Go Tell It | Week 2 | Sermon

We're gonna see that that many of us, we're struggling with what God's called us to as being a disciple, a follower of Jesus. Oh, we come to church. We believe Jesus died on the cross. We're glad. We love the Christer story, Christmas Easter. But there's some things that he's called us to. And and and I think we struggle

to actually go all in because there's this obstacle in the driveway that keeps the vehicle of our new life

from getting out on the road and going where it needs to go. And we're gonna see today by what Jesus calls us to do. There's a challenge in this. It's a challenge to be a disciple. And what we're gonna see, the big idea this morning is simply this, pointing people to Jesus is the point.

Pointing people to that that's our calling in life. People are like, what's the point of my life? What I'm supposed to if you believe in Jesus, it's pointing people to Jesus. That's your mission.

Matter of fact, it is so critical. It's the final thing that Jesus told. I he's been with disciples. He's about to leave. He's gonna send the holy spirit. Think of all the things he could have talked about. You know, all the stuff he could have said. And this is what he says in Matthew 28 verses 18 through 20.

He says, Jesus came and told his disciples, I've been given all authority in heaven on earth. That means, I'm God, and you're not, and I died for you. To give you the life you were built for. A blessing,

not a curse. What he's about to ask us is we gotta ask. He's like, he's not mean. He's not trying to take something from us. He's like the ultimate dad. He's like, I laid down my life to give you a life that you give you the only life you could have. Trust me.

And so he says this. After he says that, he goes, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. So go point people to Jesus. Baptism is an act we do to honor the fact that, hey, I believe in Jesus now. He died, buried, resurrected. My old self, buried, resurrected.

That's what a disciple he's explaining to disciple. He says, they know me. And then he says, and teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I've given you. And be sure of this, I am with you always even to the end. He says, I love you. I'm there for you. I'm with you. But you gotta go.

And you gotta go make disciples. You gotta point people to Jesus. They come into a saving relationship and and know that Jesus is Lord. But it doesn't stop there. And then you gotta teach them to actually live out that life of what a disciple is. And he says, what I taught you already.

In other words, this call to go make disciples is really a call to be one. It's a call to be one as well. And he explains. Jesus is saying, this is what a disciple is. A disciple of Christ, if you really know the love of Jesus, you're not fully engaged. You're not involved

in what he died to give you if you are not sending your life around pointing others to Jesus. That's the mission. Or as my dad used to say when he led men in combat, that's the job. And it's a blessing, not a burden.

The problem is we have these obstacles that make it seem like a burden. How am I ever gonna get around it? And even when you do, it's like, and

then then so God's gonna ask you to turn like this, do like that, do this. And he's gonna ask you to do stuff that it makes no sense. And then you look at the concrete of your life, and you're like, this looks chaotic. And and and and but that's the point.

Because on the other side is the freedom and the victory and being known that God used us to be a part of what he's doing in the world and and figure it out. So so in order to go make disciples, we gotta be one. And I think that's part of the problem.

See, they did a a research of churches in America Christian churches in America, and they asked people like, hey, do you think going and making disciples is the point? Like, is it the critical thing to do? And 81% of the all of the people they asked said yes. But out of it, 81% of them that said, yes, it's critical,

don't do it. They don't center their life, your time, your talent, your treasure, your testimony to go make disciples. And there's why. And I think there's a couple reasons. One, it's what we think of that other car. What's the CRV in our life? But, also, I think we don't even try because we can't go make what we aren't,

and we have to be fully engaged.

So to understand how to go make disciples, to understand what the point is, that the pointing people to Jesus is the point. And I have so many Christians look at me. Yeah. It's a critical point. But we we don't realize that this is Jesus' last words. He says, this is the point of why you're still here.

I mean, this passage is called the great commission because he commissioned us. He sent us. Goes, He this is what I died for to give you the ability to live this life. And this is where you're gonna find the joy, the peace, the contentment, the fulfillment. This is where you'll find personal fulfillment.

But we run after everything else, and we think this isn't personal fulfillment. This is just sacrifice, and we miss out. And so instead of knowing it's the great commission, we live as if it's just a good suggestion. It's optional. It's not.

Matter of fact, what Jesus describes here is this is what a disciple does. And if you ain't doing it, you're probably not being a disciple. You're well, you're not being a disciple. You might still low the love of Christ, but you're you're missing out on the great awesome thing he died to let us be a part of.

And so what is a disciple? What is it what what do we mean by this? When he says teach them to obey these things. There's tons of scriptures all over that that'll point out. But around here, we've gone through scripture. We've taken the great commandment, the great commission, a lot of passages. There's all these one and others. And I think you can boil down what Jesus the things he's called us to do. Now there's individual actions. You gotta deal with the sin in your life. You gotta do that. But what is the call of his side? What does it mean to teach him to obey these commands? Because Jesus said, if you love me, you'll do what I say. And there's certain things he's called us to do, environments to be in, actions to take that God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, uses this to make us more like Jesus.

And we're on here. We've boiled that down into three words, three things that we really need, that this is what a disciple is. And I just wanna walk through that for a few minutes and talk about why why don't we do this? If it's true and it's called and I understand it, why?

And how can we unpackage that? And really go into the new year instead of coming up with some new year's resolutions, how about today we make some new life's resolutions? If I have this new life in Christ, I need to resolve

to then trust what Jesus says that new life entails and trust that I will find what I'm looking for down that road, not the not trying to stay blocked in by the CRV or maybe even driving the CRV because that'll never get you where you need to go.

See, I got my daughter back. I said, your car is evil in my story. So there we go. So what's this first one? Well, if you look at Philippians three ten,

Paul writes this, and he's talking about kind of the base heart of what it really means, the foundation of what it means to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus that's accepted his love in your life. It says this, I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.

I wanna suffer with him, sharing in his death. So he says, I know there's sacrifice. I know because Jesus says, if you follow me,

take up your cross and follow me. He goes, there's gonna be sacrifice, but he wants to know it. Why? Because he because when you take up your cross, that's when you experience the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. You want power in your life? You want his spirit's real fulfillment,

personal fulfillment the way God intended it? You need the power of God in it. And how does that happen? By knowing Christ to the point of taking up your cross and experiencing it. Because when you do the scary, the weird thing he tells you to do that makes no sense, and then all of sudden it works, and on the other side you experience the joy, guess what happens? You're closer to God,

and and and you have more less fear, more joy. That's kind of the thing. And and in here, we know that the word for know.

That word for know is a Greek word that means it's ginosko. It's not know about. It's not know information. It's not getting a bible study. It's not just learning a list of things. Of course, it involves information. But what it really means is it says an intimate relationship bared out by experience and trust. To know.

And that's our first word we say on it. So we get it. We need to know Jesus personally. The first step and really the foundation step of everything else we do helps us to know Jesus better. Trust him. In other words, we don't just know him. We have this trust and this experience relationship

that gets us to the point that we are being like him, which is what we're called to be. A disciple means when you had disciples back then, you followed the master really close. You did what he did. You do and eventually, your goal was to be him, to be like the master.

And so we need to know Jesus. Well, of course, here we go. Knowing Jesus personally involves a profession of faith. You gotta meet him. You gotta meet him. You gotta put your faith that he died on the cross because it starts there. It's not I go do stuff to get him to love me. I don't act like him so he'll like me. That's called, you know, when you're in high school. You go, hey, that group. I want him to accept me. So you start acting like him and dressing like him. And then then you become an adult, and you do the exact same thing.

And it's like, no. That's not what it means. It means he loved me first. And because he loved me and died for me, I can trust that what he has for me is the better plan. But how do I get to know him at that level?

Well, it's it's after the profession of faith. You get baptized, as it says. But, really, there's two primary ways that the Bible talks about that is the church, the body of Christ. There there's ways we we get get closer to Christ. The primary ways. And it's it's private practice and public worship.

The private practices are like, if you've been a Christian, you're like having a quiet time, a devotional.

It's basically the best thing to do in a quiet time, most fundamentally sound. We can talk about other things. There's solitude. There's other kind of spiritual disciplines and stuff that are great. But the most basic fundamental,

if you're playing a sport, the most basic of, like, Vince Lombardi when he would start a new season, take these professional athletes, all these pro football players, even hall of famers, and he would hold up a football and say, gentlemen, this is a football. Well, gentlemen,

this is the basic way to know Christ personally. Private practice is you read the bible. Let the bible read you. That's called meditation.

Let it speak to you. If you only read the bible and think, oh, this is great. My kids need this. My wife needs this. My husband needs this. You know, my therapist needs this. I don't I don't know. Whatever you're saying. You think about it for someone else, you haven't meditated yet. Or

I'm glad I know that. That's really cool information. I can't wait to share that at my bible study. It needs to go through you.

You go through it, it goes through you. That's what meditate I do not get up here and preach a message that I have not let preach to me first. My study time is I start studying. Look at the passage. I study the great commission. I spend the whole first day, the whole first part of my day studying going,

where is this throat punching me? And that is why all of you, when I share illustrations, go, were you following me around? How did you know that? You know why? Because I'm just like you.

So if I know that throat punch and, you know, there's a good chance this is the same thing that's gonna hit everybody else in the throat. And and so you gotta let it go. And then now you know what to pray about.

You have a lot to pray about when you let God start speaking to you about your life and trusting him and trusting the spirit. If you don't do that, you don't take the time to to to let it go through you, your prayers are gonna be, Lord, uncle Fudd's toe has been affected for two weeks. Now we can ask God about anything,

but sometimes we never get past the the the how's the weather and what's your favorite sports team versions of prayers. We gotta know him. And then there's public worship.

And a lot of people try to take one or the other, and they say, like, well, I can you get the private time. You know what? I don't really need to come to church. I don't need to be in. We don't commit to being in here consistently.

But God talks about do not forsake this time. We need to be in here. Sometimes it's underestimated because, yeah, we gotta do more than just be in here, but some people think we don't even need to be gathered this way. But we're called because God does something powerful.

When the body of Christ gathers and worships him and we're all on the same page, we we

hear the word of God preach, and and when we can hear the vision, we get pulled together. The Bible talks about how we're the body, and it's organized, and and there's leadership, and then there's this, and but we're Americans, and we're rugged individualists. We think our faith is, I go to the church when I like it, but if I have other stuff, I could just get out of my nature walk and listen to the word of God and let them speak to me. That's all I need. No, that's one thing you need, but it's not all you need.

We we need to come here as the body of Christ. Well, I'm not into being that organized religion and all that. I go, organized? Yeah. Your church, like a church like this. It's like, you're so professional. The music's like it's so pro I feel like it's a show. It's like you're you're you're too good. As if the answer is we're gonna worship together the living God that died for us. And you know what's the best way to do it? Poorly to mediocre at best.

That shows God how much we love him.

Why would we do that? You know why we get mad at this stuff? It's because you go, it's so corporate. It's corporate. I don't need the corporate charge. Get you know what the word corporate, where it comes from? The Latin word corpus. Corpus means body. Guess where the corporate world got the word corporate? From the bible. The bible. The church is the first corporation that was ever mentioned.

We are corporate because we're the corpus. They stole that from us. We're not stealing it from them. We are supposed to be organized. We are a body that's supposed to be very organized and have structure and body parts need to do their job. I mean, you know what you call disorganized bodies? Old or dead.

And old is mean you're close to dead. I know that because I'm getting old. And I realized my body is not as organized as well as it was before. Weights shifted to the wrong places, and my chest is now in my drawers,

and and and hair. Don't get me like, it goes away from the places you want it and starts growing in the places you don't want it. That is not organized for success. It can't do and body parts don't work like they used to?

That's a lie from the pit of hell that this is just a none this is a meeting that's great, but it's not important to be a part of. And some of us, we struggle the other way. You're always here, but you gotta be alone too. There's three kind of groupings we need to be in. Solo, corporate, and smaller group.

We need all three of those. We need all three of those. So we need to know Christ. And and and that leads to Galatians six one through five. It says, dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path.

And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other's burdens, and this way obey the law of Christ. So this is talking about community. This idea that we can't we can't do what this is saying in rows. We do need to be in circles. We need to be in a circle

because this implies that you are close enough to some other believers that you really get known. You really can know what's going on. You can really help. You're in each other's lives. You share each other's burdens. You're a part of it. It's obeying the law of Christ. And a matter of fact, this is so important. Look what it goes on to say. If you think you're too important to help someone, you're only fooling yourself. You're not that important. Wow.

You guys think I holler about stuff. That's harsh. What it's saying is if you think your life is too busy, like, I know I know the Lord, but I can't be in community. I get this going in. I get that going on. Means you're being narcissistic, self centered, shortsighted,

and you think that what you got going on is more important than what God died for us to be able to do. It's that simple. Matter of fact, it goes on to say that if you you're not you're not that important because pay careful attention to your own work,

For then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won't need to compare yourself to anyone else. For we're each responsible for our own conduct. So it seems weird. It starts off by saying bear one another's burdens. It ends with do your own work. Does that is it speaking out of both sides? That Paul, like

Once again, this is a cool thing about how the Bible is written in Greek. The burdens, the first Greek word, it means an obstacle. It means like a it's really describing a boulder like has fallen on you. It's describing something from the outside that hit you and incapacitated

you that you have no control over. It's something that happened to you, and we need to be in a community where people can help lift that burden off. So what he's saying, you can get back up and grab your own work, which the idea of what it says work, it's describing in the Greek, a soldier's pack.

So you can then pick up your pack and carry your weight and do what God's called you to do. And so the struggle is when we think we're more important is we will not be in community. And then when we have a burden, and not just a burden, half the time, we want someone else to carry our backpack.

In other words, the thing that happened to you, a burden that you have to develop, you actually hey. Let me help you learn how to put your backpack on instead of carrying that burden is something you caused yourself. I'm an alcoholic. I lost my job. I need you guys to pay for my house rent.

Well, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna help show you. We're gonna walk you to recovery. We're gonna help you save your life and do all that, and I'll help you find another job. But no. That's not the burden we're supposed to carry. Well, why not? And then you're mad. And then usually when you have that kind of burden you want everyone to carry, you're not carrying your backpack. You're not doing it. And then you wonder, that church didn't care about me. I came with all this stuff. You know why? Because most of the people that are involved around here are carrying five people's backpacks.

It's the eighty twenty rule. 80% of people that say this is a church don't actually get involved.

20% are running around doing everybody else's backpacks. We don't have times for burdens. We're too overburdened with everyone's backpack. It's like when you leave with all your kids, they forgot their bag. They forgot their lunch, and you're, like, walking to the car with everything.

And so it's saying is we have a responsibility to be in community, and that's a two way street. We we need to be there for others, and we actually need others. And that's the second thing. Know Jesus personally, but grow in biblical community. Grow in biblical community. It means

not just friends. A lot of people view biblical community as this thing that's like like, well, I just need some friends. I want someone that'll like me and support me and help me move. And, you know, if I really get to know him, we'll go on a vacation, then we'll we'll never be friends again after we did that, you know, and then I'll go find someone else.

You know? No. It's it's it's these purposeful purposeful relationships. You can find this in in in this passage that we just read. Galatians four, all four of these elements are there. It's you need to be known, and you need to know someone.

And that means at a level that you know something you can know that, hey, something's off. Which means if I'm gonna be known, need to share. I need to really open up. But we also need to be accepting and be accepted.

Meaning, if I share where I'm at in the deepest of it, and I struggle, it's like, okay. I'm not gonna run screaming from you. I'm not gonna say you know, you might act nice in the moment, but not accept. He's like, yeah. I'm just mental note. Don't let our kids hang out with their kids. You know?

But I'm gonna accept you. But not just stop there. That's what the world does. You do you. You're great just the way you are. You know? And it's like, you know, I'm just the power you know, this is all of this. You're you're young. I am enough.

No. That's not biblical. You're not enough. Jesus is enough. We need Jesus, and we need other people.

And and and and we need not be known, and we need to be accepted, and we need to do the same for others. And then we need to be supported. That's kinda helping with the burden. The burden that happened on the outside, support.

The developed is is the idea of we're not gonna leave you there. And and developed is, I'm gonna help you to know, grow, and go. I'm gonna help you to really be a disciple. That's the goal. When I sign up and get in the community, I am asking other people. I'll be this for you, and I'm asking you this for me,

is we are iron sharpening iron. And that means there's some friction. You gotta challenge each other in community. So when you're in a small group, is that what you guys are doing?

Because if you're not, that's why you probably feel like, oh, I gotta go to small group again because they said I should. I apparently I mean, I like hanging out. It's kinda fun to have friends, but but it's really more of a burden to you because you're not really getting to where it should be.

If you're in a small group by now and you're the leader, you guys should discuss those four things the next time you meet and just talk about it because this is what we need. We need purposeful relationships. And guess what? When we do this, guess what it does to our how well we know Christ?

All of sudden, now we know Christ better because we're being Christ in each other's life, and someone's being it's the growing in community helps you to know Jesus more.

And then that leads to what the great commission was, what he ultimately the end game is is is to go and and and be a a a a a an outside an influence like this. Matthew five fourteen says this, you're the light of the world like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is located on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see so that everyone will praise your heavenly father.

If if if if you look at that, it's it's saying we need to be the good deeds is what lights up. It means we need to go and do the things God asked us to do. And he's asked us to to basically live intentionally, to understand that if pointing people to Jesus is the point, I need to rearrange some things in my life.

I need to rearrange some things in my life. I need to make some little turns, and it's gonna look squiggly, and it's gonna look irritating, but I'm gonna have to make these choices

because that's what will help me get closer to Jesus and actually go do what he's asked me to do as a disciple. So what does it mean to go live intentionally then? What does it mean to shine on the hill? And that's the third thing. No, grow, and go.

Go. There we go. Oh, that's perfect. Bam. And under go live intentionally, it's about personal investment.

See, if we just stop and I wanna have my own time, come to church, have some of these relationships, and then usually what happens why we don't really get there is we come to church erratically. We don't really get into the word. We join a small group or something because I keep hollering about it or you just want friends, but you never get to that level of community.

So then you never really truly go live intentionally because you don't see the need for it. You you you never get there.

Because that's where personal investment says, hey. I'm going to carry my cross. I am going to sacrifice. Like Paul said, I wanna know Jesus to the level that I experience his power because guess what? I picked up my cross. As Jesus said, if you're gonna follow me, pick up your cross and follow me

to become like me. And what that means is the Bible's really clear. I preached this a few weeks ago, so I don't know if you were here. But this idea of we have some things that God gave us as resources in our life. He gave us our time, our talent, spiritual gifts. If you know the Lord, you have at least one supernatural

powered gift by the Holy Spirit to serve in the church and to help reach people for Jesus.

I guarantee there's a lot of you in this room that have been Christians maybe your whole life, and you still don't know what your spiritual gifts are because you haven't gone and tried. It's we have that. We have treasure. We've been given money. God's really clear about what we're supposed to do with our money.

And and you know what's funny is when we do this, it actually gives us personal fulfillment fulfillment. When I give I've already shared the stats before. A few weeks ago, it's like they have this weird number that when people are more generous, and this wasn't even a Christian study, they said generosity

fights that desire to get into debt. It makes you live in a budget. It causes you to live it's like God knew that asking us to give is actually helping us in the end. And then he uses what we give to do a lot better stuff than what we're gonna do with that money. And and and and they you know what's funny is? They notice that when you get 10% or more, there's a drastic increase in fulfillment and lack of stress.

Weird. It's almost as if what God asked us to do is he knew what he made us to be like. And when we trust him, we get the result we're looking for instead of getting stuck behind the obstacle.

And then our testimony. We all have our own story. You see, these are all things that the Bible says you are a manager, a steward of. You are not an owner of these things. And if you believe in Jesus and you believe this is the word of God, that's the truth. Prove me wrong, as the memes like to say.

And this is where we get hung up. It's the 8020.

I mean, we're talking about the hope offering. We're talking about building a building. Well, I'm asking you guys to give. We're rallying people because people go, I'll give to a building. I'll give that. And the reason we have to do this so much is if everyone in this room, if everyone in our church that is a Christian said, I'm gonna give 10% minimum,

like the Bible talks about, we would have our budget eight times over. That building would have been built for cash already a couple years ago. We would probably Milenga started 10 churches. We could have supported enough. The 600 kids, they could be feeding 6,000 kids. We he he would have 20 or 30 churches.

We would we would we would would see so many more people come to Christ. And my answer is we'd be like, oh, what's wrong with the world? It's harder to reach people. It's like, no. It's Christians. There's what's wrong with the world. In the sense of, let's do what he asked us to do so we can experience the dunamis,

that power of the Holy Spirit. Word dunamis, that explosive power, that's where we get the word dynamite from. We experience it when we trust him, and then we get to be a part of this. We get to be a part of something big bigger and better. We know. We grow. We go. But here's the there's a it's it's a struggle.

It's a struggle. Look at this picture of, my my well, no. Yeah. Show the picture of my driveway. I'm gonna go out of order this time. Reason it's a struggle is this is what it looks like to trust God, and we don't like that. We'd rather let the obstacle block us. Why? Why is this so hard when it's so clear?

Well, if you look in Galatians, again, back in chapter five, it says it this way. So I say, let the holy spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants you to do evil,

which is just the opposite of what the spirit wants. And the spirit wants gives us desires that are opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other. So you're not free to carry out your good intentions.

But when you're directed by the spirit, you're not under the obligation of the law of Moses. Now people say the law of Moses, isn't that the like the laws of God? Isn't that so saying, I'm under grace. I'm not under obligation. No. When he says law of Moses, meaning this ritualistic approach to how the the laws that were established, the sacrificial system, all that, was supposed to show us that we can't save ourselves.

But instead, they just made more laws. I can't really honor God this way, but what I can do is I can do this dumb thing. And now that counts.

So they got this huge list, and and and we still do that today. Go, I can't really honor God without trusting God's love and being a part of it, but I'll do what I can do and act. And then thought, well, I won't really own my sin. I don't want anyone to see it. That's why the one passage says, stop comparing yourself to others. You'll stop when you really engage in real community because you don't need to. The reason you gotta compare is like, well, I'm better than him. I better because I gotta establish myself. Hey. I'm making it. I'm I'm I'm I'm honoring the laws of God. So when he says we that those sinful desires, though there's a word in there called the flesh is what it uses. It's not talking about what the flesh means, the sinful desires means. It means anything

you wanna do that says, I if to do this, I can't trust God. I gotta I gotta not do what he said in order to do this. That's what it's talking about. And the thing is, the the laws of Moses trying to have this, I I'm gonna come and earn God's love. I'm gonna come and do the thing and and act like it's a contractual thing is why you'll show up. You'll kinda be here. You'll hear this. But really going all in, that scares you. I just wanna do the minimum. I wanna do what I need to do. And and we get stuck because we really then are more about the things that we really wanna do. That's the sinful nature. Like in my driveway. The thing is saying is when you come to know Christ, there's gonna be this battle

because you've been given this new life, this new vehicle for life, this new power and engine in life, and you're supposed to drive in that with the Holy Spirit being the GPS. That's my beautiful red truck, the blood of Christ. It's red. And

then there's this dark side of you, like the dark colored CR V that's still sitting there, and that's your old self. But just because you have the new life, the old stuff is still in the driveway.

It never goes away until Jesus comes back. We just gotta go around it. But here's the problem. Many of us never get there because you never even knew, I'm so glad I got the new truck. And you look at it, and you might get in it on a Sunday. But the rest of the week, guess what? You're driving still.

I'll drive this to church, but the rest of the week, my life is driven by the old self. And we try to do both at the same time, and it doesn't work. And and when we don't go all in, and we let those fears I can't find it. And you know what? That's why

I wanna spend my time on this so I don't have time to serve. I don't have time for community. I I I I wanna spend my money on this so I can't afford to actually tithe and do what God's asked me to do.

And then that's a battle. Because here's what I agree. I say this stuff all the time. I guarantee everyone in this room that is a Christian wants to give. And everyone in this room, I think, wants to serve.

I really do believe that you have if you're a believer, he's saying, if you really are and you have the Holy Spirit, you have the desire in it. The problem is you also have a desire to buy what you wanna buy and do what you wanna do, They're battling, and you're letting the other one win. The old self.

In other words, we need to surrender to the Holy Spirit, not just Jesus. He sent us the Holy Spirit because that's the guide. That's the GPS. That's the one that will motivate it. That's the one that empowers But we say, I wanna believe in Jesus, but ignore the Holy Spirit. And

you know what? This is how it affects our whole lives. Every Christian parent in this room desperately wants your kids to be a decent person that loves the Lord and trusts the Lord and knows his salvation and isn't a narcissistic entitled little turd. That's what you want because especially when they live with you,

and you try to coach them up to do that, and you pray for it. But the problem is when we're not living like a disciple, you know how you do it? You you you take a bible verse. You might even Google it. I need a bible verse that tells my kids to clean their room. Close enough. You know what God says?

And we're not pointing your kids to Jesus. You're pointing Jesus at your kids. And then you ignore the passage that says, fathers, don't exasperate

your children. What does that mean? Don't be a hypocrite and then yell at them about stuff all the time. It means lead the way. It means show love. It means challenge them. It mean don't don't

codepend them. Don't enable them. Don't teach them the wrong way. Show them the right way. By the way, you live first. Your life must precede your words.

And yet we as parents, we want our kids to be great, and then we inadvertently show them the opposite. We show them the sinful desire. You know one of the biggest ways? Sports programs you put them in. Sports, dance, all these things. They're not cheap.

And and and and here's the thing. It's good. Don't get me wrong. Bill did not say, to love Jesus, your kids can't play sports

because then I'd be a hypocrite. I think sports are really good. I think they teach values. They teach teamwork. They teach discipline. You're taking care of your body. You get know how to relate. You know how to handle defeat. You know how to handle victory. You learn a lot of things in sports.

But if you put the sports in front of the walk with God, you have actually taught your kids the opposite thing, and you get nothing out of the sport or that extra activity. You lose it. You know why? You taught them this is more important than what God asked you to do.

So you know what? We're not coming on Wednesday night anymore. My kid has a sport. You know, you can go to a coach and say, they're committed. They'll be here. They'll be all the time. But Wednesday night, my kid's in middle school. They ain't coming. You can do that. You know what you're afraid of?

Your kid's not good enough, so they won't. If you kid got a good kid trust me. If you're good, coach won't care. So why do you want your kid in the sport? What are you trying to teach him?

Well, you know, they might get a college scholarship. Well, if you're afraid to tell the coach they won't be there on Wednesday, they're not good enough. You need to show them. Like, for example, my daughter, my oldest, great at soccer. And what I'm saying is you can do the sport,

but not at the cost of if what I'm gonna do makes me not be able to do what God asked me to do, then you're not supposed to do that. You don't have to pray about it. You don't have to ask about it. That's your answer. But but so what I prayed about was let's find a different way because she was so good. This elite

elite, the best in the high school, the best club girls soccer team asked her to try out, which is weird. They came after her. Coach scouted her. Came to some of her eyes and says, I want you to try out. And I go, try out? What? Does she get paid? Does she no. You're gonna pay us.

I'm like, I gotta go try out for you to tell me how much money I have to give you for this. I it sounds like a scam to me, but they're really good. So I've let her go try out. And they had, like, 30 girls try out. They only had two spots. She got one of them.

And then they sat down. I go, woah. Woah. Woah. I want you to play, but what is this gonna cost? And it's like $350

is the base pay. I'm like, that's more than my car payment at the time. And then they go, and there's this equipment. That's about 1,200. There's this. And then we go on these many tournaments a year, you gotta raise the money. You gotta do that. So so basically, it's gonna cost, like, $57,000 a year.

And I told my daughter, I go, you know what? She goes, I already know. I'm not doing it. Yep. Not gonna do that. You know why? Because I it was too expensive for me. But you know what? I could have done it if I did it the way many of you in the room do it. I don't give. I'm sporadic at church attendance,

and I bail out because it's so important for my kids. It's so important to teach them this narcissistic, entitled idea that that's more important than trusting God, and then you wonder why they don't trust God. So what I did is we prayed. I said, you know this is yep. I gotta do. We as a family have to honor God

because that's the better way. So we prayed. She gets a call from another coach that knew her. She says, hey. I've started this club team, and it's for people that we're not gonna go on these long trips, but we're gonna play competitively.

We're gonna stay local, and we're only gonna charge what it costs for us to get in the league. I'm not getting paid for this. I'm not trying to make money as the coach. And it so it was like it was like $300 for a whole year, and she played club.

And if it interfered with the church thing, she just let the coach know there's other players on the team. I won't be at that. He goes, I respect that.

See, there is another way, but it's like the driveway. I gotta turn here and It's just easier for me to say, I'm not gonna listen to what God wants. And so here's the answer. You really, really, really want your kids to be selfless

and and a good and love the Lord and know the Lord's love and all that? You know what the best way to have them not be entitled?

Stop being that way yourself.

That's the answer to your crazy kids. I'm telling you. And it's a lot of zigzags. They don't always listen. But now I can say with authority, my kids are all adults. And there was crazy moments, and it was hard. And I had to look them in the face and go, you're not gonna get that.

You you we can't do it because we're gonna honor God. We're gonna do this. And I and guess what? They respect it. They all love the Lord. They all serve the Lord. They're all great, awesome disciples of Jesus.

They weren't always that way. There was times when I wanted them to go meet Jesus more than than me point them to Jesus, and I'm sure they thought the same thing.

But we so there's a practical side. As you want your kids, you want this is the way. This is the way. The Christalorian says this is the way. In other words, let me show this picture of it's called a Venn diagram. See how it works? You know. We're always knowing. This is the real circle of life. Take that, Mufasa.

And then you grow, and then you go. And all of this engages us with what Christ asked us to do. It grows us to be more like Christ. We get more confidence, and this is where the peace, the joy, the contentment. It's not your situation.

It's this that brings it. Because when we live all three of these, you're right in the middle. That's the Vedna. See where they all overlap? All three are engaged,

fully engaged? We have the cross there, our logo, the cross, because that's what Jesus died to take us to. This is what Jesus asked us to be. This is what he's calling us to and gifting us for and actually blessing us with. But you have to come to the cross for this. You have to meet him at the cross on this thing. And and and why? Because when Jesus went to the cross, he died to take care of that other car, the the the to give us the new one, to give us the new vehicle for life, the new power of life, but we gotta drive it.

We gotta engage in it, and we gotta get in the battle that says, I'm gonna ignore the old one that's still sitting in the driveway and and and get around it.

And so where are you at on that? It's why Jesus, you know, he says, pick up your cross and follow me. Here's the thing. If I'm carrying all my guilt, all my shame, all my own sin, and then adding on all my evil, my my my desires

that are the old vehicle's desires, and I'm living it out that way. So I'm spending my time, my money, my emotional energy on that, and I'm carrying all that. How can you carry your cross? You gotta return to the love of Jesus, set it at the cross, and remember that he loves you this much,

he knows better than you know how to find what you're looking for in life because he knows what he built us for. And trust him, but also trust the Holy Spirit. And I think that's why God called us to do this thing called communion, the Lord's Supper.

Before Jesus died, he broke the bread, said this is my body broken for you. He took the cup, said this is my blood spilt for you. Why?

Because and he said, do this in remembrance of me. Why does he want us to gather to remember that moment? Because that's the moment that he rescued us. That's the moment he redeemed us, and that's the moment that he showed this sacrifice, that he loves us more than we can love ourselves. And so he goes, come back to that to remember. I don't care how far away you've gotten on this. I don't care how bad it's been. Just come back.

Just come back and trust me. Because if you see I could love you this much, why can't you trust me with these littler things in life?

It is weird that we as Christians can say, I believe in a God that I'm separated from all eternity unless I know his love. He died for me. I believe he resurrected and gave me new life. I believe that a 100%, but you can't trust so you'll trust that God can save you through all of eternity, but you can't trust him with your money,

your time? Something's broken there. So we're gonna take communion, but I wanna show you from from another side of this. I wanna show you our hope outreach video. We've had them each week about this outreach, You know, it's where we raise extra money for our missions.

And and and this week, a girl named Channing, who's on our team now, she got to go to Zambia. Now you can do all this without going to Zambia. But I thought her story was powerful because

I think the real bottom line of what we really need to truly be a fully engaged disciple of Christ is found in what she discovered when what she thought she was gonna see in these children and some of the ministries versus what she saw and how it changed her. So go ahead and watch this.

My time in Zambia was completely eye opening, but not the way I thought it was gonna be. I went in thinking I was going to kind of feel bad for their situations. It kind of was the other way around.

Cheyenne is very moving. It definitely was the most impactful place we served because it is a true slum. It is the ultimate poverty situation I have ever been in. Their homes are falling apart. Most of them do not have electricity. No running water. Food is a luxury. Hopefully, they eat once a day. But

everyone's still full of joy. What impacted me most was when we walked into the Cheyenne de Center, which is what Christ Life Church has there. That's their ministry, their church, but it's also a feeding program there for roughly 600 kids Monday through Friday. And they get taught basic education,

hopefully how to read and write, as well as the love of God, God's word, hygiene, nutrition, and they're provided a meal. I thought I was gonna walk in there and see all these kids and my heart would break for them, but literally the moment we walked in,

these kids are singing and chanting and smiling and the amount of joy and happiness you felt from them like in that moment is something I don't think I could ever really describe. It was really cool. Christ Life Church, man, they're on a mission. They're on the mission to break that cycle of poverty.

The things that ChristLife is doing, they can't do without our support, without our help. A lot of their funding comes from The States and a lot of it comes from Rock Point, and they would not be able to feed and clothe the girls and the girls home without funding. They would not be able to serve 600

children Monday through Friday food without support. And that's what giving to the hope offering can help do. The hope offering is your chance to change a community.

You see,

this call to be a disciple and make a disciple is a call for everyone, Not just a pastor. Not just the gold member standard. It's like in movies. So many movies you've seen is like, oh, that was the same plot. It had the same plot, the theme. It was just told through a different storyline.

Like, one time it's a teacher that does this. The other time it's a military guy. Then it's an athlete. Then it's this. But a lot of these movies and shows, they carry the same basic plotline of the what the the underlying plot is, just through a different story line.

If you know the love of Jesus, we all have the same plot. And pointing people to Jesus is the point by being a disciple. Because one of the biggest things that grows us to understand

and feel the fulfillment that we really long for, personal fulfillment is not gonna be found in anything other than the Lord and what he's called us to. We all have that, but God loves us and he lets us do it through our individual storyline. Same plot, our story.

And I am telling you, what she saw, what she shared is exactly what we can have wherever we're at. We don't have to go to Africa for I am so glad I got that truck out of the way and just came to a silly thing like the light show. Because I didn't leave. I was only be there for half an hour or so. Just check it out.

I didn't leave till thirty minutes after ended. I got to cry with people and pray with people, and God used me to be able to bring hope, and they brought encouragement to me. So many people said encouraging things to me that if I didn't show up in that moment, I would have missed it. I didn't wanna go. I stayed extra long,

and I drove back so filled with joy. See, that's the problem with so many of these things I'm asking us to do that God's asking us to do.

They feel like a burden up front. You feel this block. I don't have this. I don't have that. You have the vehicle. And even if I did try to get around it, I'm gonna have to change this. I'm gonna stop doing this. I'm gonna start doing that. I'm gonna turn. I'm gonna do but what it really comes down to is simply this.

Do you really, really, really believe

that Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit and trusting him, is where you really will find

contentment and joy and happiness. I'm telling you, in my life and I know in most of the lives of people in this room, it's not how much money you make that's stopping you from giving. It's not the amount of hours you work that's stopping you from serving. It's not it it is simply this. You don't really trust

that you will be more content and peaceful on the other side of trusting God with these things. You're like, I gotta keep them.

And that's what Channing when she thought she would see these really sad kids, but they know the Lord. They have the joy of the Lord. It wasn't that and, you know, we would die and think God hates us, and we would never be happy if we had that. And that's why we won't let go of a little bit of our money, a little bit of our time, because we think there is no way. We don't really believe what they believe.

You know why? Because we have been given so much, and you're afraid of losing it. But when you got nothing else and you got the Lord, they found out that's all I need. And they share.

I've been there. I've been there. I saw a kid drop their food, and this is their only meal of the day. And two kids right next to them split theirs in half. So they got a full, and they only had half.

And yet we're like, I can't do that. I can't do that. You know why? It comes down to this. As we take communion, you sit before what Jesus sacrificed for gas. Do you really believe this? Or as John Ortberg said it simply, the Holy Spirit is the difference between the life we live and the life we are called to live.

So let this moment be a surrender moment, what it's supposed to be. We come broken. We come scared. We come hurt. We come feeling unqualified. We we feel so many things, and we just gotta look to the cross and embrace this love in order to get in that vehicle and trust the Holy Spirit's call on our life

to be a fully engaged follower of Jesus, and then see what happens. That's faith. And that's what he's called us to do. And that's why he said, this is my body broken for you. Take and eat. And it's why he said, this is my blood spilled for you, for the forgiveness of sins, for the redemption, so you can live this life.

Take and drink.

So, Lord, I thank you. I thank you that you always are there for me, for everyone in this room. As your word says in Matthew 20, your last word is as you challenged us to live as fully engaged followers, you said, and remember, I am with you till the end.

So, Lord, I thank you that you are with us. I thank you that you're guiding us, and I pray that each one of us will daily decide to get in the battle, choose to get in the new life car, drive around that old life, and go where you wanted us to go. I give you all the praise and all the glory, and I thank you for this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Hey. I love you guys. God bless you.

Hey. Thanks for joining us for service online this weekend. Be sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the Rock Point Church app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.