Ready to Serve: The Great Commission

Pray

Recap:

Becoming Spiritually Fit

We spoke about the Identity of a Faithful Warrior

To be spiritually fit you have to be a person after God’s heart.

To be after God’s heart, you have to know who God is

How to Know God:

Humanity’s purpose: To know and worship God

The problem: Sin hinders our ability to know and worship God and renders us dead before God

The Solution: Through Jesus’ Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension can we have forgiveness and life.

Our response: Believe and repent

Why? Because we are talking about the fate of our eternal souls.

The Power Source

Our ability to walk out our Christian faith abides only through the regenerative and renewing works of the Holy Spirit.

Six Promises

Promise 1: Christ has come into your life.

Promise 2: Since you have the Eternal Son, you have eternal life.

Promise 3: You are reborn as a new creation.

Promise 4: All your sins have been and will be forgiven.

Promise 5: You have a new relationship with God.

Promise 6: You have assurance that you will never be separated from God again.

Building Spiritual Fitness

The Battleground

We are in Spiritual Warfare.

Who are our enemies?

Satan (Heb, accuser or adversary) and his demons

The World (the spiritual anti-God agendas/cultures that push people further from God)

The Flesh (our sin-nature, that aspect of us that hungers for the carnal, anti-God things of this world

What is our defense against the enemies in this spiritual battle?

Belt of Truth (v. 14)

Breastplate of Righteousness (v. 14)

Sabatons (shoes/sandals) of Readiness/Preparedness that comes from the Gospel of Peace (v. 15)

Shield of Faith (v. 16)

Helmet of Salvation (v. 17)

Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God (v. 17)

Prayer (v. 18)

Spiritual Drills

Drill 1 - Put Jesus First

Drill 2 - Engage The Word Daily

Drill 3 - Pray

Drill 4 - Be a Witness

Drill 5 - Fellowship With Your Spiritual Family

Drill 6 - Faithfully Obey God

Ready to Serve

The Great Commission

Read Matthew 28:18-20

Do a normal head session for this passage

Head:

v. 18, Christ has the ultimate authority and command, handed to Him by the Father.

v. 19, From this place of authority, Jesus commands His disciples to make disciples, not just in their local area, but from all nations. They are commanded to baptize them in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Important note, “Go” in this verse is written in the passive participle, better understood as “as you are going.” Perhaps it is assumed that they were going out?

v. 20, They are to teach their disciples how to follow Christ as they have been taught to follow Christ. And they have a great comfort in knowing that they will not be alone in this daunting calling! Christ will be with them forever, a promise that we can cling to as well!

Heart:

Questions

How would you summarize Jesus’ calling on His disciples?

We are to be His witnesses

Acts 1:8

We are to be disciple-makers

2 Timothy 2:2

This calling that Christians have in the Great Commission is present in every horizontal relational aspect (neighbors) of their lives.

Marriage

Family

Your workplace

On a scale of 0-10, how would you rate your participation in the Great Commission?

Are you content with this rating?

Hands:

Walk with God: What does partaking in the Great Commission look like personally in your walk with God?

Keep Christ first: What does partaking in the Great Commission look like personally when we keep Christ first?

Keep sin out of your life: What does partaking in the Great Commission look like personally when you are keeping sin out of your life?

Personally,

I need to pray more for my sailors and my team. I legitimately do not pray enough my mission field and for my team.

I perhaps need to structure my prayer session into blocks or categories to ensure I pray for everyone I need to. Not out of a spirit of legalism, but stewardship.