Embracing Our Mission: Every Believer as a Witness

To kick off mission month, I thought I'd make us all mission attorney and neighbor and say, you are a missionary. That's who you are. I want to talk to you and I love how to message. So this is how to win people to Jesus. Now I want to say this off the bat so you know where I am. I am an evangelist, but an evangelist does two things. [00:00:00]

And I want to say this as well, just so you understand my, I don't know what the word is, my burden for lost people or my compassion for the plight of lost people. In that regard, this is a bit of honesty for you. I am more like a colander than a bucket. Do I need to unpack that for you? [00:01:07]

So I don't, and I, I don't know whether it's the hostility of the world that just keeps robbing my passion for this. It's the devil, you know, keeping me busy. And I'm an evangelist. I want to see people come to Christ. And yet a lot of my world is about me, me, me, me. [00:01:55]

So these were Jesus' instructions to us. The harvest is great. But the workers are few. Now have a look all around you. You say, there's lots of people here. No, you've got to understand the unpacking of that workers is prepared ones. It's not people on the bus. It's people who know why they're on the bus. [00:04:48]

So I'm picking that up today and say, God, would you allow me to bring some preparation to the workers? All right. Now, here's a little note. I've got a story here. Because I sometimes feel like Jesus has done all the work. And now I've got to do all the work. He's like the principal sitting in the office. [00:06:04]

I'd like to suggest to you that God's setting up appointments like that for all of us. But are we, are we prepared workers? Are we noticing it? If you were to ring the pastor of that church, now and I've got his number, he will tell you that that man, it's some 15 years later, is one of the key volunteers and workers and leaders in that church. [00:15:21]

I want to, let's forget the word missionary because that sort of conjures up some faraway place. Let's just call it mission. Your mission. Your mission is to win people to Jesus. I understand that we are more like a hole with a bucket than we are, you know, that it drains out of us. [00:18:33]

You got to know that every single person that you meet, every single person that you know, in fact, maybe you want to write someone's down, you know, want to see come to Jesus. If you've got an iPad or an iPhone or a piece of paper or some lipstick in your handbag, write down someone you want to see. [00:19:32]

I said, because we're at his house, Andy. He wasn't at ours. Jesus went to Jericho. So when he got there, he respected Jericho and he entered and he's made his way through the town. We don't need you all working at the church serving Jesus. We need you as a school teacher. You're a missionary. [00:32:07]

Look what it says in verse five. When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus. He looked up at him. I know that's just the sentence, but I think it's important. We've got to start looking up them. Those stupid youth vandalizing the public toilet. I'm digging deep. We've got to start looking up the people, but here's the more, you've got to call them by name. [00:32:41]

You cannot win a category you can only win a person I dare you to call him a prisoner with his mum listening she calls him Nathan not that one you call her a drug addict in front of her dad that will go well he calls her Natasha what did the people say he's going to be the guest of a notorious sinner see they categorized him can't reach him now you can you can work in prison ministry but give me names because if it's just prison ministry you're not you're not doing it if it's if you wrote someone's not someone down before and you said my neighbor you've got a homework you got work to do my boss yeah but what's his name and what's his wife's name and if his name is mister you don't know him yet Jesus said Zacchaeus I don't think anyone had even used his name for years means pure and it struck right to the heart because that's what his mum called him prophetically I'm sure [00:35:41]

And they basically say, Marty, you're dead. Get your affairs in order, mate. He's not 50. He's got a young family. And then the doctors go off to deliver some news to someone else. I'm sure they didn't do it as bluntly as I did, but you get it. And so the room is quiet. They didn't have an organ. [00:40:21]