REVIVE US AGAIN

This will be the last in the series, "Why the Church."

Matthew 10:1-10

Matthew 28:18-20

Every year in early September, our community plays host to a rodeo.  Cowboys are part of American history, culture and lore.  It's important to remember, that along with the cowboys and cattle drives were also traveling preachers like the Methodist circuit riders who traveled from town to town with only what  they could carry in their saddle bags as well as camp meetings and revivals where people invited their neighbors to come and experience God's love and saving grace.  

Hardy pioneers, cowboys and gunslingers may have won the west, but it was those people who understood what it meant to be sent by Christ to share the good news, who possessed the spirit of apostleship, that brought truth and life to men and women.  

How are we, today, called to be apostles?

Times have changed since the circuit riders covered their assigned territories.  Churches saw the minister once every three months or so with lay preachers filling the pulpits in between times.

Things aren't the same as when many of us were growing up.  Remember when you knew all of your neighbors by name?  When everyone went to church?  Or that boom time after World War II in the 1950s when all you had to do to open the doors and people showed up at church?  There was a time when the church was the center of activity and moral standards in a community.  A place where most of the major events in a family's life happened:  baptism, confirmation, weddings and funerals.

Not so much today.  It amazes me that so many people claim to believe in God or are "spiritual" people.  Yet, so few of them have a relationship with a community of faith.  

Or maybe, the community of faith doesn't have a relationship with them?  Funny how we wait here, inside a building, for people to come to us who have never been invited?  Who have never been touched by the love of Christ through the witness of our lives and our actions.  

I don't think this is how it is suppose to be, that Christ intends that we just sit and wait for others to come to us.  Maybe we need to rethink church in terms of what it means to be the body of Christ, to be a "sent" people.  To be apostles.

In Matthew 10:1-2, the twelve disciples go from being those who sat and learned at the feet of Jesus to being apostles, those who were sent.  That's what the word "apostle" means.  One that is an official representative, like an emissary or an ambassador, who has been authorized by someone in power and sent out to accomplish a specific mission.

That's what Jesus did.  He authorized them to go out and, following His example, spread the word that the kingdom of heaven has come near and  cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and cast out demons.

In Matthew 28:18-20,  Jesus did the same thing:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (NSRV)

We call this passage the "Great Commission."  It is what we, as Christians, and as the church have been commissioned by the authority of Christ, to do.  This is our mission.  We are a "sent" people, We are commanded to go into the streets and the marketplaces and our neighborhoods.  We are more than just disciples of Christ, we are apostles.

Jesus told the apostles that there were expected to take some risks.  First, they were not to ask for payment.  What they had freely received, they were to freely share with others.  Secondly, they were to take no money with them.  They were to travel light, without extra clothes or even a walking staff.  They had to rely on God to provide for their needs and to keep them safe.

Risk-taking ministry is sharing Christ's love without expectation of payment or benefit to ourselves.  Rather than always asking how much a ministry will cost us, we ask questions like, "Would Jesus do this?" Or "What would Jesus have us do?"  

Risk-taking ministry means we have to leave our comfort zones to go to where people are instead of expecting them to to us.  It may mean doing new things, like starting a discussion group that addresses current tops from a Christian stand point that meets at the local library or coffee shop; learning to share our faith stories; holding worship services in places other than the church; sponsoring new faith communities; finding ways for people to experience God in ways that are meaningful to them.

Risk, change, doing something new -- these are not necessarily comforting words.  They often frighten us, and we may see only the impossibilities rather than the God-possibilities.  I've been there myself, done that, and somewhere I'm pretty sure I have the t-shirt.  It's a trust issue.  Do  I trust the One who has authorized and called me to a God-sized task.

"But Lord," I argue, "I can't do this.  I don't know how to  I have no idea what to say, and there isn't enough time, money."

And God's answer to all my fears and excuses is something like, "My grace is sufficient."  Jesus reminds me, "I am always with you."  And the Holy Spirit whispers, "I have already prepared the way for you.

The world is a mess, and God is sending us out into the middle of it to take risks and trust that God has the authority to make all things possible.

As Christians in the body of Christ, we are the authorized representatives of Jesus Christ commissioned to share the good news that the kingdom of God is near and share the love of Christ in real and meaningful ways that brings healing and wholeness to broken lives and lost souls.  We are His apostles.

Let us pray for revival -- the revival of the spirit of apostleship that we may be the body of Christ for the world.  Let us pray for a re-kindling of compelling love of God for the least and the lost in our hearts and in the ministry and missions of the church..

And let us pray for boldness and confidence in the authority of the One who sends us and the promise that He is with us, even to the end of the world.

Revive us again, O Lord.