This week Pastor Andy speaks on the second of the series on Family Values in our church. This is “We are Commissioned”. This follows from last week’s message on the first of our values – being Christ Centred. Being commissioned means we are living passionately to share the gospel, locally, nationally and globally. This is an essential value to us because it's a vitally important one to Him. If Jesus is going to be our centre, then we want what our values to be as His were.  Jesus actually said to us, for every follower…. “I want you to be busy letting other people know about a relationship with God that's available” (the Great Commission, Matthew 28:18-20). Jesus says “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. In the first instance we need to be a people who are prepared to help people become saved…..discipling comes after this and is the subject of another value in our church.

The first step to discipleship is when a person hears about Jesus and has an opportunity to respond and come into a relationship with Jesus. Salvation is a matter of faith; a person must place their faith in Jesus Christ. To be a disciple, faithfulness will release the rewards of Heaven into lives. However, faithfulness does not release salvation.  Salvation is released into a person's life when they place faith in Jesus Christ. Once we understand this we can hardly keep it to ourselves!

In Mark 16:15 Jesus tells his disciples “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation”. Jesus wasn't just speaking to those who would become the first church leaders of the early church. He was also speaking to every believer - it is every believer’s responsibility to be telling others. 

God wants us to be a church leading people to Christ ‘in the building’ but also leading people to Christ in our everyday life (our friends, family, co-workers…). If we moved evangelism from something that happened once a week on a Sunday morning or in a special event where we bring in a guest speaker to something happening every day it would be momentous for the Kingdom of Heaven! We have a responsibility to let others know that Jesus saves. If they choose to reject this so be it….but we have an obligation to make sure that they have the ability to make that choice. The ramification of this is that soul winning gets into the lifestyle of everyone.

How do we start? Acts 1:7 (NIV) says “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” God will provide the power we need once we get up and get going! The two key words in the great commission are ‘Go’ and ‘Preach’. Preaching needs to be translated as ‘communicate’ or ‘chat’ or ‘discuss’, then it becomes a more everyday activity. Our ‘Jerusalem’ is our local environment – friends, family and so on. These are the people we need to pray for and ask for the opportunity to sit and talk with to share the essence of the good news.  God will give us the ability when we get going. He will not equip us before we go! As a people of Faith, He promised, He will give us the ability of the Holy Spirit, but we need to go and position ourselves and have an intention to tell others.

Pastor Andy wants us to be a people who do not see soul winning as an event that we bring other people to. We need to carry Christ into the world of others as part of our normal life. God doesn't want us to win a conversation or win an argument; he wants us to win a person.