YOU HAVE AN IMPORTANT MISSION PART 1
Text - Joshua 1:1-9
Introduction
Today is the first Sunday of the New Year of 1992.
It marks a new beginning in many ways in our lives.
It is also a new beginning for our church.
This year our church theme is, The Church With A Mission.”
You will find a list in our bulletin of the church goals we would like to achieve this year.
There are two ways we want to emphasize how to do this.
One way is through a program we have created that goes along with our theme and will prove to be a lot of fun.
It is based upon the idea of being secret agents who are in the Jesus Secret Service or JSS.
Each person that participates will receive a special badge recognizing you as a JSS. You can fill out the form in this morning’s bulletin to get started.
On the back of your JSS badge there will also be a secret agent’s commitment that will involve four things:
1. A commitment to attend all our visitation Saturdays which we are calling our special investigations. We’ve put together a map of our community out on our bulletin board that shows where every person within a one mile radius of our church lives. We will be visiting each one of their homes this year and inviting them to come to our church services. We will find out if they are saved or lost and if they are lost we will share the Gospel with them. This is what our evangelism ministry is going to focus on the most this year. Before you go out into our community we will train you to know how to do this and also have a special time of fellowship before we go out.
2. A commitment to bring new recruits into the JSS. This involves discipleship. This year we not only want people to know who Jesus is as their personal savior but we want them to grow in their salvation so they will know Jesus better and also the Bible better.
3. A commitment to memorize the names of the books of our secret agent handbook which is the Bible as well as specially prepared verses that go along with our church’s theme. These verses will all be in special code that you will have to decode and then commit to memory before they self-destruct! Just kidding. This morning you watched our children’s church come up and recite the books of the Bible for you. Hopefully this year each person who participate in the JSS program will be able to do the same thing.
4. A commitment to attend all secret agent training classes also known as Sunday School or small groups meetings.
At the end of the year we are going to have a JSS banquet where we will present an award to our secret agent of the year who has fulfilled all of these requirements.
Another way we are emphasizing our church theme for 1992 is by studying the Book of Joshua during our Sunday morning service on the first Sunday of each month.
In doing this we will look at the mission God gave to Israel when the entered the promised land and how that applies to our mission today. Joshua is a man on a mission from God. He has been told to conquer the promised land. Today we have been given a mission from God to go out into the world and reach the lost for Christ.
We also have a special song that goes along with the theme of our church titled “Go Forth” which we will be singing throughout the year to help us stay focused on our mission for Christ.
This morning our text is found in Joshua 1:1-9 and the title of my message is, “You Have An Important Mission.”
As we study this passage I would like us to consider three reasons why the mission you have is so important.