Hope Church LV Sermons
The Life of a Jesus Follower :: I'm on a Mission
There are just over 7 billion people on planet Earth. In Romans 10, verse 14, the Bible poses three rhetorical questions related to the peoples of the earth. I want to read it for us as we begin from the new living translation of the Bible. Romans 10 says this, "But how can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?" This particular series of rhetorical questions force us to wrestle with where the 7 billion people on planet Earth are going to spend eternity. You see the means through which God has chosen to take His gospel to the ends of the earth is the people of God. John MacArthur said this about Romans 10, 14, he says, "If God did not send people, no one could hear. If no one could hear, no one could believe. If no one could believe, no one could call on the Lord. And if no one could call on Him, no one could be saved." Here's God's plan, that the whole body of Christ would take the whole gospel, Jesus coming, living, dying, being buried and being brought back to life, would take that whole gospel to the whole world, the whole body taking the whole gospel to the whole world. Currently as a church, we're in a series called The Life of a Jesus Follower. And this weekend we transition our focus to talking about our relationship with the world, our relationship with those people who do not have a relationship with God. This weekend and next weekend, we're going to be looking at some biblical principles as it relates to God's global mission and the part that we play in sharing in that mission. And as we begin this morning, I want to begin with two powerful truths about Jesus. If you have your listening guide, you can follow along with us. But these truths are meant to really lay a foundation and give us all a right perspective as we begin talking about the mission. Here's the first truth about Jesus. I want us to meditate and think on this morning. Jesus was sent. Jesus Christ was sent. In John 12 verse 45, the Bible says this, "He who sees me sees the one who sent me." The word sent is a powerful word. The word sent means to dispatch. It means to empower another person with a message or a mission. Jesus made it clear throughout the Gospel of John that he had been sent by his Heavenly Father 42 different times in 16 different chapters in the Gospel of John alone. Jesus makes it clear that he was sent to the earth for a mission. Which begs the question, what was that mission? If God sent his son to enter into time and live among his creation, why did he send him? Well, here's the second truth about Jesus. Jesus was sent to bring light. The mission, the reason Jesus came to the earth was to bring light. In John 12, 46 says this, "I have come as light into the world so that everyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness." Jesus was sent to the earth by his father and the reason he was sent was to bring light. When you think about light, what do you think about? If you had to unpack for someone what light is, what would you say? I was thinking about that this week as I was preparing for this sermon and so I did what any brilliant mind would do when there's a question, I googled it. If you just google the question, what is light? You get numerous different answers. Here was one of them. Light is an electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range, including infrared, visible ultraviolet and x-rays, and traveling in a vacuum with a speed of about 186,281 miles per second. Now, let's be honest this morning. When I said what is light, how many people thought about that? Exactly. Here's another way that light is defined. This one is much, much simpler, not dark. But here's a definition of light that I kind of want us to wrap our minds around today. Light is that which makes vision possible. That's what light is. Light is that which makes vision possible. The human eye is extremely complex and intricate. In our eyes alone, we have millions upon millions upon millions of different cells. But do you know that even though the eye is extremely complex and intricate, if there is no light, vision is not possible? This morning, if we were to turn out every light in this room, even though all of us have eyes that are very, very capable, we could not see. And the same is true spiritually. You see, just as physically without light, we cannot see. Without spiritual light, we would never see God. You see, the Father sent the Son into the world to show us who God is and what God is like. The Bible speaks to this in Hebrews, chapter 1, here's what the Bible says, "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets, in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world, and He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature and upholds all things by the word of His power." You see, throughout history, God was giving glimpses to the fathers of what He was like. But then He sent Jesus, and Jesus, once and for all, answers the question, "What is God like?" Jesus clarifies it. You want to know the heart of God? Look at Jesus. You want to know the character of God? Look at Jesus. Colossians says, "He is the image of the invisible God, and He was sent to the earth to be the light of the world." That's why the Father sent the Son. Now you hear that this morning, and you may be thinking, "Travis, that's awesome. I agree with you. Those are powerful principles." But what does that have to do with being a faithful follower of Jesus today? Well, I am so glad that you asked this morning, because it actually has major implications for us today as Jesus followers. I want to show you two verses that are also from the Gospel of John, but that really help us apply these realities of Jesus being set to bring light, apply them to us. Here's the first verse. It's from John 17, and this is Jesus praying to His Father. Jesus praying to His Father. Here's what He said. He said, "As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world." Now remember this word sent? It means to dispatch. It means to empower someone else with a message or a mission. So Jesus, in praying to His Father, He's saying, "Lord, just as you empowered me to the earth with a mission and a message, I have also empowered my followers, empowered my disciples into the world with a specific message and a specific mission." I'm going to read you another verse, and this is Jesus speaking to His disciples, His followers. He says, "As the Father has sent me, I also send you." Jesus looking at His disciples, those that were physically with Him and those that would exist for the rest of eternity, said to us, "As I was empowered and dispatched to leave heaven and enter into the world to be light in the same way, I'm sending you as my followers into the world to be light." He looked at His disciples in John chapter 5, and He says, "You are the light of the world," meaning if the world is ever going to see a picture of what God is like, if they're going to see His character manifested in the earth, it's going to be because of you and Him pressing His life out through you. That's significant. Now, you may be here this morning and you think, "You know what? I agree that Jesus said I'm sent, but I don't feel very sent." Even though you may not feel that way, the biblical principle is still true. Several years ago, I had an opportunity for the first time with a team here from Hope to go to Africa. I'd never been to Africa before, where we're going to do a couple conferences, one in North Africa and one in South Africa, and I remember being in the church service and us coming up here on the stage and us having a team of maybe eight to 12 people, and we stood here before the church, and you guys prayed a prayer of commissioning over us, and you sent us to Africa to live on mission to engaging God's global activity. So we make the long plane ride. I had never taken a flight that long before, and so it was pretty taxing for me, and we get on the field there in Africa, and we still have about a three-hour drive to get to the compound where we were staying. We arrived really, really late at night, so all of us were exhausted, and I found what I felt like was my bed, and so I just collapsed. I was done. So exhausted, and I remember the next morning when the sun came up, it peered through the window where I was sleeping, and it immediately woke me up, and I remember feeling in that moment like I want to roll over and sleep for about another two hours, but I had to start. I thought, listen, I've been sent by someone here to Africa with a specific mission, and the time is limited for me to accomplish that mission. So I'm going to get up and begin my day because I have been sent. Listen, the reality that Jesus is teaching here in the Gospel of John about him sending his disciples was not intended to be contained in a two-week trip to Africa. It is intended to be our mentality day by day and moment by moment. And just as you as a church sent our team to Africa, and we send teams all the time, the Bible is saying Jesus has sent us into the world for the specific purpose of being light. That changes things. That means that when I get up in the morning, my goal is not just to lay out my career path. My goal is not just to see how much money I can make, or how many people I can make like me know the goal changes because we've been sent with a mission as disciples of Jesus to be the light of the whole world and show this planet who Jesus is. That's significant. In this series that we've been in, we've laid down a defining statement. I want to put it back up on the screen and I want us to look at it again this weekend. But here's the statement. The life of a Jesus follower is all about relationships. The life of a Jesus follower is all about relationships. As we've wrestled with during this series, what does faithfully following Jesus look like? We've come to understand that it doesn't look like religion. It doesn't look like trying our best to gain God's favor or get God's attention. No, following Jesus is all about relationships. As you look at the life of Jesus in the New Testament, his life revolved around three specific relationships. First of all, a relationship with his Heavenly Father. Jesus Christ lived independence with his Heavenly Father. In the same way you and I are to prioritize our relationship with God and walk in intimacy with our Heavenly Father. There's a key word that we use here at Hope Now to really identify our relationship with God. It's the word abide. We are to prioritize abiding in Christ. But a second relationship that the life of Jesus revolved around and that our lives are to revolve around is a relationship with one another. A relationship with God's family. A relationship with other believers, you see, because we have a relationship with God, we also have a relationship with his family and we are to live our lives in community. Here's the key word that we use here at Hope to identify this relationship. Connect. We are to connect in community in large group and in small group. But you see, for so many people, they love to talk about a relationship with God and they love to talk about a relationship with other believers. But there's a third relationship that is also to be a priority for us as disciples, that our lives are to revolve around and that's the third relationship, a relationship with the world. We are to live looking for opportunities, understanding that as disciples, we have been sent by our King with a specific message and mission. Here's the key word that we use to identify this relationship, share. We are to share in the mission of Christ and those three relationships are to be priority for us. Our relationship with God is to be lived out in fellowship with other believers and that is to spill over into mission. We've been sent, we've been empowered by our King to be salt and light and share in his activity, locally and globally. So here's the question in our time remaining that I want us to wrestle with. How do I reveal Jesus to the world? If I'm to live on mission, if you're to live on mission and we are to show the world what God is like as Christ presses his life out through us, how does that happen practically? What does that look like? Well, if you have a Bible this morning, would you turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 2? And I want us to unpack very quickly a text to Scripture here in the New Testament. 2 Corinthians chapter 2, and in just a moment I'm going to begin reading in verse 14. The central theme of the passage that we're about to read is Christ being made known through the lives of his followers. That's what the whole passage is revolving around, showing us of all the things we could be passionate about. We must be passionate about revealing Jesus to the world. And the words that we're about to read are from a missionary who I believe to be the greatest missionary, the apostle Paul. And here's why these words we're about to read are so important because he's going to give us some principles that show us what it looks like not to give the world a better version of us, not to give the world our best effort, but to let the world see Christ through us. And here's why that's important because there is a major disconnect between what the world thinks about Jesus and what the world thinks about Christians. There's a major disconnect. If you ask most people they speak favorably of Jesus. He was kind, he cared for people, he was loving, he was a good teacher. They speak with favor towards Jesus. But you ask those same people about Christians? They're mean, they're judgmental, they're impatient, they don't care. And the principles we're going to read in this passage I believe if we can take them today and apply them to our lives, they can help make up the gap and allow us to reveal the life of Jesus to our world. Second Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14, if you don't have a Bible this is going to be on the screen for you. But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place, for we are a fragrance of Christ to God, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to the one and aroma from death to death, to the other and aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ, in the sight of God. Three principles that I think pull out the things in this passage that we need to apply this morning as we talk about sharing in the mission. Here's the first one, God does it. I want to take the pressure off real quick. How do you and I reveal the life of Jesus to the world? We don't. God does it. Do you see how Paul opened up this passage? He says, "But thanks be to whom?" He doesn't say thanks to the church. He doesn't say thanks to my mentors or thanks to my friends. He says, "Thank you to God," acknowledging God as the source of everything that he's about to say. And in verse 14, Paul gives us two powerful pictures, two powerful metaphors that really anchor us in an understanding that God does the work. You know this, but any time you study a passage of Scripture, it is very important to understand the context, to understand the overall meaning of the passage. Now, I would imagine for most of us, when we read verse 14, there are not any cultural practices that jump out in our mind, as we read about triumph and an aroma of knowledge of him, nothing here in America really jumps out to us. But when the Corinthian believers read verse 14, they had some very clear cultural practices that jumped out in their mind. Here's the first picture. The first picture is of a triumphal procession. A triumphal procession, Paul says, "Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph." In the Roman culture, when a general would win a victory at war, he would come back to the city and they would have a procession, what we would know as a parade. And all of the people in the city would line the street corners, they would gather on rooftop, they would build structures they could climb on so that they could see the entire procession. And at the front of the parade would be the general, the leader, in a chariot with his family and his closest friends. And he would lead the procession waving his arms in victory and the people would yell and celebrate the victory they had won in battle. Well, behind the general on his chariot were all of the captives that were taken as slaves at war. These were people who were enemies, but who had been captured, surrendered, and were now slaves. And they would follow the general's chariot more than likely with their arms bound together walking down the streets. And at the back of the procession would be soldiers from the army. More than likely, they were on horseback and they were cheering with the people and waving their arms in victory and keeping the slaves moving right along. Well as I begin to study this metaphor, this picture, here's where I realized, that the language Paul used, he was identifying himself with one of the groups in the procession. One of the groups in the parade, but he did not identify himself with the general or his family and friends. And he did not identify himself with the soldiers in the army who were riding horses. Paul in this passage through his language identifies himself with the slaves. He identifies himself as one of the captives. Now when I read that, I was confused. I did not understand why a bold missionary like Paul would paint such a picture and then place himself in the metaphor as one of the slaves. But as I dug into it, here's what I realized. The reason Paul was depicting himself as an enemy is because that was his reality. That was his testimony. You see, Paul here was acknowledging the fact that every person on the planet is born with an evil nature as an enemy of God. We are born dead to righteousness and alive to sin. We are all slaves to our sinful nature and enemies of God. But Paul uses two words in verse 14 that totally change the picture. You said he did not say thanks be to God who leads us in triumph in war. He did not say thanks be to God who leads us in triumph in Rome. What did he say? He said thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ. So you see by Paul identifying himself as a slave, he's celebrating the fact that he's no longer a hopeless captive who's being led to death. No, he is someone who has been conquered by Christ and is now experiencing life in him. Totally different. You see the picture of the Bible paints for us here is that enemies can become friends and that slaves can become free and that everyone who is in a relationship with Christ can celebrate in his victory. This first picture is a picture of surrender. Paul is saying when it comes to me being conquered by Christ and being led to victory in my relationship with Christ, I have no rights, I have no agenda, I have no voice. The only thing I have to cling to is me being in Christ. That's significant because as we think about the activity of God, most of us think we have something very, very important to bring to the table. And Paul is saying as the greatest missionary who ever lived, I'm a former enemy who said, I give up. I have nothing to bring to the table. The only place I can find value or identity is in Christ. And I want us to think about that this morning because that's important. You see, most of us do not naturally think of ourselves as enemies of God, but that's the picture that the Bible paints. And since we were enemies of God, guess what? That means that to embrace the gospel, we do not just need to come to an agreement with God. No, we must come to a place of absolute surrender to Him. Look at this statement by Roy Hessian. He says the simple truth is that the only beautiful thing about the Christian is Jesus Christ. God wants us to recognize that fact as true in our experience so that in true brokenness and despair, we shall allow Jesus Christ to be our righteousness and holiness and all in all. That is victory. You see, as we talk about the nations, as we talk about serving God locally and globally, the only thing we have to offer them is Jesus. We are mere enemies of God who've been set free through a relationship with Him and now through His grace can share in His victory. God does the work. We don't bring anything to the table. We don't have anything that can maybe take things to a new level. No, if we are ever going to reveal Jesus to the world, it's because God does it through us. Here's the second picture Paul gives in verse 14. In aroma spreading through a city, look at the next part of verse 14, he says, "And manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place." Once again, this phrase, this imagery, had major implications for the Corinthian believers. Because you see, when the general would lead this procession through the streets celebrating the victory, he was headed to the temple because most of the captives who had surrendered were going to be sacrificed to some form of a Roman God as an offering. And so what they would do in the temple is it would be decorated with beautiful things and with flowers and then on every altar, they would light some incense. And that incense, the aroma of that fragrance would begin to fill the temple. And they would open up the doors to the temple and it would spill out, the aroma would spill out into the streets and when people in the streets smell that specific fragrance, here's what they thought about, a sacrifice and an offering to God. Here's the picture Paul is painting for us with his second metaphor. Our lives are to be poured out in the places that we go and be an offering, a living sacrifice unto God and make visible the life of Jesus. The calling for us is not to do for him. The calling for us is to be a living sacrifice. You see, God is leading a victorious procession. And I'm simply a vessel that he has invited into a relationship that he might use me in order to manifest his life locally and globally. Here's the point of the two pictures. As a former enemy of God, we have surrendered and given him full control of our lives. And he now desires to graciously allow us to be living sacrifices, to share in his purpose and his plan. That's what Paul lays down for us in verse 14. And before we start talking about strategies and people groups and all of those things, we must have our heart anchored in the understanding that if we are going to engage nations with the gospel, it will not be because of us. It will be because God, through his grace, chooses to manifest himself through our lives. So when we talk about sharing in the mission, it's not an attempt to make God proud of us. It's an opportunity that we do not deserve, but that God in his grace has invited us into so that our lives can have an impact. How do we reveal Jesus to the world? We don't. God does it. Here's the second principle. God does it as the overflow of my relationship with him. God does it as the overflow of my relationship with him. Look at the first part of verse 14. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God. Is that right? You would think, talking about mission, it would be that we are a fragrance of Christ to the world, but Paul here says, first, you are a fragrant offering of Christ to God. When we are walking in intimacy with God, the sweet presence of the life of Christ in us is honoring to God an obvious to those around us. You see, the focus as we seek to reveal Christ isn't people. The focus is our heavenly Father. Clyde Cranford said this, "If we are walking in intimacy with Christ, the sweet smell of his presence in our lives rises first to the nostrils of God as a fragrant aroma. Being this fragrance disseminates to those around us." You see, our first reaction anytime we begin talking about mission is to talk strategy and trips and people groups, but that's not what the Bible says. That's out of balance. The Bible says the first relationship I'm called to is a love relationship with God, and everything he desires to do through my life he will do as the overflow of my relationship with him. You see, the focus is him, not them, but as I focus on him, he reveals himself to them through me. Clyde went on to say this, "The ministry is not what we do for Christ. The ministry is Christ and the glory of the ministry is Christ's life manifested in our lives." That must be an anchor for us as a church as we move forward together looking to engage in God's global activity. It's not that we show up in a part of the world and all of a sudden save the day. It's not us. It's him. The way that he does that is by you and I abiding in a love relationship with him because we can travel the world over, but if his life is not being pressed out through us, we have nothing to offer the world. God does it. He does it as the overflow of my relationship with him, third principle this morning. God does it through my life and my lips. God does it through my life and my lips. God's chosen instrument to take the gospel to the ends of the earth is us. Matthew 5, 16 says, "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven." We're called to live on mission. I meet a lot of people and here's what they say, "I want to live on mission, but people in Las Vegas, people in the West, people around the world, they're close to the gospel. They don't want to hear it. They don't care about the gospel. I do not believe that." Here's what I believe. I believe that the world today is hopeless and we have full assurance that the gospel brings hope. I believe that the world is empty and we have assurance that the gospel brings fullness of joy. I believe that the world is broken and we have a gospel that heals. I believe that the world is spiritually dead and the gospel of Jesus Christ can bring eternal life. The world isn't close to the gospel. The world is just lost. First Corinthians, one tells us for the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Let me give you a perfect case in point. Last weekend, we had a large amount of guests come to our church and they let us know through the connection card, "Hey, this is the first time that I've been to hope." As we followed up with those people, did you know last weekend, one out of every three guests that came to our church and heard the gospel indicated a first time decision to receive Christ? Here's what I know. You see those people every day and I assure you, it wasn't because the sermon was so awesome. It was because the gospel is so awesome and you and I live in front of those people on a daily basis and I believe if through our lives we will simply be light. They will be attracted to the person of Christ who is being manifested through us and they will embrace the gospel. He does it through our lives. Listen to this statement, the lives that we live authenticate the message that we share. The world is not looking for another sermon. The world is not looking for another Christian book. The world is looking for people who identify themselves with Jesus to genuinely care and love the way Jesus cares and loves. Robert Lewis said this, "The world is tired of the church in personally talking it down and chewing it up. The world waits to see is whether what we have is better than what they have. Just think what bridges we could build. If we truly followed the example of the New Testament church, we would go beyond being seeker sensitive to a new frontier of being community admired. We would be known not just by the corner we inhabit but by the city with which we interact and the world would be drawn to God not because of the weekly show in our churches but by the irrefutable lives that we live. God makes himself known to the world through our lives but also through our lips." You see when the world watches us and they see that we're real, they see that we're genuine. It will lead to moments when we can verbally share the message, when we can verbally share the gospel with them. Several years ago I was at a Christian event and the speaker got up and was talking and really challenged me with one thought. He said it amazes me how many Christians love to talk about church services. They love to talk about Christian culture, they love to talk about Christian music but they rarely, very rarely actually talk about Jesus. I hope we're a church that because of our fascination with our Savior, He just spills out of our mouth, not because we've programmed what it's supposed to sound like but because He is so consuming our hearts that He's the one we want to talk about. And I believe as our lives show the world a genuine expression of His life, it will lead to moments where we speak and where we share His gospel. In conclusion, let me give you two application statements as it relates to the mission. This is for everyone of us understanding that it's God's activity. He does it out of the overflow of our relationship with Him. He uses our lives and He uses our lips. Here's the application that we're to prioritize. I am to share in the mission locally. I am to look for ways to reveal Jesus to the world right here in the city of Las Vegas. We say it all the time and hope. God has not called you to a church. God has called you to a city. The church is simply the platform from which we engage the city with the gospel. It happens where you work. It happens where you live. It happens where you go to school and it happens where you hang out. All over our city, you and I are to live on mission as points of light looking to reveal Jesus Christ to the world. But can that really happen? I mean, you think about one church. Can we really have an impact on an entire city? I want to show you a map of the city of Las Vegas. Last weekend, we asked you guys to help us out and give us some information about where you go to school, where you work, and where you live. I want to show you where we have influence in terms of schools all across the city of Las Vegas. Everywhere you see a dot, someone in this church has been placed as a point of light to live out their relationship with God in front of a world that is lost. If you're here and you're a teenager, let me encourage you, you living a salt and light on your campus is significant. Can you imagine if just the students who attend those schools decided they were going to take serious that they had been sent by God to be light to the world? It would change everything. Let me show you another circle of influence. This is where people work. Everywhere you see those dots, that's where people work. Let me show you the last one very quickly. This is where we live. Everywhere you see a green dot, that's where someone lives in a neighborhood. What would change about our church? If every person spread all across our city and even into Boulder City, decided to take serious the opportunity we have to be salt and light in our neighborhoods. We took serious walking across the street to share the gospel. This church can impact the city. We are called to share in the mission locally, but secondly, I am called. I am to share in the mission globally. We are to share in the mission globally. In most churches, missions can be summed up by a court board in the back of a church in an announcement, not here. We are putting priority as we always have on God's invitation to engage globally with His activity. We believe it's not just something we do as an afterthought. It's the reason we have what we have. The reason we built this new campus is so that the nations might know Him. The reason we exist, the reason we have resources, is not just so we can be comfortable. It's so that the ends of the earth may fear Him. Did you know globally, one out of every three people have no access to the gospel? Globally, here's what that means. That means there are people in the world right now, and if they wanted to hear the gospel, they could look for the rest of their lives for someone who could tell them and never have any success. Can you imagine in North America if you wanted to hear the gospel and you traveled all over our country and you could find no one who could share the gospel with you in your language? That stuff needs to grip us. That's why He's raised us up so that very soon that statistic changes. God has invited us to share in His activity globally, and I believe everyone, everyone has a role to play in doing that. I want to give you from a global standpoint, just two quick takeaways that you can really apply today. First of all, as you came in in your seat, there's a card that looks like this. That card has a list of all the international trips that we're taking for the rest of this year. Hey, this is easy. This isn't going over and above as a Jesus follower. No, this is making a priority of your relationship with the world. There are some people here today and you need to be on the plane going on one of these trips to engage in the mission globally. It's an easy first step. Here's another easy first step. As we really prayed about, what do we want to do to tangibly express our relationship with the world? We've done it for a bide through a devotional guide. We've done it through Connect, through small groups. What would we do for share? We decided to make it an offering. We're going to be taking up an offering this weekend and next weekend that is over and above our regular giving, but is simply an investment in God's activity and that offering is going to three projects, a project in Honduras, a project in Thailand, and a project in Zambia. Those tools, those resources are going to train pastors and do ministry on a global scale. So I would encourage you in whatever way God may lead you to make an investment in his activity globally through that offering. As Jesus followers, we are to prioritize our relationship with God. We are also to prioritize our relationship with God's family, but we are also to make a priority of our relationship with the world. I'm going to throw you a curve ball as we close our service. We're not going to end like we always do. I want to go ahead and invite our worship team to go ahead and come. Every time at Hope that we send a mission team somewhere into the field, we bring them up and we have them stand and we pray a prayer of commissioning over that team, sending them out and empowering to go live on mission as an extension of this church. Well, this weekend, we're commissioning our entire church, not to go and live on mission in Africa, but to live on mission in Las Vegas, Nevada. We need to begin to see ourselves as missionaries and yet we serve as doctors and as lawyers and as teachers and as pastors, but the primary call that God has led us to is to be on mission for the sake of the gospel. So our team is going to begin to play. I want to ask you right now where you are just to stand up, and as you're standing there, I want you to think about where you live, where you work, and where you go to school. I want you to think about those three places. That's where God has planted you as a missionary, to take seriously the opportunity to demonstrate the life of Jesus to the world. And so as we close today, I want to pray a prayer of commissioning over you, launching you out into the world, sending you into the world to live on mission for Christ, and then our team is going to lead us in a song and we'll be finished. So I want to pray over you now. Lord, thank you for these people that you have raised up here in hope. God I pray for their neighborhoods. I pray for their places of business. I pray for their schools. God may they be salt and light in those places. God may we take serious the opportunity we have to be light in this city. God change our perspective. I pray when we wake up in the morning, we would see our city differently. Lord, our city is lost. God, let that break our heart. God let the opportunity we have to love people in Jesus' name, to live a life that is authentic, to share the gospel. God grip our heart with that. May we live on mission. May we be missionaries here in our city. We love you, God, pray for our church. Jesus' name, I pray, amen. [music] [music]