Basics | Week 6 | Sermon

The big idea

Your story is a mission, not a memory — Jesus wants you to go and use your story of what He's done to point others to Him, starting now, not someday.

Jesus meets us where we are and changes everything, but He doesn't call us to just remember that moment — He sends us out with it. Like the healed man in Mark 5 who Jesus refused to let stay close but sent home to tell his story, our testimony is meant to keep growing and to be used right now, not filed away as an old memory.

Point 1 of 7

Pastor Bill frames the whole 'basics' series using his punting trip in Cambridge as an extended illustration: planting your feet is knowing Jesus personally through public worship and private practice, steering is growing in biblical community, and pushing off and leaning in is going and living intentionally. He says it's uncomfortable and hard at first but gets easier and more fun the more you lean in.

Point 2 of 7

He walks through the story of Jesus calming the storm, casting the legion of demons into the pigs, and the herdsmen and townspeople begging Jesus to leave because their industry was destroyed. Pastor Bill points out they never even acknowledged the healed man — they were more upset about the financial cost than glad for what God had done.

Point 3 of 7

Pastor Bill applies the story directly to the church culture: we want people to meet Jesus but don't want it to cost us anything or disrupt our comfort. He confesses he does the same thing, framing this as one of the biggest problems keeping disciples from going.

Point 4 of 7

The man begged to go with Jesus in the boat, but Jesus said no and told him to go home and tell his family what the Lord had done. Pastor Bill notes the man had known Jesus for maybe an hour and still went and started a movement across ten towns, proving we don't need to wait until we feel ready or know enough.

Point 5 of 7

Using the image of a washed-up fitness influencer showing decades-old photos, Pastor Bill argues that many Christians' stories have gone stale because they stopped adding new chapters of God working through them. He ties this to Pastor Nolan's point from the prior week that stagnant faith shows up as old, unchanging stories.

Point 6 of 7

He recounts growing up in a nominally religious home, his father's heart attack shaking him at 14, his own failed attempt to earn God's favor by reading the Bible and being good, and finally his best friend inviting him to a youth group Halloween event where an intern explained the gospel using John 3:16 and Romans 3:23 and 10:9. That simple invitation and explanation led him to confess and profess faith in Christ.

Point 7 of 7

Pastor Bill explains that sin means missing the mark of God's holiness, and that God's righteousness demands justice while His love offers mercy — something only God could hold together, which He did through Jesus taking the punishment on the cross. Confessing and professing faith in that is how a person's story with God begins.

Take it into your week

Pastor Bill's charge is to stop treating your story as a finished memory and start using it as your mission, starting with the people closest to you.