WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO

“MISSION 2013”

SHOES IN THE CHURCH

1. The LOAFERS
(they don’t do much)

2. The SNEAKERS
(they never want to be seen, they want to just slip in and out)

3. The FLIP-FLOPS!
(They are the ones who never know for sure where they stand; what ever sounds good at the moment is what they agree with)

4. You have the Wing Tips
(they give a tip instead of a tithe)

5. The Hush Puppies
(They never witness, never invite anyone to church, never talk about God, always afraid of offending someone or being laughed at.)

6. Sunday Shoe
(Just act like Christ on Sunday)

7. Sandal (Weak)

8. The Clod Hoppers
They hop from church to church)

9. Work Boots
Worker, (shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace, always ready to get in there and help, they are not worried about being praised for their efforts, they just want to work for the Lord)

10. Army Boots
(For those fighting the Lord’s battles, they stand ready, sword in hand, on the front lines, following orders from God, always faithful, ready to fight Satan, never retreat, always advancing, to the very end.)

“WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO!”

Carey 1st Baptist Church was begun on September 24, 1905 by a group of people who wanted to have a Baptist church in Carey Texas, she has seen some lean years and some good years. Last year was the year of greatness and God gave us a great year, this year is the year of prayer and Satan is attacking us in everyway that he can. I want to ask, how many of the prayer groups are still meeting to pray? Satan is doing everything that he can to disrupt and destroy the unity that this church has had for so many years, and he is using people to do it, he doesn’t just show up and say, “Here I am, look out,” no he uses people. Sometimes we end up doing his job and we don’t even realize it. We must have unity in our body of believers. We must have love.

Proverbs 10:12
“Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs.” (NIV)

We must have, show and use the fruits of the Spirit, did you know that the gifts of the Spirit can be often time imitated by Satan, they may be in a perverted manner, but often times it fools believers, but the fruits of the Spirit can never be duplicated or imitated by Satan. What are the fruits of the Spirit? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Do you have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?

As I said, Satan is doing everything that he can to disrupt and destroy the unity that this church has had for so many years, this church has always worked together to advance the Kingdom of God.

Proverbs 29:22
“Angry people stir up a lot of discord; the intemperate stir up trouble.” (MSG)

In Thom Rainer’s book, “I Am A Church Member,” he writes, “God desires for Christians to get along. In fact He is emphatic about it. Jesus is clear when He said, ‘By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.’ (John 13:35) Did you get that? The world will know if we are Christians or not by the way we who are believers act toward one another.”

We must be showing and using the fruits of the Spirit. When we do we are willing to take ownership of this church and the responsibilities that go along with it.

But I will tell you up front that I am very concerned because it seems to me that we have way too may people who are willing to be spectators.

Spectators just watch what’s going on, they don’t get involved to help, they just watch. If Satan can convince us that someone else will do it and we don’t need to then he has won.

Have you ever heard of the 80/20 rule? The 80/20 rule is, 80% of the work in the church is being done by 20% of the members. This is a terrible rule to have in a church and it only exists because of the spectators.

But let me ask you, why do 20% of the people do 80% of the work? Because 80% are not willing to do what they have been called to do, and 20% know the joy of working for The Lord and are willing to do it. If we all did what we are supposed to be doing the 80/20 rule would just be a myth here at Carey FBC.

Several years before I came to Carey, there was a time when some of the members of this church began to leave and go to churches in town because they wanted their kids to be involved in activities that Carey didn’t have. Instead of helping, and getting those very things going in the church that they wanted and therefore helping the church to grow, they just left, they became part of the problem and not part of the solution.

Fast-forward to 2013, we have a great children’s ministry on Sunday morning and Wednesday nights, but now it seems that we don’t have people to teach on Wednesday nights. Some of our Sunday morning teachers have been also teaching on Wednesday nights and they are tired. We have people who teach on Wednesday and have been doing a great job, some of these are needing a break and we have places empty, places that must be filled or we will not have Kidzone this year.

One of the things that I have strived to do is have the very best ministries we can have here at Carey, but I can’t do it alone, I need help, lots of it. If we have to drop Kidzone because of a lack of help, that would be tragic. It would be a disservice to our kids, they would not be taught the truths about God’s word that they have been taught in the past. Do you realize how many children have been saved because of what they have learned in Kidzone and Sunday School, since 2009 I count 18, is it important? 18 souls saved from Hell, that is important! Now I know that not everyone is geared to teach kids, but I also know that there are some who could but don’t and have never tried.

Thom Rainer also says in his book, “I Am A Church Member,” he says that “all too often too many of our church members in the US have an unbiblical view of church membership. Their view is more aligned with the country club membership. For them membership is about receiving instead of giving, being served instead of serving, rights instead of responsibilities, entitlements instead of sacrifices. This wrongful view of membership sees the tithes and offerings as membership dues that entitle members to a never-ending list of privileges and expectations, instead of an unconditional cheerful gift to God.”

Every member is a necessary part of this church, we must all work together to make this work.

It is our job to teach, and minister, and worship, and pray, and spread the Gospel around the world. Did you know that we have a Mission Statement? How many of you have seen it? I think that its good to be reminded of our mission statement, to see it and know it.

We wrote our mission statement right after I came out here. You may ask, “What is a mission statement, and why have one?” Simply put, a mission statement tells people what we are about. Just so you know some of the history of this mission statement, in 2000, we began looking at doing a mission statement. We talked about what it should say about our church, so we wrote it and rewrote it and this is the final product that we came up with.

Let’s all read the mission statement together;

MISSION STATEMENT

Our Mission is to reach out to those around us, to help needy people, to encourage, love, and care for those in our church and community. To provide a comfortable atmosphere for worship and fellowship. To be a dependable and praying church, and to be an evangelistic training ground for those who serve Christ. To support ministry and mission efforts and to help spread the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world.

This is the statement that we decided would tell the world what we are about. Why are we looking at this today? Because we need to remember what God has called us for. Let’s look at our text.

Ephesians 4:10-16
“He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (ESV)

We should all be working together to help the body grow, when we stop working together we become like a motor that the timing chain is of a couple of notches, you might get it to start but it’s not going to do any good, its going to spit and sputter and knock and die and then try to run on after it dies. We, as a church need to be a finely tuned engine that’s purring like a kitten and ready to work.

Today we are going to begin looking at our mission statement.

“Our Mission”

This starts off with the word “our”, not my, not your, but our, which means that it involves all of us, everyone who is a member of this church, of this body of believers. Our Mission, it is about to state what we believe, what we are about as a church.

“Our Mission is to reach out to those around us,”

To “reach out” means that we go to them, we don’t wait, we seek out those around us.

We have an Outreach team called Connect that does this very thing in different ways, but this should never be the only way that we reach out, we should all be doing this as individuals. We have some people in our church who reach out in various ways and you would never know who they are unless they have reached out to help or to bless you because they don’t go around tooting their own horn. Some of these people have blessed my wife and I with food and with other things, one time when I couldn’t mow my own yard one of them came over and mowed my yard for me. But they don’t just reach out to those in our church, they reach out to others as well. We need to all be like this, reaching out to others.

“To help needy people,”

Acts 10:4
“Cornelius stared at him in fear."What is it, Lord?" he asked.
The angel answered, "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God.” (NIV)

Who are the needy people? What does it take to qualify as needy? You say, “Well those in need.” In need of what? Clothes? Food? Shelter? Jesus?

I have met and I continue to meet all kinds of people in need. To those in need of a place to sleep, we put them up for the night, to those in need of food we feed them, to those in need of clothes, we step up. We have a Benevolence Committee and a Blessings Committee to help meet these needs.

But I find more people in need of Jesus, or in need of someone to talk to, or in need of someone who cares about them or loves them. There are many kinds of needs. Sometimes people just need to be treated different by us than they are by everyone else. We are to reach out to those in need. But Jesus gave us a warning about giving to the needy;

Matthew 6:1-4
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 2 "Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (ESV)

“to encourage, love, and care for those in our church and community.”

(to encourage)

1 Thessalonians 5:11
“Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” (ESV)

1 Thessalonians 5:14
“And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” (ESV)

(to love)

1 John 4:7-8
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (ESV)

(to care for those in our church and community)

1 John 4:16
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (ESV)

Closing

John 3:16-21
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God.” (ESV)

We have talked a lot about service and working for the Lord this morning, but these verses point out the fact that without Jesus it just doesn’t make any sense. When you see these verses do you see yourself in the light or the darkness?

1 John 1:5-9
“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (ESV)
The only way that we can get to the light and to God is through Jesus. Have you accepted Him