A reality for all of us, whether we are talking about individuals, families, or churches, is this: If you don’t know your target, you will hit it every time. If you’re aiming at nothing, you will hit nothing. That is a universal truth. Several weeks ago, we started a conversation that, I hope, reminds us what our target is as a church family.
The conversation began with this verse from Proverbs:
Prov 29:18 (CSB)—Without revelation, people run wild, but one who follows divine instruction will be happy.
In other words, we run directionless when we don’t have God’s vision for our lives, families, and churches. The KJV says we perish. But when we understand God’s heart for us, as it is revealed in the Bible, we find direction, fulfillment, and joy.
So, what is the target for New Hope?
We answer that by asking another question: Why do we exist?
We exist to know God and glorify Him by making disciples of Jesus Christ.
We start that statement with knowing God because the one thing God wants from you is to know you. And we end that statement with Jesus’ instruction to the church when He gives them the Great Commission. His commission to us is to make disciples of all nations. That is the work He has given us to do.
Our purpose statement answers the question, “Why do we exist?” The second question we ask is, “What is important to us?”
Is it a bigger building a bigger budget, or greater influence? The answer is no.
Instead of building a bigger church, we want to build bigger people.
If we can answer what is important to us, we can begin to build a target to aim at.
What is our target?” Our target is our four values.
Identity
Formation
Community
Mission
We have already talked about the first three values. You can go to newhopeon395.com, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click on Message Library to watch the previous messages, or you can go to chirshankel.com and sign up to get the message transcript in your email each week.
This week, we are going to wrap this up by talking about our fourth value:
Mission
Mission is an outward-facing posture that followers of Jesus are invited to embody as his ambassadors. All Christians are to serve and love the world sacrificially and participate in the mission to make disciples of Jesus.
2 Cor 5:20 (CSB)—Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.”
Let me start by telling you what I don’t want you to get from this morning. My intent is not to heap guilt on you for not sharing your faith with others. I think often, when we hear a message on evangelism, we walk away with is this overwhelming sense of failure. I know God wants me to do this, but I just don’t feel comfortable, or I just don’t want to say the wrong thing and screw it up, or maybe it just hasn’t been on your radar in the past, but now after hearing a message on how you should be reaching your neighbor for Jesus, you realize you’ve not been a great job at that.
Guilt is not my goal here. I want to tell you why this value is essential to us as a church and why I believe it is vital for every follower of Jesus.
According to the Barna Group, 60% of churches in the United States are in decline. They are shrinking. 30% of churches are growing from transfer growth. That means people moving into the area or people unhappy with their church who decide to attend another church (sometimes for good reasons; nothing wrong with transfer growth). Only 10% of churches in the U.S. are growing by evangelism. Of all the churches in the United States, only 10% are effectively sharing the gospel, leading people to Jesus, and connecting them to their church.
Besides the obvious reasons, here is why that is a problem. There are 8.2 billion people on the planet. 2.5 billion of those confess to having some sort of relationship with Christ. That means that if Jesus were to return today, 5.7 billion people who are alive on the planet today would spend eternity in Hell. That is roughly 70% of the world’s population.
Let’s bring those numbers a little closer to home. Hermiston has a population of about 22,000 people. That means if Jesus were to return today, 15,400 people in our city would spend eternity in Hell.
I recognize those are grossly generalized numbers, but I wonder if we ever think about our family, friends, and neighbors in that light. As you drive down 395, have you ever wondered how many of those cars are full of people living lives of hopelessness, brokenness, and despair and will spend eternity apart from the God who loves them?
Matt 9:35-38 (CSB)—Jesus continued going around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.”
You see, the first requirement for a church to carry out it’s mission is
A Heart of Compassion.
If we are going to do the work that Jesus has given us to do and fulfill our calling and our mission, then we must begin to see people the way Jesus sees people.
I wonder if some of the fallout from our current cultural climate is that we tend to view people who disagree with us as the enemy. People who disagree with us on our value of life or people who disagree with us on what it means to be a woman or people who disagree with us on who should be President.
Because those people often believe the antithesis of what we believe, we think they get what they deserve.
I wonder how many people who were in that crowd of people who elicited compassion from Jesus in Matt 9 were also in the crowd that mocked Him the day He was crucified? I wonder how many people in that crowd who elicited Jesus’ compassion ultimately rejected Him?
That didn’t stop Him from having compassion for them.
Compassion doesn’t mean allowing people to take advantage of you or that you allow evil to prosper. It means we understand that people are not the enemy, just like Jesus did not see them as the enemy but sheep without a shepherd.
The Apostle Peter reminds us to:
1 Peter 5:8 (CSB)—Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.
In Jn 10, Jesus tells us that our enemy is a thief and he only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And the lies of that enemy have been believed by so many in our world. Instead of taking our anger and frustration out on the victims of his lies, let’s take our anger and frustration out on our real enemy by taking away his power and influence.
We do that with compassion when we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, and when we begin to see people the way Jesus sees people.
Second, being missional requires an Understanding of the Gospel.
Before this series, we were going through the book of Romans, where the Apostle Paul begins his letter by showing us the beauty of the Gospel message.
We need to understand the beauty of the gospel. It’s hard to give what we ourselves don’t fully understand.
Most of us understand these basics of the gospel: If we believe that Jesus is God’s Son, that He was killed on the cross but three days later He rose from the dead defeating sin and death, and if we receive God’s free gift for the payment for our sin, we will be saved.
How many of you know that is a good thing to understand?
But the gospel and the implications of the gospel go far beyond that. As the adopted daughters and sons of God, we should understand how choosing to follow Jesus impacts our lives.
The word gospel means good news. When we think about the good news of the gospel, it is a fourfold message. The gospel is the good news of:
Forgiveness—the power of sin was destroyed at the cross. We access forgiveness for our sins through repentance and faith in what Jesus did on the cross for us. Rom 3:23-24
Freedom—through Satan’s defeat at the cross, we are freed from the fear of death, his power of accusation, from guilt, and from demonic oppression. We are set free from the brokenness of our past and enjoy God’s healing of our lives. Rom 8:1
Family—we are brought into the family of God. We are adopted as God’s sons and daughters, and wherever we are in the world, we have brothers and sisters in Christ. We discover the joy of belonging and being a part of something bigger than us as individuals. 1 Cor 12:13
Fulfillment—having been set free from a futile, worthless way of life, we discover God’s calling and purpose for our lives, and we find ultimate fulfillment and eternal value. We experience the abundant life that Jesus promised. Jn 10:10
When we think about inviting someone to church or sharing the gospel, we should think about what we are inviting them into. It is much more than just forgiveness but a new way of living.
So what does it take for us as a church and as individuals to say yes, Mission is important to us. We see people that are hurting and hopeless and are destined to spend all of eternity separated from their Heavenly Father and we are committed to doing as much as is up to us to change all of that.
Compassion, yes. Understanding, yes. But ultimately we have to make a decision to engage.
Our Will
We have to do something about it.
I do not doubt that if I asked every pastor in Hermiston who follows Jesus if they think sharing the good news of the gospel is important, everyone would say yes, it is important. But if I asked what your strategy is, there are probably few that could answer that question.
Rom 10:14 (NLT)— 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?
There’s a difference between valuing something and putting actions to that value. That is true for most things in our lives. If I say being physically healthy is important, but I don’t exercise or eat smart or do things that aid my physical health, then I don’t truly value my physical health.
Sharing the gospel has to be rooted in compassion and love for a broken and hurting world. But we also have to identify what it will take to engage that compassion and implement it.
As a church, we will continue to look for opportunities to engage our city with the gospel. Ultimately, that means you and I are taking advantage of opportunities to engage the people around us.
That means having conversations with people about spiritual things. I know that is a scary prospect for many of you. What if I say the wrong thing? What if they ask a question I can’t answer? What if they think I’m a weirdo? Sometimes, the easiest thing to do is simply invite them to church.
Inviting someone to church does not guarantee that they will respond to the gospel, but there is a good chance they will have the opportunity. Here are some statistics for you to consider.
- 63% of Americans say a personal invitation from a friend or neighbor would compel them to visit a church
- 8 out of 10 people will say “yes” to a personal invite to church
- 7 out of 10 unchurched people have never been invited
- Only 2% of church members invite an unchurched person to church
What do these statistics tell us? There is an enormous gap between our willingness to invite someone to attend church and the rest of the world’s willingness to invite them.
It’s crazy to think that 70% of unchurched people have never been invited to church. That means, of the people in your life that you know don’t go to church, most of them will never even be invited to attend church.
My guess is, if we aren’t inviting the world to join us on a Sunday morning then we aren’t engaging them in any conversation about spiritual things. We may assume the world doesn’t want anything to do with God, and they never will if we don’t engage them.
“The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.”
—Jesus
New Hope will continue to value Mission. As a church, we will create new opportunities for you to learn how to share your story and how the cross has changed your life. We will continue to work at being a church that you can confidently invite your friends and family to and a place where they will hear the good news.
We can talk all day about purpose statements and values and plans for the future but all of it means nothing if the Holy Spirit is not empowering us and directing us. And we must remember that at the center of all of this is the cross.
There is no Christianity without the cross. If the cross is not central to our religion, then ours is not the religion of Jesus.
—John R.W. Stott
Without the Cross
Identity = Humanism
Community = Socializing
Formation = Legalism
Mission = Good Works
We exist to know God and glorify Him by making disciples of Jesus Christ.
As the leadership of New Hope, that is our commitment to you. That we will do our best, as much as it is up to us, not that we have all the answers, but with the empowering of the Holy Spirit we will help you know God and glorify Him by living the life of a disciple of Jesus.
Chris Hankel 
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