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Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.

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Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.

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And lo, I am with you all way, even to the end of the age, amen.

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Do you know where Jesus said this?

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He said this to his disciples as his final phrase.

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Years and years of teaching, Jesus went with these disciples as they followed him.

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And Jesus had already been crucified when this happened.

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He had already been buried and he rose from the grave when this took place.

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Now Jesus had spent the last few weeks with his disciples to prepare them to spread the gospel around the world,

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as the apostles were supposed to.

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And his very last words to them, which probably are the most important words that any man could ever say to his friends.

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His final words is what we call the Great Commission.

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Where Jesus sends his disciples forward and telling them that their main job is to go and make disciples.

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Now that you're part of Southern Hills, you might be asking, okay, what do we do as a church?

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The answer to that question is we make disciples for Jesus.

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When I say what do we do as a church, I want you to say we make disciples for Jesus.

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What do we do as a church?

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Let's do it again, let's do it again.

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What do we do as a church?

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So that's all we've ever wanted to do for the last 19 years.

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When Heather and I first started the church, and Robert Tate, and Jessica Graves, and Ron Solis,

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all we wanted to do was make disciples for Jesus Christ to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus Christ.

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And if you look at this passage, it really breaks down very simply.

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There are three commands of Jesus in this passage.

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He says to his followers, he says to his disciples, I want you to go, therefore, to all nations.

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Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.

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Do you see it in the passage?

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The three words are go, baptize, teach.

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Say it with me.

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Go, baptize, teach.

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It's possible for our church to continue to do this if each and every one of us make a commitment to go, baptize, and teach.

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Now, if you come from a different type of a church background, you may have a false assumption.

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And that is, okay, Josh, you're the pastor, what you're telling us is our job is to tell you to go, baptize, and teach.

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And I'm saying it's exactly the opposite.

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My job is to stir you up to remember that it's your job to go and baptize and teach.

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My job as the shepherd is to help the sheep reproduce themselves in the followers of Jesus Christ.

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The shepherd can't reproduce sheep.

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Can I get an amen?

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Some of you need to understand biology.

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Amen, right?

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The shepherd can't have sheep, but the shepherd can make a conducive environment.

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Oh, there goes my caramel macchiato.

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Now everybody knows I'm a phony.

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I'm a fake.

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There's nothing in this cup.

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It's a prop.

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My job is to make an environment that you can safely follow the Great Commission and effectively bring people to Jesus Christ.

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Go, baptize, teach.

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Let's talk about all three of these.

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Of the three, go, baptize, teach.

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Which is the first?

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Go.

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Okay, let's talk about go.

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How do Christians go?

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It simply is this.

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We as Christians do not just come and gather.

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And that's what a lot of Christians think churches.

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They think church is a place to gather and hear a funny man talk about the Bible.

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Or maybe if it's a certain pastor, a sad man talking about the Bible.

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All right, and in your mind, or some pastors, an angry man talking about the Bible, right?

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That's not what church is.

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Church is a place where we gather to study about Jesus, get inspired to go, and tell others about Jesus.

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Go.

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And this happens all the time.

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Opportunities all the time.

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Like this morning.

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I literally was at Starbucks this morning.

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And I was getting my coffee before this morning, early in the morning.

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I stopped in, grabbed my cup of coffee.

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I sat there for a couple of minutes, went over my notes, and I prayed.

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And then I left.

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And as I left, perfect timing, I walked out the door.

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I went to get in my car and another car pulled up.

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It was a man about my age and his teenage daughter.

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And for whatever reason, he said out of the blue, he said,

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Bro! And I looked over, he said, you got great hair.

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Like, first of all, that's not the first time I've heard it.

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You know what I'm talking about?

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Like, it's something I hear.

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It's something I hear.

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You know what I mean?

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It is what it is.

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And I love it because it was just like every other dude.

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Like, that's how guys, you know, compliment.

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They have to begin with Bro, right?

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Otherwise, it gets really awkward.

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Like, if he just walked up and said, you have great hair, it gets a little awkward.

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But he said, Bro! And I'm like, Bro!

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And he's like, Bro! And I'm like, Bro!

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And he's like, you got great hair.

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And I'm like, Bro!

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And I said, you got a great t-shirt.

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And his t-shirt was really cool.

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It was like a human being with a dog head.

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And I'm like, do you got a great t-shirt?

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It's just this morning.

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You got a great t-shirt.

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And he's like, yeah, you can buy my t-shirt.

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I can't buy your hair, you know?

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And I'm like, it was kind of an awkward, sad moment for everybody.

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His teenage daughter was like, oh, what is happening?

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We were having like a dad moment, you know what I mean?

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And so I'm like, I laughed and he laughed.

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He went inside to grab a cup of coffee and I sat in my car.

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I put it in reverse because I had to run over here and do something before the service.

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And as I'm pulling out, literally, as I'm pulling out, God says to me, go!

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And I'm like, go what?

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And he's like, what, you're taught, like you're a sermon, go, go invite him to church.

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And I'm like, no, that's what they're supposed to do.

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I'm advanced.

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I was just, you know, like, it's weird, it's awkward, and I'm going to have to go back in.

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So I'm like, oh, geez, okay.

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Thank you.

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And then I got out of the car.

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Have you ever argued with Jesus?

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Have you ever fought with him a little bit?

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You're like, I think that message was for somebody else.

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So I did.

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I jumped out of the car and I grabbed one of those little, oh, and I looked in my car for those brochures.

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There's a bunch of brochures.

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We give them out right there on that rack out there.

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And I looked in my car for him and I could not find him.

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And I'm like, Jesus, I don't have them.

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And he's like, that's on you.

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It sounds like a you problem.

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And so I'm looking, I'm like, okay, where's the brochure?

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And I looked in my glove box and there were like two old ones from a while ago.

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And I'm like, okay, there's one.

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And I grabbed that, I walked back in and I'm telling you, you think because I've done this for 19 years,

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you think it's not awkward.

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It's always a little weird.

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I walked up and I'm like, bro.

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And he's like, he did.

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He was like, I thought we were done.

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You know what I mean?

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I thought we did the whole thing and we're done.

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He's like, bro.

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And I'm like, bro.

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And he's like, hey, and I'm like, okay, this might be weird, but I'm a Christian.

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I go to the church down the road.

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I feel like God wants me to give this to you.

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And I just gave it to him, just like you would do.

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Just like you would do.

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And he took it and he looked at it.

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He's like, man, thank you for this.

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Now, I wish I could say at that moment he started crying and said, Jesus needs to save me.

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He didn't say any of that.

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He just said, thank you.

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You say, well, what's going to happen?

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I don't know, but I did just obey Jesus.

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I goad.

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I goaded.

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I did the past tense of going.

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I did go.

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That's what Jesus wants of all of us to go.

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Now, who are we to go to?

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Yeah, you can go to random strangers, sure.

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But one of the people that you could be most effective with is going to your family, friends, coworkers, neighbors.

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Family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, go.

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There's a really cool story about a demon-possessed man in Matthew, Mark, chapter 5.

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Jesus is with his disciples in a boat coming across the Sea of Galilee.

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They dock their boat on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and when they do, they dock the boat right next to a graveyard.

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This graveyard was a graveyard filled with caves and caverns right up against the Golan Heights that overlook the Sea of Galilee.

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And when they park the boat, it's the middle of the night.

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It's a creepy middle-of-the-night graveyard scene when Jesus and his disciples walk off the boats and they arrive and stand in the graveyard.

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And all of a sudden, the Bible says, a wild maniac of a man starts running out of the graveyard directly at them.

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He is screaming and yelling.

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He is stark naked.

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True.

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And he's taking stones because he's demon-possessed and he's cutting himself, so he's bleeding profusely all over his body.

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Some preachers call him the nude dude with the rude attitude.

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That's a dumb joke, but it's true.

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He runs out of the graveyard, he runs up to Jesus, and the first thing he does is he yells at Jesus because he's filled with demons.

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He says, we know who you are and we know that you have come to send us to the pit before it's our time.

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The demons know that one day they're all going to end up in the pit of hell, and so they're fearful that Jesus is going to send them early.

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So they run up to Jesus and they say, we know who you are and we know that you're...

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Jesus doesn't direct his comments to the demon. He directs his comments to the man. What is your name?

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But the demons respond, our name is Legion, for we are many.

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That's the response.

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So Jesus addresses the demons and long story short, he casts the demons out of the man, saves the man's life, and brings a right mindset back into the man.

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The demons are gone, the man is saved. His entire life is now in front of him.

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And now the Bible says he's bowing down before Jesus.

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He has a robe over him, he's in his right mind finally again, and Jesus has saved him.

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That's the final scene of the story. Can you picture it?

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The demon possessed man looks up at Jesus and he says to Jesus these words,

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please allow me to come and follow you on the boat.

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Please let me come with you.

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And you would think that Jesus would say, yeah, you can follow me.

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But Jesus says no.

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Why in the world does Jesus say no?

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It's found in Mark chapter five, look at the screen.

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He says in Mark chapter five verse nineteen, go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you.

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And how he has had compassion on you.

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Can I tell you what the message of God might be for you today?

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Go home and tell your friends the great things that Jesus has done for you.

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And how Jesus had compassion on you.

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Have you ever lived long enough in this world that you think to yourself, man, this world is really messed up.

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Not only is it messed up out there, it's messed up even in my own life.

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And look at the mess that I've created.

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It's not a great place.

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God in heaven, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just go to heaven to be with you?

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And Jesus says no.

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I want you to go home to your family, friends, neighbors and relatives and tell them all the things that I've done for you.

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There's a very specific reason.

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Now picture it. We're sitting together over a cup of coffee. It's just you and me.

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There is a very specific reason Jesus does not have you in heaven right now.

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I don't care if you're 99 years old or you're 9 years old.

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There's a very specific reason.

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God does not have you in heaven right now.

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It's because it's your job to go.

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And you have a short lifespan to tell everybody all that Jesus has done for you.

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Who is it?

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Who is the one person in your life you're supposed to bring to Southern Hills?

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Who is it?

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I'm going to do something very odd.

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And I know if you're new to church, this part of the sermon might not be for you.

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But if you're part of Southern Hills, who is it?

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I'm going to do something very odd.

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I'm going to pray right in the middle of my sermon.

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Right now I'm going to pray and I'm going to ask that God, the Holy Spirit,

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would talk to your heart and tell you the one person that you're supposed to bring to Jesus.

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Okay? God?

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I'm asking you to do something I have no capability of doing.

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You know all these people better than I do.

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You're their savior, not me. You're their shepherd, not me.

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Will you speak to their hearts and bring to mind for them individually the one person

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that you want them to bring to church, the one person in their life they need Jesus?

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Okay?

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So look up here.

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Who is it that God told you to bring to church?

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For many of you, there's a name, there's a face that is coming to mind for some of you.

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It's the chuchu train that's coming to mind right now.

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What do we do as a church? Here's what we do.

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For those over there that like chuchu train, there was a train.

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Alright, never mind. Alright.

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What do we do as a church? Here's what we do.

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We stay on earth and we go for Jesus.

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And Jesus is calling you to go and bring the gospel.

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Not only do we go to our community, our family, friends, coworkers, neighbors,

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we also go all over the world.

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Did you know that your church is involved in what's called international evangelism?

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It's called worldwide missions.

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And at Southern Hills, you have an opportunity of being involved in worldwide missions,

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being a missionary.

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Every time you give financially to Southern Hills, did you know 10% of that goes to

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international and worldwide evangelism?

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But not only do you pray for missionaries and give to missionaries,

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that you have an opportunity of actually going on missions trips.

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One of the things that's going to change, Ron, over the last years as a church,

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we haven't really been a missions trip type of a church.

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We've done a few.

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But Pastor Jason and I have spent a lot of time visionaring for the future

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and deciding that our church is going to be a missionary type of a church.

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Which means every year you're going to hear about missionary trip opportunities.

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Not for you just to send missionaries, but for you temporarily for a week,

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for three weeks, for a month, become a missionary,

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go to a foreign field and learn what it is to bring the gospel to other countries and other nations.

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In fact, we have one coming up here in November that I'm going to be leading down to Mexico personally.

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And if you want to come to that, you should come.

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Take the time off.

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Give that time to the Lord and see what a missionary really truly does.

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You can scan that QR code to find out more about it.

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What's the point? What's the point? Here's the point.

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The point is, if we are to be a disciple making church, first and foremost,

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we must go. Say go.

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Number two, what's the second word we talked about?

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Baptize.

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Ladies and gentlemen, why don't we congratulate one more time all those who are baptized today.

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Give them a round of applause.

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Give it.

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Awesome.

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What were they doing? What were they doing?

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Baptism is not salvation.

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Baptism is an outward expression of an inward decision.

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What happened in front of you a moment ago was not people getting saved,

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having their sins washed away.

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They were already saved and their sins were already washed away

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when they by faith repented of their sins and asked Jesus to save them.

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So at some point they had already done that. Many of them are Starbucks.

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Amen.

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Okay.

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The question is, have you been saved?

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Have you been born again?

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You say, well, I think whenever I was a kid, somebody poured water on my head,

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I'm asking, have you been saved?

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I've always believed in God. Satan believes in God. Have you been saved?

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Have you been born again?

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Is there a moment in your life where you realize,

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I cannot do anything to earn my salvation, but Jesus Christ died for my sins upon the cross.

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I repent of my sin and I'm asking Him to be my savior.

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Has there been a day that you've been saved?

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If the answer to that is no, you should meet with me and we can talk about how to get saved.

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If the answer is yes and you haven't been baptized,

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your next step is the outward confession of the inward decision.

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It's to show everybody that you have been saved through the symbolism of baptism.

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Romans chapter 6 says that when somebody is baptized,

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their old life dies and is buried in the water,

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and their new life has come as they walk in newness life when they come out of the water.

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That's the symbolism of baptism.

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You may not know this, but baptism, baptism is a funeral service.

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What you just witnessed was like nine or whatever eight people and their funeral service.

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You say, what do you mean?

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It means their old life, Valerie's old life is gone.

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It died and was buried with Christ, Romans chapter 6.

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And her new life has begun.

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Maybe you're here today, you're like, man, I need a fresh start.

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I have screwed this up.

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I need Christ to save me.

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You need to repent and receive Christ.

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And if you already have, you need to follow Him into the waters of baptism

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and go through the symbolism of the old life dead that new life has begun.

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But it's not just symbolism, it's identification.

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When somebody gets baptized, they are identifying with Jesus Christ.

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Just like this.

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What is this?

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Josh, you know what this is?

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This is a wedding ring.

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What does this tell you about me, Josh?

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What that I'm cuffed.

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Everybody pray for Josh tonight.

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Because that was not the right answer.

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Josh is one of my disciples, one of my mentees,

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and I hate to publicly let you know in front of everybody, not cool, bro, not cool.

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I'm just kidding, that was dumb too.

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All right, all right.

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It means that I'm blessed.

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Yes, yeah.

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And permanently chained to Heather.

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Amen, all right.

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What this tells you about me in our culture is that I'm a married man.

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It means that I belong to somebody else.

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When somebody is baptized, it's a symbol like a wedding ring.

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When you're baptized, you say, I now belong to Jesus.

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Now, when somebody, if I took off my ring, would I still be married?

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Well, yes.

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If a single man put on a ring, would that make them married?

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Yes or no?

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No, no.

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Why?

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Because this is a symbol.

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It's an identifying marker.

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It exemplifies an outward, an inward decision in an outward way.

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So is baptism.

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Now, some of you in this room may have grown up religious

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and you put a lot of weight in your baptism.

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You're like, I know I'm going to heaven because somebody gave me a ring when I was a baby.

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That's like saying, I know I'm married because my parents, when I was a baby,

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wanted me to become a married person.

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Yet you never met anybody.

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You never dated.

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You never got married.

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You're alone.

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Just because you are baptized as a child doesn't mean Christ is your savior.

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Bubble burst.

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What it does mean is that at some point somebody was telling you about Jesus,

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which is awesome, but you have to get to a place where you personally call upon him to be your savior.

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He calls upon you to be his disciple.

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You say, yes, I do.

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You're married.

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You're follower of Christ.

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And then you put on the ring saying, I want to follow you.

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Baptism.

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Does this make sense?

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No.

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Now, maybe you're here today.

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You're like, I don't think I've ever been baptized.

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Why don't you scan?

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Can we put the QR code?

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Why don't you decide to get baptized?

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On this QR code shows you, if you scan that, you can sign up for our next baptism,

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which takes place in October.

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Now, if you're new to the church, you say, what are you doing?

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At our church, we want it to be very practical, very next step oriented.

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What's the next thing I'm supposed to do?

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And if you've not been baptized, scan that QR code.

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You say, well, I don't even know that I've been saved.

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Here's what your next step is.

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If you don't know that you're a Christian, you've never been born again, please hear this.

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Come and talk to me.

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I'm a very approachable person with great hair.

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Okay.

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After the service, I'm going to stand right here.

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And it's totally 100% on you whether or not you say, I'm going to have the courage to go schedule an appointment with Pastor Josh.

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We're going to go to coffee.

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We're going to talk about my own salvation.

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Does that make sense?

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Come and talk to me.

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See, as a church, our job is to make disciples for Jesus.

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We do this by, number one, go.

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Number two, baptize.

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Number three, does anybody remember the third one?

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Teach.

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When I say number three, you say teach.

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Three.

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We got to teach.

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Now, how do we teach at our church?

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Well, one of the ways we teach is what I'm doing right here.

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But I'm not the only teacher of the church.

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Did you know every Sunday while we sit here, there are hundreds of children that are being taught the word of God in our Kidopolis Children's program.

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And could it be possible because some of you have a way with children, some of you are incredible teachers in the community, some of you are incredible homeschool dads or homeschool moms, you have a way to teach that others, other adults don't.

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Could it be possible that God is calling you to help teach the children of Southern Hills in our Kidopolis program?

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Did you know that while we grow to over 1500 members as a church, that that means we have many, many children who need to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ?

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At the age of three and four and five, you say, well, their parents should tell them that.

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That may be true, but there's a lot of parents who don't know the Bible like you do.

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Which means they bring their church, their kids to church to hear the Bible from people like you.

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Could it be possible that God might have you be one of our Kidopolis teachers?

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What about Awana?

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Did you know our church is starting a brand new program next year?

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One year from today, we're starting a brand new program called Awana.

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How many of you have ever heard of Awana if you have?

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Why don't we hear it?

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Amen? You like Awana?

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It's a great cataclysm program for children to teach them scripture.

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They memorize it.

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When we start this 12 months from now, we're going to need a lot of workers, a lot of leaders.

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Maybe God right now is putting on your heart to teach children.

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Did you know every Sunday night in this room, we have many, many teenagers who come.

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It's called the Ascent.

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It's our youth ministry.

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Ages 12, all the way to what is it?

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Jeffrey like 18 or something?

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And all the teenagers come and have an incredible pastor named Pastor Caleb and a great program.

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Could it be possible that your teenagers should come and hear the teaching of the Word of God?

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See, we not only teach children, but we also teach within our small group system.

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I love small group.

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How many of you are involved in a small group right now?

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Would you raise your hand?

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How many of you are involved in a small group?

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A lot of you are.

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How many of you have ever been in a small group with me?

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How many of you have ever been in a small group with me?

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I love, it's so much fun.

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Here's one of the small groups that I've been part of for a couple years.

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I think this was taken about a year ago.

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Is it Enrique and Nathan and Josh, Jordan, there's David, Sal.

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Every week what we do is we gather at a, guess where we gather?

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Starbucks, correct, good job, yeah.

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We gather at a Starbucks.

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And we have, I don't know what our church is like, 50 small groups, I don't know how many.

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And they meet all over the city, all throughout the week, and this is what they do.

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They open the Bible and they study.

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There's a reason why I go to a small group, two reasons.

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Number one, I need, I need Christian fellowship.

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Number two, I need more Bible study than I get.

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And small group provides both.

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You say, but that's what church is for.

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When you come to church on Sunday morning, it's like in college or in university.

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They have a lecture lab model.

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Do you understand?

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You have a lecture in college where in the university there's going to be one guy like this

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giving a big lecture for 50 minutes.

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But then they have a lab where you get hands on with what you were taught in lecture.

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That's what small group is.

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This is the lecture, small group is the lab.

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Is it possible you've not been growing in the Bible as much as you could?

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Is it possible that you've not been growing in your faith with God the way you could

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because all you're getting is the lecture?

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You say, well, how do I join a small group?

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That's a good question.

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We have something coming up.

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It's called pick your tribe.

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And whenever you have an opportunity to find your tribe, you scan that QR code,

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it'll help you find one of the 40 to 50 different small groups that we have.

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And here's why, here's why, here's why.

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Because the point of the church is to make disciples.

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And we cannot help you become a disciple of Jesus unless you're being taught the word of God,

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teaching your children, teaching through small groups, teaching through discipleship.

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You might be interested in one-on-one spiritual coaching.

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We provide it.

472
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:12,000
It's called discipleship.

473
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,000
It's like having a spiritual life coach.

474
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:22,000
And I disciple, but there are many in our church, men and women, couples who disciple others.

475
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,000
And if you're interested, this is me with my disciple, my personal one-on-one disciple.

476
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:32,000
His name is Lorenzo, and at the third service, he'll be sitting right here with his three boys.

477
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:33,000
Discipleship.

478
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,000
We don't just provide one-on-one discipleship.

479
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:39,000
We also provide classes to teach the Bible.

480
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:43,000
Like in a few weeks in September, I'm going to be teaching every Tuesday night, right here,

481
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:47,000
a new Bible study where just like this, I'll be walking through for eight weeks on Tuesday night

482
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:49,000
to the book of 1 Thessalonians.

483
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:52,000
We teach the Bible as often as we possibly can.

484
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:55,000
You say, I want to come to that class, all you have to do is show up.

485
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:59,000
Tuesday night, 7 o'clock, 1 Thessalonians, eight weeks long.

486
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,000
And that's just one of the many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many classes that we provide.

487
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:04,000
You say, Pastor Josh, what's your point?

488
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:09,000
Here's the point.

489
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,000
You're part of the church now.

490
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:16,000
God brought you here.

491
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:22,000
I want you to get more involved.

492
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:29,000
And you have to now, because I bought you a cup of Starbucks.

493
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:33,000
For some of you, that just means to go to your friend, family, co-worker, neighbor, and bring them to church.

494
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,000
You already know who it is, and you're like, okay, I got to do it.

495
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,000
For some of you, you need to take that step of baptism.

496
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,000
Or meet with me and talk about salvation.

497
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:47,000
For some of you, it's to go beyond. It's to start serving and teaching.

498
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:51,000
Maybe join a small group. Maybe go on a mission trip.

499
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:55,000
19 years. It's been fun so far.

500
00:28:55,000 --> 00:29:01,000
19 years of Starbucks and 19 years of preaching and 19 years of building buildings.

501
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:21,000
And 19 years of going, baptizing, and teaching.