11.2.11 "The Intensity of the Mission"

"The Intensity of the Mission"

Ezekiel 3:16-6:14
Hebrews 4:1-16
Psalm 104:25-35
Proverbs 26:27

Your world is desperate for you to be who God created you to be. My family is desperate for me to be the husband and dad God created me to be. My neighbors are desperate for me to be the light God created me to be. Society is desperate for me to be the salt God created me to be. 

We have a Mission to reach our world for Christ. There is an intensity to this mission.

People don't like to be held responsible for things. When pro athletes get themselves into trouble, many times a comment is made, "Hey, I never asked to be a role model. I'm no role model, I'm just doing my job." Well, it doesn't work that way. We each carry a significant amount of responsibility. As profile and exposure increase, the responsibility increases all the more. 

I was meeting a friend for an early morning meeting at McDonald's. We were sitting in the booth talking, and just over his shoulder, across the room, in my line of sight was a girl in her early 20's who was crying. Her glasses were broken in half, and she was trying to call someone on her cell phone. It looked to me like she had been slapped around. As I was meeting with this friend I was thinking the Lord was telling me to go talk to her. I started to try to figure out if it was "really God, or just me". Have you ever done that? It was one of those, "ok, if she hangs up the phone in the next 5 seconds, i know it's God..." type of things. Of course, all of those things happened but I was still waiting.

I finally went over to her and asked if everything was ok. She said everything was fine, and she had a ride coming. As I was walking away, I thought to myself, "whew. I guess it wasn't a big deal. She didn't need to talk to me." Remember how a second ago I was struggling with knowing whether it was "God or me"? Well, it became very clear that my next thoughts were God and not me. The Lord spoke to my heart, "It wasn't about her needing to talk to you, it was about you hearing my voice and responding to me. Delayed obedience is disobedience." Ouch.

There is an intensity to our Mission. The Lord spelled it out to Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 3:17-21 says, "Son of dust, I have appointed you as a watchman for Israel; whenever I send my people a warning, pass it on to them at once. If you refuse to warn the wicked when I want you to tell them, you are under the penalty of death, therefore repent and save your life - they will die in their sins, but I will punish you. I will demand your blood for theirs. But if you warn them and they keep on sinning, and refuse to repent, they will die in their sins, but you are blameless - you have done all you could. And if a good man becomes bad, and you refuse to warn him of the consequences, and the Lord destroys him, his previous good deeds won't help him - he shall die in his sin. But I will hold you responsible for his death, and punish you. But if you warn him and he repents, he shall live and you have saved your own life too."

It is SO important that we learn to move when God says to move. It is a process. It starts with listening in small things. It becomes a habit of listening to his voice. This is why we're here. This is our purpose.

This is not only in relation to the unbeliever. as it said in verse 20, "if a good man becomes bad..." we need to be watching out for one another. We need to be intense in our discipleship. Too often we see someone making a bad decision, and we kind of shrug our shoulders and walk away "oh well, that's their own problem!" We don't realize that the Lord is directing us to watch out for one another, to warn each other about the dangers around the corner.

We lose the intensity of our mission when we become self centered and caught up in our own problems. We're concerned about our schedule. Our rest. Our time off. Our relationships. We forget that God has placed us where he has us for a VERY specific purpose: To Reach our World for Christ.

Listen today. Then do what God is directing you to do. If no one falls to their knees crying, "I wanna get saved!" don't feel like you failed, because that's not the point. The point is that you do EVERYTHING he commands you to do!


Through the Power of the Spirit,
Live the DREAM!

Pastor Greg Lathe
Dynamic Lifestyle of Worship
Relationships Devoted to Unity
Empowered Through Biblical Training
Active Ministry Involvement
Mission to Reach our World for Christ