Vital Signs | We Need to Go

Thanks for checking out this podcast from Carterville Christian Church.

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Our hope is that through these messages you'll grow deeper in your faith and experience the life-changing hope of Jesus.

Now let's jump into this week's teaching.

Well, good morning, C3.

Going to be with you this morning as we kind of wrap up our series, Vital Signs Today.

My guess is that you know the name Steve Jobs this morning, okay?

The founder, uh, creator of Apple Computer Company is what it was first.

Um and uh it's interesting to me how this all got started for him uh because he came and and started this company uh at a time whenever uh the like IBM's president said that there's not gonna be a like a world demand for more than five computers worldwide.

Like that was the only demand for it was five computers, that was it.

Um and then there was another the president of digital equipment, uh right the year that Steve Jobs started Apple Computer Company, uh said that there is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home at all.

Right?

That's that's what that's what he was up against.

And yet him and his partner Steve Wozniak were convinced this was this is what they were gonna do.

They were gonna take what previously took up entire rooms, all these tubes and all these machines everywhere, and put it into a small box that fit onto a desk, all that kind of stuff.

They had this design and tried to go sell it to Atari, and Atari said, no, they don't want it.

You know, like they tried to sell it to him, they didn't want it, right?

You know, same thing with Hewlett-Packard, same thing.

They didn't want it, they turned him down.

They were convinced that of this, like of this idea of of making computers, all this kind of stuff.

So they so Steve Jobs sold his Volkswagen and and Wozniak sold his computer, they had, or sold his uh calculator, they had$1,300 of startup money, and eventually it started gaining steam.

You guys know the story, obviously.

A lot of you have an iPhone sitting in your pocket right now as a result of this company that was started.

But as it started gaining steam, they realized we need somebody who's a little bit more, um, a little bit more skilled and has a little bit more expertise as far as the business side of things go.

And so they had in mind this guy named John Scully.

John Scully was the president of Pepsi at the time, multi-million dollar company, obviously.

Um, and so that when Steve Jobs approached him and said, Hey, when you want to come join my startup computer company, he was like, Well, no, of course I don't want to do that.

Why would I leave this?

I'm the president of Pepsi.

Why would I want to do that?

Steve Jobs was convinced, though, this was the right guy, so he went back a second time, and John Skoly said even more emphatically, No, I'm not gonna do that.

This is a dumb decision.

Why would I do that?

A couple months go by, and Jobs comes back to Skoly one last time, convinces him to have one last meeting, and this is a passionate presentation saying the vision of what he wants to what he wants to accomplish with his company.

And then he asked Skolly this question.

He said, Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?

I got a question for you this morning.

If someone offered you an invitation on a world-changing endeavor, what would you say?

We're we're wrapping up this series, Vital Signs, and we've been talking about who we are as a church.

Really, that's what it comes down to is who we are as a church and what we do as a church.

We are a gathering of people who realize that we need Jesus.

Like first and foremost, that's that's who we are.

We're a gathering of people who realize that we need Jesus, and it leads us into what we do as a church.

We make disciples who are gather or who are growing by studying and applying the word of God, who are gathering together for worship, encouragement, accountability, who are giving their time and giftedness and resources towards kingdom efforts.

And today we're wrapping it up by talking about how we as a church make disciples of Jesus who are going with the gospel across the street and across the border.

And with each week, we've discussed like how these are our we need statements.

Like I hope that I hope that these aren't disconnected from you as you walk into this room, but that's something that you realize: hey, I need to be doing this.

We need to be going.

I need to be going.

And really, this kind of all stems from who we are.

This one today kind of all stems from who our God is.

And what we believe to be true is that our God is a sending God.

Our God is a sending God.

I love how one author says it.

One author said that our God is a missionary God.

All throughout the pages of scripture, we see a God who is always moving towards people, like someone who loves us and wants a relationship with us, so much so that even when we're stuck in our brokenness, he came close to us.

He came down and put on flesh and and he lived the life we were we were supposed to live, but we couldn't live on our on our own, and he died the death in our place to reconcile us back to himself so he could have a relationship with us.

That's how bad he wanted a relationship with you.

Is he came and died in your place.

And all throughout the pages of scripture, we see a God who is then calling people to join him in that mission.

Join him into something bigger than themselves.

I mean, just think about with me, just a brief overview.

We think about Abraham.

Like a father Abraham is called to leave his native land and his people and go, and he doesn't even know where he's supposed to go.

Doesn't even know where the Lord's gonna take him, but he goes.

Think about Moses, you know, the great deliverer, right?

I think about how he's met and and face to face with God in the burning bush and told to go back to Pharaoh for the purpose of releasing the Israelites from slavery.

And after this back and forth, Moses trying to say, I'm not the one you want, I'm not the one you want, I'm not qualified for this.

God just says, I'm the one who's qualified you.

So we just go and he goes.

I think about Jonah, who's called to go by to God and to go by God and go and preach to a pagan city.

But Jonah, you know the story of Jonah, he goes, runs in the opposite direction, but God is so committed to this mission that he deploys a great fish, a whale, to go and swallow up Jonah and go spit him out on the shore and say, Go to Nineveh.

Like that's where you're supposed to go.

And finally, Jonah goes.

I think about some blue-collar fishermen who are just minding their own business, tending to their nets on the shore, and and it's Jesus Himself who shows up and says, Hey, come and follow me.

And I'm gonna send you, I'm gonna make you into fishers of men.

See, all throughout Scripture, our God is a sending God, and He's continually calling people to something greater than themselves.

And it's not just true of those in the Bible because our God is ascending God, and He is sending us.

That's the truth of Scripture.

Is that He's He's sending us, He's inviting us to join Him on this mission.

He's sending you and me.

The Lord has extended this invitation into something that's far greater than ourselves.

And there is something about this in every single gospel.

There's there's some different form of this commission listed in every single gospel.

I think about Mark 16 when when Jesus says, Go into all the world, proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

I think about Luke 24.

Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer on the third day and rise from the dead, and the repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

I think about John chapter 20, verse 21, when Jesus said to them, Again, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, so even I am sending you.

John 20:21

I think about Acts chapter 1, when he says, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

And Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ.

God is making his appeal through us, and we implore you on Christ, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Now, probably the most famous one that we will all know a little bit more than the others is in Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

That's why I want to land a little bit this morning.

Because in Matthew chapter 28, this is what Jesus says to his disciples.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

One of my professors at Ozark said, If all authority is belongs to him, how much is left for you?

It's a good reminder for me sometimes.

And he says, 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 that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Our God is a sending God, and He is sending us.

And I want to kind of break this down a bit for us this morning by asking two questions.

The first question is simply this: where should we go?

Where should we go?

And you've probably already caught it whenever we whenever I said the core value at the beginning that we want to make disciples who are going with the gospel across the street and across the border.

We want to go across the border because of what Jesus says here.

Make disciples of all nations.

We want to go across the border to unreached people groups.

There are people in this world who have not heard of the good news of Jesus.

So we go into all the world.

And we while we support different missions organizations who are planting churches, we support missions organizations like Haitian Christian Mission and Mission Kree Bay in Honduras and Good News Productions and Mustard Seed in Japan.

So that those who haven't heard can hear.

He grew up down the street from me, his name's Sam Martin.

He's a missionary with mustard seed in Yokohama.

He's the lead lead church planter in Yokohama now.

And he's that his family, him and his family moved from here.

They were, he was actually a minister at Christ Church of Voronogo, and then they went over to Japan about eight years ago now.

They've been in country for about eight years.

And he told the story of his son Graham, who went to preschool in Japan.

And he said, every day we would go to this preschool, and there were there was nobody who believed in Jesus at this preschool.

There were no Christians at this preschool.

And he said I would, Graham and I would ride on my bike to this preschool every every morning.

And then there was one morning in particular that Graham asked, like, how how can I say the word Sunday in Japanese?

Can you tell me how to say the word Sunday?

And so Sam told him, Nietzsche Yobi.

Everybody said, Nichiyobi.

That's a yeah, it's a bunch of southwest Missourians trying to speak Japanese right there, you know?

And he said, I he said I heard him saying it to himself multiple times while he's on the bike, Nietzsche Yobi, Nichi Yobi, Nichi Yobi.

And then he asked me what time our church started and how to say it in Japanese.

And I he said, Juji Han.

Everybody say Juji Han.

There you go.

And he repeated it to himself over and over and over again.

And then Sam got curious.

He said, Why do you want to know?

And Graham, this preschooler, said, Well, I want to invite my teacher to church.

He said, So Sam dropped him off church, said, That's awesome, buddy.

You go go do it, right?

And he dropped, dropped him off.

He came back to pick him up later that day.

And as he came to pick up, as he came to pick up Graham, his teacher was coming with Graham out to meet him at his bike.

And he said, the teacher said, Well, Graham invited me to church, and she wanted to know how she could get there.

She wanted to get a little bit more specific directions.

And the next Sunday, she came and he said, Graham was so excited.

He sat by his teacher and she heard the gospel for the very first time.

She came upstairs and ate lunch with them after the service that day, and she told them that it was her very first time at church ever.

We need to go.

So that those who haven't heard can hear.

Jay Greer was with us a few years ago.

He's with Mustard Seed, also.

He told us a story of a man named Yoshio.

Yoshio was in his upper 60s when he came to their church for the first time.

And he came and he sat in their seats and he heard the gospel and he responded to the gospel and he was baptized as a man in his late 60s.

And he said this after he was baptized.

He said, I always knew there was a God, but I couldn't find anyone to tell me about him.

We need to go.

Because there are people who don't know the name of Jesus, who haven't heard the name of Jesus, who need to hear of him.

There are people who need the hope that can only be found in him.

And here's the deal: sometimes, sometimes we get to this part in a message like this, and the majority of us, and I'm I'm guilty as well.

I've sat and listened to messages like this, and sometimes we can get here, and then we can just kind of write it off, because that's not for me.

That's not that doesn't have anything to do with my life right now, that doesn't have anything to do with with um with what I'm dealing with right now, you know?

Like I'm not just gonna pick up and move to Japan, not gonna pick up and move to Honduras right now and go preach the gospel there.

I'm not I'm not gonna do that.

And hear me, I understand the majority of us in here are probably not going to just pick up and move and go to an unreached people group like next week.

It's probably not gonna happen.

And yet sometimes I think we can write it off before we even allow the Lord to speak.

And there's somebody in this room, I'm convinced of it, there's somebody in this room who's been just like burying the call of God on your life.

And vocational ministry is not for everybody, but it is for somebody, and maybe it's you.

Like maybe it's you this morning.

You need to realize, yeah, God has gifted me for this purpose specifically, to go and to spread the gospel somewhere.

And one of the hardest things and what yet most beautiful things we can do as a church is invest in people to then leave and go somewhere else to a place where people haven't had the chance to hear and respond to the good news of the gospel.

And I think about, you know, think about all the students that we've supported.

I went back and just did my own math this week.

And I look back on our on our spreadsheets.

Over the last five years alone, there have been 22 students that we've sent from Cardeville Christian Church to go be trained in in biblical ministry, to go be trained at Ozark Christian College for Christian service.

It's pretty incredible.

Over$100,000 we've invested over the last five years into training up the men and women for Christian service.

That's pretty incredible.

And listen, like vocational ministry is not for everybody, but maybe it's for you.

And maybe you've been suppressing that feeling long enough, but let me just say there's a student somewhere in a small town in the Midwest, probably, that doesn't have anybody to walk alongside of them and disciple them.

That doesn't have anybody to invest in them and call them into something greater.

Maybe that's you that needs to go.

And listen, there's a group of people who need to be led to worship God, not just with their words sung on a Sunday morning, but with their lives, everyday lives.

Maybe that's you.

And there's a there's a family who's in distress right now, who needs someone to walk alongside of them and to counsel them and to pray with them and to be with them.

Maybe that's you.

Maybe God's calling you to fill that need.

And there's a there's a little boy or girl who can't fight for themselves, and they need someone to answer the call and go fight on their behalf, motivated by the love of the Father.

And maybe that's you.

And listen, there's somebody that you in another part of the world that you have never met and probably never even heard of, and they've never met or even heard of Jesus.

And maybe you're the one that needs to go and share the good news with them.

Like we need to go across the border.

So we we invest in global missions and and we invest in those training for Christian service, and maybe, maybe we answer the call personally and we go.

Because if we don't, who else will?

But we also we also go with the gospel across the street.

And sometimes it's easy to hear a message like this and write it off because it's meant for somebody else.

I'm not the person who's gonna pack up and go across the border, but I think Jesus has something for the rest of us as well.

Because when he says to his disciples, hey, go, it's it actually could be better rendered as you go.

Like as you go, meaning as you go about your business, remember to make Jesus famous.

As you go about your everyday life, as you go about the menial mundane tasks, will you keep Jesus on the tip of your tongue?

Will you let the gospel transform every moment of your life?

I love how one author described it.

He said, The Great Commission is simple, walk with people as you walk with Jesus, and before long they'll meet each other.

And maybe, maybe we're not intentionally walking with Jesus as we walk with other people.

And we need to be a little bit more intentional with that.

You can take the mission seriously, even in the mundane moments of your life.

Read a story, this author, preacher, said he was writing out this prayer in his in his prayer journal, and he said, Lord, today I'm reminded that I'm a part of a great story that's developing over thousands of years.

You're making all things new, you're restoring the world to yourself, and you're inviting me to join join you in this work.

Send me to whomever you want.

I want to be present to others as you are.

He then said that as he wrote and prayed these words, his daughter, who was four years old at the time, came to him and said, Dad, can you pour me a bowl of cereal?

And he said, I took a request as an annoying distraction.

Like, how dare she interrupt my time with God?

After all, I was asking him to help me help me join him in remaking the world.

And he said, after begrudgingly pouring cereal, I went back to pray and then it hit me, and I felt conviction in my heart.

The act of being lovingly present to her at that moment was a small act of remaking the world.

It was unimpressively simple and yet core to what it means to follow Jesus.

I love that.

It's unimpressively simple.

And here, maybe, maybe the place you need to go, maybe the way that you answer this call seems in your mind unimpressively simple.

But I want to speak as clearly as as I can.

The Lord cares about the small, the minuscule, the mundane, the seemingly insignificant, the unimpressively simple moments that He gives you every day.

And you can answer the call by helping even just one person take one step closer to the Lord.

I don't know, maybe for you that means at school.

You know, I know we're in the middle of summer, but as as school starts back up in about a month, as that happens, man, maybe you just need to go and you need to help one person take one step closer as you go to school.

Take one step closer to the Lord.

We've said it here before, man, maybe one of the biggest mission fields that you'll ever get to be a part of is that public school that you walk into.

Answer the call.

Maybe, maybe for those of us, it's for those of us in here, it's it's our workplace.

You know, I read this week that the average person will spend about a hundred thousand hours at their workplace.

Can you imagine if you tithed 10% of those hours to the Lord?

Can you imagine?

We're talking 10,000 hours that you gave just to telling somebody about the Lord.

Can you imagine?

Like the kind of impact that you could have there?

Maybe maybe the place you need to go this week is just your own home.

Like in the person living in the room next to you under the same roof.

Like maybe that's that's what it is.

Investing intentionally into your kids or into your family in such a way that it helps even one person take one step closer to the Lord.

As you go to the grocery store, to the coffee shop, to the ball field, what's one thing you can do to help one person take one step closer to the Lord?

And where should we go?

I think I think the question is we go everywhere.

And everywhere we go, everywhere we go, God is asking us to join him on his mission.

So I there's a second question.

I think the second question is is vital for this.

And it's what should we say?

What should we say?

Where should we go and what should we say?

So he says, Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you.

You know the imperative command in that whole verse, the imperative is make disciples.

And a disciple is at its most basic a learner, a lifelong learner follower of Jesus.

And it's a learning that's defined, Mark Moore, Mark Moore defined it this way, it has less to do with information and more to do with transformation.

That's what discipleship's really all about.

And if discipleship's really all about transformation, then it changes what we say.

Like if it's more about your heart being and your life being transformed by God than it is about knowing all the right things, it changes what we say because there's only one who is really able to change somebody.

There is only one who is really able to transform a life, God Himself.

And here's the thing, sometimes we talk about, we talk about evangelism, this word of like sharing the gospel with one another.

Sometimes we can mistake evangelism with the fruit of evangelism.

You know, the fruit of evangelism is exactly what we're talking about here.

It's a transformed life, it's a changed life.

It's somebody who is submitted to the Lordship of Jesus in their life, and every part of their life is changed.

That's the fruit of evangelism.

But that is not evangelism.

And so many times we can get we can get stuck, we can get stuck in in celebrating only the fruit of evangelism and never never celebrating what evangelism really is.

See, it's ultimately out of your control and out of my control how the Lord chooses to move in somebody else.

And it is out of your control and out of your control.

Of my control how an individual individual should respond, whether in faith or if they should suppress the truth.

Like it's out of our control.

And so many times we can get stuck and just say evangelism is when somebody comes to know Jesus.

And that's not necessarily the case.

No, evangelism is whenever you faithfully share the gospel.

When you faithfully go, and one of our speakers at Move said it this way: we we often celebrate the saving, but we need to celebrate the sharing.

Like every single time that we step out in faith and speak of Jesus, we should celebrate because you're answering the call.

When you step out and speak the gospel clearly, you're answering the call.

And our words need to be all about Him and what He has done and what we cannot do, namely the gospel.

I love how Paul says it in Romans chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

For everyone who calls in the name of the Lord will be saved.

But how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?

And how are they to believe in whom that they have not heard?

And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

And how are they to preach unless they are sent, as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

Church, simply put, we are sent to speak the good news of the gospel.

Our God is a sending God, and He's sending us, but He's sending us with our mouths open to proclaim the good news.

Like we can't miss this part.

So many times we we um man, there's an there's an old old saying that says, hey, preach the gospel and when necessary, use words.

And I'm gonna be honest, I get the sentiment, like I understand the idea, like let your life be a be the gospel message, but I really I hate that quote.

Because in order to preach the gospel, you actually need to say the gospel, you need to speak it out loud so that somebody can hear it, like what Paul's saying, so they can hear it and respond to it in faith.

And if you haven't said it, they haven't had a chance to respond in faith.

We have to go with the gospel and to the degree that we believe the gospel, we will accept this call and answer it and speak the gospel.

You know, it was that move a couple weeks ago, and they gave us a uh like a really practical tool to help us to go with the good news of the gospel.

And actually, I've helped I've asked one of our grads, Brett Carrier, is gonna come up.

Can you guys give it up for Brett right up here?

Brett's gonna come help me.

Brett, I I hope your mic works because mine does not.

So does it work?

Uh let's see.

Is it working?

Oh good.

Good deal, good deal.

Okay.

This I think that wheel is broken.

So we're gonna try to move that as far forward as we can.

I don't know if you guys can see that, but you'll see it up on the screen in just a second, okay?

So all right, Brett.

So tell me a little, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yeah, so I just graduated high school and I'm going to Ozella Cushion College and doing the co-op with MSSU.

That's awesome, dude.

That's awesome.

We're super excited about that.

Uh yeah, you get clapped for that.

That's fine.

That's great.

That's awesome.

We're excited about that.

Uh Brett, when did you start coming to Carterville?

When did you start coming to the uh it's been a couple years now?

I just had some of my buddies invite me and I've been with it ever since.

Yeah, made all the difference, right?

Some some some buddies who just said, yeah, come come with us to church, right?

Exactly.

Okay, what's okay, off the ball question.

What's your favorite kind of ice cream?

Cookie dough.

Definitely.

Cookie dough.

Nice.

Yeah, nice.

Okay, you said you wanted to go, you're thinking about going to Ozark and Missouri Southern.

What are you trying to study?

What do you want to study?

I'm thinking about youth ministry.

I just I saw a teaching with the kids in Sunday school a while back, and I've loved it since then.

Yeah, that's awesome, dude.

And we've seen, I mean, I'm not the only one who's seen this, and you I know our youth ministers have seen this, and I know so many people have just seen just an intentionality that you have with younger students specifically, you know, investing in them and caring about them.

It's it's awesome.

You've done that.

Even with my kids, I'm greatly appreciative of that.

They're wild and crazy, and you've had patience with them.

So, okay, so Brett, you get it, you get into this, okay?

Tell us, tell us what this what this tool is that we got at SEO.

So the tool they gave us, it's called the Three Circle Gospel.

Three circle gospel.

And so you can use this in a lot of ways, like even if you're just in a copy shop and have a napkin, you can what draw this out and help to tell the gospel to someone.

That's awesome.

So, how it's gonna begin is that in the beginning, God made everything and everything was good, right?

We had this close connection with God, and we were happy, and it was just this awesome connection with God.

Yeah, even like Adam and Eve walked in the garden with God, right?

Like shared that kind of relationship with him.

Yeah, but then us humans kind of decided that we thought we knew what was best, right?

We did what we wanted to do, and that led us away from God, and that was called sin.

It led us into this mess, into this brokenness, and we chased a few things, try to get out of it.

We'll chase stuff like money, yeah, and maybe like a job, or even a relationship, it can be.

Yeah, and it can be innocent enough at first, but then we think it'll make us happy, but it just leads us away from God, and then we snap back into this mess.

Yeah, so these are like bungee cords almost that we can chase for a little bit, but they end up end up bringing us right back into that.

Yeah, exactly.

It's just it's just dead ends, and it's not gonna fulfill us.

Yeah.

But then God sees us in that mess and how we can't get out of it by ourselves, and so he sends his son Jesus to die on the cross for us.

He takes my sin, he takes your sin.

And then Jesus rises from the dead and we repent.

We get the choice to repent in order to accept that sacrifice and get this connection back with God.

We get to be reconnected back with God.

Yeah, restored back into a relationship.

Restored, we're reconnected with God, and so we get this awesome connection back, but then as you've been saying, God calls us to go back out.

He sends us into this mess, into this sin and bogenness, and he calls us to tell people the good news about how Jesus can get us out of this mess and how good he is.

Man, that's awesome.

That's really that's really great.

Can you guys give up for Brett right now?

That's super cool.

Yeah, you can see it up there, right?

Like it's it's not just meant to sometimes we get to, oh, we've been restored, we've been, we've been saved by by the Lord, we've been reconciled back into a perfect relationship.

Yeah, and then we stop.

And we stop right there.

But that's not the end.

There's so much more that the Lord wants for us.

He wants to send us back into this brokenness to tell others of how they could be restored as well.

That's pretty awesome.

Brett, when did you feel the call?

I know you've like talked about this before.

When did you feel like the Lord might be calling you into youth ministry?

Um, so I used to be kind of shy, and so I didn't really talk much, but then like this last year or two, I just tried to get out of my shell and talk to people and connect with the kids.

And so it was really just when I started teaching Sunday school.

I was like, I love doing this.

Like this could be my job one day.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that even goes back to what we were talking about last last week.

Uh sometimes, sometimes we don't even know what our giftedness is, our spiritual giftedness.

And then we just step forward in faith and start serving, and the Lord will say, Yeah, I've gifted you for this specifically.

I've I've made you for this specifically.

And Brett, we're super excited for you, man.

I'm excited to see what the Lord does, does with you.

Um, and I want you to know this body right here is 100% behind you.

We we're excited for you, and we're we're gonna we're gonna be praying for you and lifting you up all along the way.

And actually, can I pray with you right now?

Yeah.

All right, we pray.

Lord, we're just so thankful for Brett, thankful for um his story, thankful for how you're you are the author of it and you're writing it.

And I'm thankful for the ways that you've gifted him and um the heart that he has for you and for your church and for your uh for your people.

Lord, I pray that uh you would continue to um to solidify the call that you've placed on his life, help him to be confident in the ways that you've gifted him and um to be bold in sharing the good news of the gospel.

Um we pray that you would empower him by your spirit to be able to faithfully walk with you uh all the days of his life.

It's in your powerful name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Thanks, Brett.

Can you guys give it for Brett one more time?

Here's a challenge we got at move with this specifically, and what was up on the screen is to share, go share your faith with somebody in the next 45 days.

And they were like over half of our students stood up and said, Yeah, we're gonna do that.

We're gonna take that call seriously, and we're gonna go share this gospel with somebody in the next 45 days.

I want to extend the invitation to you, church, to join with them.

That the way that kind of lines up is before school starts, will you go share the gospel with somebody who needs who needs to needs to hear it?

Because there are people who have not had the chance to hear and respond to the good news of Jesus because you have not spoken it to them.

We need to go.

We need to share it.

And here's the deal: like, I really think that we will take this call of the Lord seriously when our lives have been changed deeply by Jesus.

Like it all kind of comes back to our very first sermon in this whole series is this this idea that, hey, we need Jesus.

You and I need Jesus.

And Jesus did something about our brokenness and about our sin.

What Brett was talking about here.

Like we were stuck here, and we've been, we've tried to get ourselves out of this brokenness and tried to chase addictions or relationships or even like identity in something else, success in something else, and yet we just keep finding ourselves right back in that brokenness.

And God, before we did anything, he stepped in.

He stepped in and he came and lived the life that you and I were supposed to live, and he died the death that we were supposed to experience ourselves.

And he rose again and defeated death so that you and I could have new life in him.

And this is a life-changing truth.

And if it has changed your life, then that means it can change anybody's life.

Even the person that you haven't told yet.

It can change their life.

And maybe it looks like hearing and answering the call of your of the Lord in your life like Brett and stepping into a life of ministry, or maybe it maybe it looks like the unimpressively simple moments of your life this week.

Just dedicating them to the Lord as an act of worship.

I reminded of the story, I've told you the story before of Leonard and May.

They're living in Southeast Kansas.

Um they had nine kids.

May was a devout follower of Jesus.

Leonard was kind of opposed to it.

So May would load up their nine kids in their station wagon every Sunday morning and drive the 18 miles one way to Dodge City, Kansas to go to church.

And every day, she would, every Sunday they would go, and this is their Sunday tradition.

Leonard never really joined in.

He was like kind of skeptical of the whole thing, never really, never really joined them in this Sunday tradition.

But what May also did, as she kept taking the kids every Sunday morning as she would drive the 18 miles one way to Dodge City and drive back, she would always pray, every single day, was praying for her husband that the Lord would just work on his heart, that he would reveal himself to him, that he would soften him to the gospel, that he would, that he would even agree to just come to church with them.

And then it was a winter day, a winter Saturday that Leonard said, you know, I think tomorrow I'll go with you guys to church.

And May was overjoyed.

She was like, Yes, this is the day I've been waiting.

Thank you, Lord.

I'm so excited for this.

And they wake up the next morning and there's a blizzard outside.

And May is still determined.

We're going to church, you know, we're going to get there.

By golly, Leonard said he wants to go.

My husband said he wants to go, we're going to get to church today.

So they load up all the kids.

They gave themselves a little more time at the beginning to make sure they could get to the church in time.

And they get there, and the preacher's standing outside and just telling everybody, hey, sorry, church is canceled today.

And to say that May was distraught is uh putting it lightly.

You know, Leonard started questioning everything again, like, I don't know if I want to go.

Like, I don't know if I want to really do this.

And it was a few months actually before Leonard accepted the invitation and came back for the second time, decided to go to church for the second time.

And as he sat kind of like almost in the lobby outside of the sanctuary, he heard the gospel preached and he and he responded in faith.

And he gave his life to the Lord and was baptized into him.

On that day, one of his sons was also baptized with him on that same Sunday.

And as a result of May's prayer, all nine of their kids were dedicated to the Lord, gave their lives to the Lord, were involved in ministry, whether vocationally or voluntarily, even in the mundane moments of their lives, they gave it all all to the Lord.

Their son that was baptized, his name was Gene.

Gene married Donita.

They had five children of their own.

Gene became a preacher.

He raised his children to know and love Jesus just like he had been raised.

All his children were involved in ministry, whether vocationally or voluntarily, in their lives.

Gene had a son, his name was Paul.

Paul watched his mom and dad as he was growing up and saw they feared the Lord and wanted to serve him and he wanted to also.

So he was baptized, decided he wanted to go into full-time ministry.

He went to Ozark Christian College, he met his wife Julie there.

They partnered in ministry and still are partnering in ministry for about 40 years now.

They had three kids of their own, raised them to know and love Jesus just as they had been raised.

All three of their children are involved in ministry vocationally, voluntarily, in their lives.

The reason why I know this is because their youngest son is the one who's standing in front of you, telling you the story.

I'm just gonna tell you, man, if it wasn't for my great-grandma May, just being faithful to the Lord and what is seemingly small, just faithfully praying to the Lord.

Man, it it that changed the trajectory of my entire family.

And thousands, I can't begin to imagine the thousands of lives that have been altered because of my aunts and uncles, because of their faithful ministry, because of my parents, because of my my grandpa.

I can't begin to think about all the lives that have been changed because of them.

And it all started with one woman who just said, I'm gonna faithfully serve the Lord.

I'm gonna raise my kids to know him and love him.

I'm gonna pray fervently for my husband.

It changed the trajectory of generations.

Can you imagine what might happen if all of us took the call of God seriously?

Can you imagine what would happen in generations to come?

If you and I just said, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna speak the truth of the gospel every every chance we get.

We're gonna dedicate every mundane, seemingly unimportant moment to the Lord because he's worthy of it.

Can you imagine what would happen?

I can't even begin to imagine what would happen.

But that's the kind of church I want to be a part of.

I don't know about you, but a church that goes across the street, across the border, with the good news of the gospel on our lips.

And may it be so of us.

Let's pray.

Lord, we're just so thankful for what you have done, for how good you are, thankful for the truth of your gospel that has changed us.

Our lives would be lived in response to this change that we have experienced in you.

I pray that as you call, we would answer.

We would boldly go and and share the good news with a world that desperately needs it.

Lord, may it start here.

May it start in our community, may it start in our schools, may it start in our workplaces, may it start in our homes.

Lord, help it not to stay there.

Help us to be so radically changed by your gospel that we will leverage every single part of us for the world to know of this life-changing truth.

And we love you.

We give you all the glory, all the honor, all the praise.

You alone deserve it.

It's in your powerful name we pray.

Amen.

Thanks again for listening to the Carterville Christian Church podcast.

Our prayer is that today's message has encouraged you and drawn you closer to Jesus.

To learn more or get connected with our church family, visit Carterville Christian.com.

We'd love to walk alongside you on your journey of faith.