I am so glad to have all of you here today..
I am beyond blessed by each one of you.
Heavenly Father,
It is so good to be gathered together, God,
in this place, with these people, my church family at this time,
together, we are listening for Your voice.
In this hour of worship
tell us about Your kingdom of kindness
so that we can seek it.
Show us Your justice.
We want to walk with You,
humbly, closely, daily.
Amen.
This message I've called Evangelism - Outside The Box
Let's open the Word of God..
Our text today is Mark 2:1-12
"And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house. Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them. Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.
When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”
And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
Whatever it takes to show people who Jesus is!
Jesus was unconventional
An Outside the Box Church is a church that is willing to do whatever it needs to do to reach it’s communities with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
There was nothing common…
There was nothing usual…
There was nothing traditional about Jesus.
And there was nothing Common, Usual or traditional about the Church His ministry produced.
His church was Outside The Box.
The religious world thought they were nuts.
They thought they were drunk.
They were so different than the rest of the religious world that the religious leaders wanted them killed.
When you look at the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, you see very quickly that His ministry was definitely an “Outside the box” ministry.
His very birth was completely unconventional. – Virgin birth
His Childhood was unusual.-12 yrs. old Teaching in the synagogue
His first known miracle was controversial even to this day. – Turning water into wine.
The choosing of His disciples was completely off. – Fishermen, Tax collectors, Publicans.
Many other miracles so strange, many never believed they happen. Waited for Lazarus to die before he went to help him.
The religious people of His day thought him so unorthodox and so eccentric in His ministry that they hated him – so much that they wanted to kill him.
For years I’ve heard churches asking: how do we get our church outside these 4 walls.
If there ever was a generation that needed reached it’s this one.
If there ever was a generation that was harder to reach with traditional means, it’s this one.
But, I wonder if we really mean it when we talk about getting our church Outside The Box.
It sounds visionary
It sounds evangelistic
It sounds like what we should be saying…
But do we really know what things would look like around here if it happened?
How do we get outside the box?
Well, what is the box?
Traditional mindsets.
Comfort zones
History
Generational boundaries
We are controlled by our thinking.
“It’s never been done that way before” mentality.
See if we are going to take this thing Out Of The Box, in order to evangelize our city, we are going to have to let go of some of the Traditional Mindsets that we have.
20 years ago cannot define where we are going today.
We have to get a new mindset.
“Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.”
We have to let go of our own thinking and get a hold of His thinking.
We’re going to have to get out of our comfort zone.
We’re going to have to stretch ourselves and get involved at a level we’ve never been before.
That’s us corporately and you as an individual.
We’re going to have to go to work.
We’re going to have to get busy.
We’re going to have to make something happen around here.
Hey, the individuals of this church make up the corporate church and if you or I am not willing to get out of our comfort zone, we never will reach the lost in this city.
How many of you are ready for a new way of thinking?
How many have grown tired of churches with empty chairs and an empty altar?
I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to go to work.
I’m ready to do what I have to do to see some of my neighbors and all of my family saved.
If we keep doing things the way we’ve been doing things, we’re going to get what we’ve been getting.
I believe God wants more for this church and from this church.
In order for that to happen, we are going to have to start thinking differently.
Ours cannot be a traditional church!
We have got to get outside the traditional box of evangelism!
We have a message to proclaim to the generation, the communities we live in, and that is that Jesus Christ loves them.
I get excited sometimes when I think about what it would be like to live in a community that has been evangelized with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Evangelism = Introduce People To Jesus
I am convinced that the help and encouragement that my friends, neighbors and family need today, can be found in having a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Sharing Jesus with them is something that should come easy.
Sharing Jesus with them is something that I should enjoy doing.
Sharing my faith is something that should come naturally.
No effort.
No struggle
There might be something wrong with our faith if we’re ashamed to tell people about Jesus.
We might need to find an altar of repentance if we find it hard to tell them of His love.
If you were a scientist or a doctor who found a cure for cancer, would you share it with the rest of the world?
Wouldn’t you start telling people about what you had found?
Internet
TV
Radio
Talk to your next-door neighbors
Family?
Friends?
When you heard that they had a loved one who was dying of that terrible disease, wouldn’t you speak up and say,
“Hey, I have the cure for that!”?
Sure you would!
You might even start going door to door in your neighborhood telling everyone you could that if they had a loved one who had cancer, you had the cure for it.
And it wouldn’t take long before some people started seeking you out to find out what you had that could do so much good.
This is our attitude here!
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Brian Monzon Ministries