On Sunday May 25th Pastor Tim Gaydos preached to the Downtown campus as Pastor Mark Driscoll was out of the pulpit for the week. The break in the current Doctrine sermon series provided a great opportunity to hear a message from Pastor Tim’s heart about the missional call of the Downtown Campus. Additionally the downtown campus had its first baptisms as part of the Sunday Service, including a few spontaneous baptisms!

In his sermon Pastor Tim asked:

“How often do we point to the church as evidence for Christianity and that Jesus rose from the dead?” We usually point to archaeology - prophecy - reliability of Scripture but almost never to the church. In Acts, we see that the evidence for Jesus and Christianity was the church because of their infectious love for one another, generous giving and compassion on their city (Acts 2, 4, 10). Because of that they had favor in Jerusalem and thus, Christianity spread throughout the region. In fact, 2^nd Century Roman Emperor Julian, who despised Christianity and ached watching it grow while paganism’s influence shrunk said, “There is nothing that gives rise to the superstition of these Christians then their charity to strangers.”

Our call as missionaries to the core of Seattle is clear, we are to show love, compassion and mercy as Jesus Christ has shown us love, compassion and mercy. When we are told to “love our neighbor as ourself” (Luke 10) we are called to meet human needs with deeds to whomever God places in our path in our sphere of influence. The beautiful thing is that we are not shamed into this…we are called to look in the mirror and see that without Jesus we are spiritually bankrupt, homeless and needy. We’ve been given the riches of heaven.

To hear the sermon in it’s entirety you can download it here as an mp3 or click on the inline player:

Following the sermon at both the morning and evening service several people were baptized to publicly show that they have indeed been given the riches of heaven. To see photos of the baptisms please visit our Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mhcseattle/sets/72157604826669294/

May we be people who are so consumed with the glory of our God and consumed with reflecting his grace and goodness to a city that we love!