trying to start their car, and it's cold,

and their battery might not be working too good, and so you offer to go in to help.

Or in the case of my son this week, they delivered our neighbor's package to

our door, and Noah said, well, this ain't ours. I'll go next door.

And he kept knocking on the door until they answered.

He didn't want any porch pirates in Parma coming around to capture that package.

I don't know that we have porch pirates, but they're pirates.

That we cross. Even locally, there might be some linguistic barriers that we might have to navigate.

I know we all have different opinions on immigration and such,

and in the lifetime of this nation, there's always been different languages

coming in. And I know we push for assimilation.

It doesn't seem like that's happened very much. But what has happened in this,

we've basically got the mission field that's come to the United States of America.

And so there's going to be some linguistic barriers that you might have to cross,

in order to communicate hope, in order to communicate the gospel with others.

You know, there might be some socioeconomic boundaries that you have to cross.

Sometimes it's trying to share the good news with people that have everything

they need or could ever dream of.

You would call them well off. Why do they need Jesus? They have every material

possession that they could ever need.

But it might be the flip side of that, too, and it might be people that have nothing.

And we might need to cross those boundaries in order to share the hope of Jesus

with them. Can I tell you that the rich and the poor both need Jesus?

That the rich and the poor both are in places where they need hope,

the hope that Jesus Christ brings?

Here Jesus says, you will be my witnesses.

You'll be missionaries. You'll be people that go and share the good news with others.

Folks, every believer has a responsibility to share the gospel.

Now, I know some of you have taken the shape inventory. I want to encourage

all of you to do that, and maybe you looked at your profile of the spiritual

gifts you had, and it says,

there is no evangelist whatsoever in my spiritual gifts. I'm off the hook.

Well, no. I praise the Lord for evangelists, because they can share the Word,

barely speak, and the altars are filled up with people giving their hearts to

God. It's a spiritual gift that they have.

But I want you to know each one of us has the duty, the responsibility to share

the hope that lies within us with others, to share why we are a believer in

Jesus, to share why we are trusting in God for salvation,

trusting in Jesus for the salvation that he brings.

It's a beautiful thing, if you think about it,

that God calls each of us to be missionaries no matter where we're at,

to be witnesses wherever we're at, to go into all the world wherever we're at,

even if it's just across the street, down at the supermarket,

at a football game, wherever we know that there are people that are in need of Jesus.

I love this next part, because in the next part of the passage,

we have an encouraging reminder in verses 9 through 11.

And this encouragement, I love how it takes place.

When we read in the Scripture, Jesus gives these final instructions to his disciples

and then begins to ascend.

Hey, this would be great if there were theatrics and the stage lifted me up.

We don't have that kind of stuff. But can you imagine Jesus telling this stuff

to his disciples and he begins to ascend, and the clouds begin to hide him,

and the disciples are going, whoa, wow.

I mean, in the days before we have all the Disneyland kind of stuff,

you know, all the Hollywood kind of stuff, to see this take place.

And what Scripture says is awesome, because it says then there's two men in

white, two angels, if you will, two messengers of God that are there,

and they basically say, hey guys, what are you doing standing around?

The same Jesus you see go up to heaven, he's going to return in the same way.

I know we all await that return, but in the meantime, we're supposed to be about

the mission of Jesus, to continue to seek and save that which is lost,

to believe in our heart of hearts that God is willing that none should perish,

but that all should come to repentance,

and that we're to be about the business of what Jesus wants us to.

Not just standing around like we did this morning. Oh, worship was so awesome.

Worship is always awesome in this church, in my opinion. And yes, I'm a little biased.

But you can come here and be free to worship the Lord.

Be free to express. I know we're not really expressive. We don't stand up too

much or raise our hands too much. It's okay if you do that, by the way.

And we just want to worship God. And it's great to come in here with other Christian

people. Not worry about weird stuff going on.

And just to come in here and to say, we're amongst people that love Jesus, that love the Lord.

We know what we're talking about.

But at some point, we've got to go. At some point, we've got to take that first

step to cross a boundary.

Like I said last week, it might be our own comfort zone that we step out of.

Now, I'm not saying we have to go old school and go around knocking on every

door in our neighborhood. If God calls you that, by all means, go for it.

But you need to have an open heart and open mind to say okay god

let me see who you want me to share your good news with

let me have the heart to be open to not

be afraid to be vulnerable with them and to say and to see and to show god how

much you love these people you see at some point we can't just stand around

worshiping and saying thank you god we've got to go and that's what these angels

were telling the disciples. You got to go.

Now, I know for some of us that can be frightening.

Those of us that are introverts, praise the Lord. I'm ISTJ. I'm an introverted kind of person.

Have some great encouragement here from Scripture. From last week,

remember, Jesus said, I will be with you always, even until the very end of the age.

When you think about Matthew 28, 20 again, I will be with you always.

It means we don't have to be obedient. I mean, disobedient. We have to be obedient. Yeah, for sure.

But the consequences of us doing nothing, just standing around and worshiping.

Hey, we build ourselves up, we build one another up, but we don't bring anyone else in.

It's disobedient for us just to stay in here and have a good Christian worship

service without it spurring us on to good works, to going out and to serving.

We become disobedient in that. Even if we're in here worshiping God together, God wants us to go.

An inactive Christian is a disobedient Christian, which means you're not being a disciple of Jesus.

And when that is looked at at a greater scale, a stationary church,

which I don't believe in a stationary church, but for lack of a better word,

a church that's not doing anything to reach out to others is a disobedient church.

Because we're not believing Luke 19.10, and we're not believing 2 Peter 3.9,

because we're just sitting here and waiting for everyone to come to us instead of us going out.

And I know that can be frightening to some, But don't be afraid because Jesus

is with you when he calls you to that.

It says the I am is with you always.

You're not by yourself. You're not alone. Jesus is with you.

The Holy Spirit of God is indwelling you when you have your heart and your mind

open to say, okay, God, lead me to whom you want me to talk to.

Not only that, Acts 1.8, you receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.

It's not in your own strength. it's not in your own power, but it's the power

of the Holy Spirit of God that indwells your heart, that indwells your life.

That when he kind of nudges your heart, hey, hey, see that person over there?

Just go buy them a hamburger. Go ask them if they're hungry.

Hey, you see that lady over there?

She needs just a smile and an encouragement today. You see, it might not always

be that we get to invite someone into the kingdom of God, lead them in a sinner's

prayer, so to speak, show them the four spiritual laws.

But everyone is doing something to bring them closer to Jesus.

The attitudes that we have toward others, the love that we show to them,

a seed's been planted and that helps to water the seed.

And then the plant begins to grow and people become thirsty for the water,

the living water of Jesus. People become hungry for the bread of life.

We all have a part in that.

I think somewhere in the New Testament doesn't say, hey, this one guy planted,

this other guy watered, but these people are getting the harvest.

It's harvest season, if you haven't noticed. Why can't there be a harvest of souls right now?

Even Jesus said, hey, look, the fields are wide unto harvest.

I don't have enough workers to go out and help me harvest this.

So while we may be planting, while we may be watering, while we might be nurturing,

we've always got to keep an eye out for those that are ready for the good news

of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

those that are ready to enter into his kingdom, to be adopted into God's family,

those that are ready to repent of their sin and turn to God in the blessedness

and the way of life that God offers.

This really hit home with me this week as I was preparing this sermon.

I learned Thursday, well actually it was Friday, that there was an accident

up in Valley County with two young people, one 19 and one 20.

And the 19-year-old tried to navigate a corner, but missed. And he went off

the road and flipped his truck and he died.

And when I discovered who that young man was, my heart was grieved.

This young man, I first met at Heartland High School.

When I was allowed to go, the board said, hey, go and sub. And so I was allowed

to sub as Pastor Mike in a public school, which was kind of cool.

And I got to know this young man, great, great leader.

He went to school with my daughters before he went to Heartland.

And he was really struggling with this faith. He'd made a commitment before

to Jesus, but he just had never followed up on that.

And he felt that God was calling him to do something. And God even maybe was

calling him to preach. And so he struggled with this.

And all my effort and all my power of saying, hey, let's get together.

Let's have coffee. Hey, let's get together. Let's do lunch.

And one of the last times that I saw him, we had lunch at KB Burrito in McCall.

I was talking about some spiritual things, but with no commitment being made at that point.

Soon after, of course, I went on sabbatical, got to see him one more time before

God called us here to Mountain View Church.

But it's that not knowing.

It's that not knowing, did he make a commitment or not?

And it's that not knowing if I could have done more and how I was being a witness

and how I was sharing unto, whether it would have made a difference in the choice that he made.

And I know I'm not the only one that struggles with these kind of things.

Folks, the important part is that we go and that we share.

We don't know what the outcome is. We're not to judge one another's salvation.

Now, we are supposed to be fruit inspectors, but we're not supposed to be judging.

God is the judge, and God will judge every one of us. But when we think about

this, are there five people you know that just need Jesus?

And to not stop until they've heard the good news, to not stop until they've

heard the message of the gospel of Jesus.

Think about the action steps that are printed in your bulletin, they're pretty simple.

If we're thinking about the eternal salvation of someone else,

that we're going to pray for five people over the next 30 days,

that you're going to be willing to receive a devotional, that you'll read that,

and that you'll be encouraged that you can do this evangelism thing, you can be a witness,

that you will participate in a prayer walk, just to walk around a neighborhood,

walk down Main Street without even really talking to anybody.

You can, but just praying for those businesses, who they represent,

what they do, to pray for the houses that you walk by and saying,

Lord, this family, they need to know you.

They need to be in your kingdom eternally. God, I just pray for them now,

whatever their needs are.

And if God leads someone to you while you're doing this prayer walk,

maybe it's neighborhood watch

or something, wondering why you're walking around their neighborhood.

Maybe you get an opportunity to share Jesus with them. But in these things,

it's taking some active steps to do what Jesus said to be my witnesses.

And we don't have to go that far. We don't have to go very far to do that.

Even if all you can do is just handwrite a note or send an email to five people

that just encourages them, hey, there's someone in your community that loves

you, we're praying for you, and just be encouraged.

And then invite eight people to church over the next 30 days.

Hey, it's just an invitation.

Hey, would you come join us? A couple weeks, guess what? As people sign up for

the chili feed, we're going to have chili. We're going to have a time together.

Folks, remember what I said, inaction is disobedience. Let's not be disobedient

to the Lord. I'm not trying to guilt you into anything.

Honestly, if there's guilt that you're fulfilling. Submit that to the Lord.

But I think we've all got to be about the kingdom, the kingdom's work.

Folks, there's young men like Logan, who without a good word,

might be separated from God for all eternity.

I don't know who the Logans are in your life. Maybe you know them real well,

or maybe you barely know them.

But I got to tell you, you sharing the good news of Jesus, even just living

it out, it could have a great impact upon them.

I can tell you that the continuation school at Heartland in McCall is grieving right now.

I know that they're searching for God right now, the whole school full of young people.

And I know there's also faithful men and women that will share the good news of Jesus with them.

It worth it? Yeah. When we get to celebrate throughout all eternity with them,

we're going to say, yes, boy, it was worth it. The discomfort was worth it.

The awkwardness was worth it.

The obedience to Jesus and his call to go was worth it.

And I pray that your time spent over these next 30 days, if you will take up

the Hope Initiative Challenge, I hope you'll see that this is worth it too.

Let me pray for us, and we're going to sing the doxology together.

And some of us go on to lunch. Some of us go to a meeting about the wild game

feed and dream about lunch.

And we'll all go out and see who God has for us to share his love with this

week. Father, thank you for your people here today.

And Lord, thank you for the opportunity to share this word. Lord,

I pray in our response today, it will be one of obedience.

Lord, not the kind of obedience that says, I'm just going to do this so I can

toe the line, but the kind of obedience that says, yes, Jesus,

I love you so much that I want to do what you say,

that I can't wait to go out and to share your good news with others,

that I can't wait to go out and be a witness just by the way that I'm living to those around me.

And Lord, I pray that you'll give us those opportunities.

Lord, this morning, we do pray for Heartland High School. We do pray for the

teachers and the staff there.

God, we pray for Logan's family. And Lord, we just ask that these students will

be pointed to Jesus this week.

Lord, be with us, we pray, as we close out our time together.

God, be glorified, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon, as well as other sermons, and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.