Discipleship Pt 2

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning. Good to see you all today. My name's Dan Hay. If you're new with us, I'm a pastor in training, so I don't normally do these kinds of things. Drew Caperton is our lead pastor, and he's helping with family in Louisiana this week, and so if you're new here today, make sure that you come back and meet him. But if you need anything, let us know. We're happy to be here with you, and to serve you in any way we can.

So just a little recap, last week I spoke on disciple making, and we were in First Thessalonians chapter one. If you have your Bibles and you wanna get them opened up, we're gonna be in First Thessalonians chapter two today. We're gonna get there in just a minute. But last week we talked about investing in people's spiritual journeys, and we're gonna talk about that again today this week. What it looks like, what it means, and we started talking about the three things that are eternal. There are only three things you can invest your life in that we're gonna live on past you. That's God, God's word, and the souls of men. Everything else in this world will pass away, but investing in God himself and your relationship with him, investing in knowing his word, and investing in other people's spiritual journeys, or the souls of men, will last way past you being here.

I told the story last week that nobody knows my grandma Todi, but her legacy is living on through me, because she shared the gospel with me, and because I have a vision to do that, she lives on through Sadie, and she'll live on through my grandkids, because she invested in one of the three eternal things. So just to remind you, investing in people's spiritual journey and making disciples are interchangeable terms, and so if I say making disciples, or I say investing in people's spiritual journeys, I'm talking about the same thing. Last week we also talked about a number line. I made this analogy that people on a spiritual journey, you could say that they're maybe on a number line, if you will, where a negative 10 on the number line might be someone who's an atheist or doesn't know the Lord at all, or completely antagonistic to anything spiritual, that might be somebody who's like a negative 10,

and then somebody who might be like a negative two or one, is someone who has not yet decided to follow Christ, but is very close, is thinking about it, there's probably lots of people in their lives sharing the word with them, and sharing their gospel with them, the love of Jesus with them, and they're close, but they haven't made that decision yet. In the middle would be the cross where people decide to follow the Lord, and then as you move forward in your relationship with the Lord, you kind of go up that scale, and listen, it's just an analogy, okay? We don't sit around going, well, I'm a plus eight, to brag or whatever, we're never gonna make it this side of heaven, we always need to be a learner, we always need to be committing to seeing what the Lord has for us, and first of all, just being where you are, understanding where you are, and then figuring out how to move forward

and take the next step, okay? So that's all making disciples, all right? We talked about that, whether you're on this side of the line where you haven't come to know the Lord yet, or whether you're on this side of the line and you're walking in sanctification with him, sanctification is a big churchy word, meaning just growing in your relationship with the Lord, walking, becoming more wise, growing in your faith, that's the process of sanctification. Whether you do not know the Lord at all, or you're growing in your faith, it's all making disciples, it's all discipleship. In 1 Thessalonians 1 last week, we talked about a couple of things where Paul described in helping people take the next step. He talked about by the power of the Spirit and deep conviction.

No matter how much knowledge I have, no matter how smart I think I am, if I can't, if I do not have the power of the Holy Spirit, it's not gonna do anything, it's gonna be all in vain. No matter how amazing this sermon is today, if the Holy Spirit isn't here in this room, working on your heart, it's all in vain. And I told a story last week about how we shared the gospel to Guy and totally butchered it and were a mess, and like we're stumbling over words, yet he came to faith that day. And the takeaway was, it was the Spirit, it wasn't us. The other thing is that Paul was an example, he set an example to everybody in the church of Thessalonica about how to live, not because he was gaining,

not that he was trying to gain favor with God, he was saying, follow me as I follow Christ, I'm a living example of what you should do. And that's also the pressure of discipleship, because if you desire to help somebody, that desire of helping somebody also means that you need to be walking with the Lord because you can't tell people to walk with the Lord and not walk with the Lord yourself, right? You can't say, do as I say, don't do as I do, that doesn't work, okay? So if you want people to be people of the word, to read their Bible, to memorize scripture, to have the gospel in their minds, you need to model that. So this week we're moving on to 1 Thessalonians chapter two, one through 12, but we're gonna really focus on seven and following, but I'll just summarize chapter two, the first few verses, he's basically, kind of like in verse one reiterating why he's there

and he's reminding them that, you know, he, you know, in verse two he talks about, we gave you the gospel in the face of strong opposition, we weren't trying to trick you, we did not have impure motives, we came to you in all humility, God tests our hearts, and so if we were wrong in that, the Lord would air that out, we didn't use flattery, and we're not looking for praise from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could assert it of our authority. So that's a summary of one through six. Today we're gonna focus on seven through 12, and you know, Paul doesn't just leave us hanging with a vision of disciple making, in the scriptures that we read last week and in these first scriptures saying, hey, this is a great vision, now go do it, he's also gonna help us out by giving us some word pictures of how we're actually supposed to do that. So let's just start in verse seven,

so this is first Thessalonians chapter two, verse seven and following. Instead, we were like children among you, just as a nursing mother cares for her children. Okay, let's stop there. That's some pretty descriptive language, okay? Think about the devotion and care that a nursing mother has for her children. It's one of the most tender moments you can think of. It's literally life-giving, right? And they didn't know this back then, but we know now that there's so much antioxidants and so much good stuff that comes through nursing, right? And I can't think of anything more gentle than that, right? So Paul is saying, we were gentle among you. We came to you with gentility, and he uses the most gentle thing that he can think of. I mean, I think that's a great one. So let's think about this. He came very gentle like a nursing mother. Okay, so obviously that's an analogy, right?

We don't take that literally, okay, that'd be silly. So what does it look like to be gentle? What does it look like to be gentle? If Paul is saying we came to you to be gentle like a nursing mother, and he's trying to give you an example of what he did, so it's an example for you to follow, what would be some examples of being gentle? Well, Romans 12-15 says, rejoice with those, rejoice.

Weep with those who weep. Being kind, being tender hearted, being a good listener, okay? Not always trying to fix people's problems immediately. I struggle with that. I just wanna know how I can fix everything, but sometimes I just need to shut up and listen, right? Sorry, I can't move the microwave when I have to cough. It's right there, it's constantly. Meeting basic needs. Sometimes, you know, whatever somebody's going through at that particular moment is the most important thing in their life right then, and they can't get past that to think about anything you've got to say. And so sometimes, if you can, meeting people's basic needs.

I was thinking about this this morning, Dan Oster might remember this. We were back when we were at healing street. We had a friend who was in our growth group, and they weren't doing so well financially, and somebody just busted out her window one day, and it's Texas, and she was driving around. Do you remember that? She was driving around without a window, and I was in the car business years ago, and I knew a glass guy, and she had any idea what to do, so a couple of us got together, and I think between three or four of us, we chipped in, and I said, call this guy, he'll take care of you. She went up, got her window fixed, and we all chipped in and paid for it. You know, I'm not trying to brag or anything, I'm just saying that that was totally dominating her thoughts that day, is I've got this broken window, I have no idea how I'm gonna fix this, and we just took care of it.

She didn't have to think about it anymore. We're not all, you know, independently wealthy. We can't fix everybody's problems, that often they're financial, but sometimes we can help in really practical ways. Your time, maybe there's some families around that just need you to watch their kids every once in a while. I don't know what that means. Gentility can mean, you know, like I said, being tender-hearted, kind, listening, but also just meeting basic needs. What do people need? A lot of times I think we're just trying to give them the information of the gospel so they'll know Jesus, but they've got all these barriers in front of them that are often just practical things that we can help remove, and if you can help to remove those barriers, I think people are gonna be a lot more liable to hear what you're saying and know that what you're saying is real and true.

You believe it because you're living it with how you're treating them and how gentle you are with them. So verse seven, just as a nursing mother cares for your children, well verse eight, he goes on and says, so we cared for you because we loved you so much. We were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well. I love that part, not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well, okay.

Not at arm's length, not just informational. There's some definite life on life sharing there, right? I think one of the most, the biggest things that we have going on in churches today is the lack of discipleship in that we are very, very passionate, and I'm talking about the church as a whole, the Big C church, all people who share the gospel, are very passionate about people knowing Christ, but they don't really know what to do with them after they become a Christian, okay. They think that's kinda where it stops. If you think about that Paul is talking about a nursing mother caring for her children, he's using this analogy

that he's a nursing mother caring for children. So what are the people he's ministering to? Their children, and what do children need? Everything. They need everything, right? And that's okay, that's what children need. So let's just think about this analogy that Paul is using for a second. If he's comparing himself as a nursing mother and the people he's ministering to his children, when they are growing, what do they need from him? They need a lot from him, right? I think that the problem in the Big C church these days is that we help people hear the gospel and they decide to follow the Lord, and then we kind of act like that's all we really need to do. In other words, it's kind of like if when Amy and I brought James home from the hospital last year, and we just sat him on the counter in his car seat, and we said, hey man, so glad you're here. We love you so much.

It's so awesome that you're here in our family. The milk's in the fridge, diapers are on the shelf. If you need anything, just call us, all right? I mean, what would have happened? Poor James, you know, like, he would have died. I'm not trying to be sad here, but he wouldn't have made it, okay, poor little guy. And don't tell people you talked about babies dying at church today, okay? I'm just joking. Well, think about that, think about it in terms of that analogy, as far as birthing people into the kingdom. You're birthing people into the kingdom. They're babies, they're spiritual babies. They don't know what they're doing. They need help every step of the way. James needs help every step of the way. So do people who come to know the Lord. They need help every step of the way. I like to call them spiritual orphans, okay? They've been orphaned spiritually. Now, people don't mean to do this.

I have a very charitable outlook on the church these days. They are very well-meaning people that don't know what to do because it wasn't done with them. People only do what has been modeled to them usually, right? I was a spiritual orphan, so to speak. I went to vacation Bible school when I was seven years old at Bella Vista Baptist Church in Bella Vista, Arkansas. Anybody ever been there? You have. No, I know my mom and sister have. But Christie has too, that's cool. You've been to Bella Vista, but not necessarily that church, that's cool. I grew up in Phoenix, and so when the summer was over and it was time to go back to Arizona, that was it. We didn't go to church at home. There was no discipleship or anything. So church became kind of a summer thing. And not to just hang them out to dry, but if I had stayed in Arkansas, I don't know if really much would have happened either.

I don't think they necessarily had a vision for that. And so I came to know Christ and I kind of read my Bible, but I didn't know what I was doing. I just played Bible roulette, you know, where you kind of flop it open and go, psh, psh, okay, that's what I'm reading today. And if you landed in Leviticus, you're like, oh, that's a lot of nut. And you know, so the thing about spiritual orphans

is that you just don't grow automatically. In other words, James, if we feed him, will continue to grow. Spiritual babies and spiritual orphans, they just stay babies, okay? So what happened to me is even though I really believe I had a relationship with the Lord, I wasn't walking with him. I didn't know anything about it. I wasn't living in the Spirit. I wasn't reading my Bible. You know, the enemy was trying to come and take that fruit away and take the seed kind of like in the peril of the sowers. And so in my teenage years, I was rebellious. I got into a lot of stuff I shouldn't. But then when I got to college, I became part of a Christian ministry and that's when I started to realize that, oh my goodness, I didn't even know. I've got a lot to learn. I've got a lot to grow.

When I went to Glorieta, New Mexico one summer to work because they were saying, hey, if you come out to Glorieta, it's a conference center in the mountains of New Mexico, by the way. If you come out to Glorieta, we'll give you a job and you can work, make money all summer. But while you're here, you can be in Bible study and some discipleship training and it'll be really good for your spiritual life. And I was like, oh, that sounds great. I can make money and have this kind of spiritual aspect. That's great. So I showed up there and this guy named John Kelsey met me the first time I was there. And I had no idea what was about to happen because this man was in my grill like two or three times a day for the next 10 weeks. And it was kind of startling at first because I didn't know what he was doing. But you know, our first meeting, he's asked me a lot of questions.

Tell me about your family, tell me about your mom, tell me about your dad, tell me about how you grew up. And then he was like, well, what do you wanna do? What do you wanna do, Dan? What do you wanna do with your life? How do you wanna live it? I was like, I wanna live for the Lord. He's like, do you really? Yeah. Well, what are you doing to meet that goal? And I was like, I don't know. Going to church once in a while. And he's like, Dan, if you really wanna walk the Lord, you have to be in his word and you need to be praying, you need to be sharing the gospel. And I can teach you how to do that. So for the next 10 weeks, we're meeting a couple times a week. And he's making me, you know, I have met, first just to memorize that he is checking me on when we get together. He's like, you need to be in the Bible every day. He gave me a schedule so I could have a quiet time

every day and man, I was just eating it up. Eating it up, I loved it. It was amazing. That's when I became, started to be discipled and trained and that's when I started to grow. I'll never forget that and I'm indebted to this man to this day and that's why I have a vision and Amy and I have a vision to help people grow. And then verse eight, like I said before, because I loved you so much, I not only gave you the gospel of God but our own lives as well. John Kelsey wasn't just sharing with me information, he was sharing with me his life and he was taking me with him when he did things. If he was gonna go out and share the gospel or do something, he took me with him so I could see how it was done. He shared things about his life, his struggles, so I could know that he was human too and that I didn't have to be perfect. It was amazing.

I followed John Kelsey all the way to Norman, Oklahoma eventually the next year and that's where I met my wife and the rest is history, I should say. And it looks like the Lord is leading us back to Norman next year, so we're really excited about that. Verse 10, let's read verse 10 again real quick. Let's see what we got here. You are witnesses and so is God of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. Again, he's repeating this idea from 1 Thessalonians 1 that we need to be above reproach and set an example. Also spurring towards holiness, not just production or right living, not just doing the right things or producing things, but a deep and abiding love for the Lord being made in his image. Verse 11, for you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live the lives worthy of God

who calls you into his kingdom and glory. So just to back up, remember in verse seven he talks about being gentle like a nursing mother but then in verse 11 he's like, you need to be like a father how? A father deals with his children, encouraging, comforting and urging. In fact, some translations use the word exhortation. Okay, exhorting, so what does that mean? Exhorting is like a strong encouragement, a challenge if you will, okay? Spurring, spurring someone along, okay? Okay, let's think about that word spurring. What is a spur? We're in Texas, we know what spurs are, don't we? Are those those little spiky things that cowboys wear to make their boots sound cool? Clink, kitty, clink, kitty, clink. I mean, is that all they are for? No, you ever seen a cowboy with spurs on with no horse in within 20 miles? I always think that's funny. A spur is used to kind of,

to kick that back of that horse to get him going. Okay, it's a little poke if you will. Does that feel good to the horse? Probably not, you know, but it probably doesn't hurt it that bad. It just gets it moving. It prompts the horse to action, okay? So Paul is talking about being a father who is encouraging and exhorting and spurring. Well, sometimes dads need to spur a little bit to prompt their kids to action, would you say? Not necessarily being mean or over-lording or anything like that, but a spur, a challenge, a push, right? So Paul is saying, you need to be gentle like a nursing mother, but you also need to be spurring and exhorting like how a father deals with his own children. You guys noticing a theme here? Yeah, he's talking about parenting, but spiritual parenting. He's saying you need to be kind of the surrogate spiritual parent for these people,

as I was to you. You need to meet their needs, you need to love them, but you also need to spur them. Now, spurring is not super popular these days. This guy that I really like to listen to, his name is Voddie Baucham. Vodie says that the 11th commandment now is thou shalt be nice, okay? That you better not ever say anything to anybody that could suggest that you do not approve of what they do. Well, I don't need to tell you that's unbiblical. Just look at the words of Jesus, look at anything in the Old Testament, in pre-cretory Psalms anyone. There is lots of record in the scriptures of the Lord and the God's people expressing

dislike of whatever was happening, okay? There needs to be a balance there. I've seen ministries on both sides. I've seen ministries that are super cool and nice and loving and lovey, lovey, lovey, but they never ever wanna issue a challenge. They don't wanna defend anybody. That's probably the most of them. But every now and then you find a ministry that's just super hardcore serious and is rebuking everybody every five minutes. I think you need a balance between those, right? You need to be gentle but also spurring. In fact, it's often been told to me that it's probably 90-10. The most effective thing is 90% encouragement and love with 10% spurring and challenge. Because your spur and your challenge and your exhortation will fall back on that foundation of love and care. So if you're trying to say, hey brother, you're really messing it up in this area and I wanna help you, that person knows

that you care about them first and foremost, okay? So it needs to be a balance. And essentially this is spiritual parenting. Here's a rhetorical question for you to answer yourself. Have you been parented spiritually? Do you want to be? We can help you with that. Just talk to somebody later on. If you feel like you've never been parented, you've never been trained, we can help you with that. Our life groups kind of take that role a little bit in that you're being spurred and challenged in a group of the same sex women with women guys. We're doing life groups to take that role and that works. So we could be a part of a life group or you could get some more training if you want. Because this is talking about spiritual parenting, I can't help but talk for just a few minutes about parenting in general, okay? A lot of us have kids in this room. And what does that look like?

So he's talking about spiritual parenting. What about spiritually parenting your own children, okay? And what that means, and Amy and I are super passionate about this, that means taking the role of being the primary disciples in your home. Now, we're all involved in a church community and our kids, two of my kids left, you go to the lesson that's being taught during the service and Sadie goes to youth group. So we're all helping raise them as a community but Amy and I are the lead in that. We're the primary disciples. And I wanna encourage you, if you haven't, as a parent to take that role and to take that charge or if you're not a parent yet, to commit to being the lead disciples. Or if you're a grandparent, to commit to helping your kids disciple their kids. Or if you're a grandparent and they're not discipling their kids, help them. Give them that vision or tell them about Jesus

every chance you get when they're at your house because that's what happened to me. I heard about Jesus at my grandma's house. In an age of professionalism, we tend to hire out almost every parental responsibility. If Johnny, you want General Johnny to succeed at sports, you hire a coach or put him on a league to get trained up in that sport. If Susie wants to have a good SAT score, you hire a tutor. You know, you can put him in a class to help him score better on the SAT. If we want our kids to know the Bible, we send them to the youth minister. Hmm. Look, I'm not trying to hurry anybody or throw stones, but that's what's been happening. Because of our society, because of our culture, we have delegated a lot of things to the outside, including the spiritual training of our kids. And so, look, I'm not hanging the churches out to dry either. You cannot expect a youth minister or pastor

to disciple your children in two or three hours a week. There's just not enough time. It's okay to seek help, to get help, to delegate in your parenting. But a lot of people have gone beyond that and are really abdicating the responsibility to train up their children in the way they should go. Okay, remember, I talked about sparing just a minute ago. Remember? Remember, sometimes it's not comfortable. Okay, just wanted to give you a little example there of sparing. It's always not comfortable. There are actually many, many, many books written about the epidemic of Christian kids leaving the church after they leave home. In fact, the most recent statistics I can find is about 70% of kids who grow up in church do not return to church after they leave home, 70%. Okay? So, Amy and I have been reading a lot about this as we have children ourself. We have five, if you didn't know that.

And we also teach in a school. So, we're also helping other parents take the role as lead disciples. So, we've been reading a lot about this, trying to glean as much information we can. And some of the things that we've learned are that children have a basic worldview or a basic morality by around age 10. Okay? So, they're picking things up, they're figuring things out, and by age 10, they have a basis for their morality or their worldview.

Most children decide to follow Christ by middle school. Okay? Now, that doesn't mean that after middle school, they miss the boat. That just means that middle school is the most likely time for kids to follow the Lord, and that after middle school, that the percent's chances just go down as they get older, right? Now, I came to know the Lord as a young man, but then I was discipled in college, and I know lots of people who came to know the Lord in Christ, or know Christ in college, or later in life. So, I don't understand, it doesn't happen. But the statistics show that church kids are less likely to follow the Lord if it doesn't happen in middle school. Okay? The conclusion that we got is these kids are kind of set. You know what I mean? They're kind of formed by the time they're that age, and if you know anything, that's before they even get to the youth group.

So, kids have already decided what their worldview's gonna be. Kids have pretty much decided they're gonna follow Jesus or not before they even get to the youth group. So, let's not hang our youth ministers out to dry. They're doing their best with what they can work with when their students are coming to them, already kind of decided on what they're gonna do. Okay? That should just really spur you to say that we need to be really focusing on our kids, and we need to help them know the Lord.

We don't need more robust children's ministries, necessarily. We just need to take that charge as parents, and take it seriously. In fact, this ministry called Legionary Ministries does a state of theology survey every two years, and the results are startling. So, I'm just gonna read you a couple statements and tell you what the responses were from evangelicals. Okay, if that's a big word for you, I'll tell you that if these people answered agree to the next four statements, that meant they're an evangelical. Okay, so I would consider us evangelicals. So, here's how they were defined as evangelicals. The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe. If you agree to that, then that means you're an evangelical. It's very important for me to personally encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus as their savior. Okay? I agree with that. Jesus Christ's death on the cross is not only sacrifice

that could move, sorry, is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of my sin. Great. Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their savior receive God's free gift of eternal salvation. So, if someone answered agree to those four statements, they're considered an evangelical. Okay, you need to know that because here are two statements and here's how evangelicals answer these questions.

On the statement, Jesus was a great teacher but he was not God. 43% of evangelicals agreed with that statement in 2022. Of the statement, the Bible, like all sacred writing, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths that's not literally true. 26% of evangelicals agreed with this statement. Okay? I think these numbers reflect not just what is going on in churches but what is going on in Christian homes or what is not going on in Christian homes. We can't blame the churches for not teaching you enough because you don't spend that much time here. I think a lot of the onus is on the parents. Amy and I have felt really strongly with this so we have done our level best to start worshiping our home, to start discipleship in our own home and it's not easy. I think there's a lot of spiritual warfare that is against this. I think the enemy really doesn't want us to do this.

We're gonna sit down and have family worship and family devotion time. Anything that could go wrong does go wrong. Any small child that feels like having a tantrum decides to have one right then and we're just kinda like, oh my goodness, it's very, very hard but we know that that's the enemy trying to keep us from doing this because we know how effective it is. So some of the things we might do is we'll sit and we'll sing a few songs. We'll try to confess to one another and then we have these rhyming catechisms that rhymey rhyme rhymes just to help kids remember things because they're really good at remembering things and we do some of those things and then we try to confess to one another and we pray.

In addition, we try to be open about what the Lord's doing with our lives, especially with our oldest kids like Sadie and Jack, explaining why we're doing things, walking with them through our prayer process and our thought process and sharing with them when the Lord reveals something to us in scriptures, we share that with them because we wanna show them that's what happens. When you read the scriptures and you pray, the Lord shows you things and then you can say, oh, that's nice and write it down or you can act on it.

This has become very, very real to us because if you weren't here last week, I was talking about how we're feeling led to move to Oklahoma and be in college ministry next year because the Lord has asked us to do that. Well, we've been telling the kids to follow God their whole life and now here we have the opportunity to do it. We'd really be blowing it as parents if we didn't follow the Lord. When the Lord told us to go while our kids is watching us, I'm saying, let's see, what are they gonna do? The Lord told them to go, let's see, what are they gonna do? We better go. Not for the simple fact we need to follow God, right? But also that our kids really see that we're following the Lord. Like I said earlier, if you don't have kids or you're an empty nester or you don't have kids yet, you can still be helping in the discipleship in other people's homes. Here at our church, we have a goal this year

to be investing in children. And so we've got some people in the church who kind of paired up with young kids and they're gonna be encouraging them, going to some of their sporting events, having taken them out for ice cream dates or whatever, because they wanna help out. And I would encourage you too, like if you're beyond that stage of your life, you can still offer childcare, have them keep them over, whatever they may need. Remember those gentle, practical needs are super important. So while we still need to invest in our kids as a community, I just wanted the parents to take charge of that, but to know as a community, we're all here to help you out and we're gonna be supportive of that and help you in everything we need to do. So, first Thessalonians to spiritual parenting. We need to be gentle, like a nursing mother. We need to be exhorting and spurring like a father.

And we need to help people move that next step on their spiritual journey, whatever that next step may be. Whether it's moving towards a relationship with Christ or growing further in relationship with Christ, that's what we need to be doing. The New Testament is super clear about that. If you don't see that in the New Testament, I question whether you've read the New Testament. It is all over there. Drew is gonna be preaching actually two more weeks on discipleship and investing in people's spiritual journeys. Y'all can come back and hear him. And I think he's gonna be preaching from Mark one on that. But I just pray, I pray that we would be investing in people's spiritual journey. And to do that, you just need to know them. You don't know where they need to go if you don't know where they're at, right? First thing that Google Maps asks you when you wanna go somewhere is, where are you right now?

And so, we need to get to know people. You get to know people by spending time with them. You get to know people by being in a life group with them, by listening and understanding and meeting needs. And then you can help people along in their spiritual journey. Let's pray. Jesus, I pray that no matter where Amy and I are in our lives, that we are always investing in people's spiritual journeys. Lord, I pray that you would give us this vision daily. You would remind us daily. You would remind us constantly that we need to be investing in people's spiritual journeys.

Lord, I ask that you would give us the power to do that through the Holy Spirit. Lord, I pray that you would help us do this in community and we would encourage one another. I would pray that we would be gentle and caring like a nursing mother. But I also pray that we would be spurring and exhorting like a father. Lord, we love you. We pray that our lives honor you in every way. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.