Connect with the World, Pt. 1 | Sunday, May 9, 2021

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:19)

When you truly delight in something, you can't help but tell others—and the gospel is the best story we have to tell.

A New Season of Ministry

As many of you know, Cross Connection Church has a great ministry team, and we are currently in a season of shifting responsibilities. With church effectively shut down for more than a year—not the way we wanted things to be—this period gives us a great opportunity to make a few adjustments as we bring things back online.

Beginning May 16th, our biggest change is that Pastor Jason Brower, who has pastored our youth for nearly two decades, will officially shift to be our Family Ministries Pastor, overseeing ministry from the littlest babies all the way through young adults. That means Pastor Garrett Hatch will begin leading our youth ministry. Garrett has been a blessing to our team for about five years and has proven himself faithful and capable in many areas. We're not moving anyone off the team or bringing anyone new on—we're simply moving pieces around as we sense the Lord's leading.

Reaching People Where They Are

I believe we are moving into a new and fruitful season of outreach—both here on campus and beyond the walls of our facility. That includes our online gatherings. Over the last 14 months we've recognized, as have churches across our nation and the world, that we need a solid online outreach, and Pastor Nick has helped us develop that.

When the apostle Paul first began to minister the gospel 2,000 years ago, he sought to reach people where they were. On his missionary journeys he often targeted the largest cities of a region—Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe in Galatia; Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea in Macedonia; Athens and Corinth in Greece; Ephesus in Asia Minor; and finally Rome. Wherever Paul went, he aimed for the places with the most people and went to the marketplaces where they gathered. That proved to be a very effective and, I believe, God-directed strategy.

Our world in 2021 gathers together online, so we want to be just as strategic as Paul would be if he were living today. That's why we produce our online content for this environment—the same message I deliver in the sanctuary, but produced for online viewers rather than simply live-streaming our campus service.

Streamlining Our Online Outreach

Beginning May 23rd, our online services will change a little. The services will be more streamlined and worship will be a bit shorter. We'll also focus our efforts by premiering our Sunday morning service only on YouTube. Google is the most-trafficked site on the internet and the number-one search engine, and YouTube, owned by the same company, is the number-two most-trafficked site and search engine. We want to target our efforts where people are, exactly as Paul did when he went to Ephesus, Athens, or Rome.

If you are an online-only viewer and you live here in North San Diego County, I want to invite you to prayerfully consider joining us for an on-campus gathering. We gather on Sunday mornings, and it has been a joy to worship and fellowship together again. We recognize that nearly 100 percent of people who check out Cross Connection Church do so online before they ever visit us in person, which is why online ministry matters so much. So subscribe to our YouTube channel and click the bell icon to get notified when we post new content. I'm also putting four or five videos a week on my own channel—you can find it at pastormiles.com/yt, including a series called Coffee Time.

Also beginning May 23rd, we will start a new ten-week summer study through the Old Testament book of Esther. As Pastor Jason, Pastor Mark, and I have looked at it, the events that happened thousands of years ago in Persia with the people of God and this woman named Esther have some real connections to our day. There are ten chapters, so over the next week or so, read through Esther and familiarize yourself with the story—there's some important stuff in that book for us "for such a time as this."

Our Vision: Life in Connection

For many years we have started the year with a series on our vision. The church—and I don't just mean Cross Connection Church, but the gathering of the followers of Jesus over the last 2,000 years—has a biblically informed, divinely inspired purpose. Our vision for fulfilling that purpose here is life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus.

We didn't do this series at the beginning of 2021 because so much was up in the air, but now that we're entering a new season and have welcomed new people, it's helpful to share it again. I've already taught on connection with God and connection with one another. Today and next week I want to focus on what it looks like to share that mission with the world—locally here in North San Diego County and globally. I guarantee you that if Peter, John, or Paul lived today, they would use every tool possible to reach as many people as possible.

Made for Connection, Born Disconnected

We were born believers, created in the image and likeness of God for connection with Him and for connection with one another in perfect communion. We desire that at the deepest levels. Even people who don't yet believe are still trying to connect with transcendence and with one another. God made us in His image and then said, "It is not good for man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18).

Yet we are not born connected to God or to one another. There are problematic separations between us, and this is because of sin. Sin is the biblical word for thoughts, words, or actions inconsistent with everything true, good, beautiful, or right. First John says sin is lawlessness, and since God's law is a manifestation of His character, sin is always against God. Sin caused the separation between man and God and between people themselves.

The Rise of Tribalism

That separation between people and groups is more acutely clear now than perhaps any other time in our lifetimes. Throughout Western culture—the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia—we are seeing an increase in what should be called tribalism. This stems from our broken nature, and much of what's happening in corporate news media, entertainment media, and social media is aggravating and intensifying it.

Culture is created by the stories we tell, the narratives we hold within a group of people. The story being told in our society right now is creating a culture shifting toward more tribalism, more division, more segregation. It is not good for man to be alone, and it is not good for man to divide into segregated, separated tribes. Every time in history that humans move toward separation and division, it results in tribal conflict.

A Better Story: Don Richardson and the Sawi

About eleven years ago we had a wonderful guest, Don Richardson, who has since gone to be with the Lord. Decades ago, Don and his family were missionaries in Dutch New Guinea among a tribal group called the Sawi. The Sawi and the surrounding tribes were literal head-hunting cannibals who had been warring for generations. But God used the ministry of Don Richardson and his family to bring peace through the gospel. He tells that story in a wonderful book called Peace Child, and another great book of his is Eternity in Their Hearts—which draws on the truth from Ecclesiastes that God has placed eternity in our hearts.

I bring up this story to make an important point: we have a better story, and we need to begin telling it. Cultures are built and broken through stories. We are watching the culture of the West—which has undoubtedly had its issues over 2,000 years, yet on net has had a powerful and beautiful impact, bringing more equality, fairness, and freedom—be broken by a new narrative that only creates more division and descends toward increased tribalism. And tribalism brings tribal conflict, just like Don Richardson saw among those warring tribes. But he watched that conflict go away through a better story. We have a better story too, and we need to begin telling it again.

The Word of Reconciliation

What is our better story? Second Corinthians 5:19 gives a brief and helpful summary:

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

This is the story of the gospel—the story of redemption, forgiveness, mercy, and grace. And this isn't just my story to tell as a pastor. God has committed to all His people—not just leaders, pastors, ministers, or evangelists—the word of reconciliation. You and I are called to tell the story as witnesses of God's grace. This proclamation of the good news is called evangelism.

Overcoming Fear of "Evangelism"

When I say the word evangelism, some of you get a little freaked out, and I understand. I grew up in this very church's youth group going through "how to share your faith" classes—the four spiritual laws, apologetics, tracts, the Evangecube, the Way of the Master. Then they'd take us out. At 15 and 16 years old we were taken to Tijuana, Rosarito, Ensenada, and Tecate to be street witnesses, sent out two by two. I distinctly remember street witnessing to mostly semi-drunk American college students on Avenida Revolución on a Friday night. I have a little bit of street-witnessing post-traumatic stress from those experiences.

But that's not exactly what I mean by evangelism. Let me put it this way: Have you ever eaten at a really good restaurant, bought a great pair of shoes, driven a great car, or visited a great resort—and then couldn't keep yourself from telling people about it? People who know me know I'm an evangelist for things like Tesla, SpaceX, Apple computers, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Evangelism is actually a form of worship and praise, and it fulfills our joy when we do it.

C.S. Lewis on Praise

To illustrate this, I want to read from C.S. Lewis's Reflections on the Psalms. Lewis, who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, was an atheist and a profound intellect at Oxford before he came to faith in Christ. Before his conversion, he had a real problem with the concept of praise—especially God calling people to praise Him. Reflecting on it years later, he wrote:

The most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or giving honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless... shyness or fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game—praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars.

I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds praised most, while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised least... I had not noticed either that, just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: "Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent?" The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than a tin can in the ditch... The worthier the object, the more intense this delight would be.

What is all of that about? It reduces to this: when we delight in someone or something supremely, we cannot help but tell others about it, and that telling is the culmination of our joy. Our joy increases as we share our praise with others. So evangelism is a form of worship, and God deserves our evangelistic worship. As you worship Him by telling others about Him, your joy will increase.

Sharing the Best Story of All

Our mission as a church is life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus. We were created for that connection, but sin devastated it, bringing division and disconnection. Jesus brings reconciliation—He reconciles us to God and to one another, as Paul makes clear in Ephesians 2.

If you have experienced joy through the love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and peace God has given you in Christ, then you should tell people about how good that joy is—in the same way you'd tell them the pizza at Killer Pizza from Mars is the best you've ever had, or that Apple computers are better than Microsoft monstrosities, or that Cross Connection is the best church you've ever attended. You should tell people the good story of what Jesus has done for you, how He brought wholeness to your life by restoring you into connection with God and with one another. That is evangelism: the expression of the joy you've received from God through the gospel. And it is far better than anything our culture is telling us.

A Calling and a Responsibility

If you have received the joy of God through the gospel, it is your calling and your responsibility to share that good news. That may seem frightening, but it really isn't—and it's my responsibility too. Our neighborhoods, families, friends, and community desperately need this story, because it is far better than the narrative we are being fed.

Ideas have consequences. Some stories shape cultures for the better; some bring suffering and destruction. The story shaping our culture right now—filled with ungodly ideas and unholy narratives—will ultimately bring about horrible consequences, as it has in the past. That will happen here too unless we, as the people of God, take responsibility to share the better story of the gospel.

We are connected to many people who have bought into a story that is bringing depression, anxiety, conflict, and division—people we go to school with, work with, live next door to, and whose kids play sports with ours. But we have a much better story: the story of how He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might receive the righteousness of God and be restored into connection with God and one another.

So as your pastor, I'm calling on you to take responsibility for this evangelistic call. It doesn't have to be scary—no knocking on doors or going to Revolución. It is as simple as telling people the good news of what has happened in your life, just as you'd evangelize your favorite product or restaurant, which are far less consequential. As we wrap up this series next week and prepare to go into the book of Esther, I'm hoping God will give us a greater passion for seeing people come to the knowledge of the truth through the much better story of the gospel.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I pray that You would do that work in us, Your church. Give all those who are hearing this message—whether on the day we deliver it or months from now—a passion to share the good news of the gospel with the people we interact with. In the same way that we share about our favorite pair of shoes or favorite restaurant, may we share the much more important news of what You have done in our lives through the gospel. Lord, pour out Your Spirit upon Your church and give us boldness. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.