Our Mission | Ps Rachel Eaton

Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.

Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to

take hold of. So we hope this message inspires

you and build your faith, but it helps you have more of a God

perspective for your day. Enjoy.

Let's open God's Word, shall we? Can read along on the screen to

send us Mark 1615 and it reads. And then he told them going to

all the world and preach the good news to everyone.

Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved, but

anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned.

These miraculous signs will accompany or follow those who

believe. They will cast out demons in my

name and they will speak in new languages.

They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they

drink anything poisonous, it's not going to hurt them.

They will be able to place their hands on the sick and they will

be healed. When the Lord Jesus had finished

talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in

the place of honor at God's right hand.

And the disciples went everywhere and preached, and the

Lord worked through them, confirming what they had said by

many miraculous signs. As a church at the moment we are

looking at the book of Acts. You might go, well, why are you

in Mark? That was in Mark.

It's a bit awkward. You didn't get the memo.

Now we're in Acts and Mark 16 and Acts 1 is a bit of an

overlap. It's talking about the same

scenario. And so I want to overlap here

and, and read now about what Jesus did in these last days

just before he left the disciples and he gave the Great

Commission. And so in Matthew 18, sorry,

Matthew 2818, there was this version that said, therefore go

and make disciples of all nations baptizing, just like

Pastor TJ was announcing for next week, baptizing them in the

name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And so let's bring up Acts, Acts 11, it says in my first book, I

told you, let's just call him Theo because I'm Australian and

big names get shortened. So Theo, about everything Jesus

began to do and teach them until the day he was taken up to

heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions

through the Holy Spirit during the 40 days after he suffered

and died, that was Jesus. Now I've lost my spot.

He appeared to the apostles from time to time, and then he proved

to them in many ways that he was alive.

That was great news. He died and then he rose again.

So he's walking around with them and talked to them about the

Kingdom of God, his favorite subject.

And once he was eating with them, he commanded them.

So this is really important information, right?

If you can imagine like someone is on their deathbed and and

then they outcome with this really important they they, they

talk about the really important stuff.

I love you and I love the kids. I believe in you.

Whatever comes out in those moments.

This is Jesus last moments with his disciples.

Very important information. So he comes out.

So once he was eating with them, He commanded them, do not leave

Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised.

As I told you before, John baptized with water.

But just in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy

Spirit. So Jesus is giving the disciples

their next steps. We love next steps here.

He's like, he's got the Commission.

Go into all the world, preach the gospel, baptize people, wait

for a few days. You're going to get this gift of

Holy Spirit. It's going to be awesome.

And so when the apostles, this is verse 6, when the apostles

were with Jesus, they kept asking him, Lord, has the time

come for you to free Israel and restore our Kingdom and you go.

That's a little bit off topic. The name of Jesus actually means

Yahweh, which is Jesus saves. But our beautiful disciples,

they were a little bit distracted.

They were actually a bit distracted by the name of his

meaning because they were waiting for Jesus who saves to

come and save them from Roman dictatorship.

And, and we've kind of look back on, on the story of the gospel

of Jesus and the fact that he died with hindsight and go, yes,

he came to die to restore us back into relationship with God.

He came to set us free from the bondage of sin and all of its

oppression. And he set us free.

He saved us. And we understand what that

means. But the disciples at this moment

were still a little bit confused.

They're like, well, when's this big army coming?

Like, when are you going to overthrow Israel?

Like, when are you going to overthrow the Roman Empire so

that Israel can thrive again? They were just a little bit off,

off topic. Hang on.

Has anyone ever, is anyone here a, a, a nautical navigator, like

with boats or ships? Do you want to like, has anyone

got a boat license? No, you do.

OK, So correct me if I'm wrong. Oh, OK, we've got another one

over here. If you've got a, a boat and your

navigation is off by this much, what's the impact in the long

run of your destination? I feel like it's, it's not this

much, of course, like if you're this much off a navigation and

you're, you're planning to land on the jetty in, in let's say

Peru, it's not like you get this far off the jetty.

I feel like you land in another country.

Is that right? Yeah, what I like.

Jesus loves his disciples. He loved these apostles poured

in, but they were just a little bit off.

And so Jesus has to come in and go, guys, grab their attention

and bring it back to the really important directive.

So Jesus replies, and he says the Father alone has the

authority to set those dates. Chill out guys and times and

they are not for you to know, OK?

Then he comes back and brings them right back off their

little, you know, tiny little off off point.

And he says, but you will receive power when the Holy

Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses telling

people about me everywhere in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in

Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

And so he grabs their attention and he and he redirects it and

goes, here's the directive, here's the Commission, here's

what you're supposed to do. This is the really important

information. I know you want to talk about

this and you feel like it's the relevant thing to be talking

about. I know it's important to you,

but can you just come back here? This is the focus.

This is what's important. So let's see how they went.

That was Acts 8. Let's go to the very next verse

in Acts 19. After saying this, he was taken

up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no

longer see him. As they strained to see him

rising into heaven, 2 white robed men suddenly stood among

them, men of Galilee. They said, why are you staring

into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you

into heaven. I can, I can kind of imagine the

scenario here of all of the disciples gathered and looking

up into heaven. And then these angels, they come

around to the crowd and they're like, what?

What are we looking at? Are we checking the rain?

Like what? What are we trying to see, guys?

He's gone. He's in heaven.

What was the last thing he told you to do?

What's the directive? Come on back.

Come on back to directive. Come on back to mission.

The title of the message this morning is on mission.

Do we live on mission? So as we open up the book of

Acts, which I do encourage everyone here to be reading this

month, we see the early church spring into action.

And so I thought it would be a good thing to do this morning to

ask three questions of ourselves.

Can we have a nice big, you know, self reflection?

This morning we're going to ask three questions of ourselves

about how we do mission, the purpose of our mission mission,

our why. And so we're going to start with

question number one. But you're going to have to wait

for it because I need a drink. I can feel the anticipation.

Question one, does your mission point to Jesus?

In John 14/6, Jesus declares this about himself.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

That's a big statement. Jesus came to earth on mission

and his assignment was you and I.

His assignment was humanity. God is obsessed with humanity

and he loves us so much that he brought Jesus to come in and

bridge that gap so that we can come back into relationship with

Him. He came, He died, He rose again

so that we may experience abundantly life here with Him

and experience eternal life with Him in heaven.

Jesus is the hero of every story, so does your mission

point to Him? Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 11

to Eve was fooled by the snake in the Garden of Eden.

In the same way, I'm afraid that you will be fooled and LED away

from your pure love for Christ. You see, Paul had a bit of a

battle on his hands. False doctrine was starting to

enter the church and it was leading people's hearts away

from Jesus. Here's the problem with false

doctrine. It looks Christian.

It can sound Christian. It often has lots of good points

and you can hear it and it will just be this far off.

It can present as righteous in 2nd Corinthians 1113 to 14, Paul

says, but they make themselves look like true missionaries of

Christ. It is no surprise the devil

makes himself look like an Angel of light.

Jesus mission is Jesus focused. Jesus mission is Jesus focused,

but we have to be careful to check what we're listening to

because we can just be a little bit off.

There's so much information out there.

There's so much. So we've got to filter it

through Jesus word, the Holy Bible and go, are we on mission?

Is this purely about Jesus? Is this the gospel of Jesus

Christ? Is this the good news?

Or is it more focused on maybe empathy for others?

Sounds good, sounds Christian. Sounds like a a great thing to

to jump on. It often comes as a misguided

form of empathy. Have you ever heard a God of

love wouldn't allow that to happen?

God's grace is so rich we don't even need to repent or confess

any sin. There is no need for

transformation or spiritual growth because God loves me the

way I am. God is love, so I don't believe

people will go to hell. These are half truths.

The problem with a half truth is that you're missing the whole

picture. It's still a lie. 1/2 truth is a

lie. It's this much off, but it's

going to land you in Pakistan instead of Peru.

I love Pakistanian people, by the way.

I love all people, all nations. That was not a reference.

Thank you. We love Israel, we love

Pakistan, I love God's people. The gospel is for every nation,

every person under the sun, every colour, every diversity.

The gospel of Jesus is for every person breathing.

But that's why we got to have this gospel message, gospel like

pointing to Jesus because God is love and he doesn't want to

experience any nation, any person, any diversity group, any

individual. He doesn't want to be separate

from them. He doesn't want to be separate

from you, He wants to be back in relationship with you.

That's why God sent Jesus. It's why he, he brought him here

to be the sin for us, so that when God looks at us, He sees

the purity of that beautiful spiritual blood.

He wants that for us, but we have to choose Him back.

It's not enough that he just died.

We we have to choose him back. We have to accept God's love.

We have to accept his forgiveness.

That's gospel, that's the Bible. This is true.

That's the message of Jesus. He does love you the way that

you are. Come, come as you are.

He loves you so much that he removed every barrier so that

you could have access to him, can be forgiven, set free,

delivered whole, restored. And I'm going to throw this word

out that I read in here and transformed and transformed.

Repentance is actually a very normal part of Christian life.

It doesn't mean you walk around feeling terrible about

everything. No, there's so much good news in

Jesus. Do you know what repentance

looks like? If Jesus was standing here, I'm

facing him. That's what repentance looks

like. It's all about walking towards

Jesus. But repentance is a normal part

of a Christian life. It's focused on Jesus.

We got to read this Bible. 2nd Corinthians 2 two says I made-up

my mind that while I was with you I would speak nothing except

Jesus Christ and his death on the cross.

So in your mission, is it Jesus? It might sound passionate, it

might sound good, you might empathize with it, but does it

point to Jesus? Is it gospel?

Is it found in His Word? Because this word, His word,

meeting Jesus will bring about life to your soul.

It brings about freedom, restoration, it will bring you

into a place of hope in His beautiful name.

Is your mission, your reason centred in Him?

Question 2. Does your mission support or

uphold God mission? What's God's mission in the

establishment of the early church like we just read about

in Mark 16 and in Acts 1, Jesus is is with his disciples, his

chosen crew and and the mission for them was to go into the

world and preach the gospel out of that was the establishment of

Church of the early church. Church is God mission.

The local church is God mission and he loves this place and he

moves in and through it in Mark we read earlier that these

miraculous signs will follow those who believe they will cast

out demons in my name and they will speak in new languages.

They will be able to handle snakes with safety and if they

drink anything poisonous, it won't hurt them.

They will be able to place their hands on the sick and they will

be healed. I'm going to throw a scenario

out to you. We just had our healing services

a couple of months ago, and in that I believe someone was

prayed for and they just left their crutches there because

they didn't need them anymore because they got healed.

Who was it that prayed for that person?

Do we know? No, let's just imagine it was

Pastor Graham for a moment. So in that moment, you've got a

man who's receiving healing because Pastor Graham has just

prayed for him. And so we just heard what

accompanies or what follows those who live on mission.

Let me ask you a question. Is it following Pastor Graham

and the person who's giving up their crutches, or is it

following all of us? Hands up if you think it's just

Pastor Graham and the person who received healing.

Show of hands. Oh, you're also scared.

Show of hands if you think it's all of us.

I would argue that it follows all of us.

I would argue that we as a body and an entity and an Organism,

Is that right? Did I say that right?

Risky word. As a body of believers, it

follows all of us. You know, the conversations that

happen after a moment like that when someone throws away their

crotches is we. It's guess what we experienced

as a church this week. Guess what we saw?

It's not guess what Pastor Graham did.

It's we. And we as a body of believers

are experiencing and walking in godly mission and we all have

partnership with that. Josh Pennisi was here.

He came to the one of the miracle services.

The reason his family came who did not know Jesus was because

someone put a pamphlet in his letterbox.

The person who put a pamphlet in his letterbox was a girl from

youth. If I've got the story right, she

put one pamphlet. She delivered one pamphlet

because she wanted to be involved in what we were doing

as a body. The reason that she knew to put

something in the letter box is because we have a youth program.

She attends one service, one service a week.

The only one she can get to is a youth service.

We have a youth service because we have beautiful volunteers and

leaders in this place who sacrificed their their time,

their talent, their money. Teenagers are expensive men.

They sacrificed it. The only reason we have an

established youth group is because someone over here has

done the legal leg work to make sure that we're allowed to.

Someone's organized blue cards, someone's made phone calls,

someone's organized training, someone has actually trained it.

We are a body, we are many members, and we get to

celebrate. When God is actively moving in

our church, it follows us. It follows us, those who believe

Holy Spirit moved upon us. We speak in other languages.

Demons are cast out in Jesus name.

They are. We lay hands on the sick and

they do recover. And no matter what kind of

poison is thrown at us, we remain.

Give yourself the pat on the back and go.

I'm nailing this mission thing. I'm totally supporting and

upholding God's house. Well done you these things

follow us. It says if one member if sorry,

if one member of the body suffers, all of the other

members suffer with it. And if one member is honoured,

all the members rejoice in it with it.

We are one body of believers partners.

So here's a question for you. Are you partnered with God

Mission? Do you uphold and support the

local church? Jesus calls it his bride.

He loves his place. And yes, it's flawed.

It's run by humans. Of course there's going to be

flawed. But God moves in and through his

local church and he loves it. Are you a supporter?

Are you partnered here? Do these signs and wonders?

Do they follow you because you're partnered and are

supporting this place? I often hear people leave church

because they're offended and out will come out of their mouths.

The church hurt me. There's a lot of things that

people have to say about how the hurt church hurt them.

You know what I don't hear very often is anyone in a repentant

reflective moment going, wow, I hurt the church.

Paul did normal part of his Christian life would often

reflect and go wow, I really did some damage there murdering

threats, actually murdering Christians and God had a moment

and just put his hands on him and goes I love the passion, but

you're off you're off. I just need to bring you into

alignment. I need to bring you into truth

because my heart's for this. I'm in this and if you are

fighting in opposition. God's church, you're actually

fighting in opposition with what God is trying to do.

Take everything else off the table and just have you and God

in here for a moment. What does he say?

He loves this place. He's for it.

The local church are you? Does your mission uphold and

support the local church? Paul's statement actually in one

Timothy 112 to 13. He says in my insolence I

persecuted his people, but God had mercy on me because I did it

in ignorance and unbelief. Question 3 And me as if you want

to come join me, that'd be great.

What follows you? What follows you in Matthew 716?

It says you will know them by their fruit, what they produce.

Time is a great revealer. It's a lousy healer, but it is a

good revealer. What are you actually about?

What follows you? Chaos, conflict, trauma, gossip,

drama, rage or violence. The latest conspiracy theory.

You know what I don't see in conspiracy theories?

I don't see any faith. I don't see any faith.

I see it fueled by fear, sowing seeds of distrust, but I don't

see faith. Proverbs 31 says that she laughs

for fear of her future. She's back on track, going to be

over here, come and speak about the things that are important.

I know you think that this matter is so important and

everyone should know, is it going to be fruitful?

Is it going to lead people to Jesus?

Just come back. You might think it's so

important. The disciples got this mixed up.

They're like, this is so important.

And Jesus goes, oh, just come back to what's important, to

what's going to bring life to what's going to bring hope to

what's going to restore to what's going to deliver, to

what's going to pour out my love.

You will find identity and confidence when you're centered

in Jesus. What are you actually about?

What do people read on you? What follows you is a testimony

of the goodness of Jesus. Do disciples follow you?

Are we discipling people? Does His love and grace follow

you? I pray I walk in it.

His favor. Provision, peace, sound mind,

miracles, healing, deliverance, freedom, authority, it's all

available to you and it's found in Jesus alone.

It's found because of what He did.

It's found because of His great love.

Summing up, when I think of mission, there's a verse that I

always come back to you that always encourages me.

It always locates my why, and it's in one Corinthians 924 to

26 and it says, don't you realize that in a race everyone

runs, but only one person gets the prize?

So run to win. All athletes are disciplined in

their training. They do it to win a prize that's

going to fade away, but we do it for an eternal price.

So I've run with purpose in every step.

Can we even begin to comprehend what lays before us?

Are our minds set on the Kingdom of God?

On eternity? Eternity does not start when you

die. Eternity starts right now.

If you've got a line, let's imagine that this is the line of

your life, right? It starts here, continues to go

there. Your death might be here.

It doesn't stop when you die. You're not going to have a

moment where you go to sleep and don't wake up.

There is an eternity to look forward to with Jesus if you

just want to choose Him back. Do you know how much He loves

you? John 316 said He loved you so

much. God loved you so much that He

gave His only begotten Son that if He would just believe in Him,

then you're not going to perish. You will experience that eternal

hope. You will experience that eternal

joy. You will experience purification

where you feel clean, where you feel whole, where you are

restored. Nothing will do it for you like

Jesus.