MAR 10 2019 | Accelerate S1E1 | The Great Commission

Sea Change Church · Accelerate · "The Great Commission" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · March 10, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, everybody. I'm up here to read scripture and also to give you a brief announcement on the baptisms. I am Chris Peterson. I'm the baptism coordinator here at the church and also one of the originals. And so I've been here over 21 years. But anyway, we have a baptism. Baptism's coming up. I just heard we're having one next week. So if you are ready, you can see me, put your name in. But our meeting that we're going to have is the 31st of this month after both services, right after the service, we'll meet up at the top of the stairs in the office. And maybe you've been following Jesus Christ for a while and you just have never been baptized as an adult. And perhaps you're too shy or you feel like you don't know enough or you're afraid of the water, afraid Pastor Adam might drop you.

So anyway, we are going to alleviate any of those fears and come to the meeting. You don't have to know a whole lot about it. You'll learn there. And Pastor Joe Brandy will be with me at the meeting and we hope to see you. Just come to here and have some fun with us. The scripture today is Matthew 28, 16 through 20. This is the last verses in the book of Matthew. And I believe Jesus' last words to his disciples while he was here on earth.

And it says, And surely I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. That was the word of the Lord. Thank you, Chris. You helped me get me hired. You were doing all that behind the scenes work, weren't you? I appreciate that. Appreciate that. Well, good to have you this morning. Let me set this. We are starting a brand new series that is about becoming a disciple of Jesus. What does it mean? And I think a lot of times people jump on board and then they're never taught, like, what are the basics?

It's if you were a surfer, we're going to take you out. We're going to show you need to wax the board. If you go out, you can have you can be the best surfer in the world. But if you don't wax the board or have something that's going to help you stick to the board, you know, even the worst surfer in the world can probably beat you in a contest because we want to help you stick to Jesus. And we want to do that through discipleship. And discipleship is another huge component that we want to be speaking about on a regular basis here at the church.

And helping you get discipled to help you stick to Jesus, but then also challenging you to obey the command of Jesus to go, therefore, and make disciples. And so this new series is called Accelerate. Now, the book that we are using, that I'm actually using, we're going to be using at the church, is called Discipleship Essentials. You might want to write that down. We'll talk about it more. You can get that online and it'll go through to 28 weeks.

We are not going to go through this for 28 weeks. We're going to break it up into bite-sized portions. And over the next couple of years, I'm going to continue to go through Discipleship Essentials and talk about these basics. Because they're good reminders for the mature, but they're excellent course and mapping out for those who don't know Christ. And so hopefully it is a challenge to you as we kind of accelerate. I think it's easy in our Christian life to get stuck.

I want to say, if you're doing the same things in six months from now that you're doing now, don't expect your results to change. Let me say that again. If you're doing the same things six months from now that you are doing now, don't expect your results to change. If you want to end up in a different place, you oftentimes have to recalibrate and ask yourself, where am I trying to get to? Now we believe that God can get you there.

The Romans 8.28, he's sovereign, he's in charge. But there are a lot of ifs. There are a lot of ifs in the Bible. If you do this, I will do this. If you do that, I will do that. And so we want to look at some of these ifs that we're talking about in the scripture. And the first one, really it comes in the form of a therefore. And I love that. I'm going to read through this real quickly, this Matthew passage again. And I'm going to have a couple things for you to circle as we move into this.

The 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. I love this idea of told them. What has Jesus told you to do? It's so funny that I talk to people on a regular basis. They're like, I can't hear from God. I don't know what to do. What is God saying? I can't hear from God. I'm like, well, have you read the Bible recently? Well, not really. If you just do the things the Bible says, right?

Have less anger. Don't gossip. I mean, it's really clear. If you just do the things the Bible said, there's a really good chance that you are never going to have to ask the question, what am I supposed to do with my life? Where am I going to go? That doing those things will direct you. And so many of us, myself included, we don't even give any attention to the things we know God has told us to do. He told you to do something, but you haven't done it.

And then we keep asking the questions, what God, when, where, why? And he's like, well, can we just start with the basics? I told you to go to this place. I told you to do this thing. And so if you want to start hearing from God as a disciple, one of the best things you can do, just jump into, I'll just throw one out there. Timothy. Okay, first Timothy. Go in there and start circling the things where you're like, well, this is a definite command.

Christ said, go do this. So I'm just going to start doing it. We talked about Lent, the season of not just taking away, but adding. And begin to add things into your life and start doing those things. So he told them where to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. Now that's an interesting scene, right? Jesus died on the cross. They've seen it. Jesus shows up. Some of them fall down on their face.

You can imagine the scene. Just chaos. Imagine that. Jesus. Just chaos. But then there's this group of people who are like, that's not good enough. So interesting. The chasm of faith that each one has. I'm always amazed by how some people can jump over it so easily. And other people have further to jump. And Jesus is willing to be there for all of them to build that bridge. But it said that some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Now do you, that's a, we're going to talk about essential beliefs. Do you believe that? I mean, really. Do you believe? Because we give the devil way too much credit. Oh, the devil. You know what I mean? The devil, he's just so minimal. All authority. All authority. People are always saying, the devil is in charge of the world. The devil is the spirit of the age. He's actually, the scripture says that Jesus has all authority and all power, not only in heaven, but on earth as well.

It's been given to Jesus. He has it. Do you believe that? And does that shape your decisions? Because discipleship making, if you're going to be a follower of Jesus, the way you know you're following Jesus is that more and more of your decisions are being shaped by Jesus. That's how you know. That's the key. Are my relationships decisions being shaped by Jesus? Are my financial decisions being shaped by Jesus? Are my physical decisions being shaped by Jesus, by the word of God?

God. He says, it's all been given to me. And then I want you to circle therefore. Super key word. It's like one of those ifs. And that's the if of this text. There is a hinge word oftentimes that says there is glory on this side of that word. There is abundance on this side of that word. There is hope. There is joy. There is power. Everlasting power on this side of that word. The question is, can you make it through that word?

And an if is a two-letter word, but it's one of the most powerful words in the scripture. If you then. If then. Even science understands. Psychology understands. The if-then causal relationship. We tend to be upset when God gives us an if-then. But we look at scientific structure or understanding. And we allow it just to have if-thens and causal consequences. And we just allow the universe to have that. We understand it's a part of it.

But why would God make me do this in order to have this? And so we see this. And it says, therefore. Now, realize that Jesus is coming. And he's having a final meeting before he bounces. A final meeting. He shows up. And he's like, okay, guys. Here's the plan. And you have women. You got women. And he's spoken to women. He did more to liberate women than probably any figure of a religious figure of his time. Or perhaps any religious figure of all time.

If you look at Jesus' relationship with women, it's very provocative. In the best sense. And so he's there speaking to his disciples with this game plan. And you would think that he would just like, okay, this is going to be like a... We're at least going to do a weekend conference, right? You know, we're going to stay. I'm going to get the chalkboard out. We're going to go through this. I mean, it's really... He's so irresponsible.

Jesus is super irresponsible. One, that he allowed me... Like, I look... I'm thinking like I'm the head pastor of this church. It's pretty funny, you know? And you as well. What about when you have a child? Okay? You have a baby. Have you ever been overwhelmed by the immensity that they leave you... Of the moment where they just leave you with the baby? Like, you're at the hospital. And then all the doctors and nurses are like, yeah, this is all good.

And then they give you the baby and they leave. And you're like... I don't... Like, terrified. I was absolutely terrified of what to do. Jesus has left the baby with us. This is the plan. And this is all he says. This is it. No two-day conference. No follow-up YouTube videos. No podcast. He's going to bounce. He says, therefore... Now, this is his plan. This is the plan. I have all power. It's been given to me. The power of heaven and the power of earth.

So he's making a connection there for a kingdom increase of power in the world. He's... Why would he tell you he has all the power of heaven if he didn't expect you to use heaven's power on earth? Okay? So there is this connection. And so oftentimes, we, you know, we snip or cut that connection. And we live with an earthly mindset and not resource the heavenly abilities and powers that we have. So regularly, you know, just in prayer, God, you know, show me that power.

Give me that as we were doing it earlier. I believe what we were doing spiritually earlier of like, God, give me some more territory in my heart. Let me hate less. Let me care more. Taking more territory of your heart. He says, therefore, go and make disciples. He says, I have all this power for you. Therefore, there's the therefore. There's the if. Now go make disciples. He didn't say go set up churches, although that was probably part of discipleship making.

He didn't say go have a conference. He didn't say go do miracles, ever working, although that's part of it probably. All these things. He just said, go make disciples. Go find people. Therefore, go find people and have them start following me because of your influence in their life. Or at least not have them, at least offer them. The last thing Jesus says, and you would probably leave the most important thing, right?

Like this is his plan. Get a bunch of people who probably never should have been disciples. His choice of the disciples is ridiculous. Like they're just, I mean, John's good, right? You know what I mean? You know, his choice of the disciples, he, choosing Paul. Paul's a murderer, you know, or later on. And so he comes to him as an apostle, obviously, not as one of the original disciples. But his choice in teammates. Like, you know, if Jesus is the captain, like you're always getting picked.

If you were picked last as a kid, you want Jesus to be the captain. Because he is not limited by your mediocrity or failure. He is able to bring you beyond that. And so we see Jesus as this command. The last thing he says, as a command. I have all power, now go make disciples. Now my question is, if that is perhaps the most important thing you're going to say. That's the plan. Plan A. There wasn't anything else. Then don't you think the most important thing in our daily walk with Christ, other than walking in relationship with him, should be the going and making of disciples.

I have gone, now it's hard to not make disciples when you're a pastor. But in my personal life, which can oftentimes be compartmentalized from your spiritual life. And what we want to do here is make your Sunday look like Tuesday. We want Thursday at 2 a.m. to look like, you know, Wednesday night, 7 p.m. Bible study as well. We want to have where the flavor of the world and the flavor of Christ in your life on those spiritual things that you do, you know, amalgamate into one beautiful poultice of God's spirit.

That is not just a compartmentalized life. And I have realized that I have gone years without efficiently or effectively having a strategy and a plan to make disciples outside of the church. Because it's too easy as a pastor. My friend, my best friend, I said he's here. He says, it's not fair because we go travel and I'll get into these spiritual conversations with people. But he goes, they ask you what you do and you say, I'm a pastor.

And they're always intrigued. They're more intrigued these days. Because I think you can have some of the best spiritual conversations I've ever had in my life have happened in the last three years. Like, people are ready to talk. And if you know how to speak a language that is non-confrontive but at the same time allows grace, you're going to have some great conversations. And so my friend always makes fun of me. He goes, you know, it's not fair.

You're a pastor. You always have the bridge into that conversation. You can immediately go to it. He goes, I make cabinets. Like, what am I supposed to do? You know, I make cabinets. Do you want to follow Jesus? No, it doesn't, you know. There is a therefore. And so, over the last six months, us as an elder board and as a church want to get better at discipling, this is why we have the invitation Sunday. This is why we provide those cards.

This is why we continually have new series as bus stops where you can jump in and bring a friend. This is why we do certain things to make it easier for you to take your life, your friends, those relationships, and bring people here. And so, over the last six, you know, six months probably, I've been really effectively trying to make disciples. You know, when you try, it actually works. One of the best discipleship-making tools you have is your smile.

You know, just smile at people. My mom says a smile is the best evangelism you can have. How many people don't smile? You know, you say hello to somebody in America anymore on the street. It's terrifying, right? Hey, how you doing? Ah! You know, they're so, like, no one says hi anymore, you know. To just be open and welcome. I know five or six people at my local Trader Joe's that I'm just caring for and have a relationship with and I love.

And it's funny, I have this one guy. I won't name him because you probably know him if you went over there. But every time I see him, he knows I'm a pastor now. But he's very spiritual. And he's awesome. And he has a whole mix of, like, it feels like a little Buddha, a little Plato. He's got Jesus in there. He's got the whole deal going on. And every time I see him, he does this. He gives me the, and backs up a little bit.

And I really want to play into it. I just want to go, I will smite you down as you return to the worms. No. And I'm like, bro, you don't want to do that, bro. Just high five. You know, but he's super cool. We have a good conversation. And it's interesting that within about four to five months, and granted, the bridge of being a pastor helps in a lot of ways. Or they run. So it's either they want to talk to you or they run, which is great.

And, you know, now people are like, hey, will you pray for me? They don't even believe in prayer. But they say, will you pray for me? I guess the question, if the most important thing that Jesus says, in order to reestablish the work of his kingdom, his plan is go and make disciples, I guess the question to you is, are you taking that seriously? I wasn't. And outside of my church work, because I can just check out and say, I've been spiritual for the day.

I can go home. And who are you discipling? Who are you inviting? We have made this such a soft target for you. We have done everything we can. The coffee is really strong. We work really hard to have great coffee. We think it matters. We work really hard to provide a welcoming atmosphere and the things that we think about. Who are you discipling? This might not be the place that you bring them. There might be somebody else.

But do you have three to five people where you're like, I'm going to care for these people. And they're not a product. You know, Jesus never met somebody as a product. He met them as a person. Where you care about a person. Where there isn't just this end goal. And back in the 80s, we, and it was amazing. There's going to be so many people that were saved because of tracks that were given out. But I think that it was always like an end goal product.

Get them to that, you know, the four spiritual laws or whatever it is. And get them signed on the dotted line. And then get them baptized. You know, it was more about taking them through. And the Holy Spirit would do that. And I think, you know, I'm not saying it's a wrong thing. But there wasn't as much of an attractional model of providing a life that they wanted to emulate. And so as a church, this church is going to be vibrant.

It's going to come alive. Not because we get some great strategies. Oh, we figured out the potluck. Like, no, I mean, two millennia of Christians haven't been able to figure out the potluck. Since the first church in Acts, we have done the potluck. And now that we have that, they're going to swarm in. Like, I don't have any more good ideas, people. You know, we've done the best we can. And at this point, it's going to be up to you making disciples and helping us create a place here at your home, at the coffee house you go to.

You know, wherever you go, that you know people and make disciples. And so, therefore, go and make disciples. And so my question to you is, is there anything after the therefore? Because what I love is when you're making disciples, it's because you have the power of heaven and earth behind you. Isn't that a radical statement that Jesus makes? I have all the power of heaven and on earth. Which, by the way, is secondary to heaven.

And I have it. Now, cause and effect. Therefore, go make disciples. And as you need it, I'm going to sling it to you. As you need it. As you need the peace. As you need the courage. As you need the hope. As you need the joy. As you need a miracle. I'm going to give it to you as you need it. And God doesn't call where he doesn't equip. He's never going to call you anywhere that he is not going to equip you there for. Even if you don't know where you're going at the beginning.

Key idea. And that was, if you're new, trust me, I'll get through the notes quickly. And I always get, I always, I go to a church and the guy never hits the notes. And you're 20 minutes in and you're like, oh my goodness, how long are we going to be here? Nonetheless, I'm going to get you through it. Key idea is this. Disciples of Jesus don't just happen, they're made. Go and what disciples? Make them. Craft them. Work on them.

We tend to think with every other hobby, and this is not a hobby, but with every other thing that we do, you know, we understand that it takes hard work. If you're going to surf well. If you're going to play guitar. If you're going to play football. If you're going to learn how to read. If you're going to learn another language. Everything we realize has to be crafted from the geography and the hourglass of your life.

It's that you are intentionally doing things. I remember recently we had a place that I go to, and they had had like a difficult season at this. I don't want to mention it because it's a local place. And I knew things weren't going well there. And so I just went to the Bloomer flower place up here on the corner. And I went and bought some flowers. And I just took it, and I brought it to their work. And they're like, hey, why are you here?

Are you here to use the business? And I was like, no, I'm not even here to get anything. Just want to get you some flowers. It's that kind of thing where we slow down enough to make disciples. Disciples are made. And Jesus is willing to have them made over a long period of time. It is not a, can we get away from microwave disciples? There's no such thing as a microwave disciple. You don't just, a funny story. Harry, Harry, speaking of this, I'm not even going to tell it.

He made, should I tell it? He made top ramen, which is amazing. Speaking of microwaves, you want to talk about, millennial here made top ramen. This has nothing to do with the sermon, but it's fun. It's just a fun thing. He made it, but he forgot to put the water in it. And then he put it in the microwave and we're sitting at Stephanie going, what is that smell? That's horrible. And then Harry went and it was all melted down and there was no water.

Disciples are not made in a microwave. I put it on, I put it on Instagram. It was amazing. We want a microwave. You know, Jesus is willing to take time with it, with you. How do you unknot a tangled ball of yarn? Do you just take, you know, a, you know, as I've found in our counseling, my wife and I's counseling with Corinne. Corinne. Darn it. 15 years. You don't just hack at it. God is willing to take the time to sit down and undo the tangled ball of yarn that you are and to wait on you.

Nicodemus. Afraid. Comes at night. Three years later. A disciple in the shadows. And some of you are doing that. It's okay. A disciple in the shadows. And Jesus didn't say, he gave him hard words. But he, but he allowed him to be in process. Some people are going to take, if you have family members, 20 years before they make a decision. My mom led my dad to Christ, a full knowledge of Christ, two days before he died on his deathbed.

After my mom had been a Christian for like 10 or 12 years, praying for him all the time. You are in process. And it's not a microwave thing, but they need to be made. And we have to give them the ability to be made through the ups and downs. Therefore, go. And so the challenge is, in this, in this, if you want to be a disciple of Jesus, go. Are you making disciples? Here's some things as we move in. We need to understand, as a disciple, that I put down four essentials that we need to have.

And the fourth one I'm really excited about, because I think it's so cool. What are the belief and lived essentials of discipleship? What do we need to know? So I guess there's four things. One, as this series we're going to be going through, what are the belief essentials? To follow Jesus, what do you need to believe? To follow him. Well, eventually you're going to need to make a decision about Jesus. Is he God? And is the only way to get to heaven, through Jesus Christ, did his death on the cross, actually allow us entry into heaven, and allow us the perfection needed?

And can his death on the cross free us from all of our iniquities and sin? At some point. You can follow Jesus as a great teacher, you can follow him as a moral example, but if you were going to follow him as the son of God, as a Christian, there are belief essentials. Now, if you've never read the Apostles' Creed, the early church got together and they decided, what really matters? We as Christians tend to argue about a lot of things that don't really matter that much.

And it has belief essentials. I was going to put it in the notes, but I'll give you a little bit of homework to do. You can go and Google the Apostles' Creed. When they use the word Catholic, it doesn't just mean that, you know, awesome denomination or church or the Catholic church. That word means universal, that God, you know, has blessed the universal or the entire church in the world. Read through that to see what the essentials are.

But at some point, if you're going to follow Jesus, you are going to have to believe. I mean, to fully follow him as a disciple, you're going to have to believe in certain things and make a decision. And some people never will. Well, Jesus was aware of that. And Jesus was not uncomfortable with people walking away from him. He had an amazing ability to let people just bounce. To let them go figure it out on their own.

If you want to follow me, come follow me. And he gave some amazing challenges. And so the first, what are the belief essentials? Next one we're going to look at through these weeks is, what are the character essentials? What does the character of a Christ follower look like? We must acknowledge, as you'll see in the notes, we must acknowledge that there is no difference between believing in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins and following him as the primary shaping influence of our life.

We must finally acknowledge that there is no difference between believing in Jesus for the grace. We must acknowledge that there can be no difference between believing is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer would call cheap grace. I'm going to live what I want. I'm going to do what I want. But I believe Jesus died on the cross. I want to go to heaven. But I want to do what I want. We can no longer allow that. We live in a society that is begging for something more than that, that looks authentic.

And there is few things, even though Jesus is willing to wait, more inauthentic or more off-putting than a person who proclaims Christ with their mouth, but with everything in their flesh, they deny him as Lord. What does the character look like? The things that come out of your mouth, the words that come out of your mouth. You know, I have a friend I'm working with, and we're working on his mouth. He just can't get it right in his marriage and with his kids.

He says, I always blow up. I say things I don't want to say. How do we get that character? And the question is, do you want to change your character? Do you want to be the kind of person that people want to be like? And what are the character essentials? Lying, gossip. We're going to look at the character essentials. Essentials. What are the belief essentials? And it's hard. And what are the character essentials? Then another thing, the third thing that we're going to look at in this series is how do we engage in the church and in the world?

How are you a member of a functioning community? Because church is difficult. You have to have, as Pastor Jim says regularly, short toes. You will be offended. You will have issues that are going to struggle. You are not going to agree with everything. Church is a difficult community that takes all the power of heaven to stay involved in. People think that they come to church and you're going to build, like you see in the society today, they think that you're going to be able to build some utopian society where there are no more issues, where everything, everyone has, you know, the exact same things.

Church is hard. And if you're going to stay at church, do you have the ability to be offended 10,000 times? Because it's probably going to take that. And how are you going to keep coming? Like Chris Peterson said, one of the originals who's been here 21 years and has gone through many seasons of ups and downs, but said, I'm going to stay because I believe in the fellowship. We spoke about that. More than fellowship. Don't come to church for fellowship.

Come to church. Or you can come for one of the reasons, but come to church for the fellowship. When it speaks about the church in fellowship in the Bible, it says that there is a greater thing happening, the body. What is God doing? What is your commitment to the church? Are you committed to a group of people? It doesn't have to be here. But is it more than just coming in, getting a sermon, getting a cup of coffee and bouncing?

That you are committed to a body of Christ in a location, a physical location that is trying to bring the kingdom of God to San Diego. And I hope you're proud of your church. I am very proud of this church. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of the things that are happening and what is happening. And hopefully you are as well. And then the other thing is, how do you engage the world? How do you make a difference at the five to seven places that you go to regularly?

I believe that most of us go to about seven places a week. That's about it. Same coffee house, same store. You know, I go to Trader Joe's, but if I want the deal on the chicken, I got to go next door to Ralph's and get the deal on the chicken. So I go to Ralph's. I know the people there. I go to Ogden's Dry Cleaners. I go to Panikin. I'm starting to go to Bird Rock Coffee, although the coffee tastes a little bit like lemon to me and a third wave coffee nonetheless.

But I will go there. I play basketball at the YMCA. I surf at Scripps. It's much harder to be a Christian when I surf, especially at Windancy. I had a couple of beefs last summer. It's okay. It's not going to kick me out of the water. I'm just saying. They're a little salty. I like them. They're salty. They come here to the church. Yeah, I've got these places where I'm like, those are my spots. And I want to claim spiritual pastoral care over those places.

I want to care for them. I want to care for them. And this little church right here, that's about it. My life is on lockdown. That's all I do. I hardly ever leave the island. You know, on occasion, I drive up to Encinitas to see my mom. That's about it. You know, but I have about seven places I go. And I want to know people. And I want to make a difference in the world. And I want people to know a Christian and to be befuddled by it and say, man, I really don't want to like that person.

Because I don't like Christians. But I'm having a hard time. Where it makes it really difficult for people to dislike you. We were talking at Surf Church this week. And they said they want to get a bumper sticker now that is the Christian bumper sticker. But when you're driving and you make a foolish move or you run through a red light or something, it switches to the coexist sign. You know what I mean? You press the button.

Or Darwin. You know what I mean? Like, you could just immediately, like, as soon as it, you know, so the person's, like, yelling at the window. It's like, oh, quick. Coexist. And you just drive by. Peace. I will never put a Christian bumper sticker on my car. Trust me. Sometimes I cut people off. I'm like, oh, do they go to the church? I hope not. What are the essential beliefs? And then the final one, which I think is so powerful.

So powerful. And I never saw this in discipleship until recently. I think it's a new thing that God's like, oh, I'm so glad we got here. Because it's not just about getting you saved. It's about letting you be more human and letting you be more of who I created you to be. I think God celebrates who he made you to be. You know, we're always looking at something and wishing we had more. I wish I was more of this. I wish I was less of that.

I wish I looked this way. I wish I had this gift or this ability. And as we look so often, we put a price tag on ourselves, a sale price, and say, you know, I'm not really not worth that. You just kind of put a little sales tag on yourself. 50% off. 25% off. And we degrade ourselves. And I say part of discipleship is that God wants you to know who you are through him. And he wants you to be excited about who you are.

And true discipleship is going to walk you into a depth of knowing exactly who you are, even though you might have self-loathing. That he wants to remove that. I think God cries when we loathe ourself. Walked by a girl recently, and she's got short shorts on purpose, obviously, and then cuts. You know, I saw one guy, she must have had a thousand cuts on her legs from a razor blade. You know, cutting. This self-loathing.

I think that breaks God's heart. It's one of the reasons we want to start this counseling thing. We want to move out of that. So part of discipleship, as you make disciples, you're going to find out more about you. You're going to find out more about your own ability to care and to be benevolent and to help people and to pray for people and to be part of their story. You are going to be more of you. We have got to make discipleship, well, let me say, we have to stop making it all about getting saved and doing good works.

It's not only about that. There is a you component where Christ is saying, I want you to fully understand yourself in full bloom. I want you to identify with who God has created you to be, and you become more of you. We want a church. C.S. Lewis says, when you know God, you become more human. We live in a world that's becoming less human. I want to tell you something. I will not, and this isn't a joke, I will not call my phone Siri.

I will not give a computer an anthropomorphic name. I will not humanize a device. I will not say, hey, Alexa. She's not Alexa. She's not she. It is a computer. Now, I know that sounds crazy, but we are dehumanizing more and more. I don't know if you heard about the man recently that sued for civil rights for a marriage in the United States to marry his computer. And let me say, we think that's funny. I can't, that'll never happen.

Trust me. AI, you know, artificial intelligence is going to get very, very, very good. When I'm on Google and it wants to finish my thought for me, and it's easy. They have this thing on Google where you type and you start typing an email and it'll finish it for you. It'll make it easier. Like you say, hey, how are you? And they'll say, doing today. And you can use the tab. I am not going to let a computer begin to dictate how I think.

What I think, how, even if it's the thing that I was going to say. Does that make sense? We are living in a world that is becoming less and less human. And we are accepting it. And we are becoming more automated. And I want to say that we need to be very careful. And I think that AI is one thing that we won't talk about today. But moving on is going to be super important. And C.S. Lewis says that when you follow Christ, you become more human.

You will become more of yourself and more human. We're coming in for a landing now, circling the tower. Just that one belief essential, because we will be getting into these over the next couple years as we continue to come back to this series. Core Essential One. And this is a big essential. That you believe in the unchanging truth of God's Word. That God's Word doesn't change. I love that the English Standard Version Bible recently said, We are doing no more revisions.

We are continuing, certain Bibles are continuing to revise based on, Well, what does the world think? Okay, well, that's a good idea. Let's revise the language we use. The ESV said, We're done revising. We're done. There's no more scholarly teams coming in. We are absolutely done. There is an unchanging component to God's Word. God does not crowdsource his opinion. I don't know if you've realized, but currently culture crowdsources what is right and what is wrong.

We look around, we see what we can say, what we can't say, and some of those are just social norms. But as you'll see, we live in an age of relativism. Where all truth is individually based and considered equal to all other truth. Let me say that again. We live in an age of relativism. Even though we have contradicting philosophies. Contradicting philosophies cannot stand side by side as equal, but we say that they are.

We just want to ignore that. It says, We live in an age of relativism where all truth is individually based and considered equal to all other truth. Christ following, and this will be a stumbling block for some of you. Some of you will not be able to follow Christ because of this. And that's okay. Christ following will require that we accept some truths as absolute and unchanging. That we accept some truths as absolute and unchanging.

And I've said this for the longest time. And this was so freeing for me. You don't have to like what you believe. Now when I've told people this, they're like, Oh! Thank you! Because there's a whole bunch of stuff in the Bible that I wouldn't do it that way, God. There are relationships I'd probably allow. Because why do I care? Que sera, sera. Do what you want. Live your own life. I don't care. But there are things in the Bible that I would not do.

Things I don't even like. I wouldn't do it that way. I don't like that you do this. I don't like, God, that you say that this isn't allowed. That this isn't allowed. I don't like that. It goes against my moral sensibilities. And we live in a sympathy culture now. We're trying to use sympathy to leverage what is socially right. You don't have to like what you believe. But I still believe it. And I am going to shape my life based on things I believe, not on things I like.

Does that make sense? This is probably the biggest stumbling block of Christianity. That says that there are certain things that you, that there is absolute truth. That not all truth is relative. And I'll just give you an easy one. If you do not believe in Jesus and you've heard the gospel. I'm not talking about people that lived in ancient tribes years ago. God has his own wisdom. And Romans talks about how they come to a knowledge of God.

But if you have heard the gospel and you reject the gospel that Jesus Christ died for your sins. And the only way to escape hell, which is eternal, even though we want to get rid of that one too. I don't like that either. I wish we could get better when we're in hell and come back forward. If you choose to reject Jesus, the Bible says that you will go to hell for eternity. It says it. I'm not backing off of that, even though I don't like it.

I don't like it at all. It doesn't make any sense to me. Why not give him another chance, this whole thing? That is how I read scripture. That is how for thousands of years classic Christian thought has believed in scripture. And we have to come to grips, people, with Christianity is diverse in that anybody can come. It says come as you are. It is diverse. You will have every type of person in the church. It is the most diverse.

But it doesn't say come as you are and stay as you are. It says come as you are, but don't stay as you is. So Christianity is not diverse. Of course, Christianity in many ways is considered intolerant. It just is. And we have to stop trying to say it in a way that sounds less intolerant. We also want, you know, got to be careful in how we say things. But Jesus wasn't willing to have people say, well, then that's not for me.

As we start here, and if you're going to follow Jesus, these are questions you have to grapple with. These are difficult things. But are we going to water down the truth of God's word because we might get put into a, cast into a bad light or because we don't like it? I said here in the notes that this means that Christianity is, by today's standard, oftentimes intolerant. You know, finally, the last point is this. This idea of going and making disciples where you are going out and you are changing the lingua franca or the common language that is used in the places that you go, where you are taking spiritual dominion and pastoral care over a certain area, which is Jesus' plan to save the world.

This is his plan. I've been having a lot of conversations with my daughter, and she's just like, man, what's going to be left of the earth when I'm your age? And I'm like, well, I'm going to be gone by then, so I don't know. But, you know, no, she said, what's going to be left of the earth? Like, would I even want to have, you know, would I want to, do we want to have kids? Like, you know, she's worried about these things that she sees.

And I just took her back to scripture. I said, you know, there's a lot of plans in the world right now how to save the world. Jesus' plan was go and make disciples. That's it. As Christians, if you want to know how to save the world, and there's a million different issues, whether it's ecological, sociological, whatever it is, the way, there's no plan B. Go and make disciples. If you want to change the world in all aspects where Christ can come in and change it and back to the way he plans it, the plan is, here's the plan.

This is it. Simple. It's not a three-day conference. He has all the power in heaven. Therefore, circle, therefore, if, then, causal effect, go and make disciples. That's it. That's the plan. And that is what we want to get serious about here. We want to get serious about allowing you to change the world and make disciples so that the world might be changed for his hope and his glory. Amen? Amen?