going into high school and I really, really, really,
really, really wanted a discman.
Does anybody know what a discman was?
Who knows what a walkman was?
Little tape player with the headphones
and then they came out with CDs and CD players
and I wanted one really bad.
The problem was that I was unemployed
and my parents were not thrilled about paying for $100 plus
for a CD player and I remember wanting it so badly
and I remember talking to my mom.
Now one of the things you gotta understand
is I have like three fans of my preaching.
I think my wife likes my preaching.
I think my mom likes my preaching.
So I'm about to use an illustration about my mom
and she's gonna hear this later
and so I'm sorry mom, if you can hear me right now,
but I'm gonna tell the story.
My mom looked at me and she said,
Ben, I don't think our family will ever be able to afford
to get a CD player.
And I was devastated.
We will never be able to afford a CD player.
$100 might as well have been a million dollars to me
at that time, at least that's how I felt about it emotionally
and I don't know why she even said it
or why I believed it because I don't know how she couldn't
see a time that like the records before them
or the eight track players or the cassette tape players,
the price of these things go down.
Has anybody ever noticed?
So you guys aren't laughing.
I thought this would be funny.
Maybe I'm not funny.
We'll never be able to afford a CD player.
You can go get one now for like five bucks or something.
Like it's so easy to get.
But for some reason she couldn't foresee a time
where something like that would be possible.
She didn't have a vision for me having a CD player.
And for some reason she couldn't.
I eventually did get one.
And I got the kind you could jog with
and you tried to like not jog too hard because it would skip.
Does anybody know what I'm talking about?
Now I'm not jogging hard for other reasons, but yeah.
Yeah, I'm hardly jogging.
That's right.
But yeah, and then I would put my headphones on.
It wouldn't be loud enough because when I'd be mowing
sometimes I have to put my hat over.
Anyway, it's a whole thing.
But for some reason, what's the point?
She could not see what would,
what plainly could be seen in the future.
She didn't have a vision for that sorry mom.
But that story from my past reminds me
of some of the following quotes.
I wanna show some of these quotes to you.
These are some things that people said in the past.
For instance, Kenneth Oslin,
founder of the Digital Equipment Corporation said this,
there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
Do you think that guy lacked vision?
Maybe a little bit.
Marshall Ferdinand Falk of the French military strategist 1911 said,
airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value.
Dr. Lee DeForest, inventor of the Audion tube
and father of the radio, quote unquote,
said man will never reach the moon
regardless of all scientific advances.
I think there's some people that think
that we still haven't reached the moon,
but that's a whole other argument.
One guy said this, this is Darryl Zanesk.
Television won't be able to hold on to any market
and capture after six months.
People will soon get tired of staring
at a plywood box every night.
Do you think that's happened?
It has not happened.
We have not grown tired of it.
This one's funny too, this is an interesting.
We don't like their sound.
Groups of guitars are on their way out,
said Decker Records rejecting the Beatles in 1962.
That is not, and then this is my favorite one.
King George III and a diary entry wrote this,
nothing of importance happened today, July 4th, 1776.
That's pretty funny, I like that one a lot.
Some people have no vision, right?
Some people can't see or they,
and here let's be honest with each other,
before too hard on these people in the past,
the same can be true for us.
In retrospect, all these quotes look really dumb,
but at the time, not seeing the future,
there's, you could see how maybe somebody
might believe one or two,
or not everything on the internet's true.
Did you know that?
Not everything on TV is true,
like it's not hard for us to figure that out.
There are times in life that we don't get it.
There's times in life where we don't have a vision
for what could be.
And I am passionate about our church.
I'm passionate about the Lord
and about the gospel,
and I'm passionate about this place, Trinity Baptist Church.
I'm passionate about us having a vision,
about us understanding what that vision is.
We must have a vision, a compelling vision
that's clear and motivating,
and that makes not just a temporary difference,
but makes an eternal difference.
That's what we're trying to do.
And what's amazing is that we don't have to manufacture
a compelling vision,
because Jesus Christ gave us a compelling vision.
It's called, it's a commission vision.
It is the great commission.
He gave it to us through his disciples
into which he poured his life.
And we're in the last sermon that we're gonna be on
in this series called Our Commission Vision.
It's been my attempt in this particular series
to communicate this truth that we do not get to pick
from a buffet of options
as to what the mission of our church is.
We don't get to choose what our mission is.
We were handed the baton with nail-scarred hands.
Jesus Christ has been doing something in eternity past.
He foretold what he did to us,
and it is now in our history.
And Jesus is the head of the church
that pursued this mission,
accomplished his part of the mission,
and handed it off to us.
And so let me just summarize.
If it's your first time here,
you're gonna get the whole series,
and I'll try not to bore you,
get the whole series in one sermon.
And here's what we've said so far,
that there's a problem.
And that the problem that gets manifested sometimes
in our culture, in our communities,
in our neighborhoods, in our politics,
really has its source in the human heart.
Our problem is sin, and our problem is spiritual.
Are you with me?
Our problem is sin, and our problem is spiritual lethargy,
and more than that, spiritual deadness.
And so our problem is spiritual before it's anything else.
Therefore the answer to our problem must be spiritual,
and the Great Commission describes God's mission
to change people spiritually from the inside out.
Week, that was week one.
Week two was entitled Our Mission.
And our mission is, like I said, the Great Commission.
The Great Commission was given to the apostles
and passed on to us.
It's found in five places in the gospel and in Acts,
and gives us a robust view of our mission as a church.
Matthew 28, 18 through 20 says this,
All authority is given to me in heaven and in earth.
Go ye therefore and teach, make disciples,
and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you.
And then he said this, and lo, I'm with you always,
even unto the end of the world, even to the end of the age.
Isn't that amazing?
That is the Great Commission.
In week three, we said that, we entitled that,
we said our problem, our mission,
here at week three was our strategy.
At our church, we have a pathway for discipling people
to help people grow in their relationship with God.
Since the Great Commission is a process
of winning people to Jesus,
and then helping them to obey everything he commanded them,
that means that we don't start when some,
we don't stop when somebody gets saved,
and when somebody gets baptized.
That's the starting line.
We share the gospel with people
when they respond to the good news
that Jesus died for them,
and that he rose again from the dead for their sins,
then we try to help them to grow.
We at our church think steps, not just programs.
And so we have a pathway that follows Jesus' method
of ministry in making disciples.
People go from being a part of the crowd
to becoming a part of our congregation,
coming to the worship services,
and then becoming a part of the community in our church,
getting involved in a Sunday school class,
where they love each other and grow.
And then as people get saved
and need to grow in their walk with the Lord,
we get them into discipleship groups, these core groups,
where they learn how to feed themselves,
and then be on mission for others.
And so then the last step is commission,
where we go to the neighborhoods
and the nations with the gospel.
That's our pathway.
And so that's what we said we're trying to accomplish
in our church, and I'll tell you more about that as we go.
And then last week we entitled this, Our Target.
Our Target is where we began to answer this question.
If we help people to know Jesus Christ,
who thinks people ought to get saved?
I believe that, I hope you have a passion for that.
We want people to go from not believing to believing,
from spiritual death to spiritual life.
And when the Bible says they get saved,
they're like, they're born again,
they're spiritual babes in Christ.
We don't want to abandon babies,
we want to help babies grow, right?
And so we're trying to help them do that.
And as we help these, and by the way,
we don't make them grow, God does it.
We just do the conditions that it takes
for people to grow, right?
If you want to grow spiritually,
you can't do it apart from this.
And you can't do it apart from God's people,
that's what God's called us to.
And so we ask this question, how will we know
if we're doing this mission, if we're teaching people
the word of God, we're getting down this pathway,
we're helping them to grow, how do we know that it's happening?
How do we know that this mission is being accomplished
in someone's life after they've been saved?
And the short answer to that, here it is,
don't get bored with this, this is so good.
The short answer to that is spiritual maturity.
Spiritual maturity, God wants you to grow up.
God wants me to grow up.
Things that are not grown up don't reproduce.
Things that are healthy don't reproduce.
It takes mature, healthy people to reproduce.
Who agrees with me?
The same is true spiritually.
So this is what we said last week,
and we gave you the first three,
the life of a mature disciple of Jesus Christ
is characterized by continued growth
in these five disciplines.
What does it look like?
It looks like continued growth.
By the way, you know when you get to stop growing?
In heaven when you die.
And we will be like him for we shall see him as he is.
And I believe even then we'll still grow.
I believe even then although we will be sinless at that time,
I think that God's still gonna continue to grow us.
That's gonna be an amazing thing.
The life of a mature disciple of Jesus Christ
is characterized by continued growth in these five disciplines.
The first is, and we talked about these last week,
I'm gonna go through the first three very quickly.
The first is faithfully assembling.
Jesus Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.
Jesus Christ handed the discipling ministry
to individuals and he said, hey, to these disciples,
hey, go make disciples of all nations.
And when they did that,
they formed local New Testament churches.
That's what happened.
So a Christ follower disciple prioritizes
being a part of a local New Testament body of believers.
They are a baptized member of their local church
and make it their priority to attend the services.
When they are there, they worship the Lord,
they edify fellow members and they seek to grow
in their relationship with God and other believers.
Let me ask you a question.
Why are you here today?
Are you here to just be entertained?
Are you, I'm not very good at that.
So if that's why you're here,
you probably won't stay long, right?
No, you're here because you wanna worship God.
Hopefully you're here because you wanna grow.
And by the way, you wanna help other people
do the same thing.
Who here ever needs encouragement?
Right?
Anybody here, you're probably not gonna
as readily volunteer, who ever here needs correction?
Yeah.
Bible says, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves
as the manner of some is.
He says later, you should consider one another
to love one another, to provoke one another,
to love and to good works, right?
And so there's an encouragement, there's an admonishment,
there's an exhorting that happens when we get together.
So there's this, the church isn't just a service you attend,
it's a part of people you belong to.
And that's what we do.
The assembly, ecclesia, assembly assembles,
that's what we do.
The second discipline is obediently walking.
A Christ follower, a disciple of Jesus,
stays in communication with God daily.
They do this through a consistent and close prayer life.
They also study God's word to hear from God
through his word and to understand what he has taught
and what's the next step?
To obey it.
I told, there's a group of people I was training yesterday
about discipleship and we were talking, I said,
what if I went to one of my kids and I said,
I've used this illustration before, but I think it's so good.
What if I went to one of my kids during the week and I said,
hey, Zeke, I pick on Zeke,
I pick on my daughters all the time,
Zeke's not here in the room.
Hey Zeke, go clean your room.
And then I walk away two or three minutes
and then I come back and I come back to Zeke and I said,
hey Zeke, what are you doing?
He goes, hey dad, I memorized what you said.
You said, hey Zeke, go clean your room.
Later on I have a group of my friends coming over
and we're gonna talk about what it would look like
if I went and cleaned my room.
We're gonna share some.
Is that what we ought to do with,
if my kid was doing that with my word, would I be upset?
Who agrees I'd be upset, right?
What's the point of my word to him?
I want a clean room, right?
I want obedience and I don't want that from him.
I want that for him.
I want his wife not to marry a slob.
Amen?
Are you with me?
So the Bible, when the God gave the great commission,
teaching them to observe what's over I've commanded you.
And here's the thing, when you get to,
here's what happens.
My kids will grow in obedience to me
as they love me and I love them.
Are you with me?
That helps for sure.
And as we grow and know God from his word
and through prayer, he will grow obedience in us.
The word of God is used by the Holy Spirit
to equip them for every good work.
So a discipline, the discipline of faithful assembling,
the discipline of obedient walking.
Thirdly, we talked about the discipline of generously serving.
And this is what I would say about that a Christ follower
sees himself or herself as a steward
of all that God has given them as a result of this perspective.
They see their talents and spiritual gifts
as given to them by God to serve him and others,
both inside and outside the church body.
They give cheerfully, proportionally,
and sacrificially of all the money and resources
that God has given to them.
Jesus Christ was the greatest gift ever given.
From a father who's the greatest giver he ever gave.
And if we're gonna grow to be like Jesus,
we gotta be generous in the way that we give.
Did Jesus serve?
Did Jesus sacrifice?
Did Jesus pour his life into other people?
He absolutely did.
And God calls us to be, hey, a new commandant,
I give unto you that you love one another, what Jesus said.
He says, don't you understand what I've done for you?
Wash their feet.
If I, being your Lord, if you call me master
and I've washed your feet, if I've served you,
you serve one another's feet.
What an amazing thing.
So the first three disciplines, we wanna see faithful assembling
me, part of a local body, obediently walking.
Do you have a daily walk with the Lord?
We wanna help people to do that.
Generously serving, helping to serve.
Here's what's amazing, when Jesus told those disciples,
hey, I wanna help you to serve.
If you, if I, being your Lord and master,
tell you, if you call me Lord and I served you,
you ought to serve and you would think you would say me.
But you know what he says, you serve me by serving each other.
Isn't that amazing?
If you give a cup of cold water in my name,
you've done it unto me.
What an amazing thing.
Here's the fourth discipline.
This is where we're gonna land this morning.
The fourth discipline that we're gonna talk about today
is this, purposeful witnessing.
Purposeful witnessing.
The task that has been handed to everyone
who has put their faith in Christ is the unfinished task
of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to every creature.
Mark 16, 15 says this, and he said unto them,
go ye into all the world and preach the gospel
to every creature.
What is the gospel?
First Corinthians tells us what it is,
that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures
that he was buried and that he rose again for our sins
according to the scriptures.
Jesus Christ died for your sins.
And he rose again from the dead to prove
that what he did for your sins was acceptable for God.
There was an acceptable sacrifice for sin.
And because of that, people can go to heaven
if they put their faith in Christ.
Their sins can be forgiven.
Heaven can be their home.
Do you believe that?
Do people need to know that?
They absolutely need to know that.
One hymn writer wrote this, not a old song,
somewhat new song, facing a task unfinished
that drives us to our knees,
a need that undiminished rebukes our slothful ease.
We who rejoice to know thee, renew before thy throne,
the solemn pledge we owe thee to go and make thee known.
We where other lords beside thee hold there
on hindered sway, where forces that defy thee,
defy thee still today, with none to heed their crying
for life and love and light.
Unnumbered souls are dying and pass into the night.
We go to all the world with kingdom hope unfurled.
No other name has power to save,
but Jesus Christ the Lord.
Do you believe that?
I believe that.
The task of purposely witnessing,
sharing the good news of the gospel with others,
is not just a task for a select few.
It's not just a task given to people with titles,
people with jobs in ministry.
The good news of the gospel is for every person
that knows Jesus as savior, not just to hoard to themselves,
but to give away to everybody.
It's too important a message, one that keeps people from hell
and helps them to know Christ and heaven.
Can I tell you this?
I know that today there's not a lot of,
I won't say a lot, I won't criticize any bit.
Here's what I'll say, there's not enough preaching on hell.
The Bible, Jesus taught more about hell
than he did about heaven.
Hell is a reality and heaven is a reality.
And we don't have a right to pick and choose,
he hears that gospel message.
I don't have a right to pick and choose
who I tell about Jesus.
Acts 1-8 says this,
you shall receive power after that,
the holy ghost has come upon you
and you shall be witnesses unto me,
both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria
and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
A witness is someone who shares what they know
about the identity, actions and reputations of another.
Has Christ been good to you?
Has he?
Has he made a difference in your life?
Is the word of God growing you?
Are his people loving and caring for you
and generous to others?
Then we must tell everybody we possibly can.
We can't be ashamed of this message
of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Paul said in Romans,
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,
for it is the power of God.
Undo salvation to everyone that believe it,
through the Jew first and also to the Greek,
for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith as it is written,
the just shall live by faith.
Why is the gospel so important?
Because he says it in the next verse, verse 18,
for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men
who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
What do you mean they hold the truth in unrighteousness?
He says in verse 19,
because that which may be known of God
is manifest in them,
for God hath showed it unto them.
Whenever we have a conscience that is pricked by wrongdoing,
whenever we hold someone to a standard
that we think they ought to know,
hey, you stole my bike, why did you steal my bike?
You should not have stolen my bike.
Who taught the kid that?
Who taught the kid that stealing was wrong?
God put that on their heart.
Paul goes on in Romans to talk about creation.
He says when you see the power of God revealed in creation,
being seen by the things that are made,
you realize this is what he talks about.
Hey, I didn't get here before all this was made.
I didn't make this.
I'm not powerful enough to do this.
When I see design, there must be a designer.
And we violated his law.
So what we know is that our conscience and creation
is enough to condemn us.
It took Jesus coming and revealing who he is
for us to know that there is a savior,
that there is a remedy for our sin.
We have to give people the gospel.
Everybody is going to spend eternity somewhere.
Say, Pastor Ben, you said that before.
I'm glad you remember.
Because everybody is going to spend eternity
somewhere.
The goal of helping someone grow in discipleship
is not just so that they would faithfully assemble
and walk with the Lord and serve inside the church,
but that their whole life would be seasoned
and saturated with the gospel.
Our words and our deeds and our actions,
our thoughts and our reputation
should be gospel flavored.
Because Jesus Christ died on the cross
for our sins according to the scriptures.
He was buried and he rose again from the dead
for our sins according to the scriptures.
We cannot help but speak his name.
There is no other name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved.
If that's true, people have to hear the gospel.
And if his disciples don't,
if the Christ followers don't tell them,
listen, lost people are not funding their own evangelism.
Lost people don't evangelize for Jesus
because they don't know Him.
If the churches that preach the gospel
in this community don't do it,
Finley is in trouble.
I'm glad for other Bible preaching,
gospel preaching churches here, amen.
I'm glad for them.
We need to be that too.
A spiritually mature disciple of Jesus Christ
is a purposeful witness.
Let me sum it up this way.
A Christ follower, a disciple of Jesus,
sees himself on a mission from God
to win the loss for Christ.
They understand and communicate the gospel boldly.
They are intentional in making relationships with lost people,
sharing the gospel with lost people
and supporting missionaries and ministries
doing the same thing around the world.
Their life is a consistent platform for sharing the gospel.
Can I ask you a couple questions?
Are you regularly and boldly sharing the gospel?
Are you intentionally building relationships
with people who don't know Christ
so that they can be reached?
And is your private and life and public reputation
consistent with the message of the gospel?
A spiritually mature, a spiritually growing person
is growing in this area.
Can I tell you, none of us have arrived
in any of these areas.
I'm not saying this like, oh, this is where I'm at.
I'm totally there all the time.
I mess up.
Sometimes I should speak up and I don't, okay?
God help me.
You ever feel that way?
Yeah, God help us.
But a spiritually mature person is growing in this area
as they grow together in the body of Christ,
as they grow together in God's Word and prayer,
as they grow together in the body of Christ,
in God's Word and prayer, as they grow together
in their service inside and outside of the church.
Eventually, at some point, we gotta get to the place
where we're spiritually mature enough to speak,
to speak the name of Jesus and to give the gospel,
to be a purposeful witness.
Fifth discipline, are you ready?
You're like, man, you're almost done.
No, no, I'm not.
That's a joke.
Number five, intentionally replicating.
What does it mean to replicate?
Replication means, in this context,
to help others in the way that you were helped.
Replication is the action of copying or reproducing something,
and it's inherent and even explicit in the Great Commission.
Matthew 28, I've already quoted it, verses 18 through 20.
Jesus tells them, yeah, you need to baptize.
You need to make sure people know Jesus,
make disciples baptize.
Teach them, baptize them.
And then it says in verse 20,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you, and though I'm with you always,
even in the world.
As we have said throughout this series,
salvation and baptism are not the finish line.
It's the starting line to a new life in Christ
and getting on mission.
It's what the apostle Paul was pointing to
in 2 Timothy, when he was in the church,
when he wrote to his son in the ministry,
and this is what he said,
thou therefore my son, be strong in the grace
that is in Christ Jesus.
And the things thou hast learned, heard of me
among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men
who shall be able to teach others also.
Well, Paul had told Timothy at another time,
hey, Timothy do the work of an evangelist.
So what is he telling Timothy to do?
What does an evangelist do?
An evangelist is someone who goes and shares the good news.
The gospel, Greek and Greeks is Eungalion.
It's where we get our word.
It's the word, it means literally good news.
The gospel is good news.
Evangelist comes from that same word.
He's a good news teller.
The evangelist goes to where people don't know Jesus,
don't know the gospel, and as a person
who communicates the good news, he gives them the good news.
You can't disciple a lost person.
You evangelize a lost person.
Okay, so he told Timothy, do the work of an evangelist.
Then he told Timothy, hey, and once those people
are coming to faith in Christ, you find faithful men.
Timothy, you take the things that I taught you,
you find faithful men, and you teach them in such a way
that it doesn't end with them, but that they passed that along
in such a way that it doesn't end with them,
but that they passed that along.
So it doesn't end with them, and so are you with me?
Keep passing the baton.
Don't just pass the good news to the lost,
help the lost that come to know Jesus own the same mission.
That's what he taught him to do.
And that's not also an activity that's just for
the professional class of religious people.
That's for every believer that comes to faith in Christ,
that you make disciples as well.
He was providing the example and nudging them towards that.
In that particular passage, four generations are described.
We don't just hand over the gospel,
we hand over all of its implications, its applications,
and the subsequent disciplines that go along with it.
Paul told the Philippians, those things which thou has
both learned and received and heard and seen in me do,
and the God of peace shall be with you.
Paul was providing an example and lovingly nudging
and prodding them to do the right things
that he had taught them.
Jesus, you know, when he called the disciples,
he said, follow me, and I'll make you fishers and men,
follow me, follow me.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians, something very similar,
but slightly different.
He said, be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.
He's saying, you might have to eat the meat
and spit out the bones a little bit.
But if I'm doing what Jesus would do,
when we try to help people to follow Christ,
and we don't claim to be perfect,
yet we do strive to follow Christ's example
and to provide a present example for others.
Here's a beautiful passage where Paul expresses this
to the Corinthians.
This is such a cool passage.
It's in 1 Corinthians chapter four, verse 14.
Paul says this, this is a church that he's writing a letter
to, it's a church that he had started,
and he's giving him this example.
Here's what he says.
I write not these things to shame you.
So he's given them a bunch of instruction,
and he's saying, hey, by the way, I'm not trying to make you
feel really bad about all this.
I'm not shaming you, but as my beloved sons, I warn you.
I'm not saying this because I'm mad at you.
I'm saying this because I want you to know some things.
I want you to be warned of some things.
Verse 15.
For though you have 10,000 instructors in Christ,
yet you have not many fathers.
For in Christ Jesus, I have begotten you through the gospel.
Jesus called being saved, being born again.
And Paul is using that language to say, hey,
I was the one that gave you the gospel,
and because you believe the gospel that I gave you,
I was there when you got saved.
I was there when you were born.
I'm like a spiritual dad to you, right?
Wherefore I beseech you, be you followers of me.
I'm pleading with you not to stay a baby.
I'm pleading with you to grow up.
Do you get it?
You see it?
Then he says, this is amazing.
For this cause I have sent unto you, Temotheus.
What causes he talking about?
For the cause of you becoming like me
as I become like Christ, I want you to grow in Christ.
I'm writing you this letter,
and with this letter comes a person.
That person is a guy named Temotheus.
I want you to be like me, so I'm sending you Timothy.
What?
If you want me to be like you, shouldn't you come and see me?
No, I'm sending you Timothy, what does he say?
Who is my beloved son?
He's like your big brother, right?
And faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you
into remembrance of my ways, which be in Christ
as I teach everywhere in every church.
You know what he's saying?
I have poured my life into Timothy,
and I want you to live the way that me and Timothy live.
We're striving to follow Jesus.
And so because you need to follow Jesus too,
and I need to go somewhere else
and help somebody else know the gospel
and come to faith in Christ and grow,
I'm gonna send you Timothy because he's ready
to do with you what I did with him.
Isn't that awesome?
That's what we're supposed to be doing.
You know what's amazing?
Does Timothy grow in that scenario?
You better believe it,
because Timothy's on his way there to do what?
Provide an example.
Who better Timothy be like?
Paul and Jesus, are you with me?
When he gets there, that's what he's supposed to do.
And you know what that does?
It makes Paul be freed up to go do it somewhere else.
That's replication, that's multiplication.
That's what we're called to do.
People who reproduce but do not parent.
People who reproduce but do not parent
reflect a major problem in our culture.
Churches that proclaim the gospel
but do not help the people who respond
to grow and adopt the mission through discipleship
present a similar problem.
We want to provide a process through which
the gospel is being used to help people
we want to provide a process through which those
who are mature enough to reproduce themselves spiritually
have the opportunity to mentor and disciple those
who get saved so that they can grow spiritually
and own their own spiritualized
and then own the great that commissioned themselves
and that the baton doesn't stop in their hands.
So, a Christ follower understands
that they must share the gospel with the lost,
train others to be on that same mission.
They intentionally train quote others to observe
or obey all that Christ that I have commanded you.
They are intentional in making accountable relationships
in their family and in their local church for that purpose.
When the lost gets saved, they are intentional
about training them to obey, training them for godliness.
So here's my question for you today.
Maybe you can ask yourself this,
am I influencing others to assemble, to walk,
to serve and to witness and to train others
to do the same thing?
The five disciplines we're talking about.
Am I helping people do that?
Am I able to hold those who I'm training accountable
for their spiritual walk?
And is my life an example of what I'm trying to train?
Here's how I wanna conclude this series.
Think about the Bible.
The Old Testament reveals to us who God is.
The Old Testament reveals to us God's law.
And when we understand that God is God's law,
we can understand that God is God's law.
And when we understand God's law, we realize we can't keep it.
Anybody ever mess up when it comes to God's law?
Yeah.
But the Old Testament also promised a redeemer.
And in the very nature of the law,
it promised and pictured the way
that our sins will be forgiven
through the blood sacrifice of a substitute.
That's what happens in the Old Testament.
The Gospels reveal that Messiah,
that perfect substitute that came,
who lived a perfect life and kept the law that I could not keep
and died the death that I was supposed to die.
It gives us the answer to who the Messiah is.
Jesus Christ's obedient life, death, burial,
and resurrection for our sins according to the Scriptures
is documented for us to believe.
And then the rest of the, so the Old Testament
is pointing to Jesus who's coming.
The Gospels are about Jesus who came,
and he says, and by the way, I'm coming back.
Then the rest of the New Testament is like, okay,
how do we live in the future based on what happened
with Jesus in the Gospels?
And it helps us to understand how do we live in light
of this new thing that God did, not just the Gospels,
but also the church?
That's what the rest of the New Testament says.
And that's what the New Testament's about.
It helps us to understand the actually see that Jesus started
and what it means to be a part of his body
that we have been given a stewardship of,
the stewardship of the Great Commission.
But here's my point.
If our study of the Bible does not ultimately lead us
to witnessing to the lost and discipling the saved
to be on Jesus' mission, we've missed the point of the Bible.
That's what the Bible's about.
God created us and he loves us, but we sinned
and he provided himself a lamb.
John said, behold the Lamb of God
that takes away the sin of the world.
Jesus came and he kept the law and died for us.
And now we're supposed to live with that message
to the nations, helping them understand
that their sins could be forgiven and heaven to their home.
And so if your Bible study isn't at some level
prompting you towards gospel proclamation
and discipleship replication,
you've missed the Bible studies messed up.
Do you want proof that this was Jesus' heart and method?
I want to show you one more passage of Scripture.
I want to show you one more passage
and then you can go to a lot of passages.
In your Bible, go to John chapter 4.
John chapter 4.
Last two disciplines are what?
Purposeful witnessing and intentional replication.
Let me give you the example of Jesus.
Verse one, when the Pharisees, when therefore the Lord knew
how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made
and baptized more disciples than John,
though Jesus himself baptized not, but as disciples,
I think that's interesting.
He's getting them to do what they can do, right?
He left Judea and departed again into Galilee.
Verse four, and he must needs go through Samaria.
Jesus is going to a place that most Jews didn't go
because Samaritans and Jews hated each other.
Samaritans and Jews hated each other.
There was longstanding long-term problems between the two.
And the other thing that happened is men didn't talk
to women in public.
In fact, in that day and time,
often women wouldn't even walk with their husbands in public.
They had to walk behind their husbands.
And so he goes to Samaria, a place where most people don't go
and he talks to a woman who is of, or repute.
Then come with, he do a city in Samaria,
which is in Sychar near the parcel of ground
that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
Verse seven, there cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water.
It was the sixth hour, it says in verse six, it's about noon.
It's the worst time to go.
She doesn't want to be with the other women.
We find out why.
Jesus speaks to her.
Jesus says on her, give me to drink.
He doesn't say, the first thing he doesn't say
is you're going to hell.
He just starts a conversation with her.
For his disciples were gone away under the city to buy meat.
Then say the woman of Samaria unto him, how is it that
shall thou, being a Jew, ask drink of me,
which am a woman of Samaria, for the Jews have no dealings
with the Samaritan.
Jesus answered and sent her, if thou newest the gift of God,
and who it is that saith that he give me to drink,
thou wouldst have asked him, and he would give unto thee
living water.
One of the things you see contrasted in this story
over and over again is people thinking temporary,
people thinking temporally, people thinking about right now,
contrasted with Jesus, who's just always thinking eternally.
Hey, give me some water.
Did he really need her to get him water?
No, he's having, how do I know that?
Her reaction, are you really gonna talk to me?
A Samaritan, and you're a man, and I'm a woman?
And he goes, well, if you would have known who's asking you,
if you know me, you would ask me for living water.
Is he talking about water?
No, he's talking about eternal life, eternal satisfaction.
Verse 11, the woman saith unto him,
sir, thou has nothing to draw with,
and the well is deep, from whence thou has this living water?
She's thinking, oh, are you gonna get some,
you have some new technique of getting something out of this
well that's gonna get me some better water?
You don't have a bucket.
How are you gonna give me living water?
Verse 12, art thou greater than our father Jacob,
which gave us the well and drink thereof himself,
and his children, and his cattle?
Hey, what's the answer to that question?
Is Jesus greater than Jacob?
Ha ha ha, yeah.
She has no idea.
Verse 13, Jesus answered and sent in her,
whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again,
but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him
shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him
shall be in him a well of water springing up
into everlasting life.
People in Finley are thirsty.
People in Hancock County are thirsty.
People in Ohio are thirsty.
People all over this world are thirsty.
You know how I know?
Cause they're trying to quench their thirst
with all kinds of things that will not satisfy them.
In fact, most of what they're trying to satisfy
themselves with, most of what they're doing
is comes to the law of diminishing returns.
The more that you drink of the water
that you're trying to satisfy,
that's not the eternal water, the thirstier you get.
Has anybody seen that?
They keep having to come to wells
that can't satisfy.
And Jesus is like, I'm the well that satisfies.
I'm the water that satisfies.
And if you drink of me, you'll have eternal life.
The woman's safe in the well.
The woman's safe in the...
Sir, give me this water that I thirst not.
Neither come hither to draw.
Jesus says under her, go call thy husband and come hither.
What was the water she was trying to quench?
She's trying to quench her thirst
through these relationships.
Maybe this time it'll be different.
Here's what I'm gonna try.
I'm gonna try to do married people things
without getting married
because the last five didn't work out.
That's gonna go real well.
Look at what he said.
She said, I have no husband.
I don't know this for sure,
but when I read narratives,
sometimes I try to think about
how would a woman like that,
how she would have said that?
Do you think that she was proud when she said it?
I don't, I happen to don't think she is
because how she reacts later, I don't have a husband.
Jesus said in her, thou hast well said,
I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands,
and he whom thou hast is not thy husband.
And then that thou said is truly.
The woman's safe under her,
sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
Who told you that?
How do you know?
You knew that about me,
and you still,
and I'm a Samaritan and I'm a woman,
and you knew that about me,
and you still talked to me.
You must be a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped in this mountain,
and you say that in Jerusalem
is the place where men ought to worship.
Jesus says in her woman, I believe me the hour cometh,
when ye shall neither in this mountain
nor yet in Jerusalem worship the Father.
When ye worship, ye know not what.
We know that what we worship for salvation is of the Jews.
Doctrine matters, and he was saying,
hey, you guys are saying that Jerusalem
isn't where you ought to worship.
I'm telling you that God has been working
on a story of redemption,
and there's a sacrificial system,
and that sacrificial system, stay tuned for Hebrews.
I've been studying all through chapter 10.
You guys come back, it's gonna be amazing.
But he's saying, hey, when God says it,
you can take to the bank what he says, right?
And you guys are wrong, salvation is of the Jews.
God is, he says, but the hour cometh,
and now is when the true worshipers
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth,
for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
God is spirit, and may that worship him
and let's worship him in spirit and in truth.
Now she gets to the heart of the issue, verse 25,
the woman saith unto him, I know that the Messiah cometh,
which is called Christ, when he is coming,
you will tell us all things.
You know what she's kind of saying?
This is sounding a lot like what's been promised.
You're telling us all kinds of stuff.
You're speaking with authority.
She didn't ask a question, but she's making a statement,
kind of like, are you the Messiah, and what does Jesus say?
Jesus says unto her, I that speaketh unto thee, am he.
I'm the anointed one, I'm the Messiah.
You believe in me, you'll have living water.
Is he giving her salvation?
Is he saying to her, repent and believe in me?
Is that not the gospel message?
Is Jesus purposefully witnessing?
Is he doing it on purpose?
Yes, he is.
But that's not the end of the story.
Guys, that's not the end of the story.
He purposefully witnesses, but then look what he does.
And upon this came his disciples.
Sometimes I feel like this, I feel like the disciples.
You ever notice that sometimes the disciples don't get it?
Broom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Right, they're not getting it.
Sometimes I don't get it.
Sometimes you don't get it.
Here comes the disciples, and they're marveled
that he talked with the woman.
There's a lot of people marveled at what Jesus did.
They're, but why are you talking to a Samaritan woman?
Oh my goodness.
Yet no man said, what seeketh thou?
Or why talketh thou with her?
The woman then left her water pot and went her way to the city
and said it to the men.
That's interesting too, she said to the men,
come see a man which told me all the things
that ever I did is not this the Christ.
Then they, who are the they?
The men of the city.
Then they went out of the city and came unto him.
Him.
So do you get the image?
Jesus gives her the words that will give her eternal life.
She believes that he's the Christ.
She believes it so badly that she instantly takes on the mission.
Hey, we gotta go get some other people.
Hey, come see a man that told us, I think maybe what she was
saying to some of them is, he knows what we did.
We're all those men innocent?
We don't know for sure, but it could have been.
And here they come, they're coming out to the well
that's outside of the city.
Here comes a group of people with the woman
bringing them along with her.
And look at what Jesus says.
In the mean, here they're coming.
You see them coming?
They're coming.
The lost people, because of the saying of the woman,
they're coming.
In the mean, while his disciples prayed them saying,
what did they do?
Master, eat, aren't you hungry?
Hey Jesus, hey, back in the here and now.
Time for dinner, time for lunch.
Who here's thinking about lunch?
Be honest.
Me too.
I'll hurry.
Okay.
What did he say?
Aren't you gonna eat, Jesus?
He said to them, I have not meat to eat.
I have meat to eat that you know not of.
Therefore says the disciples, one to another,
if any man brought him ought to eat.
Jesus said to them, my meat is to do the will of him
that sent me and to finish his work.
You say that there's four months and then comes a harvest.
Lift up your eyes.
Look on the fields, they're white already to harvest.
Was he talking about wheat?
Was he talking about water?
No.
He's pointing at the guys that are coming
because of the witness of the woman
that he had just made a disciple of himself.
And they're coming and he's saying, fellas,
forget the food.
In a hundred years, the food won't matter.
Look at some different kind of food.
A different kind of harvest.
Look under the fields, they're white ready to harvest.
And he that reapeth, receivedeth wages
and gathered food in the life eternal.
That both he that soweth and he that reapeth
may rejoice together.
And hearing as that saying, true one soweth
and another reapeth, what did he say?
I, verse 38, I what?
I sent you.
Is there a theme here?
I sent you to reap whereon you bestowed no labor.
Other men labored and he entered into their labors.
Do you get the point?
Jesus was not only a purposeful witness to the lost.
He had a group of guys that were already his disciples
to say, let me equip you and inspire you and provoke you
and send you into the fields to do the reaping.
Paul said, I planted Apollos watered,
but who gives the increase?
God gives the increase.
We don't just reach the lost,
we equip the saved to be on the same mission.
I'm gonna hurry.
Imagine a church who adopts this commission vision
that we've been handed.
An assembly of people that fully embraced this mission.
A body of people who faithfully assemble,
loving each other, encouraging each other
to love into good works, equipping each other
to live out the gospel in their families and schools
and neighborhoods and workplaces.
Imagine a body of people, imagine a church
who were equipped to walk with the Lord in His word,
who were satisfied by the living water of Jesus Christ
on a daily basis and communed with Him and loved Him
and grew in their obedience every day.
Imagine a body of people, a church who were so generous,
they were stewarding their gifts, their resources,
their time, their abilities for God's glory
and for gospel expansion.
Imagine a body of people who live every week
as though they were not dismissed, but they were sent,
but purposely sent to share the gospel with the lost.
And imagine a body of people who were intentional
with each other as they came to faith
to generationally hand off the mission
through discipling and equipping other believers
to do all that Christ taught sharing the gospel with the world.
A church like that would be a church on the move.
A church like that, it may be said,
like was said in the early church,
that those who turned the world upside down
have come here also.
And so that's the great co-mission vision.
We're on mission together as a body for the gospel.
What's your next step in that vision?
Are you part of the crowd, but not part of the congregation?
Maybe you ought to join this church
and you get baptized maybe,
and you commit yourself to faithfully attending the service
and getting to know others.
Are you a part of the congregation,
but not part of the community?
Maybe you need to get involved in a Sunday school class.
Maybe you need to come and do the one and others
with a community of believers in our church.
Maybe you need to know and be known.
If you want to be a part of a Sunday school class
and don't know where to start,
fill out a connection card in your bulletin
or in the pupock in the front of you
and we'll help you get connected.
Maybe you're a part of the community,
but you want to grow deeper in your faith
and be equipped to share the gospel and to walk with the Lord.
We have between 20 and 23 groups
that have been started the last two years
who have been trained and equipped in our discipleship groups
this past year that are looking to take three to five people
per group to help them to grow spiritually
and you can be a part of that.
You can name, put your name on a next step card
that you're interested in and it will help you get connected.
Are you equipped and you're walking with the Lord
but maybe your witness and your ability to disciple others,
maybe you need to grow in that.
Do you want to serve and use your gifts in the body?
You can also fill out a connection card
and we can help you grow in that area.
We'd love for you to get involved.
What's your next step in this co-mission vision?
Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me?