Christianity 101 - The Great Commission - City Church

How y'all doing? It's wonderful to have you with

us to be in the city and praise God for this place.

To just be able to come into a conference room and turn it into

a House of worship. How cool is that?

I mean, it feels a little strange at first, but once the

people of God show up like this place transforms and that that's

true of the church. The church isn't a building.

It's wherever the people of God gather, and we can gather

anywhere. I'd read this morning in Psalm

118 that the tabernacles of God would be full of joy.

And I hope that's true of our church as we sing That rugged

cross, My salvation, man, that that would be the song of the

redeemed, that we'd be a people that would rejoice in what God

has done for us. I'm sorry I Can't Sing and play

very well at the same time. So like, I'm trying to get all

of my stuff out right now, you know, but it's also sweet when

we don't have APA system. Obviously we'd like those

things, but we can hear each other singing.

And that's so refreshing. It's so encouraging.

Even if our voices, you know, maybe we're not all professional

singers, we all get together in harmony.

And it's really cool, man. Praise the Lord for that.

My name is Thomas. I'm the pastor here at Portland

Gospel. We're going to get into our

Bible study time. So we're going to dismiss the

kids. So kids, we love you.

Pray for Amber and Lauren. They're going to be out with the

the kiddos this morning. We have some notes for you as

well. We're going to get in to a time

of study. I don't know if there's any left

or if you need one, but make sure you get that.

And as David said, we exist to help you believe, live and share

the gospel. He mentioned baptism today.

That'll be a part of our subject matter that we're in.

We're kind of hitting it multiple times on purpose

because repetition is the price of learning.

And we are in the foundational things in Christianity 101 that

what what are the basics? What are the fundamentals?

What do Christians do? What does the Bible say?

And that one is a huge issue and we see it getting distorted in

our world or whatever that might mean.

But in this series in Christianity 101, we've looked

at several important topics. We started with theism.

That's kind of a heady 1. And you know, 44% of Portland

has no religious affiliation, so they don't believe that there is

a God. And we have to come to the place

at least that there is a creator to be able to get to the

Christian faith. So being a theist doesn't make

you a Christian, but you can't be a Christian without being a

theist. You have to believe that there

is a God. And so that we we looked at that

the first week that's on YouTube.

If you have any skeptics or atheists in your life, hopefully

that will be a benefit to them. We saw who Jesus is.

That's, that is premier stuff in Christianity.

We, we rest all of our faith and our hope on who Jesus is.

We looked at the Bible and how we can trust the Bible is the

word of God. Perhaps our most important time

as we looked at salvation, how are we made right with God?

How can we go to heaven? How can our sins be forgiven?

That is just the the most critical issue for us.

And then we saw after that, the people that are saved join

together in fellowship and worship in a place called a

church. We gather together, we're a

body, we're a family, we're a flock, We're all kinds of those

things that the Bible teaches us.

And today we're going to see what the church does.

We saw briefly last week who the church is.

We're a gathering, we're safe people, that sort of thing.

But today we'll see that we have a mission.

We're not just going to be a social club.

We have in some ways, we have work to do.

We can gather and be encouraged and be strengthened in the word

of God. But we, we are the only people

on the planet that will reach the World with the songs that we

just sang. So we need to take that

seriously. And that's what we'll look at.

But let me, before we get any further, let me pray for us, and

then we'll hop into a time of Bible study.

Let's pray. God, we come and we thank you

for your grace. It is by the cross that we have

any access to your throne. So we come boldly in the name of

Jesus, as you said we could. We thank you for loving us while

we were yet sinners. And we know that you've called

us to share that same good news that we've received with others.

I pray today you'd envision our church and envision individuals

for what it means for them to participate with you in reaching

others. Would you use our time?

Humble us, enlighten us, encourage us?

I pray in Jesus name, Amen. All right, well, you can turn

your Bible to Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 28, Matthew's the first Gospel in the New

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Testament. If you need help finding that,

there's like a concordance in the beginning of your Bible.

Usually it'll tell you where things are.

Matthew 28, we're going to look at today the the last words.

If you just look at the very end of the chapter, the last words

of Jesus and how this book concludes.

Notice if you have a Bible that has read print, there's some

words there, so let me read those for us.

Matthew chapter 28, starting in verse 18.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given

unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all

nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the

Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all

things whatsoever I've commanded you.

I am and I am with and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the

end of the world. Amen.

So this book we see essentially the gospel in this chapter in

chapter 28. If you look at verse 5, we see

that Jesus was crucified. It says at the end of verse 5,

which was crucified. That's an important part of

Christianity, the crucifixion. And if you look at verse 7, we

see the resurrection and go quickly and tell his disciples

that he is risen from the dead. You cannot be saved unless you

believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

That is absolutely critical. We're about to start celebrating

this, this Easter season coming up.

That is, that is a huge deal for us.

And today we'll see that as these disciples gathered in

verse 10 in a certain place, Jesus told him, hey, go, go and

meet. I'll meet you.

He had some parting words for them.

And if you're familiar with the story, eventually Jesus would

ascend to heaven after his resurrection.

He's first spent some time with his disciples, 40 days or more,

and he invested some things into them and said, this is what I

want you to do. I'm taking off these, your

marching orders. So that's where we find

ourselves today. And these marching orders have

been carried out by the church for the last 2000 years.

I mean, from the time of the ascension to now is 2000 years

of Christians passing the faith down from one generation to the

next. And it is because of these

words. This is the command that we were

given. And the only way there will be a

generation after us is if we take seriously these words like

we were the last generation and we share it with the world.

So that's where we are. Matthew 28, we're going to look

at verses 19 and 20 today, and if you're taking notes, we'll

start with point #1 which is to reach the World today.

Again, this is going to be basic, but we need to know this.

We need the fundamentals. Jesus says in verse 19, Go ye

therefore and teach all nations. So go is a do word, right?

There's something we need to do. This isn't what saves us.

This is because we're saved. We go.

Only Christians can do this part.

And what we do when we go is really simple.

It's evangelize. That word means to convert, to

proselytize, to help someone come to the faith.

Jesus uses the word teach in verse 19.

So teach isn't just to instruct people, make them aware of

Christianity. It is to help them understand

what we believe and how they can be saved there.

There are multiple accounts of the Great Commission.

If you're familiar with the gospels, the gospel authors have

a very similar story of Jesus but with a different

perspective. Mark at the end of his gospel

and Mark chapter 16 says, and he said unto them, go ye into all

Mark 16 · chapter mention

the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

So if we put these Great Commission accounts together, we

get a better understanding of what it means to teach all

nations it is to preach the gospel.

And the word gospel means good news.

We're Lord willing going to start a series next week on what

the gospel is and it's defined for us in the Bible.

We don't have to make up what the good news is.

Is it that you have good music at your church?

Is it a style of music? Is it a what it what is the good

news? Well, the Bible says in first

Corinthians 15, you need to know this verses one through 4I

declare unto you the gospel. So I'm I'm making you know what

it is. In verse three, he says how that

Christ died for our sins and that he was buried and then he

rose again the third day. Now we'll spend several weeks in

the future hopefully talking about why that's good news, but

as I think the songs that we sang really already preached

that for us today. But if you wanted to summarize

what, what is the message really?

What am I supposed to tell other people?

It's something simple like this, that we are sinners.

We've all done moral things that we know are wrong.

We've violated our conscience. We have guilt and shame.

Jesus died for us while we were sinners.

He rose from the dead. That part's important.

He's not just some dead guy and faith in Jesus fixes that sin

problem that we have that takes away all of that.

I'm forgiven. I'm not guilty anymore.

This is good news and that is the best news on the planet

there. There are no amount of meals

that you can feed a homeless person that will fix a sin

problem there. There are no amount of things,

counselling and other things that we can do for people that

will help their soul. If we're talking about eternity

and rightness with God, this is the superior issue.

This is man's greatest need is to be saved.

That's the message and we ought to be excited about that.

If we believe that that is true for us, we we ought to be

stoked. We ought to be able to sing.

We ought to be a people of joy. But that message isn't just for

the your friends, the people that you really like.

Hey, I like you. I want you to go to heaven.

That would be good. You should you should want that

for all for everybody. As Jesus says, you should want

that for the nation's in verse 19, he says all nations.

And if you will get a biblical worldview, that means that I

filter all of my thinking through what is true in the word

of God. And you look at the world

through the lens of this book, you're going to say, oh, wait a

minute, not everybody's saved, not everybody's going to heaven.

What does that mean for Portland, for America, for

Canada, if you want to get real, for Saudi Arabia, for North

Africa, for China, North Korea? What about places where they

don't have access to this message?

Hence the word go. It will only get there if we

take it. We can begin with people in our

life that we love. And I'm begging you, you need to

know the Lord. But it really needs to go to all

nations. The word nations comes from the

word, the Greek word ethnos or ethnicity.

It is all people groups, not even just political boundaries.

It is peoples. And I showed you this last week,

there's an organization called The Joshua Project.

They keep track, I don't know how, but they keep track of

people groups in the world that are reached with the gospel.

And there are varying levels of unreached, superficially

significantly, the green is North America.

OK, we have access. You can turn on the radio.

You can accidentally find someone preaching.

You can turn on TV. And it might not all be right,

but you can find somebody talking about God, Jesus and

Bible in some way or another, right?

But there are places in the world where that's not possible.

To convert away from other religions brings a significant

consequence. There is not freedom of speech

in every place. And according to this number,

3.5 billion Reds in appropriate color, if we believe John 316,

they will perish and spend all of eternity and damnation

separated from God, not because God hates them, but because

they're sinners. And there's only one way, the

way, the truth and the life. You have to believe with your

heart and confess with your mouth.

In Luke's gospel, it says, and that repentance and remission of

sins should be preached in His name among all nations.

That's what we the church, the people of God, are called to you

to do. So I have this question for you

in your notes. What would it look like for you

to share the gospel with others? Just think about that for

yourself. It's a question on purpose.

You might think that's my job and I do my fair share.

I'm trying. I'll never do enough you.

We could never reach the whole world.

We can only do what we're responsible for our part.

Who's in my life? My Co workers, my family, people

on the street, people in the office.

What about you? Would you open your mouth and

say there's a way to be saved? So we start with the great.

This is what we call the Great Commission, what Jesus has told

us to do, go and tell the world. But then after that, when people

respond, we're called to help them respond in faith.

It may seem like if you've ever shared the gospel, it may seem

impossible, like no one likes this.

People seem to be against this exclusive Christian thing.

It feels difficult, but if you will share it enough, people

will be saved. I don't know what the number is.

I don't know. Only God can know how people's

hearts are all happening, right? But the people that saved are

saved are called to respond in faith, as Jesus says, baptizing

them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.

So I know David already hit this, but I just want to show

you a few things while we're here on the subject.

First is that baptism comes after salvation.

This is basic, but even in Christian circles people don't

believe this. There is no ritual washing that

will cleanse sin. The shed blood of Jesus Christ

is the only thing that washes us from our sin.

We see some examples of that as David pointed out with the

eunuch in Acts 8 when they believed or I'm sorry, this is

the people in Samaria in Acts 8 when they believed Philip

preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God in the name

of Jesus Christ. They were baptized, both men and

women, so they believed, and then they were baptized.

And then I have in your notes also Acts 18.

But I feel like we've kind of made that point for us already

today. So if you've been saved and not

been baptized, this is the next step for you.

Secondly, we see the baptism is by immersion.

And again, even within Christian circles, not everyone agrees.

I think the Bible is clear. The word here used, the Greek

word is baptizo. Now I'm not a Greek theologian,

but that word, it's, it has a meaning, right?

And you can read books and people that know Greek tell you

what it means. It it is to immerse.

It is never baptism is never a sprinkling in the Bible.

There is not one instance in the New Testament of anyone being

sprinkled. There's no instances in the New

Testament of any infants being baptized.

But the word, the Greek word, is used of something pretty

familiar to us, that when you look at what classics and people

write in Greek, they use that word in this kind of context,

something that is submerged. It's all the way in the juice.

That's how it becomes a pickle, right?

It's not sprinkle. You don't sprinkle a pickle.

That sounds weird, but it's got to be immersed.

I know it's weird man, but you'll never forget it now,

right? You'll always know baptism and

immersion and baptizo. It means to be underwater like a

pickle. So we see this in Acts 8 with

the eunuch. And as they went on their way,

they came under certain water and the eunuch said, see here is

water. What doth hinder me to be

baptized. It's clear that he was at a body

of water Jesus when he was baptized in Matthew chapter 3,

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

he went up straightway out of the water.

So there was a down and an up out of the water.

So if you've been baptized before, but it hasn't been by

immersion, this you can be baptized again.

It's totally OK. That's where we have a Baptist

doctrine and where Baptists get the name from is that they were

second baptizers. The Catholic Church said you're

sprinkled, you're good, you're in from an infant.

And Baptists came and said you need to be saved and then

baptized. And as people were being

baptized again, they got this name for essentially being

apostate from Catholicism to say that wasn't good enough.

Baptism comes after salvation. But just to give you a picture

of what that looks like, here's a couple baptisms that we've had

last year. We had for man, Praise God, how

exciting. This is such a sweet day for us.

It is not a sombre thing, man. It is for us, like I might cry,

we'll get excited, we'll get wet, we'll sing songs.

You know, we were helping people take steps of faith to follow

Jesus. So my son Watson and what a what

a privilege. There's Jonathan's in the room

to Leah's in the room and praise the Lord for that.

So if you need help with that, we'll we'll have my goal is

about every two months or so to have a baptism opportunity and

we'll just trust God to help people take steps of faith.

The third thing for baptism is it identifies you with Christ,

as it says in verse 19, in the name of the Father, the Son, the

Holy Ghost. Baptism isn't in my name or our

church's name. It is you taking on the name to

say I'm identifying myself with Jesus.

Obviously essentially the Trinity as well.

But in the name of this is a familiar phrase to us if we just

compare Scripture with Scripture in the book of Colossians,

whatsoever you do in Word or deed, do all in the name of the

Lord Jesus. Our life as Christians should be

honoring to Jesus, but baptism is the first real opportunity

you have to say I'm associating myself in his name.

I'm, I'm willing to tell the world, even people that disagree

with me, even if my family comes to attend, I'm following Jesus,

I'm with him. And really what we see with this

identity is that baptism is a picture of the spiritual reality

that happens at the moment of salvation.

If you read Romans chapter 6, I gave this to Modesto for

Romans 6 · chapter mention

homework this week or last week. This week we're we've been

talking about baptism. We meet every week and just talk

about Bible stuff. The picture is in Romans 6.

We are buried with him by baptism into death.

That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of

the Father, Even so should we walk in newness of life.

So the baptism in Romans 6 is a spiritual baptism.

This is what happens when you're saved.

You are immersed into Christ, you are in Him.

If you read the book of Ephesians, you'll just see

that's a big theme. You're in Christ and baptism is

just identifying when you go down, man.

Christ was buried, my old man was buried, and I'm raised, as

Romans 6 says, to walk in newness of life.

I'm leaving a life behind and I'm living my life in the name

of Jesus. I'm following him.

So I've said it before like this, baptism is one of the

easiest things you'll ever do to follow Christ.

It's get wet. I mean, literally that's it.

You don't have to say much. We, we hope that you'll share a

testimony or we'll compile one and I'll share it for you.

But you don't have to do much. You don't, let's not even go

preach. It's not go die.

It's not like get up real early. Our church is at night most of

the time. All you do is get wet.

Your Christian life honestly will get more difficult after

that. As you grow and mature, you will

take even more difficult steps than that.

So it is you. You get it.

We're beating it to death. Baptism is the first.

We call it the first step of obedience.

But after people are baptized and they say I'm in, now it's

time to grow as a disciple. So we see preaching the gospel

and salvation, baptism and now discipleship, verse 20, teaching

them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

So baptism is not the end of your Christian life for many.

They're like, OK, I got salvation.

I've been dunked. I'm just going to ride the Pew,

man. I'm good or I don't need to go

back to church. They did all the things for me

already, and that's not the case.

Jesus says there's a third thing, and we take that very

seriously in our church, teaching them to observe all

things. Whatsoever I've commanded you,

it means you need to grow and learn about your new life in

Christ. So they're essentially two ways

to grow that we see here. First is that we grow through

information. You need to learn some things if

you're going to be a Christian. You've got to figure out what do

I do with my life? OK, I'm in.

I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do there.

That means that there is an element of teaching and

learning. Hopefully that happens in the

church setting up. Man, I try every week to try to

prepare for thinking about and praying for you to help you

understand what God's Word says. You'll never be swayed and you

can grow strong. But we also have a personal

sense in this. Jesus said to the disciples in

Matthew 28. Here you teach them to observe

all things. And so it's not just, well, God

teaches me and we have our own little relationship, and you

certainly should. I'm not your priest.

But really the only way that you're going to learn is by

following somebody else. The Bible says that the church

is built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.

They laid the foundation. They taught us what Scripture

is. And we need people in our life

that are able to teach us as well.

So we have a ministry we call personal discipleship.

And the word disciple is a Bible word.

It means a student, a learner, A pupil, a taught one.

I'm willing to show up and learn.

I don't have it all figured out. And in that we will pair you up

with somebody that you can follow.

Be ye followers of me as I also am of Christ.

It's not wrong to follow another person.

We want you to grow and get on your own 2 feet and not need to

always have your hand held. But in the beginning, man, we're

not upset that you don't know things.

We want to help you grow and stand up and eventually make a

disciple for yourself. Paul says in Second

Thessalonians. Hold the traditions which you

have been taught. So again, there is the element

of you need to learn. What do I believe?

Please don't start with Google or YouTube.

Just come to church. We'll pair you up with a mentor.

If you want things on the Internet, we'll show you safe

resources. But there's a lot of craziness

on the Internet. So start with play people that

you know and trust. Like I see them, I see their

marriage, I see their parenting, I see them faithful playing

guitar or whatever, Whatever you see that you want in your

Christian life when you need to have a person that you can

identify with and help me grow. All right, next is you need

application. So your your Christian life

isn't just about information. At some point, you probably know

more than you're doing, especially if you've read the

whole book. You're like, OK, I'm officially

not doing everything all at once.

I'm trying, right? You should probably read your

Bible more. You should probably pray more.

You should probably make more time in your schedule for

spiritual things, should probably stop doing some bad

stuff, should probably start doing some better things to

serve. Look like we all know there's

more that I should be doing. So information isn't actually

helping you if you're not able to apply it to your life.

We don't want to just make you a heady, brainy, separated,

intellectual Christian. You need real and practical

application. As Jesus says in verse 20.

We don't just teach them a data set, teaching them to observe

all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

So our discipleship ministry is to help people apply the word of

God to their Life. OK, I understand what it says.

Thank you for sharing that with me.

How do I do that? What what?

How do I don't understand? Like what are some examples?

Could you help me? Could you text me this week and

remind me? Can we pray about it together?

So the word here in verse 20 to observe all things.

The word observe isn't just a spectacle.

It is to attend to carefully or to take care of.

So there is a sense in which it is protective.

Like, OK, I learned some stuff. I need to steward this in my

life, but to attend to is like, man, I've got to figure out how

do I actually do that. A couple of other uses of that

word we see in the Bible in the book of Deuteronomy, and you

shall observe to do therefore, as the Lord your God hath

commanded you. What does observe to do look

like? Check this out you shall not

turn aside to the right hand or to the left.

I see what it says and I'm not stepping out of the way.

I'm stepping into it. I don't know how by faith Jesus

name with accountability the prayer and fasting Maybe I'm

going to do what God told me to do.

I will obey the book of Joshua if you obey.

This is a famous verse for many Christians.

There's a blessing for obedience.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but

thou shall meditate therein day and night that thou mayest

observe to do according to all that is written therein.

If you're going to observe to do it means it needs to be at top

of mind. Meditate day and night and

you're not going to do anything that's not in your brain, right?

That's why we have devices that tell us, Ding, Ding, hey,

remember to do this today, right?

I just, I got an iPhone recently and I'm trying to figure out my

reminder life. It's totally different than

Android life. So we have to remind our brains

so that we can do things. And this is where meditation

comes in, reading, journaling, talking about it with others.

And if you'll do this, the Bible says thou shalt make thy way

prosperous, then thou shalt have good success.

And the only time the word success is used in the Bible in

the King James Bible is in this verse.

Go Fact Check me on it. Go check it out.

You can get out your Bible lap and check it out.

You'll find success when you meditate and observe to do what

God says because his ways are higher than our ways.

That's what he said in the book of Isaiah.

And if you will just align your steps, you will live out a

higher life than if you just did whatever you felt like or

thought was right. So I have this question for you.

Do you have help applying God's Word to your life?

We want to help you with that. Sign up for discipleship, talk

to whoever you know in church, or talk to me.

We'll tell you more about it. But lastly, let's look at our

final point, which is to fulfill the mission together.

In Matthew 28 and verse 20, Jesus has this wonderful phrase

at the end. And lo, I am with you always,

even unto the end of the world. Amen.

What an encouragement. Remember, I'm going to send you

to all nations. And if you're going to leave

your home, you're going to go to a place to share the gospel with

people that have never heard it, you're going to end up

discouraged. You're going to feel like, am I

going to get stoned to death? Is anyone going to get saved?

Why did I leave the comfort of wherever?

Is this really worth it? And Jesus says I am with you,

Alway, and Alway there, it's not an accident that there's no S

Alway is perpetual, always is, every instance, every time.

Alway is indefinitely, continually, all the time.

But we see here Jesus's help. They're essentially 2 things in

our final point, a help and a hindrance to the mission.

First is that Jesus will help us accomplish this.

Remember, he's not dead, He's arisen from the dead.

It's a part of the gospel. He is alive.

He gave us his Holy Spirit. The Bible says if you're in

Bible study in Colossians, that Christ in you is it's our hope.

He lives with us. And this whole thing was his

idea to begin with. Isn't it like I didn't, I didn't

come up with this, this book or this scheme.

This isn't my idea. There's probably an easier way

to live your life. But he said he will never leave

or forsake you, and you're eventually going to find

yourself in spots to where you're going to need that kind

of encouragement when you're rejected, when you're feeling

low, when you need to keep moving forward.

He said in John 14, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give

unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you.

Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid that

peace would be the Holy Spirit that He would send to be with

us. He says in verse 20, he'll be

with you the same thing that he said in John 14.

And that's encouraging because the work that He's called us to

do is greater than what we can do in the natural man.

If the work is go force convert people, we could develop some

manipulation tactics, some really good advertisements,

perhaps some enticing bribes come on in.

But that's really not it. We can't force convert anybody.

Salvation is by grace through faith.

People have to make a decision with their will to trust the

gospel. So we're going to go preach and

hope that others respond. But if we will preach, the word

of God does not come back void. It's God's will that none would

perish. He is drawing all men to

salvation. Jesus died for the sins of the

whole world, and this work is possible only through

supernatural means. John 15.

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the

vine, no more can ye except ye abide in Me.

The only way that we can be fruitful and accomplish the

mission that He's given us to do is by walking closely with Him,

knowing that he's with us. But I put it to you this way,

the help that Jesus provides is in the context of reaching

others. Many times we just want to feel

good and sing songs and Jesus help me and God be with me and

praise the Lord. He certainly is.

Be here, lo, I am with you always is in the same sentence

as go and reach the World with the gospel.

So if you want to grow close and know Jesus, be on mission with

him. You will only find this kind of

intimacy as you obey and walk with him and listen to his

Spirit. Then you will find this

incredible, incredible closeness.

But lastly, there is a hindrance.

Everything's been positive so far.

I think go share the best message in the world.

Help people follow Jesus and walk with him.

But there's something else mentioned here.

The world will hinder you from accomplishing this mission if

you Just because we are told to go and do it doesn't mean that

it's going to happen. And Jesus uses the world, he

says unto the end of the world as a point of encouragement.

Hey, I'm with you alway until it's all done, I won't leave you

or forsake you. But since the world is in view,

I think it's a good reminder for us to say that actually will

keep us from being fruitful. You see, Christians are told

love not the world, and you can't love two things at once.

Nathan and Savannah, praise God, just got married.

So stoked for you guys. I saw Nathan yesterday.

He just had the biggest smile and I'm sorry I'm embarrassing

you. His biggest smile on his face

all day. Like I'm so stoked, man.

I'm so excited for both you guys.

But if you try to love somebody else, it's just really that

ain't not Nathan's face already changed.

Like I will kill them. Who are they?

They will die, right? That's that's a natural response

that we have in a relationship and God feels the same way.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and

strength, right? There's no other place in my

heart, Jesus, you're it, man. But when we get distracted and

we love the world and we look at all the shiny, wonderful,

sensual, whatever things that we get distracted with, we are

derailed from helping other peoples come into a spirit

spiritual Kingdom. Jesus says in John 17, you are

sent into the world, You're not just a consumer.

Buy, swipe, vote, three stars, 5 stars, you know, next I need

another one, Replace it. You're not just a consumer,

you're on mission. You live your life differently.

You're essentially swimming upstream from the world, sent

into the world, which means you can't be like the world.

And honestly, even if you try, if you are born again with the

Spirit of God, you identify with Jesus, the world doesn't really

know you. The world knoweth us not because

it knew him not. You take his name.

And This is why baptism can be a big deal for people.

You take his name and you're essentially taking all the the

things that people don't like about Jesus on yourself.

I mean, they crucified him. They didn't like it.

They crucified some of his followers meant all.

Pretty much all the disciples were martyred in some way.

We have a blood stained lineage in the church.

The world will not really know you.

You can't go back. All you can do is move ahead.

And if you don't get strong in your faith, the discipleship

part, man, you won't know what to share.

You won't know how to do that. So let us help you.

But today, if I could just ask you, have you been distracted

from the mission? Sometimes it's just walking past

people, not even having what I would call a sole awareness of

there are people around me. Are you trying to reach the

World? Maybe you just don't know.

What? What?

I don't. I don't know where to start.

Well, that's OK, man. We'll love you.

You a couple. Ways for you to stay.

On mission and for us as a church to stay on mission.

I'm planning. Hopefully in the month of April

to have an evangelism training. We did this last year where we

will take one of our tracks. What is the gospel?

The death, burial and resurrection.

Do you want to be saved? Right.

We will help you walk through this tract.

We'll give you some scenarios. It's a workshop, not a lecture.

We want to help, you know, at very least how to share like a

handful of verses with somebody so that they can be saved.

So hopefully in April we'll have one of those.

I'll let you know when I get the dates in May.

We, I have a missionary to Scotland coming.

We're going to spend the weekend with them.

We're going to do some evangelism on the street.

So April will prepare you to come out with us on the street.

And if you're nervous, just watch.

We'll do it. You can be a follower, just see

what's happening. And then this summer we're going

to do a lot of evangelism. So even if you're distracted in

your life, I'll be reminding you and we'll be scheduling times to

go out together. So we have ways as a church that

we're planning to do that, but for you as individuals.

Typically. We end with the time of

introspection. I want to give you just a.

Moment to do that have. You been saved.

Are you sure that? You've called on the Lord.

To save you? If so, have you been?

Baptized. It's not.

Too late to get scheduled for next week.

We want to get with you on your testimony.

If that's the case, have you been discipled?

As someone helping you. Apply God's Word to your life.

Or is there something hindering you today that?

You need to say I've been distracted by this and I need to

focus on souls, man. I need to, I need to confess

that to the Lord. Ask him to help you or if you

feel like, man, I'm doing good, I'm on mission, maybe there's

some. People in your life?

That. Don't know Jesus and they're in

the red line. Maybe right now.

You just want to pray. And ask the Lord, save them,

give me an opportunity. With them I'll be.

Faithful. I'm terrified, but I'll open my

mouth. Just help me, be with me all

way, then I'll do it. So let's take a moment.

I'll give. Us about a minute of.

Silence. I'll pray and then we'll have a

a song at the end. Let's pray.