And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I
have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always
to the end of the age. Good
morning, Resurrection Church, how we doing today?
So good to see you. My name is Russ.
If I've not gotten to meet you yet, we're honored that you're
here checking out church, joining us for a new series
today. This series is called Go.
It's our mission series. You're going to be meeting a lot
of our missionaries around the world.
Our point is not to have travel agents come in and tell you
about their trips, though. It's for you to realize the
scope and the scale of what Jesus is doing through his
bride, the church that he is redeemed by his blood all over
the earth. We are a sent people.
Our entire message is a message that is meant to cross political
lines, racial lines, economic lines.
It is meant to go to the worst of the worst and the best of the
best. It's meant to be proclaimed in
castles and it's meant to be proclaimed in the slums.
And we have been commissioned as the hands and feet of Jesus,
empowered by his Holy Spirit to carry that message to the
nation's. Now at Resurrection Church, we
have a mission that we exist for, and we believe it's the
church's mission in general. It's not unique to us, but it is
something that a Church of Jesus Christ is consumed with.
And that mission is given to us in the form of this thing called
the Great Commission. It's something that Jesus gives
us in the book of Matthew. What many of you may not know is
that though we build our mission statement out of the Commission
that's called great in Matthew chapter 28, is there's five
other commissioning statements that are made about the church
throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the book of Acts.
All of them have some similarities to them.
But I think it's worthy for us to take some time before we look
at the Great Commission, which is central to the mission of our
church in Matthew 28 to read through these and make 2 quick
points about all of these commissioning statements for the
local church. The first commissioning
statement outside of Matthew chapter 28 that you'll find in
your Bible is Mark chapter 16, verse 15.
It says this. Jesus said to them, Go into all
the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does
not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany
those who go out in my name. They will cast out demons and
they will speak in tongues. They will pick up serpents with
their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not
hurt them, and they will lay hands on the sick and they will
recover. Luke goes on in Luke chapter 24
with another Commission for the church.
Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures.
Luke 2445 and Jesus said to them, verse 46.
Thus it is written that Christ should suffer on the third day,
rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of
sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning
from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these
things, and behold, I am sending the promise of my Father, That's
the Holy Spirit upon you. But stay in the city until you
are clothed with power by the Spirit.
On high. John chapter 20, verse 21.
Jesus said to them again, peace. Be with.
You. As the father has.
Sent me so I am sending you. And when he.
Had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive
the Holy Spirit. If you forgive.
The sins of any they are forgiven them and if you
withhold forgiveness of any, it is withheld.
Then in Acts chapter one, verse 8, the last commissioning
statement outside of Matthew 28, which we call the Great
Commission, we get this Acts 18, you will receive power.
When the holy. Spirit has come upon you, and
you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and
to the ends of the earth. There's two common threads
through every one of these things that should mark a
church. Number one is the presence and
the power that comes only through the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is essential to the life of the believer, David
Platt said. Perhaps the greatest travesty of
the American church is the attempt of the local American
church to do the work of God without the Spirit of God.
It is powerless if it is not by His Spirit.
Every great revival in our country's history has started
with a cry from the pulpit of revering the Holy Spirit.
Where there is great reverence for the Holy Spirit, there's a
powerful church and there's an empowered people.
Where there's an irreverence for the Holy Spirit, there's a
religious people and a powerless church.
You and I have been called to live under the leadership and
lordship moment by moment and minute by minute of the Holy
Spirit. It is by the Holy Spirit that we
fulfill the calling that God has on our lives.
It is by the Holy Spirit that we become the people that are the
image of Christ so that we can mirror that to the nations
around us. It is apart from the Holy Spirit
that we become nothing but a self-righteous people who are
nothing but a greater noise in a world that's already.
Noisy. Looking for true hope that can
only be found in the gospel. If we do not Revere the Holy
Spirit in this church, we will die.
If we are not led and empowered by the Holy Spirit, our words
will be meaningless chatter. But it is through the Holy
Spirit that God has promised that He will not only begin a
good work, but complete that good work in US and in our
church. It is only by the Holy.
Spirit that we have confidence that the Commission we've been
called to as the local church is something that Jesus will
fulfill. And we are.
Promised that fulfillment in Revelation Chapter 7 where we
read that and the end. Every tribe, every nation, and
every tongue will be gathered around the throne of God,
declaring in one voice that He is King and Lord forever and
ever. So what do we see as a common
thread for the local church? The local church is to be a
spirit filled church. What do we see as a common
thread through an? Effective follower of Jesus
there to be a spirit filled follower of Jesus if you are
living a powerless existence is probably because you are
grieving or have not surrendered to the.
Leadership and Lordship of the Holy Spirit in your life.
The second thread that we see is that the message of the gospel
must go to all nations. It's empowered by the Holy
Spirit, but it must go to all nations.
That means this is not a message for well put together people or
Christian people who are raised in Christian homes.
This is a message that is to go to the ends of the earth.
You have, I have. We have been sent so that the
streets will be filled with the proclamation of the gospel.
Let me ask you a question. A question that I pondered in my
journal this week is the question that's been consuming
my mind. It's a kind of awkward question,
but think about it. Why do you have a mouth?
To speak, To breathe, To eat.
Right. There's a lot of reasons behind
this, and the Psalms speak a lot about the purpose of the mouth,
the danger of the mouth. A mouth can dis unify a church
and unify a church. A mouth can divide it and unify.
A mouth can shoot out arrows that condemn and can shoot out
words that uplift. A mouth is a powerful weapon, in
fact. Your mouth, perhaps, is one of
the greatest gifts. That you've been given, but it
still doesn't answer the question of this foundation.
As to why you have one, why do? You have a mouth, you see from
your creation, we believe you were given a mouse so that you
could vertically. Join in with the.
Heavenly Host, in praise to God. The only reason you have a mouth
is to give God His worth in your worship through your words.
Right now there is a reality that is happening over us that
you do not see, but it is nonetheless there above you.
There is a God who is seated in the heavens in authority,
reigning and ruling. And His rule and His reign are
not just authorities that are being exerted in heaven, but
they are overarching all of human history and time.
And as He sits in that authority, reigning and ruling,
there are a created people called angels that are consumed
with the presence of God. So consume that before the
foundations of the earth, there have been a group of Seraphim
angels that with two wings, they cover their feet with two wings,
they cover their face with two wings, they are flying and they
are crying out with such heartily praise that it shakes
the heavens. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord.
And they're not tired of singing that song.
They're not tired of declaring that word.
It is the praise that is befitting the God whose presence
they are in. And they cannot get enough of
declaring His Holiness in His presence.
And you and I, as created people on earth have been invited as we
observe creation and we see the glory of the Creator behind it,
to join in with our mouths in that praise, to echo that same
song that we too, as a redeemed people by the blood of Jesus,
would sing with our mouths. A vertical praise in our lives
and in our words and in our deeds and in everything about us
by the Holy Spirit that He is holy and worthy and triumphant.
And and reigning and returning so that through our praise.
The gospel would be proclaimed. You see, your mouth has been
given to you so that you would. Worship God vertically but
horizontally so that you could proclaim His good news.
It's what you're here for. The only reason the believer
lives on this earth after giving their life to Jesus is to
proclaim His excellencies to the nations that have not heard.
The only reason you're here? I mean, why are you here in
church? You know there's football on,
right? And it's going to be after 10
till you leave here. Why are you here?
To appease God by checking a box to show up Because you ought to
are to be equipped for the mission that you've been
redeemed and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live.
If my words don't equip you to change your life and change your
community and see change take place in your family, then I
have failed you as a pastor and we are wasting time with the
subpar. Show the purpose of gathering
together so that you would be encouraged enough to be
courageous when you leave here. But if what we do here doesn't
matter there, then we are wasting our time.
So what's core at every commissioning statement?
What must happen if we are to be His people?
There must rise up within us a desperation for Jesus and a cry
that calls for reverence to the lordship and leadership of His
Spirit in our life that leads to us with our mouths proclaiming
to the nation's, the worship and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It's what we're here for. Using our mouth for anything
else is substandard usage. It's taking what was given to us
to give Him honor and glory and using it for something else.
Using our time, using our house, using our resources for anything
that's not for His gospel is to make a great error.
As a believer, there's nothing that Jesus doesn't rightly look
at and say mine in your life. Your time is His.
Your marriage is His. Your relationships and
influence, guess who they are? His.
It all belongs to Him. So this series is a series where
we are galvanizing and challenging you to remember the
calling that you've been called to.
Perhaps there's no better church in Revelation that describes the
American church than Ephesus. Ephesus was the church that
started out on fire. It was the church that
represented God greatly. But somewhere in all of the
access to knowledge and theology, somewhere in all of
their hearty defense of the faith, they forgot about what it
was really about, which was a growing adoration and affection
for Christ. Somewhere along the line, the
Church of Ephesus lost its desperation for Jesus.
So whenever John writes to them on behalf of our Lord Jesus, he
says, remember your first love. Before I remove your lampstand
church, remember your first love.
Why is it that I'm so drawn to the hymn?
Prone to wander, Lord, I fear it.
Prone to leave the God I love? I mean, if there's an anthem of
my life on Monday, it is to walk out of a Sunday encounter with
the Church of God in His presence through His Word and to
wander away from the very purpose that I looked into,
knowing that Jesus died to redeem and give me.
So then that gets us to this thing called the Great
Commission in Matthew chapter 28.
The thing that we are trying to build this church off of, the
thing that continues to give U.S.
Open seats. Because when you challenge
people to do more than plop, pray, and pay, people tend to go
to other churches that'll let them do it, where they can hide
off mission, but holding on to a claim of trusting Jesus with
their eternity. This is a great travesty.
And not to the fault of those churches.
No, to the fault of disobedient believers who desire comfort
over calling, who want to be a part of big impact, but not with
the big cost that comes with it. We want to be there whenever big
things happen, yet we don't want to take up our cross and get in
the field and labor. So Jesus has one planned meeting
after his ascension or after his resurrection.
Excuse me, before his ascension, one planned meeting.
And the way that we know it was a planned meeting is Jesus told
some women just before Matthew chapter 28.
So the last people at the cross were women.
The first people at the tomb were women and the people who
called the only meeting after Jesus resurrection were women.
Why is this important? Well, First Corinthians chapter
15 tells us that more than 500 people showed up.
Obviously if you want something to get out, you tell women.
Been practicing that one all week.
They were told to go get the 11 to have a meeting in Galilee
because Jesus was going to meet them there.
Every other meeting Jesus has outside of this meeting after
his resurrection is unplanned. They're sitting in an upper
room. Jesus walks in and says peace be
with you. They are scared.
Thomas says I won't believe unless I put my hands where your
nail marks are. Jesus appears, he puts his hands
there. Jesus stands by the shore
whenever they're fishing. Unplanned meeting.
Jesus shows up for many of us. Jesus doesn't give you warning
when He's going to get you. Usually it's unplanned.
You know why? Because if He set a date with
you, you would all of a sudden get a cough.
A bunch of my pastoral friends we joke about needing good
church weather. You know what good church
weather is hot enough to where you don't want to stay home, but
not cold enough to where you also want to stay home.
It's got to be the perfect temperature.
And in Bakersfield it's a big trick because it's got to be a
perfect temperature where you can't go to the coast, but you
don't want to stay home either. Then it's perfect church
weather. It usually comes out about four
Sundays a year. Then all of a sudden the weather
aligns for you to brave it here in Bakersfield and show up to
church. So we're like, I didn't know it
was going to be this one. This is called an unplanned
meeting. Well, Jesus.
So Jesus comes to his disciples in Matthew chapter 28 verse 16,
and it says this. Now the 11 disciples went to
Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
And when they saw him, there's two responses.
They worshipped him, but some doubted.
Now this is one of the most fascinating things.
I've spent lots of time in the past discussing this, but the
sight of the resurrected Savior brings 2 responses.
Doubt in worship. Some see the resurrected Jesus
and they go how? And it's justifiable, right?
It's justifiable because we're told in Isaiah that he was.
Marred beyond recognition, most people didn't make it out of a
scourging alive. So from the neck down, it is
likely that there was little to no flesh left on Jesus's body
when he hung naked on the cross because he had been whipped with
the cat of nine tails or a flag run by a professional
executioner after having his hands stretched above his head
so that his ribs and his stomach.
Area will be exposed as a professional.
Executioner would have ripped the flesh off of his body.
If you had stayed to see. That which we know, the women
and John are the only ones that are still at the cross at the
end. All the other disciples have
retreated and run away. You would have seen him walk
down the Via Delarosa. Then he would have gotten to
Golgotha, the place the school where they would have plucked
his beard out and spit upon his face.
Then driving a crown of thorns into his head, they would have
beaten him until the thorns pressed into his skull.
Swelling would have been to a cure.
His face would be swollen from the hair that would have been
pulled out. He literally would have been
unrecognizable from the hours before his crucifixion.
So the idea one that three days later that person is walking
around, talking to people, eating food, showing up in
places where there's locked doors, that this is a miracle to
say the. Least but even 40 days in, even
if you had survived and not truly died, which Jesus died.
On the cross, the idea that you would walk away or be walking
around is still a highly unlikely thing.
Some of. You.
Sprained your knee and you're still not walking around.
You go to Walmart and get in that little and like my knee, I
got the right as you know. Jesus was scored, crucified,
buried and is walking. Around in 40 days, in three, and
then forty days after. Here's what's amazing.
Whether you come today to worship.
Him or doubt, you are all invited to the left being sent
and commissioned. Whether you came in today
worshipping God, giving Him His worth with your words, or you
came in today doubting God and looking for a reason to walk
away. You all are invited by the power
of His Holy Spirit and the example of His life and His
resurrection to walk out of here as they sent and changed and
commissioned people. God uses worshippers and God
uses doubters. Thank God He uses both.
Which then gets us to this incredible Commission, verse 18.
And Jesus came and he said to them, all authority in heaven
and on earth has been given to me.
All authority. All authority that.
That is to say that he not only holds authority in what is to
come in the afterlife, but He holds authority in what is
happening within time in this life.
It's to say that what he says and decrees as a reality in time
is not going to be overruled in eternity.
Because he has authority in both places, both within time and
outside of time. So his word isn't good in some
seasons of time. His word isn't good within some
cultures or good news for some people groups.
His word is good news for all people.
Because he has all authority over all of time and in all of
eternity. Guess what?
He has all authority. So because he sits in authority
over eternity and over temporary time, you can trust that what he
says to you and what he calls you to, he is going to
ultimately accomplish and do. You can trust that if He says
you are forgiven and redeemed by receiving through faith the work
of His Son on the cross, that His word is an authoritative
word, which means it is just for God to give you what He said He
would give you, being the chief authority over all time and over
all eternity. Now, many Christians in this
room live as if Jesus has authority over eternity, but you
act. As if he has no authority over
your time. And this is where the American
church has gone off the rails. We are filled with people who
profess the name of Jesus, who believe that on the last day he
is worthy of your praise and your confidence that his
salvation, his cross, his resurrection is sufficient for
you. Yet you can live your life as if
that authority doesn't demand allegiance in your daily living
today. Why would you live banking
eternity on him whenever you don't bank the temporary on him?
It makes no sense to me. I trust you for the future, but
I'm going to sit in my worry and myself righteous greed in the
present because my plan and my purpose still seems to be more
befitting and good to me than this mysterious path called
faith. Some of y'all got to get over
that. You don't have to know
everything in order to be sent. Some of y'all got to get over
that Jesus isn't going to show you everything that he's going
to call you to or send you to or use you in.
And that's part of the fun like get over your A type.
Got to plan it out, got to have a detailed reason for everything
self and allow the Spirit of God to do what he's going to do.
Here's your plan. You ready?
Plan one. Wake up and die to your
preference, to yourself, to your agenda, to your perspective, to
what you think is possible, to what you believe to be your
reality because of your worry. Die to that.
Take up your cross and follow Him.
That's how you live. That's how you honor God.
That's how you fulfill the Great Commission.
It's you under the authority of God, taking Him at His authority
seriously, so that you can be in power with that authority to be
His messenger and agent of change today.
But many of you don't take Him at His Word and His authority
seriously. Therefore you trust.
Him for your eternity, but you rebel and grieve His spirit in
what is temporal time. All authority in heaven, men on
earth has been given to me. Go.
Therefore. Now what we're going to see over
these next few verses is the four essentials to an effective
mission. Christian, if you want to live
on mission, there's four things that the Commission says the
Spirit has empowered you to do that.
If you are in obedience to the Holy Spirit, they will happen in
your life. If you're in rebellion or
grieving the Spirit, guess what won't be happening?
These four things. So what are we going to give you
a good assessment on? We're going to give you a good
assessment on how effectively you are daily living out your
walk with Jesus. What are we going to get at the
end of it? An invitation to submit to His
Spirit to be what you're not. This is not a self help thing.
This is not a try harder thing. This is a die.
Get your cross and get out of here.
The problem is you're trying to help the situation and you're
screwing it up more. Jesus is pretty clear in his
instruction. The laborers labor in vain if
God doesn't bless the work. So you can labor all you want,
but if it's not in surrender to the Spirit of God and by the
power of God, it will not be for the glory of God.
That's good. It's 4 words #1 go.
It's the entire series. Go, Therefore go therefore and
make disciples. So first word, go, go.
And where were to go? To all nations.
This is about evangelism.
This is about you leaving your comfort.
This is about you huddling with Christian brothers and sisters
for the purpose of leaving to represent Christ somewhere else.
This is not about you being a beast in church circles and a
coward in your neighborhood. It is about you being encouraged
in your Christian circle so that you can be courageous in your
normal living for the glory of God.
Isaiah 57 verse 14 says, and it will be said, build up, build
up, prepare the way, remove the obstacles from my people.
Unintentionally, the church has taken methods that were
effective at one time, and we've chosen to die on the hill of
method over the message getting to the nation's.
And as a result of it, what's happening is we are making it
more difficult for people to get to the cross of Christ because
they if they don't come through our method, we're refusing to
change right now. Through the way that you live
your life personally and through the way that we do church
corporately, we are either removing the obstacles for
people to come to faith in Christ or we are adding to the
problem. Now Jesus is still.
Harvesting. It's just we aren't sharing in
it and we're going, where did the young people go?
You know where they went. They went mimicking your method.
Your preference was your God. And because your preference is
more important than your message, they decided that their
preference was to be served too. So guess where they're at?
Living in their preference. You know what they prefer not to
hear? A message that caused them to
take up the cross and follow them.
You know what they prefer? Not going to a church where they
have to leave, be a repenter and acknowledge their need for a
Savior. You know what they've done?
They've begun to worship their preference.
So they're not in our church, and they're not coming back
because we had a harvest festival.
They're not coming back because we have good Bible programming.
You know what they're going to come back for?
Because a move of God is taking place in the words of a great
soul song. Ain't nothing like the real
thing, baby. And when it comes to the Holy
Spirit, you know when the Spirit's at work and you know
when the Spirit's left the building.
And when a generation leaves, guess what it's probably in
response to? It's not in response to, here's
my favorite argument from the older generation.
Well, they left because it's just such a hard hearted
generation and we're in the end times.
And it says that people aren't going to listen to sound
doctrine and we're just sounding our doctrine.
No, you're malpractice in your practice of your doctrine.
And that malpractice is speaking to the emptiness of your church.
You have to go to where? All nations, all people, many
people don't want to go to the Middle East because there's
Muslims there and they kill Christians.
You kidding me? There's people.
I just, I just sat with the team that came back from Beirut in
Lebanon. And the harvest in the Middle
East right now is rich and the American church is scarcely
there. You know who is there?
The Church of China, Chinese people go anywhere that love
Jesus. They'll live in the slums.
They don't care. They don't need running water in
their home or indoor plumbing to carry the gospel message.
They don't care. They are out sending us.
You know why? They have a first love.
And there's a high cost of following Jesus in China.
So the high cost of following Jesus in the Middle East is just
like, well, different zip codes, same battle your privilege has
gotten in your way of your effectiveness.
Some of you got to get over this idea that you have some kind of
right to some kind of better life than what you have.
That God owes you a raise that God owes you being able to get
out of debt that God owes you like this abundant bigger house
that you think He can somehow claim and believe.
Let me just be very clear. God is not in the business of
trying to give you bigger and better.
God is in the business of trying to get you to get sent so that
you can make a difference for eternity.
At the end of your life, your kids will not remember the big
house they lived in. What they will remember, it's
the faith you modeled or the faith that you contradicted by
the life that you lived. Right now, my family is
consumed. We're trying to figure out how
to go. So you know what?
We're not doing everything that's happening in the church.
We're not doing everything that we offer because I don't have
margin in my life to live on mission, reaching my lost
neighbor if I'm here every day of the week.
So on Wednesday nights, you know what my family's doing.
Me and Luke go to the park and we shoot basketball with high
school kids. He gets the rebounds and he
remembers every kids name. It's a strange gift God has
given him. He knows every kids name.
He meets you one time, he remembers your name.
I can't remember my own children's name from time to
time. Didn't know if I should confess
that, but I feel like I'm in a safe circle.
So he remembers everybody's name.
So he runs up and calls out their names and they're kind of
like oh. But then I go and shoot with
them and I'll work on their jump shots.
And while we're working on jumpers we begin to talk about
stories. And guess what's been going to
happen at the park? They began to ask questions
like, well, what do you do? Well, I was a college basketball
player and I wanted to be in the NBA and be a basketball coach.
And what ended up happening is I met this guy named Jesus, and he
changed my life. And we start down the path of
these conversations with teenagers.
Why? Because I want to teach my son
what it looks like to live a life that's going across the
street. There's two little girls.
Her parents have been going through a lot of difficulty.
Their great grandma's been heavily involved in kind of
raising them. And every single day they're at
our house or our kids are at their house.
You know why? Because we're making margin to
go. We invited them to vacation
Bible school. Guess what they said?
No. We invited them to come to
invest with us. Guess what they said?
No. We invited them to come to our
house. Guess what they said?
Yes. More than likely they'll come to
your grill before they'll come to your Bible meeting.
So fire up the grill in the name of Jesus, set the table and
serve your neighbor. And know that when you're doing
that, you're being more Christian than the Christian
that's at church four or five or six days out of the week who
doesn't even know their neighbor's name.
So we have to ask them our questions, church.
And that is, if Jesus were here, where would he be hanging out
with the majority of his time? And the majority of his time
would probably be looking like a woman in a well in Oildale more
than it would look like a church in the Northwest on a Tuesday or
Wednesday or Thursday or Friday or Saturday for their 5th or 6th
or 7th program of the week. Jesus would be in the ecclesia,
but he would be about sending the ecclesia to the least.
Let me make sure you get the attention.
So you're not like, we don't need that church.
Don't you throw out his bride and don't you throw a punch at
her because he who defends her is a lot stronger than you.
And if you can't take the husband, you shouldn't be
talking about the bride. I'm just having fun today.
We got to go. You got to go, not me like you,
you got to go like the homeless should be served by you.
You're the answer to the homeless epidemic, the
impoverished, the poor in spirit, the hurting, the broken,
the oppressed. You're the solution.
Empowered by the Holy Spirit, you are the solution.
Stop looking at government and church pastors to give you every
solution that the Spirit of God has empowered you to live out
and do here. Let me give you a blessing.
You are a chosen race. You are a chosen people.
You are a royal priesthood. I now Ding thee by the Spirit of
God. Pastors, go, go.
You don't need my approval. What am I going to do?
Oh, that, that does sound like a Holy Spirit.
Good idea. I think God will want you to do
that. Well, now you must be really
empowered to do it because fallible Russ up here said go
for it. Are you kidding me?
If the spirit is igniting a passion in your heart to go and
do it. If the Spirit is calling you out
to courageously. Act Act.
Do it? Go in What?
What's the next word? Make make what?
Make converts? No, no, no, no.
Make church members? No, that's not it either.
Not called to make converts. Not called to make make
Christians. No Make disciples.
Now it would probably behoove us to have a working definition of
what a disciple is. We used many different
definitions before, but a disciple who someone is someone
who is daily operating under the rule of Jesus Christ in their
life. A disciple is someone who is
daily operating under the rule of Jesus Christ.
It's a simple way of putting it. It's basically saying that I
live as if He is alive and living and reigning and ruling
and returning over my life moment by moment, minute by
minute, in my living. To live as if God isn't
reigning, ruling and returning over my life and desiring to
call and Commission me by His Spirit to go and be His hands
and feet is to live as a practical atheist.
You can put the word Christian on it, but you're living as an
atheist and to never make a disciple in your life is to at
best be an extremely unfaithful Christian who never got a sight
of the actual purpose for what you were left on this earth to
do. You are not a mature follower of
Jesus until you've made a disciple.
No matter how much theology you know, if you've not made a
disciple, you are not mature. You're immature and wisdom will
only make you arrogant, not effective.
If you are not about making disciples, How do you make a
disciple? Well, that's not very easy, is
it? You know why it's not very easy?
Because it requires you looking weak.
I don't know how else to put it. Paul says.
I boast in my weaknesses for Christ.
Power is being perfected in it. So there's four things I wrote
down. I'm going to talk about them.
Four things I wrote down. The keys to making a disciple.
It must be audible, number one, it must be visible #2.
It must be mimicable #3 and it must be approachable #4 it must
be audible, it must be visible. It must be mimicable and it must
be approachable. Otherwise you can't make a
disciple. It must be audible.
Why? Because we are in the business
of proclaiming Christ, goodness, message, and glory to the
nation's. It's what we're here to do.
How a lot of you have heard What?
I'm just going to let my actions speak for my words.
What you were saying is that you are a coward.
You're afraid of allowing Jesus to be the dividing line between
you and your community. I am not ashamed of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. I take the warning that Jesus
gives us very seriously that if you deny me before men, I will
deny you before my Father. Your words speak to your God.
If all you ever do is talk about your football team and you never
talk about your Savior, then we've already identified the God
problem in your life. If all you talk about is the
government, then we've already identified the God in your life.
If all you talk about is your own finances and getting out of
your own stuff, then we've identified the God of your life.
Your words speak to your Savior so by the prayer that we see
prayed over and over again in many churches that comes out of
the Psalms. It's made the words of my mouth
and the meditation and thoughts of all of our hearts be holy and
pleasing to you to God. Your disciple making begins with
audibly talking through the gospel of Jesus Christ with
other people. What is the the gospel?
Well, we read it in in the synopsis form and John chapter
20. Nope, we found it.
Oh, Luke, Luke cites it. Luke 2445.
Here's the gospel. Thus it is written, Christ
should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.
How's that good news? There's a lot of explanation
that goes into that. But what's the core message of
the gospel? Jesus died for your sins.
First Corinthians 15 as it was written in the Scriptures, He
was buried as it was written in the Scriptures, and he rose on
the third day of victory as it was recorded for us in the
Scriptures, to which there are now witnesses.
And all of the earth. If you don't believe me, go back
to Jerusalem. Paul says it's around 500 who
saw him risen from the dead, many of which are still walking
around alive. So I put such a emphasis.
On you proclaiming audibly the witness of what you've seen God
do. You may not understand
everything about God, but you if you have a relationship with
Jesus. Have had an encounter with him
and as a result it should bring an audible message of what he's
done. It should be audible #2 it
should be visible. It should be seen.
It's why I'm taking Lucas to the park with me and we're shooting
hoops and not just swinging and staying to our own selves over
on the side. It's why we're praying nightly
about the family across the street.
It's why my wife and I, for three plus years, have been
investing in a couple that we are constantly trying to make
margin in our life for so that we can share the gospel with
them. We want them to visibly get
close enough. Our kids, our church.
So that they can see the gospel at work, we want them to see
our. Weaknesses I'm not covering.
Up my stuff. That's why I say I'm the lead
repenter of my family and I'm the lead repenter of this
church. What does that mean?
When I am wrong, which I will get it wrong a lot, Ask those
that are very close to me get it wrong a lot.
When I am wrong, I am the first to humble myself because I no
longer live in shame. Jesus bore my shame.
He bore your shame so that you, in your failure, can hold your
head high, knowing that your worth has not been subtracted
from you because of your mistakes.
I live redeemed, sanctified, freed from my past, freed from
my sin. He not only paid for what I've
done, He's delivered me from the person that I've been, so I
walk. With my head high and humble
before Him, walking in the light so that when the darkness rises
in me, it is immediately illuminated.
And it is turned from in repentance so that I can receive
the healing that only comes through receiving the grace and
the mercy of Christ. So it's got to be visible.
It's got to be audible. It's got to be mimicable.
I've got to allow you to see what God is doing in my life so
that you can see what it looks like in your life.
And this is what discipleship looks like.
I pull you in close enough to see the dysfunctions of my
attempts to pursue Jesus. You know what happens whenever I
pull you in close enough to see my life and my pursuit of Jesus?
You know what happens to me. I pay attention to the way that
I'm pursuing Jesus. I pay attention to the words
that I speak. When you know someone's close
enough to see, you start taking into regard the holiness and the
power of God in your life, and what happens is you begin to
walk a little bit more carefully than you would if you were to
not think anyone was watching. Look, the generation behind us
will mimic us. They will mimic us in rebellion
or in trying to be just like what we have done.
I do not want another generation to rise up in our church.
I'm talking about your kids who feel like they have to go
outside of the church to find the real God of the universe
because of the inauthenticity with which we practiced our
faith within it. It's got to be audible, it's got
to be visible, it's got to be mimicable #4 it finally, it has
to be approachable, has to be approachable.
Jesus removed the obstacles for people to come to Him.
I want everyone to know in my neighborhood, if you need, if
you need prayer, if you need someone to meet with you, if you
need someone to talk about and answer your questions about God,
I'm here. We had new neighbors that moved
in. Three houses on our block went
for sale. None of you bought it.
I don't take it personally, but none of you want to move by me.
But I made sure that I went to introduce myself to all of them
and I'm like, I don't know if I walked over.
Here's my opening line if you need one.
I was like in the South. I think I'm supposed to bring
you a pie or something, but I'm your neighbor.
I just want to say, hey, we're over here.
We're the chambers. You have kids.
We have kids. We love for your kids to play
with our kids. We sit in the front yard some
evenings. We love to talk to you.
And I'm a pastor and there's ever anything I can pray for you
about. I'd love to pray for you.
Now, clearly that shook the wife because her look, I was like, I
didn't know you would be here when we bought this house.
I mean, she looks like she's a Hot Topic employee that's not
just trying to mimic the lifestyle, but she's fully
engulfed in it. You know what I'm talking about?
Like, I don't smile ever. My favorite color is black, and
I like to wear it every day of the week with black makeup to
let you know that inside I feel black.
I feel like there's a hole of blackness.
Nothing's in there, so don't come and stare at it.
And I'm like. Hey, come play in our front
yard, I'll bake you a pie. I love Jesus, I don't.
Care if initially if they're afraid, I want them to know that
I'm removing every obstacle I can for them to come over, that
my door is the door they can knock on, that my life is a life
that they can inconvenience when their life is going through
turmoil. Do your neighbors know that
you're available? And that's that?
Again, do your neighbors know that you are available?
See, a lot of us aren't being approached because the way that
we're living is demonstrating, communicating to our neighbors
that we just simply aren't available.
We don't have time. I have time to talk to you.
I don't have time to hear about your problems.
Now, the other day, I was crammed for time and I have a
neighbor who pastors a smaller church in the middle of nowhere.
And he was going through it. His mother's on her last leg.
He's a single guy. He lives by himself.
The church is way out of town, so he doesn't have any week
during the week community with them that he pastors.
And he was in this dark moment and he comes out and he's like,
how are you doing? And I'm trying to blow him off.
And he looks at me and says, hey, can I, can I say something
to you? I said, yeah.
He said, man, I, I'm, I need prayer.
My mom's dying, the church I'm at, it's dying, my health, it's
not good either. I'm discouraged.
I need, will you pray for me during your prayer time?
By that point in time, I got in the memo from the Lord like,
hey, bucko, be available. And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm
not going to pray for you during my prayer time.
Prayer time's right now and we're in the we're in the
driveway with all the parents that are dropping their kids off
at the elementary school down the street.
And I'm laying my hands on him and I am praying over him in his
driveway because I want to be approachable.
I want to be a Great Commission fulfiller.
If you're going to fulfill the Great Commission, you have to
go. You have to make disciples #3
you have to be identified publicly with them.
Which means you've got to be baptized.
Just because you were sprinkled as a baby does not mean that you
have gone through believers baptism.
Believers baptism is you publicly identifying with the
death, burial, and resurrection after you come to the belief
that you need that accounted to you.
So it's not your parents decision.
You're not raised up in it. I was sprinkled as a baby.
They got me wet. But it was their commitment, not
mine that was made that day. It was their commitment that
they were going to raise me to know the Lord through their
example and not in spite of it. Does this make sense?
What we must understand, what we must do is get back to a place
of recognizing that we have to publicly profess Jesus, and that
begins with doing it His way. If you've never been baptized,
guess what you should do? You should get baptized.
I don't care if people thought you were a Christian for years,
Like if you've never been baptized since personally making
the decision to entrust your livelihood, your future, your
past, and your present to God, then you should be baptized #4
the last thing that is a part of it, baptism is a part of it #4
is we must go and teach. That is to say that replication
is the is the, is the sign that a disciple has been made.
It's the Son that a disciple has been made.
Now many of us live our whole life professing Jesus and we
don't have any clue if we actually made a single disciple.
That is because perhaps we've not been taught.
So some things that I think we must do because here's what I
want you to understand. The Great Commission is not an
idea that God hopes the church will fulfill.
The Great Commission is something that the Spirit of God
will accomplish with the Church of God, and we know it because
Revelation 7 speaks of the day when it's done.
So many of us are complacent when it comes to this mission
because we're like, Oh well, there's just so many lost people
and there's just people just don't seem to be attracted to
spiritual things. No, no, no, they're spiritual
people. They're just worshipping
creation over the creator. And you've been put in their
lives so they could, they could see someone who's worshipping
the creator of creation and stop worshipping matter.
I think there's three things we have to do to become a great
commissioned church. Number one, we must eliminate
the sacred and secular divide. That is to say, God is not
housed by our buildings and He's not housed by our meetings.
Acts 17 when Paul was before the Areopagus, he says God is not
contained in the temples of man. So if we build big temples, it
means nothing to the neighborhood if the people who
come in it aren't equipped to go out and share the message that
it professes. God's temple is your life.
He put His Spirit in you. That means everywhere you go,
you've walked into a place where the Spirit of God is working
because the Spirit of God is at work in and through you.
So stop compartmentalizing Jesus and where and when He can work
and lead in your life. That's one.
Number two, we must get rid of the idea that there's this thing
called professional vocational pastors and everybody else
accept your calling that first Peter has called you to first
Peter 29. You are a chosen race, a royal
priesthood, a royal nation, a people for his own possession,
that you, you may proclaim the effluencies of him who called
you out of the darkness into this marvelous light.
Leave this place as pastors today.
People will look at you weird if you show up at Mills tomorrow
morning. Like hey, just want you guys to
know became Pastor Dave overnight because some of you
are Christian but you still swear a lot and you've got to
work on that. OK, but you are a royal
priesthood. Then why do we have vocational
pastors to equip you? That's why I have a job that
pays me full time to be mimicable, approachable,
audible, and visible in my relationship with Jesus.
So that you can mimic me as I mimic him.
So that you can learn from my repentance and learn of the
trustworthiness of the grace and mercy of God.
That that's why I'm here. It's to equip the Saints for
works of service. If what I have just done,
preaching over my time and not apologizing about it, has not
equipped you to walk out of here as a missionary for God, then
all I have done is taken more of your time and we're 30 minutes
into your football game. But if you leave here knowing
who you are in Christ, then we have become something that makes
Satan tremble because he can take out a pastor and he can
take out a few of us with cancer, but he cannot take down
the Church of Jesus Christ. And when you know who you are,
it becomes unstoppable. It becomes a movement that
cannot be contained and it spreads like wildfire through
the streets. When you know who you are, then
you go out empowered by the Spirit walking as the redeemed
people of God. And you live out a life that
denies your preference and takes up your cross daily and pursues
His glory. And His revival comes to earth
because His harvest folks, is still plentiful.
But you are the laborers that we've been looking for in the
field, and it is time for you to get off of the bench and get
into the game. Stop watching me live out my
faith and with me come alongside me, shoulder to shoulder, and
shield to shield. And lest with the light of
Christ, push back the darkness that is in our city, so that his
name and his renown and His glory and His worship will rise
from this place into the heavens where the angels worship Him.
So that we can celebrate on this day, that day that is to come,
where faith will be made sight and will join in with the
heavenly host proclaiming holy, holy, holy is the Lord, Lord for
all eternity. May His glory reign over you,
and may it start. Today, in this place as this
people.