Missionary Living

Another awesome sermon today.  Pastor Jay discussed John 15:16 and the importance of missionary living. 

John 15:16 " You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you."

Pastor Jay explained that being on mission means proclaiming Christ where He is not known.  He used a quote from John Piper to illustrate this: "Missions exist because worship does not."  In other words, we are here to proclaim Christ wherever we are that He is not currently worshiped--neighborhood, workplace, gym, grocery store--that's our mission field.  My school is my mission field.  Even though I'm restricted from sharing my faith with my students, I am not restricted from demonstrating Christ's love to them 24/7.

Another thing that really grabbed my attention was when he said that a disciple is not actually a disciple until he/she has made another disciple, and that if we aren't making disciples there is a level of intimacy with God that we are missing out on.  He used Matthew 28 as his rationale here:  Jesus said in the Great Commission that He would be with us as we made disciples.  That doesn't mean He isn't with us otherwise, but there is a certainly connection between disciple making and our personal walk with Christ. 

We were also reminded that God doesn't want an audience; He wants an army.  To quote Pastor Jay: "As we take responsibility for making disciples, we begin to have our heart transformed into His heart, and our desires come in line with His will."   That leads us to pray for the souls of the people around us, and "that is a prayer He will always answer with all the power of heaven.  We [become] broken over lostness wherever it exists, and we are compelled to action."
 
This hit close to home because I know that I wonder sometimes why I don't feel as deeply connected to God as I want to.   But thinking through whether my focus is on evangelism and disciple making; I know that it is frequently not.  This is certainly an area where I can grow.

As if that all weren't enough to get me thinking, tonight I went to a Bible study with a good friend.  Guess what the topic was there?  You guessed it: Disciple making!  It was a good discussion of practical steps to making disciples using the illustration of how Jesus interacted with the Samaritan woman in John 4.  (Additionally, although I didn't know this prior to going to the study, the only requirement for joining the Bible study group is that you commit to walk through any doors for evangelism that God opens, which I thought was a really awesome way to think about evangelism and discipleship).

So, I guess I'll be learning more about living as a disciple who makes disciples this week. Can't wait to see what God has in store, and what doors He opens for me to walk through.