For me, when I was growing up, first of all, you need to get
some context here. I was born in 89, so I grew up
all the way through the 90s. Best air to grow up in my
opinion. But when you were a kid and if
you grew up in the 90s, there was one individual that you
wanted to be like. Anyone know who it was?
Michael Jordan, right? The greatest of all time, this
was this is a jersey I had. I also had the black jersey,
which was so much cooler. You guys remember the Black
Bulls jersey? Anyway, I wanted to be like
Mike. In fact, there was like a
commercial I think that talked about the idea of being just
like Mike and Space Jam came out during that time.
That imprinted on me pretty deeply.
There's this scene in the beginning of Space Jam where
this young kid has this dream that he can fly, right?
And there's this scene right before the intro starts where
he, like, goes up to dunk the ball.
And then there's this sick montage of Michael Jordan.
I get goosebumps just talking about it right now, right?
It was so cool. And I wanted so desperately to
be like MJ, to win championships, to be able to
dunk a ball, right? In my efforts to be like Mike,
they started off really strong. I mean, I'm out there during the
summertime on my portable hoop or at the plastic backboard,
right? I'm like, I'm getting the
swishes. I'm doing it all right.
But but over time, as I grew up, my passion to be like Mike and
my ability to grew like Mike, that began to fizzle out, right?
Eventually I got into leagues that took basketball a little
more seriously. They made me do things like line
drills, if you're familiar with those.
Awful. They made me do things like
dribbling exercises, all of that.
I, I started off strong, but I didn't want to put in the gym
time in order to actually be like Mike.
You see, here's the thing, catch this.
I wanted MJ's life, but I didn't want his lifestyle.
Do you know what I mean? I wanted to be like him, but I
didn't want his discipline, his work ethic, the cost that was
involved, etcetera. Michael Jordan has this famous
quote where he says my mentality was to go out and win at any
cost. And I can honestly say that was
not my mentality as a young kid. My mentality was to go out and
play video games at any cost, right?
That was my thing. So my my efforts to be formed in
the way of MJ fizzled out. I had the example, but I needed
the trainer. I needed the disciplines.
I didn't know the way to actually become like him.
OK. And as a church we talk a lot
about the idea of being formed into the image of Jesus.
We talk a lot about following Jesus.
But as a church we are asking the question, how are we doing
it? Actually helping people more and
more become like Him to actually follow who he is and take on his
commands. As a matter matter of fact, six
years ago during COVID, the statistics stated that over 1/3
of people walked away from the church, stopped attending both
in person and online. They just said we're done.
And those stats going through that season absolutely shook us.
It shook the church. It shook me personally, Pastor
Patrick as well. And for us, what happened was it
revealed something. It revealed that those calling
themselves Christians had been informed and they had been more
formed by politics, by cultural divides, and by modern secular
humanism. They've been formed by more than
more than they've been formed more by those things than the
actual call to take up the cross and to follow Jesus daily.
And so for us, we are sort of forced to ask the question, is
the church really making disciples of Jesus?
Like, are we actually forming them people not into the the
image of Michael Jordan, but into the image of Christ?
You're thinking, OK, that was 60 years ago.
How are we doing today? From December, Barna's research,
they put out an article, Barna's like a really well known
institution that researches church statistics and how we're
doing with with certain metrics. They've been doing it in the
game for a long time. They had an article called
Faiths Shrinking Influence. And here's what Barna writes.
Faith's importance has dropped 20 percentage points since 2000,
more than any other Christian commitment measure.
Practicing Christians have declined from 46% to 24% of US
adults over the past 25 years. Only one in three Christians say
they strongly feel a responsibility to share their
faith, a long downward trend that is only recently
stabilized. And so the metrics are showing,
at least from a big picture standpoint, from a church wide
perspective, we're not making disciples.
People actually take their face seriously and are formed in the
way of Jesus. The issue doesn't stop there
because the fact is, and it would be easy if the choice was
no formation or formation to Jesus.
That would be easy for the church.
But the fact is, is that you and I are constantly being formed by
something. OK, formation teacher John Mark
Comer says if we're not being intentionally formed by Jesus,
we are being unintentionally formed by someone or something
else. Becoming like someone or what we
call formation is not a choice. You have already been formed
into someone. You are being formed into
someone and you are going to be formed into someone.
And it's so easy in our culture to be formed into someone
unintentionally. OK, the smartphone in your
pocket. OK.
It was introduced 2008 and I would argue that there is few
devices in our lives that are as transformational to us.
We are able to get information about political parties and
narratives more often than we get to the person of Jesus.
We begin to get algorithms over the Almighty, we get Hollywood
over the Holy Spirit and workplaces other than church
places. You and I are are being formed
and the choice we have is are we going to intentionally be formed
into Christ likeness? OK, now Romans, Paul kind of
talks about this in Scripture. It's not just a a problem today,
but this is a problem throughout history.
He says in Romans 12, do not conform to the pattern of this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
But this is easy for us to talk about in like a big
philosophical way. But some of what we want to talk
about today is what does this actually look like in your daily
life? What does it look like in the
life of our church? And not just like, what do the
best writers today have to look at?
What do the best like formation writers, the Dallas Willards,
the John Mark Homers of the world.
But what does Scripture have to say?
OK, And then were Jesus people? What does Jesus have to say
about this? Anything that.
Yeah, so let's turn to Matthew chapter 4.
If you have your Bibles, we have them in the back available as
well. If you don't own a Bible, feel
free to take that. It'll be on the screens.
But we always encourage you to bring physical Bibles.
Like Patrick just said, our, our screens are formation machines.
We try to get away from them as much as we can.
But Matthew chapter 4, this is the beginning of Jesus's public
ministry. And He was going around doing 3
main things #1 Jesus was going around, He was teaching people.
Not only that, but He was proclaiming the good news of
what we call the good news of the Kingdom.
He was also going around healing the sick.
And this is what it says in Matthew chapter 4, beginning in
yeah, beginning here in verse 18.
This is where we see that Jesus was not only going around doing
these things, but He also called others to join Him in this
Kingdom effort. And we see here in 18, it says
as Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two
brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew.
They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.
Verse 19 Come follow me, Jesus said, and I will send you out to
fish for people at once. They left their Nets and
followed him. Going on from there, he saw two
other brothers, James and Zebedee that his brother John,
they were in a boat with their father Zebedee preparing their
Nets. Jesus called them and
immediately they left their boat and their father and followed
him. So this invitation of Jesus to
he went up to these two initial disciples and he said, come
follow me. And what that was, was that it
was a specific invitation for them to come and be a disciple
underneath Jesus, a disciple underneath a rabbi, which means
teacher. And so disciple, the word there
means learner or student. But probably the best definition
for our purposes of what it actually means to entail and
embody A disciple would be the word apprentice.
Think of someone apprenticing as an electrician.
What do they do? They spend a lot of time around
the person training them to become electrician.
They study the way of electricity and wiring and then
eventually they go out and do electrician things or a plumber
or whatever. In the same way, an apprentice
of Jesus. They would follow him around and
do what he did and become like him.
Now this invitation of Jesus to go to them and say, hey, come
and be my disciple. This would have been very odd,
especially for this time. You see, the rabbis at this
time, they were the teachers. They were well respected in
their community. They would travel around and
they would give teachings and instructions.
But the people who could actually become a disciple of
the rabbi, it was not just the ordinary common folk like the
fishermen, rather it was reserved for the elites, the
best of the best. These are the people who made it
through the multi tiered education system for for young
Jewish boys and men. And so this would have been like
the tippy tip, the the Magna cum laude.
The best of the best could eventually go and ask their
rabbi or ask a rabbi, Hey, let me follow you.
They would beg their their rabbi to say, please, let me take on
your yoke, your training. Let me become a rabbi like you.
Let me become your disciple. So it's kind of like maybe
auditioning for a movie in Hollywood or like a play in
Broadway, right? You have your initial audition.
Anyone can come to that. But if you're really lucky,
you'll get called back for a second wave of auditions and
only the best of the best that the tippy top will be called
back for 1/3 audition and so on and so forth.
So there was radical that Jesus would look at the look at these
ordinary men as a rabbi, as a teacher and say come follow me.
I want you all to become my disciples.
If you were accepted as a disciple of a rabbi, it became
your entire lifestyle. You would spend 24/7 with your
rabbi. It would become your very
identity. You are a disciple of your
teacher. This was a radical thing that
Jesus approached these men and said come and do this with me.
Verse 419, Jesus said, come follow me and I will send you
out to fish for people. We'll talk a little bit more
about this, but the idea of fishing for people was to then
go out and make more disciples in the way of the rabbi, their
teaching, and their lifestyles. Disciples would become rabbis
themselves in order to make more and more disciples in the way of
Jesus. And so put really succinctly,
and hopefully you've heard us, if you've been around presence
long enough, you've heard us talk about this.
But a disciple is someone who orients their lives around 3
driving goals. Number one, to be with Jesus #2
to become like Jesus. And finally, to do what Jesus
did. So if you hear nothing else
today, hear this. To be a disciple is to do these
three things. There's a lot of other beautiful
things we can do like church and scripture reading and prayer and
disciplines. All are helpful, but they're all
driven towards the three main goals of being with Jesus,
becoming like him, and doing what he did.
But the good news for us is that Mark's gospel adds that Jesus
says that we will become fishers of men.
It's the word ganesthi, which is the idea of Jesus saying I will
make you become fishers of men. In other words, it implies that
there's a gradual process of training that will take place
where Jesus takes us on and he teaches us how to follow.
Luke 640 says the student is not above the teacher, but everyone
who is fully trained will be like their teacher.
In other words, it's almost as if Jesus is looking at you and
me. He's looking at us and saying
you don't train yourself and then come to me.
What Jesus is saying is saying no, no, no, you come to me and
I'll do the training. Is that a relief for anyone here
today? Right.
Jesus is the teacher. I will help you become the
fishers of men. And I think so many times
church, we get this backwards when it comes to coming and
following Jesus. We think, oh, I need to, I need
to like improve my life. I need to fix my life a little
bit better or I need to be better at doing the spiritual
disciplines or church attendance or or sin management or whatever
it is. And so I can't follow Jesus yet
because I haven't had it all figured out.
I'm not committed enough. And it's almost as if the
invitation of Jesus is to say, no, no, no, no, you're just
ordinary fisherman. You're just sheep.
Come follow me and I will train you and teach you in order for
you to become an apprentice in my way, to adopt the lifestyle
that I have in store for you. This is a wonderful promise.
So before I kick it over to Patrick to summarize, the
invitation to follow and to fish is a holistic commitment to
apprentice under Jesus way of life, his teaching and his
mission. It's a lifelong commitment to
Orient our entire lifestyles around being with Jesus,
becoming like Jesus, and doing what he did.
So we're going to have another discussion question around your
tables want you to talk about when you think about the
invitation to follow Jesus and become a disciple, what comes to
mind? But before the speech thing,
right when you would hear this passage of the idea of following
you goes, what would come to mind?
And then after this, how does that make you feel?
Yeah, that's a good question. When I had it framed in this
way, because when I would hear the invitation initially, like
growing up in church or whatever that, you know, we were called
to pick up our cross and follow Jesus, that was like so
intimidating because like, I don't want to get crucified, you
know, as Jesus was. And the call, the call and cost
of discipleship is that high, right?
And and it is that important, like we are called to lay down
our lives. But I remember just thinking
like, this seems impossible, right?
This seems like like a pipe dream, like something like, how
does anyone actually follow and become like Jesus?
But it was only until, you know, maybe the last few or even 5 to
10 years of my life where I started hearing about the idea
of training in the way of Jesus, of him teaching us how to do it.
And that there was actually Rd. maps and pathways that we could
follow to open ourselves up to more of the Holy Spirit to
become like Jesus, or what we would call sanctification.
That it really like a light bulb was lit in my mind, right?
Because it's like, oh, this is, this isn't just something Jesus
put out there that he, he knew we couldn't attain or achieve or
do on our own, or we certainly can't do it on our own, but we,
it's attainable. We can follow in his footsteps
if he does the training. So.
That's so good. Yeah.
I mean, I, it's only been the last five years or so really
since COVID that I was opposed to this.
And I remember like growing up in faith, thinking about
Christianity really in two ways. And I swung the pendulum both
ways. The first was really more about
morality and this like, OK, I'm following Jesus, so I need to go
and do exactly what he did. I need to force myself.
And I don't know about you, but if you've ever tried to be
really good, it's miserable. Can't bear the weight of that.
But then I also think about in 6th grade, talking to my friend
who went to the summer camp with me and we heard the gospel, the
invitation to follow Jesus. And this I was just was thinking
about this right now. And I remember him afterwards.
I was really excited to hear what he thought.
And I asked him, Chris, did you did you accept Jesus as your
savior? Are you going to follow him?
And he said no, not yet. I want to live and have of the
time 1st and then I'll follow him.
Yeah, and what that is, is that's really just fire
insurance, right? It's like Jesus is this
insurance salesman that's selling you insurance so that
you don't go to hell. In both of those types of
following Jesus are just unbeautiful.
They're ungood, they're uninspiring.
But this when I heard, as Ben said, that that Jesus was
looking at forming me into his image and that he was going to
do the hard work and I could become a person of love for the
sake of others. That was amazing and that was
inspiring. But we're going to look at
another passage. Ben looked at the beginning of
Jesus's walk with the disciples and his invitation to follow me.
But I want to take us to the end of Jesus's time with disciples
in Matthew 28. OK.
This is what we would call the the Great Commission in the
church, but I want us to take it apart a little bit and see what
Jesus has for us and this idea of following him.
So verse 18. Then Jesus came to them and
said, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and
teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.
I want to just look at a few things here.
OK, first, what does Jesus not say in this passage?
Jesus does not say go and make church attenders, go and make
religious consumers, or go and make people that know a lot
about the abiding go and make the theologian that's not in
there. OK, He says.
Go and make disciples. The mission of the church is not
simply to get people to believe in Jesus, but to help people
become like Jesus. Does that make sense?
It's not about information transfer, it's about human
transformation. That's good.
So let's look at a couple other pieces First, where does the
authority come from when you're going and making disciples?
Comes from him, right? Jesus says all authority in
heaven and earth has been given to me.
So when you're going and you are making disciples and you feel
unable or unworthy, you're not drawing on yourself.
You're drawing on Jesus's authority to do that.
OK, this is an echo back from in Daniel 7 in the Old Testament
where the Son of Man receives dominion, glory and Kingdom over
all of the nations. That's why we refer to him as
King Jesus. Jesus is not sending the church
out as a fragile religious club trying to just get by in the
culture. He is sending people out as the
enthroned hing. OK, the Great Commission is not
about what you are doing. It is about what Jesus is doing
through you. OK, second thing, this is a
little bit nerdy, but in the Greek, when we look at this
passage, it's important for us to know what the core idea of
the passage. What is the core invitation?
Often in church, I would hear it be go, like this was a passage
for ministries like go, guys, go out, go to another city, go to
another country. And that's that's kind of scary,
right? But actually the core idea of
this passage is to go in. It's to to make disciples.
And what does that mean? Well, first Jesus says to
baptize them and baptism is not just a one moment thing.
It's not just like the mark of becoming a Christian.
But what it is it is it an identity transfer to be baptized
in the name of the Father and the Son and the Spirit is it
means that you belong to God. It means to go out and baptize
people and have lives that are no longer self self authored, to
have an identity that's no longer formed by the culture,
that's no longer being formed by your fears or or your ideas, but
to say that that Jesus, I belong to you.
My identity is formed in you. OK, now this the second part of
making disciples. I remember when I was reading
when I realized what it's actually saying.
OK, let's look at the passive again.
Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit, teaching them to what's the next word?
Obey, Obey. It's so easy to read this
passage and just see teaching them what I had taught.
It's so easy to look at and be like, listen guys, what I want
you to do is go and baptize people and then go have Bible
studies. Sure, good, but that's just
about information. Or go and go and just listen to
some really good sermons and get some really good ideas of how to
be a better Christian. No, Jesus's command was to teach
them to obey. That means the goal of Christian
teaching is not about information transfer.
It is whole life formation into obedience.
Jesus is aimed is an embodied way that that teaches you to be
a forgiving person, a person of prayer, a person that's
generous, that's able to love your enemies.
Not just ideas, not just theories, but Jesus's invitation
is that you would go and you would slowly become a person
that is able to tell the truth, to live without anxiety, to seek
first the Kingdom. Jesus does not Commission us to
make smarter consumers of religious content, but embodied
practitioners of his way. The Great Commission is a call
to make apprentices of Jesus, people baptized into his life,
taught to practice his way, and sustained by what?
What does Jesus say at the end of the passage?
Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
That's good. That's so good.
Yeah. Can I jump in?
Yeah, yeah, that's so good. And I think for many of us, if
you spent time in church, we hear a lot about that moment of
salvation, right? That that moment of like
entering into the Kingdom and that was so important.
That was Jesus message was repent for the Kingdom of heaven
as at hand. How do we get into the Kingdom?
Well, we repent of the way we were living.
We trust in the finished work of Jesus on the cross to receive
forgiveness for our sins. And now we have access into all
that God has. And I was trying to explain this
to a friend that it's not just about that that initial moment
of salvation, that fire insurance sort of thing that
that we often times can, can want, but that there's so much
more available. And I was explaining this to a
friend of my discipleship band this last week, actually.
And I was like, there's so much more available to us after that
moment of salvation. But so many Christians stop
there at that moment, think I'm good, I've got it.
I got it. And I'll kind of just kind of go
through this life and ask for forgiveness once in a while or
whatever. And he's like, oh, yeah, you're
right. Like it'd be as if you it'd be
as if you, you, you got the keys to the entire mall, but you only
hung out in like the Yonkers, you know what I mean?
And basically what he's saying is like you, you have access to
go wherever you want, but you only stay in that, that one
section. Because now that I'm in the
mall, I don't have to go anywhere.
I can just hang out and try on clothes or whatever.
And it's like, no, no, no, you've got, you've got Cinnabon
out there waiting for you. You know, you've got, you've got
Wet Seal or whatever, Abercrombie and Fitch.
I haven't been to the mall in a while.
I don't know what's still out there.
But you, you've got all the Disney Store, Apple, right?
In other words, you have the whole mall available to you.
All that the Kingdom has to offer is now yours through
Jesus. And so don't just stay at that
moment of salvation. Yes, that grant granted you
access, you're in but sanctification and becoming like
Jesus, living into your Kingdom purpose, boy, there's so much
more available to you. And our hope today, I think, is
to like get this in each of us. Like there's more.
Jesus is calling us to go and make disciples.
That's just so good and for me like that is a more beautiful
vision right like that's why Jesus says I've come to give you
life and life to the full. CS Lewis has this story than he
tells this illustration about often we live as Christians as
if mother is inviting us to eat chocolate cake, but we are more
interested in mug pies. When you read the words of
Jesus, and honestly, it's part of our job as teachers is to
cast a more beautiful vision of what God has in store it for
you. Yeah.
That's so good. The invitation is to be a person
that is unanxious. That's not a pipe drink.
The things you just teach are actually able to happen.
So around your tables, here's another prompt.
How does this idea simplify or intensify what the Church does?
And then what keeps churches from being focused upon
discipleship? We've talked about the what
Scripture has to say about this. We've talked about what Jesus
has to say about his invitation to be a disciple, that Lily
talked about his invitation to be a disciple maker.
So the question is, what does that mean for us today as the
corporate church? But more specifically, what does
it mean for presence church? So let me tell you, it means as
a church in our time, we are all about making disciples.
This is at the very heart of our church.
When we talk about what is the one thing we want to do, the one
thing we want to be known for, it is disciple making.
And part of the reason is, is that there is this new found
interest in spirituality going up, especially in young people.
We've had generations, especially as millennials.
We have friends that are angry with the church.
We probably have a little angry in the tree.
It's just in the millennial blood, but Gen.
Z and younger are becoming more and more interested in in
spirituality because honestly, secularism has shown that it
does not work. People are looking for a better
way of living and we want to be able to show people that.
David Copeland, Barno, we've already talked about them.
They're vice president of research, said.
The question before us is what kind of change we desire, he
suggests. Do we simply want more people in
our churches, or do we want people and the world
transformed? It is a lot easier to get people
into a room than transformed. The Barnhai article continues
on. For church leaders, this tension
underscores a meaningful opportunity to recommit to
intentional discipleship and help people move from curiosity
to conviction, from Christian and name only to fully engaged,
deeply devoted followers of Jesus.
The church has a vital opportunity to guide a
spiritually furious generation toward deep, integrated, lived
Christian faith. I think for the last probably 50
years, the church has been really good at making concrete.
You've gotten a lot of people in the room and a lot of people are
saying. And as Pastor Ben said,
repentance is incredibly important, but it is only the
beginning. We want to be a church that
makes disciples. Our mission is we exist to
witness a spirit LED disciple, disciple making movement in our
churches and communities. Let me say that again, because I
butchered it and Ben's to be angry at.
I wasn't. Going to say it.
Our position is to witness a spirit LED disciple making
movement in our churches and community.
That is what we are all about. CS Lewis.
And this is like ACS Lewis day for me.
Church says church exists for nothing else but to draw men
into Christ, to make them little Christ.
If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, mission,
sermons and even the Bible itself are simply a waste of
time. The truth is because there are
lots of really good things that churches can do, but we can get
distracted and miss the main thing.
It's like this. Imagine you went to a gym to
join a gym, and there are inside that gym motivational pictures
all over the place, K, They have a masseuse on hand.
They have tanning beds, They have like a steaming room.
They have great music. TV's all over the place.
Even like people that say they're perfect personal
trainers, but there is not one piece of equipment.
Is that Jim able to do what it's supposed to do?
No. OK, There's a quote out there in
the business world that your system is perfectly designed to
give you your results. So as a church, our goal,
everything we do is pointed at making disciples through seeking
God's presence, becoming like Jesus together, and being a
presence in our city. And if you look up here, that is
what we are all about. But Ben, Ben, how do we do that?
Yeah, such a good question, right?
And like these three priorities we've said are the filters by
which we filter everything we do through these.
Like if we're not seeking God's presence through an event, we
pull off for an energy we're pouring out, like we don't want
to do it. If we're not becoming more like
Jesus through it or being a presence on mission in our city,
we don't want to do it. And so that's why it's it's so
important that we put it on the wall because these are our sort
of driving goals as a church. And you'll notice it's the three
goals of a disciple. Just contextualize for a body,
be with Jesus, become like Jesus, do what he did, live on
mission, go out. And so for us, the the machinery
that we have at the church ought to be producing the result that
we want if we want to be making disciples.
What is the system in place in order to do that?
There's a couple of them. One of them, you're experiencing
it right now. This is called Disciple making
Sunday. We don't know of a ton of
churches who who do this sort of environment, but we've said what
if we took at least one to two times a year and we didn't do a
typical service, but instead we gathered people around the
central mission of our Church of making disciples.
What if we even what if we even encouraged people to join and
get trained into how to make discipleship bands.
So hopefully by now you've heard us talk a lot about bands.
Simply put, their groups of two to four people that that are
focused on disciple making, but not just any, not just disciple
making, but spirit LED disciple making through transparent
relationships. So our heart is that our church
would be made-up of groups of two to four people who are
meeting out in the community, even in their workplaces
consistently in order to become like Jesus together.
And we want these to be spaces that are transparent in that you
can be fully known and fully loved, fully known as in like
your, your your secrets are out there with this group of, of
others, your fears, your concerns, the struggles that you
have going on in your life, though those can be fully known
by the people around you. But as you're transparent, as
you're actually vulnerable with people that's met with an
unconditional grace and love of Jesus Christ.
And when you partner those things together, being fully
known and fully loved, that is transformational.
We all long deeply for relationships like that.
And so we say what could happen through these bands where deep
spiritual friendships are combined with sacrificial
mission. The people that I'm closest with
aren't just the people who share the same interests as me, but
they're the people who are living on mission with me,
right? Find your people who can live on
mission, who can help you become like Jesus, spur you on in grace
and in power of the spirit. And we've just seen discipleship
bands sort of take off in our church.
More and more people are interested in that.
People coming in, even for the first time we've heard say, hey,
I, I saw on your website you have these groups of two to
four. I'm really interested in that.
We just see that in a time in a culture where loneliness is an
epidemic, people are wanting environments where they can
actually be known and and loved. And so we are putting a lot of
our eggs in that basket. We have something like I, I
would guess 40 to 50% of our average church attendance are
made-up and already involved in a band and we're seeing more and
more people interested in joining that.
Our discipleship bands are centred around 3 values and I
share these today because a lot of you are already in a band and
I encourage you as we go through these quick to do a self
evaluation, take an audit of your band and say how are we
doing at these three values? Number one is that the value is
open Bibles. This is a commitment in our
discipleship bands to rally around God's word through the
scriptures. Jesus taught us through the
Word, and the Holy Spirit speaks to us by reminding us of Jesus's
words in that way. And so this is a commitment to
follow Jesus teachings. First and foremost, open Bibles.
Wherever we go, when we rally around our band, our Bibles are
open, ready to receive. This is a commitment to go
throughout the week and read scriptures together.
The second value of a discipleship band is that we
have open hearts. Again, we mentioned this is a
transparent relationship. You can actually open your heart
to one another through love, through encouragement, you
celebrate wins together and you mourn losses together.
Open hearts is a commitment to vulnerability and actually
sharing what's going on in your life. 3rd and finally, it's also
a commitment to open eyes. What does that mean?
This means we always maintain open eyes to see where God is
leading our band and who else He is calling us to go and reach
for the gospel. This is not discipleship.
Bands aren't designed to just be insular, just inward focused,
just worried about our own personal growth in Jesus and
getting Better Together. That's not it.
But rather a band should have open eyes to see God.
Who are you calling me to go and start another discipleship band
with? Who are you calling me to go and
witness and share the good news of Jesus with?
And so we need to kind of always be keeping that in mind because
how many of us know it's really easy to just turn inward and
focus on ourselves. We have to always have a
commitment to others. Spiritual formation is being
formed into the image of Christ for the sake of others.
It's a process, but it's always for others.
Jesus came to seek and save The Who, the lost, the lost.
It's the sick that need a doctor, not the healthy ones.
And we need to always maintain that.
So those are the values of our bands.
We encourage you if you're in a band to re evaluate that and and
to re centralized those in your meetings.
We've heard a number of testimonies.
In fact, I'm going to invite Hannah to to come on forward if
you could. I asked a couple of our our band
facilitators how it's going and what they're seeing in their
bands. And Russ said this, he said
praying for one another. We're providing encouragement,
healing and a level of community not able to be found elsewhere.
I love hearing that another person wrote our small group
participants are amazed at how many prayers where we see
visible answers. Our our prayer requests are
sincere and varied, some large, some small.
We keep written notes of answered prayers in review
periodically. People in the group feel
comfortable to share their perspectives and we back up all
aspects of our studies with with Bible reading, Another person
wrote. We have also greatly enjoyed a
deeper friendship, being able to be completely authentic,
vulnerable, and come to one another for prayer and wisdom in
the hard parts of life. So cool to hear those
testimonies. And I've asked Hannah, come
around here and share a little bit about your experience with
your band real quick if you could.
And then we'll kind of button up here.
The worship team can come forward and we'll we'll go from
there. Hey guys, I'm Hannah.
As Min said, yeah, I'm in a band and I love it.
Although I will admit we have not been the best at being
consistent with meeting, but that's life and God still works
through that. So while what I've been
reflecting on has been His blessings here, it's just how
God has been very strategic and He always is, even if we don't
realize it right away with the people he's placed in my life in
general and specifically in my band.
And how the Lord has used things that have happened in my life
years ago, before I even came to presence, before I knew the
people that are in my band and how he's used that.
It's for us to edify one another and just to walk through trials
together and cry together and see the joy that comes from
those heart things. And it's also great to celebrate
one of our band members. He was graduated from me, Matt.
And so that was quite to celebrate where and just, yeah,
around together and just be together.
That's good. Thanks so much, Hannah.
Can we give it up for Hannah? Appreciate that.
That's so good. I want to close by reading Acts
1/8. This is Jesus after he was
resurrected but before he ascended, He was giving some
departing instructions and encouragement to the other
disciples. At this time, in Acts 1/8 it
says this, But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes
on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all
Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth.
Jesus was calling his disciples to be witnesses of the power of
the resurrection that they had seen to go out into the ends of
the earth and to tell others what they had experienced in
Christ. You and I are called to do the
same. If you have received salvation,
if you having been encouraged and you have received the power
of the living God, you're called to be as witnesses.
You're called to go out and share.
John 20, Jesus said, Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, I am sending y'all you.
And with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy
Spirit. You see, going out and making
disciples is not going to be something that we can do on our
own willpower. It's not something we can do by
our own strength. It's not something we do because
we think we're good enough or have it all together or our life
is put together. Rather, it is a Commission from
Jesus himself, who has all authority.
And He's telling you and me to go to be his ambassadors, to
tell the world to make disciples in your workplaces, in your
break rooms, in your families and your friend groups, and
wherever you may find yourself, wherever you are, to now begin
to make disciples. And so I just want to breathe
that encouragement over you. And I want to pray that the Holy
Spirit would empower us, enable and enable us to do that here
today. You have been commissioned.
Follow first and go fish for people.
May we be a church that is deeply committed to making
disciples of Jesus. May we be a church that is on
mission, commissioned by Jesus himself.