Guiding Lights #2 - "Our Inward Commitment: Disciple-Making" (Colossians 1:28-29)

Redeemer Bible Fellowship

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All right, let's turn our thoughts to the word of God. We are in week two of three in the sermon series that we are in, which we've called

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Guiding Lights, a biblical look at the core values of Redeemer Bible Fellowship.

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And this morning, if you have a copy of God's word, which I hope you do, take and turn with me to Colossians chapter one.

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That's what we're going to be this morning. Colossians and chapter one, Colossians chapter one.

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The passage that we're going to look at is verses 28 and 29, just two verses, but I want to read it in its context.

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And so we're going to read from chapter one, verse 24, through to verse three of chapter two.

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So Colossians chapter one from verse 24 through to chapter two, verse three.

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If you grabbed one of the red Bibles that we give away, that's on page 1043, bottom of page 1043 and the top of page 1044.

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Colossians chapter one from verse 24 through to chapter two, verse three. If you're able to do so, can

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I invite you to stand with me as we come to the reading of God's word. We do this out of respect for the word of God as we come to hear it proclaimed.

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So Colossians chapter one, beginning in verse 24. Brothers and sisters, this is the word of God to us this morning.

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Now, I rejoice in my sufferings for you and I'm completing in my flesh what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for his body, that is the church.

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I have become its servant, according to God's commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known.

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The mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints. God wanted to make known among the

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Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him.

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Warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

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I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me. For I want you to know how greatly

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I am struggling for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all those who have not seen me in person.

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I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God's mystery,

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Christ. In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom.

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And Jesus said that heaven and earth will pass away, but his words will by no means pass away.

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Allow me to pray, ask for the spirit's help, and we will get to work in God's word this morning.

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Let's pray together. Lord, we ask that as we proclaim your word this morning, that your spirit would do a work, both in the one who speaks and in your people who hear, that you would grant me clarity of thought and clarity of expression as I seek to be faithful to your word this morning.

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And I pray that as your people hear your word, that as the word is preached, that that wonderful work that your spirit does would take place, that,

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Lord, I pray, that ears would become eyes, that as we hear about the

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Lord Jesus and we hear about the word of God, the spirit of God would transform what we hear into a new vision of the

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Lord Jesus. May our hearts be taken up with him and with the mission that he has given us.

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And Father, as I pray for us, I pray for our friends at Creekside Bible Church this morning, pray for our brother Ross, who is up there helping them out with leading their musical worship this morning.

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Pray for, I believe it's Pastor Tommy who's preaching this morning. Pray that as they have gathered there, that you would bless them.

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Thank you for just the kinship we have in the gospel, our shared understanding of the mission that we share.

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I pray for Pastor Lucas, who gives leadership there and to all the elders. Pray that your spirit would be at work there.

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May disciples be made for the glory of Christ, even this morning. I pray that for them and I pray that for us even now as we come to the word of God.

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And we ask it all in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Please be seated.

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When our Lord and Savior King Jesus was leaving this earth to go back to the glory that he had known since before the world was even an idea in God's mind.

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When he was leaving, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords gave his disciples, his apostles, their marching orders.

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The King had risen from the grave. He was, as it were, going to his coronation, if you will.

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But as he was going, he gave those who were nearest and dearest to his own heart, he gave them very distinct marching orders.

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These were not to be a suggestion. These were not to be something that they did once they did some other things.

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This was to be their mission. And if you've been around church for any length of time, you could probably recite these words in your sleep.

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I put them in the study guide just to make things easier. Matthew 28, Matthew 28 verses 19 and 20.

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Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything

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I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.

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According to Jesus, what was the mission that he as the King of Kings was giving to these first citizens of his kingdom?

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The mission was to go and to make disciples. I fear that we hear that word so often, the word disciple.

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We hear it so often, I think it loses the forcefulness of it. So for a moment, it's actually gonna be kind of important given this is what our message is about today.

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Let me define what a disciple is. The word that appears in your English Bible as disciple, that word is an interesting one.

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It's actually where we get our word maths from. So mathematics, you may think maths and discipleship, where's the link?

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Well, simple, the idea of that word is somebody who learns, a learner, a student.

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I've often wondered if we swap the word disciple for student, would that change the way we do some things in church? I've often just wondered, because that's what

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Jesus told his disciples to go and do. Go and make learners, students, followers of me.

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And here's the thing, when Jesus said that to his disciples, his disciples knew exactly what that meant because that's what

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Jesus had done with them. Jesus had called them, so even in Matthew's gospel, Matthew chapter three,

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Jesus had called them from whatever they were doing and basically said, drop what you're doing and come follow me.

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So the disciples weren't unaware of what this meant because they had three years of sitting under Christ as he made disciples.

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So how did the early church do? How did they get on with this? Well, I think two things become very apparent when you read the book of Acts, that's the record of the early years of the church.

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Number one, the early church under the leadership of the apostles sought to be faithful to that command.

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There was never any confusion what the command was. And so they sought to be faithful to it. And the second thing you see is not only did they seek to be faithful to it,

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I think you can argue they succeeded somewhat in that mission. You're taking notes,

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Acts chapter six, verse one. Acts chapter six, verse one, it says, in those days, as the disciples were increasing in number.

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Again, if you read that in isolation, you might miss the force of that. Acts chapter two, how many people got converted?

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3 ,000. But by the time you get to Acts chapter six, and this is five or seven years later, five to seven years later,

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I should say. In that much time, it says, the work hadn't stagnated.

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It wasn't, they had this big boom at the start and it kind of cooled off. It says, no, in those days, as the disciples were increasing in number.

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If you remember Acts chapter six, there's this crisis that happens in the church. The apostles say, look, it's not good for us to leave the ministry of the word to take care of this, appoint people to take care of this.

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And that's where the ministry of the deacon begins. But remember how that section ends, Acts six, seven. As the apostles are freed up to do the work of making disciples,

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Acts six, seven, so the word of God spread. So the word of God spread. The disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly in number and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.

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The disciples are faithful in their mission. And as they're faithful in their mission, the number of disciples increase.

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Okay, Kofi, that's the beginning of the church. Well, fast forward a few years. Paul is now on the scene. The premier missionary in lots of ways.

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Acts chapter 14, verse 21. After they had preached the gospel in that town and made many disciples, they would turn to Lystra, to Iconium and to Antioch, places that they had been previously.

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I've often said that we must be careful not to have a view of the early churches though they were perfect and never had any problems.

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The church had many problems because people were part of that church. The churches of the first century weren't perfect, but they were faithful to this mission.

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They didn't see their mission as creating and cultivating a community. That happened, but catch this, that was the fruit of the mission.

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That wasn't the mission. They didn't see their role like many churches today as one of just meeting people's felt needs.

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That terminology entered the church in the late 70s, early 80s with the rise of the seeker sensitive movement.

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But that wasn't the understanding of the apostles. In fact, one could argue in Acts chapter six, there's a felt need in the church, in fact, a very real need.

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And what did the apostles say? Yeah, we're not gonna take care of that. Someone else should. I can't remember who it was

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I heard say years ago that in most churches today, the apostles gave that answer, they'd be fired. They didn't even view their role as building an institution.

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They weren't just trying to build an organization to build an organization. No, the apostles understood their mission as to speak the word.

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And as they spoke the word, disciples were made. And then the wonderful thing is a community formed around that.

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That's all we can agree. The early church started off very well. Again, not without its challenges, not without its difficulties, but the early church started off well.

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And I would argue succeeded in great measure in doing this very thing. Well, that was then, let's get to now, we're in 2024.

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Can we say that the modern church is doing well when it comes to that mission?

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As somebody who reads widely and as somebody who keeps one ear very firmly planted in these church streets, let me be honest.

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I remember when I was at school, we had to read Charles Dickens, I believe it's the tale of two cities. Those of you who've read that book, remember how that book starts?

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It's the best of times. It was the best of times and it was the worst of times. It's kind of like that when it comes to this whole business of making disciples.

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In the last few years, there's been a resurgence of thinking about this, which I'm incredibly thankful for. So it's not all bad.

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There's lots of good happening on this front. Lots of churches are rediscovering and re -engaging with the mission, but it's also not all good.

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Allow me to paint the picture for a few moments, if I can. Some of you remember me have quoted these statistics before, but if you haven't heard them, in 2022

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Ligonier Ministries, whose material we know and love here at Redeemer, Ligonier partnered with Lifeway Research to produce a study.

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It was called the State of Theology. You can go and read the findings for yourself, thestateoftheology .com.

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Allow me to read to you some of the statistics regarding people in the church, not general

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American population, just the church. I believe this was a very extensive study. I think they did almost 5 ,000 people.

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A study of that size is pretty impressive. Allow me to read some statistics to you.

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48 % of evangelical respondents, so not people out there, people who profess to be Christians, 48 % of evangelical respondents believed that God learns and adapts to different circumstances.

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If you don't know why that's a problem, that's a heresy. It's called open theism. It says God doesn't know the future, that he learns the future with all of us.

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That's a heresy. 65 % of the same evangelical correspondents believed that everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God.

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This is not going well because that's also a heresy. That's a heresy called

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Pelagianism. That's an early church heresy that the church has said for years, no way. Human beings are born sinners.

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They are not born as sinful as they could be, but by nature, we've inherited Adam's sin.

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Human beings are not born innocent. But 65 % of evangelical respondents believe that everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God.

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53 % of evangelical respondents believe that the Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths, but is not literally true.

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That's just over half. 42 % believe that gender identity is a matter of choice.

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46 % believe that the Bible's condemnation of homosexual behavior no longer applies.

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43 % believe that Jesus was a great teacher, but not God. Pause on that one.

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43 % of people in this study, and the idea was, if you've ever done a study like this, you want to find people as representative as possible.

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43 % believe that Jesus was a great teacher, but not God. So my response to that is very simple. If he's just a great teacher, why should

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I listen to him? There are lots of great teachers out there. And finally, what I believe is the most, to me, the most basic problem, 38 % of evangelicals done research in the study said, religious belief is a matter of personal opinion.

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It is not about objective truth. I agree with the old missionary,

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Oswald J. Smith, pastor of the People's Church in Toronto. He said, if religion is simply a matter of opinion, then why do we complain when cultures do things that we think are abhorrent?

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If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for you. Okay, maybe that doesn't convince you.

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Let's look at it from a different vantage point. Let me flip the picture a little bit. I've mentioned this a number of times.

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If you've been at Redeemer for any length of time, Christianity Today, last August, August, 2023, dropped a bombshell of a story when they announced that they had done a research study with the

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Barna Group. That's what they do. The Barna Group surveyed pastors across the country and discovered that one in four pastors plan to retire by 2030.

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That's not a bad thing. I don't have an issue with that. That's not the bad news. I mean, one in four, that's a big number, but okay, pastors retire, people get old.

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Like, you can only do so much with what you have. No problem. It's what was behind the numbers that disturbed me.

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First, we found out that the average age for a pastor in America is 52. Okay, not terrible.

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I'm not into age discrimination, so it doesn't really matter how old they are. But here's what was interesting.

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This wasn't the first time they did this study. They did this study back in 1993, so that's about 30 years ago.

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When they did the study in 1993, 33 % of pastors were under 40.

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The average age was 44, so the age has gone up. And the number of pastors under 40 has gone down.

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Of the pastors who are about to retire, that one in four, 75%, three out of four said, it is becoming harder to find mature young Christians who want to become pastors.

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77 % of that same group said, we are concerned with the quality of future

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Christian leaders. Kofi, why are you laboring this point?

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Because if I don't show you the depth of the problem, you won't see the depth of what needs to be done about it. But here's the thing.

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I've just thrown a bunch of numbers at you. I don't particularly like math, so I get it.

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Numbers kind of make me glaze over too. So maybe, maybe if I can give you a more real world example, this might make my point.

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And I think I'm maybe not the person to do it. So for a moment,

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I'm going to play something. It's a clip from a message.

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It wasn't actually a sermon, it was a conference talk that Dr. Vodibachan, many of you know that name. If you don't, get to know, he's an excellent preacher of God's word.

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This is from years ago. So the quality of the clip is not that good. Those of you who know your YouTube, this is in the days of 360p on YouTube.

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So the quality of the clip is not that great. But I'm going to ask, give me five minutes and let

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Dr. Bachan explain this problem that I think we have from a different vantage point.

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Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dr. Vodibachan. Sound out over time is the ultimate sound in faith.

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If there is anything that burdens me, it is this idea.

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In our culture, in modern American Christianity, we will not tolerate biblical, theological and spiritual maturity in men.

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Let me say that again. In modern American Christianity, we will not tolerate biblical, spiritual, theological maturity in men.

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You just can't have it. Nothing above mediocrity. Oh, what do you mean? I mean, we're at this conference and we,

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I mean, of course we're all about this. We want men to be mature. We want men to grow up. Listen, I can prove it to you. In most of our churches, if you have a young man who's 16, 17, 18 years old, and this young man is reading church history and he's reading theology, he knows his

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Bible. He's studying his Bible. He has a passion for the word of God, has a passion for the things of God and a passion for the people of God.

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You know what happens in the average American church? They look at that 16, 17, 18 year old young man and they say,

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God must be calling you to preach. Really, why?

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Because you love the Bible, you love theology, you love church history. You're passionate about the things of God.

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Now, what we ought to say is, well, that just means you're a Christian, right? No, not in the modern

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American church. And you know this is true. In the modern American church, if a young man gets that serious about the things of God, immediately the mediocrity of manhood in the modern

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American church says, you need to get away from the rest of us because we will not tolerate your passion.

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You've got to go get a seminary degree. You've got to go become a pastor. You've got to put Reverend in front of your name so that I no longer feel guilty about my own mediocre pursuits.

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And because of that, modern American Christianity is the only place in our culture where we will tolerate this cognitive dissonance between a man who will say,

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I've been walking with God 30, 40, 50 years and I know nothing. Because anywhere else,

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I don't care what, you name the field. Name the field where in our culture, and I'm talking about just anybody, just lost pagans.

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Name the field. I don't care if it's brick laying. I don't care if it's truck driving, whatever it is. If there's a man on the job who says,

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I've been doing this for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. And another young man comes to the job and says, hey,

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I've heard you've been doing this 30 years, 40 years. I know if there's anybody who can show me the ropes, you can show me the ropes.

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And we'd all say, yeah, of course, if he's been doing it that long, you ought to be able to come to him. He ought to be able to show you the ropes.

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But what if the young man comes to the older man, who's been doing this for 30, 40, 50 years and says, brother, you've been laying bricks for 40 years and I've just started.

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Can I just come alongside you and watch you so that I can learn how to be a bricklayer because I'm sure you're a master at it now.

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Oh, I ain't no master bricklayer. I don't know nothing about no bricks.

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I see we laugh, but how about this? You've been walking with God 20, 30, 40 years.

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Sir, can I come alongside you as a younger man and you mentor me in doctrine, theology,

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Bible and church history? What's the response? I ain't no preacher. It's the only place in America where we accept something so ludicrous.

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Where a man can say, I've been walking with God 30, 40 years and I proudly declare,

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I know nothing. I'm ignorant. I'm a babe in Christ.

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A 40 year old baby and I'm not ashamed of it. Nowhere else is that acceptable.

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Only in the church, only in the church. But the text says, one of the evidences of a man that belongs to God, who has been walking with God over time is that he is sound in faith.

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He's sound. We're called to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all handed down to the saints.

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And yet we proudly proclaim that because we don't have ordination papers, we're unwilling and unable to do it.

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If nothing else, just having read through the Bible for 40 years ought to make you somewhat of an expert.

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Amen. I remember where,

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I can still tell you where I was, what I was doing the first time that I saw that video clip.

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It's 13 years ago. It was my birthday. That's why I remember it. I remember sitting there just stunned because that had been my own personal experience.

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And if that doesn't strike you as a problem, allow me to just make this real simple. That's a problem. As I have said for years now,

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I believe that the modern Western church, and since I live in America, the modern American evangelical church is in the death grip of a crisis of discipleship.

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That's the bad news. I've labored that point because like I said, if I don't show you the depths of the problem,

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I don't show you how ugly things are, the chances are you probably, you, and I say the collective you as in the church of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, the collective you won't do anything to try and fix it. That's the bad news, but there is good news.

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I sincerely believe that this crisis of discipleship does not have to be this way.

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Things might be bad, but they don't have to stay that way. This morning, we're in Colossians chapter one.

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We're gonna be in verses 28 and 29. And in two verses, one short paragraph,

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Paul lays out for us his approach to ministry. And as you might gather from reading verse 28 and 29, it's all about making disciples.

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If you haven't guessed my thoughts on this already, let me just lay it out up front.

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Let me just ensure that there is no confusion. If Redeemer Bible Fellowship can be known for one thing in this valley, if this church,

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I can't really business myself with what's going on with all the other churches. I'm not the pastor of every other church.

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I'm the pastor of this one. On that great and terrible day when we all stand before the judge of all things, I'm going to give an account for what

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I did here. And what I pray for our church is that if we can be known for one thing, my prayer, my earnest passion, my desire above all else, is that, again,

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I can't speak for other churches, but I would pray, I pray, and I do pray that we would be known as the church that discovers, that develops, and deploys faithful disciples.

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Let me say that again, that we would be known as the church that discovers, that develops, and deploys faithful disciples.

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If I can put it another way, I want us to be known as a church that has a culture.

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I'm going to use this phrase a lot. That has a culture of disciple -making.

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That if somebody came in off the street and was here for enough time, they would say, wow, they take making disciples really seriously.

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Maybe they couldn't use that particular word, but they get the sense that, hmm, they're about something a little bit different.

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I long for that. And let me say this, I think that in God's providence, we've been doing that.

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But this morning, I just want in this message to kind of put it all on the floor. Laura was joking with me yesterday.

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She asked me how the sermon was going. I was like, I'm making good progress. And she was like, yeah, it's not like this is a subject that you can just talk about.

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Trust me, we could be, I could preach four hours straight on this subject. I will spare you a four -hour sermon this morning, but this is a subject that I have become increasingly passionate about.

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And if I can be a little bit forthright this morning, I want my passion to be the passion of this house.

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And I think that what Paul's gonna teach us here in Colossians 1, 28 to 29, might help us get there.

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This morning, I really want to ask and answer one question. How does a culture of disciple -making form in the life of a church?

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How do we become the kind of church that Dr. Barcombe was hoping you could find?

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Where if somebody wanted to be, and he was speaking at a men's conference, that's why he made so much talk about manhood, but I think his point is universal.

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Man or woman, because there isn't anything else. Man or woman, if a church said, we want to see men and women in our church cultivated and made into faithful disciples, how does that kind of culture form in the life of a church?

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Well, that's what I'm gonna consider this morning. Here's my big idea. And in fact, because I wanted to save time, I just put it in the study guide, so you didn't have to try writing it.

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Disciple -making happens when Christ is proclaimed so that believers become more and more like him by the

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Spirit's help. This thing is not that complicated. Disciple -making happens when

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Jesus is proclaimed so that those who have put their faith in Jesus become more and more like him by the

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Spirit's help. To help us see that this morning, very quickly for the rest of our time,

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I want to consider five essential attitudes for developing a culture of disciple -making.

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If this is the mission, and we heard it from Jesus, so it is, if this is the mission, what are the attitudes?

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I'm not gonna focus so much on the specifics of what to do. Come Wednesday night, we can talk about that in way more detail.

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This morning, I wanna start with the attitudes. What do we need to be thinking if we're going to develop a culture of disciple -making?

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Five essential attitudes. Let's get straight to work. First attitude we need to have is that we need to keep Christ central.

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We need to keep Christ central. Now, for a moment,

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I need to do a little bit of grammar. I'll make it real quick. In most of your English Bibles that you've got in front of you, they'll have some variation of we proclaim him as the opening words of verse 28, but Paul does something that's a little subtle in the original language, and I don't think it's by accident.

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Paul doesn't say we proclaim him in the original language. You know what he does? He takes the word him, and he puts it at the front of the sentence.

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In fact, if you grew up on the King James Bible like I did, the King James Bible picks up on this, and it translates this whom we proclaim.

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The Legacy Standard Bible picks up on this. The older NAS didn't do this. The new NAS does.

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The new LSB, excuse me, does do this. It says him we proclaim.

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Paul puts Jesus at the front of the sentence, and he's doing that. It's actually breaking pretty much every rule of Greek grammar but he does it on purpose.

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Why? He wants to put front and center that this is not about a set of ideas. This is not about a philosophy.

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It's about a person. Paul wasn't just in the business of proclamation. We'll talk about that in just a moment, but it was a particular kind of proclamation.

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It was precise proclamation about a particular person. And in fact, he's been doing that up to this point.

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So I hope you've got Colossians 1 still open in front of you. I wanna know for a moment, just look how much he talks about Christ in this.

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Starting up in verse 13. So verse 13, he, the father, has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the son he loves.

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Verse 14, in him, the son he loves, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

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Verse 15 to 20, I won't read all of that, but he describes who this Christ is, both in relation to creation and then the new creation.

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Verse 22, but now he, this

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Christ, has reconciled you by his physical body through his death to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him.

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Verse 24, he describes the church as his

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Christ's body. Verse 27, he describes, he says that Christ in his people, not

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Christ in you, the individual, it's you, plural, the people of God, Christ among his people, the church, that Christ in his people is the hope of glory.

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All through this letter, up to these verses that we're gonna look at, Christ has been the central theme of Paul's message.

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And here he underlines this point. He says, this is the Jesus that we proclaim.

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We, the people of God, proclaim this Jesus. If we're gonna talk about a culture of disciple -making, it starts with deep appreciation for and total devotion to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. When we talk about disciple -making, we're not introducing people to a program.

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I am not anti -programs. Programs have their place. You need some sort of structure to make this work. So programs have a place, but programs are a means.

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They are tools. They are not the end. We're not introducing people to a program.

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We're not ushering people into a lifestyle change. That will happen organically as disciples are made.

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And we'll actually talk more about that later on. No, in making disciples, we are first and foremost, catch this, we are pursuing a deeper knowledge of and a greater closeness to a person called

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Jesus Christ. And again, you see this even in Jesus' own ministry.

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One of my favorite verses about the ministry of Jesus, it's one of those blink and you'll miss it verses. Mark 3, 14, he's picking the apostles, the 12 within his larger group of disciples.

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In Mark 3, 14, it says, he appointed 12 whom he named apostles.

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And it says this, I love this. He says, he appointed 12 to be with him and to send them out to preach.

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Note the order there, that first and foremost, the 12 were being invited, not just to do stuff for Jesus, but to get to know

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Jesus. That's what Paul can say,

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Philippians 3 .10. Remember last summer we studied this, Philippians 3 .10. My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death.

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A disciple -making culture is a gospel culture. It's a culture that is rooted and grounded in the coming of Christ and the obedience of Christ for us and the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ and the work of Christ in interceding on our behalf, this

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Christ and all his benefits. Can I put it to you that this is the fertile soil out of which disciples are made.

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And if we're going to develop a disciple -making culture, that has to begin with Christ being central in all we say and all we do.

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You can't allow ourselves to be distracted by all sorts of things. This has to be center stage.

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There's a second attitude that's essential if we're going to be about the business of making disciples. Yes, we need to keep

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Christ central. And if we're going to make disciples, we also, attitude number two, need to embrace the place of teaching.

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We need to embrace the place of teaching. So let's come back to our verse. We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom.

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Proclaiming, this was a very simple word, just carries the idea of announcing, of heralding, of preaching.

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Proclaiming, announcing, heralding, preaching Jesus. This was the heart of Paul's ministry. This is all that Paul did.

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And you see this, again, you look at Paul's ministry, you can see it in the book of Acts. So Acts 13 .5,

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he arrives in this town called Salamis. And what does he do in Acts 13 .5? They arrived in Salamis proclaiming the word of God.

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Acts 13 .38, through this man, through Jesus, forgiveness of sins is being proclaimed to you.

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We talk about the Bereans in Acts 17 .13. It says, but when the

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Jews from Thessalonica heard that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul at Berea, they came there too, agitating and upsetting the crowds.

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Paul's message was, Paul's ministry, excuse me, was one of proclamation. The announcement, the declaration of something that had been accomplished or completed.

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That's what that word means. Paul took every opportunity he could to proclaim, to teach about this person called

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Jesus. Jesus had come, Jesus had died, Jesus had risen again to reign.

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And Paul proclaimed that truth in all of its glory, every chance he got.

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And Paul wasn't unique in that. He was simply just doing what the believers had always been doing. So remember in Acts 8, after the death of Stephen, this persecution descends upon the church.

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And it's interesting, Acts 8 .1 says, that all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria.

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This church that kind of had its headquarters in this one area now disperses because of persecution.

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But it's an interesting thing that happens because Acts 8 .4, it says that those who were scattered went on their way.

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Now, those who were scattered, who are the ones that were scattered? That's one, all except the apostles.

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So all except the apostles, verse four, went on their way, preaching the word.

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Acts 11, it's a few chapters on, talking about this same group. Now, those who have been scattered as a result,

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Acts 11 .19, those who had been scattered as a result of the persecution that started because of Stephen made their way as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word.

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Those two verses, who's doing the speaking and the preaching? It's not just the apostles.

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Remember, the apostles are the ones who stayed in Jerusalem. Everyone else scattered. That tells me something that's really important about this, that the preaching and speaking of the word was not limited just to quote -unquote leadership.

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Because catch this, while all of us are, no, excuse me, while not all of us are called to formal ministry of the word, so not everyone's gonna stand in the pulpit and preach like I do week in and week out.

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Well, not all of us are called to that kind of ministry. All of us are called to some kind of preaching and speaking the word.

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In the Sunday Guide, I put this quote in there from a book called Preaching in the New Testament. Quote, nowhere does the

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New Testament call or instruct believers as a whole group to preach, but it does call them to minister the word to one another and does so using language that can also describe preaching.

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This quote goes on. This fact supports the contention that preaching has a distinct character as a particular ministry of the word.

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At the same time, the vocabulary used to frame these more general instructions is also applied to preaching in various contexts in the

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New Testament and tends to affirm the close affinity between preaching and other ministries of the word.

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All that simply means is, while not everybody stands in a pulpit and preach, everybody in some sense is a preacher.

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Not all Christians preach in the formal sense, but all Christians proclaim the word. As we grow together in the knowledge of God's word, as it's proclaimed, we are receiving the equipment that we need to make disciples of Christ.

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If we were to boil down what the church is, one of the things, not the only thing, but one of the things that's true about the church is that the church ought to be a community that speaks the word about Christ to each other.

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Yes, it starts in the pulpit, but then it happens in small groups in classes, in other teaching times, even in one -on -one conversation.

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When I was working in the city of London, period, I was working on Liverpool Street.

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If you know London, that's where a lot of financial services are headquartered. And there's a really famous church right in the heart of Liverpool Street.

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It's actually surrounded by a bunch of real big money buildings, as I like to call them. That church is called

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St. Helen's Bishop's Gate. Evangelical Anglican Church. Love that church. Remember the first time

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I went there, actually, someone invited me. They were getting baptized. And I turn up at this church.

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I don't know anyone apart from my friend who's getting baptized. And so we go.

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People are very friendly, introduced themselves. One guy I met was like, hey, come sit with me for the service. Great.

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Typical worship service. We sang, we prayed. It was the teaching of God's word. Excellent message.

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My friend was baptized. Service ended. And so we're getting introduced to each other.

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The person I can't remember the guy's name, but I remember very vividly him just introducing me to people left and right.

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And then at one point, they had like a communal meal that they invited everyone to share in. So I was planning on going home.

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I was like, yeah, I could eat. So I stayed. And something very interesting happened.

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Just as we're having this meal, the person asked me my story. I shared my testimony and they're like, oh, that's great and wonderful.

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And the person shares their testimony. And I was thinking just this morning and opens up their

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Bible and starts just sharing something from God's word while we're having this meal. And then other people start chiming in and we're all just discussing

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God's word over this meal. It was great. It was wonderful. Well, fast forward a few years, I'm working on Liverpool street.

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They have a Thursday lunchtime Bible study. They still do it to this day. And so I started going every week because it was a three minute walk from my office.

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And so I started telling, and the same thing keeps happening every time where they intentionally made the

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Bible study very short so that people could have time to sit and discuss afterwards. I got to know in Anglican circles, they call them the rector, basically the senior pastor.

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I got to know the rector, William Taylor, really well. And I started to know is that every time we come, like different people, but everyone just had this instinct of let's open up the

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Bible. Let's just share something from God's word. So I remember I asked

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Reverend Taylor who did not like being called Reverend Taylor. So Reverend Taylor, he said, please don't call me

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Reverend Taylor. My name is William. The man was a green beret. So I wasn't going to go messing with him. Like, yes, sir,

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William. William, I've noticed from the very first time

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I came to St. Helens till now, it seems like everybody just has this facility who's just opening the

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Bible and just sharing. It's like, yeah, that's just a part of the culture. He said, that precedes me. He goes, you've heard of Dick Lucas.

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Dick Lucas is a very famous British evangelical pastor. Dick Lucas was the pastor here in the sixties. He started that culture.

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60 years on, it's still happening. Just a community of people.

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None of these people were pastors. These are people who worked in the city. I remember there was one guy

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I met during one of these times. I started talking to him and all the rest of it. You know, he's really nice guy.

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In fact, took my number and we kept in touch for a while. But I remember he walks off and someone goes, oh, do you know who that is?

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No. Oh, he's head of investments at this big bank. I'm like, oh.

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And he comes to this. Yeah, he's been coming. He got converted here. He also teaches the Bible study here.

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Every morning at 6 a .m. Insurance guys come and sit under his teaching.

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So I was wondering, what's the secret? How are you doing this? And he said, it's just the culture. In a church where disciples are being made, you will see this organic sharing of God's word.

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What you don't see is this sort of thing that happens even in our camp at times, where it's incredibly centralized to what happens behind this wooden desk.

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Paul said, no, we again, don't sleep on that. We here, we proclaim him.

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And how do we do this? Well, look at the verse again, verse 28. We proclaim him warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom.

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If those words sound familiar, it's because those are the same words we heard last week.

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Look at chapter three, verse 16. Let the word of Christ do richly among you in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another.

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The CSB translates the word warning instead of admonishing, but it's the same two words. Remember what we said last week that you can compare this to a battery with two poles.

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Teaching is the positive, warning is the negative. And again, both those words are applied in the context of ministry.

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As Paul says, we teach and admonish everyone. In fact, in the

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Greek, Paul repeats the word everyone twice. It's warning everyone and teaching everyone. One commentary by John Davenant.

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He notes that there's another layer to this, that the word teach relates to the understanding, to the mind.

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The word warn relates to the will and to the affections. So what you think and what you desire.

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Paul essentially says that he proclaimed, he taught the word of God in such a way that it was a full ministry for the full man.

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Understanding for the mind and admonition, warning for the will and for the affection. I have more to say about that, so I'm not gonna labor this point.

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Just one last thing before we move on to our next point. Just like last week when we talked about worship, did you notice that he brings up the language of wisdom again?

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Warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom. One writes, I was reading this week on discipleship and disciple making, put it like this.

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He said that discipleship requires being spiritually strategic about the best ways to make disciples.

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The reality is a church of 25 years with a solid culture of disciple making is going to look very different to a church part of a few years.

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They've had enough time to work out what works, what doesn't, to iron the kinks out. And so the problems will be different.

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The needs will be different. The methods will vary with more people to minister to, but the goal remains the same, which we'll talk about in a moment.

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And the basic method remains the same, the proclamation of God's word.

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That's why it's such a dangerous thing that we now have this phenomenon that I see in so many churches where churches want to either cut back on or shorten the amount of time given to the teaching of God's word in favor of, well, again,

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I read bunches of books on preaching because that's my day job. So I should know something about it.

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And the amount of books I read on preaching that say things like, people don't want explanation of the text.

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They want practical application. Spend more time in application and less time in explaining the text.

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First of all, why can't I do both? First of all, second of all, on what found, we talked about this in the

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Sunday school hour, on what foundation am I going to tell you to do something if I've not actually taken time to explain from God's word why you should do it?

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It doesn't surprise me that those numbers I gave you right at the start of the sermon are what they are. If so many churches are bought into this idea that people don't want teaching, what they want is just practical life advice with a sprinkling of Bible and a spoonful of good humor, then why would we not have the problems we have?

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I played a clip from Vaughty Barkham. I remember, actually, Eddie, you were there with me. Shepherd's Conference, remember his message that he preached the

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Shepherd's Conference he went to? Vaughty Barkham used this illustration. It's become one of my favorites, actually, that there's a kid, the parent of this kid has raised this kid on strawberry -flavored milk.

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I like strawberry -flavored milk, actually. I don't drink it at this age, but when I was a lot younger, we had a thing in the

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UK called Nesquik. We like Nesquik. The kid's only been raised on that, and then one day,

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I think he said the dad, the dad gives this kid a real strawberry, and the kid doesn't like the strawberry.

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Why? Because it doesn't taste like the artificial -flavored milk he's used to. You see where I'm going with that?

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If not, let me make it real plain. There are, in my opinion, so many Christians who have been fed artificial milk, and then they wonder why they can't handle the teaching of God's word when it actually happens.

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Why not? You've fed them the fake thing for so long that when they get the real thing, they don't know what to do with it.

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Paul would have nothing to do with any of that, and neither should we. I mean, if you think about it this way, a genuine disciple -making church is going to be counter -cultural, even with other

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Christians, because it will embrace the need, embrace the place of being taught the full truth of God's word.

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I've got so much more I'd like to say on that point. Again, ask me on Wednesday. I'll have a lot more to say.

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There's a third essential attitude that we need if we're going to have a disciple -making culture. A disciple -making church will keep

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Christ central. It will embrace the place of teaching. Thirdly, it will pursue complete maturity.

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It will pursue complete maturity. So come back to our text, verse 28. We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

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Why was Paul committed to this kind of ministry, this proclamation of the word? Why should we at Redeemer Bible Fellowship, since this is who this series is about, why should we be committed to this kind of ministry?

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You should be committed to it because the goal is to present everyone mature in Christ.

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The goal of Paul's ministry, the goal of all faithful Christian ministry is that those who sit under our ministry would end up mature in Christ.

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This picture of presenting someone, it's a beautiful picture. Paul uses it in one other place.

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Don't have time to read it, but 2 Corinthians 11 .2, if you're taking notes. 2 Corinthians 11 .2,

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Paul talks about the Corinthian church who had had these fake apostles come in. And he says, I'm jealous for you with a godly jealousy because I have promised you in marriage to one husband to present a pure virgin to Christ.

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This imagery of the woman who's getting married and the father hands the daughter over to the man who he's going to marry.

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And Paul says that he kind of has that role a little bit, that he is the one who is handing over this bride called the church over to Christ.

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And he says, I want to present the church as a pure virgin, untouched.

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And Paul says here the same thing that he was ministering in this kind of way to present believers to their savior as mature.

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Another way to translate this word is complete. And actually the word complete comes up a lot in Colossians.

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A little bit of homework for you this week. Read the lessons of Colossians and mark every time that the word complete comes up. The words complete and all, they come up a lot in this letter because remember what

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I said last week? There were false teachers who were coming into the church at Colossae who were promising that we have this message that will bring you the fullness.

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Apparently this seemed to be a word that they like to use a lot. And so Paul does what Paul does really well. He flips the word on its head and says, no, no, no, no, no.

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They can't offer you the fullness. They can't offer you completeness. It is the preaching of Christ that makes believers complete.

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Sometimes we talk about Christian maturity and it almost sounds like Christian maturity is I became a Christian. I heard the gospel great.

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Now I'm moving on from it. But Christian maturity, Christian growth doesn't happen beyond Christ.

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It's not, I came to Christ by faith, cool. Now I'm a

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Christian, I need to go do something else. I say all the time here at Redeemer, I'm gonna say it again. The way in is the way along.

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We come to Christ by faith and we live in Christ by faith. And so Paul says that his goal in his ministry is to present everyone mature, complete in Christ.

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Well, what does it mean to be complete in Christ? Again, I need a whole sermon just to kind of deal with all of this.

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I'm gonna try and make it quick. But in the study guide,

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I give you a little diagram. Looks something like this. Christian maturity is maturity in three areas.

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It's completeness in three areas. And you need all three. I'm gonna start from the most foundational and work my way up.

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First and foremost, there are convictions. There are convictions. Convictions refer to a comprehensive understanding of the word of God and the doctrines it teaches with Christ at the center.

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Christian maturity begins with convictions. You need to know some things.

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In our Sunday school class today, Romans 6, 1, remember what Paul says? Don't you know? CSB says, are you unaware?

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There's some things you should not be unaware of. Christian maturity begins with maturity in our convictions, completeness in our convictions.

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How do you get to the stage that Dr. Bauckham described in that video clip? A guy's been walking with Jesus for 20, 30, 40 years and says,

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I know nothing. Unless you think he's exaggerating, I've experienced it firsthand. Well, it starts because he's not been given.

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He's not been taught the truths of God's word. And those truths have not passed from beliefs to convictions.

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You know the difference between the two of those? Between a belief and a conviction? Remember years ago, I heard it in a sermon, it stuck with me.

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A belief is something that you hold. A conviction is something that holds you. That you can have beliefs about things.

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There are lots of things that I believe that aren't really that serious. I discovered on this trip with my mom and sister being here that my sister supports a terrible football team.

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No offense, Ruth. I believe that the other team in North London, Arsenal Football Club, is the best team in the world.

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That's a belief I hold very loosely. Doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

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I didn't tell my sister, get away from me and I want to talk to you again. Because it's a football team.

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It's not that big a deal. There are other beliefs I hold though, that I would quite willingly shed my blood for.

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Why? Those are not just beliefs, they're convictions. They hold me. Basic Christian maturity begins with developing convictions as the word of God is taught.

01:00:06

The complete word of God. This word of God becomes something that doesn't just you hold on to, but it holds you.

01:00:13

It won't let go of you. Convictions then lead to character.

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As convictions are developed about God and his word, character is formed. We grow in our understanding and how to live in light of Christ and his word.

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That's why I have such a problem and I talk about it all the time. With this push for, let's make everything practical with no foundation.

01:00:38

It's like building a plane in the middle of the air and wondering why parts are falling out. No, once convictions are laid, then character can be developed.

01:00:52

And when you put convictions and character together over time, competence forms.

01:01:01

There will be growing competence, increased ability, increased understanding, excuse me of, and ability of how best to speak

01:01:09

God's word to other believers. So again,

01:01:17

Dr. Bachman was 100 % right. It is a shameful thing for a man in particular.

01:01:24

Men are called to leadership. For a man to have sat in church for 20, 30, 40 years and for him to be unable to minister to a younger man who needs it, it's an embarrassment.

01:01:38

And again, he's not making that up. I can multiply stories where that has happened to me personally.

01:01:48

Why? The believer is not competent to minister to another believer. Why? Because yes, he may, the spirit of God will develop character one way or another because that's what

01:01:55

God does in the life of his children. But he doesn't have the convictions and he hasn't grown enough in his character to be able to disciple somebody else.

01:02:07

Genuine Christian maturity, complete maturity covers all three of these areas. And of course, this does mean that in the life of a church, sometimes you may need to emphasize more, one, excuse me, more than the other.

01:02:20

So in some churches, the knowledge of the Bible is so low, you may need to spend a ton of your time on convictions.

01:02:28

For others, oh, they know their Bibles really well, but the practical aspects of the Christian life, okay, now that we have that foundation laid, we maybe need to spend some more time here.

01:02:37

And in other churches, you may need to realize, okay, we've got a bunch of really well -taught Christians who don't do anything.

01:02:45

They don't know how to minister to one another. So of course, there's gonna be different emphases, different reasons why you have to hit different things.

01:02:53

But all three of these areas need to be in place if we're going to see people who are mature, who are complete in Christ.

01:03:04

We can't just be about behavior modification without actual maturity. I've got more to say, but I'm running out of time, so I'm gonna keep it moving.

01:03:14

Attitude number four, this one will be really brief. Another attitude that we need to have, attitude number four, you need to count the cost.

01:03:22

You need to count the cost. So at the beginning of verse 29, four words.

01:03:27

I labor for this. Like I said,

01:03:33

I'm not gonna labor this point home. I think it's pretty self -explanatory. This kind of disciple -making ministry, a ministry that pursues the maturity of the hearers as they hear

01:03:46

Christ proclaimed, this is not easy. In an age where we love things to be light, easy, and convenient, this might not be what you wanna sign up for.

01:04:03

And Paul doesn't hide it. That's why he uses this word, I labor for this. One of my favorite New Testament words in Greek.

01:04:10

It's the word that we get our word agony from. You can literally translate it,

01:04:15

I agonize for this. You ever agonized over something before?

01:04:23

I pray you never have to, but if you have, you know how that goes. I remember when

01:04:32

I caught COVID, we had just had

01:04:38

Gareth. I have never felt pain like that.

01:04:45

Those first two, three days, I could barely breathe. It was agony.

01:04:55

The day when I was able to finally get up out of bed and walk around, trust me, I was like, I'm never gonna take that for granted again.

01:05:04

Paul said, I agonize for this. The word carries this idea of working to the point of exhaustion.

01:05:12

And that was Paul's ministry all over. I don't have the time, but in the study guide, I've given you the course references. You can read places where Paul uses this word again and again and again to describe his ministry.

01:05:22

I told you, this is gonna be a really short point. Disciple making is hard work. I wish

01:05:28

I could make it real simple, but it's not. Disciple making is hard work. Sometimes it's hard work because of what you have to say.

01:05:36

Sometimes it's hard work because of the people you're trying to disciple. It's hard work.

01:05:44

It calls for labor, for effort, for agony at points. But that leads me to our fifth and final.

01:05:55

I'm almost done. Fifth and final attitude. You need to rely on the spirit's power. You see, it would be bad enough if we are left with this mission, this really hard mission, and we were left to do it by ourselves.

01:06:10

But thank God we're not left by ourselves to do this, are we? Because look at the end of verse 29. I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me.

01:06:24

The labor, the agony of making disciples would make this work impossible if we didn't have the promise of God's power.

01:06:35

If we didn't have the promise of his spirit at working his people, energizing our efforts.

01:06:41

I can see why churches wouldn't do this, but I'm thankful for passages like 1

01:06:49

Corinthians 12 .6 says that the same God works, it's actually the form of this word, but the same

01:06:54

God empowers ministries in every person. We read this often as a benediction at the end of our services.

01:07:06

Hebrew chapter 13, verse 21, that the God of peace who brought from the dead our Lord, Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, that through the blood of the eternal, the everlasting covenant, excuse me, that he would equip you with everything, working, same word, empowering in us what is pleasing in his sight.

01:07:28

Think about this with me for a moment. Who are the Christian's three enemies? Bible teaches us

01:07:34

Christian has three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. The world around us, the devil against us, and the flesh that's in us.

01:07:42

That's the threefold enemy of the Christian. If the Christian has three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil, how do you think they feel about making disciples?

01:07:54

I mean, think about it with me for a moment. Well, let's ask the world. Hey world, what do you think? Well, the world opposes the people of God.

01:08:02

Remember the world, not the planet, the system of things that's organized against the kingdom of God, that system of things.

01:08:08

It opposes the people of God. We don't need more of them. The world says, no, we don't want that.

01:08:14

How about the flesh? Well, the flesh likes ease. I just said it's hard work.

01:08:23

So of course the flesh doesn't want to do this. And the devil, enough said about him.

01:08:30

I mean, the devil hates God and everything about him, which means by the way, Jesus makes it clear. That means he hates you. All three of the

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Christian's enemies are opposed to this idea. And with those kinds of enemies, if we're going to do this, we need real power.

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And I could get discouraged about this, if the power hadn't already been given.

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Because I seem to recall Jesus, just before he went, another thing he said to his disciples,

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Acts chapter one, verse eight. He said, but you will receive power. People get excited about the power part and forget why they were receiving power.

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Don't get excited about the power, get excited about why you need it. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you.

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People love that part, but why would they receive power? Most of our translations say and or even, but literally it should be so that.

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So let me read like this. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you. Acts 1a, so that you will be my witnesses.

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The power of the Holy Spirit is not given to you to shake around and to roll on the ground and do really incredible things.

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First and foremost, the power of the Spirit is given so that we can make disciples. Did the power come?

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Yes, it did in Acts chapter two. The Spirit was poured out. And I think sometimes we can lose sight of the fact that the

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Spirit was poured out and Jesus never recalled the Spirit. Remember when I moved over here, there was a recall on romaine lettuce, which at the time we ate a lot of in our house.

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Remember Lord grabbing the romaine in the house and throwing it in the bin? Because there was a recall on that.

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Well, guess what? God has never issued a recall on the Holy Spirit. Christ poured out

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His Spirit on the bride that He loves. And as the bride walks with the drenching of that Spirit, the bride is able to make disciples.

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His power courses through the veins of His people, but that power is only accessed one way.

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One more passage and I'm done. You've been patient with me, I thank you. I'm done, one last verse.

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This is what I want you to see. Tell me to ask chapter four. Ask chapter four as I get done.

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As you're turning there, let me paint the backdrop. I need to kind of dip in and out real quick. Ask chapter four is a story of Peter and John.

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They're being sanctified troublemakers, just like their master before them. Their sanctified troublemaking gets them in legal trouble, which again happened to their master too.

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And so they end up standing in front of the Sanhedrin, the religious leadership of the day.

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And they tell them, you are not to preach in this name. And Peter and John, just to paraphrase, kind of say, yeah,

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I heard you, but I ain't doing that. Like we heard you, but we ain't doing all that.

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So it says verse 21 that they threatened them and then they released them. They said they found a way to punish them because the people were all giving glory to God over what had been done.

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So they get released, they go back to the church and they tell the church what happens. And what did they do? They pray. Again, I don't have time to read it, but Acts chapter four, verse 23 to 30, go home and read that prayer.

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It's awesome. No sense of feeling sorry for themselves. No sense of, oh, this was so bad.

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Lord, make sure this doesn't happen again. No, they're like,

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Lord, we expected this. So help us, help us to speak.

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Acts 4 31, this is the verse. I told you one verse and I'm done. When they had prayed. I love this.

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When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken and they were all filled with the

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Holy Spirit and began to speak the word boldly. They're filled with the

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Spirit. And what happens? Remember why I told you? The power is not given for you. The power is given for the mission.

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They speak the word with boldness. Instead of retreating and saying, ooh, we can't do this because they threatened us.

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They said that they'll do something to us if we did this. No, they turn around and say, yeah, let's go out again. I wish

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I had time, but let me just leave you with this thought. So many churches, can I argue that so many churches are powerless in this mission of making disciples because they don't gather to pray?

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It's like complaining that, it would be like me complaining that my really super powered computer that sits in my office, that that computer doesn't work and I've not plugged it into the power source.

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So Paul says, I'm back with me to Colossians 1, that he labors for this striving.

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It's work, but he's striving with his strength, God's strength that he powerfully works in me.

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If this sounds like a very, very narrow emphasis for a church, it's because it's a very, very narrow emphasis for a church.

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And like I said, you are all getting the standard cut. If you want the director's cut, come on Wednesday.

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I had at least double the amount of pages I have in front of me. We can talk about why

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I think churches don't do this, where I think churches in our value on this and a few other things, but let me, I don't want to end on a bad note.

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Let me end on a joyful note. Can I put it to you that if we pursue this work, God's work, can

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I encourage you that God's work, done God's way, will never lack

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God's supply. I get excited about Redeemer being, this is a term I literally have it written in my office,

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Redeemer being a disciple making hub. You know why I get excited about that? Because I know that God will bless that effort.

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That as we pursue reaching inward in disciple making, here's the beautiful thing about that. God has promised to bless that work.

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I don't know about you. I'd like to be where God is blessing. Amen. Life is hard. There's no need for me to make it harder.

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Let me just sit where, let me sit where the glory is. Let me sit right there. And God has promised that his power and his blessing reside where his people are faithful to his mission.

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We read it in Matthew 16. I am with you always. Why did he say that?

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In the context of disciple making. If we reach inward in making disciples, we can be assured of God's presence.

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Let me pray and we'll come to the Lord's table. Our father, we come before you acknowledging that your word has spoken to us, that this is our mission to proclaim

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Jesus' warning and teaching everyone in all wisdom so that we may present everyone maturing

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Christ. Father, I ask that you would empower us in this mission, that you would empower

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Redeemer Bible Fellowship to be the kind of place that is heart and soul committed to the making of disciples.

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Lord, this is not easy work, but we thank you for your spirit who in all ways and in everything makes the difference.

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May we pursue his power as we pray together as a body, as we seek his help, knowing that he graciously gives if we would only ask.