Sermon Transcript
Friends, I’m really excited to be coming to you today because many of you are aware that I and a group of other people, really awesome, really gifted people in fact, who just came back from São Paulo, Brazil. From a short-term mission trip just this past weekend, and I’m excited to tell you some of the things that happened. And I’m even more excited that many of those team members in the next couple weeks are going to get to share some of their stories in our worship services. And so we’ll be posting photos and stories and those kinds of things, but I just want to remind you of the kind of work that we were doing there because many of you prayed and many of you contributed something either financially or helped in some other way. We were in São Paulo, Brazil for over a week working with our dear faithful mission partners in São Paulo, Restoration Ministries, and we financially support Restoration Ministries.
They’re doing an incredible work in the favela neighborhoods, and so what our team did is we left and went straight to what is called Camp California. And that is a retreat area outside of the city of São Paulo. And we did a weekend retreat for about 60 to 70, I believe, children of various ages, elementary age and then also some middle schoolers, working also with the staff from Restoration Ministries. And so we had Bible teaching and we had worship and we had arts and crafts and we had games and sports. And the team that came with me just did such a fantastic job.
I couldn’t be prouder, really. I’m so grateful for them. And again, I can’t wait for you to get to hear about what God did at Camp California. But in addition, we— the second aspect of the trip— spent time back in the city of São Paulo doing what are called Agita clubs, A-G-I-T-A, Agita, which are sort of a block party slash mini Vacation Bible School in about an hour, hour and a half setting in the favelas. Of São Paulo where Restoration Ministries has been doing ministry for a long, long time.
And so they have these long-standing relationships and the children would come and again we’d be presenting. Our team would do games and some activities and we’d have a Bible lesson and we would just have a great time with them. Again, totally in partnership with the awesome folks from Restoration Ministries. In addition, we got to do some home visits. And to get into people’s homes and to pray with them and to share the gospel with them and to offer a word of encouragement.
And then we also had a few of the ladies from our team did an amazing job ministering to some of the moms, some of the women who would come with their children to the Ajita clubs. And so some of the ladies from our team did a beautiful job working with them. All in all, it was an amazing time. So if you prayed, if you gave, if you thought about us at all and helped contribute towards this work, I want to say great job. Thank you so much.
It really was an outstanding time. I’m so proud of our team because again, they’re so gifted stepping out in faith, many of them taking time away from work and from their families and regular lives, their vacation time, to be able to go to a place like this. But I’m super grateful as well for Restoration Ministries. These are awesome partners that I hope that you will have a chance to get to know And the next time that we do a trip like this, Lord willing, we’re planning one for next summer, I sure do hope that you’ll be able to join us. But I also want to talk today about not just the São Paulo trip.
I will share some stories today, but I’ve been thinking about a different kind of mission trip, another kind of mission trip that in fact many of you have already signed up for. And you’re like, Steve, I don’t remember signing up for any mission trip. I’m not going on any mission trip. Like, what are you talking about? I must have missed that announcement?
Well, what I’m talking about is the fact that if you were a follower of Jesus, if you’re somebody who has received God’s grace in your life, accepted Jesus as your Savior, the moment that that happens and every morning and every day after that, you and I get to experience a mission trip, quite frankly, every single day. This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus, isn’t it? To live on mission. What is the church? Sure, the church is a building, but more than that, it’s the people of God.
People who seek to, again, follow Jesus out into the world and to carry out God’s mission in the world. So believe it or not, friends, every day, if you’re a follower of Jesus, is a mission trip. And I want us to think about that because that really changes how we approach our work, how we approach our relationships, how we spend time here. Yes, going away to another context, going away to another country or another culture can definitely stretch us, and there’s so many wonderful things that can come out of that. But even if you don’t ever physically go to another place on a short-term mission trip, either alone or with another team, the fact is, again, if you’re a follower of Jesus, you are called to mission just as I’m called to mission And to live not just a missional day and not just to go on a mission trip, but to live missional lives.
Now I want to go back a little bit here into the Gospel of Mark to share some verses with you. Now I know some of you in the last week heard Pastor Dan say we are done in our sermon series in the Gospel of Mark, and he was absolutely right. He was done with the sermon series in the Gospel of Mark that we’ve been going through for several months. Here’s the problem: I’m not done with it. I wanted to share just some verses that Pastor Dan had preached on a couple months ago, and I thought I’d bring them back because of this idea of what it means to live every day as a follower of Jesus on mission, thinking about how to make the most of our opportunities that God puts in front of us, and how do we experience that mission trip every single day.
Look with me if you could, if you have your Bible, at Mark chapter 6, the Gospel of Mark chapter 6. We start in verse 7 where— well, actually in verse 6 and halfway through, we’ll start there in Mark chapter 6. It says, then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. And then here’s verse 7, calling the 12, Jesus’ followers, to him, Jesus began to send them out 2 by 2, and he gave them authority over impure spirits. Verse 8, these were Jesus’ instructions: Take nothing for the journey except a staff— no bread, no bag, no money in your belts.
Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. And whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. Verse 11, and if any place will not welcome you or will not listen to you, Leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them. Verse 12, so they went out, the 12 went out, and they preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons, and they anointed many sick people with oil, and they healed them.
So I believe that this passage is the disciples are sort of going on a short-term mission trip, if you think about it. Jesus is sending them out just as the church a couple weeks ago sent our Brazil team out and we’ve come back and we’re bringing a report. I believe that this passage is calling us to do the same thing that the 12 were called to do and that is to look at each new day as a mission opportunity. To look at every day that God gives us breath as an opportunity to not only follow him but to help fulfill the mission that God has indeed called us to. And so I just want to bring out 4 points from this passage.
Well, I’m not going to share for a long period of time today. I just wanted to briefly touch on 4 aspects of this passage that to me can challenge us and can encourage us to think more missionally than what we might normally do. The first thing is this that we see in verse 7. Is that when Jesus says he sent out his followers to cast out demons and unclean spirits, to heal people and to preach, the point there is that wherever you and I go, if you’re a follower of Jesus, wherever you go, to Brazil or just to work or just down the street, it doesn’t matter. Wherever you go as a follower of Jesus, go in Jesus’ name.
That to me is a call to understand that the phrase therefore Jesus sent, or Jesus sent out the disciples. That phrase there, he sent, is actually one word in the original language of the text there, and it’s a word from which we get our word apostle. Now, in the narrow sense, that word apostle applies to the 12 who witnessed the resurrected Jesus and who were sent out on commission to spread the news to the surrounding area, and then the early church started as a result of the work of these apostles. But in a broader sense, if you’re a follower of Jesus, you are an apostle too. I am an apostle in the sense that an apostle, the way that Jesus describes it here, is just simply one who is sent out on mission, one who is sent out as a representative, one who is sent out as an ambassador on somebody else’s Notice that these guys weren’t going out on their own to do their own work.
They were going out on Jesus’ behalf as an ambassador, as a representative. And in the same way, you and I need to get that into our thinking whenever we wake up today, that we are not our own. If you follow Jesus, you belong to the Lord. I belong to the Lord. And so we need to, everywhere we go, recognize that we are representing Jesus.
We are sent out into the world to be salt and light, and that is such an enormous privilege, but it’s also such an enormous responsibility. And I think about that on our Brazil trip that we took, or really any mission trip that we took. Whenever I take a team somewhere to another culture or a place like that, I represent— I recognize in my mind, and I help the team to remember, that we’re representing Bridges Community Church. That everywhere we go we want to help people to understand that we are affiliated with a wonderful church, and so we are representing you all who are sending us out. But on top of that, we’re also representing the agency or the organization or the missionary or missionaries that is bringing us in.
And so one of the things that we did in Brazil is that our team was given team t-shirts that we would wear all around São Paulo that identified us with the Restoration Ministries team because Restoration Ministries has been in these neighborhoods for a really, really long time and they have a great reputation. And when people see those t-shirts, that helps identify them with trustworthy, godly people who are doing really, really important work. So what a privilege that we are not only representing our team, Bridges Community Church, but we’re also representing Restoration Ministries. And most of all, as followers of Jesus, wherever we go, we are representing Jesus himself. Now again, I think that this is difficult for us to grasp because we have our own concerns here.
And so whenever we wake up, I would imagine you’re like me, and the first thing we think about is not representing Jesus. We think about, what do I have to do today? And how do I get through this day? And how to meet our own wants and needs. Along the way.
But again, I want you to notice in this passage that the work that these men were called to do and the work that you and I are called to do is not to do our own thing, but is to extend the work of Jesus that Jesus has already been doing for a long time. Why? Because we are his representatives. We are his ambassadors, so to speak. And so again, a great responsibility there.
Wherever we go, we want to go in Jesus’ name. Just as Jesus sent them out, so you and I are also sent out. Now, that doesn’t mean that you and I have it all together. Just because you’re a representative or an ambassador for Jesus as a follower of Jesus does not mean that you and I have everything figured out, that we have no issues in our life. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be times that you and I— and I admit to this— that I sometimes will clam up when I have opportunities to share my faith or to encourage somebody, and oftentimes we get timid in those moments.
I know what that’s like. I would imagine many of you do as well. So that doesn’t mean that we don’t have those moments, but what it means is that Jesus still calls us and he sends us out in his authority, in his power, to do the work that he had been doing all along. And what a great joy that is. The second thing I want you to see that is a reminder to you and me to live every day as a mission trip is that we are to trust in God’s provision.
We’re to trust in God’s provision. Verses 8 and 9 says that Jesus charged them to take nothing for their journey except for a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals, not put on 2 tunics. I want you to get the picture here. I want you to imagine. Now, if you had been with our team prior to going to Brazil, you’d be amazed at all the bags that we packed because we took a lot of stuff in addition to our own luggage.
Our own luggage was no issue, but getting through the airport with the 9 or 10 bags, the extra bags that were heavy and full that we were bringing of supplies there, was pretty significant. But I want you to get the picture here that let’s say you’re going away on a mission trip of some kind and you’ve got your suitcase or your bag out there and God says, hey, I just want you to grab one change of clothes and your toothbrush and then let’s go. I think you and I would probably go, what are you talking about here? No, I need to bring all the other things. I think what Jesus is getting at, and he may have had some specific things in mind that he was trying to tell his followers in that immediate context, but the broader principle here is that God wants us to depend upon whatever he will supply to us.
Other things that we bring with us can often weigh us down. They can often be a distraction to us. And so this is sort of a reminder to me and to you that when we live in this world, that God will supply what we need. Even the Gospel of Matthew talks about this where Jesus says that God the Father and the Holy Spirit together with Jesus will, when you are in front of somebody else and have an opportunity to share, they will give you the words that you need to know. So if you need courage, if you need faith, if you need wisdom or God’s peace, whatever it is, for God to give you a word that you can share with somebody else, God will supply what you and I need.
And he wants us to trust him. He wants us to trust him. I think about the team members who came along with me on this trip, how many of them were going on a mission trip for the very, very first time. And so this was a step of faith for them. And I’m so proud of them.
They could have said, nope, I’m not interested. But they heard God’s Spirit speaking to them. They saw the opportunity and they came. And they trusted that God would supply what they needed. Even more amazingly to me, when we are doing some of the home visits that we got to do in São Paulo, it was so remarkable to me because I see often people that I would interact with in their apartment or in their home And they would open up their home.
And it’s easy for us to take for granted the things that we have here, but then you see people who are living with a lot less than what you or I would have, and yet the contentment that many of them have is just astounding. In fact, that’s the word that kept coming into my mind as I would meet with people— how astounding their level of contentment seems to be, gratitude to God. That many of them would give to say, thank you, God, for the things that you would supply. I have everything I need. I don’t always have everything I want, but I have everything that I need.
Wouldn’t that be amazing, friends, if we lived in that same way? To trust God to provide in the moment whatever we need. If we are going out as his representatives, this is going to require some trust. And I think one of the reasons why sometimes we resist going into these sorts of trips or living with a missional mindset is because we don’t want to trust. We’d rather have it all lined out, right?
We want to be able to know where all the things are going to come from and how it’s all going to come together. I want to have a plan. And having a plan is great, but it also is God’s desire to stretch us and to get us out of our comfort zones and to remind us to live not by our own dependence on our own planning, but to live every day dependent upon God. Just as the children of Israel were to live depending on God’s provision of manna in the wilderness, and just as we are taught by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount that we’re not to worry about these external physical things, that God our Father knows what we need. And so I feel like God is reminding me, and he’s probably hopefully reminding you, to trust him, to seek first the kingdom of God, and to trust that he will handle all the other things as we serve him and seek to be obedient.
There’s a third aspect of living missionally and living with a missional mindset and treating every day as a mission trip that I see in this passage. And that is arguably, of the 4, the most important And the reason why we do mission in verse 12 is that we are to repeatedly point people to the gospel. We’re to point people to Jesus. This is the primary activity of what makes a mission trip a mission trip. It’d be easy for some people to go, what are you doing on this trip?
Well, I’m going to go and I’m going to be really, really nice to people and smile a whole lot. Okay, well, being good and being nice to people is important, But as followers of Jesus, we know that there’s something deeper that God wants us to do, and that is to remind others of God’s deep love for them, of their need for a Savior, and of how God has provided that Savior. So as we do these things, we have to recognize that this kind of makes sense that we would carry this message because this was Jesus’ message all along, was it not? It was calling people to repent. Remember what verse 12 says here, they went out and they preached that people should repent.
That’s the whole reason why we at Bridges Community Church seek to do missions is to remember nothing is more important than this. It starts with a reminder that in the very, very beginning God had it in his heart to create a people that he could have relationship with. And it went well until it didn’t, until we as human beings decided to go our own way. And that relationship with God was broken and that covenant relationship with God was irreparably damaged until Jesus came onto the scene to bring about a new covenant, to invite us to be restored into relationship with God. And so through Jesus’ life, through his death on the cross, and through his resurrection, we have hope We have hope for forgiveness from God.
We have hope to be made right with him. We have hope for salvation and for eternal life. We have hope to be adopted into his family and to receive a new identity. That is the gospel message, and nothing is more important than that. We’re not always going to have opportunities to speak as specifically about the gospel.
Sometimes whenever, depending upon what your day looks like, But we’re to look for those opportunities and to trust that God will open up those doors and to be ready when those moments do come. I think about encouraging others with the gospel. Sometimes encouraging people with the gospel involves speaking to people who have not yet received Jesus as Savior. And we certainly encountered our share of folks like that in Brazil. And if you live with a missional mindset each and every day as a follower of Jesus, you’re going to encounter people that that’s the case, and you need to remind them of what matters most.
And yes, be gracious about it, and yes, model it through your life, but we also need to use our words as God opens up those doors and those opportunities to remind people of what matters most, that God wants to spare all people from eternal judgment, that God wants a relationship with people. He wants us to have eternal life. He wants all people to know him, to trust him, to have abundance of life, the fullness of life. And if you’ve tasted that, you know how precious that is. And so God wants us to make that the most important thing that we do here.
Keep pointing people to the gospel as God opens up those doors and those opportunities. Now, sometimes pointing people to the gospel will also involve talking to people who have already trusted Jesus for salvation, but maybe are going through a certain challenge in their life. And we dealt with some of those folks as well. On this particular trip. We would go into homes and oftentimes we were talking to people who had professed faith in Jesus, but they would share about different needs or different prayer needs that they might have.
And so we would often pray for those things. And that too is an opportunity as you encounter people throughout your day, if you are living on mission, to speak the gospel into other people’s lives. Yes, also those who have already received Jesus, because we need the gospel preached to us and taught to us every single day. We need to remember about where our identity comes from. We need to remember about the hope that we have when all seems hopeless.
And so be ready, the scriptures tell us, in season, out of season, be ready to share this message and to teach people to be made right with God, not through their own efforts, Not through religion, not through wishful thinking, but through putting faith and trust in the only place where salvation can come from, and that is in Jesus himself. There’s one other aspect of this story that I’d like to bring out here, and that is number 4 here in verse 13, is that we are to, in addition to doing these other 3 things, we are to care for people in need. We’re to meet practical needs. Verse 13 says, they drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and they healed them. And this verse often stirs up lots of questions because of some of the nature of what it talks about, the work that they were doing.
And so it makes us think, well, do I need to know how to do those things? Here’s the overarching principle in all of this is that Jesus was clearly calling his followers to look for the needs that were in front of them and to help meet them. And I can tell you from experience, having been on a number of short-term mission trips, it is easy, even when you’re in another context, to be so task-focused, especially those of us who are from this area. Many of you, I know, would probably attest to the same thing where it’s easy to make a list and to have the tasks before us of these are the things I need to do here in order to accomplish the goals that I have here for this trip. And so we make this sort of checklist.
But when we’re so focused on the tasks, it is so easy for us, myself included, to miss the needs of people standing right in front of us. And this is a reminder to, in addition to sharing the gospel with people, in addition to trusting God to provide, in addition to going in Jesus’ name, we also need to care for people in need and to be willing to meet practical needs. I’m so grateful that God opened up a couple doors this last week in Brazil for our team to get to experience that kind of thing. I think of one gentleman that we encountered right by the subway there in São Paulo. We, our team, was going to take a trip into downtown São Paulo, and so we were with some of the team from Restoration Ministries, and a gentleman came up and he recognized the group and the t-shirts.
And so one of our groups started talking to this individual and we came to find out this person had some very significant needs and some encouragement. And so this person was referred to Restoration Ministries and how to follow up for more long-term things. But we had a chance there on the subway or just next to the subway to pray for this individual that we’d never met before. And it was a beautiful picture of the body of Christ coming around in that moment to just speak encouragement, and peace and to trust that this person can then follow up with ministry to have other practical needs that he might have met. It was a beautiful thing.
And I don’t know that we’re always alert to those opportunities, but someone on our team was alert to it and directed our attention to it. And I’m so, so grateful for that. We had another experience where I got to meet a woman who was an artist. And apparently a couple years ago, this artist was dealing with a number of issues in her family. Some struggles in her marriage with her husband and some physical needs with her extended family.
And so I was told about this by one of the restoration ministry staff, and I got to meet this woman, and she’s just a remarkable individual. I got to see some of her beautiful artwork, and we had some from our team that bought some of her artwork. But more than that, we got to pray with her and to just listen a little bit to her story and to just bring encouragement. Again, And this is a person that you or I might normally just walk right by, but because somebody else had taken the time to notice, we then got to hear more about this story and to enter into something that God was doing, a really, really amazing thing. And here’s the thing, friends, I think God does this every single day if we would just simply open up our eyes and also ask God to open doors and to lead us to people in need.
And then for us to be willing to help meet those needs. It shouldn’t stop there. We also need to recognize that in addition to deep physical needs, that people in this world also have deep spiritual needs. So we need to be ready to do both. Often one, doing one can open up the door for the other.
But here’s how I would say this, friends. I’ve just been, so I’ve been thinking about this message and I’m gonna be, those of you who are watching this, I’m recording this on Friday before this will be posted. And so many of us will be this coming Sunday at the beach for our beach worship and baptism. I’m looking forward to sharing with them and again in the coming weeks for you to be able to hear some of the stories, the amazing stories, the things that God did. But I just, I’ve been so encouraged and I hope that this is encouraging to you to recognize that God has done more for us and called us to more than simply getting up and then going through the day.
When you placed your trust and faith in Jesus, you signed up, so to speak, and I signed up, so to speak, for a mission that is not our mission, it’s really Jesus’ mission in the world to make people right with him, to lead others to him, again, to serve and to be his hands and his feet everywhere that we go. And as we do that, we’re going to find the joy that comes from joining God where he is working. When we join God where he is working, there is such a sense of satisfaction that nothing else in this world, quite frankly, can offer. What, what could be better than that? Than to live with that kind of a mindset and to say, God, wherever you place me today, whatever the sphere of influence, whoever I come into contact with, Open my eyes, open my ears, help me to listen, help me to obey, and help me to be your representative and your ambassador.
And let’s make every day a mission trip. I’d love to pray for you. Would you bow your head with me? Father, thank you for this word, how it challenges us and encourages us. I know that I am changed as a result of experiencing short-term mission trips in various places around the world throughout my life.
And last week’s trip to Brazil was no different. Thank you, God, for those who went and served. Thank you for the wonderful team from Restoration Ministries there. But Lord, more than that, help us to understand that there are opportunities right in front of us every single day. I pray, Lord, that we would not miss them.
I pray, Lord, that we would not cower. I pray, Lord, that we would trust you in all things. Thank you, God, that we can trust you. To provide. Use us, I pray, for your glory, not for ours, but for your glory.
Glorify your name through your people. In Jesus’ name, amen.
