Continuing the Mission Beyond our Walls (2)
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Scripture
Scripture
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
Pray.
I love mission trips. Part of my salvation story involves a trip to the Dominican Republic (Show pictures) when I was basically a volunteer with a youth group that I would later begin a journey into ministry with. On this trip to the D.R...... I witnessed a student bring a family to Christ in a hospital.
I love to lead mission trips, because that is where I have seen some of the greatest leaps of transformation in people’s lives. This has brought me to lead multiple trips to Haiti, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, regional, and local trips. On these trips we are challenged in so many ways and I believe we are given a work of grace far greater than anything we provide.
I care deeply for mission. And I love that this church does as well. It will take me years to learn the depth of our work in the region and beyond. Conroe has missional partnerships and supports missionaries and incredible organizations everywhere.
I care deeply for mission.
But....what I care more for, and what I think God’s desire for us to participate in the mission everyday. To live as sent ones in the world.
This is part of the Framework. After all we have been through, it would be easy for us to turn in ourselves.
So let’s look at what Jesus has to say about mission in John 4.
Context
Context
John 4 is a well known text but maybe not for the verses we just shared together. Remember, dont want to rip it out of context and here the literary context is important. John 4 has Jesus and the disciples traveling from Judea to Galilee…first verses said that he had to go to Samaria. Not a good relationship between the Samaritans and Israelites.
Divine Appointment, he did not have to go through Samaria.
They come up on a water well, a woman, in the heat of the day, is there drawing water when normally any sane woman would come early in the morning to get it. When they get there Jesus sends the disciples away to get some food and Jesus interacts with this woman.
You might know the story...
Jesus asks if she will get him some water. She is shocked by this....A Jewish man, asking a Samaritan women for a drink. Jesus responds with the declaration that he can give the living water, whatever that is. The stuff that will never leave you thirsty again....what are you talking about Jesus? Go, get your husband, oh you have 5. She has this incredible revelation…where she comes to know that Jesus is the messiah, the one that she had already learned about.
Boom, the disciples show up again…they grabbed Taco Bell in town and they were ready to grub…a little confused about the scene with the lady but really just hungry.
Woman takes off, leaves her bucket, runs to town to tell everyone about Jesus.
Disciples roll out the taco box…here you go Rabbi.
Jesus: I have food to eat that you know nothing about
Disciples....ummmm ok. Who gave him food?
check out rest of dialogue in 34 again:
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.
Then the woman is back in the story....she grabs some samaritans who begin to be persuaded by her and they all come back to Jesus.
What is going on here? This is a crazy scene and a lot can be said about the living water but that’s a different sermon. What is going on here with the disciples and the harvest. Why does the gospel have this weird back and forth from woman to the disciples and back to the woman?
You see how the story is interrupted with our text? What is the reasoning?
Well I am glad you asked.
Team Disciple or Team Woman at the Well?
Team Disciple or Team Woman at the Well?
The author of John’s gospel is setting up a comparison here. What are some of the hints?
Woman looking for water and disciples looking for food
She does not know Jesus at all, the disciples are supposed to, which is some of the major irony
Neither of them get Jesus. Woman is talking about water from the well....the disciples can only focus on food that they miss Jesus message
Then things turn quickly:
The woman, who has just met Jesus runs towards the harvest....into town to tell everyone about Jesus, while the disciples who are supposed to really know Jesus, walk right past the harvest completely concerned with the material food.
The people with the closest proximity, closest access to Jesus, the ones most familiar with Jesus…they do not see the harvest.
They are doing good, right, they didnt going into Sychar and rob a bank, they got some food, they are trying to serve Jesus.
`Let me be real for a second…Sometimes we stop at bringing Jesus an offering when what he really wants is for us to just open our eyes and see his children all around.
We get so inoculated with church, we get so comfortable in our life and our extra curricular activities, in our jobs, in our family and we miss it.
Open your eyes
Open your eyes
I can just see Jesus taking the disciples and turning them towards the field....verse 4 tells us its a field, Jacobs well is right there. He turns them out and he says…you dont have the wait, open your eyes, the harvest is ready. Maybe the woman is coming back at that moment with all the people from town. Maybe the hourly person at taco bell from earlier. Open your eyes, the harvest is in front of you.
God was saying so clearly to me then, “open your eyes.”
Everyday mission.
The disciples are leaving Judea and on the way to Galilee on a mission trip, but they miss the every day nature of the mission.
We are such a gracious church in so many ways:
ID ministry
Mobil food pantry
Blood drive today
salvation army feeding teams
A history of work all over the place
I could go on and on. All good mission opportunities, but too many of our people are spectators and sign up for time to time to check the box of mission.
Before we ever organize to do these things, we need to stretch our muscles again for everyday mission
Open your eyes:
in your home
in your work place
in your neighborhood
at the grocery store
on your row, right now.
Everyday mission.
Restaurant....guess what day people did not want to work?
Ok that is the why....how do we do this?
A Community on Mission
A Community on Mission
Every day we have the opportunity to join Jesus on his mission trip.
We are called to join Jesus on His mission
Missio Dei: This is not reserved to when circumstances come together just right. Or the day we are signed up for ID Ministry
2. Mission and Evangelism is more than feeding people or telling your neighbor about John 3:16
Bryan Stone, drawing on the work of of John Howard Yoder:
“To offer Christ is to offer the reign of God proclaimed by Christ, present in him, and offered to the world in his life, death, and resurrection. The church offers Christ by telling his story and also by embodying that story in its worship, ministry, and obedience. But while this offer has experiential and cognitive dimensions, it is not in the first place the offer of an experience of Christ or a set of beliefs about Christ—at least not as those are configured within the modern logic of desire, production, and exchange, as commodities to be possessed or consumed. The offer of Christ is instead the offer of a peoplehood, of participation in a body. It is the offer of a ‘way’ and of a formation by the Spirit into that way” (Stone 243).
Invitation to a people… life boat versus life saver
3. This requires deep discipleship
Mission and evangelism is not something we do. It is not measured by conversions or church growth, but it must be an intrinsic characteristic of what it means to be Christian and a Christian community. In a post-christian and growing secular society the kingdom of God is subversive to any political structure. In a fast culture, we practice slowing down. In a consumer culture, we do not give full reign to our personal desires of instant gratification. In a success driven world, we practice the way of sacrifice and love.
Closing:
Since becoming your lead pastor, I have already heard many ideas about what we do with mission, about what we need to do to grow the church, etc. And truth be told much of the church growth stuff is motivated by a wrong mentality. Much of mission talk is good on the surface but misplaced understanding of what mission is.
You want to live on mission, live lives of resiliency in the world.
We need deeply formed people that are ready to live and lead in Willis. Very soon will be the time for some of us to surrender some of our comfort of this space so that we might invite more into a peoplehood. For now....we all must consider again the harvest that is all around us.
Woman at the well just introduces them to Jesus. She runs out of her joy, out of her story to them and they follow back to Jesus. Jesus saves.