Onward Pt.2

Onward Pt.2

Last week we talked about taking the first step. We talked about taping, taking a leap of faith, and becoming a Christian. And this week I want to pick up a little bit after that. What is next? Now, if you were with us on Tuesday night at our watch service, we talked about several things. We talked a lot about discipleship. We talked about things that we have to do after we make that commitment of faith, after we're baptized, because it doesn't end there. There are still things that we can learn. There are still things that we can do better, ways that we can grow.

Because there is this huge misconception that once we come to church, things stop. There's this huge misconception that things end once we're baptized, that that's all we have to do. But there's more to it as well. There's more to learn. There's more ways to grow. As a Christian, we should never stop growing. We should never stop learning until we have our reward in heaven. That's the only time that we should stop.

But this morning I want to talk about baptism. I want to talk about discipleship. I want to look at Matthew 28 verses 18 through 20. And like I said, if you were with us Tuesday night at our watch service, you heard these verses, but it's important to look at them again as well. Let's look at these 3 verses. It says, “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

So we know this is the Great Commission. We know that Jesus said these things just before he ascended into heaven. This was the last things that he wanted us to know, go and tell. Because somebody has to tell us about Christ, Somebody has to share the word of God with us, somebody has to tell us that Christ loves us. Somebody has to do these things. Every single one of us is here today in church. Every single person is watching this online that will watch it later. All of us. Are here and here this because somebody told us. Somebody told us about Christ. Somebody told us that he loved us. Somebody invited us to church. Somebody prayed for us. Somebody mentored us. Somebody probably discipled us.

Now think about where we would be if we didn't have that person. Where would we be if somebody didn't do that for us? Now that we understand that, why do we not want to be that person for somebody else? That's what we need to do. We need to be that person for somebody else. That's what we're supposed to do. That's what the scripture tells us to do. Disciple people. Just like we talked about on Tuesday night and we've talked about before, discipleship happens the best one-on-one. There are things that you can talk about with somebody one-on-one that you can't do anywhere else. There are conversations that you can have one-on-one that you cannot have anywhere else. It's simply impossible.

The best discipleship happens. When we go have lunch with somebody. When we go have a cup of coffee with somebody in the morning. When we put forth a little bit of effort. We build that relationship. Because, as the old saying goes, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. That holds true. People want to know that you love them. People want to know that you care for them. It has to be genuine. You have to build that relationship 1st and then start from there. It doesn't happen real quick.

You know, a lot of times when we are trying to disciple somebody, maybe we're trying to tell somebody about Christ, we get frustrated. We get frustrated because they may not be as receptive as we think that they should be. They may not be as enthused as we are. They may not be immediately a believer. But things take time. You know, in our world, in our society today, we're not patient people. We want everything to happen right now just the way that we think that it should. And when it don't, we get frustrated and we want to quit. But we can't do that, especially when we're trying to win a soul for Christ. We can't give up on them no matter how long it takes. It may take you years. We can't give up on people.

But we've talked about go and tail. We we know about baptism. We know that baptism is a commandment. In the Scripture, several times in Scripture it talks about baptizing, and Jesus is telling us here to go and tell people and then baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Then there's another part to that. Teach them to observe all that I commanded you. You see, a lot of times we get to the point that we think baptism is the end, but that's just the beginning. When we're baptized, when we're saved, that's when we just getting started. Because we've got a lot to learn, a lot to do from that point on.

Another thing that's really good to teach people and necessary to teach people when we're discipling them is to trust God. Trust and follow God no matter what happens. Look at Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 and 6. It says, “trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding and all your ways. Acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”

This is something that we have to learn. I'm not saying that it's going to be easy, I'm just saying it's something we have to learn. We have to learn to trust God. We have to learn to put our faith in God We have to learn not to lean on our own understanding because our own understanding will get us in a mess. Trust God. Lean on His understanding. Lean on Him, not ourselves. Because we don't know what God knows, We don't have the ability to know what God knows, even though we want to. Even though we want to know every little intricate plan. We want to know how everything is going to work. We want to see 10 years down the road. Unfortunately, we don't have that ability. But God does, and we need to lean on Him.

I want to move over to the Book of Luke chapter 10 for just a little bit. We're going to look at several verses here. We'll start off by looking at the 1st 2 verses and this little story. In the scripture is really going to tie into what we're talking about this morning. Look at Luke chapter 10 verses one and two. It says, “Now after this the Lord appointed 70 others, and sent them in pairs ahead of him to every city and place where he himself was going to come. And he was saying to them, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore beseeched the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

So what we see here is Jesus appointed 70 others, 70 people. And he sent them ahead of him in pairs. He sent them with somebody else. There were two of them who went to each city, every place where Jesus was going to go ahead of him. Now a few things about this that are important. First of all, Jesus sent them in pairs. He sent them to at a time. Why do you think this would be? A lot of times we're stronger in pairs, we're stronger in numbers. Translate that to today. A lot of times we can do more with two people than we can with just ourselves. When we go talk to somebody, we go witness to somebody. We go try to talk to somebody about Christ. If me and you go, me and one other person or you and one other person? If two people go. Sometime during the conversation, one person may think of something to say that somebody else didn't. One person may connect with someone better than the other does. Sometimes it is necessary to go in pairs to go in two.

Really like what Jesus says there in verse 2. The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Well, that's true even today, isn't it? The harvest is plentiful. There are a lot of people out there who need to know Christ. There are a lot of people out there who don't know Christ. There are people in our community, I bet there are many people within 2 miles of this church in either direction that don't know the Lord. The harvest is plentiful. There shouldn't be a shortage of people to tell about Christ. And the fact remains, they're only a very few people who are out there doing it, who are out there doing God's work, who are out there telling people.

That's why we have to be one of those. We have to go and tell. We have to go and do God's work. We can't sit back and say, well, somebody else will take care of that. We can't sit back and say, well, somebody else will do it. We need to be that person. We have to be that person for somebody else. Because there may be something that only we can say, there may be something that only we can do. We may have that relationship with somebody that nobody else has. It's up to us.

Another thing that I want to mention here real quick is there is a sense of urgency as well because we never know when we're going to run out of time. We never know when our life here on this earth will be over. We never know when someone elses will be. We don't know how much time that we have, so we don't need to put this off. We don't need to lay it aside. We need to do it and do it quickly.

Let's move on down in this story and look at verses 3 through 9 of Luke chapter 10. It says, “go, behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no money belt, no bag, no shoes, and greet no one on the way. Whatever house you enter, first say peace be to this house. If a man of peace is there, you're. Peace will rest on him, but if not, it will return to you. Stay in that house, eating and drinking what they give you, for the laborer is worthy of his wages. But do not keep moving from house to house. Whatever city you enter, they will receive you. Eat what is set before you. And heal those in it who are sick and stay to them. The Kingdom of God has come near to you.”

So just a few things I want to mention about these verses real quick. One thing that is clear here Jesus is trying to tell these people rely on God's provision, rely on. God to help you to provide for what you need. Now what that does, it does one thing really. In particular, it helps our faith if we are totally dependent on God. We have to have faith. There's no way around it. You have to have faith if we're totally dependent on God for him to provide everything, for him to provide a place to stay, something to eat, something to drink, something to wear. Our faith will be strengthened. We'll have to have faith.

They also talks about here with sheep being among the wolves. This tells us that we're not exempt from adversity. What I mean by that is just because you're a Christian doesn't mean everything's always going to go smooth. It doesn't mean that everything is going to be hunky Dory all the time. There might be adversity, there might be challenges. These challenges may arise and it may be something we really struggle with. But again, with our faith, God will get us through these challenges. God will get us through this adversity.

And this is not just a 1st century problem either. If you are out there doing God's work today, if you are out there spreading the gospel, doing God's work today, there might be some things that come up that may be challenging. Because the fact remains, everybody is not a Christian. Everybody does not believe in Christ. There are people out there who might do harm to you because you are a Christian, because you are trying to spread the word of God. There are people out there who might. Challenge you, Mark. Come at you with questions with challenges. It's all something we have to be prepared for. We'll keep in mind God will provide. He will provide you what you need with the words to say. With the tools that you need to do the job. But we need to prepare, we need to be ready for that.

Let's finish up this little story here. Luke chapter 10 verses 10 through 12. It says, “but whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say. Even the dust of your city, which clings to your feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Let yet be sure of this, that the Kingdom of God has come near. I say to you, it will be more tolerable in that day. For Sodom than for that city.”

So one thing that we need to really learn from these scriptures here is to proclaim the Kingdom of God no matter what. No matter what people say, no matter what people do to us, always proclaim the Kingdom of God. Because that's what we're supposed to do, that's what we're here for, is to spread his word, to do it in a loving way as well. Because there's all kinds of different ways we can go about telling someone about Christ. We need to do it in a loving way. We need to do it in a Christian way. We need to act like a Christian as well.

When I say you act like a Christian, I mean all the time. No matter what is happening, no matter what we are going through, act like a Christian, act like we are supposed to. Because you have no idea how much of A witness you can be to someone just by living the Christian life. I'm here to tell you people notice. People know if you are living the Christian life or not. Even people who don't go to church, even people who don't believe in Christ, can tell you if you're living why you should be. They watch you, they see you, they see how you handle different situations. They hear the words that come out of your mouth.

Now, this is something we don't like to talk about because we don't want to be corrected. We don't want to be in the situation where somebody may be correcting us or telling us that we're not doing things as we should be. But the fact remains, it's something that we have to do because if we want to improve, if we want to grow as a Christian. Some things wouldn't have to change. Last couple verses we're gonna look at today come from Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 and 23. It says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

How many of these things are in our lives? How many of these things are in our thoughts? How many of these things are in our actions? What is the fruit that we are producing? When somebody sees us, do they automatically say he's a Christian, she's a Christian, she goes to church. I know. I can tell. Or do people have to guess? Do people have to wonder? Can I tell where a Christian? By our actions, by our words? By how we handle things? Is our lives full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control? Where is our lives full of the opposite? Some things that we need to think about this week, some things that we need to think about today. Where do we stand?

I just want to recap for just a second some things we talked about today. The first thing was to trust God no matter what. Trust God. When we're going and tailing and we're proclaiming His name, when we're out there doing God's work, trust God. No matter what we're doing in our lives, trust God. You can't have too much faith, you can't trust God too much, you can't do too much work for God. Trust him all of the time. Trust that he will provide. Trust that he'll provide what you need. He'll provide the words for you to say. He'll provide the tools for you to do his work. Because if we're doing God's work, he'll never leave us alone. You'll never send us somewhere and leave us for us to fend for ourselves. He'll always be there with us.

And just to sum everything up, while we're doing that, we need to act like a Christian. We need to live the Christian life. We need to be a good witness to people. They should be able to tell by our actions that were Christian. They should be able to tell by the words that come out of our mouths that we're a Christian. These are all things that are so important that we don't understand. A lot of times we don't understand why it's important to do these things. We don't understand why it's important to act like a Christian all the time. People watch you and I promise if you live the life, they'll pay way more attention to what you say. So what are we gonna do today? Are we going to live the life? Are we going to be a disciple? Are we going to do what we were supposed to? Are we going to live the Christian life today? Our choices that we have to make, What choice is it going to be?