Download Transcript - Downey Seventh

Reaching the Unchurched
Good morning everyone. It’s a blessed day of worship. An opportunity to spend some
time contemplating on our creator and all the good things he does for us. Praise God! Let us
pray.
Father Lord, thank you so much for today. Thank you for just being with us.
Father, guide us as we open your word. Continue to teach us not only to help us
deal with our own problems of life, but help us to realize that you created us for a
greater purpose in ourselves and that our meaning comes from following your will
and your ways, particularly how it impacts the people around us. Guide us now
Lord. We pray all these things in the precious name of Jesus. Amen!
We’re finished with our bible heroes series last week. This week is to prepare us for next
week. Next week we have community day and it’s a big day. We have the police coming, the
Mayor coming, Conference president coming and you guys are coming, praise God for that and
Jesus will be here. God will be with us. And it’s a window of opportunity for us to connect with
the people around us, our friends, our family, our neighbors, someone who cuts our hair. Maybe
this is an opportunity to say, I would like you to come to church this Sabbath. It would be nice
for you to be here.
During Sabbath School, one person asked me, what happens if there’s no room in the
sanctuary and I said, that’s great. That would be a great problem to have. Anyway, you are all
invited and hopefully this message today is to prepare us a little bit to help us to see our role in
connecting with our community.
The title of this sermon is called Reaching the Unchurched. This is going to be a little of
a depressing statement, what I’m about to give you, and if you look around with your friends and
your family in your community it might not shock you, but here are some statistics. Today, 22
percent of Americans are going to church. Back in the ‘50s – the ‘50s seem to be a way of life. I
remember the statistics that women didn’t work in the ‘50s, or 80 percent of women didn’t work
or whatever. But here in this case, 50 percent of America, during the 1950s weren’t going to
church. Twenty-two percent now go to church. That’s not a large group. One out of five of us
go to church. The definition of church regularly could be once a month or whatever. And this is
actually a very conservative statistics. Four thousand to 7,000, even up to 10,000 churches in
America close every year, when there’s only about 1,000 a year that open up.
Less and less of our neighbors, less and less of our friends feel like church is an important
part of our lives, which is sad to me. Next week we have this community day and this is about
what faith is for our community. A community without God, I don’t want to live. I don’t want
to live in a place where no one thinks that there is a God that loves them and there’s no message
that says to love your neighbor as yourself. And there is no message of living a life which is
predicated on what is right and what is wrong. So more and more of our country is becoming
like Europe.
There was a statistic that I read last week, was that the Church of England – the Church
of England is basically the church of England. Not just in name, but in reality. And now for the
first time, I guess since the beginning, that there are less than a million people going to church or
attending the Church of England anyway. So in Europe it’s a very secular world. More and
more people do not believe in God and we are following suit. We’re just kind of slowly
dragging along.
I don’t know about your life, but when I think about that from my life, that’s sad, because
church is just so important to me. I’m not just the pastor, I am a client, I need church. I need
church in my life. I need the fellowship of believers to connect with and I need to sense that God
is real in my life and that there are other people around me that believe the same. So when I see
that in my own life and I see how important it is and that the rest of the world for some reason
see that as not important for themselves, it makes me sad. It makes me believe that there is
something missing in their lives.
Why is that; why is there so many people not going to church? I don’t have the complete
answer to that and what is the solution to this. I don’t have the answer. But the reason why I
have this message today is, during Sabbath School one time, we were reading this verse or these
verses in Matthew 9. Let me just read it. It says: “Jesus went through all the towns and villages
teaching in their synagogues proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, healing every disease
and sickness. And when he saw the crowd he had compassion on them because they were
harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.” So he could see like a war zone of sin.
Jesus had no sin in him. It’s like sitting a child in an R-rated movie – put a three year-old
and let him watch the “Blair Witch Project” or something like that. You can’t comprehend it. A
child is so innocent and seeing all these things would be too much for that child. He would be
traumatized. Jesus walked this earth and he had no sin and he sees it as a warfare of sin. And
not only that but a warfare of poverty, of pain and sickness, disease and suffering all around him
and you can just imagine that he wants to help, to heal and he sees all these people. At some
point in his humanity it’s got to be overwhelming to see this and he has compassion.
You walk by tent city in Los Angeles and you see all those that are homeless. It hurts.
What does it to do you? You go to an orphanage in a third-world country or a place where there
is such a drought and see a child struggling to hold himself up because he’s so dehydrated, so
hungry. I watch the TV at midnight and there’s a commercial about a puppy being abused and I
start to cry and it affects me to an extent. But for the God of the universe seeing his children in
these circumstances, the word compassion is far greater than any interpretation of the word
compassion that we have. He’s heart broken to see all this sickness.
Then he tells his disciples here: “Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful but
the workers are few.” It would be interesting to me this situation where Jesus is saying, okay
disciples I want you go and reach this group and I want Peter to go here, John you go over here.
But he said my twelve, this isn’t enough. We don’t have enough man power to help everyone
that is here and the only thing we can do at this point – we can do what we can do – but he tells
his disciples, “Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into his vineyard. In
some versions it says: Pray to send more workers.
I don’t just believe he is praying right there in this group of people: pray that more people
will come. I believe Jesus had not just in his mind at that moment in time with all those people
there; I believe he’s thinking beyond that. I believe he’s thinking not just in that time period, but
also through the history of the world. I think he’s saying, please pray that there will be people
there. He’s praying for you and me that we will have compassion to go and help those around
us, because the work is just too great for a few. So God has called us all. He has prayed for all
of us to go therefore. I remember in Sabbath School during the lesson when someone pointed
out, why aren’t we doing that? Why aren’t we going out? Why aren’t we the workers? We’re
just so focused on ourselves, on our own problems. I’m just trying to get my mortgage paid off.
I’m just trying to get some gas in my car. I’m just trying to quit this habit. I’m just trying to
raise my kids. I’m just tired. I’m working 80 hours per week. We all have our reasons. We
come to church wanting God to help us and heal us. We want God to impact our lives – God
does that, praise God.
Does he help you? Does he heal you in ways? Does he give you peace? Does he bless
you in life? Amen! But for some of us, many of us, all of us, maybe that is just the focus of
where our Christianity walk goes. It’s really just about us, about me.
We have hearts. You see the puppy video and we start to cry. You watch the people that
are suffering in Africa and you feel bad for them. You see the homeless and you feel bad for
them. You have hearts, but one of the things I think we struggle with is discipling. Moving
beyond ourselves, experiencing the healing that God gives us, but moving to where we’re
focused on other people. This is where Jesus said to his disciples, here you are, you hear my
teaching, but look at all these people that are hurting. Go, pray for more workers and go and
help. And for some reason we may not do a very good job in getting us to a point where we are
really to help those around us.
Matthew 4:19 says: Come follow me, Jesus said, and I will send you out to fish for
people. I don’t like this translation. The other translation says: Come follow me and I will make
you fishers of men. I like that translation. That’s a good one. He’s talking to his disciples, but
do you think it’s just limited to the disciples? – he’s talking to Peter here – saying hey fishermen,
come and drop your nets and I will make you fishers of men. We have this great commission
where it says go ye therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them and make disciples out of them.
When we say the word disciples, we don’t just mean the apostles – the twelve that
followed Jesus and Paul later on – he’s talking about all of us. We’re not just here to get
baptized and then go live our lives. We are here to become disciples for God and what is says
here: If you come follow me, Jesus said, I will send you out and I will make fishermen of you,
and women. Following me? We were never meant to just be baptized and just be comfortable in
our lives and focus on our will and have no impact on the people around us. Maybe we go and
baptize and we’ve done a good job of baptizing. There’s two billion Christians in the world that
have been baptized, but maybe we just stopped at that sentence. Go ye therefore baptizing them
and make disciples out of them.
What is the definition of a disciple? It’s a follower of the way, but what is the action of
the disciple according to this? Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men. I will make
you have impact on the world around you. Your life will be a way of life that will change
another person’s life. Does that describe you? In some ways. Would you want that to describe
you more? I would love to be someone that is walking and sharing and loving and because the
Lord is in my life, someone else’s life is changed. They’ve seen how God loves them, they were
able to be set free from their bondages and they themselves become baptized. Hopefully they go
further and they themselves become disciples. And they are having impact and changing the
lives of others.
This is kind of hard in a little way. I’m just gonna read this here. Maybe as Christians,
not only are not being disciples, we might not even be Christians. That’s gonna sound harsh, but
let me read this. Matthew 7:21 says: “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the
kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven.” It goes
on: “Many of you will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in your name or in
your name drive out demons or in your name perform many miracles? Then I will tell them
plainly, I never knew you, away from me you evildoers.”
Is it wrong to prophesy? No. Is it wrong to cast out demons? No. Is it wrong to have
performed miracles? No. But sometimes this kind of goes back to why only 22 percent of
Americans are coming to church. Sometimes we have this idea that we need to go this prophecy
and this kind of thing, but even that may not be coming from God, which is a harsh
introspection. We think we need to go and do this and do all these things and tell these people
about this and this. We’re are missing something here.
This is confusing. Pastor says therefore we need to go teach and tell the world about all
these things, but at the same time people who are telling the world about all these things may not
even be doing it for God. What are you saying Pastor? I don’t know. Let’s figure out this
together. One of the things is that being a disciple is hard. There’s a cost to discipleship. In one
of the sections of the gospel is the cost of discipleship. It says in Matthew 10:37, 38: “Anyone
who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Anyone who loves their son
or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow
me is not worthy of me.” This is kind of a lecture here. There is a cost of discipleship. Being
discipled is giving up the things of this world, even if your family is holding you back, being
willing to surrendered that.
Right after this it says: The disciples go from town to town and if you get rejected just
dust your feet and go to another town. Now I see why we like the baptism part and not so keen
on the disciple part. We don’t really want that cost which maybe too much for us. A disciple
here in this sense is, whoever finds his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake
finds it. So a disciple is someone who is completely focused on what the Lord wants in his life.
One of the things here in Matthew 11: “At the time Jesus said, I praise you father Lord of
heaven and earth because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and reveal to
them, to little children, yes Father for this is what you were pleased to do.” This is Jesus telling
them that they don’t even see that they’re missing something. Only little children can see this. It
goes on to say: “All these things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the
son except for the Father and no on knows the Father except the son and those to whom the son
choses to reveal to him.”
My point is this. I shared some of this at this Regional meeting that I was at. All these
pastors have the these discipling programs and they’re good. If you want to get discipled, there
are some really good programs, but then I started to think, what are we getting discipled in? We
can be discipled into anything. We can be discipled into becoming a really good car salesman.
In a Christian sense maybe we all have to be discipled. We’ve been discipled to make
Christianity what it is to us today, but there’s something more to this and that is what Jesus was
doing was continually telling his disciples who he was, that he was the son of God and you won’t
see the Father unless you see me.
My point is, what is the answer? We can go out and try to do more prophesy meetings
and all these different things which are important and which we should do, but what we truly
need is Jesus. Disciple people for Christ. What the world is missing, what the 78 percent of
people that aren’t going to church are missing from us is Jesus, because Jesus will ultimately
change us. So where do we go from here. Jesus says: Go ye therefore, teach all nations, baptize
them in the name of Jesus. Go and teach. Show the world what? Show the world Jesus, because
Jesus is who changes. The world doesn’t need a more sophisticated church. The world needs
people who love Jesus.
What is the solution? The solution is to realize that in your life how much you need
Jesus. Each one of us need to realize how we need Jesus. Then surrender to him. What he’s
saying to you, follow him and let him lead your life. What is interesting, that right after this is
the verse where he says, Jesus is going to give you rest. Give him your burdens and he will give
you rest. We say, I don’t want to be a disciple because it is hard. I have to let go of my brothers
and sisters, my parents, I have to give up my possessions. But then he says if you know who I
am and what I am saying and if you follow my ways, I will give you rest and peace.
How many of you want rest and peace? Would you rather have rest, pure rest and peace
or a 65 inch flat screen TV? If I was going to give you pure love, rest and peace, or the new
Galaxy 7 which might blow you up anyways, which would you rather have? Would you want
peace and rest or that brand new 2017 Corvette? Now we’re talking. Would you want peace and
rest or that 3500 sq. ft. home next to that country club? These are the questions to ask. Would
you want peace and rest or continue to live a life of gluttonous sin? Not everybody is willing to
give up that. Do you see the beauty of this? While it seems to so hard to go and follow Jesus’
ways, to be discipled and the cost of it is great, at the end of it we experience everything we’ve
been seeking for anyway: rest, peace, love.
When we seek our lives we will lose it. When we lose our lives we will gain it.
Let us pray.