Great Commission

All posts tagged Great Commission

Get Off the Sideline

Posted by Rev. Bro. Coach on August 27, 2021
Posted in: The Mindful Minute. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

It’s football season and I am looking forward to being in the stands tonight to cheer on Centralia. That is where I want to be fan. I do not, however, want to be caught on the sidelines of my faith. Several years ago, Kyle Idelman, now Senior Pastor of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY, wrote a book called Not a Fan. It was a well written, thoughtful book about how Christians participate (or don’t participate) in their walk with Christ. The message of that book has stuck with me through the years since I read it and it caused me to view the Christian life, particularly mine, in a different light. One thing that it did, was it made me realize that, like the book said, there are far too many people sitting on the sideline, just a spectator, not really participating. However, as I continue to look through this lens (always at myself first), I came to the realization that there are so many different reasons that people stay on the sidelines. While I cannot address all of the individual reasons we choose to stay on the sidelines, I always feel the need to encourage you to get up and get in the game; and maybe, just maybe, I can encourage you today to do just that.

To my fellow believers- Get off the sidelines: The old cliche of 20% of the people do 80% of the work needs to exit our vocabularies. Get in the game. The Great Commission does not say “Church Staff” go and make disciples. It does not say “Sunday School Teachers” go and make disciples. It does not say “People who have their lives together” go and make disciples. It is an imperative from Christ Himself to ALL OF US to go and make disciples of all nations. In fact, the exact wording if you need the reference is:

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:19-20

Then in Acts 1:8, a coinciding promise and command is given, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” It is has been made pretty clear that we all have the responsibility to share the gospel, to see people baptized, and to walk with them as we all grow in our faith.

To the casual believer- Get off the sideline: God has placed you on my heart. I want you to be sure, without a shadow of a doubt that you belong to the Lord and not just think you might be. No one who truly has an encounter with Christ will ever walk away the same. I want you to have assurance that beyond a shadow of a doubt that your life has been handed over to the Lord. In his book, Kyle says this:

“The biggest threat to the church today is fans who call themselves Christians but aren’t actually interested in following Christ. They want to be close enough to Jesus to get all the benefits, but not so close that it requires anything from them.”

Kyle Idelman- Not a Fan

If you know that you belong to the Lord, but you’ve been on cruise control lately or for most of your walk, it’s never too late to get in the game. Don’t try to satisfy your conscience by checking boxes of “good, religious things to do.” Get in the game, do the work, and experience the amazing pain of growth. Jesus never asked for fans, He asked for followers; and following requires a response. We cannot hope to follow if we are firmly planted on the sideline.

To the non believer- Get off the sideline: There is a God who loves you. There is a God who wants to save you. I know it’s not always easy to believe that when people who claim to believe in Him don’t exactly reflect it. I get it, I really do. Let me say this though, being a follower of Christ doesn’t make anyone perfect. God never expected us to be perfect as believers, He does expect us to be authentic. If you have tried church before, let me encourage you to try it again. This time, look for one that is authentic and not perfect. The perfect church doesn’t exist, but there are authentic churches out there. You will always run into believers that will upset you, we do too. What I can promise you is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and real. It offers hope and salvation, and it provides a love that you could not imagine. It will change you- the way you think, the way you act, the way you perceive things. It will cost you and once you place your faith in Him, life doesn’t automatically become a bed of roses because we still live in a broken and fallen world. But, you will no longer be a slave to this broken world and this life will no longer be as good as it gets. You can’t know this peace and this love if you never respond to it. God is calling you to Him, the message is this repent, turn away from the broken life of sin you lead, and trust that Jesus is the Son of God and that He paid the penalty for those sins. That he lived the life we couldn’t live and died the death we should have died. But not even death could hold Him because He rose 3 days later to give us victory over death. Don’t look for faith based on what you read or see on social media, find a believer, an authentic believer, not perfect, and let them share with you what God can do.

No matter where you are in life or your walk with Christ. If you are sold out or if you aren’t even a believer, get off the sideline and into the game. Respond to the gospel, be baptized, actively grow in your faith, and while we are at it, let’s make more disciples one person at a time. It’s good to be back.

In Christ Alone,
Rev. Bro. Coach

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God Revealed Part 1: Revealed in the Word

Posted by Rev. Bro. Coach on January 29, 2021
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“And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”

Mark 16:15

Go and tell the world about Jesus. It’s a must, but it isn’t as easy as people make it out to be. You are essentially sharing the gospel about a savior that people don’t realize they need, yet. Thankfully, the results are not up to you, those are God’s. You job is to deliver the message. While the delivery of the message is all we are responsible for, we must be ready for the response. 1 Peter 3:15 reminds us,

but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

1 Peter 3:15

Are you ready to do that? Are you ready for the questions? Why do you believe in something you can’t see? Why do you think Jesus is my only option? Are you saying I’m not a good person? How is my life different from these other “christians” out here? The list really can go on and on. Are you prepared to answer more than just “the bible says so” that why. While that is an accurate answer, if I was the unbeliever, I’d say, “ok, show me.” Are we ready for that? Now, don’t get me wrong, you will NOT have all the answers, you will NOT be able to quote every verse and passage off the top of your head (even though the more you interact with God’s word, the more often you will be able to do it- just sayin’), and you will NOT understand all of the questions; but you DO have a responsibility to find out. You can say, “I don’t know”, but you need to follow up with, “but, I will find out.”

On top of that, are you ready for the misinformation and misunderstanding of the Bible? How do you respond when someone says, “but God loves everyone, a loving God won’t send His people to hell.” Then there is “The bible says that I should be like Jesus. I volunteer at the homeless shelter, I feed the poor, and donate to several charities which is more than other christians are doing.” How about this dangerous one, “I walked down the aisle at VBS or summer camp when I was 9, prayed a prayer, and asked Jesus into my heart, so I am good.” These are just a couple of common ones. Do we know God’s word well enough to show the problems in that thinking? While, asking Jesus into our hearts is an easy way to explain salvation to little kids, that and the sinners prayer are actually nowhere in the Bible. Do we know the Bible well enough to know when its being twisted, manipulated, or just misinterpreted? If we don’t, then someone who has read some of it and is more confident in what they are saying can convince us that the bible says that.

My son asked me the other day how you talk to someone about God when they won’t believe in Him unless they can see Him. That’s an excellent question that many believers don’t know how to respond to. The answer is we do see God everyday. God revealed Himself to us two ways: through His creation (which we will look at next week) and through His Word. The bible is the infallible work of God, divinely inspired through human hands, without fault or blemish. Look, there are people who are going to try to refute this. There are even people calling themselves Christians who will refute this and I say with all the genuine love in my heart, they are mistaken. Oh, people will come up with clever paradigms and apparent contradictions that they believe they have found in God’s Word. This is because they look at the Bible through the human lens and not the divine. Man has a desperate need to understand everything and man has trouble accepting the fact that there will be things that we will not understand this side of eternity. The Bible even tells us that we won’t understand it all. We see in Isaiah 55:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways. This is the Lord’s declaration.”

Isaiah 55:8

And they ask if I truly believe that…well, yes, I do. I don’t need empirical evidence. I don’t need a mathematical formula to prove the validity and accuracy of God’s Word. I’ve seen too much evidence in my life where every promise God made in there has been kept over and over. So, yes, we can believe in God without seeing Him- it’s called faith after all.

If we are going to be effective witnesses for God’s kingdom and if we are going to be fulfill the commission He left with us through Jesus, we are going to have to become intimately involved in God’s Word. Stop reading it like its a high school English assignment. Stop reading it like its 66 independent books; and start reading it like it’s one complete story that points us to the same place- the cross. Jesus revealed this to us in Luke on the Emmaus road:

” Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures.”

Luke 24:27

Do we know God’s Word well enough to show the world the powerful message of hope and salvation from their creator; not only so that we can give a defense of why we believe what we believe, but also so that we can identify when something is not right. God is revealed through His perfect Word.

In Christ Alone,
Rev. Bro. Coach

Taking Back the Gospel- Part II (The Mission)

Posted by Rev. Bro. Coach on November 10, 2015
Posted in: The Mindful Minute. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”                    –Matthew 28:19-20

Photo Nov 10, 10 31 00 PMThe great commission. I have thought through, prayed through, and struggled through this passage of scripture for years. It’s one of those scriptures that I want to get right.  Now, I don’t want to get any scripture wrong, but this passage is one of those extra special passages that I want to make sure that I don’t mess up.  Why I am so adamant about this passage?  It’s simple really.  Jesus gave up everything to come to this sin plagued Earth.  He gave up everything as He lived a PERFECT life and yet was treated like villainy that can only be found in comic books (and even they are less violent). He gave up everything to take MY PLACE on the cross.  He died FOR ME (and you). And even after all of this trial, punishment, and death- He made but one request- go make disciples.  I don’t want to get this one wrong. My 9 year old son has the passage above memorized.  He can say it flawlessly- he even knows verse 18 too. It’s a point of fatherly pride that he has this memorized. I dare say a great many Christians have this memorized, but like my 9 year old son, if he never understands the purpose behind the words, he has completely missed the point and the ONE request Christ made of us before He returned to the Father. It’s a point that I am very afraid we have forgotten or at best neglected as we have allowed culture to assimilate and alter the mission God has called us to do.  Tonight, I want to take back the Gospel- more particularly the Great Commission.

I love social media- many of you know this.  I love it for very different reasons, however.  I see social media as a massive mission field in the world today.  Just like my friends serving in countries in Africa and other parts of the world I can’t even mention, I see myself as a missionary to cyber space.  I don’t presume to think that I have given up or made the sacrifices that they have made to completely relocate myself to another land, learn a different culture, & learn a different language. They are the Superman compared to my Underdog in terms of their heroic choices. I do however, see a need for more and more Christians to become missionaries in the cyber space realm. There is more than ample opportunity to reach people for the cause of Christ on that mission field. Unfortunately, what I am finding online are Christians doing only half the job.  Now, I will be the first to step up and tell you that I fail sometimes at putting my walk out there.  I trip, I fall, I get up and I try to remind people that I am on this journey of redemption too. I do think we as Christians really need to think and pray before we type in a lot of cases that wind up on social media- unfiltered through prayer. From supremacist rants to the latest ridiculous outrage over a Starbucks cup, we consistently miss the mark of the mission we are called to by Christ. I say that because we have become very good at pointing to the TRUTH of Christ, but failing to point out the GRACE of Christ. While Christ is both truth and grace, until people see the need for a savior, they will never buy into the truth of the Savior.  We desperately need to spread the WHOLE gospel of Christ and more importantly, we need to be willing to fulfill the great commission to its fullest extent instead of just offering up lip service to our savior’s one request.

Don’t get me wrong- I am a very staunch proponent of the truth of Christ. For example, I am a very outspoken proponent against Planned Parenthood.  I abhor abortion. We, as a society, are blowing up social media with public outcry over a coffee cup, when millions of little lives, miracles of God, are extinguished by abortion.  Many of you have joined me in the public outcry against Planned Parenthood in efforts to have it defunded and shut down. And I both applaud and join you in those efforts, but let me ask you something. Have you prepared yourself for the aftermath if we win? Have you considered what YOUR role will be in the fallout if we were to successfully have Planned Parenthood shut down? I bring this up because there will be fallout.  Will those scared pregnant young ladies be invited into your congregations? Will you help with  getting them to doctors visits, help them with food or shelter, or even help them to get to the store? Will you show them that God’s grace is extended to all and will you share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with her and tell her how Jesus loves her and died on a cross? Will you give her a Bible AND walk through it with her by inviting her to a Bible Study? Will you invest in her life? Will you share the Gospel of Jesus or the Gospel of America? If we are going to make a stand for the Gospel, we must be willing to make a stand and see the Gospel ALL THE WAY THROUGH!!!!

If we want to succeed with the mission of Jesus Christ, the mission bestowed first upon the disciples and then to us by virtue of our faith, we must first understand what that mission is. In order to make disciples- people who follow Jesus- we must first give them Jesus and help them understand a need for a Savior.  They only way we are going to do that, is to show them the grace and love of Jesus Christ. There is a great story in Matthew 25 that really sums up why we are here and is the essence, I believe, of the great commission. It is a story about the final judgment:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’                     -Matthew 25:34-40

Let’s take back the Gospel and the Great Commission.  Let’s make it what it should be and what Jesus intended it to be.  Be bold- stand up for what is true.  The Gospel is the infallible Word of God. But, don’t just stand up for part of the truth.  Make a stand and then be willing to be part of the solution. In the end- we should not be willing to allow an organization like Planned Parenthood take better care of our women than we do and we certainly should not be looking for a company like Starbucks to spread Christ at Christmas. That job was tasked to us. We are in this together- let’s get to work and take back what is rightfully God’s.

In Christ Alone,

Rev. Bro. Coach