Participating in Missions with Urgency and Sacrifice | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Englewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast.

You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word

about important issues facing your life that can guide you

according to the Bible. Well, good morning, Englewood.

Good to see everybody here. If you're a guest with us, thank

you so much for being here with us.

Take your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

We'll be there momentarily. I want us to have a time of

prayer together as we continue to lift up our friends overseas.

Not a lot of new news really, to be honest with you.

They are hopefully going to come to some new opportunities this

week. After Wednesday, we'll see.

We need to pray for judges and attorneys, pray for prison doors

to open up, and we'll want to pray for them in just a moment.

I also want to recognize this is first responder week.

And so we we have several in our church who service first

responders. Thank you so much for your

service. Thank you for protecting us,

taking care of us in time of crisis.

So I was going to pray for you as well.

So let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, we're so thankful. Father, I thank you, first of

all for these who serve our community and they serve us.

They keep us safe. They run to us in times of

trouble, in crisis. Thank you for these first

responders and all these different fields.

Lord, I pray that you will protect them and bless them.

Encourage them, Father, and thank you so much for the way

you use them. And Father, we lift up our

friends still. We lift up their family, their

family here, their family there. Pray, Father, for attorneys, for

judges, for diplomats, for politicians, for everybody who's

involved, that Lord, we would see swift action.

We pray for freedom. We pray for your will to be

done. We pray for salvation in the

gospel to spread in the meantime.

But Father, we look forward to some good news.

And hopefully, Father, even by the end of this week, maybe we

would pray for that news. So, Lord, just work, work

swiftly. Let us honor you and glorify you

in that in Christ's name, Amen. Well, it's good to see everybody

here. I do want to just encourage you

to be back tonight, as as Charles has already mentioned to

you, it's going to be a huge night going to be different.

We're going to celebrate not only what happened in 2025, but

I'm going to be showing you about 2026.

We're going to be going to places you've never been before

in various parts of the world. I'll talk a little more about

that as we walk through it. I'm also going to begin a new

series both this Wednesday night as well as next Sunday, next

Sunday. This kind of kicks off our our

missions month. And so I'm going to start a

series called Go Go fulfill the Great Commission where we go

back to the book of Acts. For those who've been here for

months, we ended at the chapter 13.

We're going to go back, pick up a couple of those missionary

journeys. And then I have some incredible

special guests coming in November that you don't want to

miss. These are one of them is 93, a

93 year old legend in the international missions world and

a mentor to so many and then another incredible brother that

you're not going to want to miss their testimonies and them

sharing with you. We'll also even talk about our

budget and our offerings for the end of the year as part of our

missions world in these next few weeks.

So come back tonight. How is your discipleship journey

going? That's a question to kind of

kick us off this morning with four Baptist preachers met in a

coffee shop. Now, anytime a story starts like

that, you know, you're in trouble.

So four Baptist preachers met in a coffee shop and they

recognized we, we need accountability.

And so let, let's be an accountability group.

Let's hold each other accountable.

And so they decided, well, let's kick this off by sharing about

some of the bad habits that we have with one another so we can

encourage and hold each other accountable.

And the first one said, well, you know, when I'm on the road

out of town, I'll just be honest with you.

I, I skipped church and I like to go see a movie.

And the second one said, you know, I, I take a shot of

whiskey every now and then. And the third one said, well, I,

I love to gamble and I buy way too many lottery tickets.

And the fourth one said, well, I love to gossip and I can't wait

to get out of here. Well, I, I do hope you love to

tell everyone out there what God's doing here at Inglewood.

We're going to be baptizing people next Sunday like normal.

And the Sunday after that, I know for sure.

And God just continues to bring people.

You know, I began months ago preaching a series from Acts.

As I mentioned Acts one through 13, that sermon series was

called Come Join the King's Mission.

We talked about the fact that God has a predetermined plan.

We don't lay the train tracks. Train tracks are already there.

There's predetermined direction, predetermined plan for his

church. It's an eternal plan.

You can read the word of God and find that.

And God's mission, we believe, is to bring glory to himself and

for us to join him in redeeming the nations.

And we're trying to emphasize that.

So we don't decide that mission. We don't get to determine what

the mission of the church is. The Bible does that.

God does that. He's already determined that a

long time ago. And we just need to decide

whether or not we're going to join his mission or not.

That's the question. And to help us make that

decision, I've been preaching this sermon series, which is

called Come Live the Church's Vision, The Seven Essentials of

Discipleship. So how will Englewood Baptist

Church specifically, contextually implement a plan to

fulfill God's mission at this moment in time with the

resources we have, the people that are here?

So we believe Englewood's vision is to make disciples who love

God, love people, and join God's mission, very simply so.

But in order to do that, we need to know what a disciple is.

So that's what we've been talking about over the last few

weeks. What does it mean to be like

Jesus? That's what we're trying to nail

down. How can I be one of those?

How, how can I make one of those?

How can I, I help my kids become one of those?

And, and how am I going to do that unless I really know what,

what this thing called a disciple really is and what they

look like? So we started to understand and

embrace these 7 essentials. Just little foundational blocks

as all we've laid so far. And we're going to be expanding

the teaching and the application of each one of these areas over

across all our ministries in various ways.

In fact, our small groups, which we call connect groups here are

going to be reinforcing engaging the Bible with a humble and

teachable spirit as well as as uniting in fellowship through

hospitality and authenticity. And then our prayer meeting and

even last Wednesday night, if you were here was an expansion

of abiding in prayer with dependence and anticipation and

our reach strategy. And our small groups are going

to continue to reinforce that. And across all our ministries,

we're asking for 100% participation, to commit to

service with generosity and, and compassion, to discover real

needs, real service needs in our church and opportunities that

you can, you can help with here. And you can go online to learn

about those or call the church office or ask a ministry leader

about that. And here we are on Sunday

morning and our gathering to, to give you the opportunity to

respond in worship with awe and surrender.

And, and our upcoming midweek series that I just mentioned,

it's going to be expanding on the idea of living out

evangelism with boldness and love.

I'm going to share with you not just how to memorize the Gospel,

not just that's not the whole point.

The point is, how do I develop that relationship with my lost

friend or my family member, that Co worker?

How do I, how do I move a conversation from talking about

sports in the weather to Jesus? How do I do that?

That's the difficult turning point for a lot of people.

We're going to talk a lot about that.

We're going to fun together on Wednesday nights.

Some of it's going to be interactive workshop style.

And so you need to be here on Wednesday starting this week.

And then all of our additional important auxiliary ministries,

vital parts of our church that focus on gender or age or some

kind of fellowship or even support ministries, these

specific ministries are going to be building upon one or more of

these essentials as well. So I want you to connect the

dots. I want you to think of these

things as the couplings on those trains.

They hold the train cars together and and they help us to

move with one heart, one mind and one in one accord with one

vision to fulfill 1 mission. So it's like building a train

coupled together with shared, understood, valued essentials of

discipleship that guide our hearts and actions to in that

One Direction that God's determined for us running down

those tracks that he's pre laid of his mission and synergy and

that predetermined will. And that's what's going to

produce mature fruit producing discipleship that glorifies him.

We want to make disciples who make disciples who make

disciples who make disciples, etcetera.

So no more bumper cars. No more bumper cars allowed.

The Holy Spirit has to be that engine that pulls us.

He's going to drive us forward. He's going to save others to

join us as he has been. So though this is the last

sermon in this specific series, it's actually just the beginning

of the teaching and the application of these 7

essentials. So to begin the journey though

of of discipleship period, we have to recognize that that the

first step in making a disciple is to actually show the gospel

with somebody. They've got to hear the gospel.

They've got to be saved. And maybe you're here this

morning and that's what you need.

So, so one reason that we're left here behind, I mean, I

mean, think about it. God could save us and just take

us home. That'd be quite the testimony,

wouldn't it? You'd know whether somebody's

salvation was authentic or not or not, whether they died and

went to heaven, right? I mean, God could just save us

and kill us and bring, take us home right then.

But there's a reason he leaves us here.

More than one. But one of the reasons is we've

got to take the gospel to people all around the world who've

never heard about him. We pray for him every Sunday

morning. And so we must, and this is my

definition of evangelism, we must intentionally prepare for

and pursue opportunities to personally share the gospel of

Jesus Christ with those who are unsaved in the power of the Holy

Spirit while leaving the results to God.

Now, I want you to see this intentionality and I want you to

see this focus. How intentional are you in

preparing for and pursuing these opportunities?

And that's that's part of the key.

Am I proactively looking for these opportunities?

You need to come on Wednesday nights because we we must love

others by urgently and, and, and a word that is scary.

Often in the American Church sacrificially engage our world

with the gospel. So are you prepared to do this

urgently? Are you prepared to do this

sacrificially? Often in the American Church,

the focus is much more on my own comfort.

It's, it's whether or not I feel like my own self defined felt

needs are being met or not. And that, that, that that's how

I determine my relationship to the body of Christ.

The pastor didn't say what I wanted him to or he said what I

didn't want him to. Therefore I'm going to go find

another church. And so because my felt needs

aren't being met. And, and, and I pray that you

base those decisions on scriptural issues and not just

your opinions. And so I hope that we recognize

that that we're incomplete in our maturity as disciples.

We're we're not mature disciples if we don't share about our Lord

to the lost. So last week I preached to you

about living out evangelistically with boldness

and love. But this morning, our hope and

our goal is to bring God glory by being used by him to make

disciples all around the world by participating in missions

with urgency. And there's that cuss word,

sacrifice. Turn to your neighbor and say

sacrifice. I just wanted to see if you

could do it or not. Did it leave a bad taste in your

mouth? You OK that word?

All right, so what's the difference between evangelism

and missions? What's the difference?

I have to talk about this in class all the time.

What is 1? Just a subset of the other

missions is usually broader. Usually in missions it includes

pre evangelism, things that we need to do in order to develop

the relationships before we can share Jesus with somebody.

And then it has evangelism and then has post evangelism where

we have to do the follow up and the discipleship.

And often this is done in some cross cultural context, usually,

but not always in, in some kind of way.

Now, in the early church, we stopped in Acts 13 where they're

sending out the very first missionaries to go to their

bigger world. You got to understand that was a

big deal because they didn't go to their bigger world on a

normal, a normal basis. And God's heart is that all

people, This goes all the way back to the Old Testament, that

God's heart was that all the nations would know him.

That was part of the part of the whole purpose of the Hebrew

nation. In the Old Testament.

It's called the universality of God's intent.

There's your fancy term. In other words, God wanted

everybody to know about him. He wanted the nations to

understand who He was. And the Hebrews were supposed to

testify to that by their life. This is how man walks with

Yahweh. They didn't do a good job of

that. So in the New Testament, God

comes to us, but what we see is he wants people from all tribes,

all tongues, and all nations worshipping him and we see that

at the end of time. And so we're part of that.

So what's the definition of missions?

It's going to sound familiar and similar.

It's intentionally preparing for and pursuing.

I'm never going to leave those phrases out.

Personal and corporate opportunities to engage in pre

evangelism, evangelism and post evangelism in cross cultural

context and the power of the Holy Spirit toward the

fulfillment of God's mission. So we're in this together.

This is all of us. This is the church working

together. And I believe in intentionality.

Missions in its purest form is simply a natural but intentional

overflowing and outpouring of our response to God's grace and

mission. And and so it's our intentional

relationship with God and his people overflowing or pouring

out into our very intentional relationship with the world and

its people. And our relationship with this

world needs to be very intentional, right?

So let me show you how this must work in one of the most familiar

passages of Scripture to the evangelical church, Matthew

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

chapter 28. But maybe there'll be some

things we haven't seen before. Look at verse 16.

It says now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain

to which Jesus had directed them, and when they saw him,

they worshipped him. But some doubted.

Don't miss that little part. And Jesus came and said to them,

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

Got a simple outline for you today?

First of all, I want you to see Christ's power for making

disciples. They, they worshipped Him.

But some still doubt it. You've got to think about that.

Even after all they've been through, after all he had taught

them, after all they had just witnessed, frankly, over the

last few days, after everything they had seen, they still needed

assurance. Now, don't judge him too hard.

The Holy Spirit hadn't come yet. We're not to Acts chapter 2 yet.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And so he hadn't come yet. He hadn't and dwelt them in the

same way yet. They're going to need him.

They needed his help. They needed the Holy Spirit's

power. And my friends, so do we.

He is our engine, He is our guide, He is our power source.

We have to follow his lead to keep us on track.

And so the disciples needed authentic spiritual power to be

able to make disciples, and we do too.

And Jesus, the Bible says, had all of it.

Turn to your neighbor and say all I'm going to keep you awake

this morning. It's cold out there, you all

snugly warm in your flannels. He had all of it.

He has all of it. Exousia is the word here.

It's the authority to do. In other words, this word means

it's the right amount of strength and power to do the job

right? That's kind of what it means.

Jesus has absolutely all the power and authority he needs to

do what he needs to do. He has the right, the perfect

amount. There's an old story about a

government surveyor who went to a farmer and he needed to get

over the fence to do some survey work on the farm.

And he said, can I go in your field?

And the farmer says no. And the surveyor begins to pull

out all these documents, all these government documents that

says, well, well, according to the government, I have the

authority and the power to go anywhere I want to go.

And the farmer said, all right, open the gate for him.

Then the farmer went down to the other end of the field, and he

opened another gate and let in his fiercest bull.

And the surveyor started running.

And the farmer shouted out to him, Show him your authority,

you know. So the surveyor may have had the

authority to enter, but the bull had the real power.

Well, Jesus has both. He has the real authority and

the real power. So here's what that means.

What that translates into is that Jesus sent missionaries.

US, Jesus sent missionaries, have both the full delegated

authority and power of Jesus to fulfill his Commission.

We can't do it without that. And so Jesus tells his disciples

that they would receive the power, the dunamis, the power of

the Holy Spirit to be his witnesses.

We know I've shown you this first about 4000 times.

Acts 1/8 and you'll receive the power this word dunamis, we get

our word dynamite from it Dunamis when the Holy Spirit has

come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all

Judea and Samaria to the end of the earth.

The root word for that power Duna means means the to the

ability to So in the words you have the ability to do this.

You have the power to do this. You have the strength to pull it

off. And so one of my prayers for us

is that we receive and are filled with genuine Holy Spirit

power because it's time for us to move forward.

Inglewood parents, it's time for you to show your kids, senior

adults, it's time to be an example.

Students, it's time to take a stand because this world is

crying out in desperation. In, in, in, in response to the

growing darkness. They want the light we possess.

They may not know it yet, but that's what they want.

In fact, I was just reading an article this week, yesterday in

fact, about certain protests that take place.

Now. I'm not going to go down any

political Rd. here. So you are OK everybody.

OK, You all right? I'm not going to talk about what

protests we're talking about because it doesn't matter.

It's about this article is about any protest, so it's not

pointing out something specific So easy, but some psychiatrists

who study these group movements and dynamics, we're actually

affirming something that I've been screaming about for years.

And so it's nice to have professional affirmation every

now and then. And so they were talking about

what we're seeing is a kind of group therapy playing out in the

streets. Says people need to feel like

they belong to a community and sharing grievances with like

minded people feels good, but it doesn't necessarily change

anything. And so he they keep going and

they said therapy speak is everywhere in our culture.

Therapy speaks everywhere in dating apps, on the news, even

in political rallies. People start labeling others as

narcissist or traumatized when these aren't clinical diagnosis

at all. But they hunger for connection

as the central point for much of their gathering.

Listen to what they say. People are craving community and

this gives them a place to channel that they're surrounded

by others who validate how they feel, and that validation can be

addictive. That fleeting catharsis can also

mask something darker. A lot of times people are

unhappy in their lives and they may have anxiety or angle anger

and they project that onto others.

Listen, I've been talking about this started at 911.

COVID exasperated it. Our current political, racial,

moral climate continues to to to to feed the fire.

And what we see is we see. And I keep telling you that we

live in a culture, a pre Christian, post postmodern

culture that is starving to death for communities of for

pure communities of truth. There's looking for other people

who will validate them. This is why social media works

the way it does. This is why reality TV works the

way it does. And This is why some of this

political stuff works the way it does.

And, and we need to recognize that as a church, we ought to be

the experts about this and helping people gather in a

community of real truth. So more and more are coming to

us. Thousands more are coming to us.

This is not a guess. So this is a test, Englewood.

We are at a crossroads to determine how we will respond.

We have both the right and the power to make disciples, not

because we're a special church, but because of the special and

unique work of our King Jesus. And it is his power, not ours.

And again, how much authority does he have?

How much? All in heaven and on earth.

So who gives us the right to reach out and share the gospel?

Who gives us the right to bring up Jesus in our conversations?

Who gives us the right to send them a card from a connect group

or knock on their door or call them on the phone or reach out

to them on social media? Who gives us the right to share

our testimony and share the gospel?

Well, as a matter of fact, Jesus the Christ, the Lord and Master

over all the universe, who died for us and has risen in complete

victory, gives us not only the right, but also the command and

the power. So the Creator of our life, the

very sustainer of our breath and heartbeat, and the only one in

whom we can have real hope, gives us the right.

I must not remain silent. I have the power and authority

to be obedient because Jesus gives it to me through the Holy

Spirit and therefore I can be used by him to make disciples.

Paul wrote in Romans 116. For I am not ashamed of the

gospel, for it is the power of salvation, of salvation for of

God, for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew 1st,

and also to the Greek. So the Great Commission passage

that we often read isn't just a command.

This is an empowerment, and we need to see it that way.

So you might worry less, you might worry less about who you

might offend, and you might worry a whole lot more about who

you can inspire when you share the gospel with somebody.

Recognize His power to make disciples.

It says in verse 19, 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. So I want you to see, secondly,

Christ's plan for making disciples.

I'm always amazed when I visit this text.

And you can imagine a person who teaches missions like I do, I

visit this text often. I mean, how in the world could

his plan revolve around us? I mean, I, you got to understand

what a master of grace he is to, to allow a plan like this to

give us the incredible privilege of joining him on his mission.

To be so honored as to be able to tell others about and

introduce them to him, to, to be set out and used in his harvest,

to be a tool to make disciples. I mean, we must identify our

responsibility as a Christian to make disciples among all

nations. It's part of who we must be.

So what's his great plan? Well, it's interesting, and some

of you probably taught this before.

There's really one primary verb in the original language here,

and it's the word disciple. And there's basically 3 words

that modify that word disciple in this passage.

In fact, a literal translation. I, I did this earlier, could

read like this going therefore disciple you all the nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of

the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things, whatever

I gave command to you. So in other words, to join God's

mission and live the church's vision, we must make disciples

according to a specific plan. The first part of that plan is,

is as you are going make disciples.

Now this command emphasizes for us the urgent practice, perhaps

there I say sacrificial practice, of making disciples.

As you go through your normal patterns of life, these are the

natural relational lifestyles, opportunity that you have to

share about him with everybody you come into contact with.

This needs to characterize your discipleship.

This means that there's an intentionality of preparation.

There's an intentionality of pursuit going on here.

I don't just enter my day haphazardly.

I'm entering my day looking for that person, praying for that

person, hoping for that person that I can share the gospel

with. We're going to talk about that

on Wednesday nights. If you know me, if you encounter

me, you're going to hear my love for Him and His love for me.

That's who you need to be. So join me on Wednesday nights.

Again, we're not just going to teach you how to do evangelism.

We're going to teach you how to be missional, how to be

evangelistic, a state of being, of who you are, your identity.

But God also commands us to move beyond our normal patterns and

go into the abnormal. And you got to understand how

radical this was for these guys. These people would not have

normally gone anywhere else. They would have barely gone to

the next village in their normal pattern of life.

So to go to all the nations, you got to understand how weird this

would be for them to even think about how foreign, how abstract

for them to even conceive, right?

So it's not enough to simply go where and when we want, but we

also have to go to other places. In fact, Acts 18 says we got to

go to Samaria. We got to go to people we don't

even like. We got to go to people very

different from us, people we might even have bad history

conflict with. We're to go to everybody.

So our worldview has to be expanded.

You need to learn how to be a global Christian, right?

So come back tonight at six to hear about new places, to hear

about new people, hear about some of my global church friends

that we're going to go visit in 2026, places we've never been

before, massive mythological targets that I've spent over a

decade working on with friends around the world.

And you're going to learn about them.

Now look, we, we need all kinds of opportunities because some of

you all have never been before. I, I'm part of my goal.

In fact, it's a major goal is I want to, I want a larger

percentage of participation. So they're going to be some

things that are simple entry level.

We got some right here in North Carolina we're going to go to,

we've got some right here in North America we're going to go

to and then we're going to go. So some very difficult places

too. And you're going to hear all

about those different places. Some of you might not be ready

for the difficult place, but I could do that.

Well, that's what I want you to do.

I want you to be a part. Now some of you give and some of

you pray and some of you do that and I appreciate all that, but I

also want you to go. So they're going to be some

things everybody can go to, multiple opportunities that you

can go to. So we're going to have some

entry level and we're going to have some pretty advanced level.

We're going to hear about it all tonight.

What time is it tonight? Mm hmm.

Some of you heard that, friends. The greatest problem of the

world, it's very simple. The greatest problem of the

world's future is lostness. You've got to hear me.

I've read this book from cover to cover more than once.

I've seen the end of the story, and people are going to die and

go to hell. And we've got to embrace.

We've got to understand that there's an urgency to this

issue. Charles Spurgeon, one of his

most famous quotes, reads like they make posters out of this.

Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be

damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies, And if

they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their

knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy

themselves. If hell must be filled, at least

let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let no one go

there unwarned and unpraed. For.

And then later he says God saves us from living in comfort while

sinners are sinking into hell. God's Great Commission says you,

me, we must go and we must go to Pontita Ethne.

That means all the peoples of the world, all the different

peoples you see us have people group videos week to week to

week. You got to understand they're

over 7000 UP GS1, you unreached people groups.

That means that less than 2% of the people in that place are

saved and they can't support church planting.

They don't have enough to do that.

And then there are over 3000, what we would call UUPGS,

unengaged, unreached people groups.

They only have a church. They don't have any gospel

engagement at all. You can understand that

represents billions of people around the world.

There are at least, in fact, I think it's over 6 million people

in North Carolina who do not know Jesus Christ as their Lord

and Savior. In fact, you got to understand

the United States of America is the 4th largest unsaved nation

on the planet, China, India, Indonesia, United States and and

my prophecy is coming true. I believe in the next, within 10

years, we will surpass Indonesia and become the third largest

unsaved nation on the planet. We've got to do something and

we've got to recognize that there are thousands of unreached

individual people living right here. 74% of them out there

aren't engaged at all. What are we going to do about

it? And they're living here and

billions around the world who've never heard.

So praise the Lord that globally, Christianity is

growing, barely growing faster than population, right?

Just, I mean, less than a percentage point, barely growing

faster than population, right? But we've got to join our global

brothers and sisters in this effort in the power of the Holy

Spirit. And I'm going to introduce you

to some of them, people working hard and some of the some of the

most important strategically located places to train people

around the world. We got to go to far and near.

We got to go tell and we got to tell everyone we can.

So come tonight, learn about these places.

One missionary was asked about his calling to to another

country and he said, well, I had no call to stay home, but I had

the command to go, why are you here?

Why aren't you there? It's part of the conversation.

So as we are going, we make disciples.

Secondly though, as you are baptizing, make disciples.

That's that second modifier. So being saved begins this whole

new life. Converts don't hide, they need

to shine. And So what we see is baptism is

this opportunity to show the world what has happened to you.

It's a testimony. It's a public proclamation and

demonstration that you've trusted in Christ for salvation.

It's a time to confess the Lord before men so he can confess you

before the Father. It's a testimony of the death,

burial and resurrection of Christ.

And the same thing happened to me.

This is what Christ did to me. The old me is dead.

There's a new me. So it's an incredibly important

act of obedience through which we can testify and bring him

glory. So don't be ashamed of the

gospel, proclaim the gospel. And so there are there are

people going to get baptized next Sunday that I know of

people going to get baptized 2 weeks from now already there

probably somebody I don't know about getting baptized 3 weeks

from now, I don't know yet. The pastors are meeting with

them and talking with them. If you're here and you need to

be baptized, you need to contact the church office or contact one

of us and, and we can talk to you about that because we need

to bring new believers into the church fellowship.

We need to bring them into discipleship.

We need to bring them into accountability.

And it's part of the body. They can be discipled so that

we're intentionally discipling others to live out the seven key

essentials. So make disciples as you're

going, make disciples as you're baptizing.

And thirdly, as you're teaching, make disciples.

There was a lady on a very crowded city bus 1 morning and

she was talking to her friend and it was very noisy.

So she's kind of shouting at her friends, kind of like the way I

talk all the time. And so she was talking to her

friend and she was telling her about her sister's fight with

viral meningitis. And, and the sister and the

friend said, how did, how did the doctor know that it was more

than just a cold or something? And, and the lady says, well, he

told her to bend her neck until her chin could touch her chest.

And she could only manage a slight nod.

And then she looked around and she noticed that about half the

bus had their chins down on their chest.

People are watching. People are listening.

I don't know if you understand this or not, but news of what

God is doing at Inglewood Baptist Church in Rocky

Mountain, North Carolina has spread across North Carolina.

We get phone calls from people in our denomination.

Some of our pastors, they go to a meeting, they go, what's going

on at Englewood? We're hearing about things

happening at Englewood. Believers are listening and

they're watching your lives and they're hearing your voices and

they're watching for your actions.

We must show them. We must teach them because so

many of our churches are not able and ready to do this.

So new lambs and older sheep all need instruction.

So we we, we must not only encourage them to be part of the

body, but we got to teach them once they're here and note what

we must teach them in verse 20, it says teaching them to observe

all that I commanded you. So we need to make certain that

brand new, current and long term members, all those categories

are not simply knowledgeable about the commands of Christ.

We need to teach them to observe all the commands of Christ.

So you got to understand this is about a way of life.

This is a life full of urgency. This is a life full of

sacrifice. A true disciple is not just a

student. A true disciple is one who

follows the teaching they've received and live it out in

their life. So that that's why our vision of

intentional discipleship essentials, these 7 essentials

you have being parts, knowing parts and doing parts that we

have to show you and teach you. So a a vision that will lead you

to be outwardly focused, a vision that will help you to

decide, but you must willfully choose.

You must choose to live out that vision, to be that disciple, to

recognize his power and his plan.

I know a lot of people. I've worked with him a large

part of my adult life. Some really smart people and

many of them are just godly and wonderful believers, Christians

who live out the faith who who you see it in their lives.

You have men like Chuck Lawless and Alan Moseley and others who

just they, they live it. They're also incredibly

intelligent. And then I've known a lot of

people with big time degrees who aren't doing much anything.

Knowledge is not enough. There must be application.

We have to show them and we have to share with them why we live

the way we do. Verse 20, the second part of it

brings us to the Third Point. And behold, I am with you always

to the end of the age. See, we have to acknowledge His

owner of His power and His plan. We have to acknowledge Christ's

presence for making disciples. Because Christ dwells in us,

we're empowered to go and disciple others.

So apart from Him we can do what?

Nothing but Philippians says we can do all things through Christ

who strengthens us. So we're continually empowered

by his mission and we're encouraged to press forward by

his presence. These are the two essential

bookends of the Great Commission.

Nothing works in the middle without these two pieces.

It's only because of His power and only because of His presence

that we can go, that we can see anybody saved, that we can see

anybody discipled. Nothing works without that.

We can't do this on our own. It's not our intelligence.

It's not our clever, clever planning.

It's not our our wonderful methodology.

We're dependent upon his power and presence.

Now, I've seen God do some amazing things through people,

simple folk, who were committed to His power and presence.

So if we submit to this and rely upon it, we will never do this

alone. He's always with us and so He's

with us, guiding us and directing us to remain on track,

to abide in Him and to allow Him to abide in US.

And so we have to ask our question, Am I am by am I

abiding in Christ? Does Christ abide in me?

Are we walking together? Will I engage in the ministry of

his presence in my life? Well, I represent Him and

engaged in the intentional pursuit of true missions and

discipleship. Paul wrote about this in 2nd

Corinthians 5A passage that Teresa and I would both say is

one of the most powerful in our lives, probably beginning in

verse 14. He says for the love of Christ

controls us. Another translation would say

compels us. I'm compelled by the love of

Christ. I'm controlled by the love of

Christ because we have concluded this, that one has died for all,

therefore all have died, and he died for all, that those who

live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for

their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we

regard no one according to the flesh.

Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh,

we regard Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in

Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away.

Behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who

through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry

of reconciliation. That is, in Christ.

God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their

trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of

reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for

Christ, making His appeal through us.

We implore you that word means to beg.

We are begging you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God

for our sake. He made Him to be sin who knew

no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Will you recognize and rely upon His power and His presence in

your life? Will you actually go?

He came so we would go. He died so we would go.

He sacrificed everything on the cross for this to be possible.

So we need to be involved in our cross cultural missions effort

by praying, giving and going with a sense of urgency.

And here's that word again. Sacrifice to support His mission

near and far. 100% participation.

We love God and we love others by intentionally and

sacrificially engaging our world with the gospel.

So this sermon series is now over.

So. So what?

Who cares? What does it matter?

Well, I believe with all my heart that every single member

is equipped by the Holy Spirit to grow in the seven essentials

of discipleship. I believe that those things have

to define who we are, and they also have to set the agenda for

all of our ministries. So I pray that you will learn

how to best engage the Bible, unite in fellowship, abide in

prayer, commit to service, respond in worship, live out

evangelism, and participate in missions.

And I would ask you, which of the seven is the one where you

are experiencing the greatest growth?

And then which of the seven is the one where you need to

experience greater growth and why?

And I pray that you will press these up against your public

life as well as your very, very hidden private life.

I pray you'd press these up against the life of your family,

against your marriage. And I pray that you would be a

disciple of Jesus who lives out this church's vision.

Some of you here might even sense a calling, a calling to

vocational missions, a sense that you are to serve full time

in this kind of role. Many have said over the years,

you're either going to be a missionary or a mission field.

We all are called to serve, as some of you may be called

vocationally. Charles Spurgeon once again

said, my son of God has called you to be a missionary.

Your father would be grieved to see you shrivel down into a

king. Think about what God's calling

you to do. I'd love to visit with you about

that. And in closing, let me quote

again. I mentioned him last week, but

Doctor Kevin Izel, president of our North American Mission

Board, he said this Acts 17 six contains one of my favorite

lines in all the New Testament. These men who have turned the

world upside down have come here, too.

Doesn't that just say everything about the effect believers

should have when they bring the gospel to a community?

It should turn everything upside down.

It's not just a message that Jesus will make your life better

or Jesus can help make things more bearable.

The message is Jesus will change everything, and many of us

who've been in the church for most of our lives can forget

just how revolutionary Jesus is and how desperately people need

him. I have great news for you.

Jesus is still in the business of turning the world upside

down. He still makes lives right.

He's doing it every day. He can and will use your

circumstances for good. He can radically save you, your

friends and family. Don't forget how powerful and

how good God is. Let's be disciples together.

Father, thank you. Thank you for the challenge of

your word. Urgency, sacrifice.

To what would I apply these words?

Do I give them to you, or do I only reserve them for the things

I think are important? Father, maybe there's someone

here this morning and they don't know you.

I pray right now, wherever they're seated, that you would

save them, that Your Holy Spirit would move in their hearts and

help them to recognize their sin.

We're all sinners. We've all fallen short of You.

I pray that we're sorry for our sin.

I pray, Father, that we would turn from our sin and trust in

Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and commit this to serve

and live for him with the help of the Holy Spirit.

And I pray, Father, that if that's the prayer of someone

here for the first time, that in a moment they would come and

share that with one of us. Maybe there's somebody here who

needs to be baptized. They need that public

declaration moment. I pray that they would come.

Maybe there's someone looking for a church that wants to take

up the mantle, that wants to accept the Commission and the

challenge to walk in your power and to walk in your presence.

Only by doing it that way, Father, and being used to turn

this community upside down. Father, others need to come and

pray for their lost friends and neighbors.

Maybe they need to come and pray for this church.

Maybe they need to come and pray for our friends overseas.

So in a moment when we sing, Father, I just pray.

People would come, they would respond, some going to our next

steps counseling room, others coming and just kneeling at the

steps, others coming to talk to a pastor, whatever they need to

do. But that, Father, we wouldn't

hold back. We would surrender.

We would submit in Christ's name, Amen.

I'm going to ask you to stand, and as we stand, there'll be

pastors here. We'd love to visit with you.

You can come and pray at these steps.

We also have a room over here. We have people who would just

love to sit down with you privately around a table to

share prayer requests with you and to talk with you, to pray

with you, to talk about whatever God is doing in your life.

You don't need to come to talk to any one of us.

You can go straight there or you can come up here.

Either place, you do what God wants you to do.

Thank you so much for listening today, and I also hope that

you'll go to [email protected]

as well as our app and find many other resources that will bless

you and your families. Thank you once again.