#OptOutside | Kaci Mexico Sermon

Remembering the Great Commission

Jesus lived this way to find you, and I believe it is your mandate, your divine purpose as the church, to live this way so people can experience the hope of glory. They can experience Jesus through you and the way you decide to live your life.

Before diving into Scripture, I want us to remember something important: the church is not a building, it is a people. For those who profess Christ, the Holy Spirit is in you—your life, your story, your gifts, your personality, all of it. You are the church.

In Matthew and Acts we find overlapping accounts of the same moment: Jesus dies, rises again three days later, and appears to His disciples. Then, right before He ascends into the clouds, He gives His final words. After conquering death—something no one had ever done—His last recorded words matter greatly.

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you... And surely I am with you always, until the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20, NIV)

And in Acts 1:8, He promises His continued presence through the Holy Spirit:

"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

And thus begins the early church—a church where everything was set against them succeeding, yet against all odds, Jesus grants His power, authority, and presence to them. And look at today: we are still here, gathering as the church.

It's so important that you take these final words personally. Not just historically, but personally—as your responsibility today.

Expectation vs. Reality

We hear the Great Commission and feel pumped up, like we're in a locker room before the big game—power, authority, presence! But then we look at our actual lives: waking up tired, kids crying, work stress, bills, deadlines. And we wonder, why doesn't my life look anything like the intensity of this commission?

Some of us think, maybe I need to become a missionary, take a vow of poverty, become a monk—as if extreme measures are the only way to encounter this power or live on mission.

This tension reminds me of camping. Camping always sounds exciting—stars, wildlife, adventure—yet how many of us say "we should go camping" and never do? There's something in us that knows there is power in nature, in the mountains, and yet we hesitate to actually go experience it.

I'll never forget our one family camping trip to the Kern River. We had the gear, the desire, the excitement—and then reality hit. The tent had too many poles, no sleeping pad, my sister got lost on a paddleboard, my dad broke his finger on a rope swing, we ran out of food, and on the drive home someone got carsick all over the van. We came home and the resounding conclusion wasn't "that nature was incredible"—it was "we are never doing that again."

Somewhere along the way, we decided the power and the encounter were not worth the inconvenience or the discomfort. I wonder if Christians feel the same way about living on mission for God.

The Great Commission vs. The Great Insulation

We joke about Coloradans who love the idea of camping and buy all the gear from REI but never actually go. In the same way, we've been equipped and commissioned for evangelizing and living on mission, yet we rarely step into the spaces where that power is actually experienced.

Interestingly, REI—a store built on consumerism—closes its doors on Black Friday and launches an "Opt Outside" campaign, encouraging people to go outdoors instead of shopping, because they believe a life outdoors is a life well lived. They understood their identity: to send people outside.

Our identity as a church is similar—we exist to make heaven more crowded. We exist not just to consume Christian content, but to be sent. Will we take up the identity of the church and the commission of Jesus Christ, and go—not just awkwardly share our faith, but live a lifestyle that is missional?

Tyler Staton writes in The Familiar Stranger:

"The early church congregations where supernatural ministry was common were made up mostly of illiterate peasants filled with the power of God... But they were desperate for the power of God, desperate enough to risk. So they became practitioners, and what they did, we study. The early church was not a matter of talk, but power. The modern church is a lot of talk, a little power."

If you wonder why your faith doesn't have the vibrancy of the early church, ask yourself: how often are you brushing shoulders with people who don't know Jesus?

I don't think the issue is that we don't want to love people well. I think we live in a society engineered to reduce the amount of time and space where we actually engage with people. The Great Commission has become the Great Insulation. We build our lives and schedules around convenience instead of around love—love the way Jesus defines it.

The early church didn't face this temptation the way we do. We could live an entire week without leaving our houses—working from home, DoorDashing every meal, working out via YouTube, scrolling our phones in line. Every opportunity for an interaction with a stranger, we opt for our phones instead.

Insulation is defined as a barrier that protects and separates, keeping the inside comfortable while blocking out outside influence. In construction, insulation is remarkably light and easy to install compared to the framing and roofing—but it's the thing that makes the biggest difference in separating the inside from the elements.

Think about the insulation in your own life. Is convenience the driver, or is the commission the driver? Is comfort the driver, or is discomfort—so that the power of God can move through you—the driver?

When Jesus gave the Great Commission, He wasn't calling us to add it onto our lives. He was giving us an entirely new way of living.

Learning from the Next Generation

I love the next generation because I think they take the Great Commission seriously. Some assume it's just because they have more time or fewer responsibilities. But I believe the call to "go" is a way of looking at your current life—not a plane ticket to a different country.

Every year at our youth and young adult event, we challenge students to invite someone, and attendance doubles. Students run up to introduce me to people they've already been loving on. The invite wasn't some awkward tactic—it flowed out of relationship.

I think sometimes we've relegated the responsibility of evangelism onto younger generations, when instead we should learn from their example. Passion for living radically for Jesus does not have an age limit. Imagine if the whole church took this seriously—not just making heaven more crowded, but Denver crowded with Christians.

The Heart of the Shepherd

Before changing our lifestyle, we need to remember the heart of the shepherd. In Matthew 18:12-14 (NASB), Jesus tells this parable:

"What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is lost? And if it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that have not gone astray. So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven for one of these little ones to perish."

We are often more concerned with discovering God's individual will for our lives, but Jesus makes God's will unmistakably clear here: that none should perish. In John 17, His high priestly prayer, Jesus prays for "the little ones"—the lost—and defines eternal life as knowing God.

Sometimes we're less charitable toward those who don't know Jesus than Jesus Himself is. We assume it's on them—that they should be making better choices. But notice: Jesus doesn't call them evil. He calls them lost and astray.

Picture a child at a playground who suddenly can't find their parent—the look of panic and terror. That's the lost, navigating a world full of stumbling blocks. Sheep were prey; wolves were always after them. Denver, in all its beauty, is not exempt from spiritual darkness.

In Matthew 9:36, Jesus makes it personal:

"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd."

The Greek word for compassion, splagchnizomai, describes a deep, visceral, gut-level emotion that moves us to action on behalf of others. Compassion moves us to act—otherwise, it's merely sympathy.

Three Things to Remember

If you call yourself a Christian, you were once the lost one—the ninety-nine who were found. Here are three things to remember:

1. Remember where He found you. What were you struggling with? What chains were wrapped around you? You did nothing to earn His gaze, His favor, or His grace.
2. Consider how He saved you. Even our best works are like filthy rags compared to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It's all grace.
3. Move where He leads you. This moves us from self-righteousness to compassion, and from self-focus to a movement beyond ourselves.

I was at the gym recently, in a season of insecurely seeking reassurance from God—do you love me, is it enough, what are my gifts—and I felt God say, "Girl, we came here together. Can we go look for my lost ones?" There's something even more powerful than being reassured: being on mission with Jesus.

Don't you have loved ones who don't know Jesus? It burdens me too. My prayer is that someone, somewhere—at a gym, at a grocery store—would be on mission, ready to love the people I can't reach myself. Isn't that your prayer too? Then can we go first, Denver?

If you want power, authority, and real kingdom-building, it's found where Jesus is—and Jesus is out looking for lost people. If you want the power and the authority of being the church, it's time to do the same.

Jesus' Example: An Uninsulated Life

Jesus was intentional in choosing paths that would brush shoulders with lost people. Throughout the Gospels He's on a walk, on a hike, interruptible—people grabbing His robe, climbing trees to see Him, calling His name. He placed Himself in the midst of ordinary people. He didn't need a plane ticket to go on mission; His mission was wherever His feet already were.

When I was younger, I felt called to "missions" and flew to Kathmandu, Nepal, expecting grand strategies. Instead, each morning we'd pray and ask the Holy Spirit what to do, and the answer was often simply: "go on a walk." I felt ineffective—until we started an indoor soccer league (because I'd found real connection through sports before), did our laundry at the local laundromat instead of using mission-base machines, and rode the local bus instead of mopeds.

We discovered the greatest missional tool in Kathmandu was ordinary living without insulation. Opportunities to love people and talk about Jesus exploded—not because we stood on a stage, but because we did life with the lost.

The adventure isn't a place. It's a missional lifestyle.

Three Ways to Opt Outside

1. Relinquish Privilege

"You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge in the flesh. Rather, serve one another humbly in love." (Galatians 5:13)

Christ set us free—but for a mission and purpose. This might look like using a modest gym instead of an expensive one and actually going, using the local laundromat instead of your machine at home, walking into the grocery store instead of always DoorDashing, or simply putting your phone away while waiting in line and seeing what the Holy Spirit does with the space.

2. Integrate into the Ordinary

Ride the bus or light rail. Invite your neighbor over for dinner—everyone has to eat. God loves using the ordinary things of being human. What ordinary rhythms in your life could God transform?

3. Embrace Inconvenience

Be open to "side quests." Reframe interruptions as divine appointments. What feels like an inconvenient interruption to us may be a moment God appointed in eternity—a conversation in line, an invitation to dinner, a small kind moment that plants a seed.

Make room at your table. Invite someone in, even if it gets a little weird sometimes. I've seen whole families embrace this together—it's not just for the young. If even a fraction of our church lived this way for a year, I believe we would multiply—not just for our own growth, but so that Denver would be crowded with Christians.

My Own Story of Being Found

I'm passionate about this because I am a recipient of someone living this way. At sixteen, I was lost—broken at home, unwilling to step into a church building or anything that felt emotionally uncomfortable.

I played on a soccer team with a teammate, Jessica, who invited me to a pasta feed at her mom's house. There I met Julie Kennedy—a woman committed to living on mission. She saw that I was lost and took me under her wing. I found myself at her table almost every other night. She always made extra food, just in case. She asked how I was doing, asked to pray for me, and quietly inconvenienced her own life for mine.　She relinquished her privilege, integrated herself into the ordinary, and embraced the inconvenience of my presence. I experienced the heart of God through her, long before I ever heard a sermon.

When I finally heard the gospel at sixteen, at a church event, I had already tasted and seen it. I heard about a man named Jesus who:

"...did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but he humbled himself, taking the form of a servant."

He left heaven, embraced the ordinary life of a carpenter in an unremarkable town, and then embraced the ultimate inconvenience—the cross—bearing our sin and shame so we could have a relationship with Him. When I heard that gospel, having already tasted and seen it lived out, all I could do was fall to my knees and weep. I've never been the same since.

An Invitation to Respond

Jesus lived this way to find you, and I believe it is your mandate, your divine purpose as the church, to live this way so people can experience the hope of glory—so they can experience Jesus through you and the way you decide to live your life.

As we close, I want to ask:

1. Some of you need to sit in the heart of the ninety-nine—remembering that you were once the lost one, and that it was all grace that found you.
2. Some of you sense it's time to make lifestyle changes—to put yourselves in situations where you might brush shoulders with the lost and give the Holy Spirit room to move through you.
3. And if you're in this room without a relationship with Jesus, but you've tasted and seen something real through someone in your life—there's a reason you're here. Jesus' eyes are on you. Would you take a step to follow Him for the first time?

Lord Jesus, we accept the weight and the mandate of the Great Commission. It is not a suggestion, it is a commission. We want to live a missional life, and we want the adventure of living in the midst of Your power and Your glory until You return. We love You, God, in Jesus' name. Amen.