The Mission | Tyrone P. Jones | Building The House

may be seated. Thank you, Phillip. So this is week two of our series on building a house. Last week, we began with the church Jesus is building. And we laid out four things on how to define a church that's being built by Jesus Christ, that is built on a confession. Peter was the one that confessed to Jesus, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And he followed that up by saying, upon this rock, I will build my church, confessing people. The church is built on Jesus himself. It's not built on any person. And the church is built to win. We know at the end of the day how this all settles out because Christ is our victor. And the church is built with the gospel message. And so, that first message, if Jesus is building the house, then what is it that the house is supposed to do? His job is to build. Ours, as a church, is to determine what is it that we're to do. So this message is going to shift from identity of the house to the mission of the house. Jesus is not building a church just simply for people to gather in. He built a church for it to have a mission or to carry out the mission. Everybody who builds something, who constructs something, they don't do it just to admire it. But a hospital is built for people to be cured. Courtrooms or courthouses is built to administer justice. School buildings are built for people to be educated. Apartments or homes or condos are built for people to live in. And so, likewise, Christ did not build his church merely so Christians could attend services. There is a divine mission that's given to us by God. For 33 years, CTC has been established and built and growing. He didn't raise a church here simply for us to fill up our calendars. He raised a church so that we would absolutely change a city, that we would change a city. And how do we do that? So I'm going to give you four things that are part of our mission, that should be the mission of every church. Number one, we're called to reach the world. We're called to reach the world. You heard this during the baptism, but I'll repeat it. Go, therefore, and catch these two phrases. Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you to do. Before Jesus gave the church buildings or before we got budgets or before we got programs, he gave us a mission. The church is never to be just inward alone. Now, we gather in here week after week. You gather in your small groups to hear, to learn, to grow. But the idea of that is to make disciples, to take what you're receiving inwardly and to turn that and express that outwardly. Everyone

who is becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ has a responsibility to make disciples, to make disciples. Now, I think you understand that even from a practical sense. I think the mindset should be of every man that's raising children, raising sons, daughters, I think even in coaching arenas, etc. The idea, of course, you want your son to do better in life, but the bottom line is you are building fathers. You're building men. You're reproducing yourself. It's the same with discipleship. We, all of us, are on mission to make disciples. And he talks about this word here, nations, ethnos, means ethnic groups, ethnicity. And oftentimes what we think about when we hear this verse or read this verse, it's so often put into a missionary context that the whole message of Jesus is that everyone go, and oftentimes people think the go means going to other places. We'll talk about that and we certainly do that. But just know this, every Christian is a missionary everywhere. Wherever you are, you're a missionary. Certainly you're a missionary in your home because you want everybody in your house to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Am I talking to the right church? Somebody brought me, somebody bought me a shirt. They just gave it to me. I don't know, was that Friday night we were out to dinner? Somebody had a shirt made that says, am I talking to the right church? I almost wore it today. But I believe you're so excited to get out early and go eat food, you're going to give me plenty of Amen. So I don't need to even, I don't even need to say that. Can I get amen? I mean, we going to do it. All right. And so, so all of us are missionaries everywhere. Wherever we are, in your home, your workplace, in the boardroom, where, if you lead people, if you follower of those that are leading you, everywhere you are, you are a missionary. And the gospel is moving. It's designed to move. It crosses streets. It crosses cultures. It crosses oceans. It crosses political lines. It crosses every barrier that sin has erected. And so the mission for us, yes, is to go, but don't misunderstand going, meaning everybody has to go off somewhere. We do plenty of that. As a matter of fact, I want to highlight a few things that we do, and anytime people can be part of these teams that we send out. You'll see some pictures here of the team in Indonesia, which just returned last week. Jacob Gopi and Jordan and Maritza, Estefan, Jill, Chelsea, Heather Padilla, a wonderful team. Now, hear this. Out of all of the mission trips we do, this one is by far the most pioneering mission that we do. They go to places in Indonesia. They go island to island. They go on boats

going from place to place. Got caught up in a typhoon this time, which was pretty frightening for the team. But they're going to Muslims, and they're going to what's called a sea tribe people, I guess would be the way that Lisa's been defined to me. I want you to know this. The people group that they're going to, 0.01 Christian. 0.01 Christian. And so they're going to infect these people with a good infection of the love of Jesus. They're going there to serve them, to show them who Christ is by also seeking the will of God for those opportunities to minister the gospel. They went to six different villages. They medically treated 631 people. These six folks did, seven people. 279 people received reading glasses. 566 people received food packages. 391 children was ministered to, and among their church services people were crying out for Jesus. People surrendered their life to Jesus Christ. This is reaching the world with the gospel, and I celebrate the team. We also had a team just come back from Canada also during the week. They were in Old Hazleton, British Columbia. They were ministering to the Gitxsan, I hope I'm saying that right, a tribe there for nine days led VBS. They'd done Bible lessons, worship services, of course, crafts, games, memory verses for children. They'd done sports camps. But I want to share this. Becky Garcia led that team, and they were all teenagers from our church, young people from our church. I want you to hear what she said. I consider it an honor to have served alongside fine young men and women like Chase Miller, Grayson Morris, Yahaira Rios, and Delilah Calderon. Their lives reflect the values that have been faithfully modeled and taught within their church family. It is evident that CTC has instilled in these young adults a passion for serving others and a sincere love of our Lord Jesus Christ. I love that. It's a great testimony, and I celebrate those young folks for being part of that. Great job, Chase. So here's the issue. You don't have to go there. You're welcome to go there. We always want people who are willing to go on these teams. But you don't have to go there to be on mission. You might recall the story in John chapter 4 where Jesus goes to this well and a woman comes who is carrying water. There's a lot to say to that story, carrying that water, those coming to get water in the middle of the day was not normal, etc. But of course it wasn't like it was a happenstance. I kind of think Jesus kind of knew what he was doing and kind of knew that that woman was going to show up there. Anybody else believe Jesus kind of knew that was going to happen? Yeah. And so the woman comes. Jesus begins this

conversation with her and eventually lets her know that he is the Messiah, that the living water that she's looking for comes from him. This woman dropped her water buckets. Now mind you, the water was necessary for her family's survival. She dropped those water pots and she runs into the city to tell everyone about the Jesus that she just met. She didn't do this because he gave her an evangelism class or theological teaching or training. She did this because she had just encountered the most incredible man that anybody could ever meet. ever encounter, and she was so excited about her opportunity to know Jesus Christ, the God of the planet, that she wanted everybody to know it. That's a woman on mission. Listen, listen, I cannot understand who in this room who's had their life changed by Jesus is not excited to tell other people what Jesus can do. I just, I mean, that is what we do. When your life is changed, I'm telling you, it is, that is a better deal than Walmart giving everything away. That's a better deal than us giving away all this food. It's a better deal. There is nothing you've ever encountered in your life as great and glorious as Jesus changing your life. That is the most important message that you have, and every one of you on mission. You may think, well, and we've talked about this, well, I don't know that much. I'm not sure I know enough. You'll never get to that point, but I tell you what you got, you got a story. You got a story of your life being changed. This young lady, Kristen, that was baptized today,

she just simply shared her story of what Jesus Christ has done. That's the mission. It's telling people what Jesus have done. I hear I gotta ask it. Am I talking to the right church? Yeah, and so Church for the City, as you know, we exist to help people that are far from God find life in Christ, and why? Because get this, life is short, eternity is real, and people matter most. You hear me? Life is short, eternity is real, and people matter most. The most important mission we have is to reach lost people, and if we don't reach lost people, we've absolutely forgot about why we're here, left here on earth, so that's number one. We are called to reach people. Here's number two. We're called to serve the community. I got a kind of a combination of verses here. I don't know if all of them would be on the screen. Matthew 5.13 and Matthew 5.14, Matthew 5.16. Listen to this. You are the salt of the earth. You're the light of the world. Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Know this, the church is not at all called

to be behind walls. We're not a people that's fearful. We're not afraid of evil. We're not afraid of darkness. We're not afraid of perversity. I'll drop a line to you that I hope you don't ever forget. We ain't afraid of the devil. I mean, we are not afraid of the devil. If the bad boy acts up in somebody, cast him out. We ain't afraid of the devil. We have the power and the authority and he already knows he's defeated. What he's hoping is you don't know that he is. He's hoping you don't know it. So we don't hide behind walls. We believe that absolutely we can make a difference in people's life. The whole metaphor here of salt and light is about that. You have to invade to make a change. Now, I think you all know this. You can have a spoonful of salt and you can have a pot of soup. You can pour that pot of soup on top of that spoonful of salt. That doesn't change the soup. But you take that spoonful of salt and you pour it into the pot of soup. That changes the taste of the soup. We have to touch these things. That's what the whole deal of salt is.

We touch things that are corrupt, things that are wrong, things that are off-kilter, things that are of rebellion. We touch those things, things of sin, and we have the impact. Same with darkness. Light invades darkness. Darkness is not invading light, folks. It never has and it never wills. If I read my Bible correctly, I believe it was my God who busted out and said, let there be light. It's light that invades darkness. And so we're the ones that come into society to make a change. Christ follows with salt and light. We bring about a good infection. That's what those metaphors are designed for us to know. We're not people of separatism or withdrawal. I know there's been, I guess maybe still going on where certain Christian cult groups think the best way to disengage from the trouble in the world is to just go off somewhere and get away from everything in life. I don't, absolutely do not believe in no separatism or withdrawal. I believe being right in the middle of where the mess is, touching people's life right where they are, getting our hands dirty. with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you say amen?

Amen. And so our community is better because CTC is here, because the church is here. If CTC no longer exists, everybody in this county ought to know it. Everybody in this county ought to know it. When we feed people, when we help people, when we encourage people, when we care for people, when we love people, we're showing absolutely that we're serving our community. Yesterday we had Serve Day, and I'm so thankful and grateful for almost 400 people that came. I think you'll see some pictures. It was an army of people that came out for us to go out into the community. Some of the things we did, a fuel for the city, went to gas stations, and just went up to people and introduced ourselves and say, hey, I'm here to pay for your gas. Can you imagine how people respond to that? People cried. Some people said, I can't believe this. There's gotta be a catch. You're connected to Tyrone Jones, right? There's gotta be a catch, right? But the fact that people saw that kind of no catch, just the love of Jesus, went to Del Sol Grocery Store

and just randomly went to people and say, hey, we're gonna pay for your groceries today, went to laundromats and paid for people's washing, done handyman and home repairs, went down to United Way and packed school supplies, went to the food bank and packed food, went to Crane Middle School in Yuma Lutheran and worked and cleaned up their teacher's lounge, went to Emerald Springs and spent time with the residents there, Yuma County Children's Museum, went down there and hung out with kids and done activities. Then they had a couple of things. We call them community serve day bingo and hope in an envelope where you go just to random places and just help someone push their shopping cart back or hold the door open for someone or just write a nice note for a police officer or for a local pastor. They put together some kids' cuddle kits, made some bibs for hospice patients, went and worked down at New Life Pregnancy assembling newborn kids for families with diapers and wipes, et cetera, went to Desert Hills Golf Course. Pastor Ty said they cleaned, but yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking otherwise, but we'll find out. But they cleaned down at Desert Hills Golf Course and of course the campus projects that we needed done here.

I celebrate what was done on serve day because that's letting our community know we truly love you, we truly love Jesus, we truly love our city. And so we're called to serve our community. Here's the third thing. We're called to equip the saints. We read this passage in Ephesians 4, 11 and 12 where it says he gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. Each one of those, as you can see, those are teaching ministries. But why are they teaching? Why are we teaching? To equip the saints for the work of the ministry. The whole idea, folks, is for all of us to be equipped that each one of us can go out and do the ministry work, the ministry work of sharing the gospel, the ministry work of serving our city, the ministry work of showing love to people. I think one of the greatest misconceptions that people have is that the only people who do ministry is the people who are either what they would call paid professionals or full time. But that's not the case at all. It's all of us that do the work. And I can assure you that you're doing more work in this community, touching the lives of people than I am. There's no way that the one of me can do as much as you. There's no way possible.

And so we're encouraged to learn the gospel, to know the way of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're given opportunities, we're given gifts to go out and touch the lives of people. We are to be equipped that we can go out and touch people's lives. And healthy churches, the more healthy we become, the more people there are that's out there doing the work. Every believer in this house matters for the work that Jesus Christ has called us to do. Everybody in here matters. And we're not a church that's building spectators. We're not a church that's just building consumers. We're absolutely building servants. We're not just building buildings and attendees, we're building builders, we're building disciples so that we indeed can go out and do the work of the ministry. Can you say amen? Amen. And here's the last one, team, you can come. And I'm just gonna remind you again, write this down because this will not happen again. All right, so here's the fourth thing. We're called to glorify God. First Peter 4, 10 through 11. I love this section of scripture. Listen to what the writer says. God has given each of you a gift from his grace. a great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.

I wonder if you understood this. God has given each of you, turn to your neighbor and say you, each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All power and glory to him forever and ever, amen. This is where it all comes back to. It all comes back to the fact that everything we do is for the glory of God. Everything we do, it's not for our own platform. It's not for our own name or our own reputation. Our highest purpose for living is to bring glory to God. The highest purpose. If you ever write a personal mission statement, which I've encouraged you to do, if you ever write a personal mission statement, it should start with what is the number one thing first that is my life mission. Number one is to bring glory to God. If you don't bring glory to God,

none of the rest of it even matters because it all burns up anyway. Are y'all following me on this? Our number, it comes back to this. Our number one purpose is to bring glory to God. Not attendance, not reputation, not growth, not buildings, the glory of God. One of my favorite verses to read and to preach is Romans 11, 36, that says this. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever, amen. First Peter is so clear about us getting an understanding of this that he says it's God's grace. When we come into the Lord Jesus Christ, of course we get salvation, but he gives each one of us a gift, some more than one gift. You have many gifts and the giver of the gifts is in you. So honestly, he can operate through you however he desires. But he gives us these gifts that we may serve other people, that we may be good stewards. He uses this term to say that he gives us these gifts of grace that we may minister. The same word we use for deacon and serving and ministry. These gifts are from God. We're given them so that we may bring glory to him. They're to strengthen others and we're to be good stewards. Now I want you to think about this for a moment.

I don't think there's anybody in here that would doubt that God is smarter than you. Anybody would have an objection to that? God is smarter than you. Now listen, as smart as you are, you would not give a gift to someone that you know they're gonna ruin or destroy. God is smarter than you. He gave you a gift because he knows you can handle that gift. He knows that if he gives you this gift, this gift can be used in you for his glory to operate among the kingdom of God. And he says he's done that to each one of us. Each one of us, God has given us gifts. They're not privileges, they're responsibilities. Responsibilities to use for the kingdom work, used for the glory of God, used for the benefit of why he has given us. He trusted you with them, that they would bring glory to God. And so the church exists. And our life, if I can bring it even more personal, it exists for that same reason. When people see us, they ought to see him. When people hear us, they ought to hear him. When people experience us, they ought to encounter him. I just want you to imagine as I wrap this up, what if we were a church that everybody was a missionary? That everybody was intentionally on doing the work of God and sharing their story?

A church that serves the city to the point that it's noticed. A church where every believer is growing and helping other people grow. Where every ministry we do, every song we sing, every sermon we preach, every act of kindness does one thing, it brings glory to God. That's exactly why CTC exists. That's why God birthed the church. We're not here just to merely gather people, but to inform people. We're not here just to occupy a building, but to transform a city, to reach a city. We're not just here just to have a holy huddle every week, but we're here to proclaim Christ. That's the mission. That's our job, is to go out. As long as there's people that need Jesus, the job ain't done. As long as there's evil that can be invaded, the work is done. Work ain't finished. As long as there's changes that can come about in the life of others because of us, there's still work to do. We want to equip you. We want you to reach the world. We want to equip you. We want you to serve the community, and we want you to glorify God.

And I'm telling you, not only will it make a difference in your life, but everybody around you would be infected with a good infection because of what Christ is doing. Stand on your feet if you would. I'm just going to pray for you. Release you. Please go out, have some good food, good fellowship. Enjoy your time. Kids, get wet. Jump in the water. Mess up your parents' vehicle when you get back in the car. Just have a great, great time. Father, I want to thank you for this opportunity to bring your word in this house. Lord, may each one of us hear and receive what you're speaking to us. We're all gifted. We all have ministries that you've given us. Let us go forth, Lord God, and reach the world. Let us serve the community. Let us be equipped to do the work, and let us glorify you. In Christ's name we pray. May the people of God say amen. Man, God bless you. Have a great time.