Recharge | The Church: On Mission

The church isn’t just a gathering—it’s a people sent on a mission. But whose mission are we actually carrying out?

In this message, Chad walks through the Great Commission and shows how the mission of the Father, the Son, and the Church all align: to make Jesus known among every nation.

Key Takeaways

• Jesus’ authority is the foundation of the church’s mission
• Every believer is called to make disciples who make disciples
• The mission starts with people closest to us
• The local church is called to shine the gospel in its community
• God’s global mission includes reaching unreached people groups

Scripture:
Matthew 28:18–20, Habakkuk 2:14, Matthew 24:14, Philippians 2:9–11

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Transcript

Setting The Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, I'm excited to get to be with you guys again tonight. I feel like we've done this a lot recently. For those of you don't know, I'm Chad. I'm the missions pastor, and I'm I just am so excited to get to spend just a few minutes with you talking about God's Word. Uh you know, over the last several weeks we've been talking about the foundations of the church, what it is, and how it exists, and on what it stands and what's its foundations. And uh and we started with this idea that it's founded on the rock that is Jesus, right? He's the core, he's the heart, he's the center of everything we hold dear. And then we talked about the gospel of Christ and how it how it encourages and infects and impacts and drives us out in the mission that God uh not only gave his son, but he also gave his church. And I want to start with that idea. If we're talking about the church on mission, what mission are we on? Whose mission is it? And we could say Jesus, but Jesus said he was about someone else's mission. Who was Jesus about? What was his mission? It was to do the will of the Father, right? So if I was to back up one more step and ask you, well, what was the mission of the Father, what would you say? Well, last week Jason told you the mission of the Father is to draw the nations to himself and in so doing receive glory from the nations. Right? The God that made these people, that made all of us, wants to receive glory from us. So as we know him and become more like him, we reflect him, and it brings him renown and fame and glory. And so this really amazing thing is to talk about how if the mission of the Father is to draw glory to himself from among all the nations, then the mission of the Son is to do the exact same thing, to make him famous among all the peoples of the earth, so that they would reflect the glory due to the Father. And if that's the mission of the Son, then what's the mission of the church? It's the same thing. It's to continue on in the same vein as the Creator God and the Son that he gave us. And so we're gonna start right in the middle. You've heard this verse a few times, probably many, many times in your spiritual walk. We're gonna look at Matthew 28, 18 through 20. This is the very kind of end of Jesus' public ministry on the planet, right? He's come back from the dead, he's now interacted with his disciples, and this is just before he ascends into heaven, and he says to them, Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Now I want to stop just for a second. I want to ask you, when Jesus said, All authority, and he's speaking to his disciples, what do you think came to mind? What kind of unique authority had the apostles witnessed, had the disciples seen with their own eyes, that Jesus had authority that was astounding? He watched somebody rise from the dead. He called Lazarus back to life. Is that unique authority? You guys do this on a regular basis? Cast out demons. Okay, what else? Anything else? Healed the sick. Calmed the storm, walked on water. We talked about that in the Sunday school class this last weekend. Fed 5,000, but it wasn't just that he fed 5,000. We do that every Wednesday. No, no, we don't, not 5,000. But it was that he fed 5,000 with how much? A couple fish and a few loaves of bread, right? And at the end, when they picked up just the scraps, there's 12 baskets full. It's an incredible moment. And I tell you, the most miraculous thing, the most incredible authority that Jesus sowed is that he died. They watched him die, and then he came back to life. So when Jesus said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, these guys were like, Yeah, yeah, we've seen that with our own eyes. And because of that authority, Jesus says, Therefore, I love it. Every time you see the word therefore, you have to ask, what's it there for? Right? It's because it's connecting the the the section right before it to the section that's about to come. So he's saying, Because of my authority, go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you, and I am with you always to the very end of the age. And I love this. We could spend some time here, we could unpack every little element of this, and it really is fun. I would tell you the go is to everywhere. It's a geographical go. Make disciples means you have to be a disciple, and the task isn't just to be a disciple, it's to go and teach others to be disciples who then do the same thing. Go and teach others. So there's generational growth embedded in this making disciples command. Then he says, among the nations, and if go is everywhere, nations means everyone. We're talking about ethnic groups, all the peoples and places of the planet that have never heard the gospel. So he's saying, go make disciples everywhere, among everyone, and baptize them.

unknown 4:57

Right?

Disciples Who Make Disciples

Start With Your One

Be A Light In Your City

To The Unreached Peoples

SPEAKER_00 4:57

In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And then it says teaching them to obey, which is a really beautiful thing. We love, we're Baptists, we love to teach. But sometimes it's hard to teach someone how to obey, because that's also uh, you gotta obey first. You gotta model it for them, right? So this is like an apprenticeship kind of concept. It's not just teaching them, and it's not just demanding obedience, it's teaching them to do as I do. So you have to be a disciple. There's so many little pieces to this. Again, we can unpack this. We do a gospel conversations training, and we'll take about 40 minutes just to unpack these verses. So I'm giving you the shotgun blast, all right? Teaching them to obey all that I commanded you. And then Jesus ends with this promise that he's with us, he'll never leave us or forsake us. So it starts with his authority and it ends in his presence. And you realize it's not because his people are really good goers or not because they're superstar disciple makers, it's because Jesus goes with them and he gives them the authority to do what he's called them to do. And that's a foundation for the church sent on Jesus' mission. So, how do we live it out? How do we live out the Habakkuk 2.14 we talked about last week, that for the for the earth we fill with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea? Well, I'll tell you, there's a couple things. I think that we have to see that every believer, every follower of Jesus is called to make disciples. Who make disciples. And there's a couple things in that. For one, it's a personal calling that God has sent you to the lost in your life. Every believer, whether you live among the nations or where you live in Birdie, Texas, you probably have access to lost people. And I would tell you, the first place the gospel wants to go is to the people who live close to you who've never heard it. And if you wonder if that's really even possible, I'll tell you, uh, I shared with some of you this weekend that I've been praying for my mom, and and it's an amazing uh she's never followed the Lord, and this week I spent some time with her, and I shared with her the story of Jesus walking on the water. And I said, Mom, the very simplest thing is if you get to a moment where you just feel like you don't know what else to do, you can cry out to the Lord, Lord, save me. And he'll reach his hand out just like he did to Peter, and he'll he'll give you hope and comfort. And I said, There's so much more to the gospel than that, but it's just simple, it's call out to him. And let's see if he responds. And I asked her, Have you ever heard this story before? And you know what she told me? She's never heard that story in her life. And I thought, how is that possible? I'll tell you, every single one of us know people who've never heard the gospel, they don't know their scriptures, they don't have the foundation to help them understand what the gospel means. And God has embedded us in their lives so that we can have an opportunity to lead them to Him. And He's the point. Right? So the first place that we go is to the human heart that's around us, that's far from Him. And we take an opportunity to share the hope and love of Jesus with the people around us. So we've we've tied in right now, we've given you these little uh bookmarks this weekend to ask you to write someone's name, one person that you'll pray for over the next several weeks. We we call it the the um who's your one? I'm like, everyone, it's not everyone. Who's your one campaign leading up to Easter? One person that you're praying for that's close to you and far from God. That's the first easy application of the Great Commission is use the space and the time that God's placed you to reach the people around you. The second thing is God has given us a community here on this hilltop in this city, and we have a responsibility to be a light for the gospel in this place, in the in the in the area in which we live. And honestly, this is an incredible place to be a part of that. This church, I believe, shines the gospel into this community in a powerful way. I know so many of you are volunteering in so many different ways in the church, outside the church, and so many ministries that are outside in our community. But God wants this church to be a light on this hill for the people that live within our direct area. And there are many who are far from God. There are many in our community that will never walk through this church doors, and we have to walk out these doors to find them. And so let that be something that sits in your heart that God has sent you to the people in your life, and He sent you to this community. If this is where you live, you have a ministry to the place and the people that live here too. So let that set with you. And then lastly, every single church is a global light for the gospel. And FBC lives this out so well. We're sending people to the very ends of the earth. But do you know that there's people on the planet that have yet to hear the name of Jesus for the very first time? There's entire communities that speak their own unique language, live in their own unique place, and have their own cultures and customs that have never interacted with the gospel in their entire history. We call them unreached people groups. It's a place, it's places around the world, over 5,000 remaining unreached people groups, unique language, culture, and custom that have yet to hear the gospel for the very first time. And we pray that God would raise up from among us people who would go to those places, and they're hard to get to. Some of them are hard to find. And some of them we're watching on the news every single day. But God is doing a work through his church today that some missiologists, these are people that study missions and the movement of the gospel, some believe that we're a decade away from seeing a church planted among every single people group on the planet. Guys, in our lifetime, we may see churches established among the nations like the Great Commission points out in front of us. We're on the cusp. We're on the cusp. So we want to move resources and people and energy and see what it would take to finish this task. I would call it the first level completion of the Great Commission. It's the first level. It doesn't mean that we're gonna know how God defines nations, but we're gonna do our very best. And we're right there, so close. So, church, the foundation of the church is to be on mission with God. His mission. And I want to end with this verse. There's actually two of them. Matthew 24, 14 says this. It's Jesus speaking, and he says, This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Some of you always wonder, are we on the end? Are we there yet? Are we about to see him return? I said, Well, he may. He can come whenever he wants. But according to this verse, there's a task that must be completed first. That the gospel must go preach to the whole world and a testimony to all the nations. And it hasn't been completed yet, but we're getting close. We're getting close. Then Jason in his prayer time, he he mentioned a verse that's one of my favorites in Philippians 2. We're going to finish with this. It says, Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee would bow. How many? Which nation?

unknown 11:46

All of them.

Nearing First-Level Completion

SPEAKER_00 11:47

All of them, right? Which which people group, which language group, which all of them one day their knee will bow, and every tongue will confess. In heaven, on earth, and under the world, under the earth, acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. And why? Here's the last line to the glory of God the Father. Guys, it all ties together in Christ. We pursue his mission to tell the people of the world about Jesus so that they will glorify the Father. And guys, so we're on mission with the Father. We're on mission with the Son. And we partner in the work that He's been doing since the very beginning of time to draw the nations to himself. And so continue to pray. Continue to seek opportunities to share the gospel with those lost people in your life and continue to be a light on this hilltop in this community for the kingdom of God. And should God give you the opportunity to go among the unreached, then we would be so amazed and honored to see if God would draw people who have never heard the gospel in their entire people group history, first fruits from a new nation, coming to faith. We're praying for it, and we're hoping that God would give us those opportunities as a body of faith today. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your kingdom work. We thank you for how you have called each one of us to know you and love you and to enjoy the work that you've done in us and around us. And we pray, God, that you would use us to love the lost in our lives. God, that we would reflect you, that they would see us and glorify you, Father. We pray, Lord, that you would work in our church, among our people in this place for your glory. We pray that many would come to know you because of our effort, because of your work within us, and God, your work around us. God, be with our friends around the world. So many of them are in dangerous places. Some of them are walking into extreme danger in the coming days. We pray, God, that you would protect them. And God, that they would see that you are alongside them, working within them, to do the same thing, to make your name glorified among the nations, God. We pray that you would draw the peoples of the earth to yourself. And God, you would use us for your work. We love you. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. God bless you guys. Have a wonderful night.