Making Disciples, Not Just Getting Decisions

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Open our Bibles to Matthew chapter 28, and we'll begin, we're going to read verses 16 to verse 20, which takes us to the end of the passage, or the end of the book rather.
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Very familiar passage, I'm sure most of you have read it quite a few times, typically referred to as the Great Commission.
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It says, Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
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And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted.
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And when Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
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Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
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And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you that you've given us this opportunity to again come around your word for a time of study, devotion, encouragement, and prayer.
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I pray, O Lord, first and foremost, that you would keep me from error as I seek to bring instruction on this passage, and as we seek to look at the subject typically referred to as discipleship.
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I pray that we would be faithful to the text, faithful to all of Scripture, as we look at the reality that all of Scripture speaks to this subject and not just a singular verse.
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And Father, as we consider our responsibilities in discipleship, both in being discipled and in discipling others, I pray that you would just put an urgency within our spirit, help us to understand the importance of what we have been called to do.
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And Father, I do pray again for just strength and clarity and accuracy in all that I am going to say.
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Pray also, Lord, for Jack and Shirley as they're out today with Shirley's illness.
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I pray that you would bless her and keep her and encourage her during this time and bring healing in accordance with your will.
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We thank you for all things, Father.
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Give you glory for all things.
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Praise you in all things.
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And ask that you be with us now in our time of study.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.
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One of the most influential and yet destructive things which has made its way into the church in the last century is something called Decisional Regeneration.
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Decisional Regeneration is simply this, the idea that what makes someone a Christian versus someone not being a Christian is simply an act of the will.
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It's simply a decision.
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There used to be a magazine put out by a very influential evangelistic group and the title of the magazine was Decision Magazine.
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So it was always about a decision.
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It was always about making a decision.
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And it was always about you and your decision.
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And it was you.
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You're right on the cusp of the decision.
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It was always like you were standing on the edge of a cliff.
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It was the decision whether to step back or to leap forward.
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It was always about that word decision.
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Decisions, decisions, decisions.
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And it was always that.
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And we'd always be forced to look at those passages which refer to decisions in Scripture.
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Joshua tells us, So we see throughout the Scripture this idea of putting before someone a decision.
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Jesus said choose the narrow gate, not the broad way.
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He said go down this path, not that path.
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So you can imagine in your mind this idea of the decision.
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But what has happened, while there is a reality that there comes a time in our life where we do, under the power and influence of the Holy Spirit, decide for Christ because God has given us the ability to do that.
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John 6 tells us that we wouldn't have done that without the Spirit's ability or enabling.
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But there is a point at which we make a decision.
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But the problem is what has happened in modern evangelicalism is that the decision has become the finality.
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Once a decision is made, everything is done.
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You don't have to worry about anything else.
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Once you've signed the card, once you've raised the hand, once you've went forward, once you've bowed the knee, once you've gotten down on your hands and knees on an altar, which churches don't have altars.
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I don't know why we call them that.
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By the way, I don't want to spend a lot of time on that.
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But the thing up at the front, we don't even have one.
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But that thing that people go down and put their head on, it's not an altar.
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We would call it an altar.
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It's not an altar.
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An altar is a place where you sacrifice things.
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And since we don't sacrifice in churches anymore, that's not an altar.
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It's a mourner's bench.
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It was introduced by a man by the name of Charles Finney.
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Actually, it was introduced by the Methodists prior to him.
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But he popularized it because it created a place where people could make decisions.
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It created a place in the service where people could go from being not a Christian to being a Christian.
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From being a lost person to being a saved person.
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It created somewhat of a jumping place.
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Well, if you've been to the altar, then you've been to Jesus.
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You know, that was the idea.
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The problem with that is that is not the way that Christianity is ever described to us in Scripture.
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Rather, Christianity comes to us in Scripture as something that doesn't just happen once.
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But it's something that comes into our life at one point in time.
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The point that we call regeneration.
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But after that, it becomes a life-changing thing.
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It's not just a one-time, decisional idea.
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But it's something that changes the very essence of who we are.
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We go from being lost to being found.
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We go from being dead to being alive.
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We go from being sinners to being saints.
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Not that while we're saints, we're not sinners anymore.
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Because as we know, we still fight a battle with sin.
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But we get placed in a new category.
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We get taken out of the muck and the mire of the world.
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We get seated in heavenly places with Christ, as Ephesians chapter 2 tells us.
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So that's the picture of what it means to become a Christian.
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And so, getting back to the decisional evangelism thing, the decisional regeneration.
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Because of this influence of decisional regeneration, we saw a big change in how people not only became Christians, but how people encouraged other people to become Christians.
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It became all about getting people to sign the card or getting people to say yes.
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In fact, just a couple weeks ago, there is a church up north, a pastor who preached a very unbiblical sermon on the Ten Commandments.
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And yet, when it was all said and done, some pastors came and said, listen, this was not good.
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This was not a good sermon that you preached.
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Your message was not biblical.
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You have missed the boat.
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You've missed the mark by a mile.
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This is wrong.
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And he said, yes, but 200 people made decisions for Jesus.
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So it was obviously of God.
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No.
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No.
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Number one, the decision they made was to try on Jesus.
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It was the whole, you know, just say yes to Jesus.
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Just say yes to Jesus.
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Which, what does that even mean? Say yes to what? It was a foolish thing that we saw happen.
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But that was how he justified his bad exegesis.
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Remember, exegesis is how we interpret the text.
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He had a bad interpretation.
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He had a bad message.
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He had a bad explanation.
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And yet, what did he say? Well, 200 people made a decision, so I was right.
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No, you're wrong.
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You're very wrong.
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But you justify your wrongness by what you call results.
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That, of course, is not good.
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So what I wanted to do this morning, like I said, I just got the call yesterday to teach.
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And I called Aaron, our seminary student, my friend.
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And I said, hey, I've got to teach Sunday school in the morning.
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What should I teach on? And he said, teach the gospel.
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I said, well, obviously, I'm going to preach the gospel.
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That's what we do.
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Everything is centered around the gospel.
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But from what direction? And that's always it.
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We always end with Christ.
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And we always point everything towards the gospel.
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Well, he said, you know, he had been at seminary for the last two weeks up at Southern.
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And, you know, I said, why don't you teach? I said, you've got all this.
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They just crammed two weeks' worth of lecture material into your brain.
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Just come and let it fly.
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And he said, no, no, no.
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It would get all combobulated and it would get all messed up.
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I said, well, what? So we both prayed about it and thought about it for a little while.
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And he said, well, think about discipleship.
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This is a subject that is so confusing and misunderstood in the church.
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And though I only have an hour with you this morning, you know, not even an hour, I felt like he was correct in the direction that he was pointing me.
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So I started to think about discipleship.
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And I went to, obviously, the passage that we looked at this morning and thought, you know, here is a passage that we see that really interrupts the modern flow of how evangelism is supposed to be done.
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Because, you know, this year we're focusing our efforts on missions.
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That's the big focus for 2015 in our church.
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We're focusing on new missionary opportunities and new ideas that we can do to reach our community, reach the world, reach others for Christ.
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And what did we say? Evangelism is a focus.
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But the thing that we have to remember, of course, I'll try it with a brown.
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Evangelism cannot be separated from discipleship.
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But that's what has happened.
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What has happened is evangelism in the modern church has become the sales pitch.
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Did I just misspell pitch? You didn't see that.
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OK.
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Evangelism has become the sales pitch.
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This is how we get people in.
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And then discipleship is the growth process.
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And this is how it's usually described to us is that we have the evangelism gets them in and discipleship grows them up.
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But the problem with that idea, while it might be on the surface a very interesting and simple thing, the problem with this idea is that this often gets relegated to a very low status and not even a part of what we're doing.
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It becomes all about getting people to say a prayer or getting people to respond in a positive way to Jesus.
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But we never have any positive growth in the individual.
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As one commentator rightly pointed out, the church has become a mile wide and an inch deep.
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There's no teaching or discipleship that's happening.
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It's all just go out and get as many people as you can to say yes to Jesus.
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They have no idea what they're saying yes to.
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They have no idea what they're being taught.
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They have no idea what they're being instructed in.
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And they're not growing.
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And that's why we see the church that behaves just like the world.
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Do you realize today is Sanctity of Life Sunday? That one in three women will have an abortion? That that's what the studies have shown? That one in three women will have an abortion? And that many of them are in the church? Do you realize that churches are being influenced and influxed by people who are actively living in sin and yet the church is doing nothing? I had a family call me this week because they found me on the local.
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I do counseling for the local marriage counseling.
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I'm certified to do counseling for the city.
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So if a person wants to get married, they look on a list and they find names and they'll call.
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And they'll say, hi, you know, what do you charge for counseling? So a person called me and I said, well, yes, I do counseling, but it's Christian counseling.
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I understand that.
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Oh, I understand it's Christian.
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You're a minister.
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You're obviously going to Christian counseling.
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Four hour minimum, four week minimum of intense, rigorous counseling.
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You're going to have homework.
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You understand this.
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This is very serious.
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This is the real deal.
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Absolutely.
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Okay.
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All right.
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What's your Christian background? Oh, we go to church.
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Okay.
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What is your church? They told me the church.
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Okay.
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Are you living together right now? Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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He'll be home in just a minute.
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Talking to the young lady.
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Okay.
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So we're living in sin, but it's okay.
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Church doesn't have a problem with it.
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Really? Church doesn't address it at all.
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Doesn't address it as being sin.
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You say, well, that's because it's not a sin.
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No, it is.
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Now, does that mean we kick people in the teeth and kick them out of the church? No, but we do express to them the reality that we need to call people to righteous living.
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Not because it saves us, but because it is a product, a byproduct of our faith.
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And that's part of discipleship, is actually calling each other to a higher lifestyle.
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We have a group that meets every Tuesday, well, every other Tuesday evening.
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Our Dads and Dudes group.
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And what do we do in that group? People wonder, because it has a funny name.
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Dads and Dudes.
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I named it that because originally it was a, I wanted to train fathers how to be better fathers and how to train their children and disciple their children.
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So that was the goal.
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So I was going to call it our Dads group.
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And I said, but there's some guys who don't have children yet.
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And there's some guys who only have grandchildren because their kids are all grown up.
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And some guys who have no intention of being married.
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God has gifted them to singleness.
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Whatever.
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Or maybe they're widowers.
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That's a guy, right? So maybe they're in that situation and they don't have any kids or any intention.
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But they still need to realize their responsibility.
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Number one, to be discipled.
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And number two, to disciple someone else.
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You see, the reality is we all should have a Paul and we all should have a Timothy.
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What do I mean? Well, the Apostle Paul was Timothy's mentor.
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He was his discipler.
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Timothy was Paul's disciple.
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You say, well, wasn't he Jesus' disciple? We are all Christ's disciples.
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But at the same time, the intimate instruction in the faith happened through the Apostle Paul.
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Who Timothy would call his father in the faith.
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Not in a crass way like the Roman Catholic might call someone the priest father.
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Or the Pope, Pope, which means Papa or Dad, Father.
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Not like that.
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But in a mentoring way.
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That he was a spiritual mentor.
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He was a spiritual discipler.
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I ask that question.
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Do you have a Paul in your life? Do you have someone that's mentoring you? You say, well, maybe it's the pastor.
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It can't be.
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I can't possibly mentor every one of you.
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I can preach to you.
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I can pastor you.
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If you come to dads and dudes, you limit the size and that makes it better.
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As I go from 75 to 80 people to 8 to 10 guys.
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And that's what I said.
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Aaron and I were talking about this last night.
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Who are we actively discipling? I said, well, I actively disciple the church and ministry of the word.
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And then I actively disciple the men of dads and dudes through a closer intimate iron sharpening iron ministry of the word.
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Where we actually sit down and I look at them.
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And I say, person A, whoever it is.
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I'm not pointing at you.
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Let's say you are.
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And I say, when was the last time you prayed with your wife? That you sat her down and you took her hand and you prayed with her.
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When was the last time that you sat down on your knees and prayed to God on your own without being encouraged by a minister or your wife? When was the last time you led your home in the reading of scripture? When was the last time you led your children in the reading of scripture? Or through the catechism or through some other type of instruction in the word? And you know what these guys often say? Well, I had a bad week.
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And you know what we say? You need to do better.
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We don't say, oh, it's okay.
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No big deal.
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High five.
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Why would we do that? Why would we encourage negativity? We say we need to do better.
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That's what we're there for.
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I don't encourage you to do worse.
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I don't encourage myself to do worse.
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We call each other to a higher standard.
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We call each other to live for Christ.
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This, as I've said before, this is the most important thing in the world.
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Living for Christ is the most important thing in the world.
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It's more important than any other social activity.
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It's more important than any other thing that we could do.
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And it should take paramount priority in our life.
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And yet it doesn't.
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And yet it doesn't.
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So we gather together.
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Those men gather together.
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I challenge them.
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We challenge each other.
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I don't always do well.
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And I got to eat crow.
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When I say, you know what, this week was a bad week for me because I had to substitute teach twice this week.
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I had to help out at the lot twice this week.
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I had a lot to do this week.
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I had no excuse, pastor.
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I know.
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I'm just as easy to get my toes stepped on.
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But you know what? If we're not willing to stick them out there, if you're not willing to have somebody challenge you, I just want somebody to tell me how great.
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I had a pastor this week.
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I was listening to a sermon.
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And he said, you know what you need? You need people that are always cheering you on, always telling you how good you are.
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No, you don't.
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You need people who will be honest with you.
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Now that's not to say I want somebody who's going to kick me in the teeth every time we talk.
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You do need somebody who loves you.
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But when you come under the ministry of the word, it should challenge you to do better.
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Always.
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We always have a greater stride that we can take.
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It should always challenge us to go further.
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Go deeper.
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Be broader.
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All of those things.
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And if we're not being challenged by the word, then we're not really looking at the word.
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We're finding the parts that we like, and we're leaving out the parts that we don't.
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So one of the questions I would have for you today, and I'm not asking you to raise your hand or answer, write it down on a card or whatever, but ask yourself, do I have a Paul in my life? Is there somebody who's mentoring me? You know, if you go to Titus 2, it says older women are to minister, mentor, are to spiritually teach younger women.
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And guess what? That doesn't always mean physical age, because there's older women who are spiritually immature.
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This is the truth.
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There's older women who are spiritually immature.
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I'm serious now.
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It's a reality.
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And you might come and find a woman who's 20 years your junior, but 50 years your senior in spirituality, you need to get underneath that woman, and you need to start listening to her.
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You need to start learning from her.
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I don't like that.
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I don't care, because the same goes for the men.
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I am 30 years junior of everybody in here except you.
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That's my dad.
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Are any of you embarrassed to sit under my preaching? I hope not, because spiritual life, as Timothy was told by Paul, don't let them despise your youth, but in all things be an example in godliness and in righteousness and all those things.
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That's my job as the minister, but that's also your job.
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You've got grandsons.
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You've got kids.
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You've got nephews.
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You've got nieces, and there's a church full of little kids who we could...
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This church had a lot of little kids.
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Not a lot of them come to Sunday school, and I'm hoping to remedy that.
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But the reality is come 1030, you're going to see a lot of pitter-patter, little feet, a lot of young families.
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A lot of them don't come to Sunday school.
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Like I said, I wish they would.
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But the reality is what could we be doing to be Pauls to these people? Well, I don't know if I could mentor spiritually anyone.
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Man, if you've been in church for 30 years and you ain't got it in you to tell someone about the gospel yet, what have you been doing for 30 years? What have you been doing for 10 years? If you spent this much time learning to hunt and you ain't never shot a deer yet, wouldn't you be ashamed of yourself? I mean, yeah.
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I like teaching this class.
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I can get real with you.
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Guys, you all know me.
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I've been your pastor for almost 10 years.
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Before that, I was the minister to young people and the associate pastor.
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I've been in this church for as long as I can remember.
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So you know that, number one, I love you.
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I'm not going to sit here and kick you in the face without telling you why we need to know what we're hearing.
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And the question, like I said, that kept coming out to me as I was thinking about this lesson is, who is my Paul? Who is my Paul? I have a Paul.
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I have somebody that I call when I have spiritual.
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I have multiple Pauls.
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I have guys that are my age that are in the ministry.
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I have guys that are 20 years my senior in the ministry.
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And I have my elders at the church.
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Mr.
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Bunning is an elder and a friend.
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Byron is an elder and a friend.
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Richard is an elder and a friend.
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So I have men that if I read a passage of Scripture and I say, man, I want to preach on this, and whoo, I got a great idea, I'll call up Byron and say, what do you think? He'll say, that ain't right.
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And I'll say, no.
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But it sounded great.
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You know? Because you've got to have that.
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You've got to have somebody that will tell you no.
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And that's your Paul.
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But then here's your Timothy.
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Who do you think you could be actively engaging in ministry? That's why I said...
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Do you actually have something in the Bible that somebody would say, no, you don't need to preach on it? No, not that I wouldn't need to preach on it, but that I'm going in a wrong direction.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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No, there's a lot of things.
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Just like this week, I'm preaching on the Sanctity of Life.
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That's today, Sanctity of Life Sunday.
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It's a special day.
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We set aside once a year to observe the Holocaust, which is the abortion epidemic.
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We take an offering.
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We have a special prayer.
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But this week, as I was thinking of what I wanted to preach, I don't like topical sermon.
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I like expositional, preaching through texts, long...
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I was in Hebrews for four years.
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That kind of preaching, that's me.
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So when I have to deal with an issue and pull...
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I don't want to read into a text something that's not there.
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That's called exegesis, or to read into what's not...
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I want to exegete, or to pull out of the text what's there.
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So what I did, I wrote the message, and I prayed on it, and I wrote it, and then I sent it to someone.
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I said, you read this, and you tell me if I'm off my wheels, because I'm not bringing God's people garbage.
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You send it back, and you tell me what you think.
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And he sent it back, and he said, well, here's an area, one small thing I think you might want to think about, and I did.
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And he sent me some other things to read to go along with it.
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I went to a doctor's office this week and sat and talked to an OBGYN just to make sure that something I was saying was not incorrect.
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So that's, to me, the value of preaching truth is so much.
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Yes, I will ask and be corrected a lot.
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So yeah, it happens.
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Now, having said all this, I haven't gotten to the text yet.
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This is all introduction, so I feel bad.
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How much time am I...
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I want to address this, because I've talked about discipleship.
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I've asked you who's your Paul, who's your Timothy.
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Something to think about.
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Write that down in your Bible.
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Who am I discipling? Who's discipling me? Am I getting one-on-one discipleship? Am I getting group discipleship? Or is it just, am I coming to church once a week? All right.
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It says, now when the eleven disciples went to Galilee...
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By the way, this is one of the few times in Scripture they're ever designated as the eleven, not the twelve, because at this point, Judas had abandoned the group.
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It says, when the eleven went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them, and when they saw him, they worshipped him.
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It's an important word, proskuneo, means to fall down flat, fall down on your face.
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They literally prostrated themselves before the Lord.
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They fell down before him.
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But some doubted.
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Why'd they doubt? I mean, here, this guy, he's dead.
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They saw him on the cross.
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They know he's dead.
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Think about the amazing situation that they're in.
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This is a guy who was dead.
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Now he's alive.
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They know what to think.
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Some scholars, some commentators have said, well, maybe they didn't even recognize him.
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Think about the two men on the road to Emmaus.
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They walked with Jesus for a long time, and they didn't know it was him.
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So it could be that they come to Jesus, they don't even know, they're not certain.
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There's doubt in some of their hearts.
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And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
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Now, something that we need to understand.
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All authority in heaven and on earth was always Christ's.
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Because he is the creator.
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I'll just very quickly turn to John chapter 1.
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One of my favorite passages to teach.
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John 1, 1 through 3.
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Most of you probably remember it.
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But it says in John 1, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
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The word there is Jesus.
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It says in verse 14, it says, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
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So we know what the word is, it's speaking of Christ.
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Verse 2, it says, he was in the beginning with God.
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And verse 3 says, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
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So the Bible tells us that Jesus was not only in the beginning with God, but that he's the creator of life.
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He is the actual one who initiated this thing we call the world and life.
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And because he is the second person of the Trinity, because he is at one with the Father at all times, because he is God in the flesh, because he's God, we can say he is creator.
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So what's his business about all authority being given to him? Because if he was God, didn't he already have it? That's important.
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Turn to Philippians 2.
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It's very kind of a simple, easy thing, but something that we should understand at least in case someone ever challenges us.
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Philippians chapter 2.
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We have what's called the Carmen Christi.
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It says in verse 5, it says, Let's have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.
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Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
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See right there, the Carmen Christi is telling us that Christ, even though he was in the form of God, and that word form, morphe, it means he was in his nature God.
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He was in his very being God.
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He emptied himself, not of being God, but he emptied himself of his glory.
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John 17 tells us that when he came to the earth, he emptied himself of his glory because he says in John 17, 5, he says, Father, glorify me with that glory that we shared together before the world was.
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So they had a glory together, but Christ emptied himself of that glory.
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He came to the earth as a servant, and he served all the way to death.
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And in serving all the way to death, giving up the regalia, giving up the glory of his Godhood, but not giving up his essential nature.
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And then what happened as a result? It goes on to say, Therefore, verse 9, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
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You see, in his submission to God, in his submission to death, he earned at that point a new title.
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He was God, but now he is the God-man.
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He came as a man.
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The incarnation is not a minus sign taking away God's divinity.
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It's a plus sign adding humanity to that which is divine.
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Christ took on flesh, and he took on servanthood so that he could take on death.
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And when he took on death and died, he was glorified by God and brought out of that and given the position of the God-man, the mediator between man and God.
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And now he's in a new position, the position of the mediator, the position of one to whom every knee will bow.
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And so now he says, All authority has been given to me because I gave up.
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I emptied myself of glory, came to earth as a servant, but now that giving up is over, and now I stand before you having all authority been given to me.
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No more servant, now Lord.
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And so he says, As a result, go.
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Verse 19, the word there, you all see me talk about this word before, the word therefore, right? You see this word? What does therefore mean? Because of this, this.
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If I said, I'm hungry, therefore, I'm going to go eat.
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What does therefore mean? Because of this, this.
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All right? It's simple.
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Jesus said, All authority has been given to me.
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Therefore, go.
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Some of your translations say, Go therefore.
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Either way, it doesn't matter.
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The idea of therefore is connecting what he said before to what he says now.
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He says, therefore, go and do what? Get everybody to sign a card in the name of Jesus.
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Go, therefore, and get everybody to raise their hand at the end of a funeral service.
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You know, I do funeral service all the time.
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I work for Corey Kurland and for Huell.
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So whenever they have a family that has a minister, or that doesn't have a minister, they'll call me and they'll say, Hey, there's a family that needs a minister.
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Can you come and do this? Yeah, you know, and every funeral service I do, I give the gospel.
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But you know what I don't do at the end of a funeral service? I don't say, Okay, now everybody bow your head.
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And nobody look around.
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And now I want you to repeat after me.
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I believe Jesus is Lord.
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I forgive, repent of my sins.
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Now raise your hand.
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Why? Why do I do that? Number one, it's not...
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The whole hand, the idea of closing my eyes so nobody can see, and slipping my hand up quietly so nobody is offended, and that I don't embarrass myself or anyone else.
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That's nonsense.
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Where did that even come from? We do it.
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Why do we do it? Because I saw a minister do it before, and hey, he said he got 200 people.
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And I need to have that on my roster.
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It's all about the numbers.
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You know, they have, in certain denominations, they make you send in your baptism rolls every year so that they can boast.
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We had 50 baptisms, or 70 baptisms, or 5,000 baptisms.
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They make you send those numbers in.
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And you know what it's led to? It's led to a lot of churches that do whatever they can to pad those numbers so that within the associations, they have some influence.
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The evangelical industrial complex.
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It's just a big...
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It's a big market thing, and they want some of their market share.
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I'm not trying to be ugly.
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The reality is, let me tell you what happens.
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They do VBS.
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And we have a VBS.
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We have a family-integrated VBS where everybody from the family gets to come.
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But you know what we don't do? We don't build a baptistry that looks like a firetruck and have it ring bells when kids get into it.
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I've seen that done.
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Why? Why is it done? Because we've got to get them in there, man, because that's all that's needed.
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Because when Jesus said, go into all the world, He said, go therefore and get people to raise their hands and get wet.
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That's not what He said.
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I tell you, my goal is to get people to understand more and more that the gospel is more than a once-in-a-lifetime decision.
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The gospel is following Christ all of our days, seeking after Him.
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Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness all of our days.
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Jesus said, go therefore and make disciples.
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He didn't say, go out there and secure decisions.
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He said, go and make disciples.
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What is a disciple? A disciple simply means a student, a learner.
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But in Jesus' time, it had more of a sense of a follower because a disciple was not just a person who said, yeah, I got your books on tape.
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I'm going to listen to them and apply the seven principles to my life.
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No, a disciple was one who literally left and followed.
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Remember what Jesus said? He went out and He called to the men in their boats and it says, and they laid down their nets and they followed Him.
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When Peter took Jesus out on the boat and He got that great influx of fish and Peter looked at Jesus and said, Peter what? Leave me alone.
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Depart from me for I am a sinful man.
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Why? Well, because he got a glimpse of the holiness of Christ.
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He was afraid, which we would all, if we got only a glimpse of the holiness of God, we would all fall on our faces.
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Couldn't help it.
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Isaiah 6.
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Read it.
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Isaiah 6, where He saw the glory of God and for a moment He couldn't.
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He was the most holy man in Israel and He puts His hand over His mouth and He says, I am undone.
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Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.
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He knew who He was when He saw God because He saw the contrast.
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Peter saw Jesus and he saw the contrast.
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He saw himself as a sinner and what did he do? Leave me alone.
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Go away Lord.
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Don't.
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I am too sinful.
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You don't want me.
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And of course Jesus with that great grace that He lavishes upon sinners, He said, Come, follow me and I will teach you how to catch men.
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You know the great, I'll make you fishers of men.
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That's what that means.
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I'll teach you how to go out and make disciples.
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That's what we're supposed to do.
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Evangelism is disciple making.
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We're not securing decisions.
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We're making disciples.
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Followers of Jesus.
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How does it start? The text tells us and I know we're running low on time so I'll bring it to a close.
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How does it start? Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.
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By the way, I don't want to bypass this.
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All nations? That doesn't mean Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon.
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What it means is all people groups.
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Now, do people groups live in Iraq and Iran and Syria? Yes, but what I'm saying is we're not, He's not talking about just borders here.
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He's talking about people.
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He's talking about every tribe, tongue and nation.
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Every tribe.
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Every tongue and every nation.
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By the way, this kicks racism in the face.
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You say, well, I can't share the gospel with him.
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I don't like his race.
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Well, get over it and get saved because you lost.
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If that's your attitude.
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I'm sorry.
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That's ugly, but I'm going to say it because we are to love all people of all nations and to seek everyone to come to Christ.
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And then what? You baptize them.
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Why? Why? Baptism is the sign of our entrance into the new covenant.
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Baptism is the initial sign of entrance.
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No hand raising.
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No sinner's prayer.
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It's baptism.
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Baptism doesn't save us and make sure that's clear.
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Baptism does not, as some believe, cause regeneration or cause the forgiveness of sins or wash away our sins.
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But what baptism is, it is a sign of our coming to faith in Christ and a sign of God's promise to us in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
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Because as Romans 6 tells us, we are buried with Christ and raised to new life, which is why we baptize under the water and not just sprinkle or pour.
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We actually put someone under as to symbolize the death and the resurrection.
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So we go and we baptize them first, but we don't stop there.
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It doesn't stop with baptism because it goes on to say, Go therefore make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the triune name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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Now I'll do a whole other lesson on Trinitarian theology, but that's important here because he mentions the name, the singular nama, the singular name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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Yahweh is the name of God and they all three bear that name.
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Again, Trinitarian theology, we get into that another time.
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But verse 20, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, teaching them to observe.
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You see, that's discipleship and that's the part that's left out.
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We tell them, yes, pray a prayer.
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Yes, be baptized and then live how you want to live.
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Do what you want to do.
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Say what you want to say.
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Be how you want to be.
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No, Jesus said teach them as I have taught you.
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Teach them to observe these things.
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Not because they save us.
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And let me be perfectly clear.
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The Gospel is crystal clear.
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We are not saved by what we do.
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We are saved by the work of Christ.
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He is the only one who has fulfilled the law to its entirety and when we stand before God, we stand in His righteousness alone, not ours.
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So no good thing that I ever do, no sermon I've ever preached, no time I've ever given money to anything, no dedication or discipleship that I've ever done where I'll be able to hand to God and say, here you go, God.
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You're lucky to have me.
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No, I can't do that.
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When I stand before God, I say to God what? I stand here on the merits of Christ alone.
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On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.
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I can't stand on my own.
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I stand before God.
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But does that alleviate me from the responsibility of seeking Christ while I'm in this life? No, the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans chapter 6 that we who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
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And now we're to seek to live for Him.
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So that's what disciple making is.
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One, it's helping others to see how to live for Christ.
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But how do we do that? We find those who help us to learn to live like Christ and we become part of that cycle.
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Being discipled and discipling others is our responsibility as Christians.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for the call to discipleship and the call to be discipled.
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I pray that everyone here would first and foremost understand their responsibility to seek out a Paul, someone who would father them in the faith, someone who would mentor them in the faith, someone who would take them by the hand and lead them through this life and encourage them in the faith.
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But I pray also, Lord, that we'd all be seeking a Timothy, someone that we can help, someone that we can encourage.
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Even if it's just picking up and bringing to church, Father.
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Even if it's just ministering to over the phone or sending a card of encouragement.
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Father, help us to see what we can do in being disciple makers, not just decision procurers, but disciple makers.
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In Jesus' name we pray and for His sake, Amen.