"Discipling" || Holy Habits (Week 7)

I totally didn't miss my cue, guys.

Y'all didn't see nothing.

It is a great night to be in the building.

Who's excited to be here at North Rock, young adults?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Awesome.

Love it.

We have an amazing, amazing night prepared for y'all.

I know I say it every single time, but our team puts so much intention and so much effort into putting all of this together for you guys and onto the Lord.

And I hope that you've been receiving something from this series that we've been in of holy habits.

Our speaker will go into what we've been covering, but I wanted to uh I do have the pleasure of being able to introduce him up.

You've seen him before, he's brought some amazing, amazing messages.

He is our Spring Branch campus pastor.

Yeah.

Lovers of Spring Branch.

And he is also our student pastor here at North Rock.

If y'all don't know, we just had camp this last week.

I am exhausted from camp, but 51 salvations in just high school.

76 total salvations with middle school and high school at camp last week.

And if you were there, I we we want to thank you.

We want to uh uh praise you for the the sacrifice that that you made of being out there, of of serving the Lord, but serving every single one of those students that gave their life to Christ and those that have are just growing even closer in their faith.

Young adults, you played a huge, huge part in all of that.

But our amazing campus pastor and student pastor has come here with a word from the Lord.

He's going to be covering a uh a topic that a lot of us might have questions about or maybe we don't understand fully.

And so I encourage you to get your notes out, get your Bibles.

You should have gotten notes at the door.

It's easier to get in heaven when you take notes.

I'm quoting that from Pastor Jonathan.

He says it all the time, but it's going to be an amazing night.

So if you could help me, welcome up, Pastor Jordan.

How's everybody doing tonight?

Alright, I feel like y'all can do a lot better than that.

I said, How's everybody doing tonight?

It's funny, as soon as y'all have a rally tonight, y'all calm down a lot.

I like y'all young adults.

I've been reminded all week how old I am.

Uh were you guys here this weekend?

Those people's combined age was my age.

Uh didn't they do an awesome job, the young communicators?

I'm gonna give you guys another reminder of how old I'm getting, so bear with me.

Ooh, here we go.

All right, so um, we have been talking about holy habits for almost all of the summer.

Is that right?

We went through a holy habits series.

You guys have been talking about holy habits like prayer, Bible reading, uh, humility.

I'm probably gonna miss one here, but serving, obedience.

Um, and so I'm really we're wrapping this up today, right?

So I'm I'm I'm excited to be.

No?

More holy habits?

One more.

Bro, I told I was told I was the closer.

Is that wrong?

No, I'm just kidding.

We'll still do it.

Okay, that's good.

All right.

Uh, so I'm excited to be here for holy habits.

Um and I was just thinking a lot about the habits that you guys have already talked about, like that you've already gone through and why Zeke uh decided to make this a series.

We've been doing the same thing with our students and going through holy habits with them as well.

Um so I was thinking about like what's the heart behind holy habits?

And I was thinking, what do these have in common?

And I want you to hear me on this.

This isn't gonna be groundbreaking, but it's gonna be very important for what we're talking about today.

Every single holy habit we've gone through is something that Jesus did.

It wasn't just something he asked you to do, it was something Jesus did.

So you might go, yeah, we knew that, Pastor Jordan, but why are you telling me this?

Hold on to that because it's gonna be very important for what we're going to talk about.

So, prayer, Jesus told us exactly how to pray and he modeled it for us.

He he prayed to commune with his father.

He prayed before making major decisions.

By the way, if you hear anything that might help you in your prayer life, like if Jesus did this for these different reasons, probably we should too.

He prayed before making significant ministry events, he prayed to give thanks, to seek strength, to intercede for others for our community, to model prayer for his followers, to pray for God's will to be done, to pray during times of grief, and to pray, hear me on this one, for those who opposed him.

That's a hard one.

We were talking about someone about that today.

But praying for your enemies, we talked about forgiveness.

Angelina talked about that this weekend.

Praying for your enemies is one of the most powerful things you can do.

That's in the Sermon of the Mount.

So that's prayer, Bible reading.

Interestingly enough, the words read your Bible actually never came out of Jesus' mouth in the Bible.

He's not quoted as commanding it.

But the way he would talk to people, especially his disciples, he was assuming that they were studying the Bible.

When they asked Jesus questions, he would start most sentences with, it is written, meaning he knew the Bible very well, and he was just assuming his disciples were studying it.

So we know Jesus wants us to read the Bible.

Um, solitude.

Man, Jesus sought a lot of solitude when crowds became overwhelming.

How often does that happen to us in our life?

Crowds can become overwhelming.

He would seek solitude before choosing his twelve apostles.

He sought solitude before, actually, after feeding the five thousand, he was so worn out.

And I know we don't think of Jesus like that, but he was fully human.

He was tired after feeding the five thousand.

He sought solitude before asking the disciples who they believed he was.

Hear me out.

He needed some solitude because he knew that that was going to be a silly conversation.

Like he understood that they were gonna give him some some silly answers, he was gonna have to walk through it.

He sought solitude in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest, while he was stressed out.

The humility that Jesus walked with is just all over the Bible.

Everything he did was with humility.

His servant attitude, the servant heart that he lived his life with.

He could have walked around going, Hey, I'm God's son, watch me.

But he was washing people's feet.

That's just the easy example, but he was human, he was humble time and time again.

And obedience, there's so many examples of obedience, but number one for Jesus was dying on the cross.

He didn't have to do that.

He chose to obey his father and do that.

So why are we talking about these holy habits?

There's a few reasons.

There's two main reasons that I can think of that we need to talk about this as a group.

Number one is that they're good for you.

These holy habits are good for you.

I need that to sink in for a second.

Yeah, you can write that down.

It's pretty simple, but they're people are like writing that down.

It's really cool.

They're just good for you.

You can just remember that one too.

That one's okay.

Um sometimes, especially if you're new here, you may not realize that everything Jesus wants you to do is good for you.

He's not having you do things just to exercise a discipline, or because he wants to watch you work hard, or he wants to make your life miserable.

No, he actually wants to make your life better, more full, and abundant.

So every holy habit that we talk about is something that is going to improve your life.

Okay.

Number two.

And this one you should write down.

Jesus told you to.

That's the one you should write down.

That reason is way more important than the first one.

Because Jesus told you to do it.

That's it.

Now I know, I know.

Look, when I was, well, even now, I like an explanation for stuff.

When people tell me to do stuff, how many of you guys like an explanation?

Like by show of hands, like you want to know the why behind it, right?

Even right now, some of y'all are like, I'm not gonna raise my hand unless you tell me why I need to raise my hand.

That's cool.

Okay, great.

But sometimes it just has to be because God told you to do it.

We don't need an explanation every time.

So, why did I start with the first one?

Well, the truth of it is, as humans, we want to know what's in it for us, don't we?

The first thing we want to hear is how is this gonna help me?

How does this affect me?

So we gotta start with that to get your attention, but I just want you to understand whether reading your Bible was going to get you answers faster or not, which it will, whether praying was going to calm your anxiety or not, which it will, whether serving is gonna make you feel like you have more purpose or not, which it will, doesn't matter.

Jesus told you to do it, just do it.

At some point you gotta just do it.

But here's the beautiful thing.

The beautiful thing about Jesus is that those two reasons always match up.

He told you to do them because he wants you to have a better life.

He wants, he like so many of us in in our generation wrestle, our generation, that was wild, right?

Y'all like how I slipped that one in, huh?

In your generation, uh come on, girl, calm down.

Man, who let she came out to spring branch this week, too.

Yeah, I don't know if we're gonna let you back out there, girl.

All right, here we go.

He's telling you to do them because they're a blueprint for improving your life.

So do them because he said so, but do them because it's gonna make you feel better.

But here's the thing about this Jesus is our king and savior.

We love that savior part, don't we?

Who just loves that?

You don't have to raise your hand for this one.

Who just loves that savior part?

Oh, the end of every service.

Woo! I get to watch people.

Yeah, and I know y'all are looking around, all heads bowed, all eyes closed, but y'all are looking around to see who got saved, right?

I do it.

I want to know who got saved, who's going to heaven with me.

So we love the savior part, but sometimes we forget the king part.

He's our king who has authority that we are supposed to submit to.

He's our king.

My my favorites, my favorite worship songs are the ones that say things like, Praise King Jesus.

Man, that makes me want to hit my knees and worship, right?

So we worship with our hands in the air, and that's what we're called to do.

He's our king.

So we just need to obey him.

But our king also is our savior and wants us to feel better.

Okay.

Every one of these holy habits is a guideline on how to live a fruit-filled, successful, abundant life.

So Jesus saves us when we first turn our will and lives over to him.

And I don't know who in this room has done that or who needs to take that next step.

You will have that opportunity later tonight.

But when you first give your life to Jesus, that is called salvation.

You are saved, you are going to heaven.

Congratulations.

Awesome first step.

It is a first step, though, because so many times we see that as the end.

Brady told us this weekend, that's not the end, it's the beginning.

Because once you start to try to obey Jesus, and and notice I said try, because we're not gonna do it perfectly.

Frankly, sometimes we're not even gonna do it well.

That's not the point.

When you try to obey him, he starts changing you.

So we want the anxiety to melt away, we want the depression to lift, we want our relationships to get healthier, we want to make more money, we want to be more successful, but we're not obeying Jesus, you're not gonna get changed.

The same things are gonna keep happening.

That process of change is called sanctification.

And if you feel like I'm going slow with you, man, these are things I needed to learn when I got here.

Salvation is when I turn my life over, sanctification is the process of change afterward.

Okay?

Not because we are like rebellious, but because we haven't put together what it's gonna do for our lives.

So every one of these holy habits is integral to your life becoming more full, more abundant, and more successful.

So today we're gonna talk about one that I requested from Zeke months ago, four months ago.

Um for whatever reason, when I get to come talk to the young adults, I always choose the hardest subject.

I gotta like start doing an easy one, like like prayer.

Like, should I just done prayer?

Oh my gosh, just pray.

It's gonna be awesome, you're gonna feel so great.

And then like get off stage.

But tonight's holy habit is discipleship.

And I I just want to say this to you early on.

Let's talk about why discipleship is so important.

Because it's less of a holy habit and more of just a direct command from our king.

In Matthew 28, 18 through 20, this is a scripture some of you will be very familiar with, but some of you need to see it for the first time.

This is called the Great Commission.

This is where towards the end of Matthew, Jesus has prepared his disciples.

He has taught them, he has given them the authority to perform miracles, he has sent them out into the world.

And the last thing he says here in Matthew 28:18 is all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, meaning Jesus.

Matthew 28:18

Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.

That is called the Great Commission.

I'm I'm gonna have you leave that up there for a second.

I'm gonna have you notice.

If you go back, can you go back to verse 19?

Is that possible?

It doesn't say, therefore, if you feel like it, go and make disciples of all nations.

It doesn't say, hey, when you get time in the evening, go and make disciples.

Hey, if people at your work are already sort of receptive to the Lord, then go make disciples.

It just says, go.

It just says go.

I need you to note that Jesus was more intentional about telling us to make disciples than he even was about reading the Bible.

Now he wants you to read your Bible, make no mistake.

But there's not a passage in the Bible where he says go read your Bible.

This could not be more clear.

Go make disciples.

And the reason is because our first point is discipling isn't a request, it's a command.

It's a command that we need to follow.

Think about this.

We ourselves, we cannot be the end goal of our sanctification process.

It cannot just be all about us.

If we think that we are the reason that we're doing this, then we have missed the end goal of what Jesus has for us.

He said to love God with your whole heart, that's number one.

But he said to love your neighbor with your whole heart as well.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Okay?

Two most important commands.

They asked Jesus, what's the most important commands?

Love God, love your neighbor.

Everybody knows that.

If you don't know that, by the way, by the way, if everything we're saying up here is foreign to you, man, I'm so glad you're here.

Congratulations.

I can't, we can't wait to bring you into this and teach you.

It it is the greatest thing you're ever going to experience.

But Jesus didn't actually command you to love yourself.

He never said that.

Why not?

Because you already love yourself.

He didn't actually have to command you to do that.

You already got that.

Like y'all love you some you, right?

Only like four people wanted to admit that.

Okay, cool.

I'm gonna ask you guys who's your favorite person in the world?

Oh, you guys can shout it out.

We're not at rally night.

You can shout it out at me.

Go ahead.

Who's your favorite person?

Who?

Jesus.

Who said Melissa?

You said Melissa or Melissa said Melissa.

Melissa said Melissa.

Okay.

Jesus, yes, Jesus is our favorite person.

He's God.

Favorite person on earth right now.

Who's your favorite person?

Parker Geddy's pastor.

I got your 20 for you later, bro.

Don't you worry.

Parker Geddy's your favorite?

That hurt my feelings, Aiden.

That's not cool.

The unfortunate thing is you're all incorrect.

Your favorite person is yourself.

You want me to prove it to you?

Whenever you have a conversation with someone, who are you usually talking about?

You me, thank you.

So that was you?

That was really honest.

I like that.

That was it.

So he didn't have to tell you to love yourself, but he had to tell you to love God.

He had to tell you to love someone else.

So we need to go follow that command.

So hear me out on this.

When you first meet Jesus, I'm not talking about the first time you come to church.

I'm talking about the first time that you experienced Jesus in a real way, and you can all remember it.

The first time that you felt the Holy Spirit, the first time you met Jesus, you went, oh wow, that's what they're talking about.

That felt so good.

Maybe you had been living here and he pulled you out of the grave and you suddenly have hope.

And you're like, man, I need more of that.

So you go to church more, you read your Bible more, you you pray more, you find community more.

Because you love yourself so much that you want to find Jesus so you can feel better.

Correct?

Amen?

Yeah, all right, cool.

I just wanted to say it here I want to say amen.

That's cool.

I like you guys.

You love yourself so much that you'll get as much Jesus as possible because it made you feel better.

It improved your life, your anxiety melts away, your finances get better, your relationships with people around you get more intentional.

The drama fades from your life, your perception of yourself stops being from Instagram and starts being from God.

Your life changes.

So if you love others as much as you love yourself, shouldn't you want to share this with every single person that you meet?

You should.

If there was like a magic rock somewhere and you just touched that rock and it was gonna make you a millionaire, and it could do it for as many people as possible, you'd go around telling everybody, wouldn't you?

No selfish group, I like it.

Okay, okay, but you would tell your family and your friends, wouldn't you?

Yes.

So if we're to love others as we love ourselves, then we should want others to have Jesus as much as we want him.

And this is discipleship.

This is discipleship.

You go and see, most people are are on some variation of a timeline in their walk with Jesus.

Now, before I go into this, I want everyone to understand everyone's story is unique.

Every one of your feelings that you've had on your walk with Jesus are different.

And yet God has his hand in every single one, so they're all kind of similar as well.

Everyone is on some sort of timeline like this.

And don't get caught up in like, well, that's not exactly how my timeline went.

Mine was a little bit, I understand.

But just in general, you find out about Jesus and you get your hopes up.

You go, wow, there's something better.

And it's this amazing feeling you have.

And so you start to believe in him.

When you choose to believe that he died on a cross and was risen to pay for your and my sins, then you have salvation.

That's an that's a step you take.

Somewhere along there, you might start understanding his commands, and so you decide to submit to Jesus.

You start to abide in him because you want the fruits of the Spirit to show in your life.

So you start reading your Bible more, you start praying more, you start living out the things he asks you to do more.

Then suddenly something happens in your life.

Your community grows, your life starts going smoother, sin gets just a little bit easier to resist.

Temptation has just a little bit less effect on us.

Things just start getting a little bit better.

The fruits of the spirit show up in our lives.

We start having a little more patience with people.

We start being more loving to our family.

We start to have more joy even when things are bad.

The fruits of the spirit start to show up in our life.

And so, what should happen next is once you feel those fruits, you should go, oh, okay, I'm gonna step into obedience.

Not because he told me to, but because I love him so much for what he's done for me that I just choose to obey my king.

And with that obedience comes discipleship.

I'm not judging where you are on this timeline, guys.

If you just met Jesus tonight, man, congratulations.

Welcome.

We're so glad to have you.

If you are kind of making that decision about whether you want to commit your life to him, make that decision.

That's your next step.

If you've just been saved, been you're like, man, this whole sanctification thing sounds hard, just lean into it.

Take that step.

That's okay.

You may not be to the discipleship step yet, but wherever you are in this timeline, Jesus didn't request you to go make disciples, he commanded you to go make disciples.

So wherever you are in this timeline needs to point towards discipleship, towards passing what's been freely shared with you with someone else.

You need to go make disciples.

It's something that Timothy understood.

He's a young disciple of Paul.

If you don't know Timothy, Paul had discipled Timothy in 2 Timothy 2 2.

Timothy says, And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach.

Others.

Pretty simple.

He just said, Hey, I've been taught these things.

You've heard me say them in the presence of many witnesses.

So you need to entrust this to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.

Just keep passing it down.

Who had taught Timothy this?

Paul taught Timothy this.

Who taught Paul this?

Peter and other apostles.

And who taught those apostles?

Jesus Christ.

So if you believe in Jesus and what he's done for you today, you are, hear me on this, already a disciple of Jesus.

I need you to hear me on that.

No matter what part of this process you're in, you are already a disciple of Jesus.

But how many of us stop before the obedience kicks in?

I want you to prayerfully and slowly consider how many of us stop before the obedience comes in.

I love worshiping with you guys.

I love worshiping with the students.

I love worshiping at church.

I love worshiping.

I love the songs.

I love hanging out with this beautiful North Rock family.

I love everything that comes with going to church.

But coming to church is not obedience.

What I do out there when I leave this building, that's obedience.

So I'm just going to tell you guys this, young adults, because I think you're a generation that likes people to shoot you straight.

Would you guys agree with that?

If you're coming in here and lifting your hands and singing about it and not doing it out there, that's not going to work long term.

Now you might be saved, you are saved, but your life's not going to improve.

You're not going to get to feel the joy.

We heard Pastor Jonathan talk about repentance a couple weeks ago.

Literally, if I'm involved in this and I know I'm involved in this sin, I need to repent, turn around and go the other way if I expect Jesus to change me.

And if we're obedient, we're going to disciple because that's what Jesus commanded us to do.

So why don't we do it?

Why don't we disciple?

Because so many of us stop short of the obedience and making disciples.

We stop short.

We love Jesus.

And then sometimes you're like, you're at work, right?

And you someone's got like, hey, what's different about you?

Like, what's going on here lately?

I've noticed changes in you.

What do you say to them?

Do we tell them, oh, Jesus has completely reshaped my life, redefined my life?

Or do we go, ah, like I'm I've been going to a place.

It's pretty good.

Do we have the courage to be obedient?

Are we taking that step of discipleship?

I I know we have a lot of amazing hearts in here that want to do the right thing.

So I just got to thinking about why don't we just go and make disciples naturally?

And I thought of maybe I thought of a ton of reasons I wanted to put here, but we we kind of boil them down to three main reasons.

One is maybe we don't understand what it is exactly.

Maybe we don't understand what discipleship is.

We'll go into that.

Maybe we don't feel worthy.

And maybe we just don't know what to do.

Maybe we just don't know what to do.

Like I want to go take care of it.

I don't understand what my first step is.

So let's unpack each of these because all three of these can turn into really convenient reasons, also known as excuses not to follow Jesus' command.

So let's remove those excuses today so that we can start obeying our king.

Number one is we don't understand what it is.

Okay.

Look, I think a lot gets made of the word discipleship.

Who's heard about discipleship on social media somewhere?

You guys like a discipleship is this.

What's the definition of discipleship?

What do I do?

What does it mean?

Who is it for?

Do I disciple?

Is it a pastor disciple?

All these crazy questions.

And we go down this rabbit hole of trying to figure out what discipleship is, and it stunts our growth from ever actually stepping into it.

Sometimes I don't know if I've told this group, me, me, me and Zeke, we get into some deep, deep, deep conversations about the Bible.

Can I share what happens to us?

I don't know why, but like we'll pick a point, like, why do you think that happened?

Like, God, I want to ask God that when I get to heaven.

Like, well, maybe it's because of this.

Maybe, and like we like suddenly an hour and a half has just gone by.

And we're sitting there.

And you know what?

We're no closer to figuring anything out than we were an hour and a half before that.

And so we'll sit there and go, hey, I got an idea.

How about we love the Lord, love each other, and go make disciples?

Amen.

Because we can tend to overcomplicate things.

Now, I don't know if we're doing that on purpose or because we want the excuse to not go disciple, but you need to search your heart about what it is for you.

So let's go into a definition of it.

Because I've heard it kicked around so much, I don't know what the definition of discipling is.

With Rally Night with the students, we have a saying.

Anytime we have a question, where do we go?

Wow, my man, who's that?

That's awesome.

You've been to Rally Night?

Oh my Chris, I love you so much, bro.

Can we try that again?

Whenever we have questions, where do we go?

Oh, look, more people did it.

I thought it was just gonna be you, Chris.

All right, yours.

That's called discipling, Chris.

Okay, here we go.

I thought, I thought, what am I gonna look up to get us a definition?

Can I tell you the progression I went through?

I was like, maybe I'll Google the definition.

It's a terrible idea.

Maybe I'll look up the definition on Instagram.

Maybe I'll find a pastor that I trust and ask them.

Then it hit me.

Why don't I go to the Bible?

Because Jesus gives us the definition in the scripture we've already read.

Let's put that scripture back on screen if we can.

Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations.

Okay, great.

So he's given us the command.

Then he gives us instructions on how to do it.

Baptizing them.

That's number one.

We help them put on their Jesus jersey.

We help them outwardly express that inwardly they have accepted Jesus into their hearts, baptizing them.

So baptizing them, that's that's one step.

Pushing them towards their next steps.

Number two, and to me this is the even more important one, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

When you start to think about it through that lens, it gets real simple, y'all.

Real simple.

You just teach them to obey Jesus.

Why do you guys think that Zeke and the team chose holy habits for the entire summer?

Because on a large scale they want to disciple you, which is simply means teaching you to obey Jesus.

That's all it means.

If you see a pastor trying to get likes or whatever on social media and making a deep discussion about it, that's because they're more interested in you clicking on them than they are in discipling you.

It's true.

If you have a friend that wants to give you their opinion on what discipling is, it's often because they want affirmation of their sin.

That's true.

All you have to do, disciple, is teach people to obey Jesus.

And you've been learning how to obey Jesus all summer.

You pray, you read your Bible, you're humble, you come to church, you serve, you worship, everything that we talk about here.

So when you start to look at it like that, it can get really, really simple.

So let's all go on the working definition that discipling is just teaching people to obey Christ.

Okay.

Number two is maybe we don't feel worthy.

This is a tough one.

I I empathize with this one every single day.

The first, I can think of a couple reasons maybe we don't feel worthy.

Number one is maybe you feel like you have a supposed lack of knowledge.

You go, so what can I teach somebody?

Can I share just something really personal with you?

I've been blessed to be a pastor here at North Rock for 11 months.

Yeah, I know.

I know nothing.

That's why she's laughing, okay?

I don't even know what I'm doing up here.

No, okay, okay.

I was blessed to study with Pastor Matt.

I was I was blessed to I mean, by and by the way, if you guys want Bible knowledge, and now don't all 300 of y'all walk up to Pastor Matt this Sunday, please.

But if you want deep Bible knowledge, Pastor Matt's your guy.

And so I was blessed to be able to study with him.

But in studying with him, it didn't make me go, dang, I know so much about the Bible.

It made me go, man, I know nothing about the Bible.

Studying with him for two years was like one tenth of how I'm really like one.

He's older than that.

Don't tell him I said that.

He's old, y'all.

He's been studying for a long time.

It made me feel like I knew less.

So every morning I wake up, and God's put me here, but every morning I wake up and go, I am not worthy of this.

I'm not worthy of this.

And I wrestle with it.

It's just the enemy in my ear.

And it's really no different for any of you.

Just because someone slaps a title on the end of your name has got nothing to do with discipleship.

Nothing.

Like nothing to do with it.

The second and maybe more likely reason that some of us don't feel worthy is because we're sinning.

Because we're sinning.

I think that we need to get real comfortable with the fact that we're sinners.

It's funny because when we talk about sin, you can literally watch everyone's body language go in the crowd.

Oh God.

Because everyone just thought of that sin that they're wrestling with.

But let me tell you, all 300 of us did it, including me.

Because we're all thinking about a sin that we're wrestling with right now.

If you just think about it, you're wrestling with something that you wish you weren't doing.

Okay?

If you stop trying to help other people find Jesus just because you're sinning, you're never gonna help anyone find Jesus.

I've got news for you.

You're never gonna stop sinning.

That's what we have Jesus for.

We've got to get real comfortable with the fact that we're sinners.

Now, before we go any further, this is not an excuse to eat just go sinning, like sin, grace.

You know, I've got I've got an uncle who doesn't understand my faith.

And he goes, Jordan, like you you have something called grace, right?

I'm like, yeah.

He's like, what's grace?

I'm like, Jesus forgives me, right?

When I message Jesus, he goes, Oh, well, like, let's go out drinking tonight then, because he's gonna forgive us in the morning.

I'm like, well, that's kind of not how it works, dude.

Young adults, don't use this as an excuse to go do whatever you want.

That's not what we're saying.

You need to wrestle with your sin.

You need to try not to sin, you need to resist temptation.

The Bible tells you there is no temptation that is too much for you to resist.

Everyone thinks that that scripture says there's nothing God's gonna send you that you can't overcome.

That's not what it says.

It's got nothing to do with that.

It says there's no temptation that will come your way that you cannot resist.

But sometimes, man, we're gonna mess it up.

That's what we have Jesus for.

Point number two is that you need to keep discipling because God will still work on you while he's working through you.

Pastor says this, but I need you guys to think about it deeply for a second, because a lot of times this is kind of rapid fire during church.

What that means is God's working on you, he's trying to sanctify you, right?

He's trying to change your life.

He wants sin to be easier to resist, he wants the fruits of the spirit to come out.

But you don't have to wait until you're perfect to start doing a good work for somebody else.

If you wait until you're perfect, no one's ever gonna get discipled.

The whole system falls apart.

If you're sitting here going, I can't help my brother or sister in this room because I don't have everything squared away, welcome to the club.

Man, I got y'all.

Y'all.

Sometimes I think that we look at pastors on stage and go, they must have it all together to be up there.

And I really need you to recognize that that is the furthest thing from the truth.

The only reason I feel worthy of being up here is because I have sinned the most of anyone in this room.

I've got 20 years on you guys.

So I know it's true.

Mass says.

But also, let me tell you why I love Jesus so much.

Because before I found him, man, one of my favorite scriptures in the Bible is when Paul calls himself the chief of sinners.

I relate to that.

Right?

I love Jesus so much because I needed Jesus the most.

So whatever you're going through, whatever God's working on you about, that is the reason that you qualify.

And that is why you should go help the next person to meet him and to start to feel better.

And the last reason sometimes I think we don't do this is maybe we just don't know what to do.

How do I go disciple?

I need you to understand point number three is discipling doesn't need to be perfect, just intentional.

Come on.

It doesn't need to be perfect.

We gotta let go of that right now.

Like in this room, we gotta break that chain.

Because if you think discipling needs to be perfect, can I tell you where that's coming from?

That's the enemy getting in your ear.

It's the enemy.

I love when Pastor Jonathan does this like the enemy.

Now, to me, like the enemy is like a little hand in my ear.

That's how I talk to Scarlet.

I'm like, the enemy's after you.

That's what I'm gonna do for you guys.

Hey guys, don't let the enemy after you.

Okay, all right, it was weird.

All right, I went too far.

I felt it.

I felt it.

Sikhs look at me like dial it back.

Discipling doesn't need to be perfect, it needs to be intentional.

So let's talk about this.

Because I think you guys can realize it doesn't need to be perfect.

Fantastic.

So, what does it actually look like?

First of all, if we're gonna talk about what it looks like, let's talk about what it does not look like.

What it is not.

Discipling is not sitting around in a coffee shop for six hours commiserating.

If your friend is coming to you and going, oh gosh, my life is falling apart, and my boyfriend and or my girlfriend and this, and I've got this problem, and I've got this problem, and I've got this problem.

I'm not talking, I'm not telling you to not listen.

But sitting and listening and empathizing only for six hours is not discipling.

It's not.

That's just being a friend, which is great.

You need it, but it's not discipling.

Discipling is not just not just advice from your pastors.

Now I'll tell you this: it is the biggest blessing of my life to have become a pastor.

It is the craziest thing that's ever happened to me, and I would and I love spreading the gospel.

It it is the greatest thing.

But guys, it can't just come from pastors.

It has nothing to do with the stage, it has nothing to do with the microphone, it is not just from the leaders of the church, it has to be all of us, it has to be you, it has to be me.

Discipling is not giving your opinion.

Well, I just think you should break up with her.

What does the Bible say?

I had someone come ask me the other day, and it's hard.

Can I just tell you?

I know it's hard to disciple.

It's hard.

I'm not sitting up here pretending it's easy.

I had a guy the other day that was telling me about a marriage that was in trouble.

And he told me all the problems, and I was sitting there and I was listening to him for about an hour.

Do you know what ran through my mind at the end of it?

Can I just tell you guys?

I went, maybe this guy should get divorced.

Because my human still tells me to take the easy way out.

If I gave my opinion, it would be in direct contradiction to what the Bible says.

Because the Bible says, stay married and give it a shot.

And it says it clearly.

And so I put my human away and I opened up the Bible.

By the way, you live in the most wonderful age for discipling.

Okay, you gotta be careful with this.

Like, use your Bible in conjunction with this.

But if you read your Bible and you're like, there's a scripture about this, but I can't remember what it is.

You've got a beautiful little thing in your back pocket right now that can lead you to the right scripture.

Now, if you Google a scripture, I need you to open your physical Bible and make sure that's what it says.

Okay, I've noticed, like, I don't know if it's always been like this, and I'm old, so just deal with it.

But like on AI now, it's going like, this could be wrong.

I'm like, well, what?

Okay.

Well, what are we doing then?

There's an answer for every question.

If you just Google a scripture about your friend's question, you can take him to the Bible, take him to the physical Bible, and teach them to obey Jesus about that situation in their life.

That man needed to hear Jesus wants you to stay committed to your wife.

That's it.

And he didn't like the news.

By the way, whoever you're discipling may not receive it right away.

Be prepared to be disliked.

I don't know if you guys know this, but Jesus got arrested and hung on a cross because people didn't like what he had to say.

Now, as a blessing, it was always the plan, but it was because people didn't like what he had to say.

Not everyone's gonna like what you have to say if you're doing it right.

It's not telling people to follow their heart.

If I oh if I hear one person say, I'm gonna follow my heart to happiness today, I'm just gonna do whatever makes me happy, guys.

I don't know, well, I'm we're gonna just don't do that.

Don't do that.

Your heart's wrong.

I love you so much, my heart's wrong.

Let me be clear.

Your heart's wrong, my heart's wrong, your heart's wrong.

Jeremiah 17, 9 through 10 says the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.

Who can understand it?

That's like a little bit like, oh dang, that's crazy, right?

But I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.

That doesn't mean that that means that he is not judging you based on what's in your heart, but on how you behave despite what's in your heart.

So, what does it actually look like?

What is discipling?

It can be praying with someone when they're struggling.

If someone comes to you and they have a problem and they don't know the answer, take them to the source.

Not your heart, not your opinion, not what your therapist said, not what TikTok said, not what your friend said, what the Lord says.

And you don't have to have the answers.

In fact, can I tell you a secret?

You don't have the answers.

I don't have the answers.

Pray with them.

If you are doing these things, then you understand the power of prayer.

If you are abiding in Jesus, you have prayed and received an answer to something in your life.

You have.

So you don't have to have knowledge, you need to have a testimony.

And tell them, this is what prayer has done for me.

Can I pray for you?

And then lead them to the water.

When they need an answer to what's going on in their life, open the Bible with them.

That's discipling.

Open the Bible.

What did Jesus say?

Even in the Old Testament, because sometimes we go, what did Jesus say?

That's New Testament.

Just so you understand, if you've not studied the entire Old Testament, point directly to Jesus.

It's all the whole book's about Jesus.

From the very chapter three.

It's all about Jesus.

Okay?

Jesus always said it is written.

So if we're teaching them to understand what Jesus always said, and he always went to the word, then that's what they should do.

You're teaching them to obey Jesus' commands.

You're discipling him.

It can look like holding people accountable.

That's not something we all want sometimes.

But it's something that we all need.

Iron sharpens iron, that's what that means, just so you understand.

Like iron sharpens iron is a, I know it's a really cool name for a small group, but it's also a way to get better.

If you're struggling with a porn addiction, if you're struggling with lust, if you're struggling with drugs, you're struggling with drinking, and you've got a brother and sister in Christ that wants to lift you up, holding each other accountable is discipling them.

Now, shaming them is not.

Okay?

So if they mess it up, you're not shaming them, you're teaching them to obey Jesus' command.

And Jesus' command was to repent, to turn to Him, to try to turn away from sin, but understand they're not going to do it perfectly.

Teach them.

Seeking wise counsel.

Can I tell you, man, people come to me and they got questions I don't have the answer to.

And sometimes I don't know where to find in the Bible, so I go to Pastor Matt.

That's what I do.

Now in 20 years, I want to hopefully be the guy that's like everyone comes to for answer.

I promise, though, it's not happening now.

So you may have to seek wise counsel.

If you don't know the answer, please don't fake your way through it.

If you can't find it in the Bible, don't make it up.

Go find someone who knows more.

You're in a church of so many wonderful leaders, and by the way, it doesn't have to be someone up here.

I'm looking at people all over this room that have answers.

Just make sure they come from the Bible.

Invite them to take next steps: baptism, serving, putting their hands in the air in worship.

Anything that has helped bring you closer to the Lord, help them do.

That's discipling, that's actual discipling.

Invite them to church.

Or if they're coming to church, make them feel comfortable at church.

That's discipling.

You're teaching them to obey.

Modeling worship.

Guys, can I tell you, young adults, y'all are cool, I love y'all.

Sometimes y'all like think you're a little too cool for school.

Oh, everyone's like, oh, I know, I know.

At rally night, those kids are getting wild with their hands in the air.

Right, Mateo?

Mateo's like, why are you calling me out, bro?

It's not cool.

Well, I love you.

Those kids are not worried about what their friend across the room is thinking.

Or maybe they are and they just get over it.

But they're up here in the pit.

Like, I'm not telling you guys gotta create a pit at young adults, that's not what I'm saying.

What I'm telling you is if you think you're too cool for worship, you are missing out.

You're missing out on what surrender to Jesus really feels like.

You're missing out on what submission to Jesus can do for your life.

Stop thinking about how cool you are and start worshiping God.

Just do it.

It's just gonna it's gonna change everything.

I I tell I don't know if I should say this part, but I'm going to, so it's fine.

In this journey that I've been on the last 10 months, it often strikes me that there's actually shouldn't be a need for a pastor.

There is one, but it strikes me that there really shouldn't be a need.

Do you know why?

Because when people come up to me, because it's like suddenly interesting, like 11 months ago, no one cared about my opinion, and then suddenly 10 months ago, everyone wanted my advice.

I was like, I know the same things I knew a week and a half ago.

Go to the Bible.

When people come to me and they're falling apart, I love talking to them.

I love listening.

I love helping God's people.

You have no idea the blessing it puts on my life.

But here's the two questions I ask them now.

Before we talk, I say, I'm hearing you.

I empathize with you.

I'm sorry that you feel that way.

How often are you reading your Bible?

And how often are you praying?

And if they're falling apart, I'm gonna let you guess what the answer to that question typically is.

Zero.

So this is what I say.

I say, perfect.

Go read your Bible for a week and pray every day for a week.

Read your Bible for five minutes a day for a week, pray every day for a week, and come back and talk to me.

You know what typically happens?

They don't call me because they feel better without me.

Because God has the answers.

And all I'm trying to do is get them to obey Jesus.

And if they talk to him and listen to him, things change like this.

Now I'm all too happy.

I like to joke around about this stuff.

I want everyone to understand.

I love this calling that's been put on my life.

It is the greatest thing ever.

But I just need you guys to understand that you should be discipling each other, not looking up here.

Read your Bible together, pray together, hold each other accountable, bring people to the Lord, disciple one another.

This entire journey of salvation and sanctification begins with turning your life over to Jesus.

If you haven't done that or you don't know what that's all about, the Bible tells us that the wages of sin are death, and we all sin.

So there's only one way those wages can be paid for, and that's through death.

Jesus was willing to come down, we said it this weekend, fully God, fully man, to be whipped, to be beaten, to be hung on a cross, to pay the wages of death for our sin, for your sin, for my sin.

And if we turn our lives over to him and believe, all we have to do, guys, is believe that that's true.

And the Bible says you're saved.

So we're gonna have that opportunity at the end of prayer.

And if you have not done that yet, it is the first step.

Don't, don't, don't, don't even, if this is the first step for you, take that step first.

We'll do discipleship later.

That's not an excuse for those of you who are further along.

But if this is the first step, this is where the journey begins.

Let's go to God.

Father, thank you so much for filling this room today.

Thank you for everything that you've done for us.

Thank you for the guidelines, the commands that you've given us to live a life full and abundant in your name, Jesus.

Help us to have the courage to spread the gospel.

Help us to have the strength to tell people the truth that you've given us.

Not our opinions, Lord, your truth, the truth.

We love you so much.

As we continue to pray, I just want all heads bowed, all eyes closed.

And if you're in the room today and you're not in a relationship with Jesus, I want to give you the opportunity to step into one today, to take the greatest step that you will ever take and get yourself saved by believing in him.

So we're gonna say a prayer together and commit our lives to Jesus.

But if that's you and you're in this room and you need to commit your life to him for the first time, or maybe just the first time in a long time, would you just throw a hand in the air?

I just want to see who we're praying for.

Oh, that's beautiful.

Keep those hands up.

I see you, young man.

And Lay, that's beautiful.

Keep them up so we can see who we're praying for.

Wonderful.

Any more than these?

Any more than these?

That's beautiful.

All heads bowed.

That's good, beautiful, beautiful.

I would ask that you say this, everyone in the room say this prayer along with me, or you can use your own words.

Jesus, we commit our lives to you.

We love you so much.

We no longer want to do life alone.

We submit to you, Jesus.

We believe that you died on a cross for our sins and rose three days later to pay the wages of death for us.

We love you.

We turn our lives over to you.

We pray in your mighty name, and all God's people said, Amen, amen.

Come on, can you give a big hand for those that took that step of faith around the room?

I just want to tell you guys what one thing here before we get going.

Uh go go have some community.

Northrock is thinking very intentionally about giving you resources to disciple people.

So, this is a book called First Steps for the Neck for the New Christian.

By the way, if you've been a Christian for a long time, this title is very misleading.

You get into chapter two of this thing and you're going pretty deep.

But it's called First Steps for the New Christian.

This is the book that Northrock is going to start implementing to disciple each other in small groups.

This gives you a guide.

If you don't know what to do, you can follow it.

Pastor Matt has gone through this with the staff, and we are being called now to start discipleship groups.

So, specifically in young adults, I know that Zeke is going to be leading one this fall for the men.

Is that right?

And there will be a woman leader.

So if you are a man or a woman that wants to be discipled specifically, this is how you can go about it.

This is the path.

Now, guys, this is not the only way, but we want to have an easy way for you to go do this, an intentional way for you to go do this.

But I need you to hear me on this.

If you choose to decide this to if you decide to choose this group, it needs to be with the intention that you go through it, and then guess what?

You start your own group and lead one.

Don't go into this thing because I need to be discipled.

I need to be no, you need to be discipled so that you can disciple others.

So Zeke has invited you to come see him, man or woman, and he can hook you up with the discipleship group for this fall.

Guys, I love you so much.

Thank you for being here.

Would you guys stand back to your feet and let's go into a time of worship?