Your Most Important Assignment

5.28.2023

Introduction

If you know what the Bible says about End Time events, it clearly looks like world events are headed towards Jesus’ return.

And in the Kingdom of God, the emphasis now is on winning the lost until Jesus returns!

Our most important assignment is sharing what Jesus has done in our lives with others.

2 Peter 3:2-9 (NLT)

I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.
3 Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. 4 They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.” 5 They deliberately forget that God made the heavens by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. 6 Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. 7 And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed. 8 But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.

James 5:7-8 (NLT)

Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring. They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen. 8 You, too, must be patient. Take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.

Why does God delay Jesus’ Second Coming? Because He wants as many people as possible to go to heaven.

And that is where you and I come into the equation.

According to a pole conducted by Statista that was released in December of 2022, only 41% of Americans attend church services either weekly, monthly or occasionally.

That means that perhaps 59% of Americans do not attend weekly services.

That is an all-time low.

Covid created a sharp decline in church attendance.

We now live in a post-Christian Culture!

Am I content to come to church week after week and do nothing about the 59% outside the walls of Victory?

What are we doing to influence the people we know for Jesus?

*At a conference a few years ago a speaker gave an illustration of his son (autistic) getting lost when a group of 20 or so family members left a coffee shop…

He asked the question – What if, during our search for my son, one of my children had asked me – What’s for dinner? I would have been upset with him for even asking in the light of the current emergency.

Do we care for the non-believers as much as God does? Do we care about what He cares about?

Changes

The Lord wants us to go after those who do not know Him. He wants them to go to heaven and not hell.

Over the last number of years the church as a whole has lost the spirit of evangelism.

For some, church has become a place to go and listen with no commitment to do anything, instead of a place to receive so I can grow and be a part of winning my world to Jesus.

I believe that God wants us to start a new era of being passionate about what He is passionate about – the 59%

What is God’s greatest desire? What does He long for more than anything?

Listen to these passages and perhaps we can get an idea:

John 3:16-17 (NLT)

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

Parable of the lost sheep

Matthew 18:12-14 – NLT

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? 13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander away! 14 In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father’s will that even one of these little ones should perish.

Luke 15:8-10 (NKJV)

The Parable of the lost coin.

Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’ 10 Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Luke 15:1-7 (NLT)

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. [Jesus made people feel comfortable in His presence] 2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them! 3 So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

John Maxwell:

God Loves people I don’t know.

God loves people I don’t like!

* I had an experience a few years ago with a person in my neighborhood that opened my eyes about me…and showed me that even your failures can be used to minister to others.

Questions

What do I need to change to open myself up to befriend people who don’t know Jesus?

Do I actively pray and ask for opportunities to be a witness for Jesus every day?

Here are four things we all can do every day as we go do life:

Remember, 59% of people will not come to church. We must take the message to them!

1. Accept your job description from Jesus: help the unchurched become followers of Jesus.

Matthew 28:18-20

Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

2 Corinthians 5:18-20 (NLT)

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

*Before I became a follower of Jesus, a guy came to where I worked and told me that God was not mad at me because of my sin. And he showed me this verse later…

* Victory Pathway spiritual gifts test – let God use you the way He created you.

2. Become friends with people God loves.

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (MSG)

Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!

* People that walk in my neighborhood…

* Bible School – co-worker in Tulsa

* Small Groups – Invite your unchurched friends to come with you!

3. Ask God for opportunities to be involved in someone’s salvation every day.

1 Corinthians 3:6-8 (NLT)

I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. 7 It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work.

The statistics say that every person who becomes a believer in Christ in our culture has at least 7 personal touches from different believers before he or she ever becomes interested in Jesus.

One plants – sometimes you share with those who are not open just yet.

One waters – sometimes you share with a person who has heard about Jesus before.

God gives the increase – sometimes the person is ready to pray with you to receive Jesus.

*Be involved in our Victory Serve Team! You never know the influence your life has on someone else.

*Don’t wait until your life is totally right before you allow God to use you! If you struggle in some area of life, you’re just like everyone else. Help someone else and watch God help you! (Job 42:10)

4. Prepare yourself to share Jesus with people.

1 Peter 3:15 (MSG)

Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy.

1 John 1:3 (NLT)

We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

*One of the teachers in my 1st Bible School in 1977 gave us some homework one day…to put our testimony of what Jesus had done for us into one paragraph…place it on a 3×5 card…

Make a friend.

Be a friend.

Share Jesus when God opens the opportunity.

Action Points:

How many today would be willing to commit in a fresh way to actively seek every day to be a witness to someone?

1. Accept your job description from Jesus: help the unchurched become Jesus followers.

2. Become friends with people God loves.

3. Ask God for opportunities to be involved in someone’s salvation every day.

4. Prepare yourself to share Jesus with people.