CORE VALUES: Mission

This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

For more information on our church, please visit grandparkway.org.

Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you've got a Bible, want you to take it, open it up to Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Uh Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

And if you're our guest today, let me say thank you for looking into a new church.

We're in a series where we're in the month of January.

We're looking at the core values of our church, what we what we value as a church.

And so we basically have four core values: gospel, uh, community, uh, which Lance did a great job of talking about last week about community.

What does that mean?

That means that we're open, uh, we're woundable.

We have people in our lives that speak into our lives and we speak into their lives.

We're intentional when we're around each other, but gospel, community, and today I want to talk to you about mission.

You say, what do you mean?

Well, let me just read to you, because I'm not very creative.

What we mean by that.

If you were checking out our church, you went on the website and you clicked around and you said, hey, core values, you would read this under mission.

Being missional is to be intentional, to act and react to those around us with purpose is at the heart of mission.

Because our worldview is shaped by the lens of scripture.

We understand the mission field to be our backyard, the soccer field where our kids play and our neighbors' driveway, just as much as it is India, Costa Rica, Romania, and Romania.

At the core of our mission is Jesus' charge to make disciples of all nations.

Therefore, we engage the culture with redemption, not just relief in mind.

Participation in what God is doing in the world is something each of us has been empowered and equipped to do, whether we pray, send, or go, each of us plays a part in God's story of mission.

I want to talk to you today.

That's what we believe.

I want to talk to you this morning about why we believe that from Matthew chapter 28, starting in verse 16.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

The Bible says, Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.

I don't have time to get into this this morning, but if you notice how many times something significant takes place on a mountaintop in the Bible, that's where the phrase the mountaintop experience.

I mean, no one calls a meeting on top of a mountain just to announce, hey guys, we're out of butter.

That doesn't happen.

If you go into work this week and your boss says we're having a sales meeting on top of this mountain over here, your first thought is, uh-oh, what who's in trouble?

So Jesus calls these to this mountain in verse 17.

And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.

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, and teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you.

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

Now, I just want to, I don't have time to talk about this, but but we kind of, we preachers kind of get right the middle of it.

You know, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, teach them to obey.

That's kind of our wheelhouse.

But I just want to say, what makes it possible is the stuff on either end.

The, first of all, this this kind of statement, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

See, there can only be a mission imperative because there's this glorious indicative.

There's this, hey, there's this thing right here.

It's a simple statement of fact.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

It's like Jesus says, before I say anything that makes you a little nervous, uh, let me just say this.

All authority, I'm talking to you as the most authoritative person you will ever know in this world or any other world.

It's kind of like credentials.

He kind of kind of, y'all are looking at me like, I don't I don't get it.

Because, see, we don't understand authority because no one's under authority anymore.

Have you been to the mall and watched teenagers walk around?

You just want to take your belt off and just start randomly whipping some of these people.

Hey, clearly you don't have parents.

Come here, son.

Pull your pants up.

Maybe that's just what I do on Saturdays, but I'm just like full of love.

I mean, what happened to authority?

We don't understand authority.

Let me paint you a picture of authority.

I have a friend of mine that's a constable.

He talked to me and said, Hey, I want you to think about maybe praying about being a chaplain for our department, for our force, or whatever.

So we met and had coffee and we're talking, and then he says, Well, can I mean we're talking about everything life, kids, marriage, you know, all stuff, the military.

And he says, Well, let me tell you about what else involved this, and blah, blah, blah.

And we're probably talking 45 minutes about all this stuff.

And then he gets kind of towards the end talking about what it means.

He said, I want you to be a chaplain for for our four.

And then he says, Oh, and by the way, and he pulls off of his belt this leather thing and lays it on the table, and he says, and this leather little wallet-looking thing has a big badge on it.

He says, You'll get a badge.

Ho! Ho! What?

That's what you should have said to begin with.

We first said down.

By the way, you're gonna get one of these if you say yes.

Oh, and here's the way my mind works, okay?

I start thinking of all of it, and then he and he just naturally slid it off the table and just clipped it back on.

I'm like, this is the way I'm gonna roll.

And I was like, he has a badge, right?

Can you imagine?

I just thought I would leave the office, clip that bad boy on, go home.

Hey, hey, baby, how's supper coming?

Because five of them will be needing his supper up in here on time.

What you been doing today?

Hello?

Hello?

Hello?

Do I need the fresh skin?

What's going on here?

Put your hands on the countertop, right here.

What you been doing?

Oh, can you imagine getting stopped?

Then my mind went crazy.

I started just fantasizing about getting stopped for running the red light.

They come up to the window, got your license registration.

Yeah, it's here somewhere.

Hey, can you hold my badge while I look for that?

Somebody told me, hey, you can put that thing on a necklace and wear it like a detective.

Oh, I'd be up here preaching one Sunday like a wrapper with that big thing just dangling around my neck.

Do y'all know I got a badge?

I didn't want that to get in the way of anything.

You say, why?

My wife's like, authority makes men crazy.

It's like the first day you got a chainsaw.

You're just like knocking on your neighbor's doors.

You need anything cut down?

Wham, wham.

I trimmed a limb that big.

I went and bought a$300 chainsaw.

So why am I telling you that?

Because I want you to understand authority.

Authority.

Now, by the way, I don't have any authority.

I just got a badge.

But authority, see, everything Jesus says is predicated upon and rooted in all authority.

Ain't nobody gonna mess with you that is bigger and badder than me.

That's what Jesus says.

And you could just see the disciples kind of holding on to the edge of the pews, like, oh, please, hammer, don't hurt us.

What's coming next?

It's like when your dad would turn off a TV and go, family meeting.

Who stole something?

All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.

Go, therefore.

In light of this, therefore, because I have all authority, go.

See, there's only go and make disciples of all nations, all ethne.

It's not geopolitical states, it's all ethnic.

Nations is ethne, it's people group.

See, God wants worshipers and followers and disciples from every cultural linguistic group on the planet.

God didn't come for everybody who speaks English.

And by the way, that's the only point in the sermon today.

It's not a great commission.

It's a great co-mission.

We'll get to that just later on.

It's a great co-mission.

He says, hey, hey, by the way, here's the one thing I want you to do.

I want you to make disciples.

And so if you're thinking about our church or checking out our church, understand this.

Everything we do is about making disciples.

We turn on the lights because we want to make disciples.

We don't want to club you over the head.

We don't want to, we don't use guilt and manipulation and pressure because we believe that the gospel.

We talked about that a couple weeks ago.

We believe the gospel, the biblical gospel, not a cultural gospel or a generational gospel.

We believe what the Bible teaches about how people come to Christ.

That creates in us a group of people that are on community, they're on this shared journey, and we we this shared journey is mission.

It's the way we live our life.

It's not missions, that's part of it.

But we we do what we do because we want to see people know and enjoy and glorify God.

By the way, that is the mission statement of our church.

If you look on stuff, it'll start showing up everywhere.

Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

Helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

Drives what we do around here.

Why am I telling you, making disciples is the reason we're breathing today.

And so there's just one verb, and then there's three participles that unpack this whole verb of process of making disciples.

And that's really what I want to talk to you about.

These three participles of disciple making.

The first one is go.

After Jesus says, I got a badge, I got authority here, he says, I got all authority.

He says, now, because of that, therefore, in light of that, go.

Going implies being sent.

Jesus commands uh his command to go, tells us and reminds us in no uncertain terms that he is ascending God.

And by the way, he's always been.

Genesis chapter 12, which we'll talk about next week.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 12, he told Abram, Leave the land of your forefathers and go to a land that I will show you.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

Isaiah 6, he speaks up, and Isaiah has this encounter with God in the temple, and he is so shaken to the core, he says, Oh, and he hears the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I whom shall I send?

And who will go for us?

And Isaiah speaks up and says, Here am I, send me.

And Isaiah 61, uh, same thing happens.

There's this sending message where he says, The Lord has sent me to declare the favorable, this is the favorable year of the Lord, for God has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted and and and to preach freedom to the captives.

And he lists these six or seven things that God sent me to do this, and God sent me to do this, and God has sent me to do this.

And by the way, when Jesus shows up and in Luke chapter 4, he stands in the temple and he reads from the scroll of Isaiah, Isaiah 61, and he unfolds it back up, sets it down, and says, Today, this verse has been fulfilled in your sight.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

I'm the sent one.

I am sent from God.

I'm not a pro I'm not some lunatic, fringe prophet that has some crazy end of the world thing.

I'm the Son of God.

Today, this thing you've been heard talked about your whole life is standing before you.

And so in John 17, when he's praying his high priestly prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, this very same Jesus says to his father, Father, as you've sent me, so I send them into the world.

See, it's the same thing.

And by the way, when he's talking to his disciples here in Matthew 28 in this great co-mission, he's saying to everyone who calls themselves a Christian, who has a relationship with Christ, by the way, I want you to be about the same thing, going.

Now, really the tense of the verb of the Greek is not just go, but as you're going.

And what it implies is as you're going, as you're doing what you do, teaching school, being an architect, an engineer, doing whatever you do, make disciples.

And inherent in that is this convicting reality.

If you and I have to stop what we're doing in order to make disciples, we're either doing the wrong thing or we're doing the right thing in the wrong way.

Do I need to say that again?

Y'all are like decaf, okay?

Just decaf.

This excites me.

And here's why.

Because if you could get a hold of this, it never I'm here today because I worked for a man that made disciples because he owned us by owning a sporting goods store.

I were when I was 16, angry, unbelieving, hard-hearted, punk kid, I went to work for James Sewell.

And he owned a sporting goods store.

And he was a very successful businessman.

He had a lot of stuff.

He was very humble.

He used to tell me crazy stuff like Jesus Christ is the best business partner a man ever had.

With tears in his eyes.

Made my beer taste bad that weekend.

I'd be like, what crazy old fool?

My friends who didn't know God would go, hey man, your boss anything crazy lately?

Yeah.

I walked in the other day, and that lunatic was in the office, had a little bottle of his wife's shampoo.

She was in Dallas taking her kid's shop at her daughter's shop, and he was smelling that shampoo and crying like a baby.

And I said, What are you doing?

And he said, I just miss Carolyn.

I just love the smell of her hair.

Not all?

I mean, now I'm like, oh, because I'm an old married man.

But back then I was like, man, you were jacked up.

You need to get some therapy, you freak.

But I wanted to, I now that I've loved the same woman for 20-something years, I get that.

I get that.

I'm just like, oh yeah.

But he ran a sporting goods store.

And I'm a disciple because I work there.

See, whatever you do, let me just say it again.

I don't know how it came out last time, but it's go is in the in the Greek tenses, as you're going.

In other words, if you have to stop what you're doing to make disciples, you're either doing the wrong thing or you're doing the right thing in the wrong way.

Because you, whatever you do, it doesn't matter if you're in construction or you're a banker or whatever, you're doing that in a way with the intent of making God's name and his renown famous to go into that industry, to go into medicine and leave an indelible impression for the glory of God.

You don't have to be a missionary to do that.

You can be a wildly successful business person and leave an indelible kochonk impression that says, This is my father's world.

I rest me in the thought of rocks and trees and skies and seas, his hand, the nature's rot.

And everybody around you just kind of goes, Well, that guy's kind of crazy.

In an attractive, kind of unexplainable way.

It's like a clown on fire.

You don't know whether to put it out or just look at it.

Wow, okay.

There he goes.

Go.

See, now by the by the way, this whole going thing at the core of that, see, it gets down to the way you view church.

I'm just gonna preach a little bit because I didn't get to preach to you last week, and so it's kind of shut up in me.

And I've been walking around in my backyard eating beef jerky, kind of like, can Sunday get here?

And my wife's like, please, can Sunday get here?

Our dogs have been saved, our cat rededicated her life.

My kids just hide in their room and listen to music.

Dad hadn't preached in two weeks.

He's about to go crazy.

See, it at the core, and maybe we can just get at the core of this is what you how you view the church.

Either the church is this mission impulse, it's it's missional or it's attractional.

It's missional or it's attractional.

And somewhere along the line, biblically, it's supposed to be missional, but somewhere along the line, the church got in its head that it needs to be attractional.

We need to make Jesus more appealing to lost people.

That's why you open your mailbox every once in a while and there's mailers.

Nothing wrong with that.

We we do a mailer, but but you get mailers like I got one, had people jumping up on their bed and it said, Jazz up your sex life.

New sermon series.

And I'm like, this is what Jesus died for.

Are you kidding me?

I want to drive to your church and punch somebody in the throat.

That's not good.

But see, that's attractional because we don't have confidence in the gospel, so we gotta kind of come out dun dun dun dun.

That's not a missional narrative, that's an attractional.

See, there's three basically dominant views of uh of the church in America.

The first one, if you use the church, it is a place where stuff happens.

They preach the word, uh, they administer the ordinances uh and they exercise church discipline.

That's a place, that's where church happens.

Second one is a more contemporary one that has epidemically overtaken America.

It's these churches a vendor of religious goods and services.

Members are viewed as customers for whom goods and services are produced, and the membership is sovereign.

If the members aren't happy, no one's happy.

And the members of, you know, you're at that kind of church because you often talk of experiences you had at church, not with God, but with your church.

Like a friend of mine.

And I got nothing against this.

Christmas, he was telling me, uh, yeah, yeah, we we we we had uh snow.

We made it snow at our church.

And I was like, uh, okay.

What'd y'all do at church?

We had advent services.

And he looked at me and said, That's it?

Yeah.

That's it.

We had Advent services, and we focused the month of getting prepar getting ready, and every Sunday we would sing uh a verse of, Oh, come, oh come, Emmanuel.

And I told Clyde, our worship pastor, I want you to sing it like somebody who just lost their husband and they're so grieved and so just heart-stricken, and just this kind of moaning, oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.

And we would get out to the chorus, and the people begin to get frustrated, and I begin to get emails.

Are we ever gonna sing the chorus?

Ain't time to rejoice yet?

I love you, Pastor Neil, but sometimes I want to choke you.

The line forms right here.

And my wife is at the head of that line.

But if you were here on Christmas Eve, we finally got to rejoice.

It was like opening up a Diet Coke and dropping a mento in there.

Woo! Had the stage full of a choir, and they were like, Rejoy! Visitors were like, hair was parting.

Y'all serious about this rejoicing, aren't you?

I said that's what we did.

We just kind of calibrated our souls around Christ's coming.

We didn't have sleigh rides on the snow.

He goes, Don't you have a big field beside your church?

Yeah.

I don't want people walking in it though.

I'm like Archie Bunker.

I'm like Walt Kowalski.

I'm gonna go out there, get off my lawn.

Third view.

And by the way, if you're visiting, we're in this kind.

And we don't we don't hate other people, we're not mad at anybody.

We're just deeply concerned that the church, the salt, is losing its saltiness.

And we're doing more and more monkey shows and more this, that, and the other to get people interested.

The most interesting thing about this church is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's the most compelling thing we have to offer you.

Let's see it.

That's the greatest thing we have.

Third view says a church is a body of people sent on missions.

Central to this view is understanding the church is a people called and sent by God to participate in his mission for the world.

The church gathers to be equipped through prayer, worship, and study in order to be sent into the world.

The church is gathered and scattered.

It's like breathing.

We breathe in, we breathe out, we gather and we scatter.

Church isn't meant to call people out of the world into some safe religious enclave, but to call them in order to send them back as representatives of God.

That means it's like 2 Corinthians 5, where Paul said, it's as if Christ is making his appeal through through us.

We implore you, be reconciled to God.

That if you work at a big accounting firm, that you implore everyone around you, oh, be reconciled to God.

Know God.

God's so available to you.

And you don't, you're not heavy-handed, you're the most winsome, freed-up person there.

When you walk down the hall, ladies, your co-workers are like, it's just something about her.

Man, I don't know what it is, but I deeply respect her.

See, that's why we gotta go.

Because most people have had bad experiences with church.

You ever brought up the thing about church?

I don't go to church, church is full of hypocrites.

Let me give you a phrase I want you to remember.

It's called cultural distance.

Man named Alan Hirsch, smarter than me, uh, wrote a book, wrote a lot of books, and one of me talks about cultural distance.

I brought you a little diagram so you can understand cultural distance.

He says that zero to one, see, that's where there's characteristics of people in each category, and zero to one, it's uh people have some concept of Christianity, speak the same language, shared interest, same nationality, similar class groupings.

Most of my friends and your friends fit right in there.

One to two includes average non-Christians, little real real awareness or interest in Christianity, somewhat suspicious.

They say things like, Well, I'm glad that works for you.

Like we have a rabbit's foot in the shape of a cross.

I'm glad that works for you.

Includes people who've had a bad experience with church or Christians.

You go to the local pub or the nightclub and you find these people.

They're martial theologians and truck stop saints.

Two to three in this little area, people who have no idea about biblical Christianity.

They might be part of some fringy subculture or uh or ethnic group with different religious uh beliefs.

It also includes people who are marginalized by Christianity, like the gay community.

I was talking to a man a while back.

He was waiting on me in a store.

He said, So what are you looking for these things for?

I said, for my church.

And he went, Oh.

I was like, you want to go there?

He said, excuse me.

I said, we can talk about that if you want to.

Great conversation.

Great conversation.

He said, you know, well, you can, he said, you can tell.

I said, how can I tell?

He said, well, I know you can tell.

And I said, yeah, I can tell.

And it was just great.

I said, no, I'm not mad at you.

And he said, well, you probably hate me, right?

I said, no, I love you.

And he said, how can you love somebody who fundamentally disagrees with almost everything you say?

You ever been married?

Here's why you should engage the culture.

Because that guy looked at me and he said, Well, actually, I have.

That may be what led to this, right?

It was just a great conversation.

No, I love you.

I'm not mad at you.

I'm not going to scream at you.

Rah.

Because if you're not careful, we'll get to that in a minute.

Let me just hold that thought.

In three to four, this is inhabited by ethnic and religious groupings with a bad history of the church.

Highly resistant to the gospel, radically, radically opposed.

They do not like the idea of Christians or Christianity.

Why do I show you this?

Two simple reasons.

First one is, actually three.

First one is the church stays between zero and one, and we just fish in that pool right there.

We just got our people, and we're like, hey, that's, you know, I'm just gonna.

This is good.

And it's just easy to do that.

Let's just say it's easier for me just to invite my friends and neighbors and guys I play golf with.

It's a little more difficult to say to the guy that works at William Sonoma in Town Center, hey, do you have a pastor?

Excuse me?

I said, Do you have a pastor?

Anybody that loves you and tells you the truth and teaches you the Bible.

Well, we disagree about the Bible.

Well, I mean, you're wrong, but I love you anyway.

He's like, You are married, aren't you?

Yeah.

My wife, she's dead wrong about most things.

I just keep loving her.

One day she's gonna repent and be more like me.

You know, my wife said to me a while back, and she meant this.

She said to me, We're laying in bed reading, and she's got her glasses on, I got my glasses on, and she said, Hey babe, can I just tell you something?

I said, Sure, whatever.

I thought it was gonna be something like you're awesome.

She said, This may surprise you.

I'm 40, almost 46 years old.

I like who I am, I have no desire to be like you.

And sometimes, shut up.

I hear you laughing out there.

Because sometimes I try to help my wife.

Just want to help her.

And she said, Are you helping me or conforming me to your image?

Some of you women are writing that down right now.

Oh, yeah.

Say that again.

Are you helping me?

Are you conforming me?

Because my wife says crazy stuff like I'm made in God's image.

I don't need to be remade in yours.

Shut up.

Shut up.

She's sick this week.

I told her, God has smitten you for being disrespectful.

You're gonna get boils all over your body if you don't submit.

And she said, I've got one boil in my life.

That's enough.

Second thing about this is the population, the population, quit laughing, you're at church.

The population is increasingly out here on the right end of the spectrum in two, three, and four.

You say, What do you mean?

You've heard it since the election.

Have you heard anybody on Fox or CNN or the news say the nation is changing?

We're moving to the left.

And I got friends that are like, no, my watch, by golly, get your guns.

Come on, we're gonna move it back to the right.

Really?

You think political activism is what Jesus died for?

Oh, would you feel that?

Some of you are like, I don't like it when you say that.

I'm not making light of that.

My oldest announced says the other day, after I go to college, I'm gonna go into politics.

You ain't going into college to do that.

Not on my watch.

But yes, the country is changing.

It's becoming more and more liberal.

And just not liberal, that's a that that becomes a categorical word.

I don't like that word.

It's just becoming more and more ungodly.

If it feels good, do it.

All the more reason we need to understand cultural distance and not stay in the safe religious enclave of the church, but be sent to the culture.

Third reason I show you this is that the attractional church stays right there and says, Hey, we got this going on, and we got circ du soleil for Jesus, and we got this, and we got, and I got friends that work in these church, and they're like, hey, would you and your wife like to come?

No, man, I'm good.

I'm good.

I don't want to have to park and come in, and I mean it it's it's great.

It's just do those people keep coming when you just get up and preach the Bible?

Does that interest them?

Well, why do people come to your church?

It's a real simple building, it's not fancy.

Somebody did say to me, I think we should build a coffee shop right over here.

Hey, Starbucks has figured out how to do coffee.

The church doesn't have to figure that out.

There's some things we need to figure out that Starbucks doesn't care about.

But that's why I put that up there is just to say, hey, we're asking people over here to come to us.

They're not gonna come to us, they're gonna stay where they are.

If you're not careful, the further and further culture drifts away from you.

What the church has to do is raise our voice so we can be heard.

And people say, Man, their God's a God of hate.

My friend that works at William Sonoma, walked me to the front door.

And I said, uh, well, I thanks for your help.

You've been very helpful.

I enjoy chatting with you.

And he said, You you've been helpful too.

And I said, You know, I'm not, we fundamentally disagree, but I'm not gonna yell at you and all that nonsense.

And here's why, here's why I didn't tell him.

Jesus died for that man.

If Jesus died for me, why how can I withhold from him what changed me?

Will he ever come?

I don't know.

That's not my responsibility.

It's my privilege to go and tell.

Because I'm sent.

Because I know that God is ascending God.

And so don't don't don't think, oh, I gotta go on a plane and go to Romania or go to India or go to Costa Rica this summer.

You gotta go to work tomorrow.

And do that for the glory of God.

You say, I uh other uh other two words briefly and we'll be done.

You still with me?

See, he said he said, here's the here's the here's the commission, here, here's the charge, make disciples.

How do you do that?

First of all, you go.

Secondly, he says, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

You gotta ask yourself, why would Jesus tell people to be baptized?

Well, why does a person get baptized?

Baptism is four things.

I was in another conversation.

I just love talking to people, and the guy thought I was a preacher and he said, Well, you know, I just I like to ask weird, off-the-cuff questions.

I said, Have you ever found yourself where there's this burning desire to be baptized?

What you say?

Have you ever had this burning desire to be baptized?

He said, Well, I was baptized as a baby, but I don't, that didn't mean anything.

My family didn't go to church anymore.

But as an adult, have you ever at any point in your life have you had this burning desire to be baptized?

Because he was trying to, he was saying, I don't know if I'm a Christian or not.

I mean, I believe in God, but I, you know, I've seen so much hypocrisy, blah, blah, blah.

Have you had a burning desire to be?

Did you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and go, man, I need to be baptized?

Never.

Then chances are you don't know God.

And he said, why?

I said, baptism implies a few things.

It implies four things.

Number one, repentance.

Although the book of Acts.

Now, you feel what just happened?

Some of y'all are like, oh, easy, easy on baptism.

What'd you say?

I'm not saying if you're not baptized, because I know some of you.

Some of you out here are like, you genuinely know Christ, you've just never followed through with believers' baptism.

I don't know what your reasons are, but this is from the heart of a man that loves you.

You're wrong.

Okay?

I love you.

I can't change what the Bible says, and I'll show you that in just a minute.

And I said, people get baptized because they've repented of their sins.

All through the book of Acts.

Remember, we talked about the gospel?

Here they would say, repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the forgiveness of your sins.

See, baptism is an outward indication that an inward change has taken place.

So, four things about baptism, and baptism implies number one is repentance.

Secondly, it's forgiveness.

Baptism ought to remind you that anybody can be forgiven.

The water doesn't wash away your sins, it identifies you as a forgiven person.

Person stands in the water.

And we practice baptism by immersion after a person comes to faith in Christ.

It's the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus, but also that person.

They're saying, I'm no longer who I used to be.

The old me died a long time ago.

Third thing about baptism is just identity.

If you talk to any of the pastors on staff here about baptism, we'll talk about, we'll use an analogy of a wedding ring.

I didn't start wearing a wedding ring until I got married.

Did you go to high school?

Anybody wore a wedding ring?

Hey, what's up with that?

Well, I it's my wedding ring.

So you're married in tenth grade?

No, I just wear the ring.

I didn't put this ring on until January the 9th, 1993.

But now I wear this ring.

This ring tells everybody I'm in a relationship.

Baptism is a person identifying themselves as being in a relationship with Jesus.

My friend I'm talking to, he wasn't like, oh man, don't cram this down my throat.

He was like, wow, dude, that all this from baptism?

I said, yeah.

Have you ever had a burning desire to be baptized?

Why?

Because the fourth thing about baptism is it's an act of obedience.

It is an act of obedience.

People, that's what Jesus said.

Go and make disciples of all nations, and then take baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

And finally, this morning he says, and teaching them.

And teaching them.

See, these are the three things that we do that help us make disciples.

That's the main emphasis of the passage.

This is how we do it.

We go, we baptize.

That means if we go just dunk people indiscriminately in the water.

No, baptism, it infers a lot of things.

And finally, he says, teach them to observe.

I love the language the Bible uses.

Teach them to observe.

He said, teach them not to miss stuff.

Teach them not to read the Bible and kind of go, well, I read that before and didn't understand it then and still don't understand it now.

Teaching makes obvious that Jesus has in mind more than this initial evangelism and response, more than, look at me, beloved, praying the prayer.

Some of you have prayed a prayer, you've accepted Christ.

I don't doubt that at all.

But you're just stuck there.

You're saved, but you're stuck.

No one's taught you to obey.

And I would just say to you, maybe you should think about our midweek studies start this Wednesday night.

Actually, they start Tuesday morning.

Janet McKee, one of our ladies in our church, is teaching a Bible study on the book of Acts.

Christy Golsen is teaching a Bible study on spiritual parenting.

Wednesday night at 6:30, we have classes that meet all upstairs, all over our campus, out back in the back with the kids, out in the warehouse with the students.

Why?

Because we want to teach you to obey, because we never arrive.

We never arrive.

You say, what do you mean?

In life and in Christianity, you never get to the point, and it's not about information for us, it's about intimacy.

It is bride and groom, not professor and student.

Do you hear the difference in the two?

You never get there.

I just celebrated.

I think I told you all this a couple weeks ago.

I just celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary, okay?

Been married to the same woman for 20 years, been the greatest thing I've ever done.

This week she's been sick.

I mean, not like I don't feel good, like in the bed, passed out, drinking, taking antibiotics, drinking cough syrup with codeine in it, and just knocks her out.

And so I've had to get up.

Uh I get up most mornings, I get up every morning actually, but I've had to get up and do what my wife does every day.

Like I had to make lunches.

Like on Wednesday, I made lunches and took my kids to school, both of them.

And I and I didn't realize I was doing this until the next day, and then I kind of I was like, oh, I gotta make lunches again because she woke up and she's like, Can you can you make the girls lunch?

And it's like, you have a demon?

What?

So I made lunches two days.

They took my kids to school two days in a row.

And this is what a pig I am.

I'm driving back from the school, which one of them goes right there across the street, and the other one goes right there at that red light.

Takes about five minutes total.

I'm driving back, and I I had this thought.

I know, Lord, it I'm going the extra mile just like you.

That thought went through my head.

And then I got back home and I thought, I'm really gonna pour it on now because the counter's all covered with glasses and cover.

My kids cannot drink and have a glass and put in the dishwasher.

No, no, no, no.

Their arms don't reach that door.

So I clean, I open the dishwasher.

Whoa, it's full of clean dishes.

I was like, hear my gum on the extra mile.

I can hear Sandy Patty singing, I'm the Vella Rosa.

Neil unloads the dishwasher.

And then I load it back up.

And wait for it, wait for it.

See, I still, I got a ways to go.

I cleaned up all the granite countertops and shined them up and polished them.

And then about 30 minutes later, my wife comes stumbling out of the bedroom to take more medicine.

And I'm standing there and I said, Did you see the kitchen?

And she said, I can't even see.

I'll look at it later, is something wrong with it?

And I'm like, no.

And then that night my kids come up to me and said, Dad, what's the plan for supper?

I have never in 20 years of being with this woman thought about what to make for supper.

Not one time.

And she does it every night.

I don't mean like, oh, I just threw something together.

I mean, I came home the other day, she had grilled some salmon with a miso glaze and made me a salad with mixed-filled greens, blueberries, strawberries, and crumbled feta cheese.

And I eat that way all the time.

And I was just like, and I said to my kids, uh, let dad go to Chick-fil-A and get you something, all right?

And I'm driving to Chick-fil-A, and guess what I thought?

Here I go on the extra mile.

And the line was backed up, and I was like, this is just my cross to bear, Lord.

I'm such a great husband.

And you know what's worse?

And now for the big finale.

Last night, about eight o'clock, about seven o'clock, I had the thought, man, when my wife gets better, she's gonna owe me for this.

Yeah, that's horrible, isn't it, Jeanette?

I actually thought that.

I didn't say it.

It went through my head.

Now I don't believe that, but then I would even think that.

It's like wow.

And that little voice said, still got a ways to go on this marriage thing, my man.

Remember a couple weeks ago I shot my mouth off when I talked about the gospel and said we never outgrow the gospel.

And I was like, hey, I've been married 20 years, and I don't want to just how does the gospel speak to my marriage?

The gospel says to me, you don't get a cookie every time you do something your wife does every day.

I did go in the bedroom yesterday and go, how many times a week do you unload and reload the dishwasher?

Because for the love of Pete, my kids are gonna eat off paper plates the rest of their life.

I woke up this morning bitter at them kids.

My wife passed out every day.

Why do I tell you that?

Same reason Jesus says, and teach them to observe.

Teach them not to miss everything.

We're just beating kids back there.

Don't be turning off by that noise.

Your kid will be more humble when you get them back.

I got two words for you.

Children's building.

Pray with me, people.

Are they playing roller derby back there?

What's going on?

Jesus teaches them to observe.

Don't miss it.

Why?

Because he wants obedient, mature disciples, not people that made a decision and just just stuff.

And then lastly he says this we've got to get out of here.

There's more people coming after you.

Last sentence behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age.

That's why it's not a commission.

It's a commission.

It's not like the Warren Commission.

We've been paneled a committee of politicians to look in to what happened and get back to us with a report.

No, we know what happened.

God sent his son.

He lived a sinless life.

He was suffered under Pontius Pilate.

He was crucified, buried, rose again, appeared to the disciples, appeared to Paul, as one untimely born, and he's revealed himself to us, and he has invited us into this shared mission, this journey that kind of says, I want to do whatever I do in order, and I'll do it in such a way that I make disciples.

If I'm a financial planner, I want to be a financial planner to the glory of God.

I want to help people understand why they are breathing.

That is my mission.

Because Jesus said in John 17, he says, Hey, eternal life is to know you and Jesus whom you've sent.

And that's the kid saying, Amen.

And so all authority in his presence.

And I'm with you always.

He's not sending you out.

He's inviting you to come go with him.

Do you hear that?

He's I got all authority.

That's what this thing is rocketed by all authority.

And oh by the way, I'm not sending you out.

I'm with you.

I'm with you.

How could you be if you really believe those things?

How could you live if you believe those things?

Stand to your feet if you would, please.

I'm going to speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

You are the bride of Christ, the beloved, loved, cherished people of God.

He remains unquenchable in his desire to know, bless, provide, and forgive.

Depart now and live in light of this reality.

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you, you're dismissed.