Hope Church LV Sermons
On Mission
this weekend, I want to share with you three life-changing truths. There are really some things that over the last 12 or 14 years of my life as a follower of Jesus Christ that have really been lessons that God has instilled in my own heart. So I'm going to share with you a lot of things really out of my personal journey this morning. But the first of these statements that I'm going to share with you is kind of the big umbrella that all the others are going to fall under. Here's the first one. God's activity in my life is always bigger than me. I want you to read that out loud with me. You ready? God's activity in my life is always bigger than me. It's never just about us, right? God's invited us into a personal relationship with himself and God is doing in us more than we could ever fathom or imagine. But it's never just about us. 1998 was one of those periods in my life personally that was a real valley. All of us as Christians, we've been through some of those mountain top experience and then we've walked through some of those valleys in our lives. In 1998, I was in one of those spiritual valleys. It led me to a real period of spiritual brokenness in my life. One of those times that you look back on and you never want to go through that again, but as you look back on it, you're very grateful for it. You know, because as you evaluate your Christian life, I don't know about you, but as I look back over my Christian life, it's not the mountain tops where I've learned the greatest lessons, right? It's usually in the valleys, even though we don't like them. They're the most valuable. I was in one of those valley experiences and God began to do a deep work in my heart and in my life. And one of the things that God began to really show me and reveal to me personally was the specific issue that the primary call on my life was not to ministry, but it was to intimacy, that what God was doing in me was as much concern of his as what he wanted to do through me. God had really instilled that in my heart and up until that point in my life, I'd really been focused on doing in the ministry that God had called me to. And then I began to understand that God was calling me into real intimacy with him and that the whole goal is the relationship, that the relationship is not the stepping stone to activity, but the relationship is what Christianity is really all about and and God was just burning that in my heart. And about a year after that period of brokenness in my life is when I was reading one morning in Luke chapter 4, I shared with you last weekend that verse that God used to ultimately land my family in Las Vegas. You know what I know now? Looking back, here's what I know now, that valley in 1998 that I was walking through in my life, that real personal struggle that I was dealing with, that God was doing that work in me. You know what I now know? It wasn't just about me. It's about you. You see, God's activity in our lives is always bigger than us. I don't know what's going on in your life right now. I don't know what God is doing specifically. I don't know what circumstance, what mountaintop, or what valley you may be in right now, but I can promise you this, as I look out over a crowd like this, there's some people on the mountaintops, but there's a lot of people in the valleys right now. You're going through some stuff right now. The Lord's showing you some things. He's revealing himself. He's making him known. Maybe you're on the front end of it where he's not even revealing himself yet. You're just in the valley. Let me encourage you. It's not just about you. God's doing something in you right now that he's going to use through you in the lives of others in ways you probably don't even dream possible. I would have never dreamed when I was going through that. Las Vegas was as far removed from my mind as anything in the world. I didn't have any of this on my mind at that point, and yet it's what God was preparing me for. That statement is true in our lives personally. Listen, it's also true in our lives as a family of faith. Together, as hope abdest church, God's activity in us is always bigger than just us. It's never just about us. Man, for eight years, we have enjoyed the blessing and favor of God. Amen? I mean, as we look back over the last eight and a half years, this journey together, we have seen God do unbelievable things in our midst. When I think back to eight and a half years ago in this small group of people meeting in a living room, and now I look out over this congregation this morning and I see how God's grown our fellowship and all the gifts and abilities and talents that He's given us. The way the Lord has changed lives and given us a spirit of worship and celebration and a spirit of fellowship and friendship and family and the way we care for one another and encourage one another. And so many of you tell me the joy that it is every weekend to be able to come to this place and be uplifted and encouraged and challenged and sharpened. God's been good to us, but it wasn't just about us. You see, God's activity in us is always bigger than just us. God didn't birth the church so we could have a place to come in and worship on the weekends and be uplifted and encouraged and challenged and sharpened and so we could care for one another, meet each other's needs and be a family together. That's not the only reason. That's a part of it. It's not all of it. You realize over these eight and a half years we've seen over 2,000 people in this city that have come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Over 1,100 of them have already followed Jesus here publicly and baptism giving a testimony that they know Christ as Lord and Savior. Hey, when God birthed our church it was about those people too, right? Maybe you're some of those people that have come to Christ. Did you know that over the last eight and a half years we've seen literally hundreds of families that we've ministered to personally? Some of them attend our church. Some of them have never even been to one of our services but we've met needs for them physically, financially, spiritually because of your generosity as a church family. There are people across this valley that have been helped when God birthed our church. It wasn't just about us. It's about them. God's birth ministries out of our church like what Bob and Kathleen Carmona lead called Highway to Hope or Cody and Heather Huff, their ministry, both of those reach out to homeless people in our city. Many of them have never attended one of our services but weekly and monthly. We're providing food and we're wrapping our arms around people in this city that many in our city don't even care about and which didn't even exist. When God birthed this fellowship it wasn't just about us. It's about them. God birthed the ministry out of here through Randy and Jan Lasseter that's reaching into the youth detention centers. You don't even know it but almost every weekend we're seeing four, five, six, eight, sometimes 10, 15 young people come to Christ in youth detention centers in this county. When God birthed our church it wasn't just about what happens here in the weekend. It's about those kids that are in the middle of those crises in their life and what God's doing to reach out and touch their lives. It's always bigger than us. Hey, but it wasn't just about Las Vegas. Over the last eight and a half years, churches have been planted out of this fellowship in Las Vegas, Chicago, Tucson, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Burkina Faso and Kenya just to name a few and that didn't even count the churches that have been started out of those churches. And when we say there have been churches planted what you need to know is every one of those churches stories just like ours. It was bigger than them. Their communities being impacted, their families being ministered to, their lives being put back together. It was never just about us. We launched a couple of years ago a non-profit organization called Surgeons. Many are not even aware that through our relationship with Surgeons and through the launching of that platform, community transformation projects that have renovated schools have taken place in Las Vegas, Atlanta, Denver, Washington, D.C., Birmingham, Baltimore, Tucson, New Orleans, and Memphis just to name a few of the cities. Nations have been impacted as we've partnered with nationals in South Africa, Zambia, Egypt, Thailand, and throughout Central America. And through these relationships we have seen literally tens of thousands of people come to faith in Jesus Christ. And on an annual basis we see thousands of national pastors and church planters and missionaries being trained and equipped to carry the gospel into places that you and I will never even see. Let me say it again. God's activity in our lives is always bigger than us. Let me say it another way. You and I, we're on a mission. Oh, how I wish the church in North America would realize the significance of that statement. We are on a mission. The mission is not just a neat worship service on the weekend where we can be uplifted and get our encouragement for the week. No, the mission is so much bigger than that. And it really has two implications. First of all, the mission is about the nations. You see, God desires to make Himself known among the peoples of the earth. And when God brought us together as a family of faith, it was so that the nations would know Him. But secondly, it's not just about the nations. It's about the next generation. You see, God desires to make Himself known in the generations to come. And as a church family, we have a mission to the nations, but we also have a mission to the next generation to pass on to the coming generations what God has done in and through us that they may know the glory of God and understand His greatness. We have a mission and we can never lose sight of that fact. I want to give you this mission in two implications this morning. Here's the first one. I have a mission to the nations. I want you to say that out loud with me. I have a mission to the nations. Now, we're going to say it again. This time we're going to say it like we believe it, all right? We kind of just slid into it, getting to know it good at that time, all right? But this time, we're going to say it like we believe it. You ready? Here we go. One, two, three. I have a mission to the nations. Let me show it to you in the Scripture. Turn to Matthew 28 verse 19. Now, before I read these verses, it's very important you understand their context. You know what these verses are, right? Last thing Jesus ever said on earth, "Gathered His disciples together before His ascension. It's recorded in every gospel. It's a little bit different in the verbiage in every gospel, but in every gospel it gives us this same thrust." It's the last thing He said. He gathered them together. And before I read it, listen, He didn't just gather the pastors and missionaries together and say, "This is just for you." He gathered all the followers of Jesus together, the pastors, the missionaries, the fishermen, the bakers, the housewives, all the followers together. Listen to what He said. Go. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. You know what that says, right? I have a mission to the nations. Is it like a program to wait and see if I want to sign up for? It's not like a cafeteria line, you know, pick and choose. I think I'll be a part of this part of God's kingdom. You and I have a mission to the nations. And here's the second of those life-changing truths. The Son is going to give you three. Here's the second one. God's activity in my life locally is always connected to His activity globally. Read that out loud with me. God's activity in my life locally is always connected to His activity globally. You see, God's doing something in my life. It's always bigger than me. I have a mission to the nations. And because I have a mission to the nations, what God's doing in my life locally, I may not always see it, but it's connected to the big picture of what God's doing globally. Let me give you an example. A couple of months ago, a few months ago, we had somebody contacted us, a family, a young couple, was in trouble and Las Vegas didn't attend our church, but they were struggling financially. They were struggling physically. They were struggling spiritually. Just one of those down and out stories in Vegas, we get a lot of those phone calls. You need to know we're a church that cares about people. We even have other churches in Las Vegas that drop people off at our doorstep. They'll drive up in their church van, drop them off on a hope store step. I'm telling you the truth. We care about people. This couple comes in our doors and we meet them and we begin to minister to them. Several people in our church in different ways have served this young couple. About six, eight weeks later, I got an email. It's from a lady who was the mom of one of those young adults. She's the secretary to a leading diplomat of a significant country in Southern Africa. She sends me an email to say, "You don't know me, but I have been praying for my family in Las Vegas and God has used your church to impact their lives. And pastor, I just want you to know that if you ever need anything in our country, our doors are open to you." Now listen, we didn't know we were doing anything international. We just minister and do it down and out couple in Las Vegas. And the next thing you know, God's given us a diplomatic open door to a country in Southern Africa. You know what I understand? The next person you meet, the next person you meet could be the gateway to an entire nation. We don't know what God's doing. What God's doing in our lives locally, it's always connected to what He's doing globally. That's what this mission is all about. God is at work among the nations, and He's placed you and I in the middle of it to get in on what He's doing. You know what that does? It gives everyday significance. You have no idea what God's going to bring into your life today. God's at work in the world. Let me share with you a few realities out of Matthew 28. Here's the first one. The world is lost. How many of you have heard that word lost in church before? Let me see your hand. That's what I thought. Most of us have heard it. Matter of fact, we've heard it so many times. It's lost its significance. Say that word with me, lost. I spent some time this week thinking about what it means. What's it mean to be lost? You see, for some of us, we've been saved so long, we've forgotten what it really means to be lost. I wrote this definition after talking to a few guys, getting some counsel, some input. Listen to this definition. The word lost means people living without a relationship with God and headed for an eternity separated from His presence. You see, to be lost doesn't just mean to be disconnected or unchurched. It means to be living without a relationship with God and to be headed for an eternity separated from His presence. Listen, the world is lost. I want you to do something with me this morning. I want everybody to stand, all right? Stand up. You this morning are going to be an illustration, all right? You represent the world. We this morning are almost seven billion people. There's seven billion people almost who populate planet Earth. I want this section over here to be seated. Almost, misiologists tell us that almost six billion people in the world are lost. Now here's what that means. If this is the world, these people are saved. All of your lost. Let that sink in for a minute. I want to draw a line right down the middle here. And I want everybody on this side of this line to be seated. And if you're count on the middle, you just guess. That's all right. We're estimating here. Three and a half billion people in the world have never heard the gospel one time. I want you to look at this. If we're the world, all these people, they're not only lost, not one time. How many times did you hear the gospel before you got it? I'd like to draw a line right in the middle of this section. And I want everybody this side to be seated. One and a half billion people in the world today have not only never heard the gospel. Now listen, they have no portion of the gospel, no Bible, no preacher, no church, that even speaks their language. That means that this part of the world today, if they want to hear Christ, the first thing they have to do is learn another language. What kind of obstacle would it have been to you, to the gospel? If before you could hear the message of Christ, you first had to learn a foreign language. You see, we sit inside our comfortable church atmospheres here in America. Let me tell you we've forgotten the world is lost. You can miss it. And this is not just true in countries that have names you and I can't pronounce. In the United States of America, we have over 300 million people who live here. Missiologists estimate that 250 million of them are lost. That means that America is now the fourth largest lost nation on the face of the planet. Only China, India, and Indonesia have more lost people than the United States of America. Let's bring it a little closer to home. Las Vegas is 95% lost. And here's what that means. When you go to the restaurant after church today, you go to Walmart, nine out of ten people that walked past you are living without a relationship with God and headed for an eternity separated from his presence. Ronnie Floyd is a pastor friend of mine. Listen to what he said. He said to the degree we grasp lostness will be the degree we are willing to do whatever is necessary to penetrate it. What does it say about us? That we're 2,000 years removed from Jesus saying, go to all the nations. And half the world's population hadn't even heard. And close to a third of the world's population has no access to the gospel at all in their language. The world is lost. And secondly, God has placed you and me in the world to impact lostness. We're not here just to be blessed by God and enjoy his favor. God's placed us here to impact lostness. He said, go. Now we tend to hear that like a command and imperative go, but it's really not. The real command is make disciples the word go. It really could be translated as you go. And here's, I believe what he's saying, as you and I live our lives, God calls us to be on mission with him to be aware of what's around us, to be looking for lostness. Remember what Jesus said to his disciples, as the Father has sent me, I also what? Send you, right? Look at Luke 19, 10, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was what?" The Father sent me. So I send you. God's placed us in this world to live on the lookout for lostness around us. But let me give you this third principle. He does it through me. To hear what he said there in that phrase, he said, "And I'm with you." Even to the end of the age, I'm with you. You see, it's not up to me to when the world to Christ. If I get too consumed with this, then the focus of my life becomes lostness. The focus of my life is Jesus. And as I focus on intimacy with him, guess what happens? He through me begins to seek and to save that which was lost to the degree that I'm allowing Christ to manifest His life in me. I will develop and cultivate a compassion for the lostness of this world. The Bible says, "Jesus saw the multitude and He felt compassion." We have a mission. Do you live with an awareness of this mission? Do you ask Christ daily? Who in my life today is lost? Or who have you put in my path is lost? Hey, listen, don't let the enemy deceive you. They're not just not in church. It's not just that their life would be a little better. They're lost. And they're headed to an eternity separated from the presence of God. And as we talk about developing a campus, building a home, you need to understand one of the motivations of our heart is lostness. It's not about a place. Don't get in your mind. We're building a building. Well, we're getting this building so we don't have to set up and take down or no. We're getting this building so we don't have to do this. No, we wanted to be kidding. No, no, no, no. You know one of the compelling factors for me, did you know that we spend 52,000 volunteer hours a year setting up and taking down? 52,000 volunteer hours a year. You know what that means? That's 52,000 volunteer hours a year that we can't use penetrating the lostness of this city. It's about lostness. Secondly, I have a mission to the next generation. I not only have a mission to the nations, I have a mission to the next generation. Let me give you the third of those statements that God's burned in my heart. Well, before I do that, I want you to read a passage of Scripture. Turn over to Psalm 78. Psalm 78, look at verse 4. If you don't have a Bible, you look on the screen, listen to what he says, "We will not conceal them." He's talking about the truths of God that have been passed on. We will not conceal them from their children. "But tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and His strength and His wondrous words that He has done, for He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel which He commanded our fathers, that they should teach them to their children." I love verse 6, "That the generation to come might know even the children yet to be born." Do you realize that as you and I give, as we invest in the building of a facility, there are people that hadn't even been born yet, who in the future, generations to come will be touched and impacted. Verse 7, "That they should put their confidence in God and not forget the works of God but keep His commandments." Let me give it to you in this statement. God's activity in this generation is so that the next generation may know Him. God's activity in this generation is so that the next generation may know Him. Did you hear what it said there in verse 5? He said, "He established a testimony. He appointed a law." Why? Verse 6, "That so that the generation to come might know that God was doing something in the nation of Israel. He was establishing His law, but one of the reasons is so that the generations to come could know the glory and the greatness of God." You and I, as followers of Jesus, have been entrusted with the life-changing message of the gospel for the nations but also for the next generation. It's why our stewardship of the story is so important. Let me tell you something tragic. We're failing at the mission to the next generation. In our denomination right now, I've never been more excited to be a part of a denomination than we are right now. Our denomination has taken one year appointed a task force to take a hard look at how we spend our resources and how we manage our agencies and mission boards to make sure that we're being as effective as we possibly can to penetrate the lostness of our nation and the world. This task force has recently released a report. I want to read you an excerpt out of that report about this next generation piece. Look at what it says on the screen. Research conducted by life-way research on the millennial generation. That's the current generation. And research by Tom Rayner on previous generations indicate that every American generation from early in the 20th century forward has been less evangelized than generations before. Tracing generational patterns from World War II generation to the millennials, the estimated number of Christians in America has fallen from 65% to 15%. Churches in America are losing ground with each successive generation. Hey, we don't just have a mission to the nations. We have a mission to the next generation. As we stood up here a few moments ago and had all those families and those kids, as we talk about a facility, we're talking about a campus that will attract and minister to and create environments for families. Why is all of that? Because we have a mission to the next generation. This wasn't just a little ceremony up here. That was serious business, right? Well, how is this mission to the next generation accomplished? Here's an important truth. God's primary instrument for reaching from generation to generations of the family. It's not the church, it's the family. Listen, our role as a church is to come alongside the family and serve the family in fulfilling their mission of impacting the generations to come. We have a ministry to families. A major component of this new campus for us is going to be a place where we can create environments to come alongside families and encourage them in their mission. We have a mission to the nations. We have a mission to the next generation. And listen, these two are not independent. They're interdependent. Say, what do you mean? As we carry out our mission to the nations, and we do that by inviting the next generation along, hey, now that means the church has got to structure itself in such a way that the next generation feels like that's not their church, it's our church too. As we invite them along on the mission and we engage them and involve them at every level, as we carry out the gospel to the nations, we're actually accomplishing this generation, this mission as well to the next generation. One of the things that my wife and I we've decided to do is a family. We have four children. We've just decided that one of the things that we're going to do before our kids get out of junior high or high school is we're going to take them overseas and we're going to let them see the nations through our eyes. Our older two kids have already been, both of them have been with me to Southern Africa because I want them to know that there's more to life than the American dream. There's the mission to the nations. Listen, don't rob your kids of the greatest joy of their lives to understand that what God's doing in them is connected to something that's so much bigger than them. As we fulfill our call to the nations, we can invest in the next generation, but listen, as we invest in the next generation, we're also fulfilling our call to the nations, right? How does that happen? 155 years ago, 155 years ago, a group of people came together in a small rural town and started a new church. Now, they took seriously this mission. You know how I know? Because 150 plus years later, that little church called the First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia started our church eight and a half years ago. 155 years ago, a little group of people got together and started a church. They had no idea about Las Vegas. They didn't know about the nations that we would be able to impact. They didn't know that their own church, 155 years later, would have commissioned and sent out over 150 families that have relocated to the four corners of the earth as full-time career missionaries. They didn't realize that their church, 155 years later, would give millions and millions and millions of dollars away to the nations. Literally millions of dollars every year invested in the nations. Mission teams sent to the four corners of the earth, but because they understood the mission to the next generation and they passed it on. Hey, said the Lord Terry, his coming. What might God do through this fellowship 150 years from now? We must take serious the mission to the next generation. Hey, these little kids that were up here a while ago, one of them may be the next pastor. They may be the next missionary family. The next time we stand them up here, we may be commissioning them to go to some country around the world that we can't even pronounce. God's activity in our lives is always bigger than us. We have a mission to the nations. We have a mission to the next generation. Have you embraced the mission? Let's pray. Father, we bow before you this morning. We ask you to speak. Holy Spirit of God, would you open our lives and lay them bare before you? Or would you remind us of the lostness of this world? Would you remind us of our stewardship for the next generation? As you sit quietly before the Lord in just a moment, we're going to stand and we're going to sing a song of worship. But before we do, I want to ask you a few questions to let you kind of take this truth and sink it deep in your heart. The first one is, are you aware of the mission? Are you aware of the mission? Do you know it's bigger than just you and your personal walk with God and your family? Are you involved in the mission? Is your yes on the table for the six billion people in the world that don't know him? The three and a half billion have never heard, the one and a half billion that have never even been exposed that the gospel is not even in their language? Who in your circle of influence that you come into contact with on a daily or weekly basis is lost? What ways are you being intentional about investing in the next generation? Do you live with an awareness of the mission? When we stand and sing in just a moment, maybe God's spoken to you today and God, you sense a calling on your life to missions, to surrender your life, to go to take the gospel to some of these peoples of the earth. Maybe God's calling you. Maybe you sense God leading you to ask your small group to get involved in a mission project or some opportunity to serve around the world. Maybe it's a way to serve right here in this city. As we stand and sing, you respond as God, if God's calling you and you sense God calling you to some type of vocational ministry or missions, listen, you leave your seat. Come to one of these pastors or prayer volunteers. I believe God's speaking to me today. God's speaking to you and your family about serving in this city or in some way in the next six or eight months around the world, man, you just get your family and you huddle there and you pray together. If you're here today and you're one of those six billion people in the world who don't have a relationship with God and you're headed for an eternity separated from him, and you're ready to give your life to Jesus Christ today. Hey, when we stand the same, you go to one of these pastors here at the front or one of these prayer volunteers along the side or at the back and you say to them, I need to give my life to Jesus and they'll show you from the Bible how you can come to know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. Holy Spirit of God, you speak to us. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. [BLANK_AUDIO]