Disciples Making Disciples - Made New (Week 1)

Well, today is a monumental day uh for Mid Cities Church.

Today, 15 miles away from here, uh, we have launched, it's already in process, we've launched our North Midland campus.

Can we take a minute and celebrate that today?

Uh it's amazing.

It's so fun.

Some of our pastors are over there along with Pastor Obed, and um they are meeting in Lone Star Trails Elementary, and so thank you.

You are a part of that.

Uh if you have been a part of our My Mid-Cities, uh our Mid-Cities uh church series over the last uh couple of years, you have been a part of that.

So thanks for generously giving to that.

Uh we're also, as you just saw in our intro video, we're kicking off a new series today across every mid-cities campus.

It's happening in every mid-cities, uh, every mid-cities ministry, and it's called Made New.

And uh, you know, that's what's actually happening even today over uh at the North Midland campus, is there are new people uh that are coming to that church.

And that's what I love about new churches and new campuses, is it reaches new people, and there are people who are being made new as a part of that.

And so over the next eight weeks, we are going to be in this series called Made New.

Uh, today, if you have your Bible, we'll be in Matthew chapter seven.

You can go ahead and open up there.

And in this series, this eight-week series, we're really going back to the foundations of our faith, the fundamentals of our faith.

And I know some of you may be saying, Yeah, but I've walked with Jesus for 40 years.

Uh, maybe there's others of you in here that are brand new to following Jesus, you're brand new to church.

And so I want to just tell you whether you've been walking with Jesus for many, many years, or whether you're new to the faith, uh, this series is going to help you.

You know, Mid Cities is a church that believes that we want to be a church who makes disciples who make disciples.

That's what we're about.

That's a part of our mission.

And so we go back to the fundamentals, we go back to the foundations.

It sort of reminds me, uh, you know, as the NFL season is kicking off today, uh, it reminds me of the great NFL coach.

The name of the Super Bowl trophy is actually named after him, Vince Lombardi.

Uh, and there was a particular year back in 1961 where his team, the Green Bay Packers, had lost to the New York Giants in the NFL Championship that year.

Uh, and so he made the decision seven months later in July, uh, as they were getting ready for the 1961 football season.

Uh, he decided to go back to the fundamentals, to go back to the foundations.

And so he walked in, and there's this famous moment where he walked into his locker room and he spoke to these gentlemen who had been playing football for 20, 25 years, some of them, and he looked them right in the eye and he said, This is a football.

And he went back to the foundations of the game.

And his team went on to win the Super Bowl that year.

He went on to never have another losing season.

And this is sort of the same truth that we find in our spiritual lives that there are times where we have to go back to the foundations.

And so that's what we're gonna be doing this fall.

We're gonna spend some time going back to the foundations of our faith.

How many of you know that the foundation is incredibly important in the home that you live in or the building that you work in?

You know that every other system in your house or in your office will not work correctly if the foundation is compromised.

And so I want to invite you to be a part of this series.

If you're gonna be out of town, hop online and you can join us.

Uh, join a group, it will help you grow.

Also, uh, in the back of the chair in front of you today, you will notice there is a book.

I'd love for you to reach out and grab this book where wherever you're sitting, it should be in the back of the chair.

Uh, it's called the One-to-One Book, and I want to invite you to take this with you.

This is a tool that you're gonna hear about all throughout this series, and it's both a tool uh for you to become a disciple, but it's also for you to be a disciple who makes disciples.

Uh, and so we'll hand these out on the way out today, also, but I want to encourage you to take this with you.

If you're watching online, uh, you can actually download the one-to-one app, and uh this is a great way for you to have that with you uh at all times.

Well, today we're gonna be in Matthew chapter seven, and so if you are able, would you stand with me in the honor of reading God's word?

Matthew chapter seven, starting in verse 21, says this not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven.

On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?

And then I will declare to them, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

And when Jesus finished saying these things, the crowd were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

I guess it was somewhere in the range of uh sixteen or seventeen years ago, uh, Allie and I uh had the privilege to go see my sister.

Um, my sister, right after we got married, actually moved overseas and uh has served as a missionary uh over in Italy, and now she's in France.

And uh so when we were young, we didn't have any kids yet, uh, we were like, we should go see her.

Now's the time to do it.

And so we went and saw her.

She was living in Florence, and uh that was kind of our hub for where uh we stayed, but we did a few day trips around.

We went to uh went up to Venice, and uh one particular day we were actually gonna go over to Cinquatera, but it was raining a lot, and so we thought, well, maybe we'll go somewhere else.

And uh she had a friend that was living in uh the little village of Pisa.

Some of you maybe have been to Pisa, and uh you know it's a small village up in northwest Italy.

And of course, when we were there, we went to see what Pisa is most well known for.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Anybody ever been to the Leaning Tower of Pisa?

Some of you guys have been there.

You've done the American thing, you know, you've like taken a picture like you're holding, holding up the leaning tower of Pisa.

Uh but it's a really interesting story about the leaning tower of Pisa and why in the world does it lean.

You see, uh it was uh it was built, the start of the construction was around uh the 12th century when they started building this uh this tower.

And originally the plan was it for it was for it to be around eight stories, uh, but as they began to lay the foundation, uh it was a problem.

This was ultimately what caused the leaning, part of the leaning tower of Pisa.

Uh, they made the foundation of this eight-story building only three meters deep.

That's just under ten feet.

Can you imagine uh the weight that this building, uh all the construction materials must have?

It was sort of a uh clay-like uh, you know, ground that they were building it on.

And so as they began to build the leaning tower of Pisa, I guess it wasn't called leaning at that time, it was just called the Tower of Pisa.

Uh they uh they noticed when they built the first story, there was, you know, no problem.

But as they began to add the second story onto this tower, they began to notice that um it was leaning one way.

And so what do you think they did?

They just stopped construction.

Like, all right, let's just leave it there.

And there were other reasons for this.

Uh there were wars going on and different things.

Uh, but uh several hundred or a few years later, they began to add on to it again.

And instead of actually fixing the issue of the foundation, they just thought, uh, let's just compensate for it and like make the next story a little bit higher on one side.

And so that's exactly what they did with the third story and the fourth story.

They just compensated and uh made those a little bit taller, and then they added, you know, it kind of got a little more leveled out.

And so the fifth and the sixth and the seventh story, uh, they just kind of made it normal, but then the eighth story again, it was still leaning, it was leaning up to four degrees at that point.

And uh, and then on the eighth story, they compensated again.

And so it actually is built with kind of a a curve.

You can see on the other slide, go ahead and put that up.

You can see at one point it was even leaning up to five degrees uh before they had some structural engineers come in and reinforce it.

And so now, if you go take your picture in front of it today, uh it is about four degrees off.

Uh, and you can see that this is sort of like some of our spiritual lives.

Uh, maybe there are some real foundational issues, and so we maybe have compensated in some other areas of our life, but I want to just tell you uh that if you look at that picture, you can see even the flagpole is compensated.

It's even leaning the other way.

And uh I think this is the reason that we're going back to the fundamentals and the foundations of our faith.

You see, some of us feel like the house that we read about today in the text of Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

We feel like the storms of life are coming against us, and we're not sure that if our foundation, we're not sure if our foundation is very solid, and it feels like at some point or another it might just give way.

We feel the worry and the anxiety.

And our text for today is found at the very end of some of Jesus' most famous teaching, the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 5 through 7.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

It's about 2,500 words, depending on which translation of the Bible you are using.

Uh, Jesus has taught about all kinds of things in the Sermon on the Mount.

He's taught about prayer and anxiety, loving your enemies, the golden rule, the Beatitudes, and several other topics.

And after, at the end of uh this lengthy section of teaching, we find that he ends this uh this passage, this Matthew chapter 7, the Sermon on the Mount, by talking about judgment day.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

And he sums it up sort of as he would often do by telling a story or what we would call a parable.

And Jesus uh tells us about a new way to live.

That's really what this is all about, is it a new way to live.

And so, as he has been teaching the Sermon on the Mount, what you will notice is that as we read the passage today, you will notice that not everyone is a disciple.

Did you notice that?

He said, There are some that will say to me, Lord, Lord, uh, but they won't enter the kingdom of God.

Shock, shocking, I know.

That means that some of us in here, uh, maybe we have some family that are not disciples.

That we might have maybe some friends in our friend circle that are not disciples.

We might have some people in our office that would not consider themselves disciples.

Now I want to just add a word onto that.

There are some in your family who are not disciples yet.

There's some in your friend group, or maybe some of you in here today that are not disciples yet.

There's some in your office that are not disciples yet.

And Jesus begins by telling us this parable, uh, and it's a sobering truth, and it's a truth that really might be hard to reckon with in West Texas that not all who claim to be a follower really are.

Not all who claim to be a Christian really are a disciple.

And I think this is the point where we need to just pause uh and define this word for a moment.

This is a word that you don't often hear outside of the church, uh, but in the church you hear about it a lot.

So, what in the world is a disciple?

Well, first of all, uh I it's a noun.

Here's your English lesson for today, right?

It's a noun.

But sometimes we use it as a verb.

We say, I'm gonna go disciple that person.

Well, I believe what a what scripture tells us is that a disciple is a devoted.

Everybody say devoted.

It's a devoted follower.

Somebody who believes in their heart, confesses with their mouth that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, that he is the only way to the Father, that he is the one who, through his death on the cross and through his resurrection and victory over the grave, uh, through our proclamation of that daily and attempt to progressively become more and more like Jesus, they are a disciple.

They are a follower of Jesus.

But as we read earlier, Jesus tells us that not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

But who is it?

It's the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Now, some of us may be thinking, this doesn't sound fair.

It doesn't sound fair.

I mean, I can say one thing, but what what if what if I don't do it?

You see, the kingdom of God is not a socialist government.

Uh it's not a republic, it's not a democracy, it's not an oligarchy, it's not a bureaucracy.

The kingdom of God is a theocracy.

And what he says goes.

He is king and he is Lord.

The Bible is very clear that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.

And Jesus tells us from the very beginning that not everyone who says they are a disciple is one.

And in a similar way, my West Texas friends, not every day will be a hundred-degree day from here on out.

Praise the Lord.

Come on, somebody, say amen today.

Fall's coming.

Next week, we're in the 80s.

But it's true.

And you may you may wonder, well, why would Jesus say this?

Is he is he just trying to scare people?

No, I think Jesus is just a truth teller.

And the truth is you are either a follower or you are not.

And there should be some markers in your life, there should be uh some some principles or some attributes that we're gonna cover in this series that should mark your life and show that you have the fruit of a disciple, and this is where a firm foundation is found.

But not everyone is a disciple, uh, and not everyone has a firm foundation, uh, and sometimes the issues that we have in our life are actually not what we think they are.

Some of y'all need to hear this today.

They're actually discipleship issues.

Let me give you a few examples.

Some of us may think that we have an issue in our marriage.

We may think, oh, it's just the same fight that keeps coming up, or you know, at the root of it, it's the same issue.

But I would say for some of us that are having marriage issues, it's actually not a marriage issue, it's actually a forgiveness issue.

You haven't freely received forgiveness in your own life, and therefore you cannot offer forgiveness to the person that you are married to.

This is a foundation issue in your faith.

It's manifesting as a marriage issue, but it's really a foundation issue.

Some of you may think that you have an alcohol problem or an addiction issue in your life, but I think what I have discovered in my years of ministry uh that it actually usually is a foundation issue in the person.

See, on the surface it seems like an addiction problem, but uh under the surface, it's actually a repentance issue.

Repentance means that you turn and go in a different direction.

You do not run back to that addiction again.

And so I think this is why we're coming back to this series because sometimes we need to have that this is a football moment.

Like we need to go back to the foundations and the fundamentals of our faith.

Some of us in here may feel like we have money issues.

Anybody in here feel like that?

Sometimes I feel like I got money issues.

But what we often discover, and sometimes I discover this in my own life, is it's actually a lordship issue.

Like Jesus isn't really Lord over all of our finances, over all of our assets and our investments and our retirement accounts, over our wallet.

And what we actually discover in the scriptures is that it's not a fine foundation, it's not a finance issue at all, it's actually a lordship problem.

And these issues or these problems are actually just symptoms of a foundation issue.

Your foundation is built on the sand and it's affecting every other area of your life.

And some of us, the truth of the matter is the scripture tells us that we're not actually disciples.

So why would somebody want to be a disciple then?

I think it's a good question.

Well, I think what we see all throughout the Bible and through the scriptures is that the way of Jesus is the path to true life and to flourishing.

I believe this.

I believe that there are lots of other ways that you can live, but the real way to life, and the real way to flourishing is doing it Jesus' way.

And this is what we see in Psalm chapter 1.

Psalms 1 · chapter mention

We see that that is uh that is the kind of person who uh is like a tree planted by the stream.

When the difficult seasons of life come, when the drought comes, we're in a drought, it seems like here at West Texas, right?

But that kind of person is the wise person.

That's the kind of person who can withstand the difficult seasons of life.

And as we flip back just a few verses in Matthew chapter 7, we see that Jesus is using this imagery again.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

He actually uses three different types of images.

He says, uh, he says the first one is two gates.

One leads to life and one leads to ruin.

The second image he uses is two trees.

He said, There's one that is a good tree and there's one that's a bad tree.

How do you know the good tree?

It's got some fruit.

And then finally, he uses uh the imagery or the simile that we read about today.

There are two types of houses, one built on the rock and one built on the sand.

Verse 24.

Everyone who hears, everybody say, hears.

Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them.

That's the hard part, isn't it?

Will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it was founded on the rock.

A disciple hears the words of Jesus and does that.

Jesus calls that kind of person wise.

I was uh praying for this moment this week, and uh there were some people um who are walking through some things at Mid-Cities Church right now, I believe specifically at the Mid-Cities 191 campus, uh, who I felt like the Lord wanted me to just speak some things over you today.

Uh I think there are at least one person in here today uh who is walking through an incredibly difficult situation with your sister.

There's some hell things going on with your sister, but I want to encourage you that you have a firm foundation.

And this is not gonna pull you under, and this is not gonna tear you down, this is not gonna tear down the house that you've built, if you will, because you have the firm foundation of Christ Jesus in your life.

If that's you today, be encouraged.

The second person uh that I believe is here today and needs just an encouragement is there is at least one or two of you in here today who have Had some uh some words spoken about you, and it actually uh is dealing with like a legal situation, like it's kind of like they are speaking some slander over you.

Uh, and I I want to encourage you by the Spirit today that you are gonna make it through because you have the foundation of Jesus Christ in your life.

And so you do not, I think back to last week's message, uh, Pastor Chris taught about vengeance.

You do not have to be the one who seeks vengeance.

Jesus is the one who is your righteous judge.

If that is you today, be encouraged.

There's a final person in here today, maybe you're watching on online, I don't know.

Uh, somebody who has a child who is dealing with extreme behavioral issues, it's weighing heavily on you, you feel like you don't know how to navigate it.

Uh, the Lord, I want to encourage you today, the Lord is with you.

He is giving you wisdom to walk through this.

He is your foundation, and your foundation will not give way.

Because your house is built upon the rock.

There's others of us in here today, maybe you go, I don't know, I feel like the other house.

I feel like my foundation could crumble at any moment.

And Jesus tells us, number three, a house without proper foundations will crumble.

It's just a matter of time.

It's just a matter of time.

Verse 26 and everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rain fell, and the flood came, and the wind blew, and beat against the house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

Once again, Jesus uses assembly here.

Another uh illustration here.

You see, people who are not disciples hear and do not do the words of Jesus.

Anybody ever met someone who hears but doesn't do?

So I've been selling some things on Facebook lately.

Anybody ever sold anything on marketplace?

It's like the worst place on earth.

There's so many people on there who say they're gonna do something and then don't.

I mean, it's the only place where you can like sell a lamp and make five bucks or die.

You know, you don't know.

Literally, I had a guy yesterday who was like, hey, I'm gonna come pick this thing up, and so I built my day around it, my afternoon around it, and then he was like, Hey, you gonna come get this thing?

He said he was gonna do something, and then he didn't.

How many of us can we know somebody like that who professes to be one way?

It's like they hear the words and then they just go, nah, I'm good.

I'm gonna do it my own way.

Jesus would call that kind of person a foolish person.

And these two people, the wise person and the foolish person, they deal with storms in a different way.

The one with the foundation built on the rock has peace, knowing that the foundation will hold.

The one with the foundation built upon the sand likely has a ton of anxiety and fear, knowing that at any point the foundation could give way.

Why wouldn't we build our house upon the rock?

Maybe some of you in here uh sort of feel like uh the Tower of Pisa, like uh you don't have a firm foundation, and so you've been compensating in several other ways.

And people compensate in all sorts of different ways.

Maybe uh you've upped your alcohol consumption lately.

Maybe uh maybe instead of having real human interaction uh when you needed advice for something, uh you ran to Chat GPT, you ran to Claude, you say, What do I do with this person?

How do I respond to this text?

Let me just encourage you and warn you be careful with that.

It can be helpful, it can be useful at times.

I have friends that say it's the Antichrist.

I'm just saying it's not a human.

It's not a way to compensate.

Did you know that the number one use of AI right now is therapy and companionship?

So I'm not saying that to like throw stones, but if it's become your best friend, stop it.

Go talk to a human.

We got lots of people that will be up here at the end of service, and they would love to pray with you, to minister to you, get connected to a group, a real human group, a real counselor, human.

Build your house upon the rock.

And when the storms of life come, your house will not fall.

Now, maybe some of you in here would say, I remember a time in my life where I had some solid foundations.

I remember uh, you know, 15 years ago I was connected to a group.

Uh, I remember I was reading my Bible often.

I remember, you know, 25 years ago, man, I was all in for Jesus.

I was a devoted follower, but because of any number of things that have happened over the last number of years, I just have found like I found myself feeling like my foundation has begun to crack.

My foundation has had some uh some giving way, if you will.

And Pastor Daniel shared with us this video a few weeks ago uh from uh a newscast over in India.

And what had happened was they had built a house, but then they began to dig a canal right next to the house.

And you can see what happened.

You guys turn your attention towards the video screen.

Now, news from Bengal, a four-story apartment building collapsed like a house of cards this morning at Daspur in Bengal's West Midnapur district.

The collapse triggered, say local, by a canal being dug just next to the building.

Cracks had started developing a couple of house crashes, pictures go viral.

Well, no duh.

But I can't help but wonder if this isn't sort of a picture for some of our lives.

Uh and for any number of reasons, our foundations have begun to crack.

And we've gotten away from the fundamentals of our faith.

That Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, that he is where life really is found, that he really is Lord of our life, that community and uh church is the place where we're gonna find real life.

And if that's you, maybe uh over the last several years you found yourself drifting away.

And uh so I want to just encourage you uh to be a part of this series, to commit to being uh a part of Mid-Cities over the next eight weeks.

If you're out of town, that's cool, we get it.

I do that too.

Uh, but hop online, be involved in a group, and let's grow together uh as disciples, because we are called to be a church of disciples who make disciples, which just reminds me, and we're coming to the end of our time today, but this is what I believe is true, is that a life with proper foundations will teach others how to have proper foundations.

That is Jesus, as he was uh coming to the very end of his time on the earth, the last thing that he told you and I and the disciples who were standing with him that day is that we are to go into all the world and to make disciples.

And so that's what this church is all about.

If you're new to Mid-Cities, we are a church of disciples who make disciples.

And so to finish our time today, I want to ask you to just stand with me.

We're gonna just read this passage uh from Matthew 28, 18.

I want you to read it with me, uh, and then I'm gonna take a minute and pray over us as we prepare to dive into this series over the next eight weeks.

Matthew 28, 18, read it with me.

It says, and Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

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

So, Jesus, I thank you for each of those that are here today.

God, those who are watching online, thank you that you have come to be the firm foundation, Lord, that uh without you, Lord, we build our house upon the sand.

But thank you for what you've done for us, how your blood covers us, it covers our sin.

You offer us uh forgiveness, you offer us life to the full.

And so, Lord, would you help us build a firm foundation in our life over the next several weeks?

God, we invite you into our life to speak to us.

God, we pray that we would be disciples and that we would go into the world and make disciples of all nations.

God, we invite you to do this.

In the name of Jesus, we pray.

Amen.