Music Well, for the 28th week in a row, we are gathered as one church, but in, well, several, probably several thousand different locations. We always say that in normal times where one church of about 12,000 that meets in 12 locations, during this time, we meet in about 2,400 locations. So many of you are probably in home groups like I'm in right now, comprised of beautiful men and women and children like her here in front of me. And maybe some of you with your families.
If you're not in a home gathering, I would encourage you to get into one because we often say that nobody should worship alone. And this is a great way to do that, even when we can't gather in audiences of a thousand on the weekend. We're in our fourth and final week of a series through our core values. We're calling it Be the Movement. These are four primary values that we have tried to build our church on over the last almost two decades.
The articulations of these things are new, but the concepts are not. We think these are embodied in the life of Jesus. We think they are exemplified by the apostles. They are values that I would say that you would not only build a church on like we've tried to do, but also values that you should build your life on as well. They were, number one, if you remember the first week, Gospel Above All.
I won't do a pop quiz with you, but Gospel Above All, number one. Number two is we do whatever it takes to reach all people. Value number three was, we did last week, we make disciples, not just converts.
And then our fourth value this week, our last one, is that we send every member. There is a myth that a lot of people in the church believe, and that is that calling. We talk about people here that I'm called by God into something. That's like this special mystical moment that a select few of super saints in the body of Christ experience. Sometimes what our college students refer to it as the Cheerios method of discerning the will of God. You know, where you stare into your Cheerios expecting it to just one day spell out what God wants you to do. Be a pastor or be a missionary in Afghanistan or be a doctor or something like that. And if that doesn't happen, then you just are supposed to assume that God expects you to go to church and be a good person and pay your tithes and don't cheat on your spouse, and that's kind of his standard for you.
But I've tried to explain that that's not true. First of all, I stared in my Cheerios for years, and all they ever spelled out was, ooh, over and over and over again. It was the only word that I could discern. But even more importantly, the real truth in the Bible is that the call to leverage your life for the Great Commission was included in the call to follow Jesus. Matthew 4.19, Jesus said, follow me and I will make you a fisher of men, which means that if you're actually following him, what is he doing? He is turning you into a fisher of men. A short way of saying that is that when you accepted the call to follow Jesus, you accepted the call to be sent to missions.
We always say that the question now is no longer if you were called. The question now is simply where and how. For years, this has been a huge part of this church, a core part of our DNA. And honestly, it's probably what we are most known for as a church nationally. By God's grace, we have sent out, get this, 1258 people from our church over the last decade to go on domestic or international church planting teams. These are people that have uprooted their lives from here in the triangle and moved in a full-time way to be a part of a church plant. 597 of those have gone full-time with international, as international missionaries. In fact, if you just take a minute and just think about that, and that's almost 600 people.
I say this, and again, it's by God's grace. Nobody's patting anybody on the back, but most churches get to experience maybe two or three people of their number going out over the course of three or four decades. We've had nearly 600. The International Mission Board that we work with to send a lot of these people tells us that we have seven times more members on the field from our church than the next closest church out of about 50,000 churches in the convention that we're a part of. These people that we have sent out, and by the way, you need to sit back.
There are some things that happen that are so big that you kind of shake your head and say, who but God could have done that? Amen? Amen. Listen, these people that we have sent out have planted, get this, 376 new churches. 376. About 60 are here in the United States.
About 320 are overseas. That makes us right at one-third of our goal of planting 1,000 churches, by the way. That is the result of your generosity, is a result of your faith, and it is a result of your commitment to the Great Commission Summit Church.
By God's grace, he's really done that here. Again, it's what we as a church are known for nationally, but here's the question I want to ask you today. Me, is that true of you?
This idea that you are sent, is that true of you? Every weekend, whether we're in a large group or groups like this, we end our services with a little phrase. You know what that phrase is? Now with me, say, you know it, how do we end every service? Three words.
You are sent. Exactly. When we say that, we're not talking only about the church planters or future church planters or international missionaries. We're saying that to every one of you.
Every member is sent. Y'all, listen, the more that I study the book of Acts, the more I have become convinced that Jesus' plan for reaching the world is not gathering large groups of people to bask in the anointing of one gifted teacher. His plan for reaching the world, his plan for transforming the world for the gospel is raising up ordinary people in the power of the Spirit, ordinary people, and sending them out. So to that end, what I want to do for this fourth value is I want to walk you through the story of one such ordinary guy in the book of Acts who literally changed the world.
And I don't even say that lightly. We always say he changed the world. I mean, he actually changed the world. Christian history shifted because of this guy's life. And what I want to do is I want to show you four convictions that shape the life of this ordinary member of the early church, four convictions that should also shape your life. This man's name is Stephen, and his story begins in Acts 6. So if you got your Bible, I'd love for you to take it out, open it up, turn it on, whatever you got there. And I'm going to walk you through the two chapters that form the basic gist of his life. As you're turning there, Acts 6, let me give you the context.
Stephen, hear this very clearly, because people always get confused on this. I'm going to give you a Bible trivia thing here, okay? Stephen was not an apostle. He was not one of the 12 disciples. Stephen was just a so-called ordinary guy.
Sometimes you hear them referred to as laymen, a layperson. But Stephen's story is going to mark what I would argue is the turning point in the book of Acts. You see, up until this moment in Acts 6, as far as we know, the gospel had yet to leave the borders of Jerusalem, even though Jesus had clearly said in Acts 1-8 that he wanted the apostles to carry the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth, all right? It's still, by the time we get to Acts 6, it hadn't done that yet.
Now, it's been an exciting ride with 3,000 people getting saved in a day, and then you've got miracles, and you've got people getting struck dead in the offering, and so there's been a lot of things that have been happening. But the point is, by the time you get to Acts 6, the apostles and the early church are still huddled together in Jerusalem, holding hands in one big small group, singing, you know, kumbaya. That all is going to change with the story of Stephen. In chapter 6, Stephen gets selected to help deliver food to widows so that the apostles can devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. What you should hear from that, by the way, is that Stephen's job, in one sense, was not really that important. Stephen was not an elected teacher. He wasn't an elected group president. He didn't write any books.
He didn't get asked to speak at any conferences. He was not considered to be one of the theological or missional leaders of the early church. He was just a table waiter. I mean, he was the Meals on Wheels of the early church. Yet Acts 6, 7 tells you that this servant, Stephen, did his job so well, and his witness was so full of the spirit and so compelling that it got the attention of a lot of people in the community, including a lot of Jewish priests, who began to turn in large numbers to faith in Christ. Well, that, of course, got the attention of the Sanhedrin. That was the group, like the ruling group of Jews, and they didn't like that, that a lot of people were coming to faith in Christ, so they began to try to discredit Stephen. I love this verse, Acts 6, 10.
Yet they could not withstand all these trained guys that got more degrees on their walls than thermometers. They couldn't withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which this ordinary untrained layman, who had never been to seminary, the wisdom and power with which he was speaking. In Acts 7 they drag him before the Jewish council where Stephen proceeds to give the longest recorded and least seeker friendly sermon, I might add, in the entire Bible. The basic point of the sermon in Acts 7 that Stephen delivers there before the Sanhedrin is, you Jews killed all the other prophets and that's why you killed Jesus too. The message reaches a crescendo at the end of chapter 7, and that's where we're actually gonna start reading.
This is the end of Stephen's message. Now, when they heard these things, they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. I've had some bad reactions to sermons of mine, but I'm happy to tell you that that has never happened to me right there.
Whatever it is, it sounds terrifying. Verse 55, yet Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, behold, I see this heavens open and I see the Son of Man, Jesus, standing right there at the right hand of God.
But they cried out with a loud voice and they stopped their ears and they rushed together at him. Then they cast Stephen out of the city and they stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. By the way, if you've read the book of Acts, you know that this young man is gonna change his name in a few years to Paul, and he's gonna become the greatest apostle of all of them and the greatest missionary we've ever known, yet at this point, he still hates Jesus, he's still killing Christians, and he's going by the name of Saul. As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And then Stephen, falling to his knees, cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
Now, watch this. In your Bible, I bet there's a chapter break right there at the end of chapter seven, right? I would suggest to you that's an unfortunate place for a chapter break. By the way, in the original writing of the Bible, the Holy Spirit did not inspire chapter breaks, so I'm not, like, correcting the Holy Spirit when I say that, okay?
We added those later. But I would say that this is not a good place for one because Stephen's story doesn't end there at the end of chapter seven. Stephen's story continues on into chapter eight.
Watch this. There arose on that day, what day is he talking about? He's talking about the day of Stephen's martyrdom, a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, watch this, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of, look at these two words, Judea and Samaria, right? Remember Acts 1-8? That's where the Gospel's supposed to go. Now, look at these next three words.
So important. Except the apostles. The apostles were not included in those who were scattered, and those who were scattered went about preaching the Word.
Y'all, listen, first, there it is. First time the Gospel leaves the borders of Jerusalem, and I want you to let this sink in. First time the Gospel goes outside of the borders. Not a single apostle is involved.
Not even indirectly. It's Stephen's service that provokes the trial. It's Stephen's testimony that provokes the riot. And of all those who leave preaching the Word, right? By the way, when I say preaching the Word, I don't mean what I do, like professionally.
I mean just like telling others about Jesus. Of all those who left preaching the Word, Luke, the writer of Acts, goes out of his way to point out that not a single one of the apostles was included. See, I believe Stephen's story is given to us as an example of how the Gospel expands globally. You see, Stephen's story comes at this pivotal moment in the book of Acts. Like scholars say, Acts 180 is your key verse in the book of Acts.
It lays out the outline for the book. The Gospel's gonna go from Jerusalem, Judea to Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth, right? And so by the time we get to Acts 8, it hadn't happened, and at this pivotal moment where it does, what you have at the center of that story is not an apostle. It's Stephen. Stephen is a picture of the so-called ordinary Christian in the church, what they should look like. He gives you, he shows you what they should look like and what will happen in the world when they do. Stephen is a picture of every member, showing you all every member, not just the spiritual ones, right? How every member is sent, right? Not just the ones who've been to seminary, not just the ones who know a ton about the Bible, not just the ones who have squeaky, clean paths. All Christians are to live sin. If you've been a Christian for 10 minutes, right, you got saved during our worship set previously, you were sent.
You, all of you, you are sent. So here is the first of those four convictions I told you that shaped Stephen's life, four convictions, I would say, of those who transformed the world. Number one, God wants to use me. Listen, these are not deep or profound.
They're very simple. God wants to use me. We come at church and our guests here, I hope I've said this enough to you that it is drilled into your subconscious. You, God wants to use you. Historically, ordinary believers like Stephen have always been the tip of the gospel spear.
He's got an intention to use you in the life of somebody to bring them from darkness to light. If you go back and you study, if you study Christian history, what you'll see is that the gospel has always traveled around the world faster through the wings of business than it has through apostolic effort. There's a writer named Stephen Neal. He's a church historian. He wrote a classic book called The History of Christian Missions.
He said the only thing that was more remarkable than the rapidity of the spread of the gospel in the first century was its anonymity. He said by the time you get to the end of the first century, 99 AD, he said you've got three major church planting centers, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. He said what they all have in common is that we have no idea who founded the churches in Antioch, Alexandria, or Rome.
No idea. No famous apostle founded any of those churches. The founding of the church in Antioch is actually recorded for us in Acts 11. You could read it later. All it says, I'll give you a little spoiler here. All it says is some brothers, some brothers moved to Antioch, and the hand of the Lord was with them.
And they planted a church in Antioch. Them. Everybody say them. Them, right? Them means a bunch of guys who's, they're like the credits at the end of the movie, like bystander number three. A bunch of guys whose names I'm not going to mention because you've never heard of them, and you probably won't hear about them again anyway. Just ordinary guys. Yet these ordinary men and women planted a church that would one day send out the apostle Paul and become the greatest mission-sending church in the first century. And good news, we're all part of the them. You haven't all been to seminary.
You don't have a professional ministry job, but you're part of the them, and that means you're God's plan A for impacting the world. Hey, I would tell you the same thing is true today. The same thing is true today. You look at where Christianity is spreading fastest in the world, and you won't find people like me.
You'll find people like you. I read this recently that if you add up all the evangelical missionaries, meaning just in churches similar, somewhat similar to ours, you have a denomination in the world that are working in what we call the 1040 window. You know the 1040 window between the 10th and 40th parallel where all the unreached people groups are, places like China, India, Afghanistan, Indonesia, places like that. If you add up all the missionaries from all denominations, the total number is 40,000.
By the way, praise God for that. We need 10 times that many, all right? 40,000. If you add up, get this, the number of Americans, just U.S. citizens, that are working in so-called secular employment, meaning they're doctors or whatever, you know, over there, educators, that number right now, as I stand here before you, that number is 2 million. Now, U.S. citizens, 30-some percent identify as born again. Let's just all look at each other and acknowledge that's not really true. Two-thirds of them are not serious about their faith. So let's just take two-thirds off, and let's just take a third of that number.
In fact, let's cut that in half just to be on the conservative side. You understand that if just 7 or 8% of those people that were there understood, right, because they identify as born-again Christians, they understood that their primary role in life where God sends them is to be a disciple-making disciple, and they saw themselves as sent, even in a secular job, you understand, see, listen, that that would take the number of missionaries in the 1040 window from 40,000 to 240,000, and it wouldn't cost the church another dime, right? I actually got to see this up close, and I'm sure I've told you this story before, but my dad's never been paid a dime for ministry in his life.
Never in full-time ministry. He was the plant manager of a textile factory. When he retired, literally the day that he retired, his company called him back in that afternoon, said, congratulations on your retirement.
We'd like to rehire you to now go overseas and set up a plant for us. It's right in the middle of the 1040 window. They didn't call it the 1040 window, but that's where it was, and so my mom and he for about 18 months go over there, and she's one of the members with East Asian businessmen that I could never get close to on a short-term mission trip, handing out water bottles or doing an Internet cafe. While he was there, he was able to lead a couple of these men to Christ and be a part of an early, you know, kind of an early church plant over there, right? You know what the total cost to our church was for that? Zero dollars. In fact, we made money on the deal because he kept hiving the whole time that he was over there, right?
It's the nature of how the Great Commission's gonna go forward. I could tell you about the Parkers who moved to North Africa recently from our church to run a CrossFit gym over there. I could tell you about Craig, who's the head of an engineering firm in South Asia, or Kevin, a former firefighter who now builds wells in Central Asia. I could tell you about Samantha, who's a woman that's working in a red-light district in Central Asia who's doing wellness and hygiene training for young women there. I could tell you about Rachel, who's a counselor who works with abuse victims but is just choosing to do it in a place outside the United States as a part of one of our church planting teams.
Or Cameron, who runs a textile manufacturing shop overseas. Or Jessica, who's an elementary ed major who teaches missionary kits. I could also tell you about countless people who've gone with one of our domestic church plants and pursued their careers in a city where we're doing something strategic, places like Denver, Orlando, Atlanta, Miami, or even the Dominican Republic, and I know that's not really part of the United States, but you understand, the people that we have mobilized to do their job in a place where they can use it as a part of a church plant. Let me give you a vision for following Jesus, whether you feel called to ministry or not. Here's your vision for following Jesus. Whatever God made you good at, and He didn't make all of you good at being preachers, public speakers, or worship leaders, or writers, but whatever He made you good at, you should do that well to the glory of God, but why not also do it somewhere strategic for the mission of God? Of all the factors that go into where you pursue your career, why wouldn't the kingdom of God be the largest of those factors? That's living sin. Here's the second conviction that we see from Stephen's life.
It's going to go hand in hand with the first one. Number two, the Holy Spirit fills me. You know what makes Stephen remarkable is his confidence, a confidence that stares down the Sanhedrin, a confidence that he apparently gained from an awareness of the fullness of the Spirit within him. The most common characteristic that is repeated about Stephen was that he was filled with the Spirit. What gives ordinary people such extraordinary confidence and effectiveness is the knowledge of the power of the Spirit within them. All believers, of course, have the Holy Spirit, right? So you have that, but what gives you confidence like Stephen is your awareness, your knowledge of the Spirit within you. I'm going to get on very familiar territory here for the Summit Church, but you know, Jesus made such extraordinary promises when it comes to the power and the potential of the Spirit in believers.
They are so staggering that if you don't consciously pay attention to them, they get right over your head. I'll give you one, one of my favorites. If you've been around the church, you've heard me talk about this one. Number seven, nevertheless, I tell you the truth.
By the way, stop right there. Jesus was not in the habit of telling lies. He didn't have to clarify like, hey, actually, I'm about to be serious.
No, whenever he says something like that, it's because what he is about to say is so kind of mind-blowing. If you don't turn your mind on, it'll go right over your head, and that's what happens with this verse. It is to your, see the next word, advantage. It's to your advantage that I go away because if I don't go away, that's what we ask about this verse.
Put yourself honestly in this situation. How absurd must that have sounded to those first disciples? It's to my advantage that Jesus... How awesome, think about it, how awesome would it be if Jesus was your ministry commander or your roommate? You come back in after a tough day of ministry and you got a theological question about Calvinism, bam, Jesus answers it right there.
He gives you a perfect answer, right? At your small group, they run out of checks mix. Bam, Jesus multiplies the checks mix so that there's 12 baskets left over. Your dog dies, right?
You're sad. Bam, Jesus raises your dog back from the dead. Your cat dies. Jesus digs a hole, buries that cat, gets rid of it forever. That's like my favorite joke to tell at the Summit Church, and I know some of you are already composing an angry email, but yes, Jesus loves cats, but not as much as dogs, and surely not as much as people, but you know what I mean, okay? That's probably not exactly what it would be like if you had a chance to be friends with Jesus, side by side with Jesus, how awesome would that be?
Yet, Jesus is telling them, and he's saying, I'm not even exaggerating that if you understood who the Spirit was and if you understood what the potential of the Spirit was, you'd be more excited to have him inside of you even than me besides you, right? I mean, if I told you guys that I was resigning, I'd hope you'd be sad, you know, if I was your pastor, right? I hope you'd be sad, but if I'm like, next week, God's gonna teach you on the livestream is Jesus of Nazareth, he's gonna be the new pastor.
I mean, you'd be calling all your friends, right? Like, you're not gonna believe that Jesus is gonna be our pastor. He'd be way better than our other pastor, right? Are you as excited that there in your home group, wherever you are, you've got the Spirit of God in you as you would be if Jesus came to be your new pastor? If not, doesn't that show you that you haven't grasped whatever it is that he is promising there in that verse? God's plan to reach the world is just ordinary people filled with the extraordinary Spirit and just walking in obedience to him. And he says that they're gonna have a collectively greater impact than if Jesus himself stayed.
Stop thinking about how incapable or unqualified you are. Don't you understand that because the Holy Spirit is in you, because it's the Spirit of God who does it through you, don't you understand that it's now more about your availability than it is your ability? Because, see, the Holy Spirit can do more through one surrendered vessel than the most talented and richest people in the world could accomplish on their own. By the way, we got a really good example of that in the last part of Acts 8. There's Philip, who's another ordinary guy, not an apostle, who's directed by the Spirit to go up in obedience to the Spirit. He goes up out in this little dusty road out in the middle of nowhere, and he's like, Why am I here? And the Spirit of God is like, Just trust me. Just stay here for a minute.
And he's kind of standing there looking around. All of a sudden, the guy comes down the road that is in a chariot that we call now the Ethiopian eunuch, and the Ethiopian eunuch is reading from the book of Isaiah and doesn't know what he's reading, and the Spirit directs Philip to go up in the chariot with him and explain the gospel to him, and that guy gets saved, and he gets baptized. Eusebius, who was the third century, fourth century church historian, says that that Ethiopian eunuch went back to sub-Saharan Africa where he was from and planted a church and started a church planting movement that is still in existence today. One act of obedience by an ordinary person, the Spirit used that to accomplish more than all the apostles have been able to accomplish in seven chapters up to that point in the cause of world missions. I need you to understand that the Spirit is still doing that today. He's still using ordinary people just like you and just like me to do extraordinary things if they'll just listen to him.
So that's my question. Are you listening to him? The Holy Spirit shows up 59 times in the book of Acts, 59. In 36 of those 59, he is speaking. I told you what's frustrating about that is it doesn't always tell us exactly how he speaks.
It doesn't say, like, you know, everybody, like, you got a message on your, you know, cell phone, or everybody thought the same thing at once, or, you know. It just says he speaks. By the way, I think that ambiguity is intentional because Scripture never wants, God never wants us to put as much confidence in what we think the Spirit is saying as what we do what the Bible actually says. But he speaks.
Acts 13, 2, the Holy Spirit said to the church, separate Barnabas and Paul for a missionary calling. There might be ambiguity in how he speaks, but there is no ambiguity in whether he speaks. And I would even say right now he's speaking to some of you, right?
You listening to him? He's stirring in you. And he's like, hey, I got something for you. Can you just respond and say, yes, Lord, I'm ready. I'm ready to go where you tell me to go. Here am I, Lord, send me. Are you listening? By the way, you wanna get that conversation started?
We'll help you explore it. Just text the word sendme, S-E-N-D-M-E, all one word, to 33933. Just send that, send me, and you're not committing anything.
We'll just get the conversation started, all right? Conviction number three, let me keep moving. Conviction number three, as Jesus was to me, so I will be to others. Verse 59 might be my favorite part of this whole passage.
Look at this. Because what it does, before I read diversity, it gives you a window into Stephen's soul, showing you what he was thinking about at the very moment of his death. Verse 59, as they were stoning Stephen, as the life was literally draining out of him, he called out, Lord Jesus, perceive my spirit. And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
Question, where have you heard those two phrases before? Right, Lord Jesus, perceive my spirit, and Lord, do not hold this sin against them. Are they not almost identical to what Jesus said when he died on the cross? Jesus said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit, and Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do. You know, it seems that in Stephen's dying moments, Stephen was thinking about what Jesus had prayed on the cross for him. And now he is praying that for others, all right? Get your mind around that. What Stephen saw Jesus do for him, he's now doing for others, because that's what it means to follow Jesus. It means to look at your life like a sacrifice for others, the way that Jesus sacrificed himself for you.
Let me ask you a very practical question, okay? I want all of you to think about it. Where would you be, where would you be, if Jesus chosen not to come and die for you?
He didn't have to. If he'd chosen that, where would you be? Let me give you sort of a twist on the answer.
You'd be at exactly the same place that millions of people in the world are without you. Why do I say that? The act of salvation is not complete until people hear about it. They have to believe, they have to hear to believe, they have to believe to be saved. That's what I used to say. It wouldn't matter if Jesus died a thousand times if nobody ever heard about it.
Carl F.H. Henry, a theologian, said, the gospel is only good news for somebody if it gets to them in time. If it doesn't get to them in time, it's not actually good news. And see, friends, that demands something of us. Let me just ask you, have you wrestled with the obligations that you and I owe to the gospel? Have you squarely faced the fact that 2.8 billion people in the world have little to no access to the gospel? People who were no more unworthy of the gospel than you or me, people that are made in the image of God like us. I think of a place like northern Yemen has a population of 8 million, almost the size of North Carolina. You know how many believers there are in that whole nation of 8 million?
20 or 30. Every single one of them is made in the image of God like you. They know what it's like to be afraid.
They hurt like you. They know what it's like to be lonely and lost. Is it fair for you and me to know so much about a God who did everything and do so little to take the gospel to people who know nothing? I think sometimes, y'all, I think sometimes about being in heaven and meeting somebody up there that is there because I shared the gospel with them or because I sacrificially gave and somebody else shared the gospel with them. These people I'm going to spend eternity with, and they're going to be my brothers and sisters, and I'm going to learn over the course of 10,000 years to love them. And sometimes I think, like, won't I be grateful then when I've gotten to know and love this person that I did what it took to be able to get the gospel to them?
I mean, I know them that well. Now I may never see their face, but I know I'll be glad then that I did what I needed to do so they could be saved. Don't you think that's the way that you're going to feel, too? See, friend, if Jesus sacrificed himself to save us, it makes sense that we ought to sacrifice ourselves to bring salvation to them, just like Stephen did for his countrymen. For some of you, that means that you're going to leave here and move somewhere to take the gospel For others, it means you're going to give like crazy so that other people can go. So conviction number three is, as Jesus was to me, so I will be to others.
Conviction number four, last one. Conviction number four is that Jesus is worth it. Y'all, let's return one final time to Acts 7. As they began to hurl stones at Stephen, Stephen says, verse 56, Behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Scholars point out that Stephen's standing here is odd because everywhere else in the Bible that we see Jesus at the right hand of God, he is sitting. It's actually an important theological point because it's showing that he is finished with the work of salvation, yet here he is standing. Why is he in this one place standing? Well, the only answer is he is standing to receive home his son. The world, it seems, has risen up in unison against Stephen to tell Stephen that he is a fool, a traitor, that his life is a waste.
Y'all, and it's almost like Jesus can't contain himself. He stands up and he says, no. Well done, good and faithful servant. They're calling you heretic. I'm going to welcome you home.
Y'all, and Stephen looks up with face beaming with angelic brightness, and Stephen says, in essence, yes, I see him. It's worth it. I'll tell you, the only thing that will give you the power to live a life of truly being sent is a deep conviction in your soul that Jesus is worth it.
Whatever you got to walk away from, he's better and he's worth it. And we like to talk here in this church about how coming to Jesus brings peace and makes your family whole and brings fulfillment, and that's all true. But at some point, you understand, if you're really serious about following Jesus, obedience to him is going to take you 180 degrees opposite of the direction that you think you want to go.
And in that moment, in that moment, the only thing that will compel you forward to go all the way is the belief that Jesus is worth it. And there's a story I love to tell here and I'll tell it quickly, but I think it just so encaptures this and some of you heard this before, but I spent the first two years of my ministry over in one of these unreached people groups over in Southeast Asia. After I'd been there a few months, I got a call one night from a Christian friend who lived about three hours south of me and he had a guy with him and he said, hey, I need you to come and I need you to meet me at the place.
I was like, who is it? He said, you know, he got real quiet. He's like, you know, they're listening. It was true because our phones were bugged and he said, just meet me at the place. I knew where that was, but it was three hours away so I had to go out, find a bus, middle of the night, three hours down to this place, go to the place and I go in and these two guys are sitting there and my friend looks at this guy and says, okay, tell him what you told me. This guy's name was Fajar. Fajar was a 32-year-old Muslim and Fajar said, he starts to say to me through the language because I was still learning and he didn't speak English, so he says through my friend, he says, well, he said about a month ago I had this, I don't know what you call it, dream. It wasn't really like a dream, he said, but in this dream I was standing in this field and as far as I could see in front of me, behind me, to the right, to the left, he said there was nothing and I walked for what felt like days in this field and he stopped and he said, I felt like that field is supposed to represent my life because I just feel lost. He said, after walking for what felt like days I suddenly heard a voice behind me and I turned around and there was this, I don't know what you call him, a man. He's towered above me, he was dressed in this white robe, his face, sparta matahati is a word to use, I remember that.
Like the sun, it just shone in its brilliance. And he reached inside of his robe and he pulled out a copy of, he called it the Injil, that's their word for gospel, pulled out a copy of the gospel and said, Fajar, this is the only thing that will get you out of this field. He said, I pulled back because that was Christian and I am Muslim and I could not touch it. He said, I woke up immediately and I knew that I made a terrible mistake. He said, next night I went to sleep, I had the exact same dream.
Again, I walked for what felt like days in this field and again this man appeared and reached out the Injil and said, take this, it will get you out of this field. He said, this time I wanted to take it, I wanted to but I couldn't get the strength in my hands to do it. And he said, I woke up suddenly. He said, I knew I'd made another terrible mistake.
He said, third night, I didn't even want to go to sleep. He said, I was afraid. And he said, sure enough, the moment I closed my eyes in sleep, it was me and him in that field and this time there was no walking, just me and him. And he looked at me and said, this is the last time I will tell you this is the only thing that will get you out of this field. He said, I watched in my dream, my hands, they were trembling. He said, I wouldn't even, felt like I wasn't even in control of them.
They just reached up and they took that copy of the Injil. He said, I pulled it in and I hugged it into my chest. He said, I woke up peacefully in my bed the next morning. He said, looked at me and he said, now my friend tells me that you are expert at Injil. He said, please tell me what my dream means.
Now y'all, I grew up in a, a really conservative Baptist church, okay. And I'm just gonna tell you, we didn't do dreams and the interpretation thereof on the reg. But I knew exactly what to say in that moment.
I was like, bro, you were so in luck. Dream interpretation is my spiritual gift. And I was like, translate that. So I sat there, listen, I sat there for the next two hours till the wee hours of the morning explained to him, just really just going from Genesis to Revelation, how Jesus had done everything and who Jesus was. And I got to the part in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus dies on the cross and I'll never forget these big old tears. I see them well up in his eyes and he says, you're telling me that this is God the creator that is dying for me. And I said, well, yeah, I remember he just said, he held out his hands. He said, Allahu Akbar, which is their way of saying God is the greatest. And I was like, well, we got some discipleship to do.
But anyway, it was awesome. And he said, God is the greatest. And we get to the end and I was like, do you wanna trust Jesus as your savior?
Do you wanna become a Christian? And he said, oh, with all my heart. And I was like, well, I mean, I only know one way to do this. You know, every head bowed, every eye closed, let me lead you in the sinner's prayer. He bows his head and I start leading him in this sinner's prayer. We get about two phrases in, about two phrases in and I was like, I was like, stop.
I was just kind of overwhelmed. I said, Fajar, you understand that this is a big deal. When you trust Jesus, your life changes. When your life changes, you get baptized.
And if you get baptized, you know that you might get cut off from your family and you might get, lose your job and you and I both know people that have been killed because of this in this city. And never forget, he looks up in a big old smile. He says, of course I know that.
He said, why do you think it took me a month to work out the courage to come and talk to you? He said, but in that month, I decided that if this Jesus was who you Christian said he was, right, and if Jesus did for me what you Christian said he did, then I would go with him, listen to this, I would go with him regardless of what I had to leave behind. Now, at that point, I was like, I feel like you need to lead me in the sinner's prayer because I think I might need to get saved again. In the heart of every true Christian, when I tell that story, there's something in you that rises up and says, yes, yes, yes, Fajar, he's worth it, even if it cost you everything. Let me just say this, and I say this as humbly but directly as I can to the Summit Church. It is hypocritical for you and I to say amen to Fajar and then not be willing to do what it takes to get the gospel to people like Fajar. The cost to follow Jesus in places like Southeast Asia is severe. The cost to get the gospel to places like Southeast Asia is severe. And the only thing that will compel you to go all the way, to do the hard work, to leave your family and endure the hardships and loneliness of missionary life is a sight of the worthiness of Jesus.
Is he worth it? At some point, you've got to decide who is worthy or what is worthy of the offering of your life if Jesus is worthy of your absolute total and unconditional obedience. Listen, what is it that you're trying to please? What's waiting for you?
What's standing by the throne of God? Your parents love you but Jesus created you. And then Jesus died to redeem you. I'll tell you, your parents are awesome but they're not going to be waiting for you at the end to receive you into eternity and you're not going to be standing around their throne proclaiming their worthiness for eternity. A job is a great thing to pursue and it can provide a lot of benefits but it's nothing to give your life for.
Your parents are precious, your dreams are important, your career hopes are bright but none of those things is worth the offering of your life. Jesus is worthy of it. He is the only one that is worthy for by his will, Paul said, all things are created. By his blood, we were redeemed for his glory.
We now exist. Jesus is worthy. You only got one life and you got to dedicate it to something. You got to give it away to something.
You got to make it count. So here's my charge to you. My charge to you is to be sent. We send every member with these convictions. There are three ways you can be sent.
Right here at the Summit Church, locally. You're like, what do I do locally being sent? I want you to go to neighboring training. We do those on the regular, on the regular campuses.
You'll hear about it, it's yours at some point. All right, you can engage those in your community. It teaches you to be sent here. You can get engaged in some of our disaster relief that we're doing in different places locally and around the country.
That's a way to be sent locally, domestically. We got five church plans going out this year. One of them's going to Orlando, one of them's going to Miami, to Myrtle Beach, to the Republic, yes, we got a thing for awesome beaches and church plants. And St. Louis, which has an awesome beach. No, I'm kidding.
It has that arch, but no beach anywhere near. But we get interest meetings for all of those. Those church plans are going out this year. We got interest meetings happening in October. Maybe this is your year, maybe this year is your year to actually move from Raleigh-Durham and go on one of those, internationally. I know this is a crazy time to be thinking about moving to another country, but for many of you, that's what God's stirring in your heart.
First step, international church planning cohort. That's where you can learn about this kind of life. You can explore it. It's not a commitment.
It's just a way you can keep your hands open to see what God has in store for you. Maybe you want to find out about a short-term trip. That's like a seven- to ten-day trip that we send overseas.
Obviously, we haven't been able to do that right now in the season, but we're already planning for the future, and you can start to get in and find out which ones are kind of in the queue. We also are currently doing some of the places in North Carolina and even places in the country to do disaster relief with Baptist men and other groups that are working on that. College students, young professionals, I need you to be thinking about all of these things, all these ways of being sent, because God has a plan for your life, and this is a great time in your life for you to think about how you're supposed to be sent with your career and your life. I wrote a book that's getting ready to come out. It's called What Are You Gonna Do With Your Life?
It's not just for students, and it's not just for young professionals, but it certainly is very applicable to them. And so we would, you know, it's one that is coming out here in a few weeks. They're doing pre-orders right now.
Through the Summit Church, if you get one, it's like 40% off, and if you buy one, they give you the next one free. I need you to understand, I don't make a dime off of these things. All of that money goes back into our missions.
We're taking all the money from this and putting it into that, so I'm not trying to promote that for any reason like that. But if you're a college student, a young professional, or you know one, right, this is a great time to do it for maybe Christmas or somebody, because it asks this question. How are you making your life count for eternity? You know, everything is crazy right now, isn't it?
What better time to rethink your life than when nothing is normal? All right, so for all that I just said, if any of that interested you, text SENDME, S-E-N-D-M-E, one word, to 33933. It'll immediately, somebody will get back to you. You're not committing anything, but it'll give you all the things that I just mentioned, and you can check which ones you're interested in, and they'll start that dialogue.
It's not a commitment. It starts a dialogue. So right now, text S-E-N-D-M-E to 33933. Four convictions that shape Stephen's life that should shape yours, too. God wants to use me. God wants, or the Holy Spirit feels me. As Jesus was to me, so will I be to others. Jesus is worth it. These are the four convictions of those who shape and change the world.
Do they shape your life? Why don't we bow our heads and let's pray, okay? Everybody bow their heads in our home groups and right here in front of me. My wife and I, once a year, we'll say, God, we love where we are. We love the triangle. Is this the year that you're moving us and sending us somewhere else?
Overseas. Every year thus far, God said, nope, I've got you right where I want you, and we know that we're sent here. But right now, could I get you, with head bowed, if you can pray this from sincerity, could you say this to God right now? Could you say, Lord, I'm all yours? I'm all yours completely.
Can you say that? Right now, from your heart. Lord, I'm all yours.
100% of me completely. I surrender all to you. I'll go where you tell me to go and do what you tell me to do.
Can you say that? Lord, I'm listening. Here am I.
Send me. Father, thank you for those that put their yes on the table because we believe that you're gonna put it somewhere strategically on the map. In Jesus' name, amen. I'm Reed. I'm Emily, and this fall, we will be moving to London to join the Redeemer Queens Park Church Plant there.
And I'll be attending University College London, studying a master's program in engineering for international development. One day, I saw, I think on Instagram, that there were new church plants being announced, and I saw Thomas and Elizabeth would be planting a church in London, and it sparked my interest. I really felt God saying, you all need to pursue this. This is for you, and this is right. And I told Reed after church, and he was thrilled.
Yeah, I mean, I was really excited about the opportunity, too. So we introduced ourselves, and we started going to some of the interest meetings at the West's house in Raleigh, and then we agreed to go on a vision trip January 2019 to London, and that was when the Lord really made it apparent that this is what he had called us to do. Yeah, I think we have wrestled with what our lives are gonna look like in the future. There's so many clear reasons for us to live our lives strategically for the gospel, and for us, that looks like, okay, right now we need to be obedient to what we know we're called to.
Our call is to glorify God in any way we can with our lives, and to make His name great, and to make disciples of all nations. And so for me, it sort of just became apparent that London is so strategic as a city that has so many people from so many walks of life. If I want to be someone who makes disciples of all nations, then London is like a logical choice for me. If I could share the gospel with someone who I could teach how to share the gospel with others, who looks differently than me, then that person could then change the world. So that's one thing that's exciting about London for me is that there's so much potential for the Great Commission to be fulfilled because there's so many different tribes and tongues there that we can teach to be disciples that can make disciples. So that's really exciting.
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