Get Connected // Going together on Mission // Pastor Josh Evans

Amen. Amen. Amen. He is worthy. And he is so worthy of our, our praise today. And I love that song.

And I'll tell you, I have I have a lot of different songs that I really enjoy. And that is one of them. So if you get tired of singing that, listen, I'm just telling you anytime Bob's like, what should I fit in here?

I'm always like, where are these the land? That's a good one. And so I love love that song because it reminds me I think that's going to be similar to what Bob was saying. It's going to be similar to us in heaven. And I think that's what it's going to be.

And I know we we fantasize and we think about what heaven is really going to look like one day. And I don't know how everything's going to be. Maybe we're going to know everybody and things that I don't know how all that is.

And I have questions about that as well. But I think the only person that we're going to really be excited to see is going to be Jesus on his on the right hand of the Father in heaven. And, and I think we're going to all gather there for eternity to come just praising God and singing worthy is the lamb every tribe, tongue race, everybody all across the world gathered together, they're together. And that's what I'm excited about. And I'm looking forward to it. So that's just a little glimpse, a little taste of what heaven's going to be say, man, I don't really like to sing. Well, listen, something's gonna you're gonna get a changed body in heaven where you're going to be singing to him.

Okay. And, and so why don't we just practice enjoy it now. And let's sing lift our voices together. If you have your Bible, go to Acts chapter number one, Acts chapter number one here today. And we are concluding a series entitled get connected here today. In fact, let's say that together get connected.

And this is just a brief four week series. We've had so many people joining our church and visiting our church over the last couple of months that God really wanted us to take some time and look at what the church is and, and take some time and really dig on on exactly what the church is. We've touched on mission and values and things like that during this this series. But if you're like me, and many of you are, I've asked you this before, but if you're like me, you sometimes you grew up in church, right? And, and I did as well. So I've been at church, you know, my parents used to say every time the doors open, right?

How many of you had parents like that? Okay. And so my mind was same, same. So it did not matter, you know, snowstorm happens. Guess what our church didn't cancel for nothing. And the only reason that is, is because the pastor lived on site there at the church. And so he was just like, Hey, I'll walk over and go to church no matter what everybody else is like risking their life to get there.

You know what I'm talking about. And so that's what my dad was like, man, we go we're going Josh, we're going I'm like, Dad, I'd rather play in the snow. There's a good snowman I could build outside, you know, he's like, we're going so Sunday, I'd be there with like two other kids. Other people, I am committed, you know, desperate, deeply into the local church. I mean, it's been a part of my life, you know, since since I was born. But here's what I know about church. And if we're honest with everybody else in this room, because everybody goes through seasons like this, where church can just become routine, or a habit, and just a place that we come to once a week, or twice a week.

Right. And, and sometimes we just show up here. And we leave here.

And we might we might see somebody who maybe makes a spiritual decision or, or you can see like revival happening in somebody's life. And, and you're kind of walking in and out every week. And you're just kind of like, man, I'm not getting what so and so is getting or I'm just coming and, and nothing's happening or whatever.

Perhaps it's because you have lost sense of the reason why it is important for the church to be the church and to gather and worship. And I hope that this series has been an opportunity for you to kind of peel back some of that layer of routine and, and really start to look like, hey, am I accomplishing and doing everything what God says the church should be doing? Am I a part of this?

Am I deeply invested? So we looked in this series, week one was about the weekly gathering. And let me tell you this, being here is important. Being here is important.

And, and I could talk on that for a whole nother hour. But I'll tell you this, just being here is important. It's not for attendance sake.

It's not for number of sake. In fact, it's important because I believe gathering together is a scriptural mandate for your family. So parents, I encourage you be in church. When the doors are open, we looked at that week one, the second week we looked at was the importance of community was community being a part of a local church community. And let me tell you this, that for some of you, if all you do is come and you sit on a seat every single week, look, you are only fulfilling a small portion of what the church is there for it to fulfill in your life. I want to encourage you go deeper, find community, find friends in the local church.

That's the way that it designed for. We looked at Acts chapter two with that. Acts chapter two. Remember, when the early church began, what did they do? They went from house to house, breaking bread, fellowshiping, praising God together.

That's what they were doing. They were eating together, they were doing life with other believers. Last week, we looked at the importance of serving in the church, spiritual gifts, every single Christian has been gifted by God to serve.

I love sitting back at VBS and just watching. Many of you use your gifts, and you use your gifts to see people come to know Jesus as their Savior. And that's what's amazing. And what I tell our volunteers all the time is when you serve and use your gift and someone trusts Jesus as Savior, we all had a part in that. And when all of us are using our gifts, that's when the body of Christ is edified. Ephesians chapter four, that's when the work of the ministry gets done.

And all of that. So it's important that every single one of you understand where God's gifted you and use those in the local church. Today, we're going to talk about this idea of going together on mission, going together on mission as a church.

And this is for everybody. Okay, look at your neighbor and say this is for you right now. Okay.

I don't I don't want you to think because anytime we talk about mission, anytime we talk about mission, here's what normally happens. Okay, I'm going to tune out. I hope the pastoral staff's listening. Right?

I'm going to turn out. Hey, those Bible fellowship teachers, I hope they're paying attention. That deacon board, I hope they're listening. I hope they're paying attention and things like that.

And I will tell you this, I hope that they are okay. So if you are a staff member, you still need to tune in. If you're a deacon or Bible fellowship teacher, tune in. Okay, but I want you to know that the mandate of going out and living on mission and being a part of God's mission to the church for every Christian, every single one of you. So there's not if you are in here today, and you say, I'm a Christian, I'm a born again follower of Jesus. This is for you.

This mandate this commission, it is for for you. And we see that here in Acts chapter number number one, it says this verse one, the former treaties have I made Otheophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and and teach the former treaties is referring to Luke, Luke is the writer of the book of acts. In fact, Luke kind of talks directly to the beginning of Jesus's work, whereas acts is actually the continuation of his work through the Holy Spirit of God verse two until the day in which he was taken up. After that he threw the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles, whom he had chosen, to whom also he showed himself alive, after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them 40 days, and speaking the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem. But wait, if you mark in your Bible mark the word wait for the promise of the Father, which say if he ye have heard of me, for John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence. So let me give you and then we'll keep reading.

I want to give you a little bit of context here what's happening. Jesus is on a hillside. So this is after the death and the burial and resurrection and Jesus has gathered his apostles on this this hillside, and he's about to ascend into heaven. Up to this point, he had revealed himself, the resurrected Son of God had revealed himself to clearly the apostles, he had revealed himself to Mary, he had revealed himself to 500 men at one time, and all of them could see him and recognize that Jesus was exactly who he said he was, that he was the long awaited Messiah, the one sent down from heaven. And so everybody realized this, he was revealing himself that Jesus was exactly who he said he was, and that he was going to resurrect from the dead. And this proved it.

This proved it right here in this in this moment. And he tells them this before he sends a sends up into heaven, he tells the apostles to wait to wait. Now, he just gave them or he's about to give them this incredible commission, right? This incredible commission, he's about to tell them to go into all the world, and be a witness of me. Right? So he's about to do that. So you can understand the context here.

And before he goes up, and he gives him this great commission, he says, but before you go out, and you do and accomplish everything that I want you to, I want you to go back to Jerusalem, and I want you to wait. Now, think about it this way. Okay? How many of you like waiting?

Raise your hand. Anybody love it? You're just like, man, I love it. I love to wait, man. When I'm in the drive thru line, I love when it takes forever. Anybody?

Okay, nobody? Or when you're, you know, checking out somewhere, and it just takes a long time. I'm the type that when I go to the drive thru line, I always go in and when they throw me off with these two lines, you know what I'm saying? Anybody stress out over that?

I do. I'm just like, man, I don't even know what to do. And so I get into these lines, and it's like a game. I'm like, okay, I saw this person pull around, and I think this one's going to be faster.

I never choose the fastest line. God is teaching me something, okay? He's teaching me to wait. None of us like to wait. Right?

None of us do. Everybody hates waiting. In fact, if you are told to do something, it makes it even harder to wait.

Right? You ever been sitting maybe at your job, and somebody gives you a task, maybe your boss or your overseer or whatever, and they say, hey, I need you to go do this. But before you do, I just need you to, to wait.

To wait. Now I'm thinking if I was one of the apostles, God just gave, I mean, we just saw Jesus, resurrect from the dead. Pretty big deal, right? That's something that these apostles are ready. They're like, man, we are going to tell everybody that we know that Jesus is who he says he was, and that he resurrected from the dead. So if I was sitting there as apostle, I'd be already thinking I'd be pulling out, I don't know, a scroll or whatever at that time. And I'd be pulling out this this feathered pen or whatever they use back then a rock.

I don't know how they wrote things, but I would pull it out. And I'd be like, as Jesus is talking, I'm already thinking, okay, so my neighbor, I'm going to go tell them first, and we got to come up. I'm going to get the leaders of our church together, and we're going to, you know, we're going to have a strategy session, and we're going to come up with the best evangelistic strategy ever. And I can't wait.

I'm writing it all down, you know, and things like that. But instead, Jesus says, hey, all that stuff. Wait.

And perhaps like you, I mean, if I'm there, I'm like, why Jesus? Why? And he tells them to wait for something very specific. This is super important for you. And for me, it's applicable to you.

Okay. He tells them to wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit. The promise of the comforter, the promise is to is to come and dwell them, perhaps the reason he told them to wait. And this should take a lot of pressure off of you.

Perhaps the reason he told the apostles to wait is because he was reminding them that they can't leave there on this hillside and do anything outside of the Holy Spirit's power in their life. You see, for some of us, we think reaching the world, it's up to you. Listen, it's not just up to you.

It's up to you to share it. But I want you to know it takes a lot of pressure off all of us to know that it's not us doing any of the saving. It's the Holy Spirit of God that indwells us. And so you got to understand at this point, the apostles, the Spirit was a mystery to them.

They didn't have the entire canon of Scripture, right? Like we have the entire 66 books of the Bible, and we know about the Holy Spirit. We know that the Holy Spirit is there making intercession for us, right?

Aren't you thankful for that? We know that. We know that the Holy Spirit is actually there. The Scripture word says to reprove.

You say, what does that word mean? It means to convict. The Holy Spirit's there to convict us of things. You say, what does he convict us of? We know that the Scripture says he's there to convict us of sin. We know that the Holy Spirit says he's there to convict us of sin.

Right? How many of you have been convicted of something you should not have done at some point in your life? Be honest with us, okay? If you've never done that, listen, I'm stepping off the stage. You're coming to speak, all right? And so, but no, listen, the conviction of sin is important. The conviction of righteousness, the conviction of judgment.

By the way, if you've ever been convicted, don't be like, man, that's terrible. Listen, that's just a reminder that you are a child of God and you have the indwelling Spirit of God. So don't think that that's a terrible thing, all right? But we know that the Holy Spirit does all of this, but at this time, the Holy Spirit's a mystery. They didn't understand any of this. They didn't realize it. So they're sitting there, wait for the promise of the comfort. Like, what?

What does this mean? Like, what are we supposed to do? So we're going back to Jerusalem and we don't understand it all.

They go on, verse six says this, when they therefore were come together, they asked of him saying, Lord, will thou at this time restore again the Kingdom of Israel? Now, when I read this, I think that is the most out there, left field kind of question. I feel like that's such a, you know, when you're speaking to kids and you're like, hey, any questions? And they ask the most random thing, right?

As a teacher, okay? I feel like that's what it is, but I think what the apostles are trying to see is they're like, hey, Jesus, why don't you tell us your next move, okay? Like, what's next for us?

Is it Israel or tell us all about this? And Jesus said this, verse seven, he said unto them, and it's not for you to know the times of the season which the Father hath put in his own power. In other words, hey, listen, you leave the things that you don't need to know up to me and the Father. And then he goes on and he commissions them with this.

This is so good. But ye shall receive power. After that, the Holy Ghost has come upon you. We see that in Acts, chapter two, and ye shall be witnesses.

Everybody say that word. Witnesses. If you mark in your Bible, mark that word. Unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. When he had spoken these things while they beheld, he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight. While they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel. And they said, ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? The same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

Then they returned unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey. Here's what I want you to understand about the church is the church. The church was born in the book of Acts, okay?

And so we can see that and we can look at that. But here's what you have to understand about the early church. The early church was a movement. In fact, it began as a movement.

That's what kick-started the church. And when you think about movements, movements move. Movements go. Movements don't stay in one place. They leave. In fact, practically speaking, you and I are here today only because the early church moved.

Think about it. If the early church had never left Jerusalem, it just stayed there. The apostles stayed there and they just kind of did their thing and they stayed right there in Jerusalem and they never went to the uttermost parts of the earth. You know what? Perhaps Union Grove Baptist Church might not have been here. Perhaps you and your family might not have ever been saved.

I don't know. But listen, the only reason that we're here today is because the early church moved and it went out and it took the message of the gospel, the message that Jesus is who he said he was. And Jesus came to die and to be buried and to resurrect, giving us a way to be reconciled to the father. That message, the only that message, the only reason why you're here today is because the message got to you.

You see, it moved. And when you look at the book of Acts, here's what I want you to understand. And also, you can look in the gospels at Jesus's earthly ministry. Those who God changed and those who met Jesus were always challenged to go. They were always challenged to share.

They were always challenged. Now go back to your family and tell them what happened in you. Go back to your neighbors and your community and tell what God has done in your life. And I say this to say this.

That makes a lot of sense. I say this to say this, okay? This is what church, all of us, are called to do. Not just pastors, not just church leaders. Every single person that professes Jesus is called to go and share.

And here's what I hate about this whole thing. And this is just my heart. And listen, I'm going to pour my heart out to you and I'm going to share some thoughts at the end about Union Grove. And if you're visiting from out of town, listen, I want you to take what you're learning today. Go back to your home church if you have one and just tell them what you're and just deeply invest in it. But I'll tell you this, we did a study on the book of Acts.

I encourage you, if you weren't a part of that, we did it on Wednesday nights. We walked through a verse by verse and it really was eye-opening. I'm a young pastor. It was my first series that I wanted to do here at the church was the church because I wanted to really understand what the church should be. If I'm going to lead and shepherd the flock that God's called, I kind of want to know, you know, real deep what the scripture says about that, right?

So we started this series through the book of Acts and we get into it and everything. And here's what really just breaks my heart is that when we think about the church somewhere down the line, I don't know when, there's a lot of speculation. Somewhere down the line, we went from what the early church is to resorting down to the church just being a place we come once a week.

For some of you sitting here, it's all church is to you. This is it. Just gather once a week.

That'd be it. You leave and see you guys next Sunday. You don't share. You don't go. You don't tell.

You don't live in community. You don't serve. And then next Sunday you walk in here and you sit back down. Somewhere down the road, we kind of took church from this idea where all of us are a community of believers called out by God who are saved by the grace and mercy and kindness of God. And all of us were to go. You see in the early church, in the early church, everyone who was saved went. Everyone that was a Christian left. Every person who knew Jesus told. Every single person who had an encounter with the Son of God, what did they do? They shared. Every single one of them.

You can't find opportunity in scripture without seeing that that's what it is. And here's the big idea that I want to share with you today. And here's, if you forget anything that I said, I want this to resonate so deep in your heart as you go out of here today, it's this. All of us.

Everybody say all of us. Look at your neighbor and say, this is you. Okay. Listen, we're going to get awkward up in here.

Listen, put your hand on their shoulder and say, I really mean you. Okay. Some of you are like, I ain't doing that. I ain't doing that. Okay. If you're sitting next to a first time guest, they're never coming back after that. Okay. That's it. Or if you're sitting next to an introvert, isn't that the most awkward time if you're introverted, you're like, man, why does the pastor always tell me to talk to this person?

I don't know them. I want to just stay in my lane. Right? Listen, all of us, every one of you, I'm going to drill this home. Every single one of us, if you're a Christian, you're to be sent on mission by God. There's not a Christian in this room who's exempt from this. Now there's a lot of us who are being disobedient to it.

Yeah. But not any, there's not a person in here who's exempt from the mission of sharing. It's not just pastors. It's not just vocational leaders in churches.

It's not just missionaries. No, all of us are to be sent. We're all to be sent.

We're all to go. In fact, think of it this way. Jesus, he lived this. You remember Jesus is called, many call him the sent one. Right? The sent one. And what's interesting is Jesus, he was sent by God.

Right? Remember in the Old Testament, all these scriptures point to the Messiah. In fact, the entire scripture, it's fascinating. If you go back to the very beginning, everything points to a coming Messiah. The entire Bible, the Bible's not a story about you. It's a story about Jesus coming to rescue you. You see, that's the point of the whole scripture. And so when you read it, you can find parallels and stories all pointing to the Messiah. The Israelites, God's chosen people in the Old Testament, all of them look forward to the coming Messiah. They waited for it. They looked for him. The sent one's coming.

We can't wait. And so he's the sent one. And here's what's interesting. John chapter 20, I believe. And Jesus, he said this, which is so good, is in John chapter 20, he's talking to his apostles and he's talking to them.

This is right after he had resurrected from the dead. And so Jesus is looking at them and he's showing them his hands and his side. And he's like, look, it's really me. And Jesus says something so good that I want you to listen and I want you to apply to your life. Jesus is looking at the apostles and they're just like, it's Jesus.

He's here. He resurrected from the dead, just as he said. And he said something in verse 21 that's so good.

It'll be up on the screen. He said, then Jesus said unto them, peace be unto you, as my father hath sent you, or had sent me, so send I you. You see, what's awesome about this is that Jesus was sent by the father and now Jesus is ascending back up into heaven.

And you know what he's doing? He's sending Christians. He's sending those who call themselves followers of Jesus.

They're sending all of us, the church. You see, that is what you are called to do. That is what you are called to do.

It does not matter your profession. You're called out and sent by God. And that's what's happening here in Acts chapter one. He uses the term witness.

He says, you're called out. I'm sending you apostles to be witnesses to the entire world. You say, what's a witness? The witness is a judicial term.

We know that. If you ever get asked to go to court, you got to be a witness. You don't have to do anything.

All you have to do is show up and share what you saw, share what you experienced, give an account of what you have seen. And here, that's what he is telling us to do. That's what he's telling Christians to do. Those who call themselves a follower of Jesus, he's telling us, hey, be a witness.

You don't have to do it. Listen, people come to me all the time and they say, pastor, I shared the gospel with somebody at work today and they did not accept me. Listen, they didn't reject you.

They rejected him. It's not, take the pressure off of you. All you're called to do, you're not called to do anything. All you're called to do is go and be a witness of what has happened in you.

You're supposed to go and be like a witness of everything that has happened in your life. And here's what's amazing to me. And we're going to get into our text here. Well, we've already read the text, but I have a few things I want to share with you.

But here's the thing. I go so long sometimes on Sunday and I apologize. It's like, that's the hardest thing being a pastor.

When you've been in this all week long and then you got, you know, just a brief time to keep your attention on Sunday morning, it's kind of difficult. And so here's the thing I want you to understand about this idea of witnesses that blows me away, jumped off the page. Jesus could have said anything before he ascended to heaven, right? You know what he could have said?

And these things are important. He could have said, Hey, I want you to go out here and I want you to be the biggest worshipers. I want you to praise and sing. I want you to build the biggest church building you can. I want you to do all of these things. I want you to be the biggest prayer warriors.

I want you to be the biggest Bible studies and Bible scholars. But he didn't say those things. No, are those things important?

Of course they are. But he said, I want you to be witnesses. I want you to testify to what has happened in your life. Three things of how we can get back to understanding this. Number one, you must be captivated by the gospel. If you're going to be a witness for him, you got to be captivated by the gospel. Some of you, let's just be honest.

I look at your faces on Sunday and it blows my mind. Like I'm like, do you realize what Jesus has done for you? Like, do you really get it? Do you really understand that you were born into this world dead, dead in your trespasses and sin, and there's nothing you could do to stop that or to prevent the coming judgment that is, and Jesus came to you? Do you get it?

Do you get it? You got to be captivated by the gospel. And here, it's amazing, as Jesus went to heaven, it says that the disciples, they gazed up to heaven. They looked steadfastly, if you would, toward heaven, and they're looking. And can you imagine for just a moment, put yourself in that audience with them as you're gazing up into heaven, and you're watching Jesus, and you're watching him, the same one that came down from heaven to dwell among us, to walk with us, to talk with us, to live with us, and to eventually rescue us through the death, burial, and resurrection. And now that same Jesus is now going to heaven. And you're on this hillside and you're looking, and you probably see him. You know, I think the scripture should be interpreted literally, and so for me, I'm looking and I'm just imagining what that would look like.

We don't know. I don't know if it was instant. I don't know if it's like a balloon that your kid drops, and then it's like, oh crud, can't reach that. There it goes. And then you watch it. And I know when my kids have done that, when they've been little, we'll watch it. We'll watch it.

Until eventually you can't see it. And there he went. And they're gazing up into heaven, and they've marveled. And remember, the apostles, they left everything. They've already left everything to follow him. They've left it all.

Their jobs, their careers. God had got so a hold of their heart, and they loved the gospel so much. They had left it all. They were captivated.

They were amazed by it. I don't know what's happened to society and to churches, but too often I think we have lost sight of the gospel. We have lost sight. We have become so routine about church that we walk in every single day, and some of you, and I'm not saying this, some of you can't get down here, and I get it, but some of you haven't made a decision in a church in a very long time. Some of you haven't got on your knees before God and just praised him and thanked him for reconciling you to the father. And somewhere down the road, I don't know what's happened, but we have lost sense of the gospel, and we've lost sight of the gospel.

Christians should be the most joyful people on the planet, but too often when I talk to people that are outside the faith, they don't want nothing to do with us. We're ugly. We're mean. We're critical.

We can't do anything nice. Many of them have attended our churches, and they say, man, that's like a country club. It's a clique.

I don't want no part in that. What has happened to church today? Because, listen, if you are truly captivated by the gospel and you realize the grace and mercy and goodness and kindness that you have been experiencing and that has happened in your life, the only thing, when you really understand that, the only thing that you can do is go out and share it. You go out and share it, but somewhere we've lost amazement. We want aspects of Jesus, but when it costs us something, we're out.

We're done. Think about it this way. My kids, my son, he's always like, he loves video games. He plays his PlayStation all the time, and he comes up to me all the time. I mean, literally once a week, and he'll say this, dad, can I buy V-Bucks? Can I buy V-Bucks?

That's what he wants, literally. Like, hey, what do you want for your birthday? V-Bucks? I'm just like, man, whatever. It's like, I don't get it.

They didn't have V-Bucks with us. You know, it's just like, they didn't have that when I was growing up, but he's always like, I want V-Bucks or I want Robux and all these video games, right? And that's what they want.

And here's what I say. I'm like, dude, you got all the money. You got birthday money. Use it. Buy your V-Bucks. That's what you want to spend your money on. And here's what he does. He's like, oh, fool.

I don't want to spend my money. I want you to buy me V-Bucks. And, and I'm like, dude, listen. And then I do all the things. My dad, we're not made of money. You know, all those dad things.

You're like, I'm never saying this when I become a dad. And then it's next thing, you know, as everything that's coming out of my mouth. That's how we are with the gospel sometimes. We're like, we want everything about Jesus.

We, we love it. We come and worship and we sing some good songs and everything's good. And then when we leave here right now, it's such a good day, man. I'm walking with Jesus. I went to church. Maybe even you post about it on social media, whatever.

Everything's good. And then when you leave here and God says, Hey, I want you to go across the street to your neighbor and you begin to think, Oh man, what are they going to think? They're going to think I'm a fanatical person. They're going to think I'm, I'm whatever, you know, everything people say about Christians. I don't want to be associated with that.

And they're going to think all these things. I can't do that, God. Here's what it is, is when it cost us something, that's when a lot of times Christians are like, I'm out.

I'm out. We want Jesus. We want the gospel until it cost us something. But you see the apostles, the early church, they were amazed. They were intrigued. They were astonished so much that it left them gazing up into the heavens at their savior ascending to heaven.

And here's what's interesting. And I say this to our church, they didn't need a pick me up. They didn't need a revival service.

They didn't need a special day to get them excited. They didn't need a guest speaker to come in and, and to really light the fire. You know, that's what we do in churches. Listen, half the time, the revivals that we have, just to be honest, I've been a part of church, so I can talk about this. I get it. I've served in church for 15 years.

I understand it. Sometimes we bring in revival speakers and here's why, here's why you want to know what pastors have to think about. We're like, man, our church been struggling, lost our excitement. We've lost our amazement.

So let's find this huge speaker. Let's bring them in to ignite the fire, right? Let's sing some songs about it. You know, go light a fire, Lord, light the fire in me, all these kinds of things.

And those things are important and we should do them. But I'll tell you this, the early church, they didn't need a special day to light that fire. You know what lit the fire and the flame in their heart. It wasn't a special speaker. It wasn't a revival service. It wasn't a really cool, trendy church. It wasn't any other church. It wasn't any of those things. It wasn't a really dynamic, cool pastor.

You know what it was? It was the gospel. You see, the gospel is what lit the flame. And if some of us would stop waiting for the next fix, teenagers, stop waiting for the next, you know, youth group activity or the next camp that you attend, those things are important and I'm for them all. But I'll tell you this, some of us, we go from fix to fix. What should light the fire isn't the next fix, but the gospel that changed your life and made you go from death unto life. You see, that's the point.

That's what they did. They were amazed at the gospel. The second thing, you got to surrender to the Holy Spirit's leading. You got to surrender to the Holy Spirit leading. First, you got to be amazed at the gospel and you got to be captivated by it, but you got to surrender to the Holy Spirit's leading. Verse one, it says that Jesus began both to do and teach.

The word began, it implies continuation. It implies that Jesus started something and he's going to continue to work it out. In the Old Testament, you look at God the Father. In the gospels, it's God the Son. And then from the book of Acts to the end of scripture, it's all about the Holy Spirit. You see, one God exists in three different people. You say, can you explain that a little bit more? Someday we'll get into that. We're not going to today.

It's kind of heavy. It's kind of hard for our brains to comprehend, but it's one God who exists in three different people. God the Father, Old Testament, God the Son, gospels, God the Holy Spirit from Acts on, right? And you see, the point is Jesus began to do and teach. In other words, his work is not done. Jesus didn't just ascend into heaven and stop working. No, he says now it's the church's turn to be a part of the mission. But here's what I want you to understand. He did not invite the church to do the mission for him.

Some of us get it wrong. He didn't invite the church to do the mission for him. He invited the church, you Christian child of God, to join him as he does the work in and through you.

That's the point. That's what he's done. He's invited us to be a part of this. He's invited us to do all of these things.

He's gifted you. In fact, in every chapter of the book of Acts, we get a sense that the church is just following the Spirit's leading. God leads to go across the street. We do it. God leads to go to another village. We go. God leads us to share with this crazy maniac that's demon-possessed.

Hey, we do it. That's what the early church is supposed to be. You see, the Spirit empowered all Christians to do these things. So if you're in here today and you say, Pastor, I don't know enough about the Bible to talk to people about. Listen, he didn't ask you and call you to be a Bible scholar. He didn't say as he was ascending up into heaven looking down at the apostles, hey, apostles, listen, study that Bible as much as possible. Now, should we? Of course we should. But he didn't tell us, hey, be a Bible scholar.

No. He said this, here's what I need you to do. Go and be a witness. And some of that, you know what, you might not know anything. You might be a brand new creation. You might have been saved in the last few days.

Last week at VBS, I don't know. But I'll tell you this, if you've been saved, all you need to do is go out and you might not know anything else but this, hey, I was lost, but now I'm found. Hey, that's enough for the Holy Spirit to work through you. That's enough. Don't think you got to know everything.

What if they ask me this? Who cares? It's okay. Sometimes I tell people all the time, like, I'm not really sure. I'm going to have to study that. Right?

It's okay. You don't have to have all the answers. Just go out and be a witness of those things. You see the Holy Spirit's got to lead us. And when the Holy Spirit leads us, you see it throughout scripture, people testified. Luke chapter one, verse 15, John the Baptist, it says he was filled with the Spirit.

He proclaims the coming of the Lord. Luke chapter one, Zachariah, he was filled with the Spirit and he prophesied about the coming of the Lord. Acts two, verse four, the Holy Spirit fills the apostles. And we saw 3000 people come to faith in Jesus. Acts chapter four, the apostles were facing persecution after being filled with the Spirit.

And guess what? They preached and proclaimed and testified boldly. You see, what you have to understand, the Holy Spirit has empowered all of us and equipped us to share. That's all of us. That's what I'm asking you to do as your pastor, as your shepherd. Listen, some of you since I've been here, I've been here two years and here's what's wild. Everybody thinks that it's up to the pastor to grow the church. Everybody.

I mean, I'm really, I'm not kidding. Ever since I've been here, people are like, man, you got to do this. You got to do this. They're giving me ideas left and right. And like, hey, here's the best way to, you know, kind of reach people and this guy and stuff. And they come to me and they're like, pastor, I'm so glad you're here.

The church is going to grow. Here's the thing. Do you realize where I work every day? Some of you think it's the golf course.

It's not. I promise. But you know what? I go to work every day. I walk in and I see our church staff. And it's like, look, does that take me away from?

No. I got to realize that I still have a community to reach outside of my staff because I work with Christians. You know what's wild is you think I, the church staff guy is supposed to do all of the outreach. Listen, you know, the best ones to do this. My shoes untied and it's been untied the whole time, but I'm not going to bend down and do that in front of you because that'll be awkward. You ever try to tie your shoe in front of a lot of people?

It ain't happening. Okay. But I keep stepping. I keep stepping on it. I just hope I don't trip.

All right. But listen, some of you, if you're OCD, like I am, I would have watched the shoestring the whole time. But you know what? The best witnesses are some of you who go and you work with lost people and you live in neighborhoods with people who don't know Jesus. And your kids go to school sometimes with people who don't know Jesus.

And you have all of these opportunities in front of you. Be a witness. Be a witness. Don't just sit back and say, pastor Bailey, I hope you're witnessing today. Pastor Josh, I hope you're sharing today. Listen, you want to know one of the reasons why I love going and letting my kids play down here at the community ball field is because that's my community. I don't work with lost people.

I work with Christians every single day. I need to get out of my house. I don't live in a neighborhood.

Right? What's the avenue? What's my outlet to share to make sure I'm applying this? Here's what it is.

I go to that ball field three, four times a week. I'm sitting with people, talking about the gospel, talking about church, talking about these things. Listen, that's my avenue. What's yours? What's yours?

Is it work? Is it your career? Is it your kids? Is it the school that your kids attend? Young people, is it the school that you go to? What? What is it?

You got to have an avenue for it. Just go out and share because if you're a Christian today, the mandate, the commission that God has called us to, it's for you. It's for you. To sum up this series, I'm going to just give you a few statements. You can write these down if you want, but this is what I want for our church.

We're finishing a series next week. We're starting a series on discipleship. What that even is, you know, it's kind of a buzzword in churches.

What does that even mean? We're going to look at that next week, but I'll tell you this. Here's what I want our church to be, and this is straight from my heart from this series.

First one is this. I want Union Grove to be a church with open doors. Say, what do you mean?

Here's what I mean. We're not an exclusive group of people. We're not a country club. We're not a place that has our doors shut to lost people, to messed up people, to wicked people. Listen, I want them in, and that's what I want our church to be.

And you want to know why that should be important and should be your mission too? It's because at some point in your life, you were the messed up person. You were the wicked person. You were the person needing a community of believers to wrap their arms around you and to welcome you into the family. So why on earth should we keep those doors shut? When people come to me and say, pastor, there's a lot of new people in here.

I don't recognize everybody. Hey, listen, I praise God for that. I thank God for that.

If you think it's a negative, I got 10 good churches I'll recommend right to you. That was ugly, wasn't it? That was mean. I shouldn't have said that.

I'm kidding. But I want to bring you along. Listen, it's a good thing. Have the doors open.

I love that. Listen, there are some wild kids this week at VBS. And if we're going to shut our doors to anybody, it would be some of the ones I saw this week. But listen, keep the doors open.

And I want you as the church, you come in here every week, you talk to the same people every week. Hey, listen, go find somebody that's new. Go find a guest that's new. Go talk to them.

Make them feel apart. It's intimidating coming to a church for the first time, especially a church where a lot of you have been in this place for 50 years. It's hard. It's intimidating. I want to be a church with open doors.

I want Union Grove, number two, to be a place where people find authentic community, where you can be real. Listen, we're not perfect. I love this church so much because you've allowed me as a pastor to come in, make mistakes, and realize that, hey, I'm no different than you. I got flaws. I got issues. I get mad. I have issues. Like, there's sometimes, like, when you're not around, I have bad thoughts about some of you, okay?

It's a joke. But you know what? Like, we're all flawed.

Every person in this place is flawed. And what I want and what I desire for Union Grove to be—and I feel like, you know, I've been here two years. I can make statements like this. When you're first here, I'm kind of filling things out.

Been here two years. Here's what I want our church to be. I want our church to be a place where people that are messed up can actually come and we can pull them along. Sometimes, here's the problem with churches, is that sometimes we think you got to be this super, super Christian before we welcome you into the family, right?

That shouldn't be that way. I want people in our church who are members of our church, who are on all different spectrums of their journey with Christ, some who are just like us, who are just like us, who are just like Christ, some who are just starting it and they don't know anything, and then some who are Bible scholars. I want every single person. I want it all in this place. I want our church to be a place where they can find authentic community. I want Union Grove to be a serving church, a place that they serve, that we serve the community.

And listen, you did that this week. As your pastor, this week made me so happy to be here. It made me so excited about the future of our ministry.

I loved it. Some of you served for the very first time with us and I'm so grateful for you. But I'll tell you this, I want it to be a place where we care so deeply about serving people. And we do events and stuff, but we don't do enough. Like, we can be doing more and more things in the community to get out from in these walls and get out and do ministry. We're starting a ministry, monthly ministry, this month at the end of July. We can't invite the whole church because it would overload it, but we're going to the mission every month to impact the mission. We got to do that. And I encourage you, don't go just one time. Like, try to get in on that list and you're going to be hearing about that.

Lomax is leading that for us, but that's going to be a thing that we're going to do. We got to get there. I had this Salem pregnancy care center here locally. They're looking, they need volunteers. They need people to help them and to serve some of the women that are coming to them. They reached out to me and Pastor David Iverson this week, and they asked, hey, can we do? And I'm like, yes, sign us up.

Let's figure it out. Let's serve, right? And then think about our direct community. Like, we need to be doing stuff. There's a ton of houses going up right around our church.

If you don't realize that, just take a moment this week. Some of you are off on Tuesday, maybe grab your family and say, hey, we're going to see, let's go down the street and let's see what God is going to do in our community. And you drive up and down these streets and some of you old timers who have lived here your whole life and you've been complaining about all these houses going up, you know what I'm talking about? Traffic's going to be terrible. We haven't had traffic like this in Davidson County since whatever, right?

I hear it, right? Here's all I'm telling you to do. Walk around and look at the houses, park your car somewhere and maybe the amenity center.

Don't be a creeper, but just be normal and just like look and look at people coming in and out of their house and pulling in and out of work and just see, see the opportunity, the vision, the chances, the thing that is right in front of us. Listen, a lot of churches aren't growing because there ain't nobody moving into their community. Look at what God is doing for us. It's right in front of us. It's right in our noses and some of us are going to miss it if our eyes are not open. And I think about it this way, the coming Messiah, the sent one, his own people, he's right in front of them. And guess what?

His own people received him not. Let's not be that. Let's not look around and be like, you know, like, hey, we're not noticing all this opportunity in front of us.

The last thing is this. I want Union Grove to be a church that moves and I'm done. I want to be spirit-led. I want every person that calls themselves a Christian to go on mission together. Every one of you, I want you to be a witness. I want you to be a bringer, bring people to church, bring people, invite people, welcome people. Don't look at church as an opportunity where you can just hang out with the same people all the time.

Listen, no, this is an opportunity for you to meet somebody new this week, right? Be a bringer, be a witness and be a moving church. Some of you, listen, here's what I'm praying for. I want some of you who have been here for a long time. I don't care how old you are. I want you to answer the call to preach, to answer the call, to be a missionary, to give your life, to leave it all behind and go.

That's what I'm praying for. You don't have to be young. You can be, listen, the apostles, we think they were a bunch of 18 year olds, you know, graduating from high school and this and that. They were people with careers. They had lives. I mean, they provided for their families and here comes Jesus. Hey, follow me and I'm going to make you a fisherman. They're like, man, I don't even know what that means, but I like fishing, so I guess I'll go. And so they went.

They left it all behind and they followed him and they gave their life for him. I want somebody in here to say yes, to say yes. Listen, the scriptures, God's calling people.

We just don't have a lot of people saying yes to the call. That's what we got to have. I want to be a moving church, be a witness to him. Let's pray together. We're going to be done.

I'm going to ask our instruments to come and play. Listen, I know we've gone long. You got plans, but listen, I want you to stand.

If you can just stay engaged for five more minutes, we'll have you out of here. Can you stand with me? Heads bowed, hearts listening, prayer. Nobody looking around.

Nobody. Why don't you do this? I don't know where you're at today, but listen, I tell you at my church, Union Grove Baptist Church, why don't some of you come and pray here at the altar today that our church would be everything and what it should be for the community. Pray for lost people to come in. Pray for broken people to come in. Pray that we can be a part of the community. Pray. Pray for us to serve. Pray for opportunities where these new houses where we can reach people. Pray for families to come here and find the help and the hope that Jesus provides. Be a part of it.

Some of you go to work every day. Maybe you need to pray for your neighbor or your co-worker or the person that works at a cubicle next to you and just say, man, I need to lift that person by name, that God would use me to reach them, that God would use me. Remember, it's not us. The power's not us.

The power's in the gospel and the person living inside of you. It's what we need to be. That's the church.

It's what it is. Hey, just when they're done, you can go on up there. So, yeah. Yep, you're good.

Thank you very much. You can have a seat for just a few minutes. We'll run over just a few quick things and then we'll have a word of prayer. Thank you for your attendance here today. If you're a first-time visitor, if you haven't filled out one of the New Year cards, please take it back to the Welcome Center. We'd love to have a record of your visit and have a small gift there to say thank you for being here with us.

I have several prayer requests mentioned to you. Bob Zabarski, him and Candy were out of town. They were up in Utah. While there, he had a small stroke. They took him to the hospital.

I don't think it affected a whole lot, as what we see right now. They're thinking he may be able to get released tomorrow and then maybe finish out their vacation. So do be in prayer for Bob and Candy there in Utah, in the Utah hospital. And then, several had procedures this week. Hunter Kirkman had tonsillectomy this past week. Kelly Owens had kidney stone surgery on Friday. They've removed several kidney stones, but she's still having a lot of pain and a lot of nausea from this surgery. So do be in prayer for her if you would. Fran Dixon had to have some back surgery procedure where they had to remove the pain stimulator.

It did not work, so they had to remove that. It was causing more trouble there, so she's recovering from that. Also, Jane Connor had to go to the ER with infection, but she is doing somewhat better. But Bill has been dealing with kidney stone. He thought he was going to have to have surgery, but somehow I told him he's more of a man than I am. He passed an eight millimeter kidney stone.

I don't know how, but he did. I told him he's more man than me, but he's recovering from that, trying to take care of his precious wife. So do be in prayer for both of them. Then there's a couple of procedures this week. Linda Gregg will be having knee replacement on Thursday, this coming Thursday. Lucille Thompson will be having gallbladder surgery this Thursday as well.

And then Susan Koontz will be having some surgery this coming Friday. So let's be in prayer for them. Then also, missionaries we're praying for this week is Bill and Debbie Tobias, and then David and Annette Townsley.

Let's pray God will just continue to use them and to bless them. If you are baptized, last time we did the baptism, I have baptism certificates. If you would see me after the service, I want to get those to you if you're here, if your child is here, or if you're here as an adult. So let's pray and let's just commit these things to him. Heavenly Father, God, we come before your presence. Father, thank you, Lord, for the privilege of prayer, thanking you that we can come before your presence. Lord, we bring these prayer requests.

Lord, you know every single need. Pray for our missionaries who are literally ministering around this world and they're sharing the gospel because the gospel is what makes the difference. God, thank you for the week that you've given us.

Lord, thank you for a great week this past week in VBS. Pray that you continue to be with those who made professions of faith this week. And Lord, for the word of God who's gone out to so many kids.

Lord, may it continue to be watered. And Lord, may others come to know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. If there's still someone in this service right now or listening online who have never trusted Jesus as Savior, Lord, may they reach out. May today be the day that they trust your Lord and Savior. Lord, help us now as we go out of these walls, as we take the gospel because the gospel is what transforms the lives. It transformed lives of the children this week.

Lord, it transformed my life many years ago and it transformed so many others. Lord, help us not to hold on to that, but Lord, help us to share our testimony and be a witness wherever we go. Lord, use us for your glory and God will give you the glory. We'll praise you for all that you do. For it's in Christ's name we ask it. Amen. God bless you. Appreciate you being in the service this morning.