Persevere on the Journey

Transcript

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

Thank you, Dan. Good morning, guys. Going north on Hughon Street in Fort Worth, just before the Hughon Mall is on our left, Story and I are in the car, and we turn left onto Overton Ridge Road. Story, my 14-year-old daughter, is with me. And out of nowhere, she says, oh, this is where this part is. And I was a bit confused and story began laughing at herself as she is want to do. And then she kind of summarized her struggle and her surprise. She said, I have all of these parts of Fort Worth all kind of laid out in my head, But I don't really know how they all fit together. Right? So we take a left onto Overton Ridge and she's like, oh, okay, now that I'm on Overton Ridge, I now know that Jason's deli is down there. I now know, you know, cowboy chicken and all of that stuff. That's all there on Overton Ridge.

She had it all in her head, but she didn't really know how it all fit together. And then we laughed in the car. We had a really good moment. And then I said, that's a sermon illustration. And she said, yeah, totally. So I have her permission to use this story. Okay, good. The reason I thought I'd make a great sermon illustration is because this is how a lot of us see our own spiritual journeys. It's these disconnected parts. It's these things that sometimes can feel familiar, these things that feel maybe repeated, maybe we've done it, before, but we don't really have this sense of exactly what it is or how it's supposed to fit together or how it goes. We don't really know the way forward. And so like story, to fix that, we kind of need a map. We kind of need a lay of the land to kind of figure out what it's supposed to be. And this is really what we've been talking about the last couple of weeks. We've been

talking about our spiritual journey, the spiritual journey that we are all on. And what we have done, because it's fun, we've been taking metaphors from hiking and camping and talking about how that is a part of our journey. So we've been kind of using this extended metaphor. So we have our packing list. We have our packing list so far. We have packed our passport. The passport is the way that we say yes to Jesus, is what Jesus gives us to begin our journey. If you are not on this journey, or if you think you're on a journey with Jesus, but you've never said yes to being on that journey, you're probably not on that journey. You probably know a little bit about it, you look at it from the outside, but you don't really have that passport. We also talked about a compass, how the compass is the Holy Spirit living inside of us, guiding us, helping us through.

We talked about the rope. We talked about how our journey is not some scamper through the woods, but that it is treacherous. It is a lot to climb. There are moments when we might not survive. And then that rope is our connected unity. If we are journeying together following Jesus, then we are connected with this rope, this ingrained unity. Last week we took, we looked at the backpack. So the backpack, you are on this journey, but Jesus, you are given a backpack. these backpack is a little bit different than each other's, but it is loaded down with gifts to work, gifts to fight, and gifts to serve and nourish. So today, with our passport, our compass, our rope, and our backpack, now we are adding on to what we have in our hands, and we're talking about a map. And a map, this is a way to help us grasp a better lay of the land. a better lay of the land. So this is not really like a treasure map.

So when I say map, there's a couple different ways you can go. We're not talking about a treasure map, talking about more like a map of Burleson, okay? So Burleson, you can see it's just from Google Maps, you can kind of see, it doesn't lead you anywhere, it shows you how Burleson is laid out. You can see the triangle of Wilshire 35 and West Hinton Creek Parkway. You can see kind of where these major subdivisions are. You can see where there's some forest. You can see the lay of the land.

And when you have the map, you know which way is up. You know where Old Town is in relationship to the brick. You know where this road goes generally. You know which roads run east-west, which ones are north-south, and which ones are wonky. Okay, which I think there's a lot in that third category Burleson, Texas. On our journey, we need to see Jesus's mission. We need to understand that we are on this mission together with Jesus, but we also need to understand, in fact, it might be just as important, we need to understand how Jesus carries out that mission. In other words, it's not just that we need to know we're in Burleson. But we need to know where we are in Burleson in relation to other things. We need to know how Burleson is laid out to navigate it well, okay? So if you're thinking of maybe like a map for a national park, you need to know where these different sites are.

You need to know where the elevation changes. You need to know the contours of where you are, what you're dealing with, so that you can know it better, so that you can make decisions. It would be like going shopping at Target. There's a couple of things to do whenever you are at Target. And for about half of you, I don't need to explain that in any detail at all. The other half, I might need to. At Target, you can go with a mission. Same mission. In fact, my wife and I, when we go to Target, we have the same mission. It's to buy things. Or one thing, right? to make purchases or a purchase. That's our goal. But how we go about that goal? I mean, those are two wildly different things. For me, going into Target is a surgical strike, okay? If I could know exactly what bin it's in, what aisle it's on, then I will go in, beeline, get it, I don't even know if I'll look up.

I mean, I might just go get it purchased out and I'm looking at my watch like I made good time. Okay, that's, hey, there we go. We got some eight minutes here. That is how I shop at Target. I still purchase things. I might even purchase the exact same thing as my wife but my wife does not shop at Target that way. Not even close. However much I wish she would. Just teasing. She does great. When my wife goes to Target, I think it's best summarized in how a friend of mine said this. It says, when you go to Target, you don't tell Target what you need. You let Target tell you what you need. Right, you go and let Target wash over you a little bit. You kinda see what's there, see what's there. You know, say, oh, okay, new betting, I see you. Oh, a sale over here, okay. And you're just kind of assessing, you're perusing, browsing. You're seeing what's there, okay? When Jesus says to everybody that follows Him

to go and make disciples, right? It's the same thing, it's making disciples. But when we look at how Jesus says to make disciples, when we look at how Jesus Himself made disciples, what He told them to do, how that looked, What we get is we get a more complete lay of the land. We understand where things need to go. We understand how it's laid out. And if we just think, oh, I just need to know that Jesus is asking me to make disciples, I'll get that figured out. Well, okay.

But I think you're gonna miss a few things. So what I wanna do is I wanna look at scripture and I wanna find our map. I wanna give us a lay of the land. We're going to be in Acts chapter one, verses four through eight. We're actually going to start in verse eight. We're going to start at the end and work backward. As you're turning to Acts chapter one, verses four through eight, it is helpful to know here that Acts is a continuation of the gospel of Luke. Okay. Luke was a really smart guy. Apparently, a lot of people think he was a doctor or a lawyer. He wrote the gospel of Luke and then he wrote the book of Acts and they're actually both addressed to the same person, a man by the name of Theophilus. And so if you look at Luke chapter 1 verse 1, you can see the address to Theophilus and Acts 1:1, same story. It's addressed to the same person and that really helps because in Matthew and in Mark,

Mark, and really in John too, there's this moment at the end of the gospel story, at the end of Jesus's earthly ministry, where he kind of commissions them to say, like, okay, go and make disciples. Like, it's there. But when you look at the end of Luke, it's not there. It's because it's at the beginning of Acts. So what we find at the beginning of Acts is similar to what we find at the end of Matthew, at the end of Mark. And really, if you're not familiar with what I just said, that's fine. It's just that at the end of his ministry, Jesus commissions his disciples to go and make disciples, and it's all over. And here's how he does it in Acts 1:8. And in verses 4 through 8, what I'm going to help you understand is that Jesus is giving his disciples a lay of the land, even as he's describing how they're going to get the information, how they're going to do all of a sudden.

He's given them a lay of the land. fact, I believe these verses, verses 4 through 8, trace out the rest of the book of Acts. Acts has 28 chapters. And I believe when you read Acts chapter 1 verses 4 through 8, you get a sense of where the entire book is going to go. It doesn't spoil the ending, but man, it really helps you have it in your mind, structure like what's going to be happening. So again, I'm going to start start with verse 8, and then I want to kind of go back to the beginning and work our way to verse 8. Verse 8 is the most famous, by the way. Acts chapter 1 verse 8 is the one that is inscribed on books and buildings. It is the one that missions agencies and churches all over the world have like, you know, painted on their walls and stuff. Acts 1, 8 is a very famous Christian verse. Acts 1:8, it says this, Jesus is talking to his disciples and he says,

but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And by the way, if you're not sure where we are in Scripture, it's also going to be up here. Acts 1:8, the reason this is one of the most famous verses is because it concisely states Jesus's mission. Jesus's mission is making disciples. And Acts 1:8 concisely states that it cannot be overstated that Jesus came, like he said in Luke 19, that Jesus came to seek and to save what was lost. That Jesus specifically came to set people free from sin slavery, that Jesus said specifically to his disciples, go and make disciples, baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. We're going to get to baptism in a second, even though we got to it before. When Jesus came, it is very clear he made disciples,

whom he expected to make disciples. It is why, in fact, if you are a follower of Jesus today, It is why you are a follower of Jesus is because somebody took these words to heart and said, I'm going to make disciples. So somewhere along the line, somebody told you about the Lord. The reason they told you about the Lord is because Jesus told them to, and it's here, and it is central to Jesus's ministry and mission. Eugene Peterson says in traveling light that Jesus, it must be remembered, restricted nine-tenths of his ministry to 12 Jews because it was the only way to redeem all Americans. He means to be funny, so if you didn't laugh, maybe I should read it again, but it's the idea that Jesus really spent 90% of his ministry with 12 guys, and he made disciples, and he told those disciples to make disciples. Jesus actually only spent a little bit of time with the

crowds with the thousands, sometimes I'm sure tens of thousands of people that were listening to him. And so this is the map that we are discovering. The map is of making disciples. The name of the map is making disciples. Like the name of the map of Burleson is the map of Burleson. However, Jesus doesn't just say, go make disciples, even though that is the sense we get when all we here is Acts chapter 1 verse 8. If all you hear is, you'll be my witnesses and Jerusalem, Judea and also Marian to the ends of the earth, go be my witnesses. That's really all the sense of it that you get. You don't understand the context. So let's read before to grasp some of the context. And if we start in verse 4, we get a sense, we find a sense of how Jesus intends for us to make disciples. In other words, there is an art and a science to disciple making that we must grasp if we are going to do it

with any kind of effectiveness. Jesus intends for us to display it. And so in this way, he kind of gives us our map. So let's start in verses 4 and 5. Acts chapter 1, verses 4 and 5. Says, and while staying with them, this is Jesus and the disciples. Jesus ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem. So just to set the stage, Jesus has risen from the grave. It has been a few weeks. Jesus is about to leave. But when he knows he's about to leave, he is ordering them, don't leave Jerusalem. We're all in Jerusalem right now. It's where all the disciples lived and worked and whatever. They're all in Jerusalem. Then remember Jerusalem is, right, this is where Jesus was crucified. This is a weird place for them to be, and he says, don't leave. But wait, wait for the promise from the Father, which he said, you heard from me for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

Two things first, the disciples that are listening to this, as Jesus is telling them, had very little idea what this meant. which I'm sure was part of the course for Jesus and the disciples. I'm sure he said things to them all the time where they were like, what? And we'll figure it out later, I guess. I don't know. This will make sense. Other things he said has made sense. So this will make sense, I'm pretty sure. So they had no idea what he was talking about really. And the second thing to note is that Jesus could have done what was going to happen later right then. But he didn't, which is curious. Why? Why didn't he do it right then? Why didn't he fulfill the promise right then? Why didn't he baptize them with the Holy Spirit right then? What we're going to see in Acts chapter two, right? So, sorry to spoil the story. What we're going to see in Acts chapter two is what Jesus is saying to wait on here.

But he's saying wait, which is curious. He's saying wait. He wants him to wait. And so, we need to understand if we're going to follow Jesus on this journey of making disciples, If we're going to go where he's going to go, then making disciples means that we wait on the spirit to work, right? It means that we wait on the spirit to work. Sometimes, sometimes we get in a tizzy. We have something in our brains that we want to achieve for the Lord. And in our brains, that thing that we want to achieve is very good. And it is worth any effort that we throw at it. It is worth any sacrifice we make for it because we're doing it for the Lord. So it's a good thing to do. We should do it. And we get in a tizzy.

But the whole time that we're in a tizzy, the whole time that we're making plans, the Spirit is there saying, hey, hang on. I'm coming. I'm arranging things all to be in a certain way. It's all going to come. It's all going to be just at the right time. You're going to know it's me when it's the right time. just don't force this thing. Hang on. Wait. Wait. When Jesus is saying it's in the oven but it ain't ready yet, that is a hard thing for us to grasp. That is a hard thing for us to achieve, to actually wait for something. I mean when's the last time you planned on waiting for something? You don't plan on waiting for something, you plan other things to do while you're waiting on something, because we're Americans and we want to be productive. We don't watch the microwave, we do other things while our food is being microwaved. We want to be busy and what Jesus tells us and told

the disciples here in Acts 1:4-5 is to wait. And maybe even, we don't know, but maybe Even the disciples were like, yeah, can it happen now? No, we gotta wait, we gotta wait. Guys, we gotta wait, I don't know. Jesus said we gotta wait, we gotta wait. I think it's instructive for us to understand every disciple ever made, any progress that you could somehow fathom that would help the kingdom of God be ushered into this world, any good that has ever really been done, Anything that will last has happened because the Spirit of God did it. Period. There's no other explanation. I'm sure we can kind of have this viewpoint where we're like, oh, these things happened and it happened. That's cute. But it's not the full story. The full story is that the Holy Spirit worked, did things, lined things up, made things happen. And we either cooperated with that or we resisted that.

Every disciple ever made, the people all around you, your coworkers, your parents, your friends, your, even just acquaintances, even people that serve you coffee, the spirit right now is working in some of their lives. We don't know which. I mean, we'd probably screwed up if we did. We don't know what the spirit's doing. Spirit right now is working in people's lives. And we need that process to happen in order for disciples to be made. We need to be able to say, okay, like Spirit, you've got to do this thing. And whenever we pray, we pray at 830 every day. If you want to come early at 830, we will be praying. And when we do, our prayer is very often, Lord, we've done all the preparation that we know to do, We're ready, but we need you to move. We need you to do the work, right? You know, Daniel Oster is teaching in adult Bible study. Did you teach this morning?

Okay, Daniel Oster taught in adult Bible study this morning. That's great. However, if, I mean, Daniel could be prepared all day, but if the spirit's not working, nothing of substance will happen. Okay, it's just not gonna happen. There is an art to making disciples And step one of that art, of that science is to wait. And we can see this already in the verse that we read previously in Acts 1:8. Because how does it start? Acts 1:8, it says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. So in other words, you can get all excited about something, but nothing will happen until you receive power and the Holy Spirit has come upon you. A few weeks ago, we talked about the compass. If you have not heard that, I would encourage you go back and listen. It's from about three weeks ago, making progress on the journey. And what we talked about there is really,

it's helpful here to repeat that following Jesus in a lot of ways is passively active. It's passively active. In other words, you are led by the Spirit. You are living by the Spirit. you are keeping in step with the spirit. The spirit is growing fruit in you. The whole process is not us forcing things to happen and ooh, won't Jesus be so proud of me when he sees all my effort? No, no, that's not how it works. How it works is the spirit leading, the spirit directing, you walking in step with the spirit not the other way around, okay? And so, as Jesus is laying out this map for us, what we need to see first is that making disciples only happens when we wait on Jesus. It only happens then. I don't want to throw rocks, so I won't. I'll be... I'm being charitable here, I promise. When people, and I hear it a lot because I'm a pastor of the church, right? So when people come to me and they say like, hey, we've got this proven strategy,

everybody who hears this accepts the gospel. We're seeing revival all over the place because of this, that, and the other. And it's these proven methods that work. And I mean, they lost me at proven methods, but I just kind of tune out. I'm like, okay, thank you for your time. I'm not gonna listen anymore. I'm nicer than that, only a little. But, and it's not because I think no methods work, it's because I know the only reason that people follow the Lord is because the Holy Spirit is moving. It's not whatever proven tactic you've got. In fact, here's the proven tactic, if we can speak in those terms. Here's, you wanna make disciples? You wanna make disciples, you wanna see our church make disciples, you ready, you wanna do that? Okay, pray. pray, get desperate enough to actually pray and mean it that people would come and know the Lord.

Just pray. If it's all up to Him, and it is, then prayer is our only place to begin. This is why we pray in our life groups. This is why we pray for specific people to follow Jesus. because if we're trying to force it, if we're just loving people so that they can be our projects and we can force them to believe in Jesus, it doesn't work. It's not good. That doesn't bear fruit. It's not there. It's not what we're going for. We believe, because Scripture tells us that Jesus is working in people's lives right now. We can be a help or we can be a hindrance to that process, But that is first and foremost, the Spirit is working. Let's keep going. Let's move on. Let's go back to verses four and five. There's a little bit more. Because in four it says, it says, while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father,

which he said, you heard from me. And then we get this, we get five. For John baptized with water, and you will be baptized, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So after you wait for the promise, you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Let me just be really clear, I don't want to get in the weeds on this, but I do think it's worth saying baptism of the Holy Spirit is different than water baptism. So Melissa Sagallo was just baptized by water, which is different than what we're talking about. Here's my summary. Water baptism is a symbol of what has already happened in Melissa's life and that she has been baptized in the Holy Spirit, right? Does that make sense? So we're not talking about, with the disciples, it just happened the other way around, because, you know, Holy Spirit hadn't come yet. And so what we understand here is that we don't, we're not like saying we're

gonna follow Christ and then be baptized by water, and then we're gonna achieve this other thing where we're gonna be baptized by the Holy Spirit, and then our Christian life will be really awesome. That's not... Some actually teach that. That's not true. We don't believe that. So when it talks about being baptized by the Holy Spirit, that's exactly what it means. It's just, it is a reality that happens. What Melissa did today, God bless you, Melissa, I'm really excited that you did, is a symbol of what has already happened in her life. Okay. And so it is, it is, again, I probably got even too far in the weeds there, but it is enough to say that Jesus here in verses five, four and five, is promising power to the disciples. He's saying power will come. And as we make disciples, it is, it is not just waiting for Jesus to say, We're not just waiting. We are also waiting on Jesus to give us power to make disciples.

So to make disciples, it means a spiritual readiness. If we're going to make disciples, we need to be ready spiritually. We need to be at attention. We need to understand that when Jesus says, hey, I want you to go make disciples, That means that we are training for that end. I mean, that's why Wednesday night, we're going to have training in this whole thing, right? I'm going to be eluding that a little bit more, but that's the idea is that we're ready, is that we're studying. We understand kind of what Jesus is asking us to do so that we can do it, not just so that we can know, but so that we can do well. So Jesus here, again, showing us the lay of the land. We need to be attentive in prayer. We need to be ready to act. We need to carry in anticipation for what the Spirit is gonna do. I've already told you once about cousin Amanda, but it bears repeating.

Cousin Amanda was praying for cousin Amanda. It's my wife's first cousin, Amanda Weaver, and loves the Lord and was telling me about this time that she was praying to be able to share her faith with someone. And so then her two-year-old broke his femur, and that's a big deal. And so they call the ambulance, ambulance comes, and as she's sitting there in the ambulance with her two-year-old writhing in pain,

the EMT worker, the guy that's administering everything that's going on, begins to ask spiritual questions. And Amanda's thinking, really? Right here, Lord? This is where we're going to do it. Okay, I mean, I prayed for it. I'm ready. Let's go, let's do it. And so she was able to share her testimony with the antique guy and like, you know, fire didn't fall from heaven and the guy like accepted Lord right then. That's not what happened. She was faithful to bear witness to what the Lord was doing in her life. She was ready. She knew her story and now was her moment. And glory to God, she killed it. She did great in that moment. If we're going to make disciples that we need to understand that this is an outflow of the Holy Spirit This is an outflow of the power of the Holy Spirit again If we are forcing it we're waiting on the Holy Spirit's timing But we're also waiting on the Holy Spirit's power

And if you are if you are not making disciples right now if you do not even have a grasp of the lay of the land I think it's enough to begin to ask yourself a few questions. Am I praying for people to come to know the Lord? Am I praying for people at all? Am I praying for the Spirit to move in people's lives? And then really just very practically, are you spending time with Jesus at all in like personal worship? Are you reading the Bible on your own? Are you praying? Are you doing any of that? Because if you're not doing those things and you somehow expect to magically be ready whenever the Spirit calls you up, whenever you're not really in tune with the Spirit before, well that's not going to happen. is a readiness for us to have spiritually to where we are, we're not only connecting with Jesus in the middle of a crisis, but that we're connecting with Jesus all the time,

every morning or every evening or whenever. I'm not trying to set a law here. I'm just trying to help you understand that if we're going to begin making disciples, it doesn't just start with you going into Walmart, looking at your cashier in the face and saying, that if you would die right now, do you know where you're gonna go? Okay, that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is you beginning to cultivate in your life a deep and abiding concern for the people that are around you that do not know the Lord or that are far from the Lord or however you wanna put it.

When you begin to pray toward that end, you begin to make disciples. It's slow, but it happens. So we need to be ready. We need to wait on the Spirit to work. Last part's in verses six and seven. Acts one, six and seven. Possibly some of my favorite verses in the New Testament. Love this. Especially because it's right before Acts one eight and it never gets quoted with Acts one eight. Okay. Six and seven. So when they had come together, they asked him, this is the disciples. These are the guys that have been spending three plus years with Jesus. Okay, well, commentary, sorry. When they come together, they asked him, "'Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?'" Let's hang on. If this were a movie, this is where the record scratch happens. This is where Jesus shoots them this look like, "'Excuse me? "'What did you just ask me?

"'Am I going to do what now? "'Are you gonna restore the kingdom to Israel?'" And Jesus, cool, was a cucumber, of course. He said to them, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority. Let me just say these verses right here give me hope. They give me lots of hope. What's funny is you find a very similar kind of set of verses right before Matthew 28, 19 and 20 where Jesus commissions the disciples. A couple of verses before that verse, it says like, they worshiped but some doubted. And I'm like, yes, the disciples, the guys who should not be doubting at all are doubting. That helps me. That helps me understand how imperfect this whole thing is. How me and all of my imperfection, I can still come to Jesus. In the midst of doubt, in the midst of frustration, in the midst of having these unanswered questions,

in the midst of not really understanding, not even knowing if this is going to work, I can still lay my life down in front of Jesus and say, okay. Okay, whatever you want to do, let's go. I have no idea what that means. In fact, I think I'd mess it up anyway. Just do what you're gonna do. In Acts 6 and 7, and let me just give you the impact of that because it could be a bit hazy. That question, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Here's exactly what they meant. Jesus, are you going to right now overthrow the military occupation of the Roman Empire on our physical space in Israel? Okay, you understand that? They were expecting fully Jesus to pick up a sword, lead a rebellion, and defeat Rome. period. I mean, that's exactly, that question means that in no uncertain terms. They thought Jesus was going to overthrow the Roman Empire, maybe by force, maybe they didn't know how, but they thought

this at least included a military expedition. When it comes to what Jesus wanted the disciples to do, To say that they were surprised when it finally happened is an understatement. They did not expect what happened. They were very glad when it did happen finally, but they had no expectation. Are we going to overthrow Rome right now? Is that what is going to happen next, Jesus? Because you've ascended from the grave, you've beaten death. Surely you can muster an army. Maybe you can raise an army from the dead, like they did in the Old Testament. Maybe that's gonna happen. Maybe it's gonna be like Elijah with the Valley of Dry Bones. And Jesus is going to raise a zombie army to overthrow the Roman occupation, to militarily free Israel. I cannot imagine what's going through Jesus' mind at this moment.

But his disciples are thinking zombie apocalypse, And he's thinking New Testament, spirit living. So they couldn't have been further from each other, but there it is. And so as the disciples are saying, are we there yet, meaning Roman occupation? He says no. That's not for you to know. I'm not going to answer that question really. Possibly the most dangerous part of making disciples is that it is full of misconceptions. When I say making disciples, I'm not sure what goes on in your head, but it could include lots of things, including I have to move to a foreign country to do it, or I have to stand on a street corner with a megaphone. Or at the very least, I have to have an uncomfortable conversation with a complete stranger that I either call on the phone or meet at Starbucks or something. When I say make disciples, when I say share your faith, there's all sorts of misconceptions

that just come rushing to the front. They come and they fill all the space. It's full of misconceptions and this can really hurt us in two different ways. And I want to explore both of those very quickly. The first is that we can not make disciples if we think it's supposed to look different. Which is what I just explained. But to go with the metaphor, maps are funny things. If you have the map turned upside down, you're going to go the wrong way. If you get the destination wrong, you're going to go the wrong way. They can mess you up. Story and I, again, a story about story and us driving. I had to take story to Love Field in Dallas. Here's my advice to you. If you ever need to go to Love Field, don't just type in Love Field to Google Maps and hit OK and hit Start and then start going. That's not a good idea. is it will take you to some random place that is identified

as Love Field in Google Maps. And then if that happens to you, don't do it again, thinking that you're going to get a different result. Because that's what I did, and it took me to some dude's yard that he had titled Love Field. That's 100% true. Story and I are in the car, and I'm going, I don't think this is Love Field. So we were early to the flight, so that was helpful. we weren't like under stress. Finally, I put in Dallas Love Field and I like made sure it was the Dallas Love Field Airport or you know, however the full name of it was, we got there. We've already gone over the fact that I can't follow, I don't know, directions so I really need a map, like really bad. So I will go wherever that map takes me even if it's the subject's backyard, swear, I know. It's a problem, it's real. And it almost made my daughter laid to pick up a flight.

When you get the destination wrong, you end up in some dude's backyard. You don't end up making disciples. You end up doing something other than that. This is why we are doing training this Wednesday night. We are doing training. We're calling it the journey in depth. And we're doing a series of four weeks in a row, four Wednesdays in a row. Where if, as a church, we need to have the map turned the right way, right? Look, I'm not worried about being on brand. I'm not worried about you doing it my way, per se. That's not what this is about. It's about you understanding the contours of making disciples. Seeing how Jesus made disciples and how you can do that in the context that you're in. Not in a way, it's not like selling Amway. It's not like that. It's different. And we're going to be getting into that on Wednesday night. The other way that you can let these misconceptions kind of mess you up is that you can stop making

disciples if you trade that map out for another map. And there's a lot of other Christian maps out there. We're going to spend a lot more time on this Wednesday night, but sometimes the map of of making disciples get switched out for the map of getting people in a building for a church service, right? Look, I love that we're all here and we need to be here and there's lots of reasons that we're here. We love the Lord, we're worshiping together and that's cool, that's cool. Making disciples is different than that. It involves different things than that. It involves an investment of your life in a different capacity. It involves hospitality. It involves being able to, in conversation, being able to kind of tell your story a little bit.

So that's what it's not, let's look at what it is. And to do that, let's go back to verse eight. It's not those things, what is it? It says, you will receive power, covered that. When the Holy Spirit has come upon you, covered that, and you will be my witnesses in all these places. And the places that it lists are Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. It's concentric circles that go out, right? So the idea is that it goes out to the ends of the earth. But I really wanna focus in on the you will be my witnesses part. How you will be my witnesses.

What I believe that these verses really show us how Jesus wanted the disciples to be witnesses. That he wanted us to pray, to be ready for specific people to know Jesus. And sometimes praying for those people over months and years. This isn't like, oh, I prayed for two weeks and they didn't magically accept Jesus and become a Christian overnight. I guess I'm doing it wrong. No, no, that's fine. You're doing it just fine. You just need to keep doing it. It's going to take a bit. Okay. And then, and then you are praying, you were asking the spirit to move in an anticipatory fashion. You are hoping for the for the spirit to move, you are ready to be obedient when the moment comes upon you. If you're in the ambulance and your EMT person says, you know, it's been forever since I've gone to church. Oh, has it? Why don't you stop going? I mean, that's it. Just start that conversation.

Like it's not incredibly difficult, but you're ready, you're ready. You're not in your own head thinking, I don't know what to say next. What if he asks about the problem of evil? Oh my gosh. Like just, it's okay, right? Just ask a question. Just start a conversation. The Holy Spirit wants to give you those words. So if you don't have it all mapped out in your head, fine. It's okay. It'd kind of be weird if you did, because then they would say something that wouldn't be on script and you're like, no, no, no, you were supposed to ask. And then it gets weird.

So we pray for people to know Jesus. We ask for the Spirit to move and we are ready and we're hopeful. And then when we are with these people in conversation, at our home, out, having dinner, whatever, we tell them about what Jesus has done. And let me give you one more point about that. Often times, you and I will curb our own language if we follow the Lord, right? So some of you today might not be following the Lord, that's cool, like obviously we can talk about that, but if you're following the Lord,

what you are prone to do is to curb your own language around people that don't know the Lord. So in other words, you don't talk like a Christian when you're not around Christians. And so with other Christians, you might say something like, hey, I've been praying for the Spirit to convict my sister-in-law to move back with her family. Move back in with her family. I've been praying for the Spirit to convict. With lost people, it doesn't sound anything like that. With lost people, it's like, yeah, I hope she moves back in. And you kind of can't say all that you want to say, because you're afraid of saying things like praying in the spirit and convict. Let me encourage you, somebody gave me this advice a long time ago, I think it's very much worth it. Talk to everybody the same. Talk to non-Christians like they're Christians. And I don't mean assume they're Christians.

I don't mean like, you know, ask them how their prayer life is. I mean, I mean talk like a Christian. I mean, you know, at work, among other moms, at bingo night, wherever the heck you are, talk about serving the Lord. Talk about conviction that you feel. Talk about a movement of the Spirit. Talk about that worship song that you sang in your car, the top of your lungs, and you could feel the Spirit, and it was awesome. Do that, talk about that. Talk about repentance. Talk about how much you love the Lord's Supper. And if they say, what the heck is the Lord's Supper? Explain the Lord's Supper. And it doesn't have to be this theological treatise, just talk about it. Talk about it in the same way that you talk about other, you talk about Christian things with other Christians. Just do it with non-Christians. I promise it won't freak them out as much as you think it will.

And it's okay to say things like, I felt that in my spirit. It's okay. I know you're gonna get made fun of. I know there's hashtags and memes that make fun of that. I get it. But don't let that have you running for the hills. Just talk about it. Just be a Christian and talk like it. It's okay. I understand that comes from a heart of not wanting to make people feel weird. I get it. I think sometimes it has the opposite effect. I think it just makes you feel weird and they're fine. But even if you're getting sideways looks,

do it and ask the Lord to use that to his advantage and see what happens. Be faithful when you're called upon, right? And there's so much more here. There's so much more, more that I could say. We're gonna have to just get to it all Wednesday night. But I wanna end by saying this, that when the Lord speaks, it is important that you respond. We talk about the Spirit moving, but what I just want to be really clear with is, when we feel conviction, when we feel like the Lord is telling us to do something, then we should act on that. And for some of you, maybe the Lord has been convicting you on a couple of things for a little while. My encouragement to you is to act on that in some capacity. Tell somebody about it. Tell me about it. Receive prayer, right? The whole thing. As we have our time of invitation, we're gonna sing, Dan, and say you're gonna come up and we're gonna sing.

And as we do, it's just gonna be one song, but as we do, I want you to be in prayer. And I want you to just ask the Lord honestly. Lord, is there something you want me to do? Is there something, is there some business you want me to handle? And look, if you don't want to do that in the middle of a song and you want to talk to me about it after it's fine, it's not about twisting your arm. It really is about the importance of doing what the Lord is asking you to do when the Lord asks you to do it. Don't think, hey, this can wait, this can wait, this can wait, because you're kind of waiting forever. I just want to encourage you today, as we stand and sing, I just want you to encourage you to pray. And if you need someone to pray with, I'll be right up here. If you want to join our church, if you want to accept the Lord, if you want to start following the Lord, you want to make that commitment,

that's cool, I'll be up here. But whatever you need to do, you can do that with, you can do that here during the song, you can do it right after. But don't wait, don't wait on being obedient to what the Lord's calling you to do. Let me pray for us and we'll sing. Jesus, we ask for your spirit to move in our lives, in our hearts. Help us to just to make disciples in a way that is honoring you, in a way that you showed us, in a way where you're in control. That's your name that we pray. Amen. I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nasirim And I wonder how he could love me A sinner condemned unclean And how marvelous, how wonderful And my son shall ever be How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me!

He took my sins and my sorrows, He made them His very own. He bore the burden to Calvary And suffered and died alone And I'm singing how marvelous, how wonderful And my song shall ever be Have a marvelous, wonderful is my Savior's love for me. Let the ransomed in glow His face I at last shall see Twill be my joy through the ages To sing of His love for me I'm singing how marvelous How wonderful And my song shall ever be How marvelous Wonderful is my Savior's love for me And how marvelous, how full, and my song Shall ever be Have a listen. Have a wonderful day. My Savior's love for me. Is my Savior's love for me.