AUG 13 2023 | The Gospel of John S2E1 | An Invitation To Encounter

Sea Change Church · The Gospel of John S2E1 · "An Invitation To Encounter" · August 13, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

The gospel of John Chapter one Of his disciples when he saw Jesus passing by, he said, look, the lamb of God. When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus turning around. Jesus saw them following and asked, what do you want? They said, rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? Come, he replied, and you'll see.

So they went and saw where he was staying and spent that day with him. It was about the 10th hour. Andrew Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, we have found the Messiah. That is the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, you are Simon, son of John. You'll be called CFUs, which when translated is Peter. This is the word of the Lord. Right on. Well, hey, welcome to the Hoya Christian Fellowship. We are in season two now of John back here for the second time this summer. We usually, uh, wait a year until we come back, but I just felt the Lord really impressed me to come back to John.

We were supposed to get through chapter three or something. We got stuck in chapter one with that really good theology, got stuck with Jesus'. The logos, the word of God, and all that good stuff. And now we're getting to the people part. We're getting to the part where, uh, we just start seeing these relationships start being formed out of the clay of just our humanity and Jesus talking to people and starting here with John the Baptist today. Now you'll know if you're new to the church and new to scripture, John the Baptist is different than John. We're reading outta the book of John, but John the Baptist is a different guy. John was a disciple.

John the evangelist is what it was called, was a disciple of Jesus. He wrote the book, and this is the scripture we're in. We use, by the way, the the n i v 1984 edition. Those are the blue bibles. They're antiquated bibles. They are out of print. But right now we are using the n I v 1984, uh, um, edition. So if you want to know why your Bible might be a little bit different, this is, uh, you can find it online as well. But here it is, um, in verse 35. And we, if you were gonna take this verse, this passage as we jump back in, we're still in Chapter one should go a little quicker. Uh, and you were gonna try to discern ex is the word.

That's the fun theologian word to exe two draw out. Imagine making some lemonade on a hot, uh, day like today. Isn't, uh, and you're exe just all the juice outta the passage. What is this passage saying? The passage says a lot. This is one of those passages you could spend 10 weeks and just this passage. There's, it's so Rich. John is such an incredible author, one of the writers of the, of the New Testament. But if there was one word, I would write the word invitation.

If there was one word that sums up perhaps the fuel of the gospel, the fire that is the gospel, it would be invitation. The gospel goes forward through invitation. The gospel goes forward through inviting one person, speaking to another person. That's just what John the Baptist is doing here. So you see this passage, we see the importance of invitation. And so today, what I wanna, what I wanna present to you, what I wanna posit to you is the power of invitation and your role in that invitation in the furthering of the gospel. The invitation's important.

In 1939, there's a powerful invitation that was written. It was a handwritten letter. It was by Albert Einstein. Einstein wrote to a man by the name of Oppenheimer and he said, dear Mr. Oppenheimer, in this letter, in this invitation, would you join me in a project to split the Adam, to come against the evil paraphrasing of the Nazi regime who are also trying to, to build their own nuclear weapon for the sake of the ending of this war and ending evil in this world. Interesting how, just an invitation just back then before internet or whatever, it was just a piece of paper.

Just think about just a blank piece of paper and a pen. And Einstein sitting at his desk and thinking, I need to invite somebody, uh, to change the world. I need to invite somebody into something bigger than ourselves for a purpose greater than ourselves. And he just took a pen and wrote down this invitation and invited Oppenheimer and the world, for better or for worse, uh, was changed to that invitation.

In 1997, uh, I invited a woman on a date. She ended up being my wife. Her name's Carrie. We were at Dietrich's Coffee House. Uh, she was on a date with another guy. She says she wasn't, but she was. And I had a wingman. And I told my wingman, I said, when the date Neil, Neil gets up to go get his coffee, go ask Neil about his forestry service work.

'cause he will talk for hours about it. And so I sent my wingman as he went and got a coffee. And then I went to my wife and I asked her out. And while she was on a date, she said yes to going out with me. That's why she says she's not on a date. 'cause she would never do that. But don't know what happened to Neil. He is probably hugging a tree somewhere, but, uh, I'm hugging her.

So there you go. Invite the power of invitation invitation. So, so, so simple, just an invitation. The heart of the gospel is invitation. And I want to invite you into the Ministry of Invitation. There's two points. I'm I'm trying to become the master of the two point sermon. And, uh, whether I can do it or not, we will see the first point for the day is the power of invitation, which I've already po um, posited to you. And the second is this.

Invitations lead to encounters. Often invitations lead to encounters. John the Baptist is inviting people that are surrounding him to look at something greater than himself, to look at something beyond himself, to look at Jesus himself, the Lamb of God, and he invites them. And because of that invite many respond. And they have an encounter. Invitations lead to encounters.

And you'll see with the gospel, encounters happen less often when there hasn't been an invite. Invite. Let's look at the first one, power of invitation. John the Baptist understood the power of invitation. We, we know this because he was inviting people to follow himself. The two disciples that leave him to follow Jesus ended up becoming Jesus disciples. They became some of the 12 that actually followed Jesus.

I love, the first thing I love is that John wasn't trying to keep his followers. Oh, what if they go to that rabbi? This was the Pharisaical problem. Uh, this was not a John problem. John was like, there's something greater than myself and I'm gonna release people. I'm just called to invite. I'm called to obedience and I'm not trying to hold on to people.

I just want them to be where they're supposed to be. So he understood this power of invitation, and he was inviting people to what he was inviting people to repent. Now he knew his audience, right? And it was a first century. Um, it was a first century crowd that he was dealing with. In two weeks, I will be with some of you, uh, at the very place where this actually happened. We will be in Israel.

We're looking to go again next year. If you want to go with us, we're gonna go to the Jordan. And in the spot there at the Jordan, he was calling people to himself and people had left the city. You see, John wasn't a city dweller. John was out in the sticks. And he understood that the people that surrounded him were not the intellectual intelligentsia. Maybe some of them were, but they were seekers.

They were country folk, so to speak. They were fishermen. They were people that were looking for Messiah. They were people that were hungry. They were people that were desperate. They were people that would walk through the desert to go hear a message of repentance. John knew his audience. We'll talk about that in about you knowing your audience.

But he understood the power of invitation. And he would regularly say, Messiah is coming. And he would call people unto himself until he called them to something greater than himself. We wanna make sure that the invitation doesn't end with us, right? That's how he end up with churches, with hierarchies. This is where you end up with personality, cults of personality.

We want to call people into our lives. And that's how you call people into, you know, into something that is, that is you are doing. That is you. But then we want to call them to something greater than ourselves. And this is what he did. You know, you think about that. Well, that sounds like the work in our evangelist, right? And, and this term evangelism, I think gets kind of some bad, um, publicity. We look at the word evangelism and you hear people say, well, I'm, I'm not an evangelist. You know, I don't have the gift of evangelism.

But if, if there was a one word best definition for evangelism, the word would be invitation. You see, all evangelism is, is an invitation. It's an invitation into your life. It's an invitation out to dinner. It's an invitation to church. It's an invitation to a padre game. It's an invitation to pray. It's an invitation to show up when your neighbor's mother is sick.

It's an invitation to counsel someone as they're struggling with divorce. It's an invitation into your own grief. It's an invitation to join them in theirs and sit as shiva as they would say in the Israel culture where you sit silent by the people that are grieving. Evangelism is invitation. It's that simple. And we wanna do a theological, we wanna look at it in these theological terms and feel like it has to have this big class you have to take.

And we're gonna teach you how to be an evangelism evangelist. And sure, there are tons of strategies, but John's invitation, evangelism strategy was super simple. I mean, it really came down to five words when he saw Jesus passing by. He said this, look, the lamb of God. It's simple, not complex. Five words. Look the lamb of God. You see, when he saw Jesus, he recognized Jesus. And he pointed people to Jesus, to something greater than himself.

That was his entire strategy to do something simple, but to call them into life and to be into life with them. He calls them the lamb of God. And this is something that they would understood. He put what he was looking at into context. John knew what he was looking at. He put it into context for them. And remember a first century Jewish context where if you were to go to the temple, if you were to go to the cities, you would see lambs all the time being butchered for sacrifice.

And that's why it's Jesus says, I am the lamb of God. And he says, you know, and and, and my blood will be shed for the sins of mankind. Now, maybe John didn't understand all that was going to happen, just like maybe Andrew in this passage. And Peter didn't understand when they asked Jesus where you're staying, he says, come. You'll see.

They didn't know that one day they would be martyred for the cross, where that would go. But it was an invitation. And we have invitation after invitation after invitation. The work of the evangelist, the work of any believer is invitation. Who are you inviting? We intend, we want to invite. And John was inviting and inviting and inviting. It was interesting.

I remember when I was, uh, I, when I was still partying right in my party days. Um, and I, I remember that if you, if you've ever partied, maybe you're not a partier, okay? But if you've ever partied, um, there would be this like, um, allure and like this respect to go out to somebody and you'd say, oh, John, that guy parties. Like, that's how you say it. You have to say it like that.

And it meant that they knew what was happening. And a partier is a person. It was just known that if they party, they invite people to party with them. Now, I went to Palm Springs on three days after my 18th birthday. Actually, it was my day of my 18th birthday. So I'm 54 today. Today's my birthday, by the way. Um, yay. Right? Doing my favorite thing, preach.

And I, on my 18th birthday, I went to Palm Springs and I took all the money that I had and I went and I got a hotel room and there was nobody there. So I went driving around, I found this big party. There was a big party in the middle of, uh, you know, all people my age. And I went into the party and the cops came and they shut the party down, okay?

And I said, 'cause I'm really smart. Hey everyone, I'm staying at this hotel. Just come back to the hotel not knowing that over a hundred people would show up to the hotel and destroy the hotel room. Um, it was just this thing, like when there was a party, I was the guy that invited it. You know, I gotta say, if the kingdom of God in evangelism looks like anything, I think it's kind of supposed to look like that. Maybe not the partying element, but the part where when we know something good is happening, we are telling people about it. And that's what John the Baptist did.

John the Baptist was a, was was an evangelist. Someone who called people to something greater than himself. He would invite and invite and invite. And I said that he recognized what he saw. Go to go to scripture six times in this passage. The word look saw or something to that effect was seen in this past. Matter of fact, all throughout John, you're gonna see over and over again. They heard, they said, they looked, they saw it is seeing, it is hearing, it is looking over and over again.

Just follow with me. Go to verse 35 says, John was there again with two of his disciples when he saw circle, saw, keep going on, he said, look, the lamb of God, circle, look, you can go a little bit further on to 37. Jesus saw them because Jesus doesn't miss a thing. And Jesus sees everything circle saw. And then he asked him this awesome question, what do you want?

I love that question. We'll get to that in a second. They said, rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? Come, he said, and you will what you will see. So they went and saw, and you go on further on all the way down to verse 42. And he brought them to Jesus. And Jesus looked at him and said, it is seeing, it is saying it is hearing, but it is mostly seeing and recognizing.

Lemme just say something real quick about recognizing it's useless to invite people to look upon what you can't see yourself. It's useless to point people, to look upon something you can't see yourself. It is so easy to not have Jesus in our focus. It is so easy, I think, where if, if Satan wants us anywhere, what does he want us? You know, he wants us here like this.

Constantly looking and constantly not being aware. I was, we went to Australia for our vacation to see our old church. We used to be ministers down there. We mission, we, we were missionaries in Australia. So I went and I hung out with people like you that we had gone to church with. And I was trying to stay off my phone. No phone, no news.

I was gonna purify myself. Okay? And so I went to this rite of purification, which means not looking at your phone. Uh, and I, I sat there on the 10th day we were staying at this, um, tiny house. On on. My friend has a tiny house in this macadamia nut grove that they own. It was amazing. And I was like, I can't do anymore. I gotta scroll, I gotta go.

I gotta find some Instagram. And I'm just scrolling. You know what I mean? I'm, I'm starting to death scroll, you know, I'm just like, I'm looking at videos of someone jumping over a wall, doing nothing. And I got this like thought in my mind, look up, look up and see life. And so my phone, I, I was like pulling it from my face and my phone's going, no, I'm fighting.

'cause he wants another scroll. 'cause they built the algorithm and it's a perfect algorithm built for my personality and the things that I like to look at and baking and basketball. And ah, and I put it down and I look up and there's a wallaby right in front of me. Wallaby, that's a tiny kangaroo. It's a form of kangaroo. Okay?

And I see the wallaby. So I get my phone and I press play and I press the wrong button. And so I'm doing like this and I'm following the wallaby. And the wallaby runs through the orchard and jumps into this thicket. Now, if you know anything about Australia, there's seven of the 10 most deadliest snakes in the world in Australia.

And if you're gonna go into a thicket, you don't want to go into a thicket. So I thought to myself, went to there. I thought, I'm not gonna go through the little hole in the thicket, but I'm gonna walk up to the thicket. And I thought, don't go any further because there might be a snake. I looked down at my feet, the third deadliest snake in the world, the eastern brown snake was at my feet coiled up. I jumped back.

I do have a video of it. And so I did get it on there. Why not run? Why take a video of the snake right there? Why am I saying this? How many of us do that with Jesus? All the time? John didn't do that. How many of us are just, we're just looking at everything but Jesus, we're, we're lost in our worries. We're lost in our fears, we're lost in our phone.

We're lost into all these things. And God is doing all these things around us. We're crowdsourcing our emotions based on headlines in the newspaper about things that are going on and what you think's happening in the culture. When if you really had eyes on Jesus, you'd see what actually is happening in the culture. You would see all the things that God is doing around the world and we're missing it because we don't have the ability to look up. And when you can't, when you're not seeing Jesus yourself, it's gonna be really hard to point him out to someone else.

And this is someone he says, look, the lamb of God. So the first thing you know, this power of invitation also is, is look, I want to, I wanna challenge you to look up and see. It's useless to invite people to look upon something that you can't see. Number two, is this my second point. Remember, there's only a two point sermon, so you're about halfway done. Verse 37 through 39. It says, when the two disciples heard him say this, heard and say that's important. They followed Jesus, turning around.

Jesus saw them following ahead and he asked, what do you want? And they said, rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? And he said, come and see, and you will see. What I think is important is oftentimes we have this, we believe this lie of Satan. That every person you might invite into your life or to church or to come watch the chosen at your house or whatever, it's your thing, go golf with you, just inviting them into your life.

And then when you finally talk about God, there is this lie from Satan that every single person you're gonna talk to is a devout atheist. They've all studied in the, you know, the, um, school of rhetoric on how to tear down every Christian argument. They would never want to go to church. And they will pull out a sword. They will, they will shank you with a sword. Um, there's this thought, and it's alive from the pit of hell.

They say that 75% of people that if you were to invite them to church, they would come. Now I would ask for a raise of hands who could disprove that? But my sense is being in the church, uh, as long as I've been, a lot of us wouldn't even have the field test to be able to answer if that's right or wrong, to invite people in into something greater than themselves.

And I have found that right now is probably one of the best times that I've seen in my entire life. And I would maybe say in the history of the United States, um, for people that are hungry for conversations about God, that people are hungry and people are desperate to hear and to be in a conversation and to have someone perhaps point to them and ask them a question that Jesus is asking them, remember that these disciples, they come and they're, they're, they're having this encounter. And this is one of the other thing, the other lies of Satan, that once you invite somebody, you're responsible for the encounter. You are not responsible for the encounter, you are responsible for the invitation, the encounter.

John was not part of this encounter. I'm reading a book about the Yukon right now and the Klondike Gold Rush, it's phenomenal. Just, it's an audio book. I'm I'm into it. And they would have men that they would need so many men to go down the, the river before it would freeze. And it was like treacherous. And guys would get afraid and they would want to bail, but they needed this guy.

And so they would tie them up, basically kidnap them, throw them into the boat, make them go down the river and then work. And I don't know where HR was on that one, but nonetheless, this is what they would do. This is not what John was doing. John was not feeling responsible for an encounter. John was inviting people to look at Jesus.

And then he left the encounter up to the Holy Spirit. Realize the Holy Spirit is partnering with you at the winning of souls. The Holy Spirit has been speaking to people before you got there. Other Christians have perhaps spoken to them. You know, as I was coming back to Jesus, I remember all the believers God was putting into my life to remind me who I was and point me back home like a signpost.

You are not in this alone and you are not responsible for the encounter. Because what happens when John, when John says, go to verse 36, uh, 37 actually when the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. He didn't tie them up. He didn't worry what was gonna happen. He invited them. They saw something that intrigued them in the Savior.

I wanna say we need to, to make Jesus the centrality of what we point people to. Here's what Satan has done in our culture. In order to get people to not be able to have a conversation about Jesus, he's cherry picked three to five arguments, probably two arguments, one in particular where if you start talking about Jesus, people will say, well what about, uh, the Christian's view on this and this? And they, they will use this as a shield to never really actually talk about Jesus.

What I tend to do is say, you know what? We can have that conversation. But before we have that conversation, tell, can you just tell me anything that Jesus has ever said that you disagree with? Uh, uh, uh, okay, we'll make it easier. Can you just tell me anything Jesus has ever said? Uh uh, um, okay. So if we, maybe we should just start with looking at Jesus, who he is.

And then after we find out who Jesus is, we can talk about his followers. We can talk about the worldview on relationships and all these other things. We can do that. But we wanna start with Jesus. John was centrally focused on Jesus Christ. He was looking at Jesus regularly. He was thinking about Jesus regularly. He was in his, obviously his Old Testament scriptures whenever he could be. Um, Jesus was the center of everything he is. And because he saw Jesus so clearly, he knew what to point people to. And when he did, Jesus became the provocateur. You see, Jesus is the provocateur, not you. And you do not need to answer every single question.

You know what a great answer is to when people ask you questions that are really difficult when you're witnessing, you know, I'm not really sure I'd have an answer for that, but lemme just talk about Jesus. You know, you don't have to answer every question. You can just perhaps say, you know, well, can we get back to this? Let me ask you this question.

It says in verse 38, then look at this encounter. Look at this encounter turning around. Jesus saw them because Jesus doesn't miss a thing. And he asked, what do you want? That is a great question. That's a phenomenal question. Hey, um, you start talking, I mean, you bring up God or whatever, and then you just ask somebody while you're talking to them. Uh, you know, as they, they say, well, you know, what about say, well, let me ask you.

So before we ask that, if you could have anything from Jesus, what do you want from Jesus? What do you want? That's a gr that's a phenomenal question. It it, it, it's kind of an interesting question. 'cause instead of answering, they say, where are you staying? Which is really weird. It's kinda a weird conversation like, Hey, what do you want?

Where are you staying? Come and you will see, okay, let's go. And they go and they end up following him. They have this encounter and John just releases them to Jesus. I love that. Just praying for people and then releasing them to Jesus. But doing the work of an evangelist is the work of an encounter. And you know, it's interesting.

In first 41 and 42 seekers who have encountered God often become the most effective inviters seekers who have encountered God become the most effective inviters in verse 41 and 42. The first thing, the first thing, not the 12th thing, the first thing, our lives would be better. Lemme just set a little caveat for you. This wasn't in the sermon making.

First things first is a good way to live your life. We make 12 things first, starting your day with first things first. Ah, I just love this. This isn't the scripture. Beautiful. I mean just every word just drips like honey. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, we have found the Messiah. Pay dirt.

Pay dirt. You know what pay dirt means? Found out I'm, because I'm reading a book about the Klondike right now, it means that one shovel of dirt will pay you enough to that it was worth, um, the cost to go into. That's what pay dirt means. That when you get to the claim that you put one shovel in and if it, if one shovel will pay you. Jesus.

He is the mother load. He is more than pay dirt pointing people to Jesus. But if we are not seeing him ourself because we're so distracted, how are we going to point him to anyone else? We have found the Messiah. That is the Christ. Verse 42. And he brought him to Jesus. This time's a little different. He brings him to Jesus. That's it. Hey, lemme just show you. Come on, on. I'll bring you to I'm sure you where he is.

Lemme show you where he is. I have a sense that Jesus is here. I'm gonna show you where he is. He knew where he was. That's another thing. And it says he looked at him, he said, and then Peter has this encounter that wasn't contrived by Andrew, it wasn't contrived by John the Baptist. Jesus meets him. And remember, maybe Jesus have met you.

I remember when we went to Protestant church for the first time, a friend asked me, I met a person this week. They said, why are you not Catholic? I said, divorce, mom, dad, divorce. Mom went to Protestant church. Dad kept going to Catholic church. They had a better youth group program. You know what I mean? I hadn an encounter there that I hadn't had, had an encounter there.

Walked out, they gave me donuts that was part of the encounter. Walked out. My mom was crying on the steps. I'd only seen nuns cry. And I saw her crying and I knew something was going down. Mom had an encounter. And the pastor said, God wants to be your father. And he began to heal her in that moment. And to, to Peter, imagine walking up to Jesus. He Jesus says to him, Hey, so what's your name, Peter? No, no it's not. It's uh, he goes, he goes, fus is what he says. And then he says, Hey Simon, I'm sorry. He says Simon.

He says, no, your name's Peter. Your name means rock. And he calls him into an identity that is deeper than anything that he had ever known to something that is stabilized and anchored that is solid as granite. He calls him into it. Beyond an identity of falsity, into an identity of truth. He has an encounter with the living God.

I gotta tell you, there is a world that is desperate right now seeking for identity. There's a battle for identity. And if we get people to Jesus, just trust that he can do the encountering. There are people right now that are struggling with identity. And it says in Revelation that there is this white stone. Maybe you've never seen this obscure, just this obscure verse. Just Google, white stone book of revelation, not now.

And it says that you get to heaven and Jesus has this white stone. And on this white stone, your real name is written on it. And it says that he will take it and he will give it to you. And only you and him will know it. And it'll be so much intimacy as he calls you truly for the first time into your real name, that he has been building from now through eternity.

When he gives it to you, he calls them into something that is who they truly are. And we have a, a, a, a, uh, an army of Satan's forces trying to rob and steal people's identity with dam demonic utterances into something that they are not. And Jesus is calling people 'cause he wants you to know who you are. It says Simon, son of John. You will be called CFUs, which is Peter.

It comes to this idea, I said at the beginning that the fuel of the fire of evangelism is invitation. There's a footnote in your notes from Christian Leader Magazine and it had this stat in it over three-fourths. It says 75 to 90% of all people who come to faith come to faith through the invitation of a friend or a relative.

75 to 90% of all people who come to faith, come to faith because of the invitation from a friend or a relative. That was true for us. My brother got invited to that protestant church, that anathema Protestant church got invited to go to Disneyland on a playground at Briar Patch Elementary School, got invited on a playground by a sixth grade kid.

I'm here today because a sixth grader named Chris Conrad invited my brother to go to Disneyland. And we got on a mailing list and then they invited us to church through the mailing list. And the rest of the story is history invitation. 1939, Oppenheimer received a letter from Einstein, changed the world. My brother got a invitation to Disneyland and changed my world. You see, it's the power of invitation that changes identity.

That invitation from a sixth grader changed and saved my life because when I went astray and when I was in Palm Springs, I knew where home was. And we have a generation of kids who don't know how to get back home. And I want to invite you that want to invest with us with your time, your talent and your treasure to reach children of this generation so that they know how to get back home.

Because we have kids going out there that have never heard the name of Jesus, that know need to know how to get back home. So two practical takeaways today, but before I say that, I'll say this, I'm gonna finish that stat of the 75 to 90% of only 5% of Christian friends and relatives are ever involved in the act of inviting people to Jesus. 75 to 90% of people.

If I were to ask you to raise your hand, I'm sure it would prove out. Make a decision to follow Jesus because they're invited by a friend or a family member. Only 5% of all believers actually invite 5%. What do we just got that to 10? What if that was true for us? What if we just in this church just doubled it and got it to 10?

What if just one out of 10 of you regularly invited people, just invited them. I'm not saying you have to invite 'em to Sunday morning church, but you're inviting them into your life, but you're taking them to Jesus. What's the practical takeaways then? Two practical takeaways. Number one, turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look into his face.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Put the phone down. Put the worrying thoughts down. Whatever you can do and know where he is. If you have to drive or run to the Jordan, whatever you need to do to get to Jesus. Get to Jesus. Sit with him in the mornings with him in the afternoon. Be there with Jesus. I saw a lot of Muslim men three times a day when I was in Australia.

They would go behind a building and they would put their prayer shawl out. And three times a day they pray. Jewish friend prays three times a day. We have access as believers to the throne of God, come boldly before the throne. We have access to call our father and go before his throne on a regular basis. And so often we're just too busy to do it. We need to reckon, I wanna say, turn your eyes to Jesus, get an eyesight because once you see him, you won't be able to stop pointing to him. The second one. Thanks mom.

Number two, let's go. I was gonna name him for mom. Let's go experiment with invitation. I want you to experiment with invitation. I want this to become an inviting church. Uh, we want to have hospitality. We do everything in our power to make this place as filled with Jesus as provocative, as, as fun, as truth giving, as honoring. We don't, I'm trying, I don't wanna embarrass you when you bring a friend. Um, but I would also say, don't worry about the encounter invite.

Who are you gonna invite? Who are the friends that need to be invited? You just need to take a step out. They say 75% of people would say yes if you just invited them to church. But maybe you wanna start with coffee. I would say the gospel's always been about a simple yet provocative invite. We invite them out for coffee and we invite them into our lives.

We invite them out of their darkness and we invite them into the light. We invite them out of the very tombs in which they dwell, and we invite them into the powerful resurrection of Jesus Christ. And like a church bell that rings on an old dirt road, clinging, clanging, and cling calling sinners back home. We invite, we invite and we invite until hell itself comes and tries to tear us down. We invite you.

See, that's what we do and that is the hope of the gospel. And without us, who else is gonna do it? You see, this is the power of God. So I invite you to join us in that. Would you stand.