For Every[ONE] - Know God | Sunday Message

Welcome to the Do Life Different Podcast by 1128 Community.

Today you're listening to our most recent message.

We are a church community in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, led by co-pastors Mike and Colleen Francisco.

1128 is about helping people do life different by setting rhythms and values with Jesus at the center.

If you want to connect with us, text the word podcast to 414-441-1128.

We hope today's message helps you in your faith journey.

This morning we are jumping into a new series called For Everyone.

And the reason we're calling it For Everyone is because the good news, this good father, the hope that we have, it's not just for us.

It's for.

Oh come on.

It's for it's for everyone.

It's not just for us, it's for everyone.

And so over the next several weeks, we're going to walk through what this good news, this hope that we have in the good, good father.

We're going to walk through how to know the good father, how to live like Jesus, and how to love like Jesus.

And then when we get into October, where that's our five-year anniversary month, we're going to be celebrating and we're going to be talking a little bit about now.

Now, how do we make sure that we're actually living and doing the things that God has put in front of us to do?

Now, as we jump into today's message, I just want to acknowledge something about myself that if you don't know me yet, you will soon learn.

I gotta admit, like I I love flannels.

I know.

If you know me, if you've been around me long enough, you know that I've got like seven flannels, one for each day of the week.

Once we hit like 62 degrees, like it's flannel weather in my book, and we're almost there, you know, in the evenings.

It's that time of year where like the seasons kind of collide and they clash, and so you could put on a flannel and go outside and enjoy a fire.

You could you could maybe go to a Oktoberfest or something like that in a flannel, nobody's gonna look at you weird.

Like it's that time of year, and I love this time of year.

I love this change in season.

I'm ready to be all in, I'm ready to wear my flannels, I'm ready to be fully committed, I'm ready to do what I have to do to be 100% fall, which is the most perfect time of the year, in my opinion.

There's a new season upon us.

There's a new season upon us weather-wise.

Uh there's a new season upon us ministry-wise.

Uh, and for many of us, maybe there's new seasons beyond that as well, right?

Like maybe we're in a new grade in school.

Anybody new grade in school this year?

Okay, couple, couple, I would hope it'd be more kids, wouldn't say that, but a couple of us are in new grades.

Uh, some of us were in a new school altogether.

Anybody else?

New school?

Okay, that's a couple hands, new schools.

Uh, some of us, maybe the house is a little bit quieter this time of year because somebody that used to be uh in school is now gone away to school.

Anybody sad and uh still sad?

Yeah.

Maybe for you, uh you got new work hours, maybe you got a new job, maybe you got a new boss, maybe you are the boss, and you're like, man, I need a new boss.

It's a new season that we're stepping into.

For some of us, that new season, it might be new health realities, things that we're having to learn to deal with.

For others of us, it's new financial burdens or financial freedom, and it's a new season of figuring out how to navigate life in that way.

For some of us, there's new relationships, and there's relationships that have been lost.

For others of us, there's projects that we started years ago that are wrapping up, or there's new projects that we're saying, like, oh, this new project, I don't know that I want to step into it, or I'm really excited to step into this thing.

It's it's a new season for you.

No matter how you ended up here today at 1128, I am I am I'm positive.

I'm sure of, I'm not even hesitant to say that you're here because there's a shift taking place in your life, whether you realize it or not.

And and whether you came in knowing that there was a shift taking place or not, I think that there is a shift and you are here on purpose.

God has something for you here today.

I'll be honest, I used to think that new year, like July or July, January 1st, I thought, new year, new season, like let's reset, like let's let's clear out the old, let's do all the new, the good, the right things.

But I'm starting to realize that's not how seasons work.

Seasons aren't defined by dates or weather, uh, they're defined differently.

And so for a lot of us, for all of us, for most of us, today is the beginning of a new season, one way or another.

And you're here for it.

This morning you might be here hoping to reconnect with a church.

Maybe you haven't been inside of a church, and I realize this is a school building, and you're like, yeah, it feels like a school.

Like, but it's a community that calls itself a church, and you haven't been a part of a community of people that call themselves a church family in a long time.

And you're here just looking to reconnect.

Or maybe you've been wondering, feeling, thinking, like, what would it look like if I had a conversation with God, or if I if I knew who God was?

Like, how might my life be different?

And and so you're here maybe looking to reconnect or connect with God for the first time ever or in a long time.

It's a seizure season of shift and change.

It's a new season season, it's a fresh season, but I believe you are here on purpose.

You're here for a bigger reason than maybe you even realize.

You're here because you sensed in your heart you heard it audibly, or you wondered about what would my life look like if I was connected to God.

In fact, that's like such a big deal.

That's such a big thing to wonder about and to consider and to take a step of faith and be here this morning.

I think it's something that we should stop, pause, and pray about.

Can we do that?

Let's pray.

Lord God, we are here one way or another.

You've moved something in our lives, in our hearts, in our heads.

You've motivated us.

You've used our friends or our family to invite us.

You've used social media to put it in front of us, and so we've stepped out and we're here today.

God, we didn't come expecting much.

But we know then trust that you have much for us.

As we enter this new season, God, would we be open to what it is that you have for us?

Would we be open to that?

We pray that in your name.

Amen.

Hey, check this out.

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus is walking beside the Sea of Galilee.

He sees two brothers, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew.

They're casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen, and he said, Come, follow me, and I will send you out to fish for people.

Which sounds strange, but it it this is what happened.

And at once they left their nets and they followed him.

So Peter's fishing.

He and his brother Andrew, they're fishing, they're there, and Jesus walking along says, Hey, come and follow me.

They do what everybody else would do, and when they hear Jesus say, Come and follow me, and they they put down their nets and they go and they follow him.

Matthew chapter 9, as Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth, and he said, Follow me.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

And Matthew got up, followed him.

Matthew kind of doing his own thing.

He's not fishing, he's a tax collector, but he's doing his thing.

He's working hard, he's going for it, he's cheating people out of their dollars, maybe.

And Jesus says, Hey, follow me.

And Matthew does what you do.

He gets up and follows Jesus.

The next day in John chapter 1, verse 43, the next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee.

John 1:43

Finding Philip, he said to him, Hey, follow me.

Are you getting a theme here?

Follow me.

Jesus, he saw Philip.

He says, Follow me.

Philip does it a little different.

He goes and finds a friend, Nathanael.

Nathanael, then, he says, Philip found Nathanael and told him, We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law and about whom the prophets also wrote.

Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Nazareth, can anything good come from there?

Nathanael asked.

Come and see, said Philip.

When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said to him, Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.

How do you know me?

Nathanael asked.

And Jesus answered, I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.

Then Nathaniel declared, Rabbi, you are the Son of God.

You are the king of Israel.

So Philip says, Hey, come and see.

Come and see.

Come on, come and check this out.

Nathaniel, come with me.

Nathanael's skeptical.

He's like, what good could come from Nazareth?

Anything good?

Is there what, like, honestly, is anything good gonna come from there?

He encounters Jesus, he recognizes who Jesus must be.

Is this the one that Moses actually spoke about and wrote about?

And everything changes in his life.

And these are just the recorded stories of disciples that Jesus said, Come and follow me.

There's a whole bunch of other disciples that are following Jesus.

We can assume that they have similar stories one way or another, where Jesus said, Hey, come and follow me, and they got up and they followed him.

These are different kinds of people, different personalities, different perspectives, different backgrounds.

You have guys working hard, you have guys that are bringing friends, you have some that are fishermen, some that are tax collectors, you have people with struggles, you have some that have questions and skepticism.

But Jesus gave each and every one of them the same exact invitation.

Follow me.

Follow me.

Here's what Jesus didn't say, right?

Because a lot of times we read into scripture what we what we think might have actually happened or what we wanted to have actually happened.

Here's what Jesus didn't say.

He didn't say, hey, figure everything out.

Like make sure your life is in order and then come and follow me.

He didn't say, get your life cleaned up, stop lying, stop cheating, stop stealing, stop doing those things that you know you shouldn't be doing and follow me.

He didn't say, understand everything there is to understand about me and who I am and my father.

Understand it all and then after you have it all understood, then come back and follow me.

He didn't say any of those things.

What he said is, follow me.

Follow me.

I think following Jesus comes before understanding a lot of times.

Following Jesus comes before understanding a lot of times.

We don't have it all figured out, we don't have it all sorted out, we don't understand how it all works, but we hear the voice of Jesus say, follow me.

And we have a choice to make.

Do I say yes or no?

Following comes before understanding, but following also comes before we're sent.

Mark explains this in chapter three.

Jesus calls the disciples and appoints the twelve of them that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach, that they might be with him, that they might follow him, and then after being with him, that they would go out and preach.

And the order matters here, right?

This is important.

First, be with him, and then go for him.

Follow me, be with me, because after you're with me, then you will be equipped and ready to go and do for me.

A lot of times, though, we get this backwards.

Anybody ever gotten this backwards before?

You don't have to admit that.

But I feel like I get this backwards.

Let's maybe just start there.

I get this backwards a lot of times.

Because sometimes I have made Christianity, I've made following Jesus, uh more of a question about like, hey, what am I supposed to do?

I know that Jesus, like, I'm supposed to do something.

I'm not necessarily gonna like follow you, just tell me what to do.

Like, I want to just get my hands dirty, I want to do the thing.

Or I say, like, where am I supposed to serve?

How am I supposed to serve?

Who am I supposed to serve?

What ministry am I supposed to start or be involved with?

Uh, what does God want for me to accomplish?

See, I start thinking in terms of like do, do, do, do, do.

And Jesus is like, follow me, be with me.

My to-do list and all the things that I want answered doesn't necessarily line up with what Jesus is asking me.

Follow me.

Be with me.

And these questions that we have, what am I supposed to do?

How am I supposed to serve?

What ministry should I be involved with?

Where am I supposed to go?

What am I supposed to accomplish?

They're good questions, they're fair questions, they're normal questions.

But before Jesus gave the disciples something to do, he gave them someone to be with.

Be with me.

As Taylor Swift would say, it's me.

Hi.

Be with me, Jesus.

Be with me.

That's pretty awesome, right?

This invitation to be with Jesus, no expectation to do, just to be.

That feels awesome.

That feels incredible.

That feels freeing, except apparently not, because Philip eventually asked this question in John chapter 14.

John 14 · chapter mention

He says, Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.

Like being with you, Jesus, this is good and all, but like I really want to see the Father.

Like, that's enough.

That's really what I want.

And Jesus responds, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.

Philip wanted to jump ahead.

He wanted to know, hey, what's God like?

And Jesus essentially says back, hey, look at me.

Be with me.

Follow me.

Like, if you want to know what the Father is like, if you want to know who the Father is, look at Jesus.

If you want to know how God treats broken people, look at Jesus.

If you want to know what the heart of God looks like, look at Jesus.

If you want to know how God responds to outsiders, the outcast, the marginalized, the unloved, the broken, the mistreated, look at Jesus.

The more that we look at Jesus, the more clearly we see God.

The more we look at Jesus, the more clearly we see God, the more we understand who God is, we understand the heart of God, because Jesus is God incarnate, God with us, God in the flesh.

And the more we look at Jesus, the more clearly we see God.

And that's what discipleship really is, right?

It's not just learning about Jesus, but it's knowing God.

It's knowing who God is and how God loves us.

And here's the thing, though, about following Jesus.

Eventually, following Jesus, eventually, as we get to know Jesus and look at Jesus and be with Jesus and get to know God, there comes this point in time where we have to make a decision.

We can learn about following after Jesus.

We can admire Jesus without following after him.

You can admire Jesus and attend church all you want, but never actually follow Jesus.

You can believe that Jesus existed.

You can believe that there is a God.

You can do that without actually surrendering your life to Jesus and following him and saying, okay, I'm going to follow.

Jesus didn't say though, think about me.

Jesus said, follow me.

Be with me.

And the disciples had a decision to make.

The disciples had to get up.

They had to get up.

They had to choose to get up and follow after Jesus.

The disciples, they had to say, I'm going to leave my fishing career behind.

I'm going to follow this guy.

I'm going to get up and I'm all in.

I'm committed.

I'm like Mike when it comes to the fall and flannel season is there.

Like, I am all in on following Jesus.

With my questions, with my doubts, with my hurt, with my hang-ups.

The disciples had to get up.

They had to be all in and commit to following after Jesus.

You see, following after Jesus eventually becomes visible.

It eventually becomes something that everyone else can see.

It's something that changes inside us.

And ultimately, that change inside of starts to be seen by others around us.

Our neighbors, our networks, our coworkers, our friends, our classmates, our family even start to see like they're following Jesus because the thing that's changing inside of them is starting to show out.

Something's starting to happen.

And the disciples, they had to get up.

They had to commit.

And this morning, you have to get up too.

If you are following Jesus, you have to get up too.

Because following Jesus ultimately leads to something changing.

It ultimately leads to this visible outward expression of I am committed to loving Jesus, following Jesus.

He is the Lord.

Lord and leader of my life.

This doesn't happen because you earned God's love.

This doesn't happen because you accomplished the whole list of to-dos, you got everything figured out, it all makes sense in your mind.

It happened because you encountered Jesus and He said, Come, follow me.

And you said, Okay, I'm gonna get up.

And I'm gonna do it.

If you've experienced Jesus, if you've encountered the love of Jesus, if you've followed Jesus for just a day, or maybe it's been thousands of days here this morning, uh there comes a point in time where you have to say, like, I gotta get up too.

If nothing has changed, maybe today is your day to say, yes, I want to experience this change in my life.

This morning is your moment to get up.

It's your moment to declare, I'm following Jesus.

And I choose to know God, I choose to be with Jesus.

I want to be changed by Him.

And here's the thing: I realize that for some of us here this morning, we have ideals, we have pictures, it's it's all like grassy knolls and sunny, bright, sunny days, and it's 75, and in some cases there's probably no flannel, but there's picture perfect moments where it's like that's the moment.

And this morning might not look like the moment you had imagined in your mind.

It doesn't feel like the timing is right.

And here's the thing like the timing never is right.

It it's maybe like, hey, I'm not wearing the right clothes today.

I came to church looking like a slob, like I'm not, I'm not wearing the right thing, and don't worry, we've got alternate shirts.

If you want to take this next step that I'm putting in front of you, there's a big hint over here.

I get it.

Maybe you're saying, like, hey, I was baptized as an infant in the Catholic Church or the Lutheran Church or some other church that my parents took me to.

That's awesome.

This is different.

Let's confirm what your parents have already prayed for and dedicated you into.

Maybe you're saying, I'm too old, I'm too young, I don't know everything about following Jesus.

I get it.

And I don't say that lightly.

Like I honestly get it.

I was working on our message for our Baptism Sunday a few months ago.

If you don't know, if you didn't get a chance to join us for Baptism Sunday, uh we meet together as a family of churches.

There's five of us, and uh, there are 74 people that got baptized among the five churches at Hart Park and Wawatosa back in June.

Yeah.

And I was I was working on the message a couple weeks before, and uh, and I'm sitting there in the office in our basement putting it together and starting to think through like how the message will come together.

And uh I'm sitting there and and this feeling came over me.

This this unexpected thought kind of hit me.

Mike, you need to get baptized.

And I thought, I'm a pastor.

And then I thought, well, I've been baptized a couple times.

You see, my story is this I was baptized in the Catholic Church at an age that I don't remember.

My parents were devout Catholics, they'd grown up Catholic, and so for me, I was the next to be baptized.

And so I was baptized, and there's pictures of it as proof, and so therefore I know that it happened, and that was my baptism.

Now here's the deal: uh my parents left the Catholic Church and joined a non-denominational church, and then eventually an evangelical free church, and and so then we got into like middle school and high school, and baptism was a thing, but my parents said, like, hey, you're good, you've already been baptized, right?

Remember, we got the picture to prove it over here.

And so then I'm like, okay, cool, we're good.

So I go away to college, I go to a free Methodist school.

I don't know anything about free Methodists, but there were some musicians.

There was a band called Jars of Clay, if you remember them.

They had gone there, and I was like, I'm going to Greenville, I'm gonna go to that school because that's where they're from.

And I started taking these Bible classes and other classes, and one of the classes was how to perform service elements like communion, baptism, how to do weddings, how to do funerals, how to do all of these kind of like practices, these things that the church often has to be a part of or gets to be a part of.

And uh in the in the middle of that class, my professor, Professor Hartley, he said, Hey, next next Wednesday, we're all going over to the church down the street, and we're gonna practice baptizing people.

And uh he's like, we're gonna need some people to be baptized, though.

Anybody want to volunteer to get to get baptized?

I was like, oh yeah, sure.

I'll get dunked.

It's just for practice, right?

And so myself and several other classmates in college, we got baptized as a part of this class.

It was really super informal.

It just felt like we were practicing something.

And and I considered that my baptism for the next 15 plus almost 20 years now.

So in June, I'm working on the message, and this feeling comes over me, Mike, like whatever God's got next for you is maybe being held up because you're you haven't said yes to being baptized in the way that God's asking you to be.

So I did what every normal husband would do.

I called my friend Brian.

And I said, hey Brian, you got a big lake in your backyard.

You ever baptized anybody there?

He's like, oh yeah, all the time.

I was like, great.

Hey, could you baptize me?

And so on the Wednesday before our big baptism celebration with five churches, uh, with Colleen and our Lake Point friends and our Revive friends and our Kingdom Church friends all present, Brian dunked me at Lake Tishigan in his backyard.

And that's my baptism.

A pastor.

Somebody that's been following Jesus for a long, long time, and I just knew like in that moment, the only response that's right is yes.

The only response that's right here is yes.

If God is saying it, is speaking it, is putting it on my heart and saying, you need to take this step, the only response is yes.

And so when I say I get it, I understand where you're at this morning, it doesn't make sense.

You didn't wear the right things, you you didn't come ready to say, Yes, I'm going to be baptized, that's okay.

But maybe this is your day, maybe this is your moment to stand up, to get up, and to declare, I'm following after Jesus.

I shared that story earlier this summer with my summer small group.

And to my surprise, three people in the group were like, hey, we want to get baptized.

And so my friend Todd, my friend Rose, my friend Ian, you guys want to join me up here?

They all said, like, hey, when are we making this happen?

And here's what I love about it.

These three people, they represent different circumstances.

They represent different stories, different ages, different points in the journey.

They represent lifetime of following after Jesus.

They represent figuring out what it means to follow Jesus relatively not so long ago.

But they knew in that moment, on that Wednesday night, when the mosquitoes were biting us real bad on the front porch, like I'm supposed to say yes.

And so we made plans to have the trough here so that we could see them get baptized.

And we could celebrate with the three of them.

But maybe here today, you're thinking, God's put something on my heart, and I'm supposed to say yes as well.

I don't know, maybe there's a fourth person in line here that's not yet up here.

Maybe there's a fifth person, a sixth, or sixth.

I have no idea what is about to happen.

I know we're about to baptize these three, but this morning, if God is putting something on your heart, you don't have to know it all, you don't have to have it all figured out, it doesn't have to make sense, you don't have to be a certain age, you don't have to follow Jesus for a long time.

This is your moment where Jesus is saying, follow me, and you have to get up and declare and proclaim publicly that I'm choosing to follow Jesus with my life, and I'm trusting him to change me, to transform me, and to do something in my life.

If that's you here this morning, I'd invite you to hop in line as we baptize these three, and we'll just get you in the line there.

And you'll get dunked, and we got a new shirt for you, and towels, and all those things.

You can go home and change at that point, or you can go out to lunch and celebrate soaking wet, and everybody will be like, What's wrong with that person?

You can go, I got baptized today.

It's a story, it's a journey.

And your journey requires you at some point to stand up to say, Yes, I'm gonna follow after Jesus.

Thank you for listening to today's message.

We hope you had a meaningful moment with Jesus.

You can join us on Sundays at Oak Creek High School at 10 a.m.

for our in person gatherings.

Hope to see you soon.