In this series, we've really been looking at this main idea, is to look at the mission of the local church and how we, each of us, as the church, can be connected to the mission of the local church.
So I want to give you just a few kind of quick reminders and what's brought us up to this point here today. First, the first week of the series, we looked at our mission and I want to remind you about that. And here at Union Grove, this is the scoreboard of why we exist as a church is this. To reach as many people as possible with the gospel and to disciple them into becoming devoted followers of Jesus Christ. And so if you want to know something about our church, this is the mission. If you forget anything that I'm saying about our church, this is the scoreboard, if you would, by how we determine if we are successful as a local church. We have to look at people's lives being changed by the goodness of the gospel and people taking steps in their faith to deeper discipleship.
That's the reason why we exist. The second week of the series, we looked at this about the importance of the gathering. We call that coming together in worship, coming together in worship. And listen, here's the thing, as somebody who's grown up in church their entire life, I grew up thinking that church was just about a place that we attended on the weekend, right? It's just a place that we go on Sunday and things like that. And as I've gotten older, here's what I learned is that we have a lot of times diminished what church is down to a place that we attend on Sunday. And I don't want to downgrade the importance of that because it is important, but it's not all there is to know about the church. But we talked about the gathering and not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together and the importance of making church a priority and how that helps your family grow in their faith. The third week we talked about growing together and the way you do that is joining a Bible fellowship class or a small group or something like that.
And so we learned about this and here's the truth, I said this during this week of the series, is that this room is really good for corporate worship and things like that. But you know what it's not good for is to really meet people, right? The church I grew up in, they'd give you like 20 seconds to run around and shake as many hands as you can. You remember that if you grew up in church. And here's what I'll tell you, you can't really meet a lot of people in that 20 seconds.
You can't get to know them, you can't really sharpen one another, you can't build strong, healthy relationships. And so in order for us to do that, we feel that we need to step out of this and grow together in relationships and in community with other people. Last week we looked at the importance of serving together in ministry. And remember, every single one of you have been given a spiritual gift. And hopefully every one of you took the spiritual gifts assessment a few weeks ago so that you can know what your spiritual gift is, so that you can use it in the local church. Remember this, that if you don't use your spiritual gift, somebody is missing out as well as you. Remember we learned this last week, is that every one of us is given a gift, why?
For the work of the ministry, for the edification, that's the building up of the body of Christ. And so here's the thing, when I choose not to use my gift, it's as if the body of Christ is missing something. Remember, it's like we're missing an arm when you decide not to use your gift. And somebody else decides not to use their gift, it's like we're missing both arms. And so that's why churches have to ask the feet and the legs to do what the arms are supposed to do.
But they're not designed to do what the arms are supposed to do. That's why it's important for us as the body of Christ to all be using our spiritual gift. I do want to celebrate, we had over 20 people in our church sign up to join a serve team last week that were not currently a part of a serve team, which is something that we get excited about, we celebrate, and so we will get each one of you connected. But today, we are going to talk about this idea, going together on mission. When we think about the church, we think about serving together, we think about attending together, we think about growing together, and today we're going to look at going together on mission. In order for us to understand this, we have to go back to the beginning of the book of Acts, the beginning of the book that is all about the church and how it was founded upon. Acts chapter number 1 verse 1, it says this, The former treaties have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach. Now, if you mark in your Bible, I'd encourage you to mark the word began. Mark the word began, and here is why. The word began is actually a word that is super important here because it carries on the idea of continuation. It carries on the idea of continuation. And so if you think about this, Jesus, when he came, he continued, and the reason why this is important for you and me is when he ascended up into heaven, he's continuing the work through the local church. He's continuing the work through the local church.
So it says began both to do and to teach. Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he, through 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 forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And being assembled, verse 4, together with them, he commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but instead wait for the promise of the Father, which saith 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. Now, a little bit of background so you understand what's happening here in the book of Acts.
Now, I recognize that if you're a church person, you've been in church perhaps your entire life, you might know everything about what is happening here in Acts chapter number 1. But for those that are newer or need a refresher lesson on what's happening here, it is Jesus is on a hillside talking directly with his apostles. Jesus has already resurrected from the dead, and after this he'd already revealed himself to the apostles. He revealed himself to Mary. And then 1 Corinthians tells us he's revealed himself to over 500 people at one time. And so he's done all of that, and now his work is done, and now he is going to ascend back up into heaven. So as he's gathered the apostles together, he gives them the greatest commission that has ever been given to go into all the world and be witnesses of him.
We're going to see that in verse number 8 of our text here today. But before he does it, he tells them to wait. You say, why did he tell them to wait and why is that significant for us? The reason why he was telling them to wait is because of the coming of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, was going to come and indwell them. Now, let's stop right there for just a moment and kind of put ourselves in the shoes of the apostles.
It helps us to kind of put ourselves in the story from time to time so that we can feel and understand what is happening. The apostles say you were there and you're watching and you're watching Jesus ascend up into heaven. He gives you this great commission.
You've left everything to follow this man. And as he's ascending, he says, go and be witnesses of him. In other words, witnesses, you know, we're going to look at that word here in a little bit.
Go tell everybody what has happened in your life. But before he does it, he tells them to wait for the promise of the Spirit. Now, for you and I, when we think about the Spirit, we know a lot about the Holy Spirit. And the reason is, is because we have the entire 66 books of the Bible. And so we have the complete canon of scripture where we know that at the moment you trust in Jesus for salvation, the Holy Spirit comes and he resides in you.
He indwells you. We know through scripture that the Holy Spirit, he gifts us with spiritual gifts so that we can use those for the furtherance of the gospel and the work of the ministry. We know that the Holy Spirit intercedes for you and for me. We know all of that because we have the entire Bible. Well, for them, everything I just told you about it, him indwelling, he convicts us, he intercedes for us, all of that was written after Jesus ascended up into heaven. So for the apostles, the Spirit was like a mystery. The Spirit was somewhat, they didn't understand, they had never seen it, it was brand new.
Up to this point, we know the Old Testament, God the Father was the predominant part of the Trinity that was working. In the gospels, God the Son, they'd been with Jesus, they'd walked with Jesus, they've learned from Jesus, they gave up everything to follow Jesus, but the Spirit was a complete mystery to them. They didn't understand, they were confused by it. If you had told them that the Spirit was going to indwell them, they would be very confused, right?
Almost like Nicodemus was when Jesus told him that he needed to be born again and he was thinking, what in the world, am I supposed to go back into my mother's womb and become born again? If you had told the apostles that the Spirit was going to indwell them, they would be very confused by that. Something that you and I know because we have the Bible, but they didn't have in this moment. So they were told, wait until the Spirit of God would come upon them. Verse number 6 says this, When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father had put in his own power. Now, real quick, let me just say this about those two verses. Jesus is giving the Great Commission, right?
Most important mission ever, the most important task ever given. And as he's giving this, here's the apostles. They're listening to this, right? And as they're hearing it, they chime up, raise their hand, and they kind of ask a question that if you're reading this in context, it's kind of just out in left field, right? It's like, hey, go be witnesses of me. And this time I raise their hand, hey, what's going to happen with Israel? And they're like, what in the world?
It's almost like out of place, if you would, this question that they're asking about Israel. It's almost like I coach two elementary basketball teams. I coach one assistant coach for a team here in Arcadia.
That's a rec league basketball team. And then I coach here on Saturday, an elementary Union Grove league. And sometimes when I'm coaching, it blows my mind like how you can say something. You're calling a time out and you're telling the kids, you're saying, hey, here's the play. Here's your positions.
Here's exactly where you need to go. And then the kid, you know, raises his hand and you're thinking, OK, he's getting it. He's got a question about the play.
And he'll raise his hand and say, hey, my parents took me to Disney World one time and it was fun. Right. And you're like, where in the world did that come from?
And what does that have to do with anything we're talking about? When you read Acts one, you're kind of like, what in the world is he talking about? When the apostles are asking about Israel, they're basically saying this. Hey, what's what's your next move? Jesus, what's going to happen with Israel? What's your next play as he's about to ascend up into heaven? What's your next move?
How how are you going to work in the world, if you would? That's the question that they are asking. And then Jesus kind of answers this question in verse number eight.
But ye. But ye shall receive power after that, the Holy Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be witnesses 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, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. You see, the church began as a movement. We learned about this in our series.
The movement was centered around this belief that Jesus was who he said he was and that he has resurrected from the dead. And here's what I'll tell you about movements. Movements always move. Do they not?
Movements always move. So when the apostles are asking this question about Israel and they're saying, hey, Jesus, what's next? In other words, they're looking at it like in timetables. The scripture is about one main story, the coming Messiah, but it is also about timetables. And for them, they were looking at this as a timetable. What's the next event on your timetable, Jesus?
What's the next thing? And here's what Jesus is saying. As he's ascending up into heaven, he's saying this. From now, from Acts until the day that we are living in now, the next event is called the church. The church. In other words, his work, what Jesus wants to do now and what he wanted to do here in Acts and what we see him doing through Acts and what he should be doing today. His next move after he ascended is to release the church into the world to accomplish the mission that he has called us to.
Here's the point is that for you, here's what you have to understand. All of us are to be sent out on mission by God. Everybody say all of us with me. All of us.
Look to your neighbor and say that means you. All of us are to be sent out on mission by God. Now let's think about that word sent. Jesus has often been described as the sent one. He was the long awaited Messiah that Israel longed for, that Israel waited for.
And then he finally shows up being sent by God. We learn about this in John 20 verse 21. Jesus had revealed himself to the apostles. They were gathered in a house for fear of the Jews and he showed them his hands and his feet proving that it was him.
And here's what he said. He said, as my Father hath sent me, even so, send I you. The point is that God has sent the son Jesus to save us from our sins.
But now here's the point for you and for me. If you're in here today and you say I'm a follower of Jesus, I've trusted in Jesus for salvation. And if you're in here and that's you, you're part of what we would call the church. You're part of what we would call the church. And here's the point for you today and it's really our big idea today is this. God sent Jesus who is now sending the church. God sent Jesus who is now sending the church.
In other words, think about it this way. It doesn't matter your profession. You're called and sent by God.
It doesn't matter what career you're in. You're called and sent by God. And so if you look back to our text today, he says it in one word. The word witnesses. The word witnesses in Acts 1-8. He says ye shall receive power.
After that the Holy Ghost is come upon you. And ye shall be witnesses. Let's look at that word for just a moment. The term witnesses, it's like a judicial term.
It's a judicial term and think about it. If you're a witness to something, you really don't have to do a whole lot. All you're responsible for doing is giving an account of what you have seen and what you have experienced. Isn't that what a witness does? A witness gets called to the stand in a courtroom and the witness is just there to say and to talk about what they have seen or what they have experienced.
That's all they're responsible for. And Jesus is saying that every single one of us, the church, we are to go out into the world and be witnesses. In other words, every single one of us are called to go out and to give an account of what Jesus has done in your life. Every single one of us are called to go into our community, to our schools, to our ball fields, to the gyms that we play in, right?
To wherever you work, to your neighborhood. We are called to go to everywhere that we just do life and we are to be witnesses. We are to give an account of what Jesus has done in our heart. And think about this, Jesus could have said you are...
He could have put anything in this blank, right? But he chose the term witnesses. He could have said you're going to be the greatest worshipers, right? And we should worship God, of course, but he chose the term witnesses. He said you could be great Bible studiers and we should, but he didn't use that.
He could be great servants or great volunteers, but he didn't even say that. You know what he told us, the church? We are to be witnesses.
And we should be all of those other things. We should worship God, we should serve in ministry, we should study the Bible, we should be all those things. But isn't it interesting that as Jesus ascended back up into heaven, he left this great commission to us to be witnesses. And how do we get back to the understanding that we all are sent by God as witnesses to go on mission?
How do we get back to that? I want to give you a few things from this passage that I think will help you. Number one, for you and I, if we're going to leave here being sent by God on mission for God, we have to, number one, we have to let the gospel captivate our hearts. We have to let the gospel captivate our hearts. I love this phrase in verse number 11.
It's something that a lot of times we breeze over and we don't really notice the importance of words. But as Jesus ascended up into heaven, he's going up, and rightfully so, that's a pretty wild thing. It'd be pretty cool to just watch somebody ascend up into heaven, of course.
And so I'm sure that just they were captivated by that, just because. But here's what it says, you know, when the angel shows up, they were almost just staring. Jesus is kind of out of sight by that point. Have you ever like, you know, let a balloon go and you kind of watch as far as you can see?
And you're kind of watching, you can kind of barely see it, and then you're kind of now looking for it and you're kind of gazing up there. Well, as the angel comes, it's almost as if the apostles are all just kind of awestruck. And they're all looking in the same direction. And he says, hey, why are you gazing up into heaven?
I love that phrase, gazing up into heaven. I love that phrase because it's almost what's happening has so captivated their heart. What's happening, it's almost like they're awestruck by it. They're amazed by it. They're standing there in awe of it. And you say, what were they in awe of?
What were they captivated by? It's found in the next phrase that the angel said. He says, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? And then he said, this same Jesus. You want to know why they were awestruck by this moment?
It wasn't just because, wow, this is a really cool thing. No, the reason why they were awestruck at this is because they were gazing at Jesus. They were gazing at the Son of God. And they were gazing at him. I truly believe that that's what they were awestruck by. And let me tell you this, if we are going to leave here and be witnesses of him, we have to be awestruck by him.
If we're going to be witnesses of him, we have to be awestruck by him. You remember, think about it this way. You know, to the moment that you trusted in Jesus as your Savior.
For just a moment, take a journey in your brain back to that moment. For all of us, it came at different times. I don't know what stage of life or circumstances was around yours. I was privileged. I grew up in a Christian home. So I was a kid when I accepted Christ. I was young. I was five years old. And I didn't know a whole lot. And I remember I came home from a church service that we had. And I came home and I remember just thinking about this, dwelling on this, that I was not a believer at the time. And so I asked my mom, like, I need to figure this thing out.
I need somebody to help me with this. My dad was working third shift at the time. So she showed me from the Bible. I prayed, asked Jesus to come into my life. And he saved me. And I loved it. It was great, you know. But here's what I'll tell you. You remember the moment that you were saved?
We were so excited about it, right? Like, you just wanted to tell people. Like, you were captivated by what he did in your heart. Even at five, listen, I would not have passed a doctrines test. You could take me, I didn't know a whole lot. I wasn't that smart about it. I didn't know a whole lot, but I knew enough that Jesus loved me and that he died to take away the sins that I had committed, right?
And he paid for my penalty. And I wanted a relationship. That was about the extent of what I knew. I didn't know a whole lot, but I knew enough.
And you know what happened that night? Right after I did that, we went and I told my mom, I said, I'll never forget it, my dad was working third shift. I said, we need to call my dad. So I called this before cell phones. And so we had to call the, he worked at a poultry plant. And so we had to call the poultry plant, you know, and he's probably thinking, there's got to be an emergency, right?
Why are they calling me? And I just called to tell him, hey, dad, I trusted in Jesus as my savior. And we rejoiced and all that kind of stuff. I don't remember how I said it. I probably said it the way a five-year-old would have said that they got saved or something like that. And he celebrated with me. I get out off the phone.
I go in there. My sister was already asleep. And so we wake her up. I tell her the next morning we went to school. I was in kindergarten and I went to kindergarten. And I don't remember that teacher's name. I still don't remember who it was. I do remember this. She had black hair and she was just mean to me in kindergarten. That's all I remember about her.
I don't remember a whole lot about kindergarten. I just remember that. And so I go to her and I go to her and I tell her right away, you know, that day I'm like, hey, I trusted in Jesus as my savior. I'm a Christian and I loved it and I celebrated. And then we told people, we told the church, the whole deal.
You remember that? That's probably true of your life when you trusted in Jesus as your savior. You were captivated by it. You were captivated.
And what was the result of something that you were captivated about? You tell people. You tell people. And so what happens here is you tell people.
You give up everything and you're willing to talk about it. And that's the point. That's what happened with the apostles. Jesus changed their life and you know what was the result of that? They gave up everything to follow him. They gave up everything to follow him.
They gave up comfort, careers. They gave up their very life to tell people about Jesus. You know what's amazing to me? We're captivated by God only to a certain extent.
We're captivated by him until it takes something that we have to sacrifice for him a lot of times. Isn't that true? It's like your kids, right? Our kids, we go to stores and stuff and they want to buy something. They want to buy something so they'll say, hey dad, can we get this? And I'll say, sure, if that's what you want to spend your money on. Kids love to spend their parents' money. My kids probably have more money than we do because they save it up and we spend all of our money. So sometimes we'll say, hey, yeah, that's great if you want to spend your own money on that.
And you know what happens? They're captivated by something until they have to give up something for it. That's kind of how we are at church, right? We come here where everybody's kind of in agreement and we love it and we're good and life's good. You love God here, right? But when you leave there and he tells you to go across the street or he tells you to invite your neighbors over for dinner so that you can share the good news of the gospel with them or he tells you to leave something about your church or something about the gospel, maybe a gospel track at a restaurant or talk to your waitress or maybe bring it up at the ball field that your kids play at or whatever. When he asks you to do that, all of what we're captivated by Sunday, sometimes we're like, wait, we're captivated by him but not enough to give up something for him. You see, if we're going to be witnesses where we give up stuff to tell people about Jesus and to witness to people about what Jesus has done in our life, we have to be captivated by the gospel. But number two, we have to surrender to the Spirit's leading. We have to surrender to the Spirit's leading.
I mean, think about it. In verse number one, he uses the word began. This implies continuation. In other words, what it says is Jesus has started something and he is continuing it. The way Jesus is continuing his ministry is through the local church. That's the point. I've said this a couple of times in the series but I want you to understand this. Jesus did not invite the church to do the mission for him. Now you might think, wait a second, I feel like, isn't that what we're doing?
No, no, no, listen to this. Here's how we say it. Jesus invited the church to join him as he does the work through the church. In other words, here's what we learned from this. When Jesus was ascending up into heaven and he tells the apostles, hey, here's the mission, go be witnesses.
Go tell the world about me, right? That's the mission. But he says, wait, why? Because they can't go until they have the Holy Spirit leading.
Here's what that tells me. You know what my role is in the mission? My role is to surrender. He's the one doing all the work. You realize the Holy Spirit's the one leading. My role is just surrender to whatever he's telling me to do and obey and let him do the work through me.
So in other words, if the Holy Spirit leads me to have a gospel conversation with somebody at a ball field, then you know what my role is? Surrender to it. Now I might not feel prepared. I might be fearful.
I might not know what to say and stuff. But that's the beauty of the Holy Spirit. If you surrender, all you got to do is surrender and sit back and watch him work in your life. Watch him give you the words to say.
Watch him give you everything that you need and every resource that you need in that moment. You see, that's the point. All we got to do is surrender and let the Holy Spirit do all of the work. That's the reason why they were told to wait, because they can do none of the mission without the Spirit indwelling and leading them. And the same is true for you. You say, how does the Spirit work?
Well, we learned about the first one last week. He gifts us. He gifts us spiritual gifts.
We're all gifted with a spiritual gift in some capacity. And you say, what's the point of my gift? It's to propel the mission of Jesus forward. It's to propel the mission of Jesus forward. So whatever your spiritual gift is, we're supposed to find that spiritual gift and then we're supposed to use that gift.
And the reason is to propel the mission forward. But not only that, he empowers us to testify. Not only does the Spirit, he doesn't just gift us, he empowers us to testify. You know, as we see throughout scripture, we find that the Holy Spirit leads and after he leads, people proclaim. Luke 1, you can write these references down if you want.
Verse number 15, John the Baptist. He was filled with the Spirit. And you know what happened after he was filled with the Spirit? Is he proclaimed the Word or the coming of the Lord. Luke 1.67, Zachariah filled with the Spirit. He prophesied. Acts 2.4, the Holy Spirit fills the apostles.
And next thing you know, at Pentecost, we looked at this a couple of weeks ago. What happens is Peter stands up and he delivers this sermon. And you say, man, Peter must have been an incredible communicator because 3,000 people come to get saved that day and stuff. No doubt Peter communicated well. But listen, Peter was an uneducated fisherman.
He was a country boy. First sermon ever. And he gets up and delivers it. And all he does is talk about God.
But here's what I'm going to tell you is this. He surrendered, but it was the Holy Spirit doing all of the work through him. That's what we're called to do. That's why we just got to surrender to the Lord's leading and watch him do all of the work through us. In Acts 4, when the apostles were facing persecution after the lame man was healed. Do you remember this? They were filled with the Spirit.
And you know what came after that? They preached boldly. You see, you can't preach boldly without being filled with the Spirit.
You can't go across the street without being filled with the Spirit. You can't have the gospel conversation with your co-worker without being filled with the Spirit. You say, what's our role? Surrender. He's the one who does all of the work. All we are called to do is surrender to his leading and be witnesses and watch him work in our life.
That's what we're called to do. If you think about this, for our church, for Union Grove, I want to land the plane here. Think about our church.
Here's what this means for us. This is what I want. This is some big vision for you about what I want our church. The feeling and the posture that we have here at our church at Union Grove. Here's what I want us to be. I want Union Grove to be a church with open doors. I want our church to be a church with open doors. Listen, our church is not an exclusive country club. Here's what we are. We are a group of a bunch of messed up sinners that have been saved by the grace of God that are willing to welcome in a bunch of new sinners that can be saved by the grace of God.
Does that make sense? That's what we are. There's no status here. We're all equal because we all got here the same way and that's through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. And so none of us deserve anything in this place. None of us deserve to be here.
There is no status. You know, I've been in church my whole life and I hear things like, Well, bless God, my parents built that church, right? My parents laid the bricks there, right?
My parents were involved in whatever and stuff. That's great and I love longevity in church and I think that is an incredible admirable thing. But here's what I'll tell you. That doesn't mean you're more important than anybody else in this place. Because we all got here the exact same way. And so for us, when we think about this and application, here's what this means. I want to be a church with open doors to everybody that comes in.
And here's what I'll tell you. We all love that, we amen that, we think it's great. But sometimes churches struggle when people with real problems walk through the doors, don't they?
We've all seen it. People come in with real problems and you're kind of like, Whoa, stay away from them, right? Keep the kids away, whatever, and stuff like that. And here's what I'm saying is that we need to be a church with open doors because if you remember before you met Jesus, you were the same sinner with problems.
And aren't you thankful somebody witnessed to you and told you about the good news of the gospel and the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So I want us to be a church with open doors. But I also want us to be a place where people can genuinely find community here.
Where people can find community. Listen, I want people to feel welcome here. And truthfully, I think our greeters, I think we do a good job at this. I really am grateful that people can come in. I think people are going to get greeted. But here's what I'm going to tell you. This is specifically for people who have been here a long time.
Whatever. It's sometimes like, for you that have been here a long time, here's what church can be. You walk in and you talk to the exact same people you see every single week. And the same people you've talked to for the last 25 years.
Right? And listen, I'm not saying you don't need to talk to them, don't pass them by and stuff like that. But here's the thing, is that when we think about our church, we got to realize there's a lot of newer people that are trying to find their place in our church. There's a lot of newer people that are trying to find friends in our church. There's a lot of newer people that are trying to find community and a family to belong to. And here's the thing, there was a time when you were the same way and you walked in and you're looking for family and you're looking for community and you're looking for what you have now. And what we got to do is we got to help those who are searching for that. We got to search, so I challenge you that if you have your circle, widen the circle a bit. Widen the circle, invite new people into that circle.
Listen, look for people around you that you don't know their name and get to know them. That's what the church is supposed to be. That's what I desire so when everybody comes in here, they can come in here as a guest but leave here as family members. That's what we desire as a church. I want Union Grove to be a place that serves. You see, we serve, I feel like, in our church well. I think we're not perfect at this. I think we have a ways to go but we serve well in our church. But I also want us to be a place that serves its community well.
You know, through this series I've been asking myself this question. If Union Grove Baptist Church shut down tomorrow, now God forbid that happen, right? If it shut down tomorrow, would anybody care in our community?
Think about it. If we shut down tomorrow, would somebody be getting a hold of us saying, hey, we need you. Like we feel the fact that you are not here anymore.
No, you've got to reopen your doors. Or would anybody even notice that we weren't here? Because if we're not careful, all we care about is 2295 Union Grove Road and everybody that's already connected here on our campus. And so, no, we've got to be a church that serves and makes its community better. And then last, I want Union Grove to be a church that moves.
That moves. You know, I want our church to be spirit-led. I want every person in our church that calls themselves a Christian to, when you leave here, to realize that you are sent on mission by God.
At your school, at your place of employment, whatever. Be a witness. Leave here, be filled with the Spirit, and watch Him lead you and guide you and work through you like He did the apostles. He can do these things through you. You don't understand what the Holy Spirit's leading can do in your life if you are willing to surrender. Stop making it like what everybody else thinks about you and stuff like that.
Surrender your life to Him and watch Him lead in your life. To close, here's what I want to do. Every person should have received a green card. It's going to look like this. You should have got one of these on your way in.
If you didn't, I apologize. But if you could, those who have them, can you just kind of do this real quick? Make sure you're with me. And here's the thing. If you don't have one, you're not missing out. All you've got to do is take out any type of blank sheet of paper and a pen or take out your phone. If you don't have a pen, there might be a golf pencil or something around you, you know, or somebody around you. If you don't have one, that's fine.
Just take it on your phone. It'll be fine. But here's what I want to do. This green card, we were talking about this today or this week in the office about how we could really take this idea of going together on mission. Here's the thing, is that all of us are on mission, or we should be on mission every single day. When you leave here, many of you are going to go out to eat, right? Some of you are going to go to your favorite places, right?
You go all the time, you know people there. And then Monday morning hits, many of you are going to be in school. Many of you are going to be at work.
You've got different things. This week, many of you are going to go to the gym or you work out with people. Some of you are going to play sports somewhere, whatever. And we've got our whole lives in this great week in front of us. And here's what I'm going to tell you. My challenge to you is to go and be on mission in all of those places. And here's what this really means for me, is that for us, if we're not careful as a family, our whole life will be Union Grove, right? The bubble.
And if we're not careful, this is all that we know, and everybody that we interact with, and that be it. And so for us, our mission field that I believe is the ball fields. I love being at the local ball fields and the gyms and stuff with my kids.
I love watching them play. But you know what? More importantly than that, that's where we are to be on mission. Building relationships with people in the community and hopefully through those relationships that we can be witnesses of what Jesus has done in our lives.
So with this card, here's what I want you to do. I want you to write down three names of people in your circle. It could be people you work with. It could be a family member. It could be somebody at your school. It could be somebody that you play a sport with or a family that you watch your kids play sports with.
Whatever it is. I want you to write down three names of people in your circle that you believe God wants to use you to be a witness to. Right now, I want you to take out that pen, put it in your phone. We're going to take just a moment and do this. I'm going to invite Becky to come at this time.
Becky's going to start playing. And I want you to take just a moment, and I want you to write this down. Three people in your circle.
And here's what I want you to do, because I want to be sensitive to this. If you're looking at this and you're kind of like, wow, I don't have any names. I don't have anybody on here. Then here's what I want you to do today as we pray for these names. Here's what I would invite you to do.
You need to pray for an opportunity to get some people that you can get on here. For us, that might be like, hey, we need another thing in our life where we're in the community. Or perhaps, man, I've never met our neighbors, and you've got people all around us or something.
And you're like, hey, that's our community. Maybe we need to start inviting them over and using those gospel conversations as an opportunity for us to be witnesses of what Jesus has done in our life. I'm going to give you just a moment to write down these three, and then I'm going to lead you through a prayer of how we can pray today for every single name on here. And as we leave here today, Pastor Bailey is going to dismiss us here in a little bit.
As we're dismissed, here's what I want you to think about all week long. Look at what the gospel has done in your heart. Don't you want other people in your circle to experience that? Don't you want every person that you work with to experience what the gospel has done in your heart?
Don't you want the people on your sports teams? Don't you want the people that you interact with, all of them to experience the gospel and be captivated by the gospel the way that you have been captivated by it? Of course you do. All of us do. Then leave here surrendered and allow the Holy Spirit of God to work through you. Let's pray, and we'll pray through all these names. Father, God, we are so grateful for the precious blood of Jesus Christ. God, how unworthy every single one of us are for that. God, we are sinners, and we are in need of you. God, you loved us enough, in spite of our sin, that you sent your son Jesus Christ to come and die for us. We were undeserving.
We weren't searching for you. Yet you sought after us, and we are grateful for that, and we praise you for that. It's through trusting in the precious blood of Jesus that we can have a relationship with the Father, and we can come into your presence right here in this very moment.
What an honor and what a privilege. But God, as a church, our prayer is that what we have in you, this salvation, this relationship with the almighty and almighty God, Lord, we want everybody that we know to experience this. We want those in our circle to experience this.
God, we want to be witnesses. We want to go and tell of the good news of what you have done for us. And so every card that is represented in this place today, God, I pray that you would bless each name on there. God, I pray that as you're preparing us that you would prepare them. And God, I pray for every person in here that they would not just have this moment today, but that they would leave here recognizing that they are sent by you to go out and to tell and to be witnesses of what you have done in their life. God, we love you. Use us in great ways for your honor and for your glory. And all God's people said, amen.
