First Presbyterian Church                                                              Rev. Jim Teall

Salt Lake City, Utah                                                         July 11, 2004

Mission:

What Happens When God’s People Do Something

Select Readings from Matthew 22, 25 & 28 

The First Presbyterian Church-SLC Mission Statement

Let me read to you a declaration devised by a group of Christians describing the goals of their particular organization:   “We are a mission serving Jesus Christ as a growing and loving family of God, united in Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit.”  It is quite simple, yet eloquent and powerful.  Do you know who wrote this beautiful and eloquent statement…you did!  That declaration is the mission statement of the First Presbyterian Church of Salt Lake City.

The overarching theme of this statement is that we are first and foremost a mission that serves Jesus Christ.  Is this true pragmatically speaking?  Are we a mission minded church?  That is, are we a church that is focused outward on others, or are we church that remains consumed with ourselves on internal issues?  There is no doubt that God has worked in mighty ways in the First Presbyterian Church.  However, discipleship can never rest on what has been done in the past; for mission by definition is always moving out and seeking to do more.

Ordinary to Extraordinary

Mission requires miracles.  The first miracle of Jesus took place at a wedding.  Jesus was a guest at a wedding in Cana and at the reception the hosts ran out of wine.  Uh Oh?  Not a problem for Jesus.  He found some very ordinary water and turned it into some very extraordinary wine.  Everyone was ecstatic and the party continued.   

Do we need a touch from Jesus to become extraordinary in our call to be mission church?  Could Jesus touch us in such a way that the energy of this church could be like that party back in Cana---exciting!  Do you think Jesus could touch us so that our current mission budget around 15% could be transformed to 50%?  Is it possible that we could give away more money then we spend on ourselves for the daily operations of the church?  Could FPC send not just one team but several teams a year into places like Africa, the Middle East or Latin America?  Of course, for with God all things are possible, but in order to live out our missionary call it will take dedication, sacrifice, creativity and lots and lots of prayer to ask Jesus to take our ordinary mission and transform into an extraordinary life changing mission.  We live in a world today that needs Jesus more than ever and unless we the church stand up and with all of our hearts say, “Here am I Lord, send me,” the world will continue on its path destruction.  God has chosen us to be his hands and feet to spread the gospel in our deeds and words, but will respond to this awesome call? 

What is Mission?

Most of us if we have been around the church for sometime when thinking about mission typically quote Matthew 28:16-20:  Go and make disciples of all nations and baptize them into the faith.  Though this is a key component to mission it is not the foundation of mission.  Mission consists of the three C’s and they build on each other.  If you take them out of order then our missions efforts will not be effective.

The three C’s are the Great Commandant, The Great Compassion, and the Great Commission.  Matthew 28 is what we call the Great Commission but mission does not start there.  It ends there but to start there only produces disastrous results, for it lacks two main ingredients.  Mission starts with the Great Commandment found in Matthew 22:34-40.  What is mission?  “God so loved the world that He sent His only son.”  This is the definition of mission.  God loved the world so much He left the comfort of heaven to come to earth to do acts of love and to speak words of love.  This is mission.  Mission starts with the great commandment, love. 

The Great Commandment

One day our friends the Pharisees were up to their old tricks and once again trying to trip up Jesus by asking him questions.  One this particular occasion Jesus had just silenced the Sadducees who were a group opposed to the Pharisees.  It would be like the Democrats trying to stump Jesus, failing, and the Republicans gloating in their failure then deciding it was their chance to stump the great teacher, Jesus. 

Matthew 22:34-39

The foundation of any mission that we embark on is love.  Now what is interesting in Jesus’ response to this teacher of the law was that he asked the question: Which is the greatest---that is singular---commandment?  Jesus responds with two commandments and he says that the two are actually one and that they are equal and synonymous. 

The way you and I love others is the way we love God.  Any one can say they love God, that is easy, but to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind takes effort and that effort is played out upon humanity.  By merging the two commandments on love into one, Jesus is saying that a lot of people run around saying that they love God but the true lovers of God are the ones who love their neighbors. 

James the brother of Jesus says it this way in his letter. “What good is it my friends if a person claims to love God but has no actions to prove it.  Can this be an authentic saving faith?  Suppose a person is without clothes and food.  If one of you says to that person, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, saying you love God by itself, if it is not accompanied by acts of love, is dead.” 

We can come into a sanctuary on Sunday and sing songs about loving God but if we then do not do his will by loving our neighbor then we are only fooling ourselves and playing around with God. But if we put our love into action, we will live out the Great Commandment of Love.  That is the first “C” in mission and will propel the church from being ordinary to extraordinary! 

The Great Compassion

The second “C” to mission is to develop a deep and great Compassion for our fellow human beings.  Once again Jesus tells a story to illustrate his point about what it means to really be his follower.  The story emphasizes our need to exercise compassion instead of simply doing mental exercises with our minds memorizing creeds. 

Matthew 25:31-46

Two points of interest reflecting on this passage: First, notice that the people are not divided by Republican or Democrat, they are not divided by liberal or conservative, they are not divided by American or French, they are not even divided by Christian or Muslim, but they are divided by those who by faith loved Jesus by performing acts of compassion on others. 

The second point and a rather disturbing one at that, is the ones who find themselves on the losing end of eternity state emphatically that they knew Jesus to be Lord, but were still denied access into His Kingdom.  So what’s the rub?  Love! The sheep put their love for God into action and the goats did not.  The goats said the right things so that they appeared to have faith but by their lack of love they were denied access into heaven. 

You see mission is much more than trying to convince someone to believe in a certain creed.  Mission is much more to do with getting people to change their center.  The second step in mission is the inner change of the missionary from a self-centered to other-centered.  When we stop thinking about ourselves and our needs and begin to focus on others and their needs, we develop true compassion or empathy for others which motivates us to serve others.  Jesus talks about the needs of prisoners, the poor, the homeless and the hungry.  Right now more than 800 million people in the world go hungry. In developing countries, 6 million children die each year, mostly from hunger-related causes. In the United States, 13 million children live in households where people have to skip meals or eat less to make ends meet. That means one in ten households in the U.S. are living with hunger or are at risk of hunger.  What are we doing to feed the hungry?  It takes a lot of work to feed the hungry but the greatest work is in the mind and in the heart to move from self-centered existence to other-centered existence.  This shift is nothing short of a miracle and when Jesus touches your ordinary heart He makes it extraordinary.  The extraordinary heart is filled with compassion.  Compassion is the second “C” of being an extraordinary mission minded church.

The Great Commission

For whatever reason, mission has become the step child of the church.  Mission is something we get around to if we have the time after we learn all we can about faith.  However this is not what Jesus preached.  Jesus puts mission at the center of the life of his disciples.  The third and final “C” of missions is found in the Great Commission

Matthew 28:16-20

Notice in the text that after Jesus appeared in His resurrected body to his disciples some still doubted.  Did Jesus say oh, go and pray more, go and study more, go and take care of your doubts and personal needs first, no…He said, Go then into the world on a mission, the mission to teach everyone about me…you can do this because I am with you always. 

If you are lacking in faith, the best cure is to do something!!!!  Serve the poor, advocate for the homeless, visit a nursing home, give money to overseas missionaries.  Go forth in mission.  Mission is not something we eventually get around to but should be at the heart of faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.

Notice too that the commission is to disciple the nations or all the people groups of the world.  The commission says we should teach people to obey the commandments of Jesus, and what is the greatest commandment?  Love God and Love People.  You see it is full circle.  The third and final ‘C’ to mission is the Commission by Jesus to go and teach people about Jesus, but unless we go living out the great commandment to love and have our hearts filled with compassion, the great commission becomes a crusade to beat others into submission.  The message we have been commissioned to tell is the message “God so loved the world that He sent his son into the world.”  There is no more beautiful story in all the ages we could tell.  Are we telling it?

Conclusion

The English philosopher Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”  I would like to amend that quote by saying evil prospers when God’s people do nothing and that is why mission is God’s people attempting to do something.  It has often been said about the church in Nazi Germany that if they had stood up to Hitler early on, they could have prevented the spread of his evil regime.  Fear kept them silent and 6 million people lie dead in the camps.  Today it is AIDS, Poverty, Global Terrorism, Materialism, and list goes on and on.  Will fear paralyze us, will we make excuses and remain passive and expect governments to save us, will our self-interest lull us to sleep or will we embark on the greatest journey of our lives by trusting  Jesus and His authority and shout out to God and say, “Here am I  Lord, send me!”   Will we pray to Jesus touch my ordinary heart so it might burn with compassion for the lost and take my ordinary life of self interest and turn it into an extraordinary life of mission.