The Mission Is In Motion

Speaker 8: Well, good morning.

How's everyone doing?

Doing good.

I want to say good morning to Milton and Plymouth and Bethlehem

and anyone watching online.

And if I could get help with a table, that would be fantastic.

Um, I can try to juggle all this, but it wouldn't end well, I promise you.

I think you guys would enjoy that, but I would not.

Uh, it's a blessing to be here.

It's a blessing to, uh, it's always a blessing, uh, when we get to come

home to family at Restoration Church.

For those that do not know who I am, as Pastor Victoria

said, I am Travis Nicholson.

My wife actually works, is on staff here at Restoration.

Uh, but, uh, due to my job, uh, yeah, you can cheer for her.

She's awesome.

Uh, due to my job working with the district, we live in central Maine

and, uh, we're constantly traveling.

So, uh, the, uh, when we're not traveling, we try to make it down here.

Uh, and then sometimes I get blessed and honored to be asked to speak here.

And so, first, let me, uh, Before I continue, just thank Pastor Nate publicly.

Uh, it's not, uh, likely that I take the honor of speaking

in another pastor's pulpit.

And, uh, or on their stage on a Sunday morning.

And so, uh, I want to thank Pastor Nate for his trust, uh, in me

and his trust in this church.

Um, and let's get into it.

Um, actually, let's not get into it.

Uh, because before I jump right into the message, I do want to take just a moment.

And, uh, and offer some recognition and, and honor someone that needs

to be honored within your church.

As Pastor Victoria said, I'm the district youth director.

What that basically means is I just hang out with teenagers and I get paid for it.

It's great.

But part of that is that Speed the Light.

I, I help champion and cast vision for Speed the Light.

If you don't know what Speed the Light is, Speed the Light is within the assemblies

of God, it's teenagers giving to missions.

For And here at Restoration, we've put Speed of Light under Kingdom Builders.

So, uh, your teenagers, when they give to Kingdom Builders, they're

giving to, uh, Speed of Light.

And, uh, for those that, We just want a quick history of Speed of Light.

In 1944, a man by the name of Ralph W.

Harris, who at the time was the National Youth Director, he was in charge of youth

ministries all across the nation, he saw the need to disciple students in missions.

He saw the need to disciple students in generosity, and

he said something can be done.

He said our, our, our missionaries still need help on the field, and

teenagers can be a part in that.

And so in 1944, he created what we now know as Speed the Light.

And since that day, teenagers across our nation have been, uh,

giving generously to Speed the Light year after year after year.

And so this year in 2024, uh, we, uh, developed the Ralph W.

Harris award.

It is an award that is given to a student in our district in Maine, Vermont, New

Hampshire, that we believe not only personifies generosity and missions,

but also inspires others to do it.

When we decided to come up with this award, we knew who we knew the

moment we came up with it, who would receive the inaugural Uh, Ralph W.

Harris Award, because he has inspired not only this church to get into

missions, he has inspired not just those around him to get into missions,

but he's inspired our entire district.

It's it's because of this family.

It's because of this church that we've seen missions and

generosity become a focus across Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.

And so would you please join me in recognizing Benaiah Gagney as the

inaugural receiver of the Ralph W.

Harris Award across all locations.

You are blessed.

You are blessed.

With Pastor Nate as your pastor, you're blessed with the

Gagney family and your church.

You are blessed as a church to focus on generosity and missions the way you do.

And it's because of Restoration, I can't say it enough, that not only is

New England becoming more generous and more mission minded, but the nation is

seeing what is happening in New England.

And so we thank you, Gagneys.

We thank you, Benaiah.

We thank you, Restoration.

Uh, and so, with all that out of the way, let's jump into the Word of God, shall we?

All right.

So, this morning, I know for the past few weeks you guys have been talking about

Kingdom Builders, and this morning I'm going to kind of stay in that same vein.

Uh, but I want to kind of shift it a little bit.

Uh, before we jump into the Word, uh, how many of you know there's an epidemic

that's sweeping across our nation?

Um, And it's called road rage Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know if if you don't

have road rage You know someone who does and if you don't know someone who

does I've got news for you this morning.

It's you

Listen I already warned my wife On our way to church this morning.

I said, hey, hey, babe.

I'm gonna use you in my illustration this morning And she said, well, how?

And I said, I'm gonna talk about road rage.

And she said, Travis, don't you dare.

And I said, relax.

I'm still gonna do it.

Uh, and so, My, I, I typically drive.

Um, just because I have a bit of a control issue.

Um, but also, if I'm not driving, I'm asleep.

Like, if I'm riding in a car, if I'm not physically, like, you

put me in a plane, I'm asleep.

You put me on a train, I'm asleep.

You put me in the passenger seat of a car, I'm asleep.

I can sleep anywhere, and it's usually awesome.

Uh, so, I typically drive.

But every now and again, she'll drive.

Um, or even sometimes while I drive, this happens.

Uh, but We pull up to a red light.

There's a car in front of us.

We pull up behind that car.

The light turns green.

The car doesn't move.

And all of a sudden I have to question whether or not

my wife is truly a christian.

I'm just kidding.

It's not that bad.

It's not that bad, but it is like go.

What are you waiting for?

Go!

I'm like Aaron, it's literally been 0.

01 second.

The light just turned green.

It's okay.

It's okay.

But you know that frustration when you're stuck behind a car and the light turns

green, and you're, you're trying to get somewhere, you're trying to do something,

you're trying to accomplish something, and the car in front of you isn't going.

And I, I, I think sometimes in life, maybe, I could be wrong here, but maybe

God looks at his church the same way.

Where he's like, the light is green, go.

Do something.

The light is green.

I've given you the green light.

Go, go stop.

You're stopped.

Keep going.

And so this morning when, when, when I'm talking about kingdom builders,

I, I want you to hear my heart here.

We should be giving to kingdom builders.

Generosity matters, but kingdom builders isn't just something we give

to kingdom builders is something we are.

You and I are called to be kingdom builders.

If, if you're in this place this morning, you've given your heart to Christ, you

are called to be a kingdom builder.

And so my goal this morning is to show how the mission of God is moving.

It's active throughout our lives since the beginning of time.

If you have your Bibles, you can open them up to Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20.

Matthew 28:18–20

This is a passage of verses that's typically known as the Great Commission.

If Uh, this is the moment that we kind of get our mission from God.

Uh, this is the moment that we as believers are told, this is what I want

you to do from Jesus Christ himself.

He's speaking to his disciples, but we today take it as a command for us as well.

But the, the verse here, this is after Jesus has resurrected.

All right, he's been crucified, he's been resurrected.

He, he told the women of the tomb, go get my disciples, bring them to Galilee.

And this is at that moment, this is what he says.

It says in verse 18, 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've commanded you.

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

Father, I thank you for your word this morning.

I thank you that we get to be here and hear you speak truth into our lives.

Father, I pray right now that you open up the eyes and the ears and the hearts of

everyone that's here, and even those that are not, to see, to hear, and to know the

truth that you're speaking this morning.

Lord, we just pray right now, God, that you give us the strength

and the courage To be the hands and feet of Christ in Jesus name.

We pray.

Amen.

So here in these first few verses, you see the great commission.

What does Jesus say?

He says, go and make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them.

A lot of the times when, when I, when I hear this message preached or, or

even sometimes when I've preached it myself, I've, I've done so in such a

way to say, Jesus is telling you to go.

Or we, we talk about missionaries.

Jesus is telling you to go to another country or to go to another

state or to go and be a missionary.

Jesus is telling you to go.

But in reality, that's not what Jesus is saying at all right here.

Because if you look at the original Greek in which the Bible in the New

Testament was originally written in, the way that the word for go is

translated here is as you are going.

So when, when, what Jesus is saying here is he's not saying

go therefore and make disciples.

He's saying as you are going, make disciples.

Baptizing and teaching.

The only command in the Great Commission that Jesus gives that we're

not already doing is make disciples.

He expects that we are already going.

He's expecting that the disciples are already going.

As you are going, make disciples.

And as you make those disciples, you will be baptizing them and

teaching them because that is part of making disciples The only command

he gives is to make disciples.

He's not telling us to go this morning because we as christians should

already be going We as christians already have the green light if you've

given your life to christ The moment the day that you said yes to christ

you got to the green light to go

But in life, sometimes we stop at those green lights or we

get stopped by red lights.

I remember not growing up, but I lived in Waterville, Maine for quite a while.

And, uh, there's a, there's a strip on a Waterville, Maine

called Kennedy Memorial drive.

It's about two miles ish from the highway to where our church

was and where our house was.

We lived in the Parsonage at the church.

It's about two, a two mile stretch and there's like eight or nine, uh,

stoplights in that two mile stretch.

And we would always joke when, when we'd get ready to go, are we

going to ride the red wave or are we going to ride the green wave?

Because it never seemed like You, you, you kind of got both.

You either, every light was green, or every light was red.

And so the light would turn green, and you'd go about 500

feet, and the next light was red.

And then you'd have to stop and wait.

And then that light turns green, and then you go, and the next light's red.

And so then you have to stop and wait.

And it's just exhausting.

Going and stopping, going and stopping, going and stopping.

Especially if you're in the car with my wife.

I'm just kidding.

I'm sorry, babe.

I'm done.

I'm done.

She's gonna hurt me.

She's gonna hurt me.

God, forgive me.

Aaron, forgive me.

I'm done.

But, the beauty of Christ, and the beauty of God, is there are no stoplights.

They're all green lights.

We just, we can just keep going, and going, and going.

The problem is, is we stop ourselves.

The problem is, is, is we, we stop at a green light because we

don't really know what's next.

Or we're nervous about cars coming the other way, even

though they have a red light.

We're nervous we might get T boned, or we're nervous we might get side swiped.

And so we stop.

And then we go, and then we stop, and then we go, and then we stop, and then we go.

Something happens in our life, and we stop.

But what Jesus is telling us this morning is to keep.

Going.

As you are going, I want you to be making disciples.

As you are going, I want you to be baptizing and teaching.

As you are going, I want you to be living a life on mission.

At no point does Jesus ever ask us to stop.

At no point does Jesus ever say, Hey, actually, just take a

break right here, and just wait a second, there's a car coming.

No, he's like, go.

You have the green light.

You Keep going, keep going, keep going.

The mission is in motion.

The mission doesn't stop.

The mission continues to go and go and go.

And the thing that we need to understand is the mission has been

in motion for a very, very long time.

And I'm not talking about just from this moment when Jesus tells the

disciples to go and make disciples.

I'm talking about since the beginning of time.

Because the mission is in our DNA.

If you flip all the way to the front of your Bible into Genesis chapter

one, scroll down to the bottom of Genesis chapter one in verse 28.

It says this, it says, and God blessed them, them being Adam and Eve.

And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over

every living thing that moves on the earth

In the new testament we see christ's command to his disciples to go

into all the nations And make disciples in the old testament the

very first chapter of the bible.

We see god's command To his creation to be fruitful and multiply God has

always been a god of multiplication God has always been a God of addition,

never division, never subtraction.

We see it time and time and time again.

He created us to multiply.

He created us to add to our family.

He created us to add to the kingdom of God.

In the Old Testament, it's physically in the Old Testament.

It's it he, he, he's saying, be fruitful and multiply on the earth.

And then in the New Testament, we see it's spiritual.

Go into all the nations and make disciples.

Multiply yourself as a Christian, multiply yourself as a believer,

and create new believers.

My boss, the superintendent of the Assemblies of God,

he says often the fruit.

of a healthy tree, the fruit of a healthy apple tree is what?

Anyone know?

Apple?

Not quite.

The fruit of a healthy apple tree is another apple tree.

Yeah, you might get an apple from it,

but what we want is another apple tree, because that apple is going to drop a

seed, and that seed, you plant it, and another apple tree will come from it.

The health Or, or the, the fruit of a healthy Christian

is another healthy Christian.

We're meant to multiply ourselves.

We're meant to add to the kingdom of God daily.

And there's this juxtaposition between Adam in the Old Testament

and Christ in the New Testament.

Because really what happens directly after this in Genesis is Adam and Eve do what?

They disobey God.

They, they, they take the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

They, they eat of it and they're, they're banished from Eden.

And it's, it's in that moment that God spends the rest of his, his

creation chasing after us, hoping to come back into alignment with

us, hoping to be reunited with us.

And that's a whole nother sermon for a whole nother day.

But because of Adam's disobedience, death enters.

Into the equation.

But when christ comes onto the scene and because of his obedience at the cross

because remember christ prayed to the father If it's your will take this cup

from me Christ christ didn't want to be crucified But he knew what needed to be

done and through his obedience through his crucifixion life enters the equation

No longer do we have to live in death, but we are conquerors in Christ through life.

That's the gift that Christ gave each of us this morning.

Across the locations, across New Hampshire, across the

country, across the world.

Christ has given us life through his death on the cross.

And what can be hard sometimes is, is, is when we talk about

the mission being in our DNA.

You don't always get to choose your DNA, right?

You don't always get to choose, like, like, you didn't choose

the family you were born in.

Some of you are like, yeah, I know, I wish I did.

Don't say that this week at Thanksgiving.

But you didn't get to choose the family you were born in.

And you're dealing with being part of it.

You're dealing with being part of that family.

The good, the bad, all of it.

Christ gives us the choice to enter into the family of God.

But the moment we become

believers in Christ, the moment that we become part of this family of Christ,

the mission is ingrained in our DNA.

It is who we are.

And it's beyond who we are into how we live our lives.

The mission isn't just in our DNA.

The mission is our life.

There's a quote that some people will attribute to this person or that person.

In reality, no one really knows who says it, but maybe

you've heard it this morning.

It says this, it says to preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.

I'm going to say that again.

It says, preach the gospel at all times.

And if necessary, use words.

When we think of the idea of preaching the gospel, some of us sit back and we

say, Well, I'm going to let Pastor Nate do that because he's really good at it.

I'm going to let Pastor Jeremy or Pastor Victoria or I'll let Travis do it.

You know, God's called them to be preachers.

But the reality is, is God's called us all to preach the gospel.

And you don't always have to preach the gospel with words.

You can preach the gospel and should be preaching the gospel

every day of your life with the way in which you're living your life.

The way that we live our lives speak louder to the unbeliever

than the words we say.

Because if we're not living in truth, they will never hear the truth we have to say.

We have to understand that being the Great Commission, being a kingdom

builder, is part of our lives.

Every day we wake up, it's an opportunity before us.

And how we live our lives and what we do, Are we going to point

Everyone to Christ, or are we going to point everyone to ourselves?

Do we live this life for Christ, or do we live this life for ourselves?

And it can be hard, I get it, trust me, I understand.

It's difficult, and it's not easy.

But I'd never read anything in the Bible where Christ says it's going to be easy.

In fact, He says it's going to be hard.

He says to take up our cross and follow Him.

But I can tell you, it's worth it.

Many of us sitting in this room know it's worth it.

If we look back at the Great Commission,

you go up a few verses before Christ talks to the disciples.

If you look at the beginning, you see that Christ presents himself to the

women at the tomb, and the guards at the tomb see what kind of transpires.

They see that there's no body in the tomb.

And we see what happens with the guards in verse 11.

Same chapter, Matthew 28 verse 11, it says, While they were going, they

Matthew 28:11

being the guards, Behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the

chief priests all that had taken place.

And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a

sufficient sum of money to the soldiers.

And they said, Tell people his disciples came by night and stole him away.

While we were asleep, and if this comes to the governor's ears, we will

satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.

So they took the money and did as they were, they were directed,

and this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.

There's a contrast that happens.

We see Jesus tell his disciples, Go and duplicate yourselves.

Go and speak truth and make disciples.

And what we see with the guards is the chief priest saying,

Go and lie to the people.

Tell them that Christ hasn't resurrected.

The guards had a decision to make.

Speak truth, speak death.

The disciples had a decision to make.

Speak truth, speak death.

And we see the consequences of those actions.

It affects the generations to come.

We as believers have a decision to make every day of our lives.

Are we going to speak truth that day or are we going to speak death that day?

And we have to understand that that decision has a consequence

for this next generation

and the generation after and the generation after.

And I know this to be true because I've witnessed it myself.

But I also know it to be true because I've come across something that that's

pretty cool that I want to point out.

About sometime last week, we're cleaning out the district office.

And for those of you who don't know, You know, I, I work for the Assemblies of

God, our district office is in Portland.

Uh, and that place is full of files from like 1930.

Um, and so we're cleaning stuff out.

And we find a stack of these old directories dating all

the way back to like 1965.

And, and I, I shared them, we, we just had a, a, a youth leaders

retreat, uh, in which some of your youth leaders were, were at.

Uh, but I, but I shared it with the youth leaders there.

And encouraging them, like, look at everyone that came before us.

Uh, and I wasn't planning on this, but as I was looking through, through

one, uh, I came across something.

So, so, so here is the 1965 to 1966.

They called them yearbooks back then.

Uh, it's just a directory.

Fancy term for directory.

Uh, and you can flip through it and you can see the names of every person,

uh, that was a, uh, pastor in, uh, Northern New England, ordained, licensed.

Uh, and so if we go to the ordained list of pastors, if I go all the way down

to the O's, there's a, there's a name that some of you in Dover will probably

recognize, and maybe some in, in some of the other locations will recognize.

It's For

those that don't know, that's Pastor Bob Oberg, who's sitting

right up here on the second row,

who was a minister of the gospel of Christ with Assemblies of God.

This was in 1965.

I went to him before service, and I showed him, and we were talking, and

he said, uh, yo, yes, I remember that.

And he, he knew exactly what his address was.

He, he, he even remembered the day he entered that church was 1959.

65 years ago He's been living a life where every day he chooses to speak truth

and we see the outcome Recognized in this church his children are believers.

His grandchildren are believers.

His great grandchildren are believers now Some are on different journeys,

but generations are affected because of the life that he chose to live

Generations are affected because of the lives that you and I choose to live.

I pray that one day someone can look back and say, Man,

Travis spoke truth every day.

Now I know the reality is, is that's not true.

There are days I wake up and nothing but venom comes out of my mouth.

And you say, well Travis, you're a pastor.

Listen, You know what I'm talking about.

I'm a human just like you.

I have flesh just like you.

And every day I wake up, I have to die to that flesh.

And some days I die pretty easily.

And other days it, God has to kill my flesh a few times.

But what I know to be true is that the impact that we have

today will last generations and generations and generations.

The Great Commission isn't just for the disciples.

It wasn't just when you became a new believer, the Great Commission

is something that we live out day after day after day after day.

The mission wasn't something that was for back then, and the mission

wasn't something that was for the future, the mission is here.

The mission is now.

It's for us this morning.

If we jump over to Acts,

Chapter one, verse eight.

The Great Commission was, was what many believe to be the, the,

the first word, spoken to the disciples after the resurrection.

And then in Acts one, uh, verse eight, these are the last words

spoken to the disciples before Christ ascends into heaven.

Acts one, chapter one, verse eight says, but you'll receive power when

the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

And you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and

Samaria until the end of the earth.

The mission is in motion.

You and I are going, as we are going.

But where are we going?

To Jerusalem.

You're like, wait, what?

No, I'm not talking about actual Israel.

Your Jerusalem is here.

Your Jerusalem is your inner circle.

It's those people that you see.

Your Jerusalem is the dinner table this Thursday when you gather for Thanksgiving.

Your Judea, Samaria, your community,

multiple locations across New Hampshire, The state of New Hampshire, our country.

Now, now, my prayer is that God is calling some people in this room and

some people across our locations to be missionaries and to go into other nations.

But you don't have to live the Great Commission by going to another country.

You live the commission by just going, sometimes just going across your hall,

in your house, and speaking to your kids, and speaking truth and living truth.

Sometimes you live out the Great Commission and, and crossing the, the,

the aisle of the church or Or going into your workplace or going into your schools

or or just going into your community Living truth and speaking truth at the

same time We are called to be the body of christ the body of christ Now we know

that our bodies are intricate every single part of our body is important, right?

But we are specifically called to be the hands and the feet of christ

I want to tell you this morning.

No one in this room is called to be the belly button of christ

Now sometimes you may feel that way.

Sometimes you may feel like, oh, I'm nothing.

Like, yeah, I'm a Christian, but yeah, I'm not really a part of the body of Christ.

And listen, we all have belly buttons.

We can talk about them.

It's weird.

I get it, but we got him.

Does anyone know what that thing does?

No.

It exists.

It's there.

I'm sure there's a couple people in the audience like,

yeah, I do know what it does.

Great.

That's awesome for you.

You're ruining my illustration.

But the reality is we don't know what the belly button does.

But we know what the hands and the feet do.

The hands and the feet are in motion.

God's calling you to be the hands and feet of Christ.

To do something, to go, and keep going.

God's calling you to, to go into your workplaces, to go into your

families, to be the hands to reach out.

I think what can be hard sometimes as Christians, as believers, whether

you're a new believer, or you've been at this for 65 years, what can be

hard sometimes is that it gets tiring.

It gets tiring.

Spreading the gospel, speaking truth over, especially when, when you're hearing no's.

Especially when, when you invite someone to church and they just keep saying no.

It can get tiring and it can get hard.

But we have to remember when it gets hard, we have to remember

how hard it was when we were lost.

It was far harder.

My life before I came to Christ was far harder than it is

spreading the gospel every day.

My life before Christ was far harder than it is speaking truth every day.

Yeah, it's hard to die to my flesh some days, but my life before Christ was far

harder than dying to my flesh, because I was lost, I was alone, I was confused.

When it gets hard, we have to remember that Jesus says, rest your

cares on me because my yoke is easy.

When we get tired, we have to remember that Jesus says,

rest in the shadow of my wing.

It can get hard, it can get tiring living out the Great Commission.

If we truly want to live out the Great Commission, if we truly want to follow the

words of Jesus, He's not telling us to go.

He's already expecting that you and I are going this morning.

And as we're going, we're making disciples.

But if we look back at the Great Commission, if we look back at

that last verse in verse 20,

because it can get hard, it can get tiring, it can sometimes be lonely.

But Jesus says in verse 20 and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

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

When it gets hard, when it gets tiring, when you feel lonely, when

it feels like all hope is lost.

Christ says, I am here.

He didn't just say, Hey, go do this.

Peace out.

In fact, he said, Hey, go do this.

I'm gonna give you the Holy Spirit to live within you.

So then you have the strength and the courage to do it.

Oh, but by the way, I'm still gonna be here.

I'm not gonna leave you alone.

Christ is with each and every believer this morning,

turning every light green that we come across.

And we have a decision to make as believers.

We can continue to allow Christ to sit in our passenger seat,

yelling at us to go when the light turns green,

telling us, don't wait, keep going, or

just slide on over, let him drive.

Cause I can tell you, Christ is going to keep going.

When that light turns green, there's not going to be a red light before him.

He's going to keep going.

He's going to keep going.

He's going to keep going.

It's when we try to take that steering wheel.

It's when we try to get in that driver's seat that we stop, that fear

stops us, that loneliness stops us,

that circumstances stop us.

Or maybe you're in here this morning and you just feel like you're just

surrounded by red lights, that your life is just motionless right now.

Maybe you're, you're here this morning or you're in one of our locations or

you're online and you've never heard the truth that there's a God that loves you.

There's a God that loves you so much that not only did he create you, but

he sent his son to the earth over 2000 years ago to die a death in

which he didn't deserve for you so that you don't have to walk in death.

You don't have to walk surrounded by red lights that you can walk in life.

If that's you this morning, if you're saying, look, this is the

first I've heard that there's something different for me out there.

That there's life available for me out there.

If that's you this morning, I just ask across our locations, just stand.

If you're saying, I want life for the first time, would you stand?

I can promise you no one's gonna point at you.

No one's gonna pay attention to you.

This is a moment between you and God But you're in the family of christ right now.

You're in the body of christ right now that surrounded you with love So if

that's you this morning you're saying I want to give my life to christ I'm

tired of walking around in red lights, and I just want to go would you stand?

Now if you're a believer in here this morning Maybe you've been a

believer for five minutes Maybe you've been a believer for 65 years.

If you're a believer in this morning, and you're saying, I am going.

I'm going.

I am going, and I'm going to make disciples.

I'm going this Thursday into my family gathering.

I'm going.

In my community, I'm going in my neighborhood.

If, if you're willing to take the mission seriously, that God has for

you and I this morning, if you're willing to go, would you please stand?

If you're a believer and you're willing to go and take it

seriously, would you please stand?

My prayer is, my prayer is that no one stood up because

their spouse pulled them up.

That no one stood up because someone gave him a glaring eye or, My prayer is

that every single person that stood up is serious about living the Great Commission.

About not just giving to kingdom builders, but being a kingdom builder.

If you're not standing, I ask that you please stand now as we pray and

get ready to enter into worship one last time all across our locations.

God, we thank you for this morning.

We thank you, Father, for what your word says, that we are called to be going.

Amen.

To be going to be making disciples to be baptizing to be teaching but God to

be going And lord, I pray right now for those of us in the room Or those of us

across our locations or online who gave their life to you for the first time

Lord forgive them Show them lord that you love them Show them lord

that you care for them show them lord that you Want to be the driver?

God show them lord that you're their father Lord, and I pray for

every single person that stood up that says, I am going on mission.

I am going to fulfill the great commission in my life, wherever that

looks like Lord, give them the strength to keep going when they get, it gets

hard, give them the rest to keep going.

When they get tired,

Lord, I pray that restoration is forever changed because we live on mission.

God, I pray that New Hampshire is forever changed because we live on mission.

I pray that northern New England is forever changed

because we live on mission.

And so God, I lay it all to you.

Have your way in our lives.

We thank you, Father, for leading us to this point.

And we thank you, Father, for leading us on the path ahead.

In the name of Jesus, we pray.

Mike Mayo: Amen.