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Devoted to Outreach
Pastor Phillips’ Sermon
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today we continue with our sermon series about what the early church and the early Christians were devoted to and we wrap up this whole series with the ideas that they were devoted to outreach.
As we read through the first couple of chapters of the book of Acts, we see that they were constantly sharing what they knew about Jesus. They were constantly reaching out into their community and doing things that brought people to Christ.
Now when we think or outreach, that can be kind of an intimidating idea. A lot of us kind of say, “Well, that’s not me. I’m not the type to go out and tell everybody about Jesus. I’m not the kind of person to just strike up a conversation with somebody sitting next to me. It’s just not me.” A lot of times I think we have fears connected with the thought of evangelism. But I think a lot of our fears are based on misconceptions, basic misconceptions about what evangelism is and what outreach is.
I was looking on the internet and I researched outreach and I found some funny videos that kind of made fun of our fears of outreach so I want to share one with you. This is how it goes, “We have been called as Christians to go out into our communities and meet the needs of the people and draw them nearer to a relationship with God. When we do this, it is called outreach and it can really make a difference in our community in a really positive way. But make sure you don’t do too much outreach. That can lead to church services that are so full you won’t have anywhere to sit and parking lots that can’t hold all the cars of the people who’ve come to worship and you’ll have to park way down the block. So instead, just do a little outreach once a year or so and show God you’re trying. Then everything can stay the same.”
Obviously, that’s a joke. Outreach is something that’s in the heart of God. It’s something that, as we grow in our faith, it’s in our heart, too, to share what we know, to share the love we’ve received from our heavenly Father. But still, I think there are a lot of fears involved when people think of talking about their faith. How do you approach the subject? How do you talk to people about those crucial things that are so important to us?
It kind of leads us to that question. What really is outreach? How do you do outreach? Well, first of all, outreach is when God reaches out to us. God is the doer. God pursues us. God looks upon us and has compassion. God sends His Son to die for us and be our Savior. God is the doer. God is the one speaking through His Word. God is the one opening our hearts so we might believe and trust in Him.
It reminds me of how God is the doer in that wonderful Old Testament story of the Exodus. You remember the story, how God’s people were slaves in Egypt and how they were held under this horrible rule and forced to do terrible things and make bricks without straw. That was one of the phrases we heard. And how even their children were threatened for the Hebrews. The Pharaoh said that when the Hebrews are having their babies, the Egyptian midwives should take their babies and throw them into the Nile. Those horrible circumstances caused a lot of suffering for God’s people.
But God reached out to them through His servant, Moses, and through other means. He reached out to them and with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, He led them out of their slavery and delivered them and gave them freedom. That’s what God does for us in outreach. He reaches out to us and creates faith in our hearts. He reaches out to us and rescues us from our enemy, the devil.
Colossians 1:13 and 14 says, “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” So outreach begins when God reaches out to us. God is the doer as He opens our hearts to believe.
The second aspect I want you to take home about outreach is not only does God reach out to us but God reaches out through us, as He tries to touch the lives of the people around us. He reaches out through us to seek and save the lost. And early Christians didn’t have any doubt about that. They knew God was using them and speaking through them and helping them to connect other people to the family.
This is how Paul describes it, “For Christ’s love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all and, therefore, all died and He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again. So, from now on, we no longer regard anyone from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. All this is from God who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” See what Paul said? He gave us the ministry of reconciliation, not just Paul, but all believers have received that ministry. God has given it to all of us to do, to share and to rejoice in. It continues, “That God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them and He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are, therefore, Christ’s ambassadors as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf. Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that, in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.” He continues, “As God’s fellow workers, we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain,” he says, “for in the time of my favor, I heard you. In the day of my salvation, I helped you. I tell you now is the time of God’s favor. Now is the day of salvation.”
That’s the way Paul wrote because he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He knew that, in outreach, God reaches out through us. God is the doer. But we still need to show up, right? We can’t just say, “Okay, go ahead, God, you do it.”
I thought of this as I was pondering this message, I thought, “How can I illustrate what it’s like?” God is the doer. God is reaching out through us but we still need to show up. And I thought, well, imagine that you are in a two‑on‑two basketball tournament and your teammate is Harrison Barnes. Now you know what I’m talking about. You know Harrison Barnes? He’s from Ames High School and he’s the top recruit in all the country. You and Harrison Barnes can beat anybody, right? And that’s what happens in outreach. God is the doer. He’s working with you, through you to reach other people. He’s touching lives through you. He’s speaking through your words and your actions. God is the doer.
Paul was definitely clear on that. He’s one of the greatest missionaries that ever lived and he knew for a fact that God was working through him, speaking through him. He saw lives changes as God did these things through him. And he was clear that, in outreach, God reaches out through us.
But that brings us to the point: How can this be doable for us? We’re not all seminary graduates. We didn’t go to bible college or whatever. Yeah, we were raised in the church. We’ve known Jesus all our lives. But how can we do this outreach thing? How can we be devoted to outreach like the early Christians were? Well, I came up with ten ways, ten ways that we can all be devoted to outreach.
No. 1: You can pray for the lost. Pray for the lost. There are people down your street, people in your family, people at work. You know they just don’t have a connection with God or if they do, it’s a pretty frail one, a pretty tenuous one. Pray for them. Mention them by name before your heavenly Father. And if your life is filled with Christians and you don’t know any people who aren’t saved, you can count on the fact that they’re out there somewhere. Just pray for them in general. “God, help people that don’t know you. Bless them. Reach out to them.”
No. 2: Pray for God to use you. That’s exciting, isn’t it? Think about God Almighty working through humble ol’ me to reach somebody and change their eternal destiny. Now you might be thinking, “How could I possibly be used by God to do such a wonderful thing?” Well, I heard a story this week about somebody who just happened to be living their Christian life and going to church and somebody watched that and noticed. Somebody from across the street saw that on Sunday morning, they would get up and their car would go out the driveway and they knew they were probably going to church. And so they asked them about it. “You go to church, right?” “Yep.” And the conversation opened the door and the door’s still open. Just being a Christian, people are watching. Just observing what you do in your daily routines, how you order your life, people are noticing. You can be devoted to outreach but pray that God uses you.
No. 3: Be in God’s Word. Read your bible. Do your daily devotions. Join a bible study. Be in God’s Word because as you read the Word of God, the Holy Spirit works in your hearts building you and strengthening you and equipping you for what you need to do in terms of outreach. And as you grow in your faith, you begin to take on the heart of Jesus, the heart that looked at the multitude and said they are harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Pray the Lord of the harvest will send out workers into the harvest field. Be in God’s Word and He will shape you and mold you to be devoted to outreach.
No. 4: Lead a Bible Study. Now many of you are educators. You are trained to teach. Others were trained to train and help people understand methods and techniques and theories and ideas. Or you’re in marketing or sales and you know how to communicate with people. You have skills that can be used by God to communicate His message of salvation. Lead a bible study. We’ll give you all the materials, all the support. We’ll help you understand any questions you might have about God’s Word. You could teach Grace Place or Vacation Bible School. You could host a small group in your home. Simply opening the doors and welcoming people and then we’ll have a bible study that can be almost self-led, some kind of a fellowship opportunity. We have a small group that meets in our home and I think the best part of that is you get to know people real well and you walk with them through their ups and downs. You know what’s going on in their lives and you pray for them and then you see them at church or somewhere else, grocery store or something and you say, “How’s it going with your mom?” “How’s that thing working out with that job interview?” “How are your kids doing?” You are tuned into their lives and you actually are encouraging them spiritually and being used by God to do outreach.
No. 5: Go on a Mission Trip. Now you might be saying, “Well, that boat’s come and gone. I’m not going on any mission trip.” But we’ve had people anywhere from their teen’s all the way into their 70’s go on mission trips and I think if God calls you, has put it on your heart to go and do this kind of a ministry, He’ll work out all the details. If He calls you, He will strengthen you. He’ll watch over. He’ll help provide financially for you. Everything will be taken care of. Go on a mission trip. That’s one of my favorites because I’ve seen so many lives changes when people get away from their normal routine and the insulating culture that we live in, in America, and they kind of step outside their comfort zone. It’s like God can finally get a hold of them. He can finally speak to them in a powerful and wonderful way. And I’ve seen people just really ignited, energized spiritually because they went on a mission trip. But if that’s not possible for you, that brings us to No. 6.
No. 6: Support a Mission. We have a team going to Honduras at the end of June. They have all kinds of supplies they need. Some of them need funding. So there are opportunities for you to help by supplying the supplies or the funding. Or the trip to Tibet. We have a group of missionaries going to Tibet in August to do some wonderful work. Our world’s attention has been focused on Tibet because they had that earthquake recently. There are lots of struggles politically there but it’s also a place that desperately needs the gospel. So find a way that you can support that mission or any of the other missions that our congregation is connected and affiliated with. That’s a way that you can be devoted to outreach.
No. 7: Invite People. Invite people to various activities at church. Gloria Dei is a great place to invite people, whether it’s worship on Sunday mornings or some of the concerts we host or the youth dinner theater or whatever is going on. Invite people. There are all kinds of ways that you can just say, “Hey, you know, my wife and I are going to the dinner theater for our church’s youth. It’s a lot of fun. Do you want to come along? It’s a lot of fun.” You can do that kind of thing.
No. 8: Live Your Life in a Way that Reveals Your Christian Values and Compassion. One of the ways you can do that is volunteering at the local hospital. We have a number of our members in our congregation that dedicate their time to going and serving and helping out as volunteers but there are a lot of other ways that you can do that.
No. 9: Be There When People Need Help. You know people in your life, people up and down your street, people at work, you know people who are going through tough things. You hear the stories. You can be devoted to outreach by showing up at their door with a meal when you know they’ve lost a loved one or by visiting them in the hospital or sending flowers or any number of ways you can be there when they need help.
And finally, No. 10.
No. 10: Share Your Faith Story. That might be the most frightening if you think about it. “Oh, I’m not an evangelist. I don’t really know bible verses that good. I don’t know how I’m going to do that.” But it’s as simple as this: What is the value of your faith? What value do you find in being a Christian? That’s what you communicate. “I love to be able to come and worship.” “I go through the day and I know I can talk to God about anything.” “It’s very comforting to me that when things get tough, I can talk to God.” Or “My Christian congregation surrounds us when we go through difficult things.” Share the value of your faith with people, not all these theological ideas and rules and regulations or any of that. Share what it is to you that makes Christianity so wonderful.
Sometimes I wonder what is the difference between us and the early Christians. Why were they so on fire? Why were they so effective in reaching out to their community? And I think it’s because they had a very clear vision of what it meant to be saved and what it meant to be a believer.
Recently, I heard an interview on the radio with the athletic director of Drake University, Sandy Hatfield Clubb. You probably know who she is. And she is talking about the trip that she had recently made to Haiti. She is describing the difficult circumstances that she saw, all the suffering and poverty and the terrible sanitation and all the different problems. And she is mentioning things that just stuck with her when she thought about it later on. She said one of the things that really overwhelmed her was the thought that all these people who were injured in the earthquake and who were in the hospital receive one meal a day. Can you imagine being in the hospital and getting one meal a day? Now often, when we’re in the hospital, we complain about the food and all this. They would love to have the food that we get three times a day or whenever we need it. One meal a day. She talked about the terrible suffering and how it just kind of shocked her. She had a real hard time grappling with that. And when she came back to America, she felt guilty. She felt guilty when she got off the plane and walked down through the terminal and saw all the different foods you could buy and eat. You could eat as much as you want, any time you want, anywhere you want. She felt guilty. And I bet there’s not a day that goes by that she doesn’t think of what she saw in Haiti, that she doesn’t think of those suffering people. I think she really has a heart for them now and she’s thinking of ways that she can help them and reach out to them.
That is a vision. She’s had an experience that’s changed her heart. And I believe that if you and I could have a vision of eternal suffering, the consequences of a person not knowing Christ, we might be a little bit more devoted to outreach. I can’t even imagine what that must be like, a place of eternal suffering, complete separation from God, no hope for those who’ve lived and died without Christ. That’s their destiny. Now that perspective will motivate us to share what we know, to be devoted to outreach in our communities because we have the opportunity to have God reach out through us and change the eternal destiny of someone.
May God bless you with that captivating thought. Amen.
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