Can we praise God across all of our church, all of our campuses? Man, we are so pumped about what God is doing in our student ministry and in our college ministry. This is crazy for me to think about, guys. This past summer, or the summer we're in right now, I mean, they had just more kids in the high school summer project, which is very intense. I mean, this is like you know, two months, week in, week out.
Man, they're going all over mission trip, camp, coming in, learning, studying. I mean, these kids have really sacrificed. There were more kids in that summer project than there were people on the launch team to come and plant Mercy Hill 13 years ago. And so I just think about how good God has been to us. And man, I know that you guys take great joy in this as well.
Hey, if you are newer with us at one of our campuses or right here at the Ridge today, you need to know this about our church. We are not trying to just raise responsible kids with good morals. All right, we're trying to raise radical kids with a huge mission. Not just this idea of accumulating things and comfort an American dream, but instead, we're trying to raise kids who are willing to give their lives away for the sake of what God is calling them to and the sake of using their one life for his mission, for his fame, for his renown and glory. And those are two different things, man.
If you're going for the American dream, there's probably a lot of ways you can accomplish that. If you are going for this radical giveaway, you know, Psalm 127 says it like this: that our children are arrows in the hands of a mighty warrior. And we need to shape them. You know, the thing about an arrow is that its whole purpose is to be loosed, to be unleashed. And so, if we're going to go after that, man, it's a lot more about Bible in, community, church involvement, you know, things like summer projects, student mission trips.
I mean, just all this stuff kind of works together. And so, I would just really encourage you to kind of have that vision for where your kids are going to be in terms of their faith walk. If you guys came in, really, at all of our campuses, I'd love for y'all just to grab this, put your hands on it. You all have a little card. This is back to school weekend, an opportunity for you to serve.
Okay, all of this student ministry and all of this college ministry and all of our age-based stuff, it works on rhythms and cycles, all right? And so, very important for us is to kick the year off. We just kind of think about our age-based ministry in terms of like a school year. And so, we're about to kick that off, man. You wouldn't miss the first day of school.
You wouldn't miss the first week of practice. We don't want to miss back to school weekend. We want you to serve on back to school weekend. This is an opportunity for everybody to get off the sideline. We're going to need well over a thousand people to serve that weekend with everything that we have going on.
All the ministries, you know, age-based ministries launching, different things we're doing for students, kindergarten commissioning. Man, we really need everybody. Hey, if you're at Mercy Hill, this is a moment where you realize, hey, if we're going to be on the merry-go-round, we also got to take our turn and push.
Okay. And so everybody's got to jump in. And so I pray that you'll do that. You can fill this out and drop it in the bucket on the way out. If you're already on a service team, you don't need to fill this out.
Just make sure you're signed up to serve that weekend and make sure that you're on the schedule. All right. All right. Let's dive in. Luke chapter 10 is where we're going to be.
I'm very excited to get into this message today. We're going to have an opportunity to make sure that we all understand that we are called, that we have a purpose, a destiny. Man, this is a big thing at Mercy Hill. All right. We say all the time, you were made for more than possessions and promotions.
Your kids were made for more than straight A's in soccer.
Okay. We have a real purpose and calling and destiny that God has placed on our life. Jesus did a big thing for us in coming to die for us, but Jesus didn't die to create spectators. He died to create servants for his kingdom and his mission. And that's who we are.
We have a purpose that is to spread the fame and renown of our God and his gospel. And we get a chance to do this in a myriad of ways.
Okay, we can do this in a lot of ways, but this is our mission. I want to show you guys two dogs. The first dog is my dog, Susie. All right. We call her Susie the Uzi.
She is little, but she is a firecracker. All right. And she is a hunting dog. This dog has never laid on a couch in her life. She is not wearing a vest for anxiety.
That is a Kevlar vest, so she doesn't get cut by a hog.
Okay. So she is bred for 100 years to do one thing. Find a hog, bark at a hog. All right. She has a mission, a purpose.
This is her work. This is how she's made up to do this, okay? She will never, you know, like I said, she's not laying on the couch, she doesn't wear a Halloween costume, all right? This is who she is.
Now, I want to show you a very different dog. My dog, Purpose. This is another one of our staff members' dog, and I just want to show you Theo, okay? Theo obviously has no purpose, all right? Uh, Theo.
Theo simply exists in this world, okay? He likes to wear his Christmas concert, his Christmas costume, and if you saw him up close, you could tell that his eyes go separate ways, and you don't know who he's looking at. All right?
Now, the difference is one is on a mission, one is just sort of here. And I want to, and listen, no offense if you have just sort of an existor type dog, okay? I'm not getting into that. I mean, it's really a cat if you want to get down to it, but it's not. But.
You know, the idea for you and I is that we are built the other way, okay? We are built with purpose, calling, destiny. There is something we're supposed to be about. There's something that we're supposed to do in this world. And that is to use all of the talents, tools, all the situations in our life.
So here's what happens. God gives us a bunch of stuff and we end up thinking that's the mission.
Some of us are on a mission right now to get married.
Some of us are on a mission to get a degree.
Some of us are on a mission to start a business.
Some of us are on a mission to raise the next Tom Brady, okay? We're on a mission like that. Here's what I wanna tell you. Those things are all good. They're not the mission.
They're ways that God has given us. to go about the mission. Everything in our life, from marriage to parenting to the way we do business, it can be used as a testimony for our ultimate purpose and mission. which is to spread the fame Of Jesus. We're going to look at a story in Luke 10 today of the 72 disciples that were sent out.
And those 72 disciples were sent out so that they would tell everybody Jesus is coming. We get a chance to tell everybody Jesus is coming back. All right, here's the big idea this weekend: Jesus sends us on his mission, it's not our mission. It's his mission. And we get a chance to our joy and for his glory to jump on board, not just to exist.
But to have a mission, a calling, and a destiny. Luke chapter 10, here's how it starts. After this, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. See, they're going before Jesus, they're going to tell people he is coming. Get ready.
He's coming to bring peace. The kingdom of God is coming near. Get ready for that. And he said to them: The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
Now, The way that this begins to open up to us is we get this great metaphor.
Okay, and the great metaphor is, I want you to imagine the biggest field of peanuts you've ever seen in your life. I want you to imagine the biggest field of corn you ever seen, whatever it is, okay? And you're looking out, and it is just a thousand acres. And what the Bible is saying is that is what we should have in our heart and mind when we're thinking about lost people who need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to be thinking about a harvest like that.
And that the laborers for that harvest are few compared to the harvest. And so we need to pray and get about it, and even maybe even be the ones that go ourselves into that harvest.
Now, the harvest I want you to see, remember, biggest peanut field or cornfield you ever seen in your whole life, it's actually that, man, it's so much bigger than that.
So much bigger than you could even imagine. And one of the ways that we know that Jesus is trying to wake us up to his big mission is that he specifically sends 72 disciples that are to go out.
Some translations say 70 disciples. It's because there's a bit of a textual variance that goes all the way back to Genesis 10. This is key, okay? The 70 or the 72, whichever way it ends up, okay? And I know our listen, our translations are not infallible.
They're highly reliable, but the original Word of God is infallible and inerrant. Whether it was 70 or 72, it doesn't really matter that much. What matters is it's pointing back, whether it was in the Hebrew or the Greek, in Genesis 10, it's pointing back to the table of nations. In Genesis 10. Why didn't Jesus just send 37 people out?
Okay. Why did he send 70 or 72? It's because that's how many nations are listed out in Genesis 10, and every Hebrew person would have known that. And here's the point: Jesus is making us understand that when he will eventually commission me and you and everybody else to go out into the world and make disciples of all nations, he's already given us. A pre-runner to that.
The 70 or 72 is supposed to represent his witness going out among the table of nations, that the gospel would go forth. Into all the world. Y'all, it wasn't until I was in seminary. I know this is kind of crazy. I was actually in seminary when I really began to understand how much the text of the Bible is a missionary text.
And how much our God is a missionary God.
Now, I had been equipped very well. Came from a small but strong church, Southern Baptist Church, and what that time was kind of the county, you know, just out in the county in Florida, where I'm from. And it was a small but strong church. And we learned a lot, man, about missions. We learned a lot about sending out evangelism.
But some kind of way in seminary, it finally began to click. When it's like, oh yeah. What we sort of broke and lost in the garden is what God is bringing back. And when he brings it back, it's going to be better than it was before. Why?
Because the glory of God is going to be put on display by the diversity of people that are in his kingdom from every tribe, tongue, and nation. You're going to see something about God by all those who follow him.
So you start to think about stories in the Bible, and you're like, oh, yeah, I mean, you think about creation. That's kingdom. It's God's people, God's place under God's reign. That gets broken. But then you start having all these stories.
And I don't know if you're, you know, how biblical, you know, if you've gone back and know your Bible that much, you might be brand new, but these stories, like the story of the Tower of Babel, like the story where all the nations are gathered in the book of Daniel and the story of the fiery furnace. like this text, like Pentecost, like Revelation 5 and 7. There is this missionary heartbeat. And that's what's behind this text in Luke 10. The 72 are going out.
And they show us that this gospel will go out into all the world. But here's where you and I live. All right, and this is why we got to get about it. We're going to talk about praying and being sent today. This is why we got to get about it.
The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time. There's a lot of people who don't know. What Christ has done for them. The sun rises and sets every single day. They don't know who to give the glory to.
They could walk out of their house for days and months and never see a Christian, never see a Bible, never hear the name of Jesus. And while that is true, The heartbeat of a church like Mercy Hill has got to be, man, we reach people here, we disciple them here, but the end game, think about it, guys, gather groups, give, go. The end game is to see the ministry of our church go all the way to the ends of the earth, and it's happening now. We just did it, talked about it for our summer project, even among our students.
So, well, how are we going to get about it? There's a couple things we need to do. Number one, we need to pray. Number two, we need to consider what it means to be sent. As the Bible says, as lambs among wolves.
All right?
So the first thing is this: we need to pray. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
The first thing we need to do is to recognize that the harvest is plentiful.
Now, Many of us have grown up in the South. Many of you have grown up where there's a church on every corner. I understand that, okay? Here's the problem with that, some. The problem is we can get it in our mind that the laborers are plentiful and the harvest is few.
That's not what it says. What it says is the harvest is plentiful. And if you've ever been anywhere in the world, if you've ever been in an unreached, lost place, you'll know that. That the harvest is what's plentiful, the laborers are few. If we want to see God move among the harvest, the first thing that we do is pray that He will raise up.
People from right here, not just generically, okay? But you are in a local church. God's global church is expressed in His local church. And we pray that this church would multiply its mission. God, save and raise up our kids.
God, save and raise up our college students, our young families, our awesome fourth quarter people who are not just kind of limping into retirement, but they are attacking that phase of their life. Call them and send them. We need to pray. And here's what it says: it says, pray earnestly. Pray urgently.
Pray with a fire in your bones. Beg, plead. That's what it means to pray urgently. That's what it means to pray earnestly. All right, you know, sometimes kids, you know, one thing I think many of us have the experience of praying earnestly and urgently.
The question is, is it about the nations or is it about something else? You know, so like I think about my kids. You know, a lot of times when we go through something hard or something happens, we don't know what to do, we immediately know what to do. We cry out urgently and desperately. The kids do it, we're just grown-up versions of them.
One time we were eating breakfast together, my kids were a lot younger, and we look out, very fascinating sight. My dog, Red, who's no longer with us, okay, lived awesome 10 years, but he's no longer with us. But when he was there, he was a great farm dog, and he was outside about five feet away from a deer that was just in the front yard. I mean, they're just like standing there, and they're walking toward each other, and they're just about nose to nose. And he's cool.
He's not, I mean, he's just, he's kind of got his tail wagging real slow, and he's not being aggressive or anything. And my kid, they all go running out on the porch, and we, we kind of, this was, it was just kind of cool. Oh, they're going to be friends, you know, they're going to start playing together. And I mean, the kids were little and they were being sweet about it. And I was like, this is kind of cool.
And about that time, that deer popped up on his back legs and turned into Mike Tyson. I'm not kidding. He starts raining blows down Oscar de La Jolla, the whole deal, okay? And he is now, and the dog was so shocked. about what just happened, that he slipped and fell.
And so now he's on his side, and the deer is raining blows from the sky like a UFC heavyweight fighter. I mean, just boom, just stomping him. And I was just sitting there, just, I'm like, this is the most interesting thing I've ever seen. I mean, I'm just watching the whole thing, taking it in, fascinating. This needs to be on National Geographic, okay?
Of course, the kids were having a different reaction. All right. They were, what do you think they were doing? They were screaming, and what do you think they were screaming? Daddy.
Daddy. Daddy. They're yelling for me. I mean, I was doing nothing, okay? But they're yelling for me.
And it served as a reminder in my mind that many times we are that way. Listen, we ended, you ever heard there's no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole? I mean, we all we all know, like when you get to that place.
Sometimes, some of you have felt this before in your life. Man, you've been in such a place where all you could get out was Father. You couldn't even say anything after that. There is something in us that cries out: here is the convicting part for me. Maybe it will convict you.
We know how to pray like that. Are we praying like that for the nations to come to Christ? Are we praying like that for God to send laborers? into the harvest and into the nations. We know how to pray like that when our kids are in a crisis, man.
We know how to. I do. I'm going to put it on me. I know how to pray like that when something around here is not going the way I want it to. I know how to pray like that when the kids are in a crisis, when somebody in my family, you know, extended family, is going through a health thing or whatever, or a really good friend of mine is going through something really hard.
What about that earnest, desperate, beg, plead, urgent, fire under us prayer? God received the glory by reaping the harvest among the nations. And I think for us, man, it's just a good reminder, y'all. Man, are we praying that way? And if not, what are we going to put in our life?
I've told you this before. Mondays is a great way. Mondays for missionaries, okay? Pray on Mondays for the missionaries that we have sent out. Man, pray that God would do something incredible.
Y'all, we live in a place where the harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few. I want you to think about this. Right now, in this world, the Joshua Project projects 289 frontier people groups. You know what that means? It means that those are 289 people groups of more than a million people.
who have no gospel witness. And yet, only 3% of the worldwide missionaries go to places that are like that. This is where we live. Harvest is abundant. All right, the laborers are few.
Are we begging God for the laborers? Man, we need to be praying, guys. Part of my mission, part of my prayer. I know I said Mondays for missionaries, a little complicated for us. Monday, missionaries for the kids, for our devotion.
Thursday is the day that I pray for the mission effort in our church. All right. And I would just tell you, man, my prayers that day are filled with praying over our staff, over that, praying for Envision. Envision is a Gospel 101 Nations Missions class, all right, that is going to launch in October. I pray that we see hundreds of people that jump into Envision.
You know, we want to do. I know I'm throwing some vernacular at you here if you're new to Mercy Hill. DMI, RMC, Disciple Making Intensive, Residential Missions Community. I know that's a bit like a mouthful, but you know what those things are? It's people who have gone on a mission trip.
Maybe they go through in vision. They feel like God might be doing something, calling them.
Okay, let's do a disciple-making intensive. You step out of your community group for one session. You go into the harvest for three hours a week with another group of people. And it's all about this idea of the missionary task and jumping in. And some people feel called to the next step after that, and they move their lives.
They sell homes. People are doing this right now in High Point, in refugee areas. They move into an apartment complex together. I mean, this is what we're doing. It's radical stuff, right?
And some of, are we praying for those things? The pipelines to be filled. I hope that you are. Let's pray for laborers.
Now, it's not just praying for laborers, it's also going ourselves.
Now, here's what it says: go your way. Behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.
Now, I gotta pick my spots here. You guys know that. I mean, you could preach a text like this for a month, okay? But one of the things I want to say is when he says, carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals. First of all, I think that it probably is talking about extra provisions.
I don't think the guys were literally sent out barefoot, okay? And I also would tell you, sometimes this stuff is prescriptive, not descriptive.
So if you go on a mission trip with Mercy Hill next year, it's okay to bring a toothbrush. You can. It's okay. I think I would actually encourage it.
Okay. And I just think, like, hey, you know, some of this stuff is a little. I think what Jesus is doing here. It's saying you don't want to give the impression. That you're going into these new communities to stay.
You're not. You're going there to share and move, share and move. I also want you to be dependent upon me. And the power that I am giving you to go out and to do the ministry and to heal and to do these things that Jesus gave them the power to do. But here's what he says: he says, I'm sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.
I'm just going to be honest with you guys, I don't like that. I don't. I don't want it to be that way. And it brings up a good point. You know, I say this a lot at Mercy Hill, but the thing is, if you never disagree.
With the authority of God over your life. If there's nothing about what he's calling you to that you disagree with, I'm going to tell you right now, you probably created your own God. It's probably not a real god. Because if there is a real God who really exerts authority over you, and we are fallen and in rebellion. It would make a lot of sense that there's probably a lot of things that we're gonna have to really be conformed to his image to want to do.
And we're not just, it's not, you know, so when you hear people in our culture, you talk to them about the way God designs marriage, you talk to them about giving, you talk to them about different missionary things, about going to other cultures, and they're like, well, my God would never do that. It's like, yeah, well, of course your God would never do that because you created him.
Okay, he's going to think about everything the exact same way you think about it. It's a projection of you, not the other way around. What I'm telling you is... Man, there are times we read the scriptures and we've got to understand. That God is giving us truth that we've got to figure out and conform to, not change.
That's hard. This is a hard one for me. If you ask me do you want to be a lamb or a wolf, I'm like, Man, I ain't no lamb. Not like this. I don't want to be.
I don't want my kids to be. You know, I mean, not in this, you know, not on first blush. I want them to be strong. I want them to be the one that's on the move and looks out for themselves. I mean, this is kind of what we want, right?
I'm like, most of my boys play football. And I tell, this is, this is the thing.
Okay, Lamb Wolf. I tell my boys all the time, hey. You're the hammer, the other kid is the nail. Amen.
Okay, and I tell them. And listen. I say, hey, I tell my boys, I say, hey, man, it ain't your fault. That that little kid's parents signed him up for football. That ain't your fault.
All right, they made that decision.
Okay? You're the hammer, they're the nail. It's kind of hard to then say, but really you're the lamb. It's hard, man. But you know what?
If God is God and his word is authoritative, then I got to get over it and figure out how this applies to my life. and figure out how it applies to my kids' life. And here's the thing, man. The great thing about lambs, you know, lambs are... It's tough being a lamb, man.
Lambs ain't the smartest. Lambs find creative ways to die.
Okay. They're just not. But this is who we are. And here and I'm thinking about this and I'm like, man, I you know, lamb, what does it mean, lamb, lamb? And then it just kind of begins to break open for me where I realize, you know, what's the big difference between a lamb and a wolf?
I'm going to tell you. The lamb has a shepherd. The Lamb has a protector. The Lamb has a provider. The lamb doesn't have to look over his own shoulder like a wolf because somebody else is looking over it for him.
The lamb needs to stay in line and obedience with the shepherd. The lamb trusts that that shepherd is bringing this community to water and green grass, and when the wolf's at the door, he will be there. That's the lamb. And that's what we need to get in our mind today. Y'all, all of our provision and protection is found in the shepherd.
We go out like lambs among wolves. Because we are lambs that have a shepherd, and all of our confidence is bound up in him. That is the only way that I believe we can go out into this messed up, broken, dangerous. World? I mean, you guys know this.
Not every church is this way. Guys, at Mercy Hill. There are many times where we stand up and commission people and You can't know where they're going. You've seen this. There are times where I say something in a sermon that we have to go then edit out.
All right, it's we're not we're not yeah, we're going to the hardest places among the most unreached people in many cases. And you know what? We can do that because we have. A shepherd. who we believe is good.
And whatever happens, man, we know that he is protecting and providing. I think about it like this. Um we had a a a young woman named Millie Who was sharing at the Summer Project celebration for their summer stuff they did this summer? She's maybe 15 or 16 years old. And she talked about how God moved so radically in her life this year that she now is thinking about going on an international mission trip next year.
And she said, Man, this is never something I would do on my own. You know, I would never want to, that's just not my speed, all that. But I believe God is calling me to that, and I want to do something like that. And I'm really going to put my yes on the table for that. A lamb doesn't do that on their own.
A lamb only does that because they trust the shepherd. And that's all of us, man. All of our confidence, all of our protection, all of our provision is bound up in the shepherd. Look what it says in verse 5. Whatever house you enter, first say, peace be to this house.
And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, It will return to you. What does that mean? Listen, we are lambs among wolves. You've heard.
In church history, there have been times, it's horrific, of forced conversions. That would be a wolf going out among lambs. But we're a lamb among wolves.
So what that means is We can't force anybody to do anything. What we do is we go and we share. Peace be to you. The peace from God. If somebody wants it, they receive it.
If they don't, it bounces right back. It's got to be received. And remain in the house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Hey man, that's okay for the l for people to support the mission of the church. When people go out, that's fine.
But don't abuse it. Look what it says. Don't go from house to house. You're not going to that one, end of that one, end of that one. Like, we're not abusing this.
Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you, man. Jump into a relationship. You know, don't check some of your preferences at the door. Jesus gave them specifically the power to heal for this missionary endeavor, heal the sick in it, and say to them, The kingdom of God has come near.
Now, this is what I want to start getting into here as we're moving towards getting into some application. Guys, This is no different than our mission now, except for one thing. We have greater clarity and greater power because the Spirit is in us. But it's the same idea. We're proclaiming peace.
Hey. You're separated from God, you can be reconciled. That's peace. And we're proclaiming the kingdom of God is near. Man, you know, hey, Jesus has come to inaugurate something that he will fully consummate now.
It lives in the hearts of his people as they are reborn. We are part of the kingdom of God. It's not the fullness. The kingdom of God is people under his reign in a place that he has prepared. That will come one day.
But right now, the people of God are reborn into his family.
Okay? So, yes, peace and the kingdom of God. It's what we proclaim now. Let me show you a picture.
So, these are five, this is so exciting. These are five college students that went and spent their entire summer from Mercy Hill living in one of the most unreached places, sharing the gospel with unreached people. Can we praise God for them and what God is doing in our age-based ministries? Then at Clifton Road, at High Point Campus, we've got all these college students coming. It's incredible.
And here's what I would say about this. You know what they did? They shared peace and kingdom. Peace. Be reconciled to God.
Kingdom. Man, the kingdom of God is near. You can be joined to it now, fully joined later. This is what they were proclaiming. And I just tell you today, man, what they were doing is our mission as well.
We have the opportunity to jump in, I pray that you would, with a gospel of peace and kingdom.
Well, okay, if you've never heard the gospel before, if you're newer, you're one of our campuses, you're like, man, you've seen gospel, but exactly, let me just, okay, let me just go right back through it. All right?
In the beginning. God placed humans in his reign, in his place. And they followed him, and then and that was kingdom, and then they and then they sinned. And when they sinned, three things were broken. Their relationship with God, their relationship with each other, and their relationship with the very dirt, the earth itself, thorns and thistles.
God could have wiped everything away, started over. Instead, He sends a promise. The promise is: one day I will put back together, I will reconcile. I will bring peace where there is hostility. And the one who did that was Jesus Christ.
In the very beginning of Genesis, what we see is God says to humanity: One day I will send a serpent-crushing Savior. Yes, he will bruise the servant's heel. But in the end, This Savior will crush his head, and that's what happened on the cross. Jesus came and lived the life that none of us live. You and I, rebellion at every turn, sin at every turn.
Paul says, I'm a chief of sinners. I can identify with that. Then the longer you walk with Christ, you can probably identify with that. Man, we know the inequity and the sin that's in us. All right?
But the Bible tells us, hey, that there can be peace now. Why? Jesus lived the life we didn't live. No sin, but at the end of his life, he took death for us. He was the sacrificial lamb that could stand in our place.
And through his death, through his burial, and his resurrection, you and I have the opportunity to come into his family, into his kingdom, and then spread that news. This is a great verse, Colossians 1:20. And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. Jesus has made peace where there was an enemy, you and I, before God.
Now we can be put back in the family again. And then, this is what's great. What the 72 were sent to do, you and I were sent to do. The only difference is, we have more clarity around it because we're on this side of the resurrection. And we have the Spirit empowering us in a different way.
Jesus literally told his disciples: it is good that I leave so the Spirit can come. That's crazy to me, but that's what he said. Evidently. The spirit inside of us is more helpful than Jesus beside of us. And you and I, if you're a believer, if you've admitted your sin, believe, confess him as Lord, you and I have the spirit inside.
Now we are empowered to go out. And to do this mission all the way to the ends of the earth.
So here's the application for this weekend, y'all. Live on mission. You have a call, you have a purpose, you have a destiny. Live out that mission. Think about what God is doing at the very ends of the earth.
Be a Susie, not a Theo, the existor.
Okay? Remember the dog, all right? That that's what we're saying here. Be one that has a purpose, not one that's just kind of there. That's what we're called to do.
Now, some of us, I want to apply this two ways. I'm done.
Some of us have got to think about, man, where are we in? And then others need to think about what that means that we are in.
Okay. Hey, if you're just coming around Mercy Hill, you have been for a few months or whatever, and you're at one of our campuses right now, you're at the ridge, and you're like, man, man, tragedy brought us here, or my kids are, you know, finally getting old enough now where they're starting to ask questions. And, you know, I don't know what it is, but you started coming back to church. Maybe you met somebody, a friend, or whatever. You started coming back, or you started coming for the first time.
Okay, great, right? You're here. You gotta know this today. Before you're on the mission. You are the mission.
God is on mission for your heart. God is sending people to call you. I've already shared the gospel and laid it out, but here's the deal: man, if you don't accept that gospel, the Bible says it would be better for Sodom. than for you.
Sodom and Gomorrah are two they're kind of they stand as symbols of rebellion. Like they they they didn't they didn't follow the and God wiped them out. Sulfur and fire, man. It's a picture of hell. It's hell on earth.
And what the Bible is trying to get us to see right here, look, hold up, I'll just read it to you. But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. The point is, the witness is not there forever. The witness comes, you reject. The beat goes on, man.
The train keeps moving. Even the dust of our town that clings, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless, know this, that the kingdom of God has come near. I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. Man, this is not subtle at all.
This is incredibly sharp and pointed. The point is, there is, yes, Sodom and Gomorrah, a hell on earth, okay? That pictures a literal hell, not on earth, but for eternity. And you and I have a choice to make when you hear the gospel message. Will you stay in your rebellion against God, or will you come?
and commit your life to him. Admit your sin, believe in what Christ has done on the cross, and confess him as the Lord of your life. Man, I pray that you would, but if you don't, there is a hell that awaits. And it never ends. The second group of people I want to talk to is this, all right?
Hey, if you are a believer, it's like, well, man, what am I supposed to do with this?
Okay, because you're like, man, I'm a believer. I know that the mission, but man, I'm not vocationally called, I'm not a missionary, okay. Every one of us. Has a general call here today to remember. to pray for the nations.
I'll give you a little tip here, okay? Every one of us is going to get this sticker when we walk out today. It says 1002. All right, pray earnestly. 10.02.
Here's what we do with this sticker. A lot of us on our staff do this, okay? At 10:02. They, we, we, we say, well, we're 10.02 a.m.
Okay, we're going to pray. For Luke 10, 2, that God would send laborers into the harvest. Put that somewhere. You can remember it. Put it on your Bible, put it on your water bottle, whatever it is, okay?
And 10.02 rolls around and pray for that. Hey, what about? tithing and giving maybe we stop tipping god and we start actually giving a full tithe knowing That everything we're doing here, all of the ministries, it could be something while they're doing at a student camp, it could be paying one of these light bills.
Okay, it could be putting a new person on our staff. Or it could be mobilizing and sending to the nations, but what you gotta understand is it all works together. All the dollars end up being mission dollars because our highest goal is to see right now, you guys know it, 2032, we want to send 500 missionaries out for Mercy Hill by 2032. We've sent 214. All right, we want to see 500 go out, many of them going out to places where nobody.
has heard the gospel so there's a lot that we can do Man, see all of your life as a way to shape your kids' hearts. go on a mission trip there's many applications okay but here's how i want to close today I feel convicted by this. Man, we need to. I need to. Do a better job in this church of calling out the called.
There are some of you that God has placed or is placing a call on your life. I mean, when I start talking about the mission, your heart burns. When I start talking about planting another church, you start thinking about all the business skills that you have acquired. and everything you're learning at Mercy Hill. And you start to think, man, I could do that.
I could be a part of that. I could be an executive pastor or something like that. Like, I could do it. And you're starting to be drawn to it. I start talking about people that have no witness.
And your heart just breaks for them because you know it would be every bit the tragedy if your kids had never heard the gospel. Where would you be if you had never heard the gospel? I know where I would be. It would not be good. Would not be good.
Your heart begins to burn. You're drawn in.
Okay, here's what we want to do today. I want to give you an opportunity. to take a step. To say, God, here I am, just like we started with that video, here I am, send me. Is it filled with sacrifice?
It's absolutely filled with sacrifice. Man, the ones that decide to step out of vocational ministry. We used to we call it surrendering. to that call. It's surrendering for a reason.
Man, it's hard. You take steps back from the business world. There's a lot that goes into it, okay? But I'm gonna tell you this. If you are called, man, if God has placed that call in your life.
I mean, there's just about nothing else you can do. And you keep putting it off, you keep pushing it away. Today is the day that we take a step and we say, Here I am, send me. That sacrifice is worth it when you realize, man. It's like, man, you know, you gotta realize today, some of us have been wrestling with this call.
You gotta remember. You were crucified with Christ. It is now no longer you, but he who lives in you. And that's what you need to remember today. I think about the one story I've shared before.
Missionary James Calvert, 1838. He's about to disembark in the Fiji Islands. to share the gospel with cannibals. Incredibly dangerous. And the captain of the ship.
Comes to him and says, Man, don't get off the ship. If you get off the ship, you're gonna die, you and your young wife. are gonna be killed. And James Calvert looked back at them and he said, Brother, we died before we came here. I'm dead to that old life.
I'm surrendering everything in me for this cause.
Some of you are drawn to that because God's calling you to that. Man, don't push it away. any longer. Are you a city project student that knows you need to give two years to the mission when you get done? Hey, are you a business owner, business leader right now where you can see how that stuff can translate over into helping churches be planted?
Do you want to give your life to that? You're one of these great fourth quarter families that doesn't want to just golf and collect shells. in your retirement. But man, you wanna get after it and And you don't want to just kind of burn out. You want to flame out, man.
You want to go as hard as you can. all the way to the last The last bell. I don't know if you're a young family that God is calling, place that call in your life. And I pray that you will come forward today. Let's pray, Father.
We come before you. And Lord, we ask right now. God, that you would move in an incredible way. Lord, we're asking that you would Convict.
Well, that your spirit would move. God, I pray today that people who are on the fence about the call that you have placed on their life would take a step. Christ and we pray. Amen.
Yeah.
