SPEAKER_00: We're talking about what God does through our efforts to spread the message of his glory throughout the world.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I wanted to show those pictures of Denver, and the reason I asked John to speak, is because what Pastor Bruce Dewell told us has impacted my view of missions from the first time I worked with him.
SPEAKER_00: And it's out of Acts 1.8, and Acts 1.8 says this but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: See, as a youth pastor, I've had the opportunity to bring kids to various different places for mission trips, and I've had to ask myself, where are we going?
SPEAKER_00: I have to look at budgets, I have to look at travel arrangements, I have to ask myself, who are we partnering with?
SPEAKER_00: What's the work that we're going to be accomplishing there?
SPEAKER_00: How are we going to be sharing the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: Are we going to be doing service projects or teaching?
SPEAKER_00: And I've had to weigh these things.
SPEAKER_00: And as I look at these things, I found myself asking questions because what you heard many people share today as they talked about their mission experience is some of the growth that they got out of it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_00: And so I would ask myself, I want to go somewhere where my kids are challenged.
SPEAKER_00: I would say, I want to go somewhere where the students uh come face to face with poverty so that maybe they'll appreciate what God's given them in their life as blessing more.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe I want to go here so that they're stretched out of their comfort zone, so that they realize that they have growth still to do in their life and they not get satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: And there were all these different things that I wanted to accomplish on mission trips that I went on.
SPEAKER_00: And one time I did a mission trip and we went to Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: And we went to inner city, D.C., and when we went there, everything fell apart.
SPEAKER_00: There was fighting within our group, there was discord, uh, there were plans that went awry, and the whole trip fell apart, and I came back feeling defeated.
SPEAKER_00: And when I evaluated why that was, I realized it was because I had set expectations on the trip.
SPEAKER_00: I had set expectations that I wanted to see what God could do in a particular way, and I felt like my goals weren't accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: And it left me prayerfully asking, why do I go on mission trips?
SPEAKER_00: And the conclusion I came to was it is not so that my students are stretched out of their comfort zone.
SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful when it happens.
SPEAKER_00: It's not so that they see poverty and greater appreciate the blessing that's in their life.
SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful when it happens.
SPEAKER_00: But we go on mission trips for one reason.
SPEAKER_00: One reason.
SPEAKER_00: I decided.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: We point to the Great Commission in Matthew 28, 19, it says, Go into the world, making disciples, baptizing all nations in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Go make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And that's it.
SPEAKER_00: We go in obedience.
SPEAKER_00: He'll do amazing things through our obedience.
SPEAKER_00: He'll do amazing things through our obedience, but but but those that's just the benefit and the blessing of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Those don't become the purpose and the goal by which we go.
SPEAKER_00: We don't go so that we're enriched, so that we're blessed.
SPEAKER_00: We go so that his name is proclaimed, and if he chooses to bless us in the process, that's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: And then this pairs nicely with Acts 1.8, where it says, You will receive power when my Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth, because this is Jesus after his resurrection, coming to his disciples and saying, Go.
SPEAKER_00: Be my witnesses everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: But the key to understanding this is I think that sometimes we can get in the habit of saying, I'm going to go witness to somebody instead of simply being a witness.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a beautiful thing when you get an opportunity to witness to somebody, but we we treat it like a verb.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at the verb in the dictionary, it says, to bear witness, testify, to give or afford evidence.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_00: And we want to say, we want to bear witness that, but but we kind of, when we look at it as a verb, at an action, and we we take that witnessing, and we say, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to Denver, I'm gonna go to Czech, I'm gonna go here, I'm gonna go there, and then I've witnessed, and then I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: And what happened for me after that DC trip, and as I started to evaluate things, and I started to look at the Great Commission, I started to look at Acts 1.8, and I started to ask myself questions, is that I realized that it doesn't say, go witness about me.
SPEAKER_00: It says, you will be my witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus doesn't give them an action to accomplish, he gives them a station to fill.
SPEAKER_00: It was to be a state of being.
SPEAKER_00: We live our lives on mission for God because by nature we are his witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: So rather than seeing a verb, we want to be a person that gives evidence and that serves as proof to the love of God and what he has done.
SPEAKER_00: See, you can't go on vacation from being a witness.
SPEAKER_00: See, we we we we we go on trips, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we go on this trip to Denver, or this trip to the Czech Republic, or this trip here, or we go, or we teach at VBS, or we take these moments in time, and and maybe it's what we do with our summer.
SPEAKER_00: But but then we go, okay, well, now I'm on vacation.
unknown: Whew!
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm on vacation.
SPEAKER_00: And the idea is that now I don't have to do all of that.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, I can't take a vacation from being a witness from Christ any more than I could take a vacation from being a father to my children.
SPEAKER_00: No matter where I am, I'm still their father.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's important for us to understand the verb of being here and the importance that it plays in scripture in so many ways.
SPEAKER_00: In Hebrew, the verb of being is what God used to give himself a name when he was asked to give a name by Moses at the burning bush.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I am that I am.
SPEAKER_00: I am the God that exists.
SPEAKER_00: I exist.
SPEAKER_00: And that state of being is what gave him a worthiness to be worshipped.
SPEAKER_00: It is identity.
SPEAKER_00: And that same verb of being is that you will be my witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: It is a state of being, and in the Greek it means to have identity with, to have a specified qualification or characteristic characteristic, to have an objective existence, reality, actuality, to have, maintain, or occupy a place, station, or position.
SPEAKER_00: And what I want to ask each and every one of us to consider this morning is do you recognize that you are a witness?
SPEAKER_00: If you know the love of Jesus, if you have been changed by it, if he has come to find his home in the recesses of your heart, if he has changed you to understand your need of him as a savior, if you have experienced his power in any way, whether you've ever been on a mission trip or served in a classroom or done what, you are a witness.
SPEAKER_00: You have seen his power.
SPEAKER_00: So my question is how do we give testimony to what we have seen?
SPEAKER_00: Well, obviously, all of these trips, those are great, great, great ways.
SPEAKER_00: But but there's some categories that Jesus speaks of here that I think can point us in some really neat directions.
SPEAKER_00: So I just want to take just a few minutes, just a few, to pick apart what's happening in Acts 1.8.
SPEAKER_00: You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to look at this map real quick.
SPEAKER_00: And and his disciples were in Jerusalem, and you can see maybe the little dot.
SPEAKER_00: It's above Judea.
SPEAKER_00: He says Judea, you work your way up to the smaller words, says Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Judea is a nation that they're in.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem is the capital.
SPEAKER_00: Above it, you see in red, Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: And then let's say everything else is the ends of the earth for the sake of this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And what he's saying when he says Jerusalem, he says, right where you are, you'll be my witness.
SPEAKER_00: Right where you are.
SPEAKER_00: And then he begins to work out.
SPEAKER_00: So he starts and he meets his disciples where they currently sit.
SPEAKER_00: This is your grand forks.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that Bruce pointed out to us is that we all have a Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And for you, this is where you live.
SPEAKER_00: This is where you currently are.
SPEAKER_00: As he addressed his disciples, he's like, You'll be my witnesses right here.
SPEAKER_00: So for you, it says, instead of Jerusalem, you you could put a little note and put what whatever home is for you.
SPEAKER_00: That's where you start.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Jesus started as he told them where they were gonna be.
SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes we overlook this.
SPEAKER_00: It's the place where we have the greatest amount of time to be a witness.
SPEAKER_00: It's the place where we have the greatest potential for impact because we'll have no greater audience than those who live daily life around us.
SPEAKER_00: This is your family, your extended family, your coworkers, your neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: You have a Jerusalem and it's home.
SPEAKER_00: See, because it's beautiful as it is to go to Denver and the Czech Republic and all the different places that we heard about.
SPEAKER_00: We don't take vacation from being a witness.
SPEAKER_00: And we have one primary spot.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna come back to that in a minute, but but it goes out from there and it says Judea.
SPEAKER_00: See, for them, this would have been like saying North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: See, because we live in Grand Forge, North Dakota, they lived in Jerusalem, Judea, right?
SPEAKER_00: So you expand that and say, so so not only just where you live, but that which is right around you.
SPEAKER_00: But it would have been a little different than simply the borders, because the assumption was that in Judea not only was it geographically kind of close, but it was also culturally similar.
SPEAKER_00: See, once you cross borders, you ended up with a culturally different environment.
SPEAKER_00: So there's lots of places we can think of that are nearby that are culturally similar.
SPEAKER_00: There's lots of places we could drive a couple of hours, and and you know, I thought it was funny when we saw a picture in Czech Republic with the hay build up, is it looks kind of like North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we could we could drive a couple of hours and take a picture, and then drive another two hours and take a picture, and you might not be able to tell you're in a different place.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's there's a cultural similarity to this agricultural land that we live in, and there's all sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00: I I come from Texas, I came here.
SPEAKER_00: Hockey is a different world.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you.
SPEAKER_00: And there's all sorts of places we could take short drives to that you could find towns that they value the same things, right?
SPEAKER_00: Agriculturally based, love of hockey.
SPEAKER_00: I could describe many places that we could travel to in a short distance.
SPEAKER_00: So my question is as we go out from our home, our Jerusalem, and we take our visits to wherever it is, Fargo, Bemidji, whatever, do we recognize that there we're called to be a witness too?
SPEAKER_00: And then Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to spend some time here on us understanding our Samarias.
SPEAKER_00: Because I think it's important.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it unlocks a key to some of the things that are right under our noses.
SPEAKER_00: See, Samaria was geographically close, but culturally different.
SPEAKER_00: If you'll notice on the map, there's places within the borders of Samaria that are actually closer to Jerusalem than parts of Judea.
SPEAKER_00: But for the audience Jesus was speaking to, Samaria was a different world.
SPEAKER_00: Though it was geographically close, it was very culturally different, and they saw great lines of division.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't understand their way of life, they didn't understand the way the parents raise their children, they disagreed with some of it.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is going, You have places right under your nose.
SPEAKER_00: And he's telling you this morning, and he's telling me in my heart, we have places right under our nose that may be geographically close but or that are very culturally different than us.
SPEAKER_00: In Denver, Bruce was explaining this was this was the little neighborhoods we're in.
SPEAKER_00: These people, their people live in corners of Denver, that it's the same city, and they could drive 10 minutes and be in a different world.
SPEAKER_00: There's people that don't even know the ghettos of Denver exist because they've shielded themselves in luxury communities.
SPEAKER_00: And what I'd like to propose to you is there's places all around us right here where we have an opportunity to be a witness and places that are very geographically close but culturally different.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just give you a couple of examples.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's some of the reservations that are not far from us that we could drive to very easily.
SPEAKER_00: But life would look very different than our life.
SPEAKER_00: But that's near for us.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's right across the border in Canada.
SPEAKER_00: There's a different land there, eh?
SPEAKER_00: And maybe there's some cultural difference, but it is within our scope of influence.
SPEAKER_00: And I would propose to you that it's even parts of Grand Forks.
SPEAKER_00: There's a huge difference between the north end of town and the south end of town.
SPEAKER_00: There's a huge difference between Thompson, right outside of town, and the downtown area.
SPEAKER_00: People are driven by different things and have different needs and different values.
SPEAKER_00: And my question to you is when you walk through these spaces, do we close our eyes to the places and the ways in which they need to hear the testimony of God's love?
SPEAKER_00: And finally he says, You're gonna be my witnesses to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: To the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that means everything else.
SPEAKER_00: Everything else.
SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you this.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand if you've been to Grand Forks.
SPEAKER_00: This is simple exercise.
SPEAKER_00: We start with the easy ones.
SPEAKER_00: How about if you've been to Fargo?
SPEAKER_00: How many of us have been across the border to Canada?
SPEAKER_00: And how many have been anywhere else besides that?
SPEAKER_00: All of you who raised your hand, you've just shown that you have had the opportunity to mirror what is spoken of in Acts 1.8.
SPEAKER_00: That's your Jerusalem, your Judea, your Samaria, and your ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: My question is, as you enter those places, have you realized that witnessing is not a verb you've been called to exercise at times, but a state of being and an office that you have been given as a child of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because I gotta confess, I often forget that.
SPEAKER_00: I often forget it.
SPEAKER_00: And what we want to highlight on this on mission Sunday is that your entire life is on mission.
SPEAKER_00: We wanted to take some time to celebrate those who had a specific call in front of them.
SPEAKER_00: And it's beautiful, and we want to continue to do that.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to encourage you to look your entire life towards those things.
SPEAKER_00: And so today, when we close, we're gonna do this simply.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna close in a minute with a song.
SPEAKER_00: And this song gives us an opportunity to not just sing, but to pray, to pray its words.
SPEAKER_00: Because in that song it says, I want to see you high and lifted up.
SPEAKER_00: And if we mean that when we say that, if we mean that we want to see God high and lifted up, I will tell you that he has already declared the means by which he intends to raise himself up.
SPEAKER_00: And it's through more and more people recognizing his greatness and praising his name.
SPEAKER_00: And he has also already set into the motion the means by which he wants to bring people to praise his name.
SPEAKER_00: And it is by the lips of his people.
SPEAKER_00: And in Acts 1.8, he tells them that.
SPEAKER_00: You will be my witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: And ladies and gentlemen, this morning, that is us.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we sing, I want to see you high and lifted up.
SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you to genuinely pray to God as we sing this.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, open my eyes to see people the way you see them, to see your glory, and to see the opportunity to proclaim your name.
SPEAKER_00: And it's that simple.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you for who you are.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the opportunities you've given.
SPEAKER_00: We want to live as your witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: And we do want to see your name proclaimed.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for those who have heard your testimony and heard of your great deeds through the work of those who shared the various projects that you had them give themselves to this summer.
SPEAKER_00: We ask that you would inspire us as a body to start in our Jerusalem and to proclaim what we have seen you do.
SPEAKER_00: Please be glorified in Jesus' name, amen.