Mission in Friendship

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.

Have you ever wanted to do something really badly but quickly found when you started trying

that you were really, really bad at it?

All the time for me.

As a 15 year old I had a radical encounter with the Holy Spirit.

All the things that I believed in my head became not just really my heart, but real in the

objective world.

And I wanted to tell my friends about it.

I wanted them to know that Jesus was real and that he was powerful.

I wanted to tell them and so I started to try, but I found out very quickly that I wasn't

very good at it.

And I wasn't just working out how to tell people about Jesus, I realized that I wasn't

good at talking to people full stop.

I just wasn't good at it.

I was and can still be pretty socially awkward.

I'm by nature in my personality very reserved, shy, introverted.

And by that I mean I don't need or want to be the center of attention.

I'm happier to listen to you than I am to talk about me.

I really don't like small talk and sometimes I find social situations difficult and scary.

And I recharge being alone.

So like I love people, don't get me wrong, but just please, not all at once.

So I wanted people to know Jesus, but before I could tell them about Jesus, I realized

I needed to work out how to make friends first.

I wonder for you how easy it is for you to find it, you find it to share your faith,

to be public about the fact that you follow Jesus.

Maybe it's the most natural thing in the world.

Maybe you find it really, really hard.

I wonder how easy you find it to talk to people, to make friends, to deepen connections.

Maybe you ooze charisma like text does.

You walk into a room and you're just wondering, how many friends am I going to make today?

Or maybe you're like me, you just ooze some awkward energy.

You walk into a room and you're just wondering, when is it acceptable for me to leave?

But not here because this is great, all right?

We're in the second week of our series called Mission in Motion.

And we're looking at what mission can look like in the different areas of our lives.

And today we're looking at about mission in friendship.

If you don't know what mission is, it's not just a brand of tacos.

Missyologist David Bosch has the best definition, I think, of what mission is.

Mission is alerting people to the universal reign of God through Christ.

We alert people by both word and deed that Christ Jesus is the King of the universe.

Because of that mission can be very broad in what it actually looks like.

But in our teaching text today, Jesus, who's enjoying some table talk at a Pharisee's house,

tells a parable.

And a parable, if you don't know, is a masterful allegorical story, which in this case is,

Jesus is telling it to criticise and confront the Pharisees specifically and the Israelites

generally.

But I also think this parable that Jesus tells helps us to frame and understand mission.

The story, if you remember that Angus wrote out, is of a great feast and many invitations

are sent.

But when the party's about to start, last minute, people bail.

I wonder if you can empathise with the master of the party.

They're texting him, sorry man, just bought a field.

Can't come, I want to look at it.

You didn't look at it before you bought it?

It probably looks the same.

Sorry mate, I've got some new cows.

I want to road test them.

Cows are cows.

Sorry mate, the wife, just got married.

You know, wives, wives and all that.

Does anyone who's thrown a party can sympathise?

The master, he's furious.

He's like, come on.

They clicked attending on Facebook.

Does that not mean anything to anyone?

Come on.

So, to fill the party, he sends his servants out to invite anyone they had, which really

reminds me of 2010, solid year.

I was in year 11.

Year 11 was alright.

A lady named Kate Miller invites a few close friends to her birthday party through a Facebook

event.

She'll provide the booze, good vibes, etc.

But she leaves the privacy settings open and it gets really out of hand.

60,000 people RSVP.

From all around the world to Kate's birthday.

I don't know if you've heard of Kate's birthday.

It was like one of the original memes.

Look has to shut it down.

It's just amazing stuff.

It gets completely out of hand.

And I think about that because this man, this master in Jesus' story, decides to throw

an intentional Kate's birthday.

Make it an open event.

Anyone can come.

Anyone around the room.

Fill the room.

It doesn't matter.

I don't care who comes.

Bring the poor, the crippled, the lame, the homeless.

At least they'll come.

Just make it happen.

Fill the room.

But those who rejected the invitation because they had something better to do will not get

to take the banquet.

It's a parable.

So everything in this parable means something.

The banquet in the story is the feast at the end of the world.

There's a prophecy in Isaiah 25.

And it also in the Bible verses 6 to 8 says this, in Jerusalem, the Lord of Heaven's

army will spread a wonderful feast for all the people of the world.

He will be a delicious banquet with clear, well-aged wine and choice meats.

And there he will remove the cloud of gloom, the shadow of death that hangs over the earth.

He will swallow up death forever.

And the sovereign Lord will wipe away all tears.

He will remove forever all insults and mockery against his land and his people.

The Lord has spoken.

When Jesus returns and all his people are raised from the dead, we will feast with God in his

kingdom.

And the invited guests who come up with unreasonable excuses why they can't attend, they're the

Israelites who reject Jesus and his message.

Jesus' parable is a warning to the Pharisees that just because you're an Israelite, just

because you're an invited guest, doesn't mean you get to join in the feast at the end of

the world.

You must come to the party.

You must come to Jesus.

The God is doing a new thing.

His invitation to that feast is open to all the people of the world, even to the lowest

of the low, even those without perceived power or influence health, wealth or status.

They too are invited.

Everyone is invited.

Those that the Israelites may never expect at a fancy big banquet, they are taking the

seats of the Israelites that the Israelites scorned because they would not come to Jesus.

The implication is this.

God is throwing open the doors to the party at the end of the universe and everyone's

invited.

Jesus himself commissioned us as a church as his followers of Jesus to be like the servants

and to take that invitation to the world and to urge people to come.

Matthew 28, 18 to 20 says, Jesus came and he told his disciples, I've been given all

authority in heaven on an earth, therefore go and make disciples of all the nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Teach them to obey all the commandments I've given you and be sure of this, I'm always

with you even to the end of the age.

Go and invite the nations to join the party.

That's our job as followers of Jesus.

This is the mission that we are on, to let the world know, to let our worlds, our little

worlds know that God is throwing a party that will last forever and he has made room for

them.

There's a seat at the table and they could be there.

So come, come to him, come to the King, pledge allegiance, join his kingdom, come and celebrate

with us.

They can alert people to something but it doesn't mean that they'll come and God in

his love gives humanity that choice.

Dr. Henry Cloud has this great line which you've probably heard me say all the time,

love preserves choice.

It's a love of God for humanity that preserves the free will of people to choose God or reject

him.

For God to do otherwise would be a cruel kind of slavery.

Love does not manipulate or force or override someone's will.

Love preserves choice.

God does and so should we.

We can't manipulate or coerce or make someone come to the party, no matter how tempting

it may be to grab people by the ear and drag them and sit them down at the banquet but

we wouldn't be preserving their choice and if God willed then so must we, even if that

could be heartbreaking at times.

God make them but certainly we can do as the king urges his servants to urge anyone we

find to come.

So how do we do that?

How do we urge people to come to the party?

How do we go about inviting people into God's kingdom?

Because we need to.

If we really believe this stuff, if we really believe it's true that we will sit down at

a feast in heaven, we should be urging anyone we know and meet to come.

Especially seeing as those we know and have tried and tried and prayed and prayed that

they come to faith may end up choosing to reject that invitation and that is their choice.

Especially seeing as you may be the only Christian the people in your life know.

If you won't invite them, who will?

This is the best way that I have found to invite people to the party.

It's called radically ordinary hospitality.

Jose Barrefield has this great book, the gospel comes with a house key.

She defines radical hospitality as this, using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks

to make strangers neighbors and neighbors the family of God.

You might not have a home you can currently use in this way in this economy, but the point

is this, just use your radical ordinary everyday life wherever you are to help make strangers

neighbors and neighbors God's family.

You're surrounded by strangers, people you work with, people you live next to, parents

at school, people who see you but they don't know you.

But you also have, and God might want, just want to use you to bring those people into

the God's kingdom and sit him down at the feast.

But you also have neighbors, not just those who live next to you but those whose life

is around yours, family, friends, colleagues, those in your class, people who aren't strangers,

but you know them and they know you and they like you, they listen to you and they serve

you.

And hopefully you've picked one of these neighbors to make them your plus one.

We have plus ones at Encounter Church, people you are intentionally inviting praying for

and trying to introduce to Jesus.

And if you haven't, maybe today as we get back into worship a bit later, pray and ask God

who your plus one should be.

God might just want to use you to bring them into his kingdom and sit them down at his

feast.

So this is the conundrum I found as a teenager.

I wanted people to know Jesus but I didn't know how to move someone from a stranger to

a neighbor.

I didn't really know how to deepen a relationship from acquaintance to friend.

And once they were my friend, I didn't know how to introduce them to Jesus.

Because how can you alert people that Jesus is a king and invite them to the party unless

they know you and you know them in a deep way?

So here's how we do mission and friendship.

It's pretty simple.

We do what we can to move people from strangers to neighbors and neighbors to God's family.

And here are my introvert hot tips for doing so.

This is an introvert's guide to sharing your faith.

Others can learn something too.

How do you make friends?

One, the conversation is the relationship.

You don't have a relationship with someone apart from the conversations you've had with

them.

Everything you know about a person, even every experience you have with them, they're surrounded

and permeated by conversation.

So if you want to move someone from a stranger to a neighbor, unfortunately you've got to

talk to them.

So you've got to take every opportunity to talk to people.

And you can pretty accurately measure the depth of your relationship by the amount of

time you've spent in conversation with someone.

If you think about your best friend, someone you consider to be your best friend, what

have you spent days, weeks, months of your life just talking to them?

And that's probably why they're your best friend.

So here's how you begin a conversation with someone you don't know.

I learned this from, and just a crazy extrovert.

It wasn't text, I promise.

And I didn't believe them because it just seemed so simple.

I was like, how do you do this?

How do you connect with people you don't know?

She was like, look, you walk up to them and you say, hi, I'm Tim.

What's your name?

That's it.

And they say, hi, I'm Sally.

Nice to meet you.

And then you can ask a follow-up question like, how do you know Frank?

And you're away.

I couldn't believe it was that easy.

Like honestly, I was actually shocked.

Surely there's some secret superpower, something, I don't know.

But it's that easy.

So once you've got a conversation going, how do you keep it going?

Point two, curiosity never kills the conversation.

It's the worst when you're in a conversation with someone and they just talk about themselves

the whole time.

You don't feel connected to that person.

You probably end up, if it's just a whole conversation, it's just been them talking.

You probably end up thinking that that person's kind of self-obsessed.

Maybe a bit boring.

I don't know why I looked at you, Angus.

You're not like that.

But everyone loves to be asked questions about themselves.

And when someone asks you a lot of questions, you feel connected to them, you feel endeared

to them because they're interested in you.

So to keep a conversation going, ask questions.

Be curious.

Ask so many questions that people gave you a reputation for asking too many questions.

Take it as a compliment.

The best kind of question is a question regarding something that someone else has already said.

You ask Sally how she knows Frank.

And she tells you she went to school with Frank.

And there's so many questions you could ask about school.

You could ask her what do you know kind of question, which is just a fact that's really

easy for them to share.

Like what school did you go to?

You and Frank go to.

That's a fact that they easily can recall.

Well, you could ask them, what do you think question?

Like what was Frank like in high school?

You might not want to know the answer to that question.

Or you could ask a what do you feel kind of question?

How did you feel about Frank in high school?

And if that question leaves you feeling uncomfy, then that's because each question is a level

deeper than the next one, two, three, every question is a level deeper.

So if you've only just met Sally and you've only just found out she went to school with

Frank, asking her how she feels about Frank is will freak Sally out.

So just don't do that.

So slowly ask deeper, curious questions.

As the conversations, you go on, you'll really start to get to know someone.

The third thing we can do to help move our straight, our strangers to neighbors is this

be hospitable.

Serve them.

Invite them to eat lunch with you to have coffee with you to hang out after school.

Buy them snacks.

Help them out with whatever they're struggling with.

Invite them into your life, whatever it looks like.

Invite them into things you're already doing.

Help her to serve them, find ways to bless them.

Just make sure you're willing to follow through with the things that you offer.

And don't be dismayed if they say no.

Sometimes the thought really does count.

The key to hospitality is just being lovingly persistent.

Ash and I built a relationship with our neighbor by just putting out their bins for them.

They noticed and they started beating us to the bins on some weeks to put them out before

us and that led to us developing a friendship with them, which leads us to point four.

Let them serve you.

The issue we face often as Christians is we feel like, because we want people to come

in followers of Jesus and we want to show the love of God to people that we just have

to give and give and give and never allow people to serve us.

That I should always be the one to put the bins out and the neighbor should never be

allowed to beat me to it.

But that's a false dynamic.

After serving others deeply connects us with them, allowing people to serve us deeply connects

those people with us.

Learn to say yes when people offer things to you.

We had an older lady at one of our old churches pull Ash aside and Ash and I aside when Ash

was pregnant with Judah and she gave us this great piece of advice.

If someone offers you something, say yes and give them something they can help with.

You need the help, which was true.

They want to help and don't worry about overburdening them.

If they didn't mean it, they wouldn't offer and if they offered expecting you to say no,

that's okay and you say yes, they will never offer again and they will learn something.

So you don't have to say no just because you're a Christian and that is just pride.

That's all it is really.

Jesus and his disciples lived off the hospitality of others and you can enjoy the hospitality

and service of others.

In fact, if you want true friendships, you have to let people serve you because true

friendships go both ways.

If you want to develop relationships with the strangers in your life, you've got to let

them serve you.

Point five, they are just as afraid of you as you are of them.

I remember asking an extrovert friend, a different one, who had just expertly navigated a conversation

of three or more people and I was like, in awe of them, how did you do that?

This is crazy.

How are you so good at doing this?

Well, I watch your secret and I feel awkward and nervous in these conversations.

And she was like, look, I feel the same way.

I just talk.

I just talk more when I'm anxious and nervous.

I was like, the feeling is the same, but you just open your mouth and I close mine.

And the more people that I talk to, the more I realize that sometimes, especially the people

that I just assume are confident and charismatic because they're loud and talkative, feel exactly

the same kind of feelings of like, how do I fit in here?

Like insecurity, where do I belong?

As me as a quieter, introverted, more reserved person do.

It just looks different.

And understanding this inverted my social imagination.

Instead of feeling awkward and nervous in a conversation like I was the problem in it,

I realized kind of everyone sort of feels that way sometimes, or can at least.

And they just express that differently.

So when I see a person standing alone looking really aloof and cool and you know, like,

you know what I mean?

I realized that just like I do, they're probably saying they're wondering if anyone's

going to talk to them.

Just like how I feel.

So I decided that I could be that person because they're just as afraid of me as I am of them.

And maybe they really needed to talk to someone today.

And Jesus just beseecheth me to get over myself.

So I began to walk across the room and introduce myself to people I don't know.

And the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

They are just as afraid of you as you are of them.

So you have learned to people and you've built friendships with strangers.

And because God is most full and gracious, maybe they even like you, serve you and listen

to you.

They are your neighbors.

And one of them may be even your plus one.

How do you urge those people to come and join God's party?

I have five more hot tips for you.

First one is this.

Set yourself on fire.

I will explain.

There's an amazing quote which is attributed to John Wesley, who was at the forefront of

a revival in England in the 1700s.

He said, I set myself on fire and people come from miles to watch me burn.

Isn't that just a great quote?

You can't set anyone else on fire for Jesus.

But you can sure set yourself on metaphorical fire, metaphorical fire with passion and zeal

for Jesus.

People will notice.

They will see your life and that alone could urge someone to come and join the party.

I think most of the time we think sharing our faith is only about having the right words

to say or right responses to people's questions or challenges they have to your faith.

And part of that is true.

But I think it's, and it is helpful to think about and know why you believe what you believe

and to be able to share that in words.

But you will never know all the answers to all the questions that people will have.

And sometimes people need to meet a Christian who's happy to admit that they don't have

all the answers but are on fire for Jesus anyway.

So I think sharing your faith is both about the words you say and the life that you live.

Living a life that is on fire and above all things seems to be faithful to Jesus is a

life that people will be drawn to.

And you will get a chance to share why you live, how you live and why you believe what

you believe and they may be urged to come to the party.

And the point is this, merge your universes.

Sam Chan in his amazing book, How to Talk About Jesus Without Being That Guy says this,

which is just an amazing book title.

One of the major reasons our friends aren't Christians is that they don't belong to a

community of friends who also believe in Jesus.

So primarily because they haven't heard the gospel, they probably haven't but they already

think they know what you believe.

It's not because there's not enough evidence for the Christian faith because no matter

how much evidence you produce they'll explain it away.

In many cases the number one reason why our friends aren't Christians is that they don't

have any other Christian friends.

We probably have, you probably have a Christian universe.

This church maybe, a Christian friendship groups.

We probably also have a work universe, a school universe, a family universe, a uni universe,

sporting club universe and never or rarely shall they meet.

Sam argues the most important thing that we can do to merge our universes by inviting

our non-Christian friends to hang out with our Christian friends.

Go to the movies but merge your universes and invite a few from here and a few from there

and a few from there and for your non-Christian friends to meet people who believe in Jesus

like you will help them to see that this isn't something you believe in isolation but you're

a part of a community of great people who believe the same things.

For something like two years, one of my best mates in high school who and still is, he's

not a Christian.

He came around to our church after, he came around to our house after church on Sunday

to eat dinner with the young adults from our church and play NBA playgrounds which was

just amazing.

We completed that game as a church.

We did it as a family of God, just completionist.

And I noticed in my conversations with him over those years how much hanging out with

these great men and women, especially Goose, changed and grounded what he thought about

my crazy out there Christian faith.

It made it more realistic to him.

He could see that I wasn't just some weirdo that he liked for some reason, that there

was something more to it.

Merge your universes.

Third point is this, don't say no for them.

For years I made a lot of judgments about whether people would come to church or read

the Bible with me or do this or that because I thought, I just thought they knew that their

answer was going to be no.

But I came to realise that I actually have no idea whether they would want to do that

or not.

So I was actually saying no for them.

Due to my son's started reception at the side of this year and right now I'm doing

my best to fool all the other parents into thinking that I'm extrovert, I think I'm

doing a pretty good job.

They know about encounter handling because I tell them when they ask me what I'm doing

for work.

And when I tell them that I'm a pastor, people usually have two responses, they either change

the subject really quickly or they are like, oh, that's nice or something like that.

I notice that I tend to move on faster than they do.

If they ask me about Henley, I move on how it's going because they know that it's going

to be a good thing and they walk past it some of the parents and they're like, oh, there's

more people there than I thought there would be.

I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or like, that's great.

But I move on faster than them.

And what I should do is take a breath and ask because I don't know if they're asking

me about these things because they want to be asked in turn.

They want to be invited.

Be lovingly persistent in inviting people.

How do you know that those people in your life who are your neighbors but they're not

yet a part of God's family that they don't want to come to church or read the Bible with

you unless you ask them?

How do you know your plus one doesn't want to join the family and the party unless you

ask them?

You don't actually know if they are waiting for someone to invite them.

So don't say no for them.

Ask them.

Fourth one is this, being naturally supernatural.

One of the ways I've learned to be normal about my faith is to treat everyone that I

meet like I, like followers of Jesus.

And by that I mean if they communicate a need, I will offer to pray for them.

Praying for people who aren't yet Christians helps them to see that our faith isn't just

something we believe like a cognitive belief system, but it has the power to change things

as well.

We're just adding the super to the natural.

If they say that someone's passed away in their family or they're having a hard time

at home or whatever it is, we can respond by offering to pray for them.

And there are really two levels of difficulty to this.

The first one is this, you tell them that you're going to pray about them for it, but

then you actually do it.

The second one and the, the, the, the sometimes more difficult one is to ask if you can pray

for them right now about it.

I have a mate who's just amazing at this.

I see him as almost fearless, but I'm sure that's not exactly what's going on inside

of his head.

He will offer to pray for anyone, including strangers he meets and he will just pray this

short and sweet prayer for whatever need they communicate and just seeks Jesus on their

behalf and over their situation.

You don't actually know what God would do with that prayer.

You don't know.

And how that could change that person's life.

Being naturally supernatural, for your belief into action.

The fifth point is this, win them in prayer.

Pastor and author Tyler Staten tells a story about being challenged by his youth pastor

as a 13 year old in a way that radically shaped his life.

His pastor said this, what do you think God would do in the lives of your unbelieving friends

if you spend every day this summer walking a circle around your school in prayer for them?

He said, I have no idea.

And the pastor said, why don't you go and find out?

And so he did.

Every day during his school holidays, he went back to school and prayed as he walked around

the school grounds in a circle and he would pray through the student directory because

they had those back then.

When school goes back, he asked the principal if he can start a Christian group in the school

and to his surprise, the principal says yes.

6.30am, every Wednesday morning they would meet for Bible study and prayer.

And this group got so big they had to move it from a classroom to the school theatre.

By the end of that year, which would be year 8, I guess, in Australia, one third of his

school year had become followers of Jesus.

One third.

Do not underestimate the power of prayer to win your plus ones, your colleagues, your friends

and your family to Jesus.

This is why we do 24 hour prayer days.

This is why we want to be a praying church at Encounter Henley. Prayer really works.

Do you pray for your plus ones?

Do you pray for your neighbours?

Because you can win them in prayer.

These are my 10 top hot tips.

But here's my question.

Why do we seem to find this so hard?

We have a seat at the table, the greatest party the universe has ever and will ever see.

And we've been commanded by Jesus to go and get people and invite them and bring them

to the party.

Isn't that just the most glorious news?

Isn't that worth being lovingly persistent and prayerful about?

We are better at inviting people to the footy or to the movies than we are to inviting people

into an internal banquet with Jesus in resurrected and renewed bodies in a renewed world.

What God has provided us is everything the human heart could ever truly and deeply long

for.

We have such good news to share.

Why don't we share?

Why is it so hard?

Because it is hard, isn't it?

And it's so easy to put that in the too hard basket.

Theologize it away.

It's ourselves, it doesn't really matter.

But the God would invite them himself if he really wanted them there and not to do the

work to live a life of courageous invitation.

And we won't.

I don't think we won't unless we, until we come to a place of truly realizing that we

just weren't strangers to God.

We were his enemies.

And he didn't just make us neighbors.

He made us family.

Romans 5.10 says, For if we were who were God's enemies were reconciled to him through

the death of his son.

How much more have him being reconciled shall we be saved through his life?

In Galatians 4, But when the right time came God sent his son born of a woman subject to

the law.

God sent him to buy freedom for us.

He was slaves to the law so that he could adopt us as his very children.

And because we are his children, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, prompting

us to cry out, Abba, father.

Now you are no longer a slave, but God's own child.

And since you are God's child, God has made you his heir.

And you realize that through the courage and love of Jesus, God made you an enemy of God,

his own adopted child.

When you realize that and you accept it, not just in your head, but in your heart, that

God did this for you.

That God loves you that much.

And through no act of your own, you and an enemy of God now sits in a place of honor and

privilege as one of God's adopted children.

Thanks to Jesus.

It changes everything.

It changes your values.

It changes what motivates you.

It changes how you think about yourself.

It changes your destiny.

No longer does mission and friendship look like the carrot of a banquet at the end of

the universe or the stick of what happens if you reject God's invitation or the obligation

that I should be doing this, shouldn't I?

This is what being a Christian is.

This is what I should be doing.

Mission and friendship looks like courage and love.

Courage to speak out.

Courage to take the opportunity.

Courage to invite.

Courage to be persistent.

Courage to pray bold prayers that only God can answer.

Courage to be seen as a fool for Jesus and love.

Love for the one who saved you.

Love for those who need his salvation.

For it was the courage and love of Jesus who made you family.

How can we not live lives marked by that same courage and love to guide into all the world

and to urge them?

Hey, I've been invited to this party.

It might be the greatest party of all time.

It might be the goat of all parties.

Do you want to be my plus one?

Do you want to be my plus one?