How y'all doing? It's wonderful to have you with
us to be in the city and praise God for this place.
To just be able to come into a conference room and turn it into
a House of worship. How cool is that?
I mean, it feels a little strange at first, but once the
people of God show up like this place transforms and that that's
true of the church. The church isn't a building.
It's wherever the people of God gather, and we can gather
anywhere. I'd read this morning in Psalm
118 that the tabernacles of God would be full of joy.
And I hope that's true of our church as we sing That rugged
cross, My salvation, man, that that would be the song of the
redeemed, that we'd be a people that would rejoice in what God
has done for us. I'm sorry I Can't Sing and play
very well at the same time. So like, I'm trying to get all
of my stuff out right now, you know, but it's also sweet when
we don't have APA system. Obviously we'd like those
things, but we can hear each other singing.
And that's so refreshing. It's so encouraging.
Even if our voices, you know, maybe we're not all professional
singers, we all get together in harmony.
And it's really cool, man. Praise the Lord for that.
My name is Thomas. I'm the pastor here at Portland
Gospel. We're going to get into our
Bible study time. So we're going to dismiss the
kids. So kids, we love you.
Pray for Amber and Lauren. They're going to be out with the
the kiddos this morning. We have some notes for you as
well. We're going to get in to a time
of study. I don't know if there's any left
or if you need one, but make sure you get that.
And as David said, we exist to help you believe, live and share
the gospel. He mentioned baptism today.
That'll be a part of our subject matter that we're in.
We're kind of hitting it multiple times on purpose
because repetition is the price of learning.
And we are in the foundational things in Christianity 101 that
what what are the basics? What are the fundamentals?
What do Christians do? What does the Bible say?
And that one is a huge issue and we see it getting distorted in
our world or whatever that might mean.
But in this series in Christianity 101, we've looked
at several important topics. We started with theism.
That's kind of a heady 1. And you know, 44% of Portland
has no religious affiliation, so they don't believe that there is
a God. And we have to come to the place
at least that there is a creator to be able to get to the
Christian faith. So being a theist doesn't make
you a Christian, but you can't be a Christian without being a
theist. You have to believe that there
is a God. And so that we we looked at that
the first week that's on YouTube.
If you have any skeptics or atheists in your life, hopefully
that will be a benefit to them. We saw who Jesus is.
That's, that is premier stuff in Christianity.
We, we rest all of our faith and our hope on who Jesus is.
We looked at the Bible and how we can trust the Bible is the
word of God. Perhaps our most important time
as we looked at salvation, how are we made right with God?
How can we go to heaven? How can our sins be forgiven?
That is just the the most critical issue for us.
And then we saw after that, the people that are saved join
together in fellowship and worship in a place called a
church. We gather together, we're a
body, we're a family, we're a flock, We're all kinds of those
things that the Bible teaches us.
And today we're going to see what the church does.
We saw briefly last week who the church is.
We're a gathering, we're safe people, that sort of thing.
But today we'll see that we have a mission.
We're not just going to be a social club.
We have in some ways, we have work to do.
We can gather and be encouraged and be strengthened in the word
of God. But we, we are the only people
on the planet that will reach the World with the songs that we
just sang. So we need to take that
seriously. And that's what we'll look at.
But let me, before we get any further, let me pray for us, and
then we'll hop into a time of Bible study.
Let's pray. God, we come and we thank you
for your grace. It is by the cross that we have
any access to your throne. So we come boldly in the name of
Jesus, as you said we could. We thank you for loving us while
we were yet sinners. And we know that you've called
us to share that same good news that we've received with others.
I pray today you'd envision our church and envision individuals
for what it means for them to participate with you in reaching
others. Would you use our time?
Humble us, enlighten us, encourage us?
I pray in Jesus name, Amen. All right, well, you can turn
your Bible to Matthew chapter 28.
Matthew chapter 28, Matthew's the first Gospel in the New
Testament. If you need help finding that,
there's like a concordance in the beginning of your Bible.
Usually it'll tell you where things are.
Matthew 28, we're going to look at today the the last words.
If you just look at the very end of the chapter, the last words
of Jesus and how this book concludes.
Notice if you have a Bible that has read print, there's some
words there, so let me read those for us.
Matthew chapter 28, starting in verse 18.
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given
unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I've commanded you.
I am and I am with and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the
end of the world. Amen.
So this book we see essentially the gospel in this chapter in
chapter 28. If you look at verse 5, we see
that Jesus was crucified. It says at the end of verse 5,
which was crucified. That's an important part of
Christianity, the crucifixion. And if you look at verse 7, we
see the resurrection and go quickly and tell his disciples
that he is risen from the dead. You cannot be saved unless you
believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
That is absolutely critical. We're about to start celebrating
this, this Easter season coming up.
That is, that is a huge deal for us.
And today we'll see that as these disciples gathered in
verse 10 in a certain place, Jesus told him, hey, go, go and
meet. I'll meet you.
He had some parting words for them.
And if you're familiar with the story, eventually Jesus would
ascend to heaven after his resurrection.
He's first spent some time with his disciples, 40 days or more,
and he invested some things into them and said, this is what I
want you to do. I'm taking off these, your
marching orders. So that's where we find
ourselves today. And these marching orders have
been carried out by the church for the last 2000 years.
I mean, from the time of the ascension to now is 2000 years
of Christians passing the faith down from one generation to the
next. And it is because of these
words. This is the command that we were
given. And the only way there will be a
generation after us is if we take seriously these words like
we were the last generation and we share it with the world.
So that's where we are. Matthew 28, we're going to look
at verses 19 and 20 today, and if you're taking notes, we'll
start with point #1 which is to reach the World today.
Again, this is going to be basic, but we need to know this.
We need the fundamentals. Jesus says in verse 19, Go ye
therefore and teach all nations. So go is a do word, right?
There's something we need to do. This isn't what saves us.
This is because we're saved. We go.
Only Christians can do this part.
And what we do when we go is really simple.
It's evangelize. That word means to convert, to
proselytize, to help someone come to the faith.
Jesus uses the word teach in verse 19.
So teach isn't just to instruct people, make them aware of
Christianity. It is to help them understand
what we believe and how they can be saved there.
There are multiple accounts of the Great Commission.
If you're familiar with the gospels, the gospel authors have
a very similar story of Jesus but with a different
perspective. Mark at the end of his gospel
and Mark chapter 16 says, and he said unto them, go ye into all
the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
So if we put these Great Commission accounts together, we
get a better understanding of what it means to teach all
nations it is to preach the gospel.
And the word gospel means good news.
We're Lord willing going to start a series next week on what
the gospel is and it's defined for us in the Bible.
We don't have to make up what the good news is.
Is it that you have good music at your church?
Is it a style of music? Is it a what it what is the good
news? Well, the Bible says in first
Corinthians 15, you need to know this verses one through 4I
declare unto you the gospel. So I'm I'm making you know what
it is. In verse three, he says how that
Christ died for our sins and that he was buried and then he
rose again the third day. Now we'll spend several weeks in
the future hopefully talking about why that's good news, but
as I think the songs that we sang really already preached
that for us today. But if you wanted to summarize
what, what is the message really?
What am I supposed to tell other people?
It's something simple like this, that we are sinners.
We've all done moral things that we know are wrong.
We've violated our conscience. We have guilt and shame.
Jesus died for us while we were sinners.
He rose from the dead. That part's important.
He's not just some dead guy and faith in Jesus fixes that sin
problem that we have that takes away all of that.
I'm forgiven. I'm not guilty anymore.
This is good news and that is the best news on the planet
there. There are no amount of meals
that you can feed a homeless person that will fix a sin
problem there. There are no amount of things,
counselling and other things that we can do for people that
will help their soul. If we're talking about eternity
and rightness with God, this is the superior issue.
This is man's greatest need is to be saved.
That's the message and we ought to be excited about that.
If we believe that that is true for us, we we ought to be
stoked. We ought to be able to sing.
We ought to be a people of joy. But that message isn't just for
the your friends, the people that you really like.
Hey, I like you. I want you to go to heaven.
That would be good. You should you should want that
for all for everybody. As Jesus says, you should want
that for the nation's in verse 19, he says all nations.
And if you will get a biblical worldview, that means that I
filter all of my thinking through what is true in the word
of God. And you look at the world
through the lens of this book, you're going to say, oh, wait a
minute, not everybody's saved, not everybody's going to heaven.
What does that mean for Portland, for America, for
Canada, if you want to get real, for Saudi Arabia, for North
Africa, for China, North Korea? What about places where they
don't have access to this message?
Hence the word go. It will only get there if we
take it. We can begin with people in our
life that we love. And I'm begging you, you need to
know the Lord. But it really needs to go to all
nations. The word nations comes from the
word, the Greek word ethnos or ethnicity.
It is all people groups, not even just political boundaries.
It is peoples. And I showed you this last week,
there's an organization called The Joshua Project.
They keep track, I don't know how, but they keep track of
people groups in the world that are reached with the gospel.
And there are varying levels of unreached, superficially
significantly, the green is North America.
OK, we have access. You can turn on the radio.
You can accidentally find someone preaching.
You can turn on TV. And it might not all be right,
but you can find somebody talking about God, Jesus and
Bible in some way or another, right?
But there are places in the world where that's not possible.
To convert away from other religions brings a significant
consequence. There is not freedom of speech
in every place. And according to this number,
3.5 billion Reds in appropriate color, if we believe John 316,
they will perish and spend all of eternity and damnation
separated from God, not because God hates them, but because
they're sinners. And there's only one way, the
way, the truth and the life. You have to believe with your
heart and confess with your mouth.
In Luke's gospel, it says, and that repentance and remission of
sins should be preached in His name among all nations.
That's what we the church, the people of God, are called to you
to do. So I have this question for you
in your notes. What would it look like for you
to share the gospel with others? Just think about that for
yourself. It's a question on purpose.
You might think that's my job and I do my fair share.
I'm trying. I'll never do enough you.
We could never reach the whole world.
We can only do what we're responsible for our part.
Who's in my life? My Co workers, my family, people
on the street, people in the office.
What about you? Would you open your mouth and
say there's a way to be saved? So we start with the great.
This is what we call the Great Commission, what Jesus has told
us to do, go and tell the world. But then after that, when people
respond, we're called to help them respond in faith.
It may seem like if you've ever shared the gospel, it may seem
impossible, like no one likes this.
People seem to be against this exclusive Christian thing.
It feels difficult, but if you will share it enough, people
will be saved. I don't know what the number is.
I don't know. Only God can know how people's
hearts are all happening, right? But the people that saved are
saved are called to respond in faith, as Jesus says, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.
So I know David already hit this, but I just want to show
you a few things while we're here on the subject.
First is that baptism comes after salvation.
This is basic, but even in Christian circles people don't
believe this. There is no ritual washing that
will cleanse sin. The shed blood of Jesus Christ
is the only thing that washes us from our sin.
We see some examples of that as David pointed out with the
eunuch in Acts 8 when they believed or I'm sorry, this is
the people in Samaria in Acts 8 when they believed Philip
preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God in the name
of Jesus Christ. They were baptized, both men and
women, so they believed, and then they were baptized.
And then I have in your notes also Acts 18.
But I feel like we've kind of made that point for us already
today. So if you've been saved and not
been baptized, this is the next step for you.
Secondly, we see the baptism is by immersion.
And again, even within Christian circles, not everyone agrees.
I think the Bible is clear. The word here used, the Greek
word is baptizo. Now I'm not a Greek theologian,
but that word, it's, it has a meaning, right?
And you can read books and people that know Greek tell you
what it means. It it is to immerse.
It is never baptism is never a sprinkling in the Bible.
There is not one instance in the New Testament of anyone being
sprinkled. There's no instances in the New
Testament of any infants being baptized.
But the word, the Greek word, is used of something pretty
familiar to us, that when you look at what classics and people
write in Greek, they use that word in this kind of context,
something that is submerged. It's all the way in the juice.
That's how it becomes a pickle, right?
It's not sprinkle. You don't sprinkle a pickle.
That sounds weird, but it's got to be immersed.
I know it's weird man, but you'll never forget it now,
right? You'll always know baptism and
immersion and baptizo. It means to be underwater like a
pickle. So we see this in Acts 8 with
the eunuch. And as they went on their way,
they came under certain water and the eunuch said, see here is
water. What doth hinder me to be
baptized. It's clear that he was at a body
of water Jesus when he was baptized in Matthew chapter 3,
he went up straightway out of the water.
So there was a down and an up out of the water.
So if you've been baptized before, but it hasn't been by
immersion, this you can be baptized again.
It's totally OK. That's where we have a Baptist
doctrine and where Baptists get the name from is that they were
second baptizers. The Catholic Church said you're
sprinkled, you're good, you're in from an infant.
And Baptists came and said you need to be saved and then
baptized. And as people were being
baptized again, they got this name for essentially being
apostate from Catholicism to say that wasn't good enough.
Baptism comes after salvation. But just to give you a picture
of what that looks like, here's a couple baptisms that we've had
last year. We had for man, Praise God, how
exciting. This is such a sweet day for us.
It is not a sombre thing, man. It is for us, like I might cry,
we'll get excited, we'll get wet, we'll sing songs.
You know, we were helping people take steps of faith to follow
Jesus. So my son Watson and what a what
a privilege. There's Jonathan's in the room
to Leah's in the room and praise the Lord for that.
So if you need help with that, we'll we'll have my goal is
about every two months or so to have a baptism opportunity and
we'll just trust God to help people take steps of faith.
The third thing for baptism is it identifies you with Christ,
as it says in verse 19, in the name of the Father, the Son, the
Holy Ghost. Baptism isn't in my name or our
church's name. It is you taking on the name to
say I'm identifying myself with Jesus.
Obviously essentially the Trinity as well.
But in the name of this is a familiar phrase to us if we just
compare Scripture with Scripture in the book of Colossians,
whatsoever you do in Word or deed, do all in the name of the
Lord Jesus. Our life as Christians should be
honoring to Jesus, but baptism is the first real opportunity
you have to say I'm associating myself in his name.
I'm, I'm willing to tell the world, even people that disagree
with me, even if my family comes to attend, I'm following Jesus,
I'm with him. And really what we see with this
identity is that baptism is a picture of the spiritual reality
that happens at the moment of salvation.
If you read Romans chapter 6, I gave this to Modesto for
homework this week or last week. This week we're we've been
talking about baptism. We meet every week and just talk
about Bible stuff. The picture is in Romans 6.
We are buried with him by baptism into death.
That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of
the Father, Even so should we walk in newness of life.
So the baptism in Romans 6 is a spiritual baptism.
This is what happens when you're saved.
You are immersed into Christ, you are in Him.
If you read the book of Ephesians, you'll just see
that's a big theme. You're in Christ and baptism is
just identifying when you go down, man.
Christ was buried, my old man was buried, and I'm raised, as
Romans 6 says, to walk in newness of life.
I'm leaving a life behind and I'm living my life in the name
of Jesus. I'm following him.
So I've said it before like this, baptism is one of the
easiest things you'll ever do to follow Christ.
It's get wet. I mean, literally that's it.
You don't have to say much. We, we hope that you'll share a
testimony or we'll compile one and I'll share it for you.
But you don't have to do much. You don't, let's not even go
preach. It's not go die.
It's not like get up real early. Our church is at night most of
the time. All you do is get wet.
Your Christian life honestly will get more difficult after
that. As you grow and mature, you will
take even more difficult steps than that.
So it is you. You get it.
We're beating it to death. Baptism is the first.
We call it the first step of obedience.
But after people are baptized and they say I'm in, now it's
time to grow as a disciple. So we see preaching the gospel
and salvation, baptism and now discipleship, verse 20, teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
So baptism is not the end of your Christian life for many.
They're like, OK, I got salvation.
I've been dunked. I'm just going to ride the Pew,
man. I'm good or I don't need to go
back to church. They did all the things for me
already, and that's not the case.
Jesus says there's a third thing, and we take that very
seriously in our church, teaching them to observe all
things. Whatsoever I've commanded you,
it means you need to grow and learn about your new life in
Christ. So they're essentially two ways
to grow that we see here. First is that we grow through
information. You need to learn some things if
you're going to be a Christian. You've got to figure out what do
I do with my life? OK, I'm in.
I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do there.
That means that there is an element of teaching and
learning. Hopefully that happens in the
church setting up. Man, I try every week to try to
prepare for thinking about and praying for you to help you
understand what God's Word says. You'll never be swayed and you
can grow strong. But we also have a personal
sense in this. Jesus said to the disciples in
Matthew 28. Here you teach them to observe
all things. And so it's not just, well, God
teaches me and we have our own little relationship, and you
certainly should. I'm not your priest.
But really the only way that you're going to learn is by
following somebody else. The Bible says that the church
is built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.
They laid the foundation. They taught us what Scripture
is. And we need people in our life
that are able to teach us as well.
So we have a ministry we call personal discipleship.
And the word disciple is a Bible word.
It means a student, a learner, A pupil, a taught one.
I'm willing to show up and learn.
I don't have it all figured out. And in that we will pair you up
with somebody that you can follow.
Be ye followers of me as I also am of Christ.
It's not wrong to follow another person.
We want you to grow and get on your own 2 feet and not need to
always have your hand held. But in the beginning, man, we're
not upset that you don't know things.
We want to help you grow and stand up and eventually make a
disciple for yourself. Paul says in Second
Thessalonians. Hold the traditions which you
have been taught. So again, there is the element
of you need to learn. What do I believe?
Please don't start with Google or YouTube.
Just come to church. We'll pair you up with a mentor.
If you want things on the Internet, we'll show you safe
resources. But there's a lot of craziness
on the Internet. So start with play people that
you know and trust. Like I see them, I see their
marriage, I see their parenting, I see them faithful playing
guitar or whatever, Whatever you see that you want in your
Christian life when you need to have a person that you can
identify with and help me grow. All right, next is you need
application. So your your Christian life
isn't just about information. At some point, you probably know
more than you're doing, especially if you've read the
whole book. You're like, OK, I'm officially
not doing everything all at once.
I'm trying, right? You should probably read your
Bible more. You should probably pray more.
You should probably make more time in your schedule for
spiritual things, should probably stop doing some bad
stuff, should probably start doing some better things to
serve. Look like we all know there's
more that I should be doing. So information isn't actually
helping you if you're not able to apply it to your life.
We don't want to just make you a heady, brainy, separated,
intellectual Christian. You need real and practical
application. As Jesus says in verse 20.
We don't just teach them a data set, teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
So our discipleship ministry is to help people apply the word of
God to their Life. OK, I understand what it says.
Thank you for sharing that with me.
How do I do that? What what?
How do I don't understand? Like what are some examples?
Could you help me? Could you text me this week and
remind me? Can we pray about it together?
So the word here in verse 20 to observe all things.
The word observe isn't just a spectacle.
It is to attend to carefully or to take care of.
So there is a sense in which it is protective.
Like, OK, I learned some stuff. I need to steward this in my
life, but to attend to is like, man, I've got to figure out how
do I actually do that. A couple of other uses of that
word we see in the Bible in the book of Deuteronomy, and you
shall observe to do therefore, as the Lord your God hath
commanded you. What does observe to do look
like? Check this out you shall not
turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
I see what it says and I'm not stepping out of the way.
I'm stepping into it. I don't know how by faith Jesus
name with accountability the prayer and fasting Maybe I'm
going to do what God told me to do.
I will obey the book of Joshua if you obey.
This is a famous verse for many Christians.
There's a blessing for obedience.
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but
thou shall meditate therein day and night that thou mayest
observe to do according to all that is written therein.
If you're going to observe to do it means it needs to be at top
of mind. Meditate day and night and
you're not going to do anything that's not in your brain, right?
That's why we have devices that tell us, Ding, Ding, hey,
remember to do this today, right?
I just, I got an iPhone recently and I'm trying to figure out my
reminder life. It's totally different than
Android life. So we have to remind our brains
so that we can do things. And this is where meditation
comes in, reading, journaling, talking about it with others.
And if you'll do this, the Bible says thou shalt make thy way
prosperous, then thou shalt have good success.
And the only time the word success is used in the Bible in
the King James Bible is in this verse.
Go Fact Check me on it. Go check it out.
You can get out your Bible lap and check it out.
You'll find success when you meditate and observe to do what
God says because his ways are higher than our ways.
That's what he said in the book of Isaiah.
And if you will just align your steps, you will live out a
higher life than if you just did whatever you felt like or
thought was right. So I have this question for you.
Do you have help applying God's Word to your life?
We want to help you with that. Sign up for discipleship, talk
to whoever you know in church, or talk to me.
We'll tell you more about it. But lastly, let's look at our
final point, which is to fulfill the mission together.
In Matthew 28 and verse 20, Jesus has this wonderful phrase
at the end. And lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world. Amen.
What an encouragement. Remember, I'm going to send you
to all nations. And if you're going to leave
your home, you're going to go to a place to share the gospel with
people that have never heard it, you're going to end up
discouraged. You're going to feel like, am I
going to get stoned to death? Is anyone going to get saved?
Why did I leave the comfort of wherever?
Is this really worth it? And Jesus says I am with you,
Alway, and Alway there, it's not an accident that there's no S
Alway is perpetual, always is, every instance, every time.
Alway is indefinitely, continually, all the time.
But we see here Jesus's help. They're essentially 2 things in
our final point, a help and a hindrance to the mission.
First is that Jesus will help us accomplish this.
Remember, he's not dead, He's arisen from the dead.
It's a part of the gospel. He is alive.
He gave us his Holy Spirit. The Bible says if you're in
Bible study in Colossians, that Christ in you is it's our hope.
He lives with us. And this whole thing was his
idea to begin with. Isn't it like I didn't, I didn't
come up with this, this book or this scheme.
This isn't my idea. There's probably an easier way
to live your life. But he said he will never leave
or forsake you, and you're eventually going to find
yourself in spots to where you're going to need that kind
of encouragement when you're rejected, when you're feeling
low, when you need to keep moving forward.
He said in John 14, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give
unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid that
peace would be the Holy Spirit that He would send to be with
us. He says in verse 20, he'll be
with you the same thing that he said in John 14.
And that's encouraging because the work that He's called us to
do is greater than what we can do in the natural man.
If the work is go force convert people, we could develop some
manipulation tactics, some really good advertisements,
perhaps some enticing bribes come on in.
But that's really not it. We can't force convert anybody.
Salvation is by grace through faith.
People have to make a decision with their will to trust the
gospel. So we're going to go preach and
hope that others respond. But if we will preach, the word
of God does not come back void. It's God's will that none would
perish. He is drawing all men to
salvation. Jesus died for the sins of the
whole world, and this work is possible only through
supernatural means. John 15.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the
vine, no more can ye except ye abide in Me.
The only way that we can be fruitful and accomplish the
mission that He's given us to do is by walking closely with Him,
knowing that he's with us. But I put it to you this way,
the help that Jesus provides is in the context of reaching
others. Many times we just want to feel
good and sing songs and Jesus help me and God be with me and
praise the Lord. He certainly is.
Be here, lo, I am with you always is in the same sentence
as go and reach the World with the gospel.
So if you want to grow close and know Jesus, be on mission with
him. You will only find this kind of
intimacy as you obey and walk with him and listen to his
Spirit. Then you will find this
incredible, incredible closeness.
But lastly, there is a hindrance.
Everything's been positive so far.
I think go share the best message in the world.
Help people follow Jesus and walk with him.
But there's something else mentioned here.
The world will hinder you from accomplishing this mission if
you Just because we are told to go and do it doesn't mean that
it's going to happen. And Jesus uses the world, he
says unto the end of the world as a point of encouragement.
Hey, I'm with you alway until it's all done, I won't leave you
or forsake you. But since the world is in view,
I think it's a good reminder for us to say that actually will
keep us from being fruitful. You see, Christians are told
love not the world, and you can't love two things at once.
Nathan and Savannah, praise God, just got married.
So stoked for you guys. I saw Nathan yesterday.
He just had the biggest smile and I'm sorry I'm embarrassing
you. His biggest smile on his face
all day. Like I'm so stoked, man.
I'm so excited for both you guys.
But if you try to love somebody else, it's just really that
ain't not Nathan's face already changed.
Like I will kill them. Who are they?
They will die, right? That's that's a natural response
that we have in a relationship and God feels the same way.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and
strength, right? There's no other place in my
heart, Jesus, you're it, man. But when we get distracted and
we love the world and we look at all the shiny, wonderful,
sensual, whatever things that we get distracted with, we are
derailed from helping other peoples come into a spirit
spiritual Kingdom. Jesus says in John 17, you are
sent into the world, You're not just a consumer.
Buy, swipe, vote, three stars, 5 stars, you know, next I need
another one, Replace it. You're not just a consumer,
you're on mission. You live your life differently.
You're essentially swimming upstream from the world, sent
into the world, which means you can't be like the world.
And honestly, even if you try, if you are born again with the
Spirit of God, you identify with Jesus, the world doesn't really
know you. The world knoweth us not because
it knew him not. You take his name.
And This is why baptism can be a big deal for people.
You take his name and you're essentially taking all the the
things that people don't like about Jesus on yourself.
I mean, they crucified him. They didn't like it.
They crucified some of his followers meant all.
Pretty much all the disciples were martyred in some way.
We have a blood stained lineage in the church.
The world will not really know you.
You can't go back. All you can do is move ahead.
And if you don't get strong in your faith, the discipleship
part, man, you won't know what to share.
You won't know how to do that. So let us help you.
But today, if I could just ask you, have you been distracted
from the mission? Sometimes it's just walking past
people, not even having what I would call a sole awareness of
there are people around me. Are you trying to reach the
World? Maybe you just don't know.
What? What?
I don't. I don't know where to start.
Well, that's OK, man. We'll love you.
You a couple. Ways for you to stay.
On mission and for us as a church to stay on mission.
I'm planning. Hopefully in the month of April
to have an evangelism training. We did this last year where we
will take one of our tracks. What is the gospel?
The death, burial and resurrection.
Do you want to be saved? Right.
We will help you walk through this tract.
We'll give you some scenarios. It's a workshop, not a lecture.
We want to help, you know, at very least how to share like a
handful of verses with somebody so that they can be saved.
So hopefully in April we'll have one of those.
I'll let you know when I get the dates in May.
We, I have a missionary to Scotland coming.
We're going to spend the weekend with them.
We're going to do some evangelism on the street.
So April will prepare you to come out with us on the street.
And if you're nervous, just watch.
We'll do it. You can be a follower, just see
what's happening. And then this summer we're going
to do a lot of evangelism. So even if you're distracted in
your life, I'll be reminding you and we'll be scheduling times to
go out together. So we have ways as a church that
we're planning to do that, but for you as individuals.
Typically. We end with the time of
introspection. I want to give you just a.
Moment to do that have. You been saved.
Are you sure that? You've called on the Lord.
To save you? If so, have you been?
Baptized. It's not.
Too late to get scheduled for next week.
We want to get with you on your testimony.
If that's the case, have you been discipled?
As someone helping you. Apply God's Word to your life.
Or is there something hindering you today that?
You need to say I've been distracted by this and I need to
focus on souls, man. I need to, I need to confess
that to the Lord. Ask him to help you or if you
feel like, man, I'm doing good, I'm on mission, maybe there's
some. People in your life?
That. Don't know Jesus and they're in
the red line. Maybe right now.
You just want to pray. And ask the Lord, save them,
give me an opportunity. With them I'll be.
Faithful. I'm terrified, but I'll open my
mouth. Just help me, be with me all
way, then I'll do it. So let's take a moment.
I'll give. Us about a minute of.
Silence. I'll pray and then we'll have a
a song at the end. Let's pray.