Come Live the Church's Vision - The 7 Essentials of Discipleship | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning into 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, Inglewood.

Good to see everybody here on this misty morning.

Appreciate you being here. I look forward to sharing with

you turn to Matthew chapter 22, if you will.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

And I will catch up to you momentarily A few other things

we need to do. Let me just remind you this

Wednesday night in our midweek study, our core training study,

I'm going to be talking about not just talking about spiritual

gifts, but talking about are all the gifts still active today?

What does that mean? And appreciate those of you

who've been coming have been having a good crowd on Wednesday

night. Also appreciate those of you in

your connect groups and the fact that reach got kicked off today.

So we'll see how our week goes. Appreciate you participating in

that. I once shared with you a while

back in African proverb. I've spent a lot of time in

Africa, especially sub-saharan East Africa.

But I had a tribal leader in one of my classes one time and he

shared this with me. He said that if you want to move

a mountain tomorrow, you must move stones today.

I remember when Teresa and I lived in Northern Arizona, we

lived a Mile High up in the mountains and we were kind of

the hub of church planting out there.

And you don't have grass in Arizona in your yard.

You do decorative rock. In fact, there's a whole

industry out there of people who sell different colored rocks and

you cover your yard with some kind of base colour and then you

make little rivers out of River Walk and you have little fake

bridges because when it rains those two days out of the year,

you got to have somewhere for the water to go.

And so I moved 32 tons of rock 1/2 ton at a time in the back of

my old Chevrolet pickup truck and finally got that yard just

right in time for us to sell the house and move.

And so I, I think about moving stones.

Yesterday I was making a gravel patio in my backyard and was

moving rocks. And, and I don't know about you,

but I'm ready to toss some rocks here at Inglewood.

So let's begin at the very center of it all.

I want you to pull out what's in your worship guide.

You should have two little things in there if they didn't

fall out already. You should have a magnet and a

large bookmark. Appreciate the work that Avery

has done and so many others on our staff to produce all these

things for us. You're going to see more and

more out in the hallways and office as well, because I want

us to talk about the fact that everything that we do, all that

we are, all that we have, must be used to join our King on

missions. I hope on his mission.

I hope that you remember our study in the book of Acts.

His mission is an unchanging biblical train track that is

already pre laid. We don't get to determine our

mission. We don't determine the church's

mission. It's already determined for us.

God has a pre laid plan for His church like train tracks that

the engineer nor the passengers get to put into place that are

already there. And So what we're recognizing is

that we need to join God's mission and obey it.

So God's mission very simply is to bring glory to Himself and

for us to join Him in redeeming the nation's.

You can see that on the pieces you have there.

That mission guides us. It's very important.

It guides us in One Direction with one heart, one mind, 1

Spirit, toward very vital destinations that we're seeking

to reach for Him. And now I want you to look at

the little logo. I want to explain this to you,

this piece of artwork that moves us a little more modern way into

the 21st century. And I want to talk about this

because this logo actually tells a story.

It's not just supposed to be some kind of artwork.

It's a story for you to tell. I hope people, I want people to

say, what is that symbol? Why is that on your

refrigerator? What does that mean at your

church? What is that thing, right?

I want you to understand what it is.

What I want you to look at is that arrow.

The arrow So if you ever look at your GPS, if you ever do GPS in

your car and you're driving along, you'll notice you have a

little arrow that shows this is where you are.

That same arrow it this is where you are, we are here there we

are. The other thing that arrow would

represent, if you ever look at your e-mail boxes, your, your

sent item box is the same arrow. So this is an arrow indicator.

It's an indicator pin arrow. This is this is where you are

and this is where you're going. So we are right here, Inglewood.

This is where we are constantly, those circles constantly

impacting the world by making disciples and sending disciples

who join God's mission by serving him and redeeming the

nation's. And the whole time we're

pointing everyone to the cross. So that's a story.

That's not just a logo. That's who we are.

It's a way to define and it's a way to describe our identity,

and I pray that you will be able to do that.

That's our story. Use this symbol to share with

everyone you know and you made that.

This is who we are at Englewood Baptist.

Use the magnet. Put that on your refrigerator

and everybody you have over you talk to him about that thing.

Use that bookmark in your Bible to remind you that we are here

to be sent constantly impacting our world as we join Him on His

mission and we point everyone to the cross.

But we cannot do that and we can't touch lives effectively

until we truly know, until they we truly walk with our King on

mission. We've got to know Him first.

So he not only wants to save you, he wants to gift you, He

wants to equip you, He wants to fill you.

He wants to use you for his purpose and on his mission.

So the Bible commands that that part of that purpose is to make

real disciples to fulfil His mission.

So we need to know what one of those things are.

What is a real disciple? What does that look like?

Well, we hear this command in Matthew 28 and what we often

call the Great Commission passage in Matthew 28, verse 18.

Matthew 28:18

It says, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority, Notice

that his power, here's his power, all authority in heaven

on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples.

Here are those things, disciples of all nations, baptizing them

in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit,

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and

behold, I am with you always. There's His presence to the end

of the age there. Therefore, we recognize that

because of His power and because of his presence, Inglewood's

vision is determined to help us fulfil that mission.

So what we see is, is that our vision must be the contextual

plan that this local church is going to implement to seek to

join and fulfill the mission of God.

So very simply, nothing gimmicky, nothing clever,

nothing tricky about any of this.

Very simply, Inglewood's vision, you'll see it on the material

and on the screen, is to make disciples who love God, love

people, and join God's mission. Again, nothing bumper sticker

ish about that. And by the way, if you type that

word into a computer, it'll underline it in red.

Nothing bumper sticker ish about that.

We want you to understand this very clearly.

We don't. There's there's no, no, no fancy

words, no gimmicky stuff, no weird slogans.

We want you to get this because it can transform not only your

life, but others. So if we're to make disciples

who make disciples, who make disciples and make disciples,

how do we specifically define discipleship?

We need that to be understood. We need it to be valued.

We need it to be clear. So welcome to the new sermon

series where we talk about how to come live the church's

vision, and we're going to talk about the seven essentials of

discipleship. That doesn't mean there might

not be more, but we're going to talk about a base level of

foundational 7 that are going to help us.

Believe it or not. You've already talked about

these seven. You've already seen these

definitions again in our study of Acts.

I keep telling you everything that I'm doing on Sunday

mornings and Wednesday nights. Everything ties together.

I like building trains. And so in our study of Acts,

remember the church in Jerusalem, Acts chapter 2, verse

Acts 2:42

42, It'll be on the screen. And they devoted themselves to

the apostles, teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of

bread and the prayers, and all came upon every soul.

And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles,

and all who believed were together and had all things in

common. And they were selling their

possessions and belongings, and distributing the proceeds to all

as any had need. And day by day, attending the

temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they

received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising

God and having favour with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day, those who are

being saved. So these early believers, the

words devoted in this translation, but they had a

single minded commitment. That's what that word means.

They were single mindedly focused upon these specific

disciplines and these specific practices.

They were essential to them. And then we looked at the church

at Antioch at the end of our study in Acts and Acts 13 at

some of their leadership, and it reads like this in Acts 13.

Two, while they were worshiping the Lord in fasting, the Holy

Spirit said, set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul for the work

to which I've called them. Then after fasting and praying,

they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

So being sent out by the Holy Spirit.

And then we we begin to see where they're going.

And we're going to pick the story up there in November

during our missions month, talk about the mission trips that

they went on. But for now, what we're

observing is these two blessed biblical churches were

practicing many of the same essential disciplines as well as

sending members. Don't forget the the logo, that

symbolism, sending members out on mission.

So they were right there in their cities, they were in

Jerusalem, they're in Antioch walking with the Lord and then

sending people out, pointing to the cross impacting their

worlds. Now, months ago, your pastors

met together. We met all day long in a

workshop. We walked through these passages

and several more, and before drafting an initial list of

discipleship definitions and destinations.

Then your entire staff and the entire Deacon body met in

different workshops and they discussed those drafts and

provided feedback. Then finally, 114 of your church

lay leaders met in this room one night, broke into work groups to

discuss them and also give feedback.

And so your pastors then met again with all that written

feedback from all these leaders and servants and tweak the

wording that I'm going to be presenting to you over these

next several weeks. So.

But this is not just a list for some sermon series.

Don't, don't think like that. This is the new normal

definition and expectation of a church member and a disciple at

Inglewood Baptist Church. I'm not sure you understood the

weight of that sentence. This is the new normal

definition and expectation of church members and disciples at

Inglewood Baptist Church. This is also the new normal

framework around which we will schedule all of our ministries,

all of our programs, and all of our special events.

And that's how they're going to be plans, how they're going to

be evaluated. In just a couple weeks, we're

going to have an annual planning meeting where we're looking at

26 and and we're not going to begin with.

Here's my list of events I wish we would do.

We're going to begin with, how do we achieve this essential,

How do we help our people achieve this essential, how do

we help our families become this?

And then we're going to figure out the programming we need to

have in order to achieve those things.

So we've been making changes already to our Connect Group

ministry. We've been already implementing

the Reach strategy because it helps us jump start this.

Because we want you to not only understand who you're supposed

to become and who you're supposed to help others become,

but we want you to understand and value exactly how this

church is specifically going to help you achieve this

discipleship under the authority of the Holy Spirit.

Because Inglewood, we're right here.

This is where we are. You are here constantly sending

people to the world, pointing people to the cross.

So your pastors and late teams are working together to evaluate

not only your planning and your program.

We're actually evaluating the budget right now.

Your finance team's been working hard, your X18 mission team been

working hard and we're we're evaluating our budget, we're

evaluating our partnerships and, and all of these things are

going to be based upon the seven.

Your, your new discover Inglewood training course for

new members is geared around this.

So welcome to the new normal for Inglewood.

But again, you're going to notice there's nothing tricky,

nothing crazy, nothing gimmicky, nothing bumper sticker ish about

any of this. Everything's straight from the

Bible and that's all it's ever going to be.

So what we need to see is we, we want to give you a basic

summary. You see a very basic summary on

those pieces that you have in your hand, on the backside of

the card and on your magnet. And I'm going to be expanding

because there's a lot more to each of these seven, obviously.

But for now, a disciple of Jesus engages the Bible with a humble

and teachable spirit. Notice these these adverbs and

adjectives. A disciple of Jesus unites in

fellowship through hospitality and authenticity.

A disciple of Jesus abides in prayer with dependence and

anticipation. A disciple of Jesus commits to

service with generosity and compassion, a disciple of Jesus

responds in worship with awe and surrender.

A disciple of Jesus lives out of evangelism with boldness and

love. And a disciple of Jesus

participates in missions with urgency and sacrifice.

Now again, there are many pieces to each one of these sub points

that you're going to be seeing. And we'll preach, be preaching

in depth about each of these essentials over the next several

weeks. We're actually even looking at

our midweek time later on this year and into next year and how

it's going to reinforce these things as well.

So it's not just the words you see, but it's also the ideas of

who must we be? What are those characteristics,

fruit of the spirit type language, who what are these

adverbs and adjectives that ought to describe us as

disciples? What must we know because

there's knowledge involved, but then also what must we be doing

in each of these areas to be that fruit producing,

multiplying disciple joining God's mission to bring in glory

and to redeem the nation's? We want you to get it.

And so they're going to be several items within each of

these essentials. So we'll be talking about.

But first, this morning, to begin with, we need to go back

and examine more deeply Englewood's vision again.

We want to make disciples who love God, love people and join

God's mission. So turn to Matthew 22.

In Matthew 22, the religious leaders we're, we're, we're

confronting Jesus. They're actually trying to trick

him and, and they're asking him questions to, to trip him up.

In fact, if you go back into chapter 21, you'll see this,

that the chief priests come and the elders, then the Pharisees,

then the Sadducees, and there's, there's just this kind of

competition to see who can trip him up there.

There was an ongoing debate among the rabbis and among the

religious leaders. They like to rank the laws.

They, the, some laws were more important than other laws in

their minds. And they like to rank them that

way. And, and they spend a lot of

their time prioritizing and arguing about those rankings.

They love to argue over those technicalities.

In fact, in their tradition, they had basically reduced the

law to 365 negative and 248 positive commandments.

I can tell you they were more negative than positive, and they

would rather argue over those technicalities, frankly, than

understand their God on mission a lot of times.

And some of that hadn't changed. Sometimes I see that in church

life, people who would rather argue over technicalities than

they would about whether or not we're really making disciples

and we're really obeying Christ. So they actually thought they

could trap the Lord of the law. I mean, think about that.

It wasn't much of A competition, as you'll see.

It kind of reminds me of UNC versus TCU last week.

But that's a whole nother story. I know many of you are thankful

for Charlotte and, and I just want to say Boomer sooner.

And they didn't laugh in the first service either, either.

And I appreciate the three of you who watched college football

yesterday. But one group after the next

comes. And those of you who are UNC

fans and are mad, just remember you can send those complaints to

see [email protected]. One group after the next come

and they're trying to trip him up and, and, and he literally

just flips the trap back on him. And he often does it with

parables in these in these chapters.

So their heads were full, but their hearts were empty, which

is sometimes a characteristic of too many.

So in Matthew 22, verse 34, it says this.

Matthew 22:34

But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the

Sadducees, first of all, they were probably happy because they

didn't like each other, but they gathered together.

So they all huddle up. You can see how one common enemy

makes these verse 35. And one of them, a lawyer, asked

him a question to test him. Notice why he's asking a

question. He didn't.

He doesn't really want an answer.

He doesn't really want to learn anything.

He wants to test him. He wants to trick him.

He wants to trip him up. Teacher, which is the great

commandment in the law. So finally, this scribe, he'd be

a lawyer and he's also a Pharisee, he would be an expert

in the law, comes and asks this huge question.

Surely I can trap him with this one.

Surely I can test him and trip him up and he uses the word

great. The word in Greek is megas or

you can see mega there, right? And so the idea is it carries

the meaning of the greatest. So some translations will just

say the greatest commandment. And Jesus responds verse 37 and

he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your

heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the great and 1st commandment.

Now I just want to share about three things with you this

morning. Very complicated, hard to

understand outline point #1A true disciple must love God more

than anyone or anything else. Is that clear enough?

So, so we recognize it that that this is huge, but it needs, it

needs clarification in order for it to have the ramification that

it's supposed to have. See, Jesus quotes the Old

Testament. He's quoting Deuteronomy chapter

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

6. He's quoting what's called the

Shema in verses four and five of Deuteronomy 6.

He says, hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is 1.

You shall love the the Lord your God with all your heart, with

all your soul, and with all your might.

He knows that last word. So twice a day a Jewish male was

supposed to repeat the shemal. It was an obligated prayer for

the Jewish people. But the idea of the shemal was,

is that when I pray this, I'm in a sense committing myself to

obedience to all the commands of God.

So whatever God commands, I'm going to do by quoting this this

phrase. And so Jesus replaces strength

with mind, strength with understanding.

He, he talks about loving him with all your mind, whereas the

Shema says with all your might. Because one of the things I

think Jesus is trying to get across to is we're supposed to

use our brains too. We're supposed to be wise.

We're supposed to think. Now you got to think about who

he was saying this to, though. He's saying this to the

religious leaders who love to argue, who who love to argue

over the smallest technicalities of the law rather than apply it.

I mean, they thought they were intelligent.

They thought they were the intellectual elitist experts of

religion on their subject. But in reality, their brains,

their minds, their understanding were more focused on themselves,

upon their own personal status, upon their own fears than upon

God. Whose mission are you on?

Are you on God's mission or your own?

And that's a question we have to struggle with.

VA Carson, the theologian, says sterile religion, no matter how

disciplined, was never regarded as adequate in Scripture.

So you can know everything and you can do everything, but that

doesn't mean everything. There's more to it than that,

and we're going to see the depth of discipleship as we walk

through these things together. Listen, I come out of academia

to a large degree. I still am teaching doctoral

seminars. And I know perpetual studiers, I

mean, they're lifetime students who contribute very little.

They come and soak. They attend another class and

come and soak. But I also know people in church

like that. They're here for everything and

they come and learn. They sit and soak, they sit and

soak, they sit and soak. But they don't do anything

right. So knowing's not enough.

It's time to move stones. It's time to live out a mission.

So to honor Yahweh is the one true God is to love Him

exclusively with our entire being.

Again, heart, soul, and mind are not separated compartments, not

in, not in that culture, not in his teaching.

They're not separate compartments of the human

existence. They reflect the entire person,

giving the entire person to God. That's the idea here.

So just knowing about him is not enough.

How many testimonies have we heard?

We'll hear some more next week, baptism again next week.

But how many have we heard in baptism where somebody will say

rightfully, wonderfully, I grew up and I heard all about God.

I knew about God, but I didn't know God.

I knew all the stories I knew. I knew about Jesus, I knew about

the cross, I knew about the resurrection, but it wasn't

having an impact on my life because I entrusted in Him.

So just knowing about Him is not enough.

Just learning about the next verse is incomplete.

We must not only know Him, we must live for Him.

So discipleship is not some simply some intellectual

experience, It's also not simply some emotional experience.

It's not some emotional attachment to God.

It's not just how you feel today about God.

You will ride a spiritual roller coaster your entire life.

If that's who you are. Listen.

Nor is it just about what you do works.

Righteousness has never, never been the way and still not the

way to true salvation. It's also not the way to true

sanctification. So what we see here, and this is

important, this is vital for our whole study because in each one

of these seven, we're going to be looking at all these

different aspects. There is an intentional

prescribed balance given here, right?

And this balance is what will guide you to spiritual maturity.

That's sort of going to get you to mature discipleship.

And so we want to teach you that balance.

We want that balance in your life.

So not only when are we going to preach sermons, we're going to

produce podcasts to help you, we're going to be teaching

midweek to help you. We want every Connect group and

every family ministry department to reinforce these same

definitions and these destinations with their

teaching, with their illustration, and with their

application. So your children are going to be

learning about this. You're going to hear them often.

A true disciple must love God more than anyone or anything

else with their whole being. You give yourself in its

entirety to Him. In fact, Jesus said His

disciples in John 15. He says by this my Father is

glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My

disciples. As the Father has loved me, so

have I loved you. Abide in My love.

If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I

have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His

love. Look at these verbs, Abide and

keep. So you're abiding in living, in

dwelling, in tabernacling, in tenting with and keeping the

law. You see position and activity.

They go together. It's your host self.

It's being, knowing and doing. And we're going to break down

all 7 into being, knowing and doing categories for you each

week and then all that we teach. But Jesus wasn't done, He

continued. Look at verse 39 of Matthew 22.

And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as

yourself. Now listen to point #2 it's real

clever. A true disciple must love others

as much as themselves. In that in that earth

shattering, Jesus is still quoting the Old Testament.

This time he quotes Leviticus. You might not know this one as

well. Leviticus 19.

He says you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge

against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your

neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

Now you think that maybe Jesus, the Lord of the law, knew how to

kind of put it back on these legal eagles who were trying to

trap him. Love in this passage indicates A

practical responsibility. This isn't just a feeling.

This is an act of actually being useful to your neighbor.

I'm actually doing something that's helpful.

I'm actually doing something that helps another person.

OK, now we know and some people teach from these passages that

this is just talking about within the church and we know

for certain that we are to love one another within the body of

Christ. There's no question about that

part. In fact, Jesus says in John 13,

he says a new commandment I give to you that you love one another

just as I have loved you, but you also are to love one

another. By this all people will know

that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

So we know that inside the church this is definitely the

way we should respond to one another.

But what Jesus was actually quoting to the leaders goes

beyond that. It goes beyond simply being

about brothers and sisters in Christ.

And one of the reasons we know that is because in Luke's

Gospel, in Luke's version of this story, he also records the

fact that the lawyer comes back with another question after

Jesus had proclaimed the two great commandments.

The lawyer comes back with a third question, another question

in Luke 10/29, he says, but he desiring to justify himself.

Now notice again the motivation here.

This is not to really find an answer.

This isn't because I really want to know.

This is because I'm trying now to justify myself said to Jesus,

and who is my neighbor and Jesus replied, a man was going down

from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped

him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.

Now all the way through through about verse 37, Jesus is telling

the story of the Good Samaritan sake of time.

We won't read the whole story, but in verse 36 he comes back

and says, which of these three do you think proved to be a

neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?

And the lawyer had to answer and he said the one who showed him

mercy, which was the Samaritan. And Jesus said to him, you go

and do likewise. So our neighbor is also not just

somebody within the church, not just somebody that we're like

and we like, but it's also somebody from outside our normal

circle, not just within the church body, not just within our

physical neighborhood, even, not necessarily even within our

workplace or our team or our band or our class is.

It's more than that. Your neighbor might be someone

very different than you who has a real need and who really needs

help. So a measure, a measure, a

measure from Oklahoma, a measure, a measure by which we

know if we are truly loving people is whether we love them

as much as we love ourselves. So this is an active love.

So you can understand this is not just some, this is something

that's demonstrated. This is a love demonstrated.

This isn't just an attitude of the mind or heart.

This is something that can be seen.

This is something that can be felt.

So Englewood Baptist Church, we're right here.

Here's where we are, we're right here.

Here's a we're pointing, here's our location.

But we are sent to continuously reach our world by loving them

and pointing them to the cross. And then a Third Point.

This gets real tricky. A true disciple must apply this

love. It's not enough just to know it

got to do something with it. Verse 40 says this.

On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

Matthew 22. How do all the law and the

prophets hang on these two commandments?

Because nothing in them can be truly obeyed.

Nothing in the prophets, nothing in the law can be truly obeyed.

Nothing in the Old Testament, frankly, because that was what

the Bible at that point, can be truly obeyed unless these two

are observed. These two commandments allow us,

empower us to apply and display what it means to be created in

the image of God and to truly know, to truly love, to truly

abide in, to truly keep His word.

So the first commandment's impossible without the 2nd and

the 2nd commandment cannot stand all alone without the first.

These two commandments are connected to one another.

John wrote in First John 4/20. He said if anyone says I love

God and hates his brother, he's a liar.

For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen,

cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

There's a practicality to this. So to make disciples who love

God, love people, and join God's mission, we must be engaged in

two very intentional relationships that I've

mentioned to many of you before. But everything ties together

like a train. We've got to understand these

pieces that we're putting together.

See, we have to be engaged in these two relationships first.

We must engage in a very intentional relationship with

God and His people. You need to be a part of the

church and you need to be a part of His mission.

And then, and only then will we be ready and able to engage in a

very intentional relationship with the world and its people.

But we have to do the first one first.

Relationship number one must define and drive relationship #2

in fact, our greatest love for others will be an overflow of

our passionate love for God. I must, I must, I must allow Him

to fill us, to overflow continually, continuously #1

must flow out of us into #2 So if I'm not in #1 the right way,

I'm not. I'm not going to be

evangelistic. I'm not going to be missional.

I'm not going to be ministry oriented.

I need to be in love with Jesus. So we must be so intentionally

full of God and constantly being being refilled with God that the

overflow becomes this never ending stream that impacts our

world. When I lived in the Philippines,

we used to do retreats at a campground that the Baptist

owned right on the beach. It was on a Cliff over the

ocean, really beautiful spot. And they had built this very

natural swimming pool at a rock. It was a really large pool,

bigger than this stage probably. But anyway, the way the whole

thing worked was there's a stream, it was a spring that

flowed down the hill and on its way to the ocean.

And so the water would constantly come in one end of

the pool, and then the wall on the other end was just lower.

So there was a constant waterfall on the other side of

the pool. Water was constantly flowing out

of the pool as water flowed into the pool from the stream.

So there was a natural flow through the pool and then an

overflow out into the vastness of the ocean.

So we need to be that way. Our connect groups partnered

with our Reach strategy will give you an outlet for these

things as we fall even deeper in love with God's Word and and

with his people and these small group communities, which is why

you've heard me talk so much about it.

Then we can be set out to reach out and to love our community in

a world with outreach and ministry and missions, pointing

them all to the cross. So the person who loves God with

all their being, heart, soul, mind, will understand God's

mission for their lives and they'll join it because they

know in doing so, they're living the life that God had created

for them, had planned for them. He has a purpose for us.

Theologian Michael Wilkins once said this.

He said our obedience to God will transform our entire being,

heart, soul, mind, into the image of God so that we become

more like what God has intended us to be like.

So loving others as ourselves means we serve others to help

them live as God designed life for them to be lived.

We help them with the transformation and the overflow

that God intends. We make other disciples who make

other disciples who make of the disciples.

And the cycle never ends. And it doesn't depend upon us.

It doesn't depend upon whether I'm here.

It doesn't depend on whether we're even alive.

That cycle never stops, and it impacts an entire world.

So we're going to help you define exactly what that means

and understand where you really are in your own personal

discipleship journey. I want you to understand that.

I want you to understand it in value.

Here is my next step. I know what I need to do next.

Here's what my child, my student needs to do next.

And here's how this church is going to help me do that.

Because ultimate obedience to God occurs when our entire

beings directed toward loving Him and loving others.

So make disciples first yourself, then others, but begin

this morning by using this time to define and to refine your

love for God. Do you really know Him?

Because see, for some of you, the first step of discipleship,

salvation, you don't know Christ.

You've never trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

None of this is going to make sense.

None of this is going to be something that you can achieve

in your life because because you don't have him, you've got to

have him first. So salvation's your next step.

Do you love him more than anyone or anything else?

Be certain about that. And then come each and every

week to learn. How am I going to deepen that in

this area? How am I going to deepen that in

this area? You can also use this time to

define and refine your love for others.

Do you love others as much as yourself?

How are you applying that? How can they see that?

How are you living that out? Who are you pointing to?

The gospel? Who are you disciple and are you

supporting each other in small groups and Connect group

ministries? What members are you reaching

out to and contacting to encourage maybe, maybe not just

the ones who are active, but maybe some inactives who haven't

been here in a while? How are you checking in on them

and loving them as part of the flock?

For who are you meeting real need?

How are you serving here? What new neighbor can you meet

and minister to? Because Inglewood, we're on a

mission, not ours, but God's, to bring glory to God and to join

him in redeeming the nations. And we're going to do that by

making disciples who love God, love people, and join God's

mission. And that means that a disciple

is somebody that engages the Bible with a humble and

teachable spirit. It's somebody who unites in

fellowship through hospitality and authenticity.

It's somebody who abides in prayer with dependence and

anticipation. It's somebody who commits to

service with generosity and compassion.

It's somebody who responds in worship with awe and surrender.

It's somebody who lives out evangelism with boldness and

love. It's somebody who participates

in missions with urgency and sacrifice.

Please be here as we break each of these down and help you and

your family grow in each of these essentials.

Everything we will be doing here will be designed and planned to

help you on that journey. I can't think of a more exciting

time to be at Inglewood than now.

I don't know that anybody would ever know this.

I don't know even why I know this.

I just happened to see this. But this week marks the fact

that I've been with you 6 months and I think about what God has

done in those six months and I'm so thankful.

I know for some of you it seems like 60 years, but it's only

been six months. It gets worse, not better.

So, but I'm thankful for the direction that God's giving us.

My dear, sweet, incredible, godly wife knows that I use a

lot of symbolism when I teach, when I write there in books and

classes, and people get kind of tired of them.

People make fun of them after a while, but they remember them, I

hope. And one of the symbols I use is

a compass. She gave me this compass.

You know, how does a compass work?

It's really interesting because no matter where you are on the

planet, it points to magnetic north.

And, and the only thing a person must possess for a compass to

work is a belief that there really is a true magnetic north.

I mean, you got to believe that it's actually pointing in the

right direction and that there actually is a N that it points

to, right? So, so what's our true north?

No matter where you are, no matter what you're confronted

with, no matter what you're facing in your life, where will

you look? What's your direction?

Why do you believe what you believe and act the way you do?

There's a reason why I'm teaching what I'm teaching in

midweek. Because your answer is going to

determine your direction. It's going to determine your

definitions. It's going to determine your

destinations. And if the true source of

authority in your life is based more upon your personal

opinions, or more upon what this world says out there, or on old

fears or on old loves, rather than the truth of God's Word,

you're never going to end up in the right place.

You will drift and you'll be tossed by every wind, as James

warns. So we must establish our

definition of true north. People say they believe

something, but then they live their lives and make decisions

or reject decisions as as if they don't.

Are we convinced of the truth of God's inerrant, infallible,

inspired word or not? Following Christ is not just

someone time event where you walk and I'll get dunked in some

water and join a church. It's a life of continual

dependence. It's a it's a life where you

depend upon and you obey Christ our King who's on mission.

It's true discipleship and we want to help you understand

exactly what that means. I can't think of anything more

important for me to spend my time on than that because it's

true discipleship and we want to help you understand and embrace

that in your life. It's a call for both belief and

action. So I pray you'll join us on that

journey because we're right here.

We're right here constantly impacting our world, sending out

people and ourselves to impact this world by pointing to the

cross. I pray that you will join us on

this journey. Father, thank you.

Thank you for not just creating us and leaving us alone.

Thank you, Father, that you are intimately involved in our lives

and in our very next steps, our very next breath, what we think

next. So, Father, I pray this morning

for those who need to take a next step.

What is that, Father? For some in this room, those

listening online, perhaps it's salvation.

That would make sense. I would believe that with a

number of people here, Father, there's probably somebody here

who's never truly trusted in Jesus Christ as our Lord and

Savior. I thank you for the testimonies

of in recent days of friends who have trusted in you for the

first time. Thank you for that, Father.

I pray that if there's somebody here who, who hasn't done that,

Lord, that, that, that right now that you would just Pierce their

heart with the very truth that you are so real and you have an

incredible plan and purpose for them for which you created them.

But Father, we fail you, we fall short, we sin.

So you had to send Jesus the the Christ to die on the cross for

us to make a perfect sacrifice, a perfect payment for our sin.

And that's the only way we can be saved, by trusting, by faith

ING in that, believing in that. For many of us here, it's just a

next step of spiritual growth and maturity.

We want our children to do that. We want our students to do that.

We need to do that. Our marriages need to do that.

Our lives need this. So Father, how are we taking the

next step? What is the next step for me,

for my family? For some, it might be church

membership. For some it might be baptism.

They've seen this over these weeks.

For others, it might be a recommitment or a new focus or

just a commitment to be here every week, to learn and to grow

and to serve. So, Father, I pray that you'll

take each of us on our next step, that Father, we would obey

you and we would do that without hesitation, without reservation,

without any, without any, any sense of denial or rejection.

So Father, be with us as we sing.

I pray, Father, as we sing, that people would come, that the

Father, they would come and talk to a pastor, or that they would

just go to our next steps room and have a private, discreet

conversation with people who are going to love them and pray with

them. So Father, however we need to

respond, I pray that we won't wait, that we won't put it off.

But Father, as soon as we begin to sing, we'll step out and do

what you tell us to do in Christ's name, Amen.

Well, stand with me. We're going to sing together.

There'll be some pastors here, but we also have a next steps

room right over there. And you don't need to come and

talk to one of us. You don't have to do that.

You can go straight to that room and there are people there who

are going to love you. Have private conversations.

We had more than one person go to that room in the first

service. We're so thankful for that.

Maybe you just need to come and pray.

Maybe you'd like us to pray with you.

Whatever you need to do, you take that next step right now as

we begin to sing. Don't wait.

Do it right now as we begin. 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.