Mission in the Neighbourhood

Hey everyone, this is Josh from Encounter Church Henley and thanks so much for tuning

into our podcast.

Our prayer is that through this podcast you can have an encounter with Jesus that will

change your life.

And now get ready for an inspiring message from our preaching team.

Well, hi friends.

This is a lot more friends than I was expecting, but I'm here for it.

Now I would like to think of myself as quite the tactful eight year old.

As children do, they have a lot of the time on their hands and so did I.

I would watch my parents and I would see what they did and I was fairly wise in my observations

I felt.

I grew up on the farm so there was lots of outside play to be done.

Now this was fun at all, but what I wanted and I remember literally having dreams about

was an iPod touch.

Some of the older kids on my school bus had one and they look like a vibes.

Of course I wanted one.

The only issue was I'm a kid and so like my only income stream is just money I found

in the couch or somewhere.

So I wasn't looking particularly promising, but being this observational eight year old

that I was one day my dad said that he was heading to town to pick up a new phone and

he won't ask if I wanted to come along.

Of course I did.

We entered the tech shop in good old Balaclava and dad did the paperwork to get himself the

new iPhone 4.

We love 2011.

Being the so observational child that I was, I noticed that his old phone, the iPhone 3,

was now sitting on the bench with no use at all.

So I brought him my case.

Dad, you're not using this.

There's no SIM card.

So there's no cost.

So can I have it?

He didn't see why not.

And so here I was with this slick new iPhone 3.

Didn't cost me a cent.

This is all to my mum's dismay of course.

She saw why that wouldn't be ideal.

But once I had it, there was no going back.

Quick iPhone history for you.

The iPhone 3 was actually the first one to have an app store.

I'd hit the jackpot free phone, unlimited games, always going well until I wanted a certain

game and it asked for a password.

I hit cancel and moved on.

But iPhones back in 2020, 2011 didn't have the parental controls that they have now.

So there was this setting where if a purchase was made free or not, all of the purchases

for 15 minutes after didn't need to be authenticated.

So all the best games of course required this password, which absolutely sucked.

But I learned to pick and choose my times to ask dad for a game.

He'd put in the password and I'd go ham.

I would download the absolute most.

I would.

And then I'd call it a day after those 15 minutes.

I got movies, TV shows, all the music and apps I could ever imagine.

Life was going so smoothly.

Until of course at the end of the month, dad printed out this fat receipt totaling $350

from iTunes and asked me, how are you going to pay it?

I didn't know those numbers like meant anything.

I thought that it was play money or something.

All I knew, password, 15 minutes free and we're chilly.

But I'd been caught.

The scheme was up.

But this oh so wise and observant eight year old generally didn't realise how incorrectly

he judged the situation.

I wonder if this has happened to you.

You probably didn't spend hundreds of dollars on Cut the Rope and Camp Rock albums, but

have you ever done something that seemed to be logical with the information that you had

and it turned out to be misguided?

Sometimes we don't see what's right in front of us.

Many times we make judgments based on half baked thoughts and images of people and situations

and ideas.

We don't always have the perspective or wisdom to understand the full picture of what's going

on around us.

As we age and as we develop in a maturity, we get a better picture as we create models

of situations and start to interpret by repetition.

But we never truly have a full picture of what's going on.

We're in our final week of our mission in motion series where we've looked at mission

in Java, mission in friendship, mission in Henley and now I get the privilege of sharing

with you mission in the neighborhood.

But to keep things easy, I'm considering a neighbour not necessarily the person who

lives next to you, although there's always ministry to be done there, but instead our

neighbours are the people we meet in the spaces we occupy.

So think of the people who serve you at the shops, people at uni, other parents at school

pick up.

There's lots of people we meet who we do actually have influence on, but they aren't necessarily

friend level.

No offence, uni friends.

Who could a neighbour be for you?

Alright, a teaching text today begins with Jesus sending 72 disciples to go out on a

mission to visit some neighbouring towns that Jesus was going to stop by on his journey.

They've chosen to follow Jesus and so naturally they're sent out to share the goodness they

found in him with the world and to act as forerunners to prepare the way for Jesus.

The disciples were sent in pairs and this was deliberate.

In the Mosaic Law, the way they would confirm a statement is true or a testimony was true

would be the confirmation of two witnesses.

It was important for the disciples to maintain integrity in their ministry and also to be

strengthened by one another as they went.

Jesus gives the disciples these instructions, reading from verse 2,

The harvest is great, but the workers are few.

So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest.

Ask him to send more workers into his fields.

Or go and remember that I'm sending you out as lambs among wolves.

These two verses are quite short, but they tell us so much about God's heart for us

and is cool for us too.

The harvest is great, but the workers are few.

Now if I know anything about a harvest, and believe me I sure do, if the harvest is great,

if it's ready to be harvested and the weather's right, you're racing out the door jumping

into the cab of a tractor before you know it.

There's no time to waste.

You're calling up friends and workers who come into your paddock and smash this out

because there's a window of time that the crop needs to be harvested in for you to get

the best bang for your buck, or sometimes any bang for your buck.

You'll grit your teeth and call up whoever's needed to get the job done because it's simply

not wise or worth waiting any longer than you absolutely need to to harvest your fields.

I'm sure you can sense the urgency here.

But before the disciples are told to go, they're told to pray, the need for more workers is

so great, and the job is so important that the only natural response is to pray.

Seeking God in prayer is the all-important work that goes before every move of God, every

miracle and everything that honors God.

If there's one thing you take away from today, first pray, then go.

In their passage, Pharma Jesus looks out the window and sees his harvest is ready.

He says it's time to pray, time to call up the harvest, the workers, time to get going

into the fields because there's work to be done.

The only thing is what harvest?

Jesus is talking about a harvest of people that has come to save from sin and bring from

death to life, but is his harvest ripe?

If you look out your window into the streets of the world, the public places and the hidden

ones, do you see a harvest ripe and ready to be received by Jesus?

The heart and posture of humanity has always been the same throughout all time.

Now, I'm an optimistic person, I really am, but looking at the world today, I don't see

the most ripe harvest.

There are powerful stories of revival that we hear about, but most of what we see day-to-day

is not that.

Australians Christian population has been declining since the 1960s.

According to Australian censuses, in 1971, Christians represented 86% of the population.

And comparing that to now-ish in 2021, Christians represented only 43% of the population.

We live in a more secular society than ever.

Turning on the news, I mean, I don't really do that, but all we see is a bombardment of

horrors and atrocities by people all over the world and the ways that communities are divided

against themselves.

Being a person of faith in the media is also always portrayed in a judgmental and negative

way.

Sometimes, it feels like the world has hardened its heart against faith and against Jesus.

Yet, somehow, Jesus sees a harvest.

Maybe the warning in verse 3, remember that I'm sending you out as lambs among wolves,

was supposed to be preparation for this.

A wolf is a lamb's natural predator.

There's an expectation of opposition in God's harvest, but Jesus sees something more.

After Jesus' instructions about what they were to do, harvest, Jesus gives them some

guidelines on how they should do it.

So this is verse 4.

Don't take any money with you, nor a traveller's bag, nor an extra pair of sandals, and don't

stop to greet anyone on the road.

Whenever you enter someone's home, first say, may God's peace be on this house.

And if those who live there are peaceful, the blessing will stand.

And if they're not, the blessing will return to you.

Don't move around from home to home, stay in one place, eating and drinking what they

all provide.

Don't hesitate to accept hospitality, because those who work deserve their pay.

If you enter a town and it welcomes you, eat whatever's set before you.

Heal the sick and tell them, the kingdom of God is near you now.

Now some of us might read that and think absolutely not.

I don't see a harvest, I always carry money, and whose house am I going into?

But we don't always see the full picture.

Jesus is telling us the harvest is ripe, go get them, here's how you do it.

So we gotta trust him.

Even when it looks like a desert wasteland, there's still a great harvest waiting for

its workers.

So this is a lot of instructions, many very specific for the disciples specific call,

but I think the why behind it still applies to us.

There's some true wisdom here, so here's how to harvest like Jesus' disciples.

Firstly, go with trust.

Jesus asks the disciples to come, to not come with any cash or extra gear, which is the

same thing that he actually called his original 12 disciples to do at one point.

And I believe this is to encourage them to trust the Lord to provide for all their basic

needs.

They already need to rely on God's power and the promise of the gospel as their strength,

and so trusting in his provision is all part of living this out.

The same concept actually stands when he tells them not to greet anyone on the road.

This sounds somewhat counterintuitive to showing the gospel, but Jesus is likely referring

to the long greeting ceremonies that were common to the culture of the day.

The disciples are called to go in haste.

Stopping for these long greetings was actually unhelpful and could also be seen as a way

to try and gain favor and resources separate from God.

They weren't to worry about the things of the world, which Jesus' promise would be provided,

and instead he needed to keep moving, keep their eyes fixed on their mission.

Your second step, look for a person of peace.

Once these disciples entered the town, they would find a house and offer peace to it.

If the house was considered peaceful, this essentially means that the people inside were

receptive to the gospel.

Ready and interested to hear about Jesus.

In the same light, if the person wasn't peaceful, they weren't interested.

And the disciples were encouraged to actually move to another house, not forcing their message,

but instead waiting to be received by a household of peace.

So in our neighborhoods, and this kind of relates to a bit of what Tim was talking about,

we're looking for people who like you, who listen to you, and the next point, who serve

you.

3.

Accept hospitality in humility.

This should sound somewhat familiar.

Look for someone who serves you, who gives you hospitality, and then do all you can to

accept it well.

The reason the disciples are encouraged to stay in one place is to set them apart from

the deceitful false teachers who would go from home to home looking for whoever had the nicest

food, the nicest couch, whatever it was, and then they would basically build up their ladder

to get the best stuff.

The disciples were to be wise with how they spent their time, accepting the hospitality

in front of them and sharing the message.

They were to move with the humility and security unfound in anyone else except Jesus.

4.

Next, heal the sick.

Again, I know what you're thinking.

Accept hospitality, heal the sick.

It's not that crazy, but you begin to see that these terms are ascending in intensity,

but we're not expected to go one to 100 without the groundwork.

Fostering trust in Jesus and knowing the gospel message is the start, but then the disciples

are called to heal the sick and proclaim the kingdom.

We as humans can't heal on our own, of course, but through the Holy Spirit and in the name

of Jesus there truly is healing.

The miraculous healing was assigned to authenticate their message as it was also to the apostles.

A really good way to live this out simply is to listen to our neighbours, and when they

express a deep need or an illness, pray for them.

Whether there's divine healing or not, the act of praying for someone can be life-changing

and the support that they actually need in the moment.

What type of a message does it send to a neighbour when you pray for them?

I care about what you're experiencing so much that I can't help but talk to God about

it.

I feel like that's incredibly special.

And then finally, proclaim the kingdom.

The disciples are to do this after relationship is formed and with the demonstration of the

Lord's power.

This is both spiritual in the sense that the kingdom of God is near you.

Jesus is about to fulfil his important work of salvation, but he's also actually physically

on his way to the towns.

The disciples are proclaiming the kingdom by operating in the Lord's power and living

out where he's commanded, but they must still actually tell them to.

At some point we must share the gospel, proclaiming the kingdom of God to our neighbour.

Our King Jesus is a victorious King and will return.

This is good news and news we owe it to our neighbour to share and news we owe it to our

friends and to the world to share.

So to summarise the practicals, first pray, I can't emphasise how important this is, then

go, fuelled by trust in God, not in your own strength, look for a person of peace who likes

you, who serves you, who offers you hospitality and lean on God to bring signs and wonders

and proclaim the kingdom of God because Jesus has come, but he is absolutely coming back.

Yet, that brings us to the harvest question again.

We must pray, then go, but into what harvest?

The harvest is great, but the workers are few.

You see, it's God's will that all would be saved.

It says in Peter 2 Peter, the Lord isn't really being slow about his promise as some

people think.

No, he's being patient for your sake.

He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.

The powerful paradox here is that Jesus is both passionate for all to be saved, but also

is the Lord of the harvest and has the authority to judge at the end of time.

He's truly God and has a perspective and compassion for all people beyond their wildest

imagination.

While we're on earth, we can only see so much as Paul says in 1 Corinthians, now we

see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything

with perfect clarity.

All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely,

just as God knows me completely.

We don't see the harvest, but we aren't the Lord of the harvest.

We don't see the fruit yet, but God sees the seed that's been and is being planted.

We don't know who's going to respond to the gospel, but God says that the harvest is plentiful.

We simply don't see as God sees and we can't judge as God judges because it's not our

job.

Our job is to pray, then go.

The harvest may not seem plentiful, but I remind you that when God created the world,

saw the sinfulness that humanity had fallen into, He didn't leave it that way.

He saw something more.

God looked at the earth, saw the sin of man, all the failures and troubles of humanity.

He saw the ugly parts and knows each of our hearts, but didn't rule us out.

He saw a future harvest that we couldn't see.

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.

Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though some might be

willing to die for a person who is especially good.

But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

And since we've been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly

save us from condemnation.

For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of His Son while we were still

sinners, we will certainly be saved through the life of His Son.

So now we can rejoice in a wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus

Christ has made us friends with God.

Jesus saved us.

He saw a future that we couldn't see.

How we view our neighborhood changes our heart towards it and changes how we live in them.

We must see our neighbors as God sees them.

Sam, you're welcome to come up and do some keys.

So think about the field in front of you.

What do you see?

Is it right?

Your neighborhood could be teeming with crops and people waiting to experience the love

of Jesus.

But have you sought God for them?

Are you working in the harvest?

We need Jesus' eyes and heart to carry His mission forth into the neighborhood.

Jesus loves you and suffered the cross for you before you even knew Him.

How different could life be for you and your community if Jesus was actually at the center,

if He truly reigned sovereign?

If it was on earth as it is in heaven and if it was in Henley as it is in heaven?

So let me challenge you, everyone's favorite segment, Henley homework.

Firstly, you've got to pray.

As we pray and obey God and His requests, our hearts and minds are actually shaped to do

as will.

So do as the scripture says, pray that God would send more workers into the harvest and

pray for those you wish God would touch and bring into His family.

We call them plus ones at encounter.

Pray for your plus ones.

A whole new life joining God's kingdom is always worth praying for.

And two, go.

As you move through the neighborhood, we are, where are there people of peace?

Places that Jesus hasn't touched.

So with a boldness and trust that God has promised to be with you and go before you.

Thanks so much for tuning into this week's message.

If you felt challenged or need prayer, would love to hear from you on Instagram at encounterhenley.

Or if you're interested in how you can support this ministry, please go to our website, encounteradelaide.com.au.

Thanks again for listening.

God bless you.