Every Disciple Making Disciples, Every Church Multiplying Churches — David Platt

Surrendering to Christ’s Call to Make Disciples

Good afternoon, if you have a Bible, and I hope you do, let me invite you to open with me to Luke chapter five. I am honored, humbled just to be around this conference, to be around the brothers, brothers and sisters who are attending this conference.

I wanna share this afternoon from God's word based on the overflow of some things that the Lord has been teaching me, showing me over the past few months, personally, pastorally. For those of you who were here in the pre-conference on missions, I'm gonna ask you to bear with me for just a couple of times during the next hour when I'm gonna recap a couple of things.

I think it's two things that I shared on Saturday night during my sermon for 2 Corinthians chapter four. So there's just a couple of brief things that I'm gonna hit on today that overlap with where I was in 2 Corinthians four on Saturday night that have really caused a lot of processing and evaluating in my own heart.

So bear with me if you were here then as well. So with that, let me open us by asking the Lord to speak to us. Father, we glorify your name today. We thank you for your mercy toward us. God, we know that if it weren't for your mercy, none of us would be sitting where we find ourselves right now.

The place and position where we are in life, even when we think about a couple of billion people in the world who have never even heard the gospel, all these unreached people groups. Lord, we praise you for making us among the reached.

We know that we had nothing to do with where we were born. And in part from your mercy toward us, we shudder to think where we would be. So thank you for your mercy and we pray that your mercy would compel us in mission.

And that even now in the next few moments by the power of your spirit amidst all of the saturation in your word in this conference that over the next few moments you would give us fresh eyes and ears to see your word, to hear from you by your spirit and that you would conform us more into the image of Christ and cause us by your grace, your word, your power to be more effective in leading your church to accomplish your commission.

In Jesus' name we pray these things, amen. Luke chapter five we'll get to in just a minute if you are coming in late, Luke chapter five. So for those of you who were not here on Saturday night, I wanna start with this story that I shared there and then take it a little bit further than I did Saturday night.

Gospel Multiplication in Bihar and Cuba

Bihar is a state in India that's about the size of Tennessee. The only difference between Bihar and Tennessee is Bihar has, or Tennessee has six million people, Bihar has 100 million people. So you've got 100 million people in Tennessee spread across 45 ,000 different villages and this state is one of the most spiritually and physically impoverished places on the planet.

Physically poor, millions upon millions of people living in desperate poverty, struggling for food and water. So physical poverty on top of spiritual poverty. The church partners we work with in Bihar estimate that about 0 .1 of Bihar is Evangelical Christian, Gospel believing Christians.

So 0 .1%, the area we were in in Bihar, the death region in this area was about 5 ,000 people per day. And so you put that together with the number of Christians, you realize that in this region where we were in, every day approximately 4 ,995 people are plunging into an eternal hell.

And most of them have never heard the Gospel. And so we were working with these churches and you would expect in that kind of setting to just be just discouraged by all of the spiritual and physical oppression around you.

But on the contrary, we were very encouraged. So let me tell you one story of two brothers, Anil and Hari. Anil is a school superintendent, Hari is a chicken farmer. And both of these brothers are active in church, wanting to lead people to Christ and for years have been doing that and for years have been seeing no fruit from that, just wall after wall after wall among predominantly Hindu Bihar, India.

And so they went to some training that we've worked with, some churches and providing on disciple making and multiplying churches. And at this training, they were encouraged to find a totally unreached village, so a village where there's no Christian, no churches, go into the village, first people that come up to you and talk to you, just say to them, hi, we're here in the name of Jesus and we would like to pray for your village.

And Anil and Hari looked at each other and said, this will never work. But then they looked at each other and said, well, nothing we've done over years has worked, so we might as well try it. And so they go into this village, they're almost through the village without anybody even talking to them until they get near the end of the village and this man comes up to them and starts a conversation with them.

And he says, what are you doing here? And so they look back at this man and they say, well, we're here in the name of Jesus. And before they got the rest of their prescripted line out, this man stops them and says, Jesus, I've heard a little bit about him, can you tell me more?

And so Anil and Hari look at each other and say, yes, we can tell you more. And so the man says, well, I don't want you just to tell me, I want you to tell my friends and family if that would be okay.

And Anil and Hari said, that would be okay. And so Anil and Hari follow this man to this man's home. This man goes and gets about 15 or 20 members of his family and their friends and brings them into this home.

They cram in and they say, now, will you tell us about this Jesus? And Anil and Hari share the gospel with them. And long story short, over the next two or three weeks, about 20 people in that village repent and believe in Christ.

So after generations of not hearing the gospel, at that moment, that week too, when the gospel is shared for the first time, they respond. Just the whole picture of the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

And so ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers. They're ready to hear the gospel. And so they share the gospel. And then once these people come to Christ, they say, now, we want to teach you, equip you to go in other villages and do the same thing that we've done in your village.

And so that's what they did. And they started sending them out. This was three years ago. Three years later, three years later, between Anil and Hari, their work starting in that one village, approximately 350 different churches and 350 different villages have begun.

And I sat there. Yeah, give glory. And I get a little cynical when I hear numbers like that in India or even in other places. And there's a variety of reasons I get cynical about that. But we worshiped with these churches, not all of them, but they've got a grid through which they're measuring the health of these churches.

We're not talking wherever two or three are gathered, there's a church. There's not a church. It's not biblically church. So they've got biblical grid through which they're looking at church health of church, measuring health of church, helping these churches grow, and 350 different churches.

And so we were sitting there one day and my mentor in ministry was with me. And he said, David, this is the closest thing I've ever seen to what we read about in the book of Acts. Just the gospel is multiplying.

And so we're sitting there with Anil and Hari and we say, what happened? I mean, you guys have been doing ministry for years and up until three years ago, nothing was happening. Three years later, you start sharing in these ways and all of a sudden these people are coming to Christ.

You've seen all this. What's the difference? And both these guys just throw their hands up in the air and they say, we don't know. Only God could have done this. As soon as they said that, my heart left inside.

I thought, I want to be a part of disciples being made and churches being multiplied all over the place in a way for which only God can get the glory. In a way for which a particular pastor or a particular movement, a particular method, whatever, cannot get the glory.

In a way for which only God can get the glory. And it's not just parts of India, it's parts of Cuba. Last time I was in Cuba, you look on the outside of Cuba, you hardly see the church at all. You don't see the church in Cuba until you get on the inside and you get to know the people.

And the people in Cuba, we were with one particular church. This church had, and basically the way the pastor described it to me, he said, with communism, he said, our goal in everything is just to keep your head below the ceiling.

You lift your head up by the ceiling, it gets cut off. I don't know if he meant that figuratively or literally or what, but that was his philosophy. And so he said, that's what we do as a church, we just stay low.

So you don't see all the buildings or programs or stuff like that, we just stay low. And so this one church that this guy pastored had planted 60 different churches. And then we went to one of these other churches that had been planted by this one, and this church had planted 25 other churches.

So they're multiplying churches. And I pulled this pastor aside and I said, what are you guys doing? How are you guys multiplying churches like this? He looked back at me and he said, we're making disciples.

I said, let me write that down. That's good, make disciples. We should do that. And this guy, he's a fireball. He's an older brother. I mean, he was brought before the communist council in his community, brought before this communist council.

And he brings with him, and this older brother, he brings with him before this communist council a rock. And he places it on the table in front of him. And this communist council is like, why'd you bring the rock in?

And he said, I just want you all to know that if you try to stop me from proclaiming the gospel, the rocks will cry out about the glory of Christ instead. They thought the guy was nuts and they let him go.

Like this is the kind of boldness there is. And all right, we're gonna make disciples, we're gonna multiply churches. So I hear stories about this. I see around brothers and sisters in India or Cuba or China, we're seeing this or that.

I don't wanna paint a glamorous picture. It's not that it's that way everywhere else in the world, but this is happening. Don't we want to be a part of that here? And isn't this God's design for our lives, for the life of every disciple of Jesus?

Hasn't he created us, saved us, commissioned us, commanded us to make disciples of Jesus? And isn't it God's design for his church to be spreading, to be multiplying? And so why would we be content with anything less than praying and working and longing to see every disciple making disciples in every church, multiplying churches?

And not to think, well, we can't do that because of this or that. Well, if our brothers and sisters are doing it in these ways around the world with no resources, no technology, I mean, just the word of God, the spirit of God, the people of God, that's apparently enough to spread the gospel of God.

And we've got these things, word, spirit, people, put them together. There's power for multiplication. And so what I wanna do this afternoon is, I wanna take us on a journey. I've got a lot of things I wanna cover in a little bit of time.

So we're gonna be all over the place in Luke and Acts. So I wanna start with a key passage in Luke about what it means to be a disciple. And I wanna show the tie between being a disciple of Jesus and making disciples of Jesus.

So every disciple making disciples. And then I wanna jump to the book of Acts, so part two of Luke's narrative here. And I wanna show how making disciples inevitably leads to multiplying churches. And I want to encourage us to be about these two things, making disciples and multiplying churches.

Specifically, I want to offer 12 exhortations to us during this hour when it comes to leading disciples to make disciples and leading churches to multiply churches, where we live and around the world.

12 exhortations. So let's start here in Luke chapter five. Read with me, starting in verse one. Luke tells us, on one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he, being Jesus, was standing by the lake of Gennesaret.

And he saw two boats by the lake. But the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. And Simon answered, master, we toiled all night and took nothing. But at your word, I will let down the nets.

And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats so they began to sink.

But when Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken. And so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.

And Jesus said to Simon, do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men. And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. Oh, what a picture of discipleship in the book of Luke.

This is where it all begins. So first exhortation for us today, brothers and sisters, let's call people. Let's call people to total abandonment for the glory of Christ. Let's call people, exhortation number one, let's call people to total abandonment for the glory of Christ.

These men left everything and followed Jesus. What a statement. We cannot minimize the magnitude of it. Think about what these men were leaving behind. Put yourself in their shoes. What's involved in this?

Everything. They were leaving behind their comfort. These guys were leaving behind everything that was familiar to them, all that was natural for them, leaving comfort for uncertainty. Notice that Jesus did not tell them where they would be going.

All they knew was who they would be with. That's huge, side point here. Followers of Jesus don't always know where they're going, but they always know who they're with. That's a whole sermon, that'll preach, but we don't have time.

Don't always know where we're going, know who we're with. They're leaving behind comfort. They were leaving behind their careers. This is an abandonment of profession for these guys, at least temporarily.

Now we're gonna come back to how all of this applies to us, but just feel, see how it applied to them. Leaving behind their comfort and careers. They left behind their possessions. They dropped their nets, left behind their boats.

Now these guys were obviously not the most economically elite in their society, but the fact that they had a boat, successful trade as fishermen, shows these men had much to lose in following Christ. We find out later that they still had private property, various possessions, but the reality is at this moment, they followed Jesus with nothing in their hands.

Possessions they were leaving behind their families. We're told in Matthew chapter four that James and John left behind their father. They would not be the only ones called by Jesus to do this. Remember in Luke chapter nine, end of the text we were looking at last night with Dr. Carson, Jesus tells another potential disciples, don't even go, tells a potential disciple, don't even go back and say goodbye to your family.

They were leaving behind their families. They were leaving behind their friends. Safety, following a rabbi teacher who would say to these men one day, I'm gonna send you out like sheep among wolves all men will hate you because of me.

You will be persecuted. They were abandoning their safety. They were abandoning, of course, leaving behind their sin. This is the essence of what it means to follow Jesus, to leave behind sin, whether manifested in self-righteousness or self-indulgence.

And ultimately this was a call for these men to leave behind themselves. Echoed most clearly in that passage from Luke chapter nine, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself. He must abandon himself.

In a world where everything revolves around self, protect yourself, promote yourself, entertain yourself, comfort yourself, take care of yourself, preserve yourself. Jesus said, slay yourself. Just a few chapters after that in Luke chapter 14, verse 25, remember when large crowds were following after Jesus?

He turned around to them and said, if anyone would come after me, he must hate his father and mother, his wife and sister, his brother and sisters. His mother and father, brother and sisters. Just imagine following an obscure religious teacher in the first century, him turning around to you and saying, if you're gonna come after me, you're gonna hate your mom and dad, your wife and your kids.

He just lost most of us at hello. As if that's not enough, the next phrase is, if you're gonna come after me, you must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. And we, for good reason, have respect, reverence for the cross today, but we put ourselves in the shoes of those first century hearers, and we hear, pick up your cross, pick up an instrument of torture, reserved for the vilest of criminals.

You're gonna come after me, 21st century Christian, pick up your electric chair and follow me. That's just weird. Creepy, even. As if that's not enough, you get to the end of Luke 14, and he says, if anyone would come after me, he must renounce everything he has.

Renounce it all, abandon it all. So you put that together. Hey, your mom and dad, wife and kids, pick up an instrument of torture, renounce everything you have. That's a lot different than admit, believe, confess, and pray the prayer.

Clearly, following this Christ involves far more than an invitation to pray a prayer. This is a summons to lose our lives. So don't buy it. And don't sell it. So many supposed Christians have bought it, and so many church leaders have sold it.

The idea that all you need to do is make a decision, sign a card, pray a prayer, become a Christian, whatever it is, and keep your life as you know it. It's not true. You become a follower of Jesus, and you lose your life as you know it.

Now, I wanna be really careful here. I'm not saying, nor could I say, would I say, based on the whole of the New Testament, that every follower of Jesus must lose their career, sell, give away all their possessions, leave their family behind, die for the gospel.

The New Testament is clear on this. For all who follow Jesus, comfort and certainty in this world are no longer our concerns. Our career revolves around what he wants us to do, what he calls us to do for the advancement of his kingdom, whatever that looks like.

Our possessions are not our own. We no longer live for material pleasure in this world. We forsake material pleasure in this world because we are living for eternal treasure in the world to come. Position is no longer our priority.

When it comes to family, absolutely. Based on the whole of the New Testament, we're commanded to honor our parents and to love our spouse and to provide for our children. So you can't use passages like Luke 14 to justify being a lousy son or daughter or spouse or parents or whatever.

But our love for Christ, according to Luke 14, Matthew chapter 10, should make our love for the closest people in our lives on this earth look like hate in comparison. And we go wherever he says to go, knowing that because self is no longer our God, safety is no longer our priority.

As followers of Jesus, we die to self. We die to sin. We lay our lives down, leaving everything behind us. This is what it means to follow him. So let's call people to leave behind everything, comforts, careers, possessions, positions, safety, self, to cling tightly to the person of Christ.

Let's not minimize the claims of the gospel in order to try to draw more and more people in. Let's tell people that following Christ costs you everything you've got. And then in the next breath, let's tell them that Christ is worth it, that he is worth it.

Humble Dependence on the Grace of Christ

Now, some people say, aren't you saying that Christianity then is all about what we can do for God and abandon for Christ and radical whatever? Where's the grace in all of that? Where's the gospel? I'm glad you asked.

Second exhortation from Luke 5. Let's call people to total abandonment for the glory of Christ, and let's call people to a humble dependence on the grace of Christ. Let's call people to a humble dependence on the grace of Christ.

Notice how Peter's surrender of self is a reaction to Christ's majestic mercy. Peter encounters the majesty of Jesus. He realizes this is no ordinary man standing in front of me. This is the Lord who controls the wind and the waves, who's sovereign over the fish of the sea.

And Peter immediately realizes his own unworthiness. Much like Isaiah, he beholds the glory of the one in front of him. Isaiah cries out, woe is me. Peter cries out, depart from me. It's not Peter saying, look at what I can do for you, Lord.

It's, Lord, I can do nothing apart from you. I don't even belong in your presence. And yet, just like we see in Isaiah chapter six, where the Lord mercifully comforts Isaiah in his confession of sinfulness.

So here, Jesus says to Peter, do not be afraid. And Jesus invites Peter to follow him. Do you see it? Abandonment for Christ is the overflow of affection from Christ. Do we want people to lay down their lives, leave behind everything for the glory of Christ?

How do we lead them to do that? We lead them to do that by saturating them with the majesty and the mercy of Christ. Overwhelm them with mercy in the gospel of God so that they will live in mission for the glory of God.

Help them to see his majesty, cry out for his mercy, and once this happens, missions just make sense. And help them to make that connection, which leads to the third exhortation. Let's call people to urgent obedience to the mission of Christ.

Urgent Obedience to Christ’s Mission

Let's call people to urgent obedience to the mission of Christ. So see it in the text here. In verse 10, Jesus said to Simon, do not be afraid. Mercy, so there's mercy from Christ. Do not be afraid. From now on, you'll be catching men.

Mission, mission for Christ. They go together in Luke chapter five. Mercy from Christ leads to mission for Christ. Now, here, from the very beginning, Jesus makes clear, when you follow me, you're going to fish for men.

He uses this imagery that's familiar to these fishermen that says, okay, instead of searching for fish all over the sea, you're gonna spread the gospel all over the world. That was his introduction here.

Don't be afraid. If you follow me, I'm gonna show you how to catch for men from now on. And that carries through all the way to the end of the book of Luke when he tells the same disciples upon his resurrection, before his ascension, now repentance and forgiveness of sins must be preached through all nations.

There are bookends in the book of Luke. You're gonna catch men. Now, go catch men. Same thing in the book of Matthew, right? Matthew four, 18 through 22, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. That was his introduction to those disciples.

And then you get to the very end, Matthew chapter 28. Now go and make disciples of all nations. So see the bookends in Matthew. See the bookends in Luke. And realize that from the beginning of Christianity, being a disciple has been linked to making disciples.

Following Christ has been linked with fishing for men. Inextricable link between the two. Disciples making disciples. Followers of Christ fishing for men. But somewhere along the way, we have taken this picture, followers of Christ fishing for men, this costly command of Christ to go and make disciples of all nations.

And we've turned it into, morphed it into a comfortable call for Christians to come, be baptized and sit in one location. And a rampant spectator mentality pervades our churches as a result. Evident in our lives, in our churches so many coming to worship services, participating in church, maybe even serving in different ways in the church, giving to the church, doing things in the church, but not making disciples.

The church is filled with people who've been Christians for five, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years who've never led someone outside of their family to faith in Christ. In a way that that person's now leading others to faith in Christ.

We participate in all kinds of good religious activity void of gospel kingdom productivity. We are tempted at every turn to do everything except for what Jesus told these disciples to do from beginning to end.

We have been commanded, called, commissioned to make disciples who make disciples, to fish for men who will fish for men who will fish for men. And so could I even just pause at this moment and ask the question of you this afternoon, how are you doing when it comes to personal evangelism?

Could I just ask you that question and encourage you not to think, well, I'm doing other things in discipleship here and there, and I'm not saying other things aren't important beyond personal evangelism.

Obviously they are, but clearly when Jesus was telling these guys on a mountain in Matthew 28 and Luke 24 commissioning them out, when he said go and make disciples, he wasn't telling them to get in huddles and disciple each other.

He's telling them to go and lead people to Jesus. So who are you sharing the gospel with and who are you leading to Christ? When was the last time that you personally led someone to Christ? And I don't ask these questions to heap a load of guilt onto you if it's been a long time, or for that matter, to heap a load of pride on you if you led somebody to Christ this morning.

But brothers and sisters, as leaders in the church, if we are not fishing for men and if we are not living with personal, urgent obedience to this mission, how will we ever lead others to live with personal, urgent obedience to this mission?

Let's be, brothers and sisters, with urgent obedience to the mission of Christ, and let's call people to urgent obedience to the mission of Christ. Let's call every member of the church to make disciples.

This is why at the beginning of the year in the church that I pastor, we walk through a personal disciple-making plan. We do this with all of our new members when they come in, but then we go through this process, did it in January with all of our members, and say, okay, how are you gonna be intentional about making disciples?

We say, all right, let's make a list of the people. Make a list of the people in your life, in your sphere of influence, who don't know Christ, that you're gonna be praying for, that you're working to lead to Christ.

So write them down. And I say, we do this in our worship gathering, we say, I know some of you aren't, are here and you're not followers of Christ, you're not Christians, and you're getting a little weirded out now because you're gonna be on somebody's target list, but here's the deal.

I just say, if this gospel's true, if Jesus died on the cross for your sins and rose from the grave and your eternity is dependent on whether or not you believe this, don't you want somebody being intentional about making this known to you?

Certainly you do. So I was sharing that and a guy came up to me afterwards. He said, I'm one of those guys who's weirded out. And he said, but I get it if it's true, but that's a big question mark, if it's true, because I got a lot of questions and a lot of proof that says it's not true.

I said, okay, well, you wanna get together? And so we did, we got together. Before we got together, he sent me, this is a lawyer, incredibly intelligent guy, and he sends me six pages of questions, like six pages, and not easy questions.

He has spent hours and hours reading New Atheists and this or that, listening to debates about this or that, and I'm just looking through the questions like, I don't know half of these. I don't even know what some of these words mean.

And so we sit down for breakfast. He brings a Bible with him. I've never seen this many sticky notes in a Bible. He has read it and he's got questions about it, and he's ready to go through every single one of them.

And so we start walking through some of his questions, but not even just his questions. You just get to know his life and his family and begin to learn about him and some of the things that are going on in his life behind the questions.

And long story short, over the next few weeks, we're meeting every week, every week, every week, and then we're set to meet the next week. And I can tell he's getting closer and closer and closer and just praying for him and longing to see this guy, trusting Christ, and he sends me an email one day.

Well, I sent him an email about, hey, we'll get together next week this time. He said, that's great, really looking forward to get together. And then the end of the email, it said, I have good news, pun intended.

Now, I wish every email in my inbox was that good. It's just not. But he said, I have good news, pun intended. And so we get together next week and he's just with tears in his eyes, says, I believe. I believe, I see this, I see this.

He starts preaching the gospel. I see why, because God is holy, he's just, he hates sin, and therefore I am a recipient of that. I deserve his judgment forever and hell makes sense. But Jesus is perfect, he's like the perfect sacrifice because of his life and his death, his resurrection.

I mean, he's sharing the gospel with me. He said, I realized, and Kevin talked about it this morning, he's like, he's been searching after me and he's been patient with me. And he said, I've trusted him to save me from my sins.

So let's, this is what we live for, right? This is what we live for, this is what we preach and pastor and shepherd for. And not just those who are leaders in the church, this is what every member in the church is created for.

It's why we're here on the earth. So let's live with urgent obedience to the mission of Christ. And at the same time, and this leads right into this next one. Fourth exhortation, let's call people to confident trust in the authority of Christ.

Confident Trust in Christ’s Authority

Let's call people to confident trust in the authority of Christ. So tie this fishing for men imagery with what just happened in this narrative. These fishermen have been toiling all night, working hard to bring in fish.

Nothing had happened. Jesus says, put down your nets over there. And fish start swimming into the nets. They're astonished. Now I want to be careful. I don't want to read in too much here, but I think we're on safe ground.

When it comes to reality, the same Christ who has authority over the fish of the sea is the same Christ who has authority over souls of men and women. And He knows, not only knows, He ordains that when the gospel is preached, when disciples of Jesus are fishing for men and women, He's going to bring men and women into the nets.

It's going to happen. People are going to come to Christ. He's going to draw people sovereignly to Himself. So as we call people to urgent obedience to the mission of Christ, call them at the same time to confident trust in the authority of Christ.

Tell them if their share in the gospel is dependent on their intellect and their ingenuity and their creativity, they are sunk from the start. But tell them this gospel's good, and it will save. In the hardest of hearts, it will save.

Whether it's in Bihar, India, or a lawyer in Birmingham, Alabama, this gospel cuts to the core. God draws people to Himself as this gospel is proclaimed. Do we believe that? Then let's speak it. I'm saying it's not, if we believe that and we stay silent with it, it makes no sense.

So speak it if we believe that. Here and around the world, like that's where we go. Oh, there's so much here. We can go into the darkest, most difficult places on the planet, right? We've got all these unreached people groups, 6 ,000 plus unreached people groups that have little to no exposure to the gospel.

And Revelation 7, 9, and 10 promises us that one day every nation, tribe, language, people is going to be separated around the, represented around the throne, singing praises to God for His salvation.

What that means is we can go to the most difficult, dangerous, darkest people groups on the planet, preach the gospel, and we know somebody's coming out. Like somebody's coming into the nets because somebody's gonna be there in Revelation 7.

That's confidence that we can give people as they go out. So let's call people to confident trust in the authority of Christ. All right, so now we gotta move on. Oh, we just, we gotta get to Acts. Okay, go to Acts.