Called to Serve

God's mission isn't reserved for a select few with special training—it's the calling of every believer. As demonstrated by Andrew in John 1, true mission work begins with encountering Jesus and immediately sharing that experience with others. We are all 'living stones' being built into a spiritual house, strategically placed by God to fulfill His purpose. Our baptism marks not just our salvation but our commissioning into active mission work. The mission field isn't somewhere distant; it's in our workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, and families where we're called to invite others to experience Jesus.

Transcript

Alright, guys, so we're gonna start this morning with a question. Okay?

What if you went out to your mailbox and you received a letter? It was a very official looking letter. Maybe it had a return address that said the United Methodist Church. Right. So it's like the church is sending you a letter and you question, why in the world would the church be sending me a letter?

Well, as you open the letter and you begin to read, it says something like this. Dear Sister Denise, or Dear Brother Frank, you are hereby called by your church as a missionary. You are assigned to labor in the Mexico City mission, or maybe it's the Kenyan mission, or maybe the Malawi mission. But your mission is expected to last 18 months. You are to report to the missionary training facility in Oklahoma City no later than November 1, 2025.

If you opened a letter like that in your mailbox, what would your first thought be? Return to sender. No way. Right. Panic moment.

Spam. Someone's just trying to get my personal information. Yeah. Would you absolutely panic in that moment?

So let me ask you this question. Have you ever been on a mission trip somewhere? Where have you been? New Orleans. Alaska.

Venezuela. Okay, so a couple, couple places. Real close. Yeah.

Belarus. Costa Rica. Honduras. Yes. Estonia.

Monterey. Estonia, Monterey. So young people, if you went to Youth Force, young people, when you went to Youth Force, it was here in Tulsa. Right. So if you are a part of our youth group and we went to New Orleans, what, six years in a row, something like that when you were younger.

Mission work is an essential piece of who we are as a church. But we often think that mission work is something that is only done by a few people. Those who are maybe formally commissioned or sent. People who are missionaries are called to go on mission. These people are brave, they're trained, they're the ones with passports and some of them have degrees in Bible colleges.

But I believe that sometimes we miss something vital. That the mission of the church is not just a program of the church. It's the very heartbeat of what the church is called to be and to do. Mission isn't like some specialized assignment. It's supposed to be a shared identity for all of us.

I don't know if you've ever considered yourself a missionary, but hopefully starting today you recognize that you're called in part to be a missionary.

Mission is not something that you're required to go far away to do. It's about being someone faithful right exactly where you are every single day. God's mission isn't just for the chosen few. It's for all of us, every one of us. I'm going to invite you this morning if you have your Bibles, to open up to the Book of John.

And we're going to start in chapter one. We're going to read verses 29 through 42. If you don't have your Bible, I'll encourage you to follow along on the screen. But the best way to get God's word is to follow along in your own scripture. Write down questions you have, underlying things that you go back and research.

That's the best way to get involved. But here, now, the word of the Lord for us today from the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 29 says this. The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is the one I meant when I said, a man who comes after me has surpassed me. And because he was before me, I myself did not know him.

But the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel. Then John gave this testimony. I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him. But the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, the man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

I have seen and I testify that this is God's chosen one. The next day, John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, look, the Lamb is God. When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, what do you want?

They said, rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? Come, he replied, and you will see. So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day him. It was about 4 in the afternoon. Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, we have found the Messiah, that is the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, you are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas, which is translated Peter.

So in the Scripture, we start out with John the Baptist, and we see that his close relative is Jesus, even though this scripture tells us that he met Jesus for the first time. When Jesus comes to be baptized, John the Baptist sees Jesus and he says, look, it's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And then he testifies that Jesus is the chosen one, the one who abound with the Holy Spirit, not with just water. And then something beautiful happens. Two of John's disciples hear John speak of Jesus in such a way that they are inspired to go and follow Jesus instead of John.

And one of them is Andrew. And Andrew doesn't just follow. He does something radically different. He goes and finds his brother and says, we have found the one have been talking about. We found the Messiah, the Christ.

And they invites his brother to come and follow too. He brings Simon to Jesus. And then in that moment, Jesus begins to call Peter. Cephas gives him a whole different name. So think about this for a second.

After hearing John the Baptist testify about Jesus, Andrew didn't wait for somebody to say, hey, go get people and bring them along. He didn't wait for a sign from God. He instead just gets up and goes and gets his brother. He wasn't a commissioned missionary. He wasn't assigned or asked.

He just went. He didn't wait to get a letter from the church Board of Laity or to go to meet in front of the United Methodist District Committee on Ministry to be approved. He just gets up and goes. He heard the truth of Jesus. He responded with faith.

And then he became a missionary. In that very moment, his first act as a follower of Jesus was to bring somebody else along to follow with him. That is what we're called to do. That is who we should be. Is that who we are?

Andrew didn't need somebody to tell him to go invite along. He didn't need permission. He just needed to hear the truth of Jesus. And he was inspired.

Andrew could have waited. He could have waited for somebody to say, all right, now being a follower of Jesus really means you've got to give up your relationship. You're going to probably end up dying as a martyr. You're going to have some problems in your life. There's going to be a time where you don't have any money, you might be poor.

He could have waited for someone to explain the fine print of being a follower of Jesus to him. He could have said, I'll follow Jesus once I finish following John the Baptist. Maybe in a few weeks I'll come back and maybe I'll find this guy. But he didn't do that. He acted instantaneously.

He recognized the truth in Jesus and followed.

In the first century, following a rabbi meant dedicating your whole life to that rabbi. It meant reordering your everyday schedule. It wasn't a part Time discipleship, which I think many of us in this room are kind of more accustomed to.

But Andrew in that moment was willing.

His instinct wasn't just to go, it was to go and bring somebody with him.

That's the missional DNA that we should have as a part of who we are. To not just seek Jesus for ourselves, but to seek the goodness that Jesus does in our lives for others as well.

James 1:22.

Listen to the word, friends. You have to do what the word says. John 1:41 says, Andrew brings people to Jesus because Andrew wants other people to experience the goodness of God too. We have story after story throughout scripture where people are encountering Jesus and then they bring others to him. There's a woman, or, sorry, not a woman.

There's friends who lower another friend who's paralyzed down through the roof. They heard Jesus was so good. They heard this was life changing. That they couldn't let their friends who couldn't get there on their own stay in their brokenness.

Are we those people today? Do we see people who are broken and say, you know what? You need some of the Jesus that I have? Or we just say, all right, I just will spend less time with you. It's easy for us to ignore the needs of people right around us.

The call of Jesus is to be invitational life changing people.

How many of you were invited to church by somebody when you were younger? Maybe experience wasn't like your parents brought you, but maybe your friend invited you to come to church with them or something like that. Anybody else? Everybody. Your parents brought you, like everybody brought your parents brought you to church?

No. No.

Maybe I should ask this question a little better because I'm not.

My parents brought me to church. I had no choice. Did anybody have a choice? And you said, oh, I'll go to church? Yes.

Few of you? Jimmy. Okay, wait, hang on. You said Jimmy, Yeah. Not when you were a baby.

Okay, think about the person. For those of you who are invited to church and had a choice, think about the person who invited you. Maybe it was a friend, maybe it was a neighbor, maybe it was an extended family member.

Their invitation may have seemed small at that time, but for you, did it make a difference in your life?

For some of you, you are here as a result of somebody who invited you. Maybe not just to community Brookside, but maybe to a church long ago. Maybe church became a part of your life because of that invitation.

Friends, when we respond with a yes, we are being obedient when we are asking our friends to come to church with Us, we are being obedient to the mission of the church and then when they say yes, they're being obedient to the Holy Spirit.

Back in the day, John Wesley had what were called class meetings. From class meetings to modern day small groups, our tradition in our church has always been about invitation and, and connection, right? Finding a way that we can relate with one another. Plugging you in with people who are not just simply like minded, but people who enjoy the same things as you. Maybe people who love Jesus in the same way as you may be people who are or do work on motorcycles or whatever.

We find ways to connect.

The movement of the church grows not because of big events, but because ordinary people tell their friends to just come and see who Jesus is. We have tried this, right? I don't know if you've been a part of some of the things that we've done in the park with our splash days, with our movie nights, with our big events that we've done. We did a Christmas in July where we had an elf spaghetti eating contest. Anybody seen the movie Elf?

Right, where elf eats all the spaghetti. We had a spaghetti eating contest and the winner got a brand new tv. Like we've done some really interesting things to try to get people to come to church. But the one thing that gets people to come is when a friend says, hey, you've got to come and experience community Brookside. And when they get here, oftentimes they come back.

It's not every time, but sometimes it's not the big flashy things that get people to know who Jesus is. It's the connection they make with people like us who love Jesus and want to live Jesus out in our lives.

Our identity in Christ has been established through our baptism into the body of believers. And before we go any further, I know that many of you in this place have been baptized and there are some that haven't been. I don't want to tell you, wherever you are, journey, that's okay. But I want to tell you this need to make that step, I want to be a part of it. When you're ready to be baptized, I want to be here to help you with that.

But when we call ourselves Christian, when we say I follow Jesus, when we use those particular words, we're saying that we want to be like Jesus. We want to follow him just like his disciples did. And in taking on this kind of shared Christian identity, we take part in responsibility about bringing God's kingdom. Here.

Romans chapter 6, verse 4 says this. You can follow along on the Screen. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Friends, the new life that we're called to as members of the body of Christ isn't to be comfortable. We're not called to sit in an air conditioned, you know, space on Sunday morning.

Clearly, today we are called to be for his kingdom purpose. Baptism for us is not just a washing away of sins, but it's a commissioning into the mission we've already been called to in the early church. Back in the day, baptism was followed immediately by active participation in the missional community, right? There were expectations. When you were baptized into the church, you were getting into a small group, you were learning about the catechumen, right?

You were learning about all the history of the church, what baptism meant, what the sacraments were, how the church was ordered, who was your district superintendent, who was your bishop. Like all those things, faith, responsibility, and faith is. You are expected to go and sit for a week and then you're good.

We are doing the body of Christ living into the mission that we're called to.

Our founder, who founded Methodism, always taught that holiness was both personal and social, that you could not be faithful all alone in and among yourselves. You needed a body of believers to surround yourself with, to be a faithful human being. Because faith transforms us inwardly, but it also sends us out for the sake of others and the new life that we get in. Baptism isn't just like an upgrade for us, it's our commissioning. We're not just saved from our sins, we are saved for others.

We're not just forgiven, we're newly formed. We're not just redeemed, we're given a new purpose. First Peter, chapter 2, verse 5 says this. You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ Jesus.

You ever thought of yourself as a living stone? Kind of weird, right? But we've been described as living stones being built into something bigger than we can be on our own. That's who we are. Each one of us are being shaped by grace and we're being placed with intention by God, right where we need to be.

We're being joined together as a church for a divine purpose. We're being built not so that we can be a monument that sits as, oh, look what God did at this one particular time.

We're being built into the people of God's mission.

Imagine just a Stack of stones. Each one of those stones represent one of us alone. A stone is neat. You can look at it. You can carve maybe a stone into something nice.

It may be useful. You can use it to prop open a door, hold open a window. But when stones are joined together, they form something strong, something purposeful, something enduring. Bridges, homes, buildings.

That's what God wants to do with us. Take us and use our shared mission to become a spiritual home for people who don't know who God is.

Part of our baptismal covenant. When we say, I want to be baptized, says this. You're asked, you be Christ's representative in the world.

And every time you're supposed to respond with, yes, I will, I will be Christ's representative in the world. We reaffirm our missional identity as believers in Jesus.

Some of you here are thinking, you know what, I love the idea of mission work. It sounds neat for somebody else, right?

I can't be that person. I'm not a missionary. I'm not. I can't even sometimes talk to people in open settings. I struggle with my words.

You might think that you're qualified, but I got to remind you, God doesn't, because you're perfect the way you are. He takes what you have and perfects it in a way that is impactful and powerful for other people.

So in the scripture we read earlier, it says that we are called to be a holy priesthood. What do you think of when you think of priests? Think of like the robes swinging incense, oh, Domineia. I don't know Latin. I would have.

I can't do that. But often think that priests are these people who are supposed to be separated from the world. They're cloistered away. They work on their sermons, they work on practicing the sacraments, they work on those kind of things. And that's not what God has called any of us to be.

He doesn't want us to be cloistered away and put in a room set, separated to be holy and work on ourselves. God is calling us to be sent out from this place when we're done here. Today, all of us are responsible for changes made in the world around us. We are not called to be passive observers, observers, observers with a B. We are called to be active participants in God's work right here and right now.

So as we begin like the school year again, young people, get ready because I know, I remember school a little bit. It was very different when I was in school. You shut your mouth right now. Making old people jokes. That's not funny.

But like young people, God is calling you to be active where you are, where you are with your friends, right? And it's not easy. Teachers, first of all, thank you, Holy Lord, what a job you have.

We're getting ready to jump back into life, right? School begins. This routine and schedule and everything. Sports and all the things that we've got to ban and all those things.

You do not need a formal commission to be a ministry where you are, you don't need to be called pastor or priest or reverend or brother or sister.

If you belong to Jesus, you are in mission right now.

So what does that mission look like? Think about your life yesterday. What did your mission look like where you were? Think about what you're going to do this week. What is your mission going to look like?

Where you're going to from here? Will you look like Jesus for the world?

Some of you are going to say this, this inevitably. How can I be in ministry? I'm just a child. I'm just a 70 year old. I'm just a poor boy.

Nobody loves me. Oh, sorry, I don't know where that came from. How can I be a missionary? I've got this particular sin that's wrong with my life. I don't have this particular set of skills that I know missionaries need.

I struggle with this sin. Let me be clear. If you are here in this place today or if you're watching online, you've been called already. You made a choice to be a part of God's community here in this place today, and you're being called right now.

God doesn't wait for you to end up perfect. He calls ordinary people to do crazy awesome things. Right? We know Moses had a speech impediment. Abraham, Father Abraham had many sons, right?

Abraham was a doubter. Jacob deceived, he was a trickster. Joseph was betrayed, left in a well and thought to be dead. Peter denied even knowing who Jesus was. Paul actually persecuted the Christian church.

And yet God used every one of these people to change the world.

You don't become perfect when you say yes to God. You just become usable. You just become malleable in our Creator's hands. God begins building you and shaping you into something holy.

But we have to let God work on us.

You probably didn't know this, but John Wesley actually doubted a lot in his own life. So again, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism back in the mid-1700s, struggled with doubt early on in his life. But after. His heart was strangely warmed after he encountered the Holy Spirit. For the first time he went on to change the world, he created a movement that brought social holiness into personal holiness.

And so people acted for their faith. They lived out of the faith that they had in Jesus.

The Methodist movement has always relied on spirit filled, imperfect people to carry out God's mission wherever they find themselves.

So if you're here, you're called friends. Even if you miss church today. And if you miss church today, I'll see you next week. But if you're breathing, you are called to be in ministry with God.

And the mission isn't somewhere far off, it's waiting for you right outside these doors.

So wherever you find yourself this week, whatever happens in your life, whatever people you meet, whatever experiences you have, bring all of your faith to those moments. Bring what you know of Jesus into relationship with people that you're creating.

Andrew didn't wait. He heard, he followed and he invited. That's the model for us. That's the mission that we're called to. So church this weekend, always let us find ways that we can be at work in the world around us.

Let us show the that we've received through Jesus to other people who need it just as much. Let us be the stones part of the spiritual house that God is creating. Let us be this royal priesthood that God has called us to be. Let us be people on mission to the world.

We're called the body of Christ. Let's be the body at work, let's pray together.