Video Description
This video is a motivational and instructional webinar, primarily for church leaders, which focuses on the practical application of the Great Commission in their daily lives and ministries. Craig Roberts emphasizes the urgency of living meaningfully as individuals and as a community. The discussion is centered around the process of disciple-making, which begins with personal interactions that lead people to Christ and continues as these new believers likewise engage in leading others to Him. Craig also shares on the significance of personal relationships and authentic community engagement as fundamental to fulfilling the Great Commission. Finally, he challenges church leaders to actively build friendships with non-believers and integrate faith-sharing into their daily interactions, thereby embodying the mission of seeking and saving the lost, just as Jesus did.
Transcript
We don’t want to waste a moment that we have on earth as church leaders, as individuals, as I shared earlier. That’s the perfect stepping stone for us to dive into “How do we live out the Great Commission personally and collectively as a church?
I love a quote from Francis Chan in line with that. This is what he says. He says, “Our greatest fear should not be a failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” For us individually, as our churches, we want to succeed in the things of life that really matter. The question for each of us is, “How are we practically living on our faith and, therefore, the Great Commission today, this moment?”
You see, the way that disciples are made is through someone who doesn’t know Christ having an interaction or a conversation or seeing something or watching something that draws them to make a decision to follow Christ, and then in turn, for them to help others do the same. That’s the progression that happens, but it always has to start with someone who doesn’t know Jesus and comes to know Jesus.
That’s how Jesus operated. Most of you may have heard the story of Zacchaeus. He was a guy who, maybe he was fairly short, and he climbs up this tree because he’s heard about Jesus and he’s heard about this Jesus who’s changing people’s lives and he’s doing miracles. He wants to look in and see what he’s about.
And as he’s looking in, Jesus, who knows everything, spots him in the tree. He says, “You know what, Zacchaeus? I am coming to your house for dinner.” And if you look at the passage in Luke, this is what it says. Jesus has spent time with Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus makes a decision to follow Jesus, and his life is turned upside down. He says, I’m going to pay back people I’ve robbed, and there’s been a change of heart. This is what Jesus says at the end of that little passage, he says, “Today, salvation has come to this house.” This is from Luke. Jesus told him, “..because he too is a son of Abraham.” He’s he’s come to faith.
And then it says this last special part, which is “..the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” That’s Jesus heart, and he wants us to take on that heart as well, to seek and to save the lost.
You see, Jesus was electric. People wanted to be around him all the time. He didn’t hold back on the truth, so he never covered over the truth, he never held back on it, but he loved people, and so people who didn’t know him wanted to be around him. They wanted to be in his presence because he had the sense that he loves me. He may not approve of what I’m doing. He might want me to change, but he truly loves me.
He may meet them where they’re at, and that’s such a challenge for each of us, especially as church leaders. So, big question, how are you doing when it comes to building friendships with people who don’t yet have a relationship with Jesus? Are you having faith conversations with them? Are you inviting them along to your church or to your home for a meal?
You see, it’s easy for us as church leaders to only associate with people who are Christ followers and as issued earlier, we get so busy with meetings and managing church and making church happen that maybe, just maybe, we’ve forgotten the most important part of the Great Commission, which is us personally living that out.
And so, the challenge for you, and you can even do this right now, is to ask God to show you three people who you don’t yet know him, who you can start building a friendship with. They might be an acquaintance. If you’re a marketplace church leader, they might be someone in your business circles. If you have children, it could be a sports coach at the school that they’re at. It might be a petrol attendant, and you regularly go to that petrol station and you’ve gotten to know them. It could be a waitress, or a waiter, at the coffee shop that you visit. Ask God to show you. God cares about this a lot more than you do, and so he’ll answer that question, he’ll answer that right now. He’ll be popping people into your mind now, if this isn’t something natural to you.
Maybe some of you this is natural and you live this out, but for others, and many that I’ve spoken to, it isn’t, and it’s something we need to remind ourselves of over and over. So ask God for those three people, and then start to ask him for opportunities to share your faith, to build friendships. It always starts with a friendship.
There is a phrase that says, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” So actually, the start that Jesus demonstrated to us is friendship. It’s caring about people, it’s loving them, and in time, he gives opportunities for us to share about what we believe in.
Something that I’ve found really helpful, as well, in conversations as pastors, is just to watch how we speak, what we speak about. Are we interested in people’s lives? Do we use ‘Christianese’ type language rather than natural language? Do we shy away in certain social settings where maybe people use language that we don’t approve of? Are there places that we wouldn’t naturally go to have a meal, because it’s not considered the right type of people there? Actually, God might be challenging us to go to those places to build friendships with people in those places.
It’s it’s out of the box. It’s different for many of us, but it’s electric. It’s exhilarating to see the Holy Spirit starting to draw someone who doesn’t yet have a relationship with Jesus into a relationship with God. I absolutely love it.
We’ve had a number of people at our church recently in their 50s to 70s, and they’ve come to us and said, “Hey, this is the first time we’ve been to church since we were forced to go to chapel services at boarding schools that we were at.” So, that put them off. And I’m not saying chapel service and boarding schools are bad at all, but for some reason, at the ones they were at, that put them off and they said, “Well, we just don’t want to go near church. We don’t want to hear about God if He’s like that.
And bit by bit, maybe someone’s invited them along to church, it’s been amazing to hear them say, “We haven’t thought about church for 30, 40 years, but somebody invited us and we want to start exploring faith. Is that okay? And can we invite our friends to start exploring faith as well?” It’s so special to see.
We have a family whose English is not their first language, and they’re sitting in the service and they’re on Google Translate. For them, and the country that they’ve come from, the Bible is completely foreign. It’s not allowed in many places. For them, they don’t know anything at all. They have no framework at all of anything to do with Scripture. It’s been a wonderful process to listen to what they are asking and to help them and to guide them on that journey.
I did some training, for pastors in Harare, in Zimbabwe, where I live, a while ago. I asked, “When was the last time that you had somebody who doesn’t have a relationship with Christ in your home for a meal?” I was shocked that there were many who said, “We just can’t remember.” It might be ten years ago. It might be five years ago. Maybe, one of my daughters or son’s friends came around and they their parents ended up staying for tea, but it just wasn’t part of their life. They got so busy being behind the pulpit and practicing, getting ready for a sermon, that they had forgotten to actually personally live out the Great Commission to help people become followers of Christ. Maybe you’re in that same boat as well.
So I just want to encourage you that we need to live this out first as pastors before we expect our church to live this out as well.
