Rooted in Values

Rooted in Values

it’s great to spend the morning. A few I know we live in a world that lacks leaders with values. We live in a world where we are jobs might not have value, we have friendships that might not have value and purpose and worth and and we can struggle, we can struggle to find meaning in our life purpose to live for. There’s quiet quitting happening in our world of mental health on the rise speaking as uh one of the leaders of our church, speaking on the value, knowing that there’s such a deficit in value in our society right now. It’s a sobering thing, it’s a sobering thing. I’m thrilled to be able to look with you with the word of God at part two of our rooted series, looking at being rooted in a church, looking at our values as a church and it’s an honorable spend some time for you. I’m thrilled for this topic. There’s topics we get to preach on that I do it because it’s in the bible and it’s good for me and it’s good for you to hear. There’s other topics that I get to pick. And so this is like, candy for my soul, does that make sense? This passage I picked and when dan went last week, he did an excellent job on our vision, which is making authentic disciples of jesus christ who love and worship God and all they do. And I was holding my breath when I was listening to him because I was hoping he didn’t pick this passage and he picked a different passage, It was excellent and so I was like, I gotta do the passage I wanted to do on on on our values as a church. So we value ahead and pray with me as we move forward here. God, I thank you for thank you for the value and the purpose and the vision that you lay out a very robust, meaningful, all life encompassing pursuit laid out in the bible. I think that we can look at a part of that today. I thank you for how amazing and romantic and granted is Lord. The value and the vision you’ve given us as the people of God as to just really help our souls to get rooted in your word, rooted in you, jesus and what you did for us on the gospel. And I pray you just really help, help me to speak as I should and help us to listen as we should as we go through this passage. God, I just thank you for a great grand vision. You gave us Lord as your people. I thank you for the guiding values you gave us to keep us on track. I purchased. Lead us and direct our time. Multiply this time. Multiply the word of God and the people of God’s hearts to do the work of God in their hearts. I pray people would do business with you today in your bible. Today I prayed they’d open their bible and look at it and study it and take notes in it and wonder if this is true, what happens with my life as a result of this passage. We just commit ourselves and our time to in jesus name amen. So vision is the destination values gets us there. If vision is the steering wheel values of the tires, but I propose to you, there’s a thing called culture which is the engine of that car, a metaphorical call car. I think there’s a quote out there on the internet somewhere that says culture will eat your vision for breakfast, your values for lunch and your mission statement for dinner, you can’t coach culture, Culture is in the air, it’s in the water, it just kind of seeps out of you as an organization and when you’re trying to think what passage helps capture the vision, the values in the culture that makes up a healthy, vibrant local church. What passage do you want to root our minds and theologically this morning as we look at it. So just a spoiler, Spoiler alert are three values as a church are gospel community and generosity with a vision spin, we have a culture spin on it, that we have a gospel culture, community, culture and generosity, culture and we really do think those are lived out and they really do make our church take along at a healthy rate. Um, and I’m so excited about this passage Matthew 28 the background to this passage because context is king, we have to know what’s happening in the passage before we just look at the passage, we can’t just telescope into those four verses, you know, parachute in and get better backed out. We got to know what’s happening before and after these few verses. So if you turn with me to Matthew 28 if you’re looking for the house bible, it’s on page 4 87 on the house bible. But jesus had an opportunity in the history of the church, jesus came along and he had a very clear galvanizing message to the, all the senior leadership of the early church and those 11 disciples at this time with a variety of places, there’s some early adapters that this is post jesus resurrection posters, crucifixion when jesus Lord and he’s living and eating and walking around the people of God and there’s some disciples that are early adapters like he’s alive, he’s Lord, this is awesome. And then there’s the group, the middle pack of disciples that are kind of holding out, not sure what to do, kind of figuring out with each other what to do. And then there’s some late adopters who are like, oh I don’t know, I won’t believe unless unless I can stick my finger in his hands and my, my hand in his side, but they had a variety of emotions, they were all over the place. If you looked at all four gospels and looked at the emotions the early disciples were feeling at this time, there was incredible conflict. Some were filled with fear and some had doubt. Summerfield of courage and faith, there’s trembling, there’s anxiety, uncertainty, joy worship. It was a mixed bag and they were all over the map as a group of people hearing Jesus give these words. But obviously jesus in this text galvanized their heart and gave them one vision, one set of values, one culture that imprinted that early church and it obviously worked. If you if you look into church history at the obituaries of the leading men that sat there and heard this message from jesus, they have a they have a intense way that they die but it obviously worked. It galvanized their hearts. Let’s look at this. Andrew church history says. Andrew was dyed tied to a cross where he spent two days preaching to people who walk by. James died by a sword. John was boiled to death two times in oil and then died of old age on Patmos island Philip was scourged, thrown to prison and then later crucified. Bartholomew was skinned alive and beheaded thomas was killed with a spear. Matthew was stabbed to death. The author of this book was stabbed to death. James was beaten stoned and then clubbed to death, thaddeus was crucified. Simon was killed in Persia Matthias was burned alive. Peter was crucified upside down because he did not want to be crucified the same way as his Lord and was crucified by his wife and paul who later apostle paul was beheaded This sermon, Jesus on the mountaintop outside of Galilee Matthew 28, the very last few verses this sermon galvanized their hearts and tied their hearts, their vision, their values all together. In an amazing way that only God can this sermon is where the early church rooted up and grew out of. If you look at the church history, If you look at church history, how much impact it’s had. It is amazing to see what happens after with these men’s lives. What happened with the men and women that are falling Christ that heard this message on the mountain, how they took it around the world. Before I jump into that, let’s read the passage together. Matthew 28 Look with me on uh start in verse 16, it says this. Now the 11 disciples went to galilee to the mountain to which she has had directed them and when they saw him, they worshiped him but some doubted and jesus said Jesus came and said to them all, authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me go Therefore make disciples of all nations baptizing them 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 am with you always to the ends of the age. He should be stirring words for believers heart. Their words that triggered a course of human events that led from this mountaintop experience to multiple other continents of the world. Being reached with the gospel of jesus christ. And that gospel is continuing to this church around the world today. This has been building his church from this moment forward. And so in Matthew 28 jumps right into the Book of Acts, chronologically happens later and he’s here and reading in the Book of Acts, how the, these believers heard this message and they took what was read and said in this passage and they took it to Jerusalem, to judea into samaria. And then it stopped suddenly because that’s when the Book of Acts stops, Its author stopped. But the reality is the church never stopped moving forward. The church continued to expand and explode not only in Jerusalem area, but it grew into europe. With those barbarian hoards up in europe that didn’t know jesus. The church expanded along the roman roads in the roman infrastructure and the stability of the roman government brought the early church grew into europe and grew into South Asia into Africa. As the Rome expanded, the church expanded right with Rome. And even in our country, even in our country when colonists and venture capitalists traveled across the atlantic ocean to expand and make wealth here in our country, along with them came missionaries to reach out to those people that were colonizing America and to the people that lived here that were being colonized. And when the, when the western front was expanded over the Appalachian mountains all the way across Nebraska all the way across to the Oregon trail. Remember that game we used to play if you’re my age, remember that as at the tip of advancement of human society All along with the advancement of our society into different parts of this globe evangelist missionaries. Church planners have followed along up to Bellevue Nebraska in 1856, that’s the first church in Nebraska in 1856. The Lincoln to you somehow somehow this global expansion vision values, culture dripping sermon, jesus gave and the life he lived, expanded a global enterprise around the world. The Book of Acts is the story of jesus building his church and it continued from this mountaintop experience. We gotta unpack what and why did that happen in people’s lives? What and why? What was Jesus saying? Why did that make such a difference in people’s lives that heard it? Let’s look back at Matthew 18, Matthew 28 18 and Jesus came and said to them all, authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, Jesus is the authority is the foundational bedrock that this whole text is built upon everything that’s written from this passage flows out of that first line, all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me, Everything that follows all that is said, all that is acted upon in these, these early apostles lives and the church’s life is because of the authority that jesus christ has now this matters, let’s stop here and take a moment and really think about what this means, all what does all mean? All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me all this matters. We’re talking about Jesus Lordship, he’s the king, he’s the boss of all. You probably heard someone in your community group or someone in your discipleship groups say Jesus became a personal lord and savior on this date or that date and that’s fine. But if you’re raised in a Christian house it seems like I became saved at an early age like nine or almost 10 and became a Christian and I wasn’t like the Lordship of my life was very a limited range of how much Lordship I had when I was a kid, but when I grew up and I went off to school I had to really embrace that. No, jesus actually the Lord of my life as a youth to an adult, if you became a christian later in life, that Lordship and that savior situations are the same, you get what I’m saying, but when you’re raised in a church, you can kind of savor bridge, that doesn’t make sense. This is the Lord of your life Yes, but he didn’t become Lord of life because you said he’s the Lord of your life, he is Lord of all all of heaven and all of earth. If you took a moment and dug into this lordship theme, if you looked at what does that mean all and you spent 2.5 hours reading through the book of Matthew you would see not just Lord in heaven and earth here in chapter 28. If you looked over the whole book you’d see that jesus been demonstrating authority over nature and the nation’s disease and demons sin and death. Heaven and earth. We see in this last passage and then lives and then every single person’s life C. G. Is just just totally flexing on the authority flex throughout this entire book. So yes he’s meant to be lord of your life. But if you acknowledge that or not he is still lord of all. You can confess jesus as lord and give him authority now and that’s what I encourage and pleaded for you to do. But if you don’t you will confess and acknowledge his lordship his authority someday. Look at Philippians 2 10 and 11 it says so that at the name of jesus every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that jesus christ is Lord to the glory of God the father. All means all church, jesus Lord of all church and all means all believer he should be Lord of all, King of all, boss of all Lord of every single area of your life, he will reign over every area of your life. So in light of the authority and the lordship of jesus christ all, all authority for God, all authority for jesus, what are we called to do? It’s like a verse 19 go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and the Holy Spirit. As a result of this reality, that jesus is in charge, he’s the authority over everything. What we have to do with that information, we have to go church, we have to go, jesus authority compels you to go, jesus authority is supposed to motivate you and give you confidence to go, go where go to all nations, all ethnic groups, and that’s what we see happening in the early Church. This is universal Lordship required a universal mission. A grand mission, Not a small man made mission, not a small regional mission. A grand mission. A great commission is what this passage has probably called in your bible to tie the hearts of men and women together. So what are we aiming at church? If you wanna have a biblical view of what we’re trying to be the church’s mission. If your church’s mission is to reach the immediate neighborhood, that’s okay. If your church’s mission is to reach this area of town, that’s fine. If your mission as the church is to reach that city and that’s better, that’s not that’s not wrong, that’s better. If your your mission is to reach the region, you’re getting closer. If your mission is to reach the nation, that’s not bad. But our mission is to reach the world, that’s the best mission we could be given. It’s a global mission because God is Lord over this entire planet, every dictator, every institution, every government thing, every political thing, every single business, every nook and cranny of this planet, God reigns over his Lord overall. And so it’s natural for us to jump into this global pursuit of glorifying God and joining him in this grand mission, this christian enterprises, a global endeavor, it requires global goals and a global effort as a church. And do you get the brilliance of that, this this grand commission, this great commission where we take the gospel to the whole world, we can’t do that without God. So we arranged the city of our God. Maybe could we reach our nation about God? Not a chance. We reached this world about God. There ain’t no way in the world we could reach this world without God, it’s too big for us as people, it’s too big for us as one church. So let’s personalize this. If it’s everyone’s problem, it’s no one’s problem. So whose job is it to take the gospel of jesus christ and make disciples in your neighborhood and your network, everyone raise your hand and go like this, think I am okay, you didn’t hear go like this whose job is it to make disciples of your neighborhood and your network say there we go, there we go, alright college students raise your hand, raise your hand, whose disciple whose job is it to make disciples and evangelize that you and l I am everyone else raise your head whose job is it to pay for it? We are, we are, we love you college kids. Uh the great commission is our mission and that’s great news and it’s a global effort. Why? Because God is lord of all, he is lord of all of heaven and earth and under the earth, he’s lord of everything. So it’s natural for us to follow him in this global pursuit of reaching mankind, talk about amazing purpose. I go live the rest of your life and sell pop at coca cola, great picking on coca cola, you know, I worked in supply chain of food industry and I fed western America flower pipelines for years and that’s great. But if I was my only purpose, it lacked meaning in depth, if that’s all I was doing with spreadsheets and conference calls and now you guys have zoom meetings, it is brutal and so like if that’s my whole purpose, that is a hollow, shallow purpose. Were invited to a deeper, more beautiful, romantic, robust purpose. It’s a lifelong global pursuit of making disciples of all nations, we were able to buy this church building from a previous congregation who ran through its life cycle and they’ve generously sold us this building and that’s amazing. But early when they built it, they made a thing called the Jerusalem cross out here. It’s this giant structure that’s two stories tall and it’s got these four crosses were like the cross, the horizontal bars across intertwines of each other. And the premise behind the idea the artistic, the the image in Christianity is that the gospel of jesus, christ of the four quarters of the world, That’s it, that’s the grand great mission were swept into christians, young and old, rich and poor. We are part of this mission because we’re part of the Kingdom of God. And why do we go? We go? Because Jesus worthy of that mission. Look at me at revelation 79 and 10. This this passage shows the global vision of vision of all ethnic groups being reached by the Great Commission, verse nine says after this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, all the tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne of the lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne into the land. This mission is gonna be completed because of our effort. No, because jesus is gonna fulfill his plan for reaching this world now we’re gonna go hot and hard in the paint. You get what I’m saying, we’re all in on this but christian, this is God’s mission and he’s orchestrating the events of mankind and the events of your neighborhood and your network. We gotta get wrapped up in that amazing picture of revelations. But look back in Daniel seven verse 14, 500 years before jesus sermon on the mount, there’s a prediction of foreshadowing of the prophet talking about this, he says this for sure. That is what we just read. He was given Dominion and glory and a kingdom so that those of every people, every people, nation and language should serve him. His Dominion is an everlasting Dominion that will not pass away and his kingdom is one that will not be destroyed. This has been God’s plan perfectly orchestrated to save the nations all the ethnic groups around the globe, We do it because God is worthy, He is Lord of all and he’s worthy. Worshipful, motivational services in our hearts as we fulfill the rest of this passage. So what do we do, what do we do when we get there when we go and we make, what do we do? We go and we make disciples, what do we do when we get there? We make disciples. So it’s common in this culture for a jewish rabbi to have people follow him and they’re like I follow, I some people, I follow this Rabbi Zane and I follow uh you know, I follow rabbi fellers and I follow Rabbi Unger and I follow, I mean that was the tribal rabbi thing was the thing, but they weren’t baptizing them in the name of paul and Peter and john and Matthew, they’re baptizing in the name of jesus because he is Lord of all and his deity, that’s unique, that’s that’s important, all authority and we’re giving that authority to go and make disciples of jesus. Every disciple of jesus is called to make disciples of jesus not themselves, it’s like it’s natural for me to get married and have my wife, my sweet dear wife, one of these cute little kids and they grow up and they look like me, they talk like me, they dress like me an asian version of me, um that’s that’s my disciples and their kids and they’re walking around and they’re like if mike was an asian, that’s what he might look like, you know, that’s funny, but in general we make, we make little mini meals all the time and we don’t have to get married, have kids to do that, you hang out people enough, you start dressing alike, talking alike, looking alike, have the same interests, you start to become disciple by each other, our job is not to like make a bunch of many meetings and many use our job is to make many disciples of jesus. Our job is to make many disciples of come on church, good job, so don’t make disciples of yourself, make disciples of jesus, so think about this, your community leader has been praying that you look more like jesus because you go to that community group, your disciples, a group leader wants to draw you in a deeper love and appreciation for jesus and if that’s not their heart find different communities, different discipleship group, I’m kidding, that is their heart, that is their heart to help you grow in your walk of jesus, but the purpose of our churches to make disciples, so I hear soap box and this is like my soapbox, I feel like I do this at the time all the time when I discovered class, but our job is not to make you politically affiliated a certain direction. Our job is not to have a production band and you come and doodle and not a lot of amazing bands, I mean that’s not bad, but that’s not the job, our job is not to have programs that offer you goods and services, you get what I’m saying this daycare, that school this support group, our job is not to have a personality platform that you come and you worship the personality, do you get our christian culture, that’s an idol, we’re suckers, we make, we make pastors that we worship and we’ve come and we listen, I only want my pastor to preach like billy bob billy bob, the best preacher out there and billy bob, writes the best book, the best podcast, the best blog I’ve seen billy grabs hard part, it’s so great, I’m just kidding, I don’t know, you get what I’m saying, our job is to make disciples of jesus christ and that’s gonna look different than the way the world tries to disciple you, that’s gonna look different than the way the world worships, that’s gonna look different, but you need to look like jesus christ. I wrote this passage down this morning in my reading, Isaiah 53 verse three talking about jesus, he was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering, who knew what sickness was, he was like someone who people turned away from, he was despised and we didn’t value him yet. He bore our sickness and he carried our pains but we in turn regarded him stricken and struck him down by God and afflicted. He was pierced because of our rebellion and crushed because of our iniquities, punishment from our peace was on him and by his wounds we are healed now that is what we’re worshiping christian, We’re not worshiping the best latest greatest shiniest object that Christianity spits up. That’s silly, we’re not suckers, I don’t think we’re not, we are here to make disciples of jesus and if like I used the analogy I heard from my friends in college, he, it’s stuck with me up till now if we’re a shoe company and we have a nice shiny shoe logo and shoe websites and search engine optimization for shoes and we have shoe branding and we have shoe tv ads and the commercial on the Super Bowl have shoes, celebrity endorsements and we have all these employees coming in to make shoes and we have all these HR for shoes and we have all this work for shoes, we have a shoe shareholder meeting, we all come and talk about the company of shoes, but our shoe manufacturing company never makes a single shoe, we’re not a shoe manufacturing company, we’re Akane, we’re not that we’re, we as a church, do all this stuff to make disciples, that is our purpose, because jesus said it’s our purpose, jesus said it’s supposed to be our purpose, go and make disciples of all ethnic groups, all nations, If you’ve been in this church for five or 10 years, you’ve never made a disciple, is that the church’s fault or is that your fault? I mean you have time, you’re still alive, you can make a disciple and be a great disciple maker, helping grow people up in their faith, but that is our, we’re really, that’s the one thing we’re going after, is discipleship making disciples, I think you should smell it in the water about by now, that’s kind of what we’re trying to be about, I think if that’s news to you, well, good, I’m glad you heard it, but every christian is supposed to be a disciple and every christian is supposed to be a disciple maker, I just think every christian isn’t making disciples, they’re just making disciples of themselves, you’re probably making disciple yourself, not christ, but to be a disciple of jesus, is to be the disciple maker, I don’t want us to be sucked into celebrity, we worship celebrity as a society, we watch Hollywood all the time and our churches are the worst offenders of getting sucked into celebrity. Obviously there’s no famous christians in this room, but I’m saying don’t be sucked into the cultures idol, it’s worshiping a person in a personality. The purpose of the church is that you worship jesus and be making disciples. The purpose of the church is that you have disciples that are growing up and going out of your church to go make more disciples. I think there’s a reality here that we cannot make mature disciples alone, we need each other because I don’t have every single spiritual gift maxed out, Does that make sense? I have some gaping holes in my spiritual gift mix that I have and in light of that reality, we have five men who are have pastoral experience of over 80 years that are working with a two-year leadership cohort residency with 16 of our community leaders were working through the nine marks of a healthy church and have a range of calls someone to just be a community leader and that’s it and others want to be a bi vocational pastor at this church or some other church and that’s it. Others want to go plan a church or be a church planner and that’s it. Others want to be a mission overseas and that’s it, that’s great. I’d rather have a unique call in their life, but it’s our job of us, five mentors and eight years of experience to flow between them because I spent 100 days of day and I spent 100 days of mike, I spent 100 days of Shane, I spent 100 days of Ben, I spent 100 days of john and I’m floating between all five are mentors and I’m getting a range of gifting experience, temperaments and I’m seeing a better picture of jesus from those, those five men, if jesus walked in our cohort one morning we would rename it christ cohort and we would not break up into different groups and shuffle every 100 days we would sit at jesus feet, does that make sense? And I wouldn’t have to bring Krispy kremes anymore because he can make anything he wants, we could have christian chicken for lunch, should be great, but do you get what I’m saying, the gifts of that, jesus had the perfect manifestation of what it meant to be a disciple maker was divided throughout the church and to get disciple, you have to find those in the church, it’s not like I own and possess someone the rest of my life, the disciples of jesus. So there’s me first season and then go off to someone else that teaches them, grows them in an area, then go somewhere else and they grow in a different area. I know I don’t have all the gifts, I can tell you which ones I don’t have and you can guess you wouldn’t be that wrong, but I do have some strength and that’s what I want to offer. But churches make disciples very effectively, if that’s what they make, they go after that reckless abandonment, All right, so what do we do when we get there, after we go and we make and we baptize verse, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold I am with you always to the end of the age, jesus disciples are talking now and it matters because jesus Lord has risen from the dead now, these guys followed us for three years, tell us about jesus, Jesus gone off here at the end of this chapter and they’re speaking for the first time and they have something, they have not really had a lot of before, they have the words of God, the authority that comes of giving the teaching of God, that’s what’s sober about trying to preach to the bible because there’s authority in this bible, this is God’s bible, God spoke to people through this bible and heaven forbid we actually changed our life because of something that you saw in the bible, I better be right and you better be right? But the authority of jesus was put into these words on these bibles, you hear what he said and what he did as we read about the letters to the churches, from those early apostles. This whole bible from beginning to end has authority over your life, This is the teaching them to everything I have commanded you to do is in the bible. If you’re going to church week after week and people aren’t opening the bible, you’re going to community and they aren’t opening the bible and you’re not learning what has been taught in the bible, what are you doing? There’s authority given to the disciples to do God’s work with this bible by teaching with authority, using jesus messages, theology, What are they teaching? All that he commanded them to do to make disciples is not complete unless it leads to a life of observing and obeying jesus teachings. The rest of your life Church observe and obey and know this bible because that’s the teachings of jesus. That’s what we need be very skeptical of people who aren’t opening and reading and attempting to understand and explain the bible. You can sit through a counseling session. The counselor never cracks up in the bible, is it christian counseling? If you sit in a community and community leaders not sourcing the bible, is it a biblical community group if your church isn’t attempting to understand and know the bible better as best as our finite human minds can get it. We have to immerse our minds and our lives in the word of God. My job is not to be in the ESPN commentary on culture, that’s not my job, it would be fun. That’s not my job, that’s not the supreme thing, the supreme thing that has authority is the word of God, that is not my calling in life is to be a commentator on the world. I’m not a talk radio guy. My job is to understand and study and learn and obey the bible, that’s your job. The teachings of jesus is what we’re going after church. There’s this teaching that jesus has his theme, a lot of the proud and grace to the humble but listen, jesus teachings had teeth if the teaching never hurts, is it helping you, if you go to the gym and you’re working out and you leave and you don’t break a sweat and you aren’t sore the next day, did you work out or you just go and look good in public? I mean did you work out if you’re christian teachings that jesus don’t ever hurt and staying, are they actually biblical teachings? And I’m not saying you go to church and your pastor blows out um cl and your walk of God is on crutches the next six months, I’m not saying that okay, I’m not trying to like harm people with the bible and weaponize the bible, you know, get what I’m saying. But the teaching of jesus as Lord and authority over everything, this is the one who’s speaking is not just a person, he’s God, he’s Lord, authority over everything and he told us how to live, how to think what values and motivation should be in our life. Our job as pastors not to give squishy warm feel good sermons that are positive, encouraging for your day. Our job is to feed on the word of God, all of it, the meat and potatoes and the candy and kale, all the parts that I love and I hate, I gotta understand and consume the word of God because it makes me like jesus, it’s like you’re a sponge, your brain is a sponge. You want to fill it up with so much scripture that when you get squeezed and out comes something you say or something you do it smells and looks like a christian. A disciple of jesus. You need to fill that sponge mind of yours with the word of God with sound biblical expository preaching when you speak christian and you’re trying to teach someone all that God has commanded them to do. It’s a solemn, heavy thing to teach them what jesus said to do, you’re supposed to be speaking and teaching the word of God, that’s heavy. So lastly this brings us to the concept of presence and presence, I will be if you always is a very reassuring thing for them, but that was to them, I will be if you always as the disciples, that’s his audience and then to the ends of the age, that’s you and me, this is presence, feeling God’s presence in your life comes when you obey God of making disciples of teaching them what jesus said to do and I’m baptizing them, that’s when you feel the presence of God, you’re like, I don’t feel the presence of God at my work, maybe you should do what you have to do with your work, go make baptized teach, I don’t want to do that, I can’t do that, my work, well then we’ll send you overseas, international Mission board and they’ll send you overseas and you can do it there, but you know that work, what makes you think you can do overseas, but you know what I’m saying, like if you want to feel God’s presence like pastor, we’re in a dry spell, it’s been kinda hard, well you know bang, is there a younger christian in this church that doesn’t know what you know and isn’t doing what you’re doing that, you can teach them what you know and teach them what you do there definitely are, if you start making a disciple in this church, it’ll feel really fun and exciting, this bible comes alive for be obeying people obey carefully christian, speak carefully because you’re supposed to be speaking in the words of God, me and two members of our church, We’re out sharing the gospel 23 weeks ago, four weeks ago. It was, it wasn’t a glorious experience. We were a little scared and we needed God’s presence to do the work of God, to the people that needed God, but you need God’s presence to go to community group. You need God’s presence to confess that sin and discipleship group, you need God’s presence to get up and serve on sunday morning. You need God’s presence to come on saturday and pull weeds so we don’t look like a hot mess on sunday morning. You need God’s presence to pick up trash here around the building. You need God’s presence to love your roommate. Well, you need God’s presence to read your bible faithfully and journal faithfully. You need God’s presence as you obey what he teaches you to do and live the way you’re called to live christian. But God’s presence is one of those themes that’s in this book of Matthew at the very beginning of Matthew one verse 23 you read about this child who’s promised whose name one of his names is Emmanuel, which means God with us. That’s jesus being fast forward to the very end of the passage, the very end of the book of the bible, we talk about God’s presence. I am with you always to the ends of the age, jeez presence is key for any christian work. If you don’t sense jesus presence in your life, you need to do what jesus said to do in your life, you need to not just sit and think, but you need to go and pray and obey and we all agree that Christianity is at its very best when we, the people of God are on mission of God, can we agree with that? Christianity is at its very best we’re actually doing, we’re supposed to do of being on mission to people that are far from God, you’re like oh I don’t know about that, well, can we all agree that Christianity at its very worst when we stop doing the mission of God and we stop what bank what the bible tells us to do and stop caring for people that are far from God, bringing them into the kingdom of God and making them into disciples, because if we’re not making disciples as the church, we’re making something, making something, there’s 6003, there’s 6000 people groups in the world that do not know of jesus, they don’t know anyone that they know knows of jesus, there’s 6000 people, ethnic groups on this planet that do not know who christ is, go make disciples and baptize them, he should do everything I have commanded you and lo I am with you always, even at the end of the age as you try to tie this together and close remember vision values and cultures is what I proposed at the beginning, I would say go and make, you could make a case for that’s our gospel culture, we share the word, it’s absolutely foundational in making disciples teaching and baptizing, I say, it’s like the theology and live ology come together with relationship with other people and relationship of God, that’s our community culture. I mean christian is the ultimate team sport and then we’re leaning into that as a church for a plurality of trying to get people in the community groups like if, if you and your bible is all you want really, it’s you and Youtube and animal crossing, let’s not act like it, it doesn’t go that deep that long. You need other people to grow into deeper walk of God. You become like the people you surround yourselves with you alone is not what we see in the bible. We see teams of christians doing the work of God to advance the gospel into that city. I’ll be with you always to the end of the age, that’s our mission ology, that’s where we see our generosity culture and we’re trying to grow into that, we’re at 6% of our giving is going to church plants and missionaries around the globe. We’re hoping to jump that to nine or so percent this next year, we’re trying to lean into that as a church of mobilizing the blessings that God has given us to make a difference around the world. It’s exciting how God’s answering the prayers as their members are praying for that. That’s amazing how that’s happening. We think that’s flushed down your generosity. If you’re being on mission with the time, God has given you the talent god has given you and the treasure god has given you as I close, there’s a sobering scholar wrote something about this passage, he said if jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world and if he rose from the grave and victory over sin and death and if there is no one like him and he reigns as lord over all and then telling a lost world about jesus, the only thing that makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is millions of christians sitting back and saying nothing to the nations. Matthew 18 is a challenging call to Christians to respond and act like Christians and be a Christian everywhere and make disciples everywhere. These words should shake your heart awaken your heart from not just individually but as a collective group to be the kind of church that we see laid out in the book of acts in the new testament. You and I are part of his story in history and we were commissioned at the great commission. So what was today’s sermon about when you’re driving home with your roommate, what was today’s sermon about were in the army now is what it feels like to me, I don’t know what you’re feeling out there, make disciples, they got it, but I’m saying like we’re in the army you’re like I didn’t sign for that kind of Christianity was like the easygoing social club Christianity. Well I don’t see that in the bible, you know this health and wealth Christianity that’s not in the bible, I mean I don’t know the bible those churches are reading from but it’s not in your bible so were enlisted were commissioned were given vision and value in a culture. We’re supposed to run in light of him making disciples around the world christian, what is that? What would it look like for you to live out these values this week. Well if you’re new to solar church and you do know christ enlist come next month to the discovery class which I’m supposed to be leading the fourth sunday of the month, join a rooted community group as we go through these basic pillars of Christianity, these very fundamental basics 101 of Christianity come sign up, get connected, get plugged in, we’ll roll with you for I think it’s 10 11 weeks if you’re new to Christianity and christ is not the lord of your life at this time. You have not bowed, you need to the lordship of christ, he’s not, doesn’t have authority over your life will fill out the connect card, we love to connect with you, I’ll call you, I’ll email you whatever you put in there. I love to visit you more about that. Or I can hand off to another leader and we will come find you and talk a few more. We can talk in the lobby. I don’t wanna talk in the lobby mike. You might cry, I might cry. So let’s talk somewhere. What else does that make sense? But we would love to connect and help you as a church. There’s a bunch of great leaders that I’d love to follow up a few answered questions but there’s great resources. We have great tracks we have all over the place in that resource area and that connect table, grab a track, read it. There’s bible studies and beginning in christ simple steps and the simple bible study. You can take by yourself and do together or you can do with someone else. You can do it alone. There’s thousands of people who got in savings that beginning christ bible because they read the bible and they answer the question and they work through it. Take a step if he’s lord of your life, you’re feeling like you need to make him lord of your life. You need to confess your sins. You need to turn from the sins, your brazil. You need to let him become lord of your life over everything. Take a step if you’re not new to this concept of church or Christianity and this is your church home, you’re a member here. There is glory in the grind of gospel work christian we’re praying for more laborers and God’s been answering that prayer at church but it’s work, it’s labor but think back to what it was like when you first started following christ christian like mike, I’ve sat through a lot of fall launches a lot of august, we’re in september’s and a lot of people I’ve been around a little bit, there’s people that came to you when you’re long believer or a baby in the face and they really invested in you. They not only shared christ to people, they shared what christ said, they share what the bible said, they disciples you they didn’t just blow in and blow up with words and blow out, they joined you and they became your friend, there’s plenty of people around to invest in christian do it because God’s presence because you’re worshiping God because you love God because there’s meaning in this life and there’s purpose in this life when you get life the way God says to give it, give yourself over to the vision here in Matthew 28 to make disciples and that and that a large capacity of small capacity pray that God will use you, I pray before every heavy conversation or sermon it’s four from one or four of the long God put me in the game, I just wanna be in the game that’s the heart that we want to have as we disciple people cause we’re leading them into what kind of hard to have God wants to use you christian. Let’s pray God thank you for today, thank you for this time I ask that you just encourage and instruct us in the word whatever I share, that was dumb, you just help people forget about that, whatever is helpful to grow them in a deeper love of you, of being disciple by you, that you would really instruct and encourage us Lord to recommit and commit to being about the main thing, disciple making, we just commit this time to you in jesus name. Amen.