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Adam McLane — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 19:44:38 +0000

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What is Real Simple Syndiation? (RSS)

Adam McLane — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:02:25 +0000

On all our sites, you'll see this icon. It is the official icon for real simple syndication or RSS.

What is RSS?

Basically, RSS is a way to deliver web content to you instead of you going to it.

RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a "feed," "web feed," or "channel," contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that's easier than checking them manually.

RSS content can be read using software called a "feed reader" or an "aggregator." The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.

Why should I subscribe to content from RomeoChurch.com?

For one thing, it's really cool to have web content delivered to you instead of you having to remember to look for it. Secondly, we want to help you get connected to what we're doing at the church and we are increasingly communicating to one another using digital content.

How do I get it on my computer?

When you see the RSS icon on one of our sites, simply click it to have the content added to your aggregator or feed reader. (This applies to all sorts of websites, not just church content. News, blogs, etc) When you click on the icon it will ask you where you want it added to. Simply chose your feed reader and you are all set.

Can you recommend a feed reader or aggregator?

Absolutely! We'll recommend 3 and they are each 100% free.

iGoogle and/or Google Reader: It's as simple as creating an account and logging in. When you find a site you'd like to subscribe to simple click on the feed icon and chose iGoogle or Google reader. In addition to site feeds your homepage is 100% customizeable with lots of different options simply by clicking the "add stuff" button.
myYahoo: Not a fan of Google? No problem Yahoo! offers an excellent feed reader with loads of add-ons. All 100% free.
Newsgator: If you would like a web-based feed aggregator that is not tied into an outside company, Newsgator is the best way to go. Loads of features and 100% AJAX based it has a very slick interface.

Podcast- An Acceptable Sacrifice: Stand Out Part V

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 19:07:44 +0000

Pastor Bob continues his series on holiness by challenging us to be a living sacrifice, as Christ was for us.

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Podcast- Stand Out: Leviticus 25

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:07:44 +0000

Pastor Bob Concludes his series on holiness.

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Stand Out

Adam McLane — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 05:00:00 +0000

What would it take to make your life a lot better? Right now there are some things in your life that are causing you great stress, anxiety, unhappiness and frustration. If you could just get a hold of that 1 thing, then your life would be a lot better. In the book of Isaiah, chapter 61 God talked about people being poor – maybe your financial situation is stretched beyond comfort; God talked about people being brokenhearted – maybe your mind and soul ache; have you ever experienced those times when there are no words just emptiness, or tears; and God talked about people feeling imprisoned – maybe you feel that your marriage is a prison and you are caught and it feels continually like darkness without hope. What would it take to make your life better? Do you got it? Is it something to do with a job, your marriage, your children, your health, your education, your ministry? What we are saying is that our life and our happiness is limited right now because of this thing and our happiness would be greater IF something changed.

Did you know that a man named Jesus who lived over 2,000 years ago who claimed to be the Son of God attended church one morning walked up in front of everyone and had the audacity to say, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21) This man Jesus claimed not that he would make that change you asked for with your finances, and not that he would immediately remove the brokenheart you have, but Jesus claimed that HE was YOUR change. While that change you desire would be nice, it is not the root cause of your unhappiness. The root cause of why our life is not better is our failure to see Jesus as the source of all blessing. We think our life is not better and we are not happier because of that one or many things, but Jesus said that your life feels like a wreck and you feel hollow and you experience heart ache because you look for your specified blessings but you miss the source of blessing. Some of you are saying – no, no, no, I am not missing the source for I believe in Jesus but I need him to give us more money to eliminate that financial crisis, or I am looking to Jesus to end the cause of my heart ache or make my marriage great. Jesus says to you today, you are not getting it; there is something you don’t understand about me, something that will free you from that bondage of your one thing that needs to change.

Today, we come to our final sermon in our study of Leviticus and learning how an unholy people approach a holy God. Something is happening among our people, for I have never received so many reports of people receiving such challenging messages for a life of holiness with such great resolve to draw closer to God. In my opinion, these past 5 weeks have been our greatest time in the presence of God. You can listen to all of the sermons on line by going to the website and listening or downloading them on your iPod. Bringing it home today with one last sermon on the great book of Leviticus, we find the greatest antitype. An antitype is where something was foreshadowed by something earlier. For example, something from the NT is the antitype of something from the OT. Today, we will see the greatest antitype of the entire Bible – Jesus is the antitype of the Jubilee Year. The Jubilee Year is the thing in the OT that foreshadowed Jesus, and Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jubilee. Colossians 2:16-17 “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.” Jesus is the ultimate antitype, the ultimate fulfillment of what? Today, we will see that Jesus is my Jubilee.

Don’t let anyone judge you when it comes to your Sabbath day, because the Sabbath is only a shadow of something that was to come; it is important but it pointed to someone more important. The Sabbath was the shadow, but the reality is found in Christ. If we can figure out the shadow, then we will more fully appreciate the reality.

As you might recall, God gave Moses the 10 commandments for the people. The 4th commandment was for everyone to take a Sabbath day; that is, 1 out of 7 days is to be a day of God-centered rest. Stop working and practice being in the presence of God in order to give him thanks for all he has provided. As we come to Leviticus 25, we find God ratcheting up his Sabbath by commanding the people to grant a Sabbath year of rest not only to them but also to the land. Leviticus 25:1-5 “The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai, Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the LORD. For six years sow your fields…But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the LORD. Do not sow your fields…Do not reap what grows…The land is to have a year of rest.” Israelites were to work the land for six years, then the law called for a Sabbath year of rest for the land and the worker. Do you notice how God personifies the Land; it says, “the land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord.”

The Sabbath year was 1 in 7 years, but after 7 cycles or 49 years there came a special or super Sabbath year called Jubilee. Leviticus 25:8-10 “Count off seven sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years…Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you…”The Sabbath year was 1 year in every 7 year cycle. The Jubilee Year or the Super Sabbath was 1 year in every 50 years. Jubilee provided an overhaul of economic and social life to restore people and properties. All debts were cancelled. Any Israelite who had sold himself to another was released and the land which had been leased to another was to be restored to its original owner. Jubilee was meant to be a new beginning, a time when all who had failed to maintain their place in society were given a chance to start over. Jesus read Isaiah 61 to the synagogue, church attendees saying that the Father had sent the Son to tell those in financial crisis there is good news, to those who are brokenhearted there is hope and to those who feel like prisoners you will be released. This is Jubilee freedom; this is a Jubilee overhaul to our lives and social order. But, Jesus ended with one more verse that is most important, he said that he had come “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…” (v.2a) I propose to you today, that this year of God’s favor is the Jubilee Year.

Here is the interesting thing - despite God’s commands and all God’s reasons for the Sabbath year and Jubilee year, it appears that the Israelites failed to obey the Sabbath and Super Sabbath Year; in fact, they never throughout all history had a Jubilee year
There is little evidence that the Sabbath Year was observed. 2 Chron. 36:21 says that the people were taken captive by foreigners and exiled to Babylon so that the land could enjoy its Sabbaths, seventy years of rest. “The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed...” This suggests that the people had not been keeping the Sabbath Year, at least not often enough, and so God was exacting them. Further, there is no evidence that Jubilee was ever applied. This Super Sabbath appears to set out an ideal of freedom and delivery to the financially disadvantaged, the brokenhearted and the captives which was never realized.
Why would God command the Jubilee Year knowing that the people would never obey Him and practice that 1 in 50 years of exceptional freedom and delivery to the poor, brokenhearted and captive?

LIFE PRINCIPLE: Jesus is my Jubilee. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jubilee Year. The Jubilee year was the shadow and Jesus is the reality. The people of the OT just like you had financial problems, and they looked to the hope of Jubilee as their answer to be financially restored. You look to changing that one thing to make your finances better. The people of the OT just like you were brokenhearted, and they looked to the hope of Jubilee as their answer for freedom and delivery. You look to changing that one thing to make your life better. Here is what God is teaching in commanding the shadow of Jubilee but never seeing his people obey it; here is what God is teaching when he brings his Son, Jesus, to the synagogue to read Isaiah 61 and saying that today it is fulfilled. It is not the change you want, and it was not the Jubilee year they wanted that matters, instead the only thing that matters is Jesus is my Jubilee. The poor, brokenhearted and captive receive their freedom and delivery in Jesus Christ not in changing the 1 thing. When Jesus is your Jubilee, you let go of requiring the changes you think are needed to make your life better and happier. And, your eyes are opened to see Jesus is not just the source of blessings but Jesus is the blessing. Here is how I see it relevant to our lives - You have a desire for something/anything - a happy marriage, better financial position, better job, better car and home – when the desire hits it comes with an specific hope and request for a change and blessing. All of the sudden our lives will only become better and happiness will only be restored when and if that specific blessing is met. Jesus squares off against this temptation and says you are wrong – your happiness is not dependent on that change, it is not conditional upon that specific blessing you call for. Instead, Jesus says that He is your blessing; Jesus is your Jubilee – your freedom and delivery.

Here is where my excitement in studying this passage spiked. God intervened in my life this past week to cause me to see things in the Bible that harmonize the OT and NT in a way I’d never seen. And, when I see Jesus as my Jubilee, I read the NT differently, almost with a new pair of eyes. Let’s see if God will do this for you too.

The OT believers looked to the land as the intermediary between them and God. A large part of God’s blessings consisted of the rain and the crops which God gave his people. To be a recipient of God’s blessing, you need to have your own land to receive God’s blessings. The land was everything to the OT believers, so blessings of rain, water, great harvests were evidence of God’s grace. In the Old Testament, God promised water for the land of promise:

The afflicted and needy are seeking water, but there is none, And their tongue is parched with thirst; I, the LORD, will answer them Myself, As the God of Israel I will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the bare heights, And springs in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, And the dry land fountains of water Isa. 41:17-18.

Later on, God Himself was spoken of in terms of water:
As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for Thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God? Ps. 42:1-2

When God speaks in the OT in terms of water, I believe that He is referring to Himself in terms of those blessings (in the land) with which the godly Israelite was most familiar. And, in the NT, it is striking to observe that Jesus used much of the symbolism and terminology relating to the land to refer to himself and to the blessings he had come to bring. Jesus is saying that while the land of Israel was once the special place of god’s presence, and the mediating point between heaven and earth, then Jesus has now assumed this role. He is the place where God abides in a special way. Jesus replaces the land as the intermediary between people and God. So, you will see that many passages in the NT speaking of Jesus have land, farm, water blessings, harvests illusions.

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (John 4:10).

Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37-38).

Jesus replaces the land as the intermediary between people and God. But, how does Jesus not only being the source of all blessing but that Jesus is the ultimate blessing help us to see our lives can be better and happier even without that 1 change; even without that financial crisis being removed or the aching heart fixed or continually feeling like a prisoner in a bad marriage?

Since the OT intermediary was the farmland and God blessed people through the land, consider how shocking it must have been to an Israelite, one who would scarcely consider giving up his farm, to hear these words of Jesus, which pronounce a blessing on those who give up farms: “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, shall receive many times as much, and shall inherit eternal life” (Matt. 19:29).

Farms were the means by which God’s blessing was poured out on His people in the Old Testament. Farms were not to be given up, but were to be kept as in inheritance. Jesus pronounces a blessing on those who do give up farms, and speaks of one’s inheritance as “eternal life.” What has changed here? Why has the Old Testament emphasis on the land been so radically reversed? The reason is that the Lord Jesus Christ has come, and Jesus is my Jubilee. The special place of God’s dwelling is now Christ Himself, not a land.

It is therefore not the place—the land of Israel—which is so important in the New Testament, but the person of Christ. God dwells in Him, and it is in Him that we are saved, secure, and blessed. Thus, men can forsake their farms and follow Him without losing God’s blessing. In fact, not to follow Christ is to lose one’s blessing. If you are a child of our heavenly father, then you may and must say Jesus is my Jubilee. This means that your happiness and a better life are not dependent on changing those things in your life that frustrate you and depress you. Instead your freedom and deliverance already exist and are available in Jesus. The key to happiness and satisfaction is centering your life on Christ rather than all the things that must change.

Destinations

Adam McLane — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:48:12 +0000

The Path Principle
Proverbs 27:12

Jesus said that he came to help anyone who knows they don’t have it all together, anyone who knows they need help. He did not come for those who think they got this life all figured out; those who don’t need anyone’s help. One of the most commonly memorized scriptures is Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Are your paths straight? That is, are you heading where God wants to take you? Or, is your life on paths that clearly are not where God wants you to be? Decisions you made years ago have taken you to destinations that you wish you were not visiting.

Throughout the Bible, God teaches a key principle that we call the path principle. Direction not intention determines your destination. Whatever road you are on leads you to its destination. The path determines your destination. Your direction determines your destination. If you head north on I-75, you will never reach Florida no matter your intention. Even if you get in the car and pray to God for traveling mercies, going north will not take you to your desired destination. This principle applies to your marriage path, dating path, the financial path, professional path, and your health path. There is a big disconnect between where people want/intend to go and where they end up. My hopes and dreams were here, but this is where I ended up. We get angry with God because we did not end up where we wanted. Every path has a destination, but not every direction leads to our desired destination. We think intention/hopes/dreams trump the direction to determine our destination. Is the path you are on going to take you to the ultimate destination you want? We focus on the immediate, the here and now, the event; but God is focused on the path taking you to a destination. Whatever direction you go in will determine your destination. Somehow we think if we just intend to get somewhere, then we will. Direction determines destination; not intention. Interestingly, there is another element to the path principle, and that is what influences the direction we choose. Whatever has our attention determines our direction; and whatever direction our path is on there is a pre-determined destination awaiting us. The path principle is this: attention leads to direction which determines our destination. Attention…direction…destination.

The path principle is taught throughout the Bible. Let’s take a look at a few verses to demonstrate the principle.

In Deuteronomy, God gave the Israelites the law and promised to bless them if they obeyed. As the people were entering Canaan, God told them that they would have a difficult time obeying the law because they would be distracted by the people in Canaan. As they watched the Canaanites, they would be tempted to veer off God’s course. So, God said to them to pay attention, fix your eyes on God and the Law. Deuteronomy 7:12 “If you pay attention (or fix your eyes) to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you…” If you pay attention to these laws – stay on the path of obeying the law – then God will keep his promises. But, if you decided to change your direction and follow the Canaanites’ ways, then God will remove you from the land. God removed them for 70 years because they allowed Canaanites to grab their attention.
Later, David wrote pleading with God to direct his paths by helping him fix his eyes on the godly and away from the ungodly. Psalm 119:35-37 “Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight. Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.” Whatever grabs our attention influences our direction – it sets us on a certain course – and every direction has a destination. If we set our eyes and attention on worthless things, then our destination will reflect worthlessness and wasted time and probably suffering.

Proverbs 4:25 “Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.” No matter where we are the worthless inappropriate stuff is on both sides of us. This is a great verse to not let your head be turned and look at things we should not look at. This is intentionality, so don’t let things grab your attention. You choose what you give attention to.

We must choose to give our attention to the right things. Hebrews 2:1 “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” If you don’t intend to pay attention to the important things, then you will drift away from what is true and right. You must choose to pay attention to the right things. Whatever you get fixed on, then you will head that direction.

The final verse is a great verse to sum up everything; it is actually written in two different places in Proverbs. Proverbs 27:12 “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.” The godly, wise and prudent person who is already on a path, direction when they see danger they seek God and take refuge; but, the simple, ungodly and naïve just keep going on the path of worthlessness and they most certainly will suffer for it.

The Promise: If you will choose to focus your attention on God, then you will be on a direction that will lead you to God’s destination. God offers to direct your paths to the destinations of His choice. If you will choose to give your attention to Him, then He will help you avoid many of the destinations you would have arrived at which involve much suffering.

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” The promise is that God will make your paths straight; that is, God would direct your paths to His destination. God offers to take you on a journey, and he promises to lead you to the best destinations. But, when we lean on our own understanding then we wander in the wilderness for 40 years, even though it is only an 11 day journey. God offers to get you where he wants to take you, assuming you trust God enough to lead the way and choose the destinations. God promises to make it known to you which path to take, he will reveal himself and his destinations to you so you don’t have to guess. In every arena of life trust and learn hard onto God. My tendency is to lean on my experience, my worldview, my knowledge for my own understanding. The promise always begins with leaning or submission, we must trust God and not ourselves for direction. In ALL your ways – marriage, singleness, business, homelife, education, parenting, friendship, dating and not just Sunday ways – in all your ways acknowledge him. We are to acknowledge God in every aspect of our life. Submission precedes direction. Before we do the research, before we consider our options, we choose to submit to God.

The Problem: If you don’t purposefully and intentionally choose to focus on God’s destinations, then you will allow your attention to be captured by other things and people who will direct your paths to a different destination.

There are things that we pay or give attention to. This is a decision of intentionality; in fact, there are things that you wish you had given more attention to. For example, you wish you had given more attention to your marriage, your education, your children, maybe even your spiritual growth. So, what happened? You had good intentions – you intended to go down a certain path to arrive at a certain destination, but something grabbed your attention and re-directed their path. When something or someone grabs your attention, this will turn your direction.

Proverbs 4:25 “Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.” Why does Solomon plead with God to help fix his gaze directly ahead not allowing him to look to the left or the right? Because he knew that when you get comfortable, when you get lazy, you begin looking all around and you will find trouble. This trouble grabs your attention. And, when it has your attention, your path will re-direct toward the trouble leading to you a destination of suffering. The author of Hebrews likewise calls for intentionality of direction. Hebrews 2:1 “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.”

Right now, you have chosen some things to give your attention to; and right now there are things that have grabbed your attention. Generally, the things that grab our attention are dangerous. If we don’t wake up and seek refuge in God; if we don’t stop looking to our own wisdom and other people’s wisdom rather than looking to God, then we will drift away from God, and we will suffer for it.

The Choice: Will you choose to give your attention to God? Will you choose to trust his destinations more than you trust yourself?

There are two options (1) lean on your own understanding and follow the path you think would be best; or (2) lean on God for understanding and follow the path you believe God desires most for you. Proverbs 27:12 “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.” What will you choose? The bible is clear – anytime you lean on your own understanding rather than God’s, then you are in danger and unnecessary suffering is inevitable. The best case scenario is that you will realize this down the road and see that you have wasted a portion of your life. The worst case scenario is that you will make decisions in your younger days that you will have to live with the rest of your life.

The prudent person asks In light of my past experience what should I do because life is connected. The simple or naïve person doesn’t think life is connected, so it doesn’t matter what happened in the past. Even though that path led to trouble in the past does not mean it will again. The prudent take action, but the simple keep going even though there’s problem. They hear other people warning, but don’t do anything. I’m going to keep going, and I think it will all work out. If you see a problem in the future but you choose not to adjust, the bible says that you are simple and naïve. You think that you can be on a path you don’t think you will reach its destination. A Christian confuses feelings with conviction – I ought to end that relationship, I ought to end this – this conviction makes you feel close to God but you go out of here and do nothing about that conviction. Doing nothing about conviction – you hurt yourself.

Simple suffer for it – we get mad at God. How could God allow that to happen to me? God warns us about many of these paths and their related destinations. But, we ignore God or we are naïve enough to think that the path will not lead to what God or the Bible said it would.

Ladies, girls – when you are pregnant that is not the time to evaluate whether you really love the guy. Sex is a path that has a destination – children. Don’t blame God that you got pregnant; he told us that is what happens. Guys – you work and work and work and you are gone so much that your wife is so lonely that she is looking elsewhere for companionship and your kids don’t care if you are home or not because you are gone so much they have had to teach themselves how to live without you around.

Q1-what has grabbed your attention; who has captured your affection
Q2-what do you need to give or pay more attention to – spiritual life; reading God’s word spending time with God; marriage needs more attention; your kids’ spiritual lives – what’s more important building into your kids’ spiritual lives through mainstreet, uptown and downtown or do you think having breakfast, or another meal or another night at home or sleeping in more is more important. Don’t wait till they are students and have little or no faith; don’t skip the program because they need it now rather than later.

Ostrich – simple – stick your head in the sand

Embracing our Life�s Mission

Adam McLane — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:20:56 +0000

Embracing our Life’s Mission
Matthew 28:16-20

A quick bit of context for where we live.

- Let’s examine the current state of Christianity in the world. All stats according to Operation World.
o India: .8% of the population in 1971; 13% today claim Christ. (146.9 million people)
o Costa Rica: 14% of the population are Protestant
o France: 6% of the population are Protestant
o Egypt: 1% of the population is Protestant, despite the fact that Christianity is illegal.
o China: Despite communist oppression the church has grown to at least 7.2% of the population. (95.1 million people)
o Cuba: Speaking of communist nations, our neighbor to the south has a 5% Protestant population.
o South Korea: An exploding population of Protestants, including the largest church in the world boasting 800,000 members of Yoido Full Gospel Church. 36% of the population.
o United States: Approximately 80% of the population identifies themselves as “Christian” while about 50% of the population is Protestant. (150.5 million people)

- Next, let’s examine the United States religious involvement.
o In this 2002 study asked religious organization throughout the country to report membership statistics. (As of 2000)

    These are non-judgment numbers.
        • No judgment was made whether membership meant belief.
        • This was not limited to Christian churches, includes cults and non-Christian religions.
             Then they took the numbers and divided the membership statistics by each counties                 population.
             (look at image, hiding Michigan)
• Observations…
o Remember this is about PERCENTAGE of the population and not numerically.
o The most religious state by membership seems to be Utah. (You’ll see other hotbeds of Mormonism reflected in darker areas of Western states.)
o The traditional “Bible Belt” (image) has shifted dramatically.
o There is now a “new Bible belt” that stretches from Texas to north to Minnesota and the Dakotas.
o There are some areas we would expect to be religiously sparse… Oregon, Alaska, Washington.
o There are some surprising areas that mess with our assumptions… New England, Florida, and even California has pockets of religious activity.
o I’ve been teasing you, haven’t I?
 Now let’s look at Michigan.. (Show graphic of Michigan)

• Some observations…
    o Our state looks a lot like some states we would label as “liberal” doesn’t it? Florida, California,     and Arizona look very similar to Michigan.
    o States we would label as “liberal” look religiously active compared to Michigan. (Illinois,             Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts could label Michigan as “non-religious.”)
    o Looking at it like this, we can all make the observation that Michigan is not as religiously             active as we would assume it to be.

 Let’s take a closer look at Michigan.
• Parts of the Upper Peninsula, Alpena, and the tip of the thumb seem to be doing very well.
• According to this map, Macomb and Oakland Counties have 35-50% of their populations as members of a religious institution. Our county to the north, Lapeer County, is in that lower category with less than 35% of the population belonging to a religious institution.

- All of a sudden, when we start to contrast our community to the rest of the country and even the rest of our state, our church lands right in the middle of the mission field.
- I’m guessing at this point you’d like me to let you off the hook, eh?

Big Idea Stated:
Here’s where I am going with this today: “Since God has placed each of us on a mission field, we need to act like missionaries.”

Next, let’s look at the state of student ministry in our community.

According to the Romeo Community Schools, in 2006-2007 there were 3272 sixth-twelfth grade students.

According to a University of North Carolina study published in 2005, 38% of 6-12 grade student report that they are “currently involved in a religious youth group.” (This could be in a church or out of a church.)

If those numbers were to hold true among students in Romeo Community Schools, I should be able to count about 1243 students “currently involved in a religious youth group.”

I did an informal study, asking all the churches that I was aware of how many students their churches have “currently involved in a youth group.”

- Even with their exaggerations, even in me rounding up, even in me exaggerating my own numbers, there approximately 200 students actively involved in a youth ministry in Romeo.
- 6%... let me remind you I’m rounding up! And let’s give this informal study a margin of error of 4%.

All of a sudden, we are all thinking to ourselves… “I live on a mission field, don’t I?” Then we have to deal with that reality, and in faith we say to ourselves… “Since God has placed each of us on a mission field, we need to act like missionaries.” Don’t we?

6%

Time out:
I know I’ve punished you with number here so far. So let me make this something really visible and easy to understand…

“If I lined up 10 students in 6-12th grades… only half of one of them would be involved in a youth group!”

Why are the numbers so low?

- I don’t have all the answers.
o I’ve only been here in Romeo for a little over 4 years and it’s not significantly changed.
- Here are some factors of what the church is doing. (Not just our church, “the church in Romeo”)
o Most churches have a YM of 10-20 students actively involved.
o The two largest congregations in town…
 One just hired a new FT youth pastor, pray for him
 The other has two volunteers
o There is one FT, degreed youth worker with a ministry specifically targeting Romeo Community Schools.
o The other full-time and part-time staff people doing youth ministry in our area lack formal education in student ministry.
o Staff summary: There are 2 FT youth workers, neither do 100% youth ministry and several part timers. (5 FTEs)
 By contrast, RMS, PMS, RETC, and RHS have a faculty and administration of 302 FTEs)
o There is no local parachurch youth organization such as Young Life, Youth for Christ, or even a YMCA.
o There has never been a long-term plan, in recent history, for getting local youth ministries with limited resources to work together to reach this community.
 Instead we see many ministries with limited budgets and time focusing mostly on discipling the students in our own local churches.
 There has never, in recent history, been a significant attempt to reach the 6-12 grade population for Christ.
- Within our own church, I bear some responsibility when I am confronted with these powerful numbers.
- While we are just looking at the student population because it is simple and easy to do the math…
o Let’s also widen our thoughts to realize that these numbers must bear some resemblance to the adult population we live in.
 This morning is, I feel, a powerful call to action for the urgency of our children, youth, and young adult ministries.

Yet, just like any challenge… we are offered with 3 choices.
- Run away
- Stay and fight
- Ignore the problem and hope it will go away

I pray that as we open God’s Word this morning that you will choose to stay and fight! I pray that you too will discover that since you are currently living on a mission field… you have much work to do.

Each week that I teach in Light Force we do a little pop quiz called “Light Force 101” where I ask our students a series of questions.

One question is: “Where do you live?”
This morning we’ve been confronted with the realities of their answer, “We live in a world dead and dying without Christ.”

This morning we turn to a very familiar passage of the New Testament, Matthew 28:16-20.

Now, for those of us who have been in the church a long time our brains hear that reference and instantly come to a conclusion:

This is the Great Commisssion, I know what it says and what I’m supposed to do, I don’t need to hear anything else. I wonder what song Jason is going to lead us in after the message?

Don’t tune out. The song is “My Savior’s Love.” So, with distractions gone, let’s focus on what the Holy Spirit is looking to reveal to you today. 

Context:
Let’s not be in a hurry here, let’s keep in mind Matthew’s narrative before we jump ahead too quickly.

Matthew 28:16
Jesus told them “Meet me at the mountain.”
- This was the mountain they always met at.
- The guys were in Jerusalem
- Jesus told them… meet me at the mountain we always meet at… in Galilee.
o A 60-80 mile walk depending on the route they chose.
- You can imagine the eleven of them bickering and arguing along the way… they always seemed to argue.
- Just a week or so ago they had walked down from Galilee to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover with Jesus.
- The past 7-10 had rocked their world…
o Jesus was heralded as the Messiah as he entered the city
o Jesus had caused some trouble at the Temple
o They had enjoyed a fantastic Passover meal…
o Then in the middle of the night Jesus had been arrested…
 Put on trial
 Beaten…
 And lead to Golgotha to be put to death.
o In just a few days they had gone from a SUPER HIGH to a SUPER LOW
o And then Sunday came… and Jesus’ was resurrected.
 The impossible had happened.
- All of this had happened with the span of 10 days…
- And here they were on that same road they walked a week or so before…
- And Jesus told them “Meet me at the mountain.”
- Church tradition tells us this was likely the same mountain Jesus delivered his greatest sermon, what Matthew called “The Sermon on the Mount”

Matt 28:17
- Matthew records simply that when the disciples saw Him, they worshipped him…
- And suddenly, just like that, there he was. They turned, and seeing him, they bowed down and worshipped him. When Jesus saw them, he said something to them. Something which would change the course of their lives forever. He said to them the words which have come down to us as the Magna Carta of the Christian church. For two thousand years the words that Jesus said to his disciples that day have been read and memorized and pondered and applied and obeyed and discussed by Christians of every group, sect, organization and denomination. Because what Jesus said to his disciples that day was perhaps the most important thing he ever said to them.

The story is told in Matthew 28:18-20. This is the story of the famous last words of Jesus Christ. If you're familiar with your Bible you know that the words are called the Great Commission. And justly so. Because the words that Jesus spoke that day were a charter and a foundation and a blueprint for the movement that his followers were going to establish after he was gone. These words are important to us for three reasons.

3 Reasons why the Great Commission is So Important

1. They are the last words of Jesus, at least as recorded by Matthew. Last words of any great person are very important.
2. They tell us what to do in the long period of time between Jesus’ first coming and His second coming.
3. These words are important because they apply without exception to all Christians at all times, in all places, in every possible situation. Four times he uses “all” or some form of the word “all.” Notice verse 18, "All authority has been given to me." Verse 19, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations." Verse 20, "Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you and surely I will be with you always." That’s very clear, isn’t it? All authority, all nations, everything, always. The words of Jesus Christ have a permanent and enduring and universal validity for you and for me. That's why they were given and that's why they were recorded. We ought to pay special attention to what Jesus is saying here.

3 Claims in the Great Commission

1. A Great Claim
    a. v. 18 tells us that Jesus tells his disciples that “all authority” in heaven and on earth has been given to him
        i. By whom?
        ii. The Greek word here is “exousia.” It means delegated authority.
        iii. The authority was delegated to Jesus by God the Father.
        iv. He doesn’t just have all the power in the world, God gave Him all authority…

                1. Jesus holds all the authority on the planet
                2. We know that while he walked the earth as a man he had tremendous authortity…
                    a. But as a result of the resurrection, he had no been given “all authority.”

2. A Great Commission
    a. Read v. 19-20a
    b. Therefore go 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 I have commanded you.
        i. For as popular as these verses of the Bible are… and as much as it’s been a rally cry of the         church for millennia… it is always misunderstood widely.

        1. While the Great Commission includes “foreign missions,” Foreign missions is not the                 UNIVERSAL command of the verse to be applied to everyone.
        2. This passage is so familiar that we often miss it completely!
            ii. This is a passage where the original language matters greatly.

1. When we read this passage in English we see 3, maybe 4 verbs…
a. “go”
b. “make disciples”
c. “baptizing”
d. “teach”
2. But in the Greek there's only one verb here. Our job as Christians is wrapped up in one verb in the Greek: Make disciples.
a. The other three words are participles. What is translated as “go” is really “going.” Baptizing is a participle. Teaching is a participle.
b. They're all dependant on the action of the verb—make disciples.
c. Jesus in his last message to his followers, in his famous last words, as he was about to bid farewell to them forever, said, “Gentlemen, after I am gone I want you to do one thing and one thing above everything else. I want you to go and make disciples.”
3. What does “disciple” mean? After all, if we are to make disciples… we need to know what one is.
a. A disciple is a student
b. To make disciples is to go out and convert someone from being a bystander to being an active follower of Christ.

What does this mean to me in real life?
Let’s pretend that being a Christian is like being in a race. Jesus tells us… I don’t want you to just finish the race alone… I want you to invite every single person you meet to join you in the race. Pull people off the streets into the race to run with you. The person taking pictures, grab them. The person who is too shy, grab them, on and on.

Let’s be clear, if all you ever do is follow Jesus and you finish the race alone, you’ve failed. You may say… “Look at me Jesus, I ran a good race. I was efficient and I focused just on knowing you!” You failed to follow the command. The command is to make disciples, to bring people with you on your race.

We are each called to reach our mission field
Jesus says, “I want you to reach the nations!”
- What’s the participle… “GO!”
- See, if we think that the 95% of students who aren’t interested in Jesus are going to come to us, we’re wrong.
- If we think that our neighbors are going to one day magically appear at our doorstep and say “Hey, I don’t know you and you’ve never talked to me, but I can tell by the way you mow your lawn that you must have many great answers in life… can you please tell me how I may give my life to Jesus Christ?” If you think that… it’s not going to happen!
- You have to go!

What are we to do with these converts?
- Baptize them
o Simply… bring them into the local church!
- Teach them
o We could spend hours talking about what to teach them… but simply put, we are to teach them how to follow Jesus so that they can make disciples of their own.

Bottom line: Jesus last words speak powerfully to us.
- When most of us think about the question… “What is my mission in life?”
    o We get confused… we think “mission, Adam said mission… he means “missionaries.” “Our         mission is to embrace missionaries!”
    o We think about family, career, ourselves, and our relationship with Christ.
    o But Jesus last words to his disciples we not focused on those things…
         They were focused on our job to bring as many people across the finish line with us as                 possible.
     o We don’t have to think of the mission field as India, or France, or Costa Rica, or Chicago, or         some faraway place that we send people to go… that is important but it NEVER excuses us             from our primary life’s mission.
             Even the Greek word here is so telling. We see the word “nation” in English and we think             of a place far away.
             The word is “ethne” and it simply means “people groups.”
    o Your primary life’s mission, the last command Jesus gave His disciples, is to know Christ               personally and to make him known to the people groups you encounter.
       o Does the Great Commission call some to be missionaries in other nations? ABSOLUTELY! But         not at the cost of your local mission.

Two practical proofs:
• If the Great Commission were about foreign missionaries exclusively, why did these 11 men wait 10 years to go to the nations? (Preaching to Cornelius in Acts 10)
• Why was it about 13 years before the first Apostles were sent out from the church?

3.A Great Promise
a. Read v. 20a
b. “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
c. The last great thing we see in the Great Commission is a great promise.
i. If we will embrace our mission to reach the mission field we live in, Jesus Christ will be present in our lives.

A Scary Reality
I started this morning by pointing a very scary picture for you. I showed you that while God’s people around the globe are bringing in the greatest harvest in the history of the church outside of our country we are watching our community get further and further from the church. Our tendency when we are failing is to give up! We must not give up and wait for the missionaries come to win the lost in our community. We have to first deal with realities that in many areas of we have failed to, so far, make a significant impact on this community, we cannot let our fears and our past failures dictate our future results.

We are the church, we are the people Jesus has chosen to reach this community.

“Since God has placed each of us on a mission field, we need to act like missionaries.”

3 Ways to Act Like a Missionary and Embrace Our Mission in Life

1. Become a student of culture. (Learn to speak the language, learn what is happening in the culture, discover ways to use things in culture for redemptive purposes.)
2. Get involved. (KidsTown, Light Force, Young Adults… the fields are white for the harvest, we need help!)
3. Take ownership of our mission. (The mission of the church belongs to all of us. We are each responsible for fulfilling the Great Commission.)

Teaching Archive

Administrator — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:41:29 +0000

In decending chronological order.

Date	Series Title
July 2008	Dont Close Your Eyes
June 2008	The Warrior
May 2008	Change Without Compromise
March 2008	God of This City
Late January 2008	Blueprint
Early January 2008	Grouplife
December 2007	Closer: Isaiah 7-9
November 2007	One: Dueteronomy Six
October 2007	When Fear Has You In Its Grip
September 2007	Fight Club
August 2007	Invest and Invite
July-August 2007	Special Series
June 2007	Holiness: Stand Out

Also check out our growing video archives of all our events.

Special Series Headquarters, July-August 2007

Adam McLane — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:36:14 +0000

Title	Speaker	Audio	Text
Destination	Bob Bryant
Embracing Our Life's Mission	Adam McLane
Reaching for His Glory	Sam Amarov		No Text
The Battle is On!	Adam McLane
The Happiest Place in the World	Greg Cahalan

Holiness: Stand Out Series Headquarters

Adam McLane — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:53:49 +0000

Holiness ho·li·ness [hoh-lee-nis] – noun
1. Belonging to, derived from, or associated with a divine power; sacred.
2. Regarded with or worthy of worship or veneration; revered: a holy book.
3. Living according to a strict or highly moral religious or spiritual system; saintly: a holy person.
4. Specified or set apart for a religious purpose: a holy place.
5. Solemnly undertaken; sacrosanct: a holy pledge.

Join us Sunday mornings as we examine together what it means to be holy in our culture. Are you willing to stand out?

Title	Speaker	Audio	Text
Stand Out from the Crowd	Bob Bryant
Are You Tolerant?	Bob Bryant
Stand Out by Serving	Bob Bryant
StandOut or Step Away	Bob Bryant
An Acceptable Sacrifice:	Bob Bryant
Stand Out	Bob Bryant