A Community Sent on Mission
Three Key Takeaways
Every Christian is called to be a fisher of men. When Jesus called the first disciples, He said, "Follow me, and I will make you into fishers of men." That same invitation extends to us. Jesus wants to transform everyone who follows Him into someone who brings the message of God's love to people around them.
Mission flows from compassion, not obligation. Jesus sent out His disciples because He saw the crowds and had compassion—they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. When we grasp the remarkable love of Christ for us, it compels us outward to love others.
The church is like the beating heart of Jesus in the city. We gather on Sundays to breathe out the toxic stuff we've picked up during the week and breathe in the life of God. Then Jesus sends us back out into finance, the NHS, schools, universities, communities—touching all the major veins of the city.
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A Community Sent on Mission
Last week we looked at what it means to be disciples and how God makes us into disciples. There's this ongoing process of Him reshaping our hearts and lives to make us look more like Jesus. We talked about how sometimes we might protest and feel like, "Lord, can't you just leave me as I am? I'm okay with how I am."
But actually, God's got a vision for your life that's bigger than the one you probably have yourself. He's more intent on changing you, not because He's angry or annoyed all the time at what you're doing, but because He's got a passion for you to become more like Christ Himself.
Maybe one of the key ways in which that is true is in the area of becoming like Jesus in the way that He went on mission, out towards others to serve them.
Fishers of Men
When Jesus first called some of the disciples to follow Him, they were fishermen, quite a few of them. Matthew 4 describes how He went up to them and said, "Follow me, and I will make you into fishers of men."
They were getting on with their life. Fishing is all they'd ever known. Probably their dads were fishermen, probably their dads' dads were fishermen. Their kids were probably going to be fishermen as well. That's the life they knew.
Then Jesus turns up and says, "If you follow me, I'm going to reshape you. I'm going to change your life into something way bigger than you can possibly imagine. I'm going to make you into fishers of men."
These disciples got transformed into people who spent three years walking around with Jesus, learning from Him, watching Him. Then they spent the next ten, twenty, thirty years of their lives basically preaching the message of Jesus, going to the different nations of the world.
In fact, we name our kids after them 2,000 years later. Thomas and Matthew and Peter—these names have made their way into cultures around the world because Jesus said to them, "If you follow me, I'll make you into a fisher of men." And they obeyed. And they responded.
We all get the same invitation. If you sign up to follow Jesus, part of the implication is He's going to make you into a fisher of men, into someone who doesn't just do your job and get on with your life and die, but someone who, like Him, is basically used by God to bring the message of life, the message of the forgiveness of God, the message of the love of God to people around you and potentially all around the world.
Every Christian Is a Missionary
There's a guy called Spurgeon, an old preacher who used to preach not far from here. He used to say, "Every Christian is a missionary or an imposter." Quite strong words. Because every Christian is designed to become more like Jesus, and He's the ultimate missionary.
He left heaven to come to earth to make God known. When someone leaves England to go somewhere new, there's something in you that has to die to your own culture because God's sending you somewhere new. Jesus had to leave the glories of heaven in order to come to the earth. And there's something in us that gets invited to go on that same journey.
The Pattern in Jesus's MinistrY
You see this pattern in Jesus with His disciples. In Matthew 9, Jesus has got these twelve disciples who He's called to come and be with Him and walk around with Him. He sends them out and says, "Go and pray for sick people and they'll be healed, and go and preach the gospel and go and cast out demons. Just go and do all the things that I've been doing."
They go off, and then they come back and tell Him all about it.
Then a chapter later, a little bit later in time, Jesus does the same thing again. But this time He gathers 72 people who are His followers and sends them out. He says similar things to them: "Go and pray for the sick and go and cast out demons and go and preach the gospel. Don't take anything with you because God's going to provide." It's a complete faith adventure.
By the time you get to the end of Matthew's Gospel, Matthew 28, Jesus is there with a crowd of His followers, and He's saying, "Now I want you to go and make disciples of all the nations of the world."
Even in Matthew's Gospel, which is one person retelling the story of Jesus, there are three times that Jesus sends people out. He sends out the twelve, and then they come back. Then He sends out the 72, and then they come back. Then He sends out everyone effectively on what we call the Great Commission, to go to the nations of the world.
You see this pattern that Jesus keeps sending people out.
The Key: Compassion
The clue to the whole thing is in Matthew 9:35-37. Just before Jesus sends out the 72, it says:
"Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. And when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest, that he will send out workers into the harvest.'"
Jesus has already sent out the twelve, and they've come back. Then what happens is Jesus sees the crowds and it moves His heart. He's full of compassion for people. You can see they're harassed and helpless. They're like sheep without a shepherd.
His next move is, "Right, now I'm going to send out six times as many people. We're going to factor this up. We're going to send out more people because there's more crowds out there that don't know that there's a father in heaven, that there's a shepherd who wants to look after them. They're harassed and they're helpless and they need God, but they don't know He's there for them."
So Jesus's missional heart—His heart to keep sending people out—is driven by His compassion for a world that is lost and harassed and helpless without God.
The Beating Heart of Jesus
I was thinking about how your heart is the beating heart of your body, and your body breathes in oxygen and breathes out carbon dioxide. That process is going on all the time in your body. You're dropping off the carbon dioxide, getting rid of stuff you don't need, getting in the oxygen, and then delivering it to the body.
It made me think about how the church is designed to be a bit like that for the city.
When we come together, part of what we do when we come on a Sunday is we get rid of some of the toxic stuff we've picked up during the week—unbelief, sin that's in our hearts, shame, areas where our minds have come away from the truth of the gospel and we're not quite thinking straight.
We get to come and we get drawn near to Jesus, and He helps us. He takes the toxic stuff away, and He breathes life into our hearts again. He reminds us, "This is the gospel. The God of heaven loves you." Oh yeah, I remember again. "The God of heaven is with you so that you can go and have an impact." Oh yeah, I remember. I've got some faith again, because I'd forgotten all that stuff we talked about last week.
Then the beating heart of Jesus sends us out into the city again for six days until we need to be called back together again to get rid of this stuff we don't need again, and to breathe in again the life of God so that we can go again.
Small Church, Big Impact
We're quite a new church. We're quite a small church. So it can sometimes feel like small church, big city. But I was thinking about our small church and remembering that we've got people here that are in finance, people that work for the NHS, people that work for the civil service, people that go to university, people that go to schools, people that work in the charity sector, as well as people that live in different local communities, go to different sports clubs, and have family and friends all over the city.
In one sense, there's not that many of us. But actually, as the beating heart of Jesus sends us out, we are touching into all the major veins of the city. How many hundreds of thousands of people work in finance, work in the NHS, work in the third sector? All these different areas or the different parts of London that we go back to.
Jesus sends us out because He's got a passion and a vision and a compassion for the people of the city. He fills us up and He sends us out again. That's part of God's purpose and His plan for us.
The Love of Christ Compels Us
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:
"For the love of Christ controls us"—another version says it compels us. It compels us out. When we know the love of Christ, we feel compelled to do something—"because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died, and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised."
His point is, it's the love of Christ. Because we've realised that Jesus died for everyone so that people shouldn't live for themselves anymore, but live for God. Because we've realised that, we're compelled to keep speaking, to keep loving, to keep praying, to keep going.
Paul continues: "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."
God wants to speak to a world that is harassed and helpless, and He wants to say, "Come back home." But instead of speaking directly, He speaks through us as His ambassadors. We say to people, "Be reconciled to God."
Then he concludes with this: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
That's part of his message of reconciliation—that because God so loved us, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin. Jesus, who knew no sin, became a sin offering on the cross so that through Jesus we might be made righteous. We might become the righteousness of God.
This is his message of reconciliation—that Jesus stepped into our place on the cross so that we could take all of His righteousness and we could be reconciled to God. That's the message that he's understood, he thinks is so amazing. The love of Christ is so remarkable that it compels him to keep going from city to city, preaching the gospel and planting new churches.
Sent Out Together
At Redemption Church, we're a small community with a big vision. We gather each week not just to meet together, but to be filled up and sent out. As Jesus sends us into finance, healthcare, education, local communities, and neighbourhoods across London, we carry His message of reconciliation to a city that's harassed and helpless without knowing there's a Shepherd who cares for them. We're a community on mission, compelled by the remarkable love of Christ.
