Your family on mission | Chapel Hill Online | Gig Harbor
What would it look like to take your family on mission WITH you? To get your whole family going towards the same goal? In this sermon, Pastor Mark Toone talks about being for our families and making them not only our first mission-field, but then getting them to come alongside us to be ON mission together!
Discussion Questions:
Read Acts 16. In what ways were Lydia and the jailer both the object of mission, and then, the agent of mission?
Pastor Mark shared “your family is the first and most important mission-field of your life”. What impact did your family have on your faith, and how are you intentionally making disciples in your home?
What opportunities do you have to invest intentionally in your neighborhood? Commit this week to take one step in building or re-building relationships with those you haven’t seen as much this past year.
We want to meet you! Watch our sermons live every Sunday morning at 8:30, 10 and 11:30 right HERE on our YouTube channel! Or come visit us in person in beautiful Gig Harbor, WA at 7700 Skansie Ave. For more information, visit chapelhillpc.org.
Transcript:
We continue in a series called “For.” Christians are often known better for what they are “against.” We want to declare what we are “for.” We are for our city. We are for our neighborhood. We are for our “crews”…our LifeGroups…doing mission together. And this morning, I want to talk about our most BASIC crew: your family. What would it look like for your FAMILY to be on mission together? Many church-going families view what happens within these walls in one or two hours a week as the extent of their involvement in the mission of God. You do “spiritual stuff” in here…and the rest of life…the “real world”…is all out there.
But what if every family in this church understood that THEY were on mission together? That their HOMES were mission stations in the middle of their neighborhood? What if every child was raised to understand that their call as disciples of Jesus doesn’t begin and end within our church walls? Rather, this is a training ground for their REAL mission; a mission that is centered in the family…and in the home.
This morning, I want to look at two families from the same town. The first is led by a single businesswoman named Lydia. You met her on Mother’s Day. She’s the leader of a group of God-fearing women who prayed by the river near the city of Philippi. Listen to the story of Paul’s encounter with them. Acts 16:13
And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.
The Lord “opened” Lydia’s heart to Paul’s message. She believed in Jesus and was baptized, along with her entire household. Kids, servants, the whole bunch. Then, we are told, Lydia “urged” Paul to make her home their base of operations. In fact, the word suggests she would not take no for an answer. She insisted they stay. Lydia’s home became the first European church… and her family, the first members of a new church plant. We’ll come back to this story in a moment. But let’s hear about another unlikely family who ended up on mission together.
During Paul’s ministry in Philippi, he encountered a slave girl possessed by an evil spirit that allowed her to predict the future. Paul cast that evil spirit out…which was great for the girl but not so great for her owners who lost their income from her fortunetelling. They were irritated, so they had Paul and Silas arrested, beaten with rods until their backs were raw, and thrown into the dungeon. Listen to what happened next. Acts 16:25
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.
I heard the other day about a young family new to Gig Harbor. They went on a driving tour around our town and kept exclaiming how beautiful it all was. Beautiful waterfront, beautiful downtown, beautiful trees. Finally, they happened to drive by the Women’s Correctional Center…
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