City Focused • How the Gospel Changes Culture

Amen.

Good morning, Missio.

How's it going?

Good, good.

It's good to be here.

It's good to have a Sunday morning without snow and ice, right?

Though yeah, you can clap for that.

That's that's a good thing.

Uh, and uh, even though many of us are are battling with sickness, I was telling our team, our volunteer teams this morning, I don't know if we should have a normal gathering or if we should just work out and take a bunch of vitamins this morning because everybody seems to be getting sick.

But I'm thankful that you all made it uh to be a part of the church gathered this morning.

My name is Justin.

I'm one of the pastors here at Missy O'Day, and it's my honor to be preaching for you.

We're gonna be in uh the book of Matthew.

So if you have a Bible, go ahead and get it open to the Gospel of Matthew.

It's the first book of the New Testament.

If you're unfamiliar with uh the Bible, uh it's uh after the Old Testament.

So if you kind of kind of crack yourself a little bit past halfway through the Bible, you'll find the book of Matthew, the first book in the New Testament.

If you don't have a Bible, uh we'd love to give you one.

We have some free Bibles back at the Welcome Desk, and they're a gift to you.

If you don't have one, please take a Bible home.

Let that be something that you can have to uh read and study about who God is.

Uh you can also just download an app.

There's all kinds of Bible reading answers.

We'll have the text on the screen as well for you to follow along.

But uh before we dive in, there's a couple things that I want to do.

First and foremost, I just want to take a moment and I want to publicly recognize uh Pastor Rick and Tracy Groover.

They're here this morning.

Uh if you don't know, uh Pastor Rick, uh it was the founding pastor of Celebration Church here in this building.

And uh they didn't plant in this building, but they had occupied this space for over seven years, and uh he then passed on celebration to his son, Pastor Casey, who you know.

Uh, and uh they're here visiting with us this morning.

And so I just hope that uh you're you're encouraged this morning to see the legacy of your vision continue on uh through your son, through this church.

And I hope that we're faithful to Shepherd the people that your ministry brought into the family of God.

And so we just want to thank you this morning for being here and for all that you've done.

So thank you guys.

Secondly, I want to point you to our app.

Again, every Sunday we put the sermon notes in our app, and so you can follow along.

There'll be little yellow words on the screen that you can use to fill in.

You can jot your own notes down and save them for future studies.

So make sure that you're taking advantage of that platform.

And then secondly, I just want to talk about our Mystio community term launch happening soon.

Uh, we've been working really hard to try and understand and restructure some of our communities.

There's times within the church and within leadership, we're gonna overcorrect, like, because we're trying to do good things, we're convinced that this is right, and then there's times we discover, like, yeah, we went too far.

Kind of like when you don't eat healthy for a long time and then you become paleo.

It's like, what in the world?

I gotta, I overcorrected, right?

I I got it, I need something uh besides a piece of bacon and a broccoli stem.

Um, so uh, but however, uh we've been really working hard to just understand what Missio communities are about.

What does this mean when we say church community?

Uh, because at Missio, our vision is to establish and multiply gospel-centered city-focused church communities.

We've been asking, well, what does that mean?

Well, fundamentally, that means we establish and multiply church communities.

And then defining characteristics of those communities are that they are gospel-centered and that they're city-focused.

And so we've been working diligently and we're actually really excited about some of the new rhythms that we're going to be releasing uh over this next term.

Uh, we hope that you kind of stay connected on what we uh communicate so that you can uh take advantage of some of those opportunities.

But next week, as we look at church community, Pastor Casey will be unrolling some of those things, communicating some of those things.

But I want to encourage you, at our core, Missio Day is a collective of communities.

We are not a church simply that meets on Sunday morning, but we are a collective of communities that spread throughout our city for the advancement of the gospel.

And so if you would uh connect, connect to a community, connect to people, and like we say, do life together in a messy pursuit of Jesus.

Pastor Casey will be at the welcome desk back there after the gathering to be able to help walk you through some next steps.

But I'm excited about this new term.

I hope that you are too, and so I'd love to see you get connected.

This morning we're looking at city focus, how the gospel changes culture.

And so, uh, like I said, we're gonna be in Matthew, uh, the book of Matthew, we're gonna be in chapter 28.

It's actually the last chapter in the book of Matthew.

But the vision for 2019 for Mission North, as we establish ourselves here in the city as a gospel center, city focused church community, we want to equip our people to have a fully integrated gospel life.

That means that the gospel uh transforms and impacts every area of your life.

And we want to equip you to be able to live as faithful disciples and followers of Jesus in our city.

And so last we talked about uh in the first week this kind of premise of head, heart, hands.

Head was a robust understanding and confident ability to explain the gospel.

Heart is fostering a deep love for Jesus and spiritual transformation as we explore the gospel.

Pastor Casey's gonna talk about that next week.

And then this week we're talking about hands.

Hands is this.

Hands is discovering my gifts, passion, and place to express the gospel.

Hands is discovering my gift, passions, and place to express the gospel.

All of us are called to be on mission, and that's one of the things that we're gonna look at because when we look at being city focused, when we look at how the gospel changes cultures, many of us might have different approaches to this, right?

Some of us think that the way that we change culture is through legislation, passing new laws.

Maybe some of it thinks it's by protesting and making some noise so that people hear the way that we believe.

Some of us think that transformation happens uh uh quietly and privately, right?

But what we're gonna discover is that transformation in our culture comes through transform people.

Transformation in our culture comes through transform people.

Imagine in your own mind a person of influence.

It can be anybody that you can think of, a person of influence in our culture, whether it be in the performing arts, in the political world, whatever it might be.

Now think of that person radically changed by the gospel of Jesus.

Wouldn't culture begin to transform because a person themselves were transformed?

And so when we look at the New Testament example of transformation, the gospel swept through uh North Africa and Asia, not through protest, not through legislation, not through making noise.

The gospel came sweeping across this earth through faithful people seeking to transform others through the power of the gospel.

That's how change happened.

When we look at the disciples and the apostles' response to Christ, so when what the reason why we're so focused on church planting and discipleship is because that's what the apostles did, right?

The ones who spent three years with Jesus on earth and his earthly ministry witnessed his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection, spent time with him afterwards, after he had already rose from the dead before he had ascended into heaven.

What was their response?

Their response wasn't to go dig a bunch of wells in Africa.

Their response wasn't making sure that everybody had good education.

Their response wasn't these things that we kind of tie into implications of the gospel, or we actually confused for the gospel themselves.

Their response was to plant churches and preach the gospel.

And so seeing this descriptive, authoritative aspect of the scriptures, we believe that's our response.

A faithful response to the finished work of Jesus Christ is to make disciples and plant churches.

That's a faithful response.

And so an aspect of having an integrated gospel life is understanding that we have a unique ability as individuals, and we have a responsibility to express the gospel to the culture around us.

As we will see here soon, we all have a mandate from Jesus to go and make.

As you leave here, Amisio North, on the signs that come out of our parking lot, and the sign that steps out of the front door on the back of them, they say, go and make.

We want to remind you that you are being sent as missionaries.

You're not being sent as people who are hiding from culture.

You're not being sent to retreat.

You're not being sent as those who uh who have no place of gospel advancement in the culture around you.

You are being sent to go and make.

Mission and gospel expression are key components to seeing the gospel begin to change culture.

I would contend that culture is transformed primarily, not solely, but primarily through its influencers being transformed by the gospel themselves.

Now, this is not to say that we as Christians don't use our expression of the gospel to stand against cultural injustices, but it is to say that we primarily should seek to express the gospel to individuals.

They in turn will bring redemptive change to our culture.

Each of us, each and every one of us, need to see our place in gospel expression.

For too long, we've clarified mission.

We've left it up to the professional Christians to proclaim what the gospel is, right?

Our evangelism model can be simply boiled down into one key phrase.

If we look at the culture of Christians in North America, you ready for the evangelism model?

Hey, you should come to church with me.

Right?

That's our evangelism model.

That's our disciple-making model because ultimately what we're doing is we're believing a false narrative that it's up to the pastors to make disciples and to preach the gospel.

It's a cop-out that we use, it's a softball that we try to pitch to see if they're gonna hit a home run or not.

You see, we have to realize that Jesus has called us into mission.

All of us.

You have a unique place.

Every single one of you have a unique place in the mission of God.

Think about this.

I can't reach the people you'll use to reach, that God will use you to reach.

I can't go to the places that God has you in.

I can't build intentional gospel relationships with everyone.

This is a call to a church.

This is a call to you.

As we've been talking about what it means to be a church community and this kind of family of diverse and distinct missionaries, we've been asking ourselves, like, what does that look like?

Because what we've understood mission inside the context of community has been this.

Hey, you should come and help me reach my neighbors.

And that hasn't worked out too well.

Instead of being a missionary family, we're starting to understand ourselves, and what we mean by missionary family is a family who pursues one singular mission.

We're starting to understand ourselves as a family of diverse missionaries.

Think of it at my house, right?

I've got six people in my family, and uh we all have diverse and distinct interests, right?

Piper loves ballet.

Uh Addison loves soccer.

I love cigars and drinking bourbon.

My wife, she loves hanging out with the girls, chatting, doing things like that.

Now imagine.

Imagine.

Imagine me trying to show up at Piper's ballet class.

Right?

This big bearded man in some leggings, you all get in the image, right?

Um probably lost a few pounds before I started.

But however, I'm there with a bunch of seven-year-old girls practicing pirouettes.

Isn't that kind of clunky?

Doesn't that not really make sense?

It's really not a picture you probably wanted to think about this morning on Sunday.

However, my point is that the fact that we have diverse passions and giftings doesn't make us less of a family.

The fact that we have a dinner table to come around to and share life with one another, that makes us family.

But the beauty of celebrating the diverse way that God has wired us means that Piper will be able to reach people I'll never be able to reach.

Because I'm not jumping into a seven-year-old girl's ballet class.

There's places that God has put you, and there's giftings and passions that God has put inside of you that gives you a distinct ability to be able to reach people I'll never be able to reach.

And so we should celebrate diverse mission and always come back together knowing that we have a table to gather around and be family.

So let's dive into the text.

So Matthew 28, 18 through 20, I'm gonna read it all the way through.

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 that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

This is the word of the Lord.

May God bless the reading and proclamation of his promises.

So in verse 18, Jesus comes out the gate declaring to his followers this statement All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Man, what confidence and boldness that this statement alone should give us as missionaries to the culture around us.

Notice, Jesus doesn't begin a command of mission without an assurance of accomplishment.

He doesn't begin a command of mission without an assurance of accomplishment.

Jesus doesn't call us into failure.

No, Jesus calls us into victory.

Not because we have attained the necessary assets of victory, but because he has through his death, burial, and resurrection and then freely gives them to us in full.

Jesus has not called his church into such a mission without first equipping and assuring her of her victory.

Think about the confidence you and I should have in mission, in this statement alone.

Think about the confidence that we should have.

We don't pursue mission in our own strength and power, we pursue mission in his.

What kind of confidence would we have?

What kind of boldness would we live with if we knew that there was no possibility of failure?

Jesus looks at his apostles and his followers, and before giving them the final commands of what they should be doing in response to his finished work on the cross, his first phrase is this all authority, all power in heaven and on earth, it's been given to me.

That means that Jesus is the wellspring of all that we could ever want or ever need.

He is the assurance of what he has called us to do.

We don't go out and make disciples, or we don't go out on mission with any aspect of failure.

No, in fact, we believe that the gospel rightly proclaimed always produces its intended results.

It's not up to us to win people.

That's the job of the Holy Spirit.

You see, Christ has already purchased and ransomed through his blood those whom he would be saved.

We have a response to go and tell.

The Puritans, they used to use this statement that said, the same wax uh sun that melts the wax hardens the clay.

The same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay.

What they're saying is this is that the gospel and rightly preached, the heat of the gospel, will either cause a person's heart to further harden away from the from the truth of Jesus in rebellion and disobedience, or it'll soften their heart in response to trusting him with their whole life.

And so we want to be faithful in proclaiming the victory message that the grave is empty.

And we want to go with confidence and boldness that because the grave is empty, Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth.

Verses 19 through the first half of 20 says this, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

Now, this is where we need to break down the text.

So Jesus starts first by giving them this assurance, this confidence.

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

Now, because of that, here's our response.

This is our natural outflow.

Go and make.

Go and make.

Now, when we break down this text, we have to look at what this means for us.

I would bet that this command is one very familiar to Christians.

Right?

We all know it.

We've recited it, we've seen it hung on posters and at missions conference, or especially if you were in a Baptist church of any sense, this thing was probably on your coffee mug, on your bumper sticker.

It was everywhere.

We all know it.

But how often do we fail to live it?

How often do we focus on self so much that we lose sight of the command that Jesus gave to us?

I would argue that this command is simultaneously more simple and more complex than we've ever thought it to mean.

So let's try to unpack it.

First thing first, what is the command actually telling us to do?

What do you think?

Anybody want to take a guess?

What is this command actually telling us to do?

That's part of it.

Maybe.

What this command is actually telling us to do is summarized in this word.

Disciple.

Disciple.

If there was only one command of action understood in the statement, it would be this disciple.

We understand this in our language as make disciples.

This is the central action of the church from this command.

Disciple.

Disciple not as an identity or a noun, but disciple as a verb and as an action, as a process.

The fundamental root of this command in this passage of scripture is disciple.

So if disciple is what we are to be doing, then let's work to discover the who and how.

Because Jesus answers both of these questions in this text.

The who, well, he says the world.

Now, when he says the world, this doesn't speak to mission trips or destination evangelism.

This speaks to those around us, among us, who are radically not like us.

You see, in fact, this would be best known to the original readers or the original hearers as Gentiles.

So as he says, then go.

Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations.

He wasn't speaking to us traveling to those nations necessarily and making disciples of them.

No, he was talking about the nations of whom were gathered among them where they lived.

The Gentiles, those who were radically not like the Jews.

Jesus again is emphasizing that the gospel message is not simply for those who had heard it first, but it was for all people.

And when we understand the context and the struggle between the Jews and the Gentiles, their outright hatred for this people group.

The Jews had high disregard and disrespect for Gentile people.

In fact, they they consider them less than human.

They consider it less than themselves.

And Jesus is commanding not to go again across the world to some other people group.

He's saying, go out your front door to the people who are radically and drastically not like you and tell them the gospel.

Why would Jesus emphasize this?

He I believe it's So that he would push us into gospel conversations with all people and force us out of our comfort of homogeny.

Demonstrate that the gospel reaches to every image bearer, but us as the church, we are so tempted to live out a gospel of homogeny.

We love people who are just like us.

There's so much comfort in having people who are just like you rallied around you.

But let me tell you something, church.

In Mason and in Westchester, where we're at, I think we're a little bit asleep to the reality that God has brought the nations to us.

In a study released just last year of Mason students, 37% are non-white.

37%.

In a Bible study, one of our Missio communities did last summer.

We went to a park here locally in Mason, and you would be amazed at the languages we heard and the people groups that we saw.

As we are working to be disciple makers in this city, in this context, what this passage demands is that the people who are drastically not like us, who live next door to us, are the ones we are going to tell, the ones that we are called to go and make disciples of.

That's what we have to force ourselves to be.

And it's not going to be easy.

I understand it, but this is what the gospel calls us to do.

It calls us to make disciples of all nations, and God in his sovereignty and providence has flooded this city with the nations for us.

Now, how do we do this?

So that's the who.

Now, how.

Well, number one, we do it by going.

Going is an aspect of making disciples.

It's not what we are called to do, it's how we are called to do it.

What we are called to do is make disciples.

One of the aspects of how we do this is we go.

When we understand this language in the original language, what this does not mean, again, is these kind of mission trips or uh destination evangelism.

No, it means as you are going.

It's this continuative action of our lives that as we are going, as we are living out our daily lives, we should be making disciples.

There's too many times where we've approached this text as some type of big event.

We've got to raise a bunch of money, we've got to plan and coordinate a bunch of things.

We've got to make sure that everything's set up so that we can go out here to China, we can go out here to Africa, we can go out here to India and make disciples.

No, what God has called us to do throughout this passage is go out your front door and make a disciple.

As we are going, we should be making disciples of all nations.

Don't put too much stress or thought into this action.

Just do your daily routine with gospel, purpose, and intentionality.

Right?

Where has God placed you?

Where in his providence has he set your feet?

What type of giftings and passions has he put in your life?

Some of you love soccer, some of you love working out, some of you love uh photography, whatever it might be.

How could those giftings and passions be used for the glory of God and the good of all people?

Right, a demonstration for uh Pastor Casey and myself.

We both enjoy soccer.

We're both FC Cincinnati fans.

We don't live close uh to the stadium.

I don't live close to the stadium anymore, and plus they kind of doubled their price on season tickets.

I'm just telling you right now, I didn't buy.

I didn't buy.

I knew that was gonna happen, but it's okay.

We'll talk about it later.

However, you know what does happen is that there's this group called the uh Pride Northam.

And they are a North Cincinnati fan club of uh FC Cincinnati, and they get together and they watch the games at a uh at BC's Bottle Lodge here in Westchester.

So you know what we're doing?

We're joining that club so we can get together with people because we already have a passion to love soccer, we already have a passion to watch it, so I'm gonna go where they are and I'm gonna use that to build gospel relationships.

What has God passioned you with?

What has God gifted you with?

Things that you're already doing that you could be inviting unbelieving people into.

See, so many times we overcomplicate this.

We try to think of all these really cool things about uh what's what's something super awesome that I could do that unbelieving people would even want to come to?

And see, we don't even have the right question.

The right question isn't what super awesome thing can you do to make unbelieving people come to and like it?

That's not the right question.

The right question is, do you even have a relationship with an unbelieving person?

To invite them to anything.

You wouldn't believe how many times within the church says we've interviewed people for membership or we've talked to people and assessed them for uh leading a missional community.

When we ask them the statement, tell me unbelieving people you have relationships with and how you're trying to build the gospel into them.

Time after time after time we have gotten the answer, none.

The question isn't have to be it doesn't have to be that hard.

It doesn't have to be what new thing do you have to create?

What new exciting uh platform do you have to build, or what what new event do I have to put on to try and get people to like me and to come?

No, the question is simply as this do you even have an unbelieving friend that you can just invite over for dinner?

That you can take out to lunch on your work break.

So, this aspect of making disciples, we go.

As we are going, we make disciples.

Secondarily, Jesus tells us to baptize.

This is how we make disciples.

Baptism is an influential and integral part of disciple making.

We're called to baptize those who are becoming followers of Jesus.

Now at Mystio, we hold a perspective of baptism that is suspended in mystery.

We believe that baptism is twofold.

Baptism is a public expression that you are a follower of Jesus, right?

You're publicly declaring before all people that you are dying to your old self.

You're uh uniting to Christ through his burial, but also through his resurrection, you are taking on a new life, transformed by the power of the gospel.

We believe that's a public reflection, but we also believe that it is a supernatural means of grace where sin is cleansed and the individual is united to a sinless Savior.

So baptism is not simply just a public demonstration, but we would also add that it is in mystery suspended as a means of grace where something supernatural is happening to the individual.

When we are reconciled to God through Jesus, we are also reconciled to his people and to his mission.

And so what we don't see is baptism disconnected from the local church.

We aren't here to make converts.

For too long, the church has worked on making converts through different forms of pressure and situational response, right?

Where we raise a hand and we say a prayer, or maybe we get baptized as a baby and it's everything's good, we're fine, everything's okay.

We've been trying to make converts rather than make disciples.

Those two things are very distinct from one another.

Disciples is a lifelong learning process of becoming more and more like Jesus through the power of the Spirit and obedience to his word.

And a convert is someone who in an instant responds to fear or pressure.

If becoming a disciple of Jesus means dying to our old life and walking in newness of life with Christ as Jesus taught, then it's almost inevitable that the symbolic act of that conversion should come to signify a death and resurrection.

So Jesus commands baptism as a normal part of disciple making, because baptism signifies in an outward way what it means to become a disciple: a dying to the self and being raised to a new life with Christ Jesus.

When a person becomes a disciple of Jesus, he relates in a new way to the entire Godhead.

So when Christ is saying, be therefore baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it's not just reconciling our understanding of one dimension of the Trinity, but to the entire Godhead, our relationship radically changes.

The Father becomes our heavenly Father, the Son becomes our Lord, and the Spirit becomes our dwelling enabler.

And then in the act of baptism, we submit ourselves to all three and we pledge allegiance to all three.

So we're supposed to make disciples of who?

Of all nations, how, by going, by baptizing, and then Jesus adds this by teaching them to obey.

By teaching them to obey all that he has commanded.

You see, true life in Jesus is found in the obedience of his word.

Ultimate human flourishing comes in the obedience of God's law.

As we become followers of Jesus, his law should not become burdensome to keep, but should be joyously observed to discover life more abundantly.

Too often we think of the word of God as an extra load to carry or a burden to bear.

We struggle to see the word of God as liberating freedom from those burdens and heavy loads.

We don't teach disciples to obey Jesus' commands out of obligation.

We teach them to obey them out of a passion to see victory demonstrated in their lives.

You see, far too many of us, when we approach God's word, we don't really believe that in it is life.

You see, God established his laws, God established his commands not to be some type of slave master over us.

But God has set before us that these laws, these commands, are what would bring ultimate human flourishing.

Think about the times where we break God's law.

What follows?

Death.

Destruction.

As we break God's law, as we disobey his word, the fruit of it is death.

God gives us his word that we might have ultimate human flourishing.

And we should run to this word to find life.

Right?

So many times we see this word as some type of law, some type of rule.

And I was talking to my 10-year-old daughter Addison the other day in the car ride to school.

I noticed that she had her iPod in her hand.

And I said, okay, you have your iPod.

Why do you have your iPod?

Oh, I was gonna show a friend at school.

Oh, okay.

Um are you allowed to have iPods at school?

Well, as long as the teacher doesn't see it.

Okay, so you wanted to show your friend.

I I can appreciate that.

And you wanted to take your iPod to show your friend, and but you're saying that you're not allowed to have iPods at school, but it's okay as long as a teacher doesn't see it.

Well, yeah, like they won't take it away from me if they don't see it.

I'll just keep it in my backpack all day, Dad.

I promise, and then I'll show her at like recess or something.

I said, honey, that's not how we follow rules.

That's not how we demonstrate obedience.

You see, we do this with God's law all the time, right?

We look for loopholes, we look for the line.

And for us, in in things like relationships and things like uh our uh sex lives and things like uh the way that we interact with culture and society, we run up and investigate this line as hard as we can.

How close to this line can I get?

I understand on the other side is death.

But how close to this line can I get and still find life?

And we try to find loopholes, we try to bend the rules, we try to get as close to that line as we can without getting caught because ultimately we don't believe that obedience to that law and a passionate running toward God's word and commands is life.

We think what God is actually trying to do is keep us away from good and righteous, or good and pleasurable things.

You see, we're convinced life is on the other side of that line.

And we want to get as close as we can to it.

And what we don't understand is that we are like children standing at the cage of a tiger's den at the zoo.

And if we stick our hand in there, if we get too close, that's gonna strike us, that's gonna mar us, that's gonna wound us, that's going to seek to kill us.

You see, we don't believe God is good, and we don't believe God is good for us.

We believe life is over here.

So we want to get as close as we can and say, God, just like Adam and Eve, God gave all of Eden to Adam and Eve but one tree.

Adam and Eve did not believe life was in the Garden of Eden.

Adam and Adam and Eve believed life was in the fruit of that tree.

And they ate.

Do we believe that ultimate human flourishing comes in the obedience of God's word?

Or do we believe that life is just on the other side of that line of disobedience?

Should we we should run as people of God to his word where life is?

And we should lead others to run toward that life as well.

We teach them to obey not out of obligation of oppression, but we teach them to obey out of a passion to see victory demonstrated.

And then in verse 20, Jesus says this, and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

What courage and confidence this should give us.

The one who obtains all cosmic authority is not distant from us.

No, he is intimately near.

You see, Jesus is with us on mission.

This is the confidence of his presence should compel us into confident mission.

This is the fundamental name and aspect of the of the name of our church, Missio Day.

We are not trying to do mission in isolation on our own.

No, we're joining God in the mission that he already is on to see people redeemed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so the one who holds all cosmic authority isn't seated in some distant land apart from us.

No, he's intimately near, and we join him in seeing this mission accomplished.

That should give us great boldness.

That should give us great confidence to get up and go and make disciples.

The main idea for this passage of scripture is simply this: Jesus' call to the church is to make disciples.

Don't overcomplicate it, church.

Don't make it too messy, don't make it too hard.

It's so simple, yet this seems so difficult.

Jesus' call to his church is to make disciples.

It's the fundamental aspect of our life as a Christian.

Make disciples.

You see, it's it's a fundamental aspect of our identity as a disciple.

It is understood and known that if we call ourselves disciples, it is because we are also making disciples.

To say that you're a follower of Jesus and not have people whom you are making followers of Jesus is contradictive to the identity you try to claim upon yourself.

You cannot be a follower of Jesus without making others become followers of Jesus as well.

Disciples make disciples.

Healthy Christians compel others to trust in Christ Jesus and they walk with them through things like baptism and the teaching to obey.

We have to stop calling ourselves followers of Jesus if we will continue in disobedience and unfaithfulness to compel others to be followers as well.

Disciples make disciples.

But why do we struggle with this?

Why do we struggle to make disciples?

Why do we tend to become so insular over time?

Why does our evangelism and discipleship become getting other people to leave their church and come to ours?

I I'm I understand the aspects of a new church plant, right?

There's that first stage where you've got to get Christians together who actually believe what you're saying to actually send them out on mission and get them excited about something new God's doing.

But honestly, as I continue to see the landscape of the Christian church, it's this that we're just trying to get our friends to leave their churches to come to ours.

And sometimes like they need to, right?

So there are unfaithful uh uh churches, there are pastors who have all but thrown out the gospel from their pulpit.

I'm not saying that there's not a time and space where that's necessary, but if that's only our our sole and primary focus of evangelism, man, we're missing the bar because look, guys, as I've said this before, the pie of Christianity America is getting smaller and smaller.

And so we have two options.

Number one, as a church community, we can scrape and claw and fight for whatever pieces of that pie is left.

Or we can fight and be obedient to the command of Jesus and make the pie bigger.

That's what I want us to do.

That's what Pastor Casey and Pastor Jordan wants us to do.

Our heartbeat is not to take people from their churches, our heartbeat is to add people to the church by making disciples.

And I think we struggle to do this in two ways.

We struggle to make disciples because we fear people and consequences.

This is a very simple reality to our life.

The call to being a disciple is to come and die.

Not a death that leads to loss, but a death that ultimately leads to life.

But we as Christians see a loss of the world as death instead of gaining the world as death.

You see, we see a loss of the world and its things as death.

We fear that.

We fear the consequences and the loss of relationships, the things that it will cost us to be a disciple.

When Jesus says, come and die, we are terrified because we don't see the world the way that Jesus saw the world.

That if we gained the world, true death would come.

But if we lost the world, true life would be given to us.

Some of us fear getting rejected and are worn out from our efforts of disciple making.

Some of you have actually been faithful in this to certain aspects and degrees of.

Of your life, you've strived, you've worked hard, and you're just worn out.

You're tired.

My call to you is come and rest in Jesus.

Be emboldened by his promise of presence and stand faithful in obedience to his call.

I love this passage of scripture in Acts 18.

Paul is in a city and he's preaching the gospel.

And because he's being faithful to preach the gospel, they beat him to the point of death and throw him outside of the city gate.

And Jesus speaks to his beaten and tattered body and says, This, Paul, get up.

Get up, Paul.

Why?

Because there are people of mine in that city.

You see, the confidence of Jesus' presence on mission and the confidence of election that his blood has purchased and ransomed a people for his name should embolden us in our tattered and beaten bodies to get up and go back into the city with the gospel message that's their only hope of salvation.

In mystery, Jesus, uh God Himself, has both predestined those who will be saved and called us to preach the gospel to them so that they might be saved.

You see, there's a tension there.

And we understand that tension.

We're okay with that tension.

We'll wrestle with that tension.

All we know is this is that when we preach the gospel, people get saved.

And so we have an obligation to be obedient to that word.

So let Jesus' presence, his promise of presence, embolden you to get back up.

Secondarily, I think we struggle to make disciples because we ourselves are unfaithful disciples.

We struggle to make disciples because we ourselves are unfaithful.

In the very Great Commission exists the call to be obedient to all of Jesus' commands.

Right in the Great Commission, we see and teach them to obey all.

What has he commanded?

He's commanded that we go and make disciples.

It's fundamental to who we are as Christians.

It's fundamental to the command of Jesus.

In the very text of obedience to all that he has taught us is the command to go and make.

Our disobedience to this command, our disobedience to this call speaks to a posture of unfaithfulness.

And we church, we need to repent.

We need to repent of hiding the gospel.

We need to repent as unfaithful stewards who had such a treasure.

And we were so afraid that we went back into the field and we buried it.

God has given us the treasure and riches of the gospel, and many of us are unfaithful stewards.

There's this parable that Jesus teaches about these servants who are given certain amounts of money, certain amounts of wealth or treasure.

And throughout the parable, what he does is he blesses and honors and encourages those who took that and made much of it, right?

They invested it wisely.

They compounded what was given to them, but there was this one.

There was this one servant in the parable who took what the master had given him, this treasure, and out of fear, he went and buried it in a field.

And when the master returned, that servant went out and dug up his treasure and he brought it before the master.

And the master said, This is exactly what I gave you.

He said, I know, I was terrified of you.

I heard that you were a heavy-handed ruler.

And so in my fear I buried it.

And then Jesus says that that master called for that servant to be torn limb from limb.

That's the Jesus we serve.

One who takes what he has given us very seriously.

And too many of us go and bury it.

So, church, we need to repent.

We need to repent, and we need to have this gospel assurance and conviction this morning that the empty grave of Jesus assures us of the victory of mission.

The empty grave of Jesus assures us of the victory of mission.

It's his mission.

He won't see it fail.

This is the essence of who we are as a church to join him on that mission.

We have to understand, church, this isn't our mission.

We don't have to rely on our resources.

We don't have to rely on the way that we are equipped and trained.

Though those things are important and we should disciple one another to be missionaries.

At the end of the day, as we go out and seek to be faithful, to proclaim the gospel and make disciples, we have the confidence that the grave is empty, that it's Jesus' mission, and that he won't see it fail.

So, how do we live this out?

I'm going to try and wrap this up as we are running out of time.

I have three ways that we should walk this out.

Number one, the way that we should practice this is simply by repent from our disobedience.

Church, let's start with just an honest assessment of where our hearts are in relation to being obedient to this command.

What's keeping us from running after obedience?

What fears do we need to let go of?

What ways have we buried the treasure of the gospel that Jesus has entrusted us with?

In what ways have we become so insular that we can't even name one unbelieving friend that we have a relationship with?

Let the Spirit of God speak to you.

He does that, you know, right?

He still speaks to us, primarily through his word, but he speaks to you where you're at, in your chair, in your seat.

As we're starting to wrap this sermon up, ask God to speak to you.

The beauty of the Spirit, of one of his works in the Christian life, is to convict us and then empower us to repent from that.

Number two, we need to rethink the places God has you in.

Rethink the places God has you in.

If we want to begin understanding our gifts, passions, and place for gospel advancement, then just look at the places that you already are.

God has sovereignly given you a mission field.

He's laid it out for you.

He's placed your feet in the soil.

We don't necessarily need to create new ones because he has placed us in one.

The promise of the scriptures is not that there is no fruit for the harvest.

The promise of the scriptures is that there's not enough workers to bring the harvest in.

You see, Jesus says that my fields are a white with the harvest, but there's not enough laborers to go out.

We need to rethink the places that God has you in.

Where does he have you?

What kind of position does he have you in?

What kind of work does he have you in?

I mean, from every side of the spectrum, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're a dude who just struggles all day in a cubicle, or whether you're a mom who's staying at home, every single aspect of what you do and where God has placed you has mission.

Rethink the places God has you in.

Rethink the giftings that He's given to you.

Rethink the passions that you find within yourself and think: how could I use this to make disciples?

And then lastly, we need to recharge for mission and community.

We need to recharge for mission and community.

The more we work to make disciples, the more we will need community.

The more we work to make disciples, the more we will need community for encouragement, for support, for championing on, for prayer, for remembrance of the gospel.

I would argue the less mission we engage in, the less we will sense a need for community.

The less mission we engage in, the less we will sense a need for a community.

One of the beautiful aspects of the church is that when we are beaten and tattered by the world and our efforts to be obedient to this command to make disciples, we can come home and be encouraged and built up and strengthened by one another.

You see, the less that we live on mission, the less we're gonna sense a need for any of that.

The more we seek to live comfortably among the world, the more that we just try to make them like us or like Jesus, the less that we will need the church.

I'm gonna lead us in a time of response.

And at Missio, what we do is we just we try to proclaim the word, we try to preach the gospel, and then we seek to have you respond to what was said.

And so our prayer this morning, as every Sunday, is that you respond in obedience and faithfulness toward Jesus rather than further disobedience and rebellion away from him.