02-Our Mission 2026: “Go, Make, Baptize & Teach”

Chapter 1: Recap: We Exist to Love God and Love People

Well, last week we asked the question of why do we exist? And as an illustration, we used the company Amazon and asked why does the company Amazon exist? And though it may seem distasteful to some people in today's modern society, right? So our our society is very inconsistent. One of the things we talked about is how we love it when companies make money for us, but in general, many people don't like it when companies make money.

It's kind of inconsistent, is it not? But the point of most companies is the fact they need to make money and they need to make money for their shareholders. And so then we need to understand though, how is it that Amazon is supposed to make money? And as part of that, last week we saw that they actually have a mission statement that answers this question. What?

So if Amazon exists to make money, that's their purpose. What do they do in order to make that money? And we saw this on from their website that Amazon's mission is to be Earth's most customer centric company. So this is what we here at Sunrise define as mission. Again, this thing of what we do.

What is the response to why we exist? And so for Amazon, it is to be Earth's most customercentric company. This then brings us to back to us as humans where last week we tackled this question of why do we exist? And we saw from Jesus's words in Matthew 22 that we exist to love God and to love people. This is the summation of Jesus's two greatest commandments that we find in Matthew 22 34-4.

And in this mission, what we're going to do next is we're going to be asking that question of what then do we do in response? If we are to love God and to love people, what is it that we are supposed to do in order to see that happen? That is what we call our mission.

Chapter 2: From Purpose to Mission

But before we get to mission, we need to return back again to the Savior who himself last week we saw came with purpose. Because we can ask this question, why did Jesus come? People ask this question all of the time. And we saw in Luke 19:10 that Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. That is why Jesus came.

So then we ask the question, well, what did Jesus do then to accomplish seeking and saving the lost? Right? So if Jesus's purpose was to seek and to save, then we ask, okay, well, what was his mission? What did he do? Well, the saving part we know he did by going to the cross.

We know that he went into the grave. And in doing both of those things, by going to the cross, he defeated sin. By going into the grave and bursting forth again three days later, he defeated death. This is what Jesus did in order to fulfill this saving part. Family, we have nothing to do with the saving part.

Right? We need to make sure we understand that. Too many of you are held hostage by this idea that I haven't saved anyone. You saved no one. Only Jesus saves, right?

And this is where it comes down to that seeking part. Our job then is about seeking. So Jesus goes to the grave. He defeats sin and death. We understand that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

But what again about this seeking part? This

Chapter 3: I Will Build My Church

is where this comes in. He said, "I will build my church to do the seeking part." Jesus had this other element. Right? So Jesus spent three years on this earth. He's talking about the gospel, who he is, what he's going to do.

We've seen this recently in our Mark series. Jesus repeatedly kept telling his his apostles, his disciples, "This is what I must do." Of course, they didn't really get it until afterwards, but he's laying the groundwork. But there's another thing that he's doing. All the while he's marching to the cross, he's beginning to lay the foundations for his church with those 12. And that's what Jesus is doing.

Now, you need to understand something. Jesus is not building a church. This is important. This is another thing where our language is so insufficient in so many ways. Jesus is not just building a church which simply is just a gathering of people.

There are all manner of churches. You've probably seen them. You've probably heard of them. But they are not his church. And it's critical that we understand that we need to be his church.

This is the thing the Lord gave me years ago. I remember there was a point where we were really struggling and and this ultimately wasn't the the totality of the answer, but coming through this section that we're going to be going through in Matthew 16, the Lord asked me, "Are you my church?" See, we assume we put church out on our buildings. We put church in our bulletins. We say that we go to church, but do we go to his church? And are we part of his church?

And this is what I mean as we continue going to jump into

Chapter 4: Peter's Confession in Matthew 16

Matthew chapter 16. And Jesus is going to ask his disciples a very simple question. Who do men say that I, the son of man, am? And so they said, "Well, some say John the Baptist and some say Elijah and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." And then Jesus responds to them and says, "But who do you say that I am?" And then Peter steps up and he says,"Well, you are the Christ. You are the son of the living God." Now, upon hearing this confession, this is Jesus's response.

Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. Now I didn't initially have in here to discuss this but you need to understand something. Peter's name means the rock. But Jesus is not saying upon Peter I am going to build this church.

That that's not what this is. There's an entire group of people in the world over a billion of them that think that's what this means. That's not what Jesus is saying. What Jesus is saying upon this confession that you have made Peter that I am the Christ, the son of the living God, upon that confession I will build my church. That is what Jesus is saying in that moment.

And this is precisely what Jesus did through the 12 apostles. He starts with these 12 which become 11 because of Judas. Then they add another one Matias. And then suddenly you end up seeing that there's like 70. There's 120, there's hundreds more, thousands more, and now millions of people around the world.

So Jesus's response to his purpose to seek and to save the lost was to go to the cross, go into the grave, burst forward, defeating sin and death, and leaving behind his church that would exist to love God and to love people. So what should we as believers do now? to love God and to love people. Well, thankfully the Savior does not leave us hanging. Just before he leaves and he ascends to heaven, Jesus answers the question of what what it is that we are supposed to do, how it is we are supposed to live out our mission. And we call this the great commission.

We find this in

Chapter 5: The Great Commission

Matthew 28 starting in verse 18 where we read this. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you." Now, one of the first things we need to recognize in this passage that we call the great commission is that everything that follows rests on Jesus's authority. This is incredibly important that we understand this. Jesus is the one who is extending to these men and by by virtue anyone and everyone that come after them his authority to go in his name.

Not some authority. This is all authority. Jesus is saying he literally has how much authority? All authority. And what do we say here family?

That God's got all the things, right? He has all the authority to determine our mission. And this mission mission can be broken up into four categories that work incredibly well together. This idea that we need to go, we need to make, we need to baptize, and we need to teach. And

Chapter 6: Go Therefore

we're going to work our way through these. And we're going to start with go or specifically go therefore. Now I want to give you a good rule of thumb for those of you Bible nerds. When you are going through the Bible and you come upon the word therefore, it's telling you what was just said is therefore. Okay?

Because of this this does that make sense? Okay. So what it is there for? So in this case because Jesus has all authority we are to go and do something but we also understand that we do not go in our own authority. Now some of you you don't need to have authority given to you.

You'll just go and do something. Some of you need to be explicitly told to do something even if you know you should do it. Well nobody's told me to do it. You ever been there? I remember when I was a young man that was a thing.

I used to think I need a title. I need to be given explicit authority to do this thing. And then I learned some different things. But here's the thing. Jesus is giving you a title.

You are his disciple. Jesus is giving you authority. He's given his authority to you. Jesus has literally empowered you to legally go in his name. Every single disciple.

And you're like, "But no, he's talking to the disciples themselves. This doesn't have to do with us." Oh, but wait, there's more that's coming. So, just hold on to that one. Now, we notice something else here. And this is one thing that I love to point out because this is critically important to us.

We have developed these

Chapter 7: Evangelism Is Not a Scheduled Event

traditions over the years that are not in alignment with the word of God. One of them is that evangelism is something that I am scheduled to do. There are certain times that I cordon out in my life where I go and I do evangelism. That is not what Jesus is saying here. That is not something that was even on Jesus's mind.

Because literally what Jesus is saying is that as you are going, do these things. So let me ask you family, how often are you going? All the time. We're always going. We are always to be about the commission.

We are always to be about the mission. We are always to be about loving God and loving people. There's never a time where the believer is given the opportunity to not love God or not love people. I want to let let that sit there for a second because we love to set these things aside. It's like, ah, I don't have to be on right now.

No. And the thing is is you should just be on. You should just love God and love people. There's more of that coming here in just a bit as well. But basically, as we're living anywhere and everywhere we find ourselves, we are to be living witnesses for Christ.

This is not just about the professionals. This is not just about the people that you vote in and pay to be up to preach. This is every single person who calls on the name of Christ. Every single person who has confessed and believed in the Lord Jesus. So, here's what I want us to do this week.

I'm going to remind you again about this later because you'll likely forget. Some of this is going to terrify some of you. Some of you are going to eat this up. I want you right now to start thinking of three names that you can have a conversation with this week or that you can at least pray for. So, start praying for them and think about at least one conversation you can have with someone who you know is not a believer, someone who needs to hear the truth of the hope that is within you.

Because this is the thing you need to understand. You don't have to be a professional. You don't have to have a theological degree. You don't even have to have read through the entirety of the word of God to share what it is that Christ has done in you. And you're like, "Yeah, I do." I mean, no.

I mean, you woman at the well. If you don't know the woman at the well, just understand this. Jesus calls her out for her sin. And what does she do immediately after that? She goes and tells everyone about what Jesus has done, about who Jesus is.

And at the moment where you're like, I mean, I'm concerned about the people that I might go to, what they might say to me. She went to the very people who had been persecuting her to tell them about Jesus. This is an example that has been set before us. And there's going to be more on this here in a second. Man, this one this is rich.

Family, understand this before we get there. God's not left us alone. So, just put this in your mind and say, "Okay, who can I go to? who was in my orbit that I can share with. Now, what comes next is the savior's primary command in this section. So, just so you understand, there are four commands that are here.

But go, there's go, make,

Chapter 8: Make Disciples

baptize, and teach. The go, baptize, and teach are subservient to the making disciples. That's the structure grammatically that's going on here. So, we need to choose our three people. We need to go about making.

But making what? Well, we need to be about making disciples. What is a disciple, you might ask? It's a follower of Christ. It's people who are literally following Jesus.

But it's more than words. A follower of Christ is someone who's more than just someone who's prayed a prayer. It's more than someone who's just said, "Well, I've accepted Jesus." And they look no different than they did before they made that declaration. True confession, true belief will understand this will evidence be evidenced by life change. True belief, true faith, true confession will have evidence in the fruit of their lives.

Now, before following Jesus, we were lost in sin. We were known by very specific characteristics. Some of you will know these. We find this in Galatians 5:19. Now, most of you have heard of the fruit of the spirit, but there's also the fruit of the flesh.

We don't spend a lot of time on those, but it's important that we understand these so we know what this looks like because I don't know if you understand this. There's only two groups of people in the world. Those that are saved and those who are not. Those are the only two groups of people. Now, we like to split ourselves up all other ways, but those are the only two that matter.

Those who are saved and those who are not. And those who are not saved are going to look mostly like this. Now, it's important for us to understand something because some of you when I read this, you're going to go like, but but some of those I relate with. Well, yes, because we are still being conformed into the image of the sun. But the longer we walk with Jesus, the less you should look like these, the more you should look like what's coming soon.

So, just keep that in your mind. But if your entire life looks like this and you practice these things, this is how you live your life, you need to question whether or not you've actually received the Lord as your savior because this should not be what predominates a person who claims the name of Christ. But let's get going. Now, the works of the flesh are evident. Adultery, fornication.

Now, just so you know, fornication, we're not going to get into all of this. That's like think of sexually debaucherous behavior, sexually immoral behavior today that falls underneath that category, right? It's it's a very much a catch-all. Uncleanness, lwdenness, idolatry, sorcery. Now, just so you know, this word for sorcery here is where we get our word pharmaceutical.

So, just keep that in your mind. hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies. None of us have ever seen any of these things inside the walls of people who claim to be part of a church, have we? Right? envy, murders, drunkenness, realies, and the like of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And why is that? Because these are unbelievers.

These are unbelievers. So followers of Christ, it's important that we understand that we are saved because we have confessed and we believed in our heart that God has raised Jesus from the dead. That is what saves us. And when we come to that point, we begin to walk away from those fruits of the flesh. If you're a follower of Christ, if you're a disciple of Christ, you should not be known by these traits.

Again, this does not mean that you are not a believer, but you need to be walking away from them. Now, I'm going to give you an example of of a life that is still in process of being changed. And when you see this person, some of you are going to be like, "What?" And it's it's pretty amazing.

Chapter 9: Alice Cooper and Real Life Change

So, some of you know this guy. This guy's name is Alice Cooper. He's been rock and roll for 50 years. Did you know that Alice Cooper's dad was a pastor for 25 years? Did you know that Alice Cooper's grandfather was a pastor for 75 years?

Did you know that Alice Cooper when he was a young man did ministry to the Apache Indians in Arizona? And yet then fame comes in and begins to take over his life. Suddenly he finds himself, some reports saying, drinking a case of alcohol of beer a day. In addition to that, can allowing just copious amounts of cocaine into his life, completely wrecking his marriage, he ends up by himself in a room looking in the mirror, and he sees blood start coming out of his eyes. And at this point, he's like, I don't know if it was real or not, but I knew that if something didn't change in my life, I was going to die.

And it was at that point he fell asleep for three days. He woke up and rededicated his life to Christ and began to walk away from the fruits of the flesh. And this is the thing we need to understand. Some of you in this room are like, "This person over here could never be saved. that person over there or maybe it's even yourself. God can change any life, can change any heart.

He wants to reform us and transform us into being those children. He wants to see us walking in his spirit. And for those of us who are Christ followers, this is part of us making disciples, people helping people to follow and walk in the way of Christ, walking in the spirit, literally being following Jesus, being these disciples who live these lives that look completely different than the fruit of the flesh and instead being what we call the fruit of the spirit, which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

Chapter 10: The Fruit of the Spirit

gentleness and self-control. Now, you may have missed something. A lot of us like to say the fruits of the spirit. That's not what is being said here. It is the fruit of the spirit.

See, some people will say, "Well, I struggle with the fruit of self-control." Well, I'm going to tell you something right now. If you're struggling with self-control, you're struggling with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness, not just self-control. And so these things come together, God working them in our lives as we're following Jesus, as we're growing more towards him, as we're more and more being conformed to the image of Jesus, which Paul tells us about in Romans 8, we begin to look more like this fruit. That's what it is to be a disciple. And for those of us who are helping others become disciples, this is the metric.

This is the thing that we get to see. We show them to Jesus. We bring them to the foot of the cross. Understanding that someone who does not have Jesus in their life cannot have these things. You can have faximiles of these things, but you cannot have them in their legitimate form.

So hear me when I say that what we do as a church to love God and love people is to do what Jesus said. That is to make disciples who do not just pray one Sunday then go in living as a heathen for the rest of their lives but instead they confess they believe and more and more demonstrate the fruit of the spirit within their lives for the rest of their lives. And in doing so, they less and less demonstrate any of the fruit of the flesh. They we become believers who live the truth of what Christ has accomplished anywhere and everywhere that we find ourselves. And then as faithful followers, they we make disciples who will in turn make more disciples.

This is a thing that's incredibly important for us to understand is we think again someone is an evangelist. This is the person who brings people to the foot of the cross and makes disciples and then we go and we sit down in our spiritual chair as though now we can be spectators to watch these other people do these things. Family, if that was the case, the church wouldn't exist today. we wouldn't be here because it's the the purpose and the goal of every single one of us to continue this process of making disciples. And let me ask you a question. Of all the people in this room right now, if there was only two or three of us that were actively going and making disciples, how effective would that be compared to every single person in this room going and making disciples?

Simple thought, but profound, transformative. transformative. But here's the amazing part. The Savior has also given us, he's not only given us just the legal authority. He has given us the power to do it. Now, some of you are going to be like, "You bring this up all the time, Chris." Yes.

And I'm going to continue to bring it up because we're still not living as though it's true. For many of us, we're not living this as though it's true. Because Jesus didn't just say, "Hey, go do this thing for me." And say, "Figure it out." He said, "Hey, go do this thing and guess what? I'm going to give you power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Those of us who are believers in Christ, we talked about this a few weeks ago, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, but it's not like God just kind of sits in here and hangs out.

God is involved in our lives, empowering us to do anything and everything that he's called us to do anything. Going to the furthest reaches of the nation, going to the most of the nation, the world, to the most difficult people that you can possibly imagine. The Holy Spirit comes in and gives us what we need to accomplish those things. The kinds of miracles that you see in the New Testament can be done through each person in this room who has called on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The question is, do we believe it?

And will we partner with the Holy Spirit to see those things done? Family, our God has given us not only a mission, but he's also given us the power to accomplish that mission. And as people

Chapter 11: Baptize Them

come to faith in Christ, our responsibility does not stop. We're next told that we need to baptize. Specifically, we need to baptize them in water. Specifically, we need to dunk them. Now, people like to say, it's like, well, why not sprinkle? because that's not the picture.

Like I some of you already know this cuz I've told this story before, but many of you don't know. Baptism literally is dunking. Like that's what it's understood to be. In fact, the people in the first century wouldn't have thought of it in a spiritual context other than Christians because it was just a very generic word for dunking something. Specifically, cloth as an example.

I I know most of us, we just go to the store where we buy our clothes. You probably don't think a lot about how they get blue or how they get plaid or how they get gray or red or whatever, but they need to have dye. Like, you don't go and pick cotton and it's red, right? You don't go pick purple cotton. That's not how it works.

And so, you have to take this fabric and you have to dunk it into whatever color you want it to be and have it come out. And when it dunks in there, it now takes on the characteristics of that color. It's literally infused to every fiber of that particular material's being. And when the Holy Spirit has come upon us, we have been infused by God himself. Every fiber of who we are has been infused by God himself.

And so when we end up getting baptized, please understand that's not when we get the Holy Spirit. There are some churches that try and preach that and teach that. Now, Jesus says, "You will receive power and the Holy Spirit has come upon you." that comes as soon as we believe in Jesus, we get the Holy Spirit. But what you see in this baptistry back here is a public representation of what we affiliate with Jesus or how we affiliate with Jesus. How we we say, "Lord, we recognize that we were dead and lost in our sins and transgressions and now we have gone into the tomb as you have gone into the tomb.

We we we recognize and we relate with your death and now we burst forward into new life just like you did on that third day and we've literally been immersed and we have been brought forward into new life and that is what this is saying is when you've brought people to the foot of the cross and they have made that decision now make this public confession by going to the baptistry and having yourself baptized in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit and we burst forward into that new life right again these people who have confessed and believed, they are brought forward to new life. Now, family, what I'm about to say may be uncomfortable for many in this room, but this portion of the the great commission is not just for evangelists, but again, it's for all of us. And each of us who is a disciple, a professed follower of Christ, needs to be part of leading people to the foot of the cross. Every one of us as we're going should be about making disciples who are brought to the point of baptism. And understand this, there's not an age limit.

This is another thing that is so bad because again we'll what we'll do is we'll infuse the characteristics of our own culture and we'll say okay well you know young people they're too young to be responsible to do things and so they can't do such and such until they're 18 or 21 or 25 or whatever it is. There is no age limit for sharing the hope of that is within us right? So you can't young people, you can't use that as your excuse. But at the same time, those of you that have retired, this is another thing. I've retired from life, not retired from the gospel.

That doesn't exist. And you're like, well, you know, but this, that, it's like, look, if you have breath in your lungs, you can share the truth of the hope that is within you anywhere and everywhere that you find yourself. And you say, well, no one's going to listen to an old man or an old woman. they'll listen to the spirit speaking through you. Right? And that's the thing is we're not the ones who save.

Jesus is the one who saves. And the thing that we need to understand also is people are not going to listen to us. People will probably treat us poorly because guess what? They did that to the savior as well. You think about that.

Jesus, the greatest teacher of all time ever. Period. No question, no argument. The rich young ruler walks away from him. Hundreds, thousands walk away from him after the feeding of the 5000 and after he teaches.

Family, if they walked away from Jesus, they'll walk away from you. But that's not the point. The point is Jesus still spoke to him. Think about that. When you go into a situation, you don't know how they're going to respond.

Jesus knew and yet he still spoke to him and he let them walk away. The thing is is it's not our job to make people grow. I love how Paul states this to the Corinthians. It says, "I planted, Apollos watered, but it's God who gave the increase." So then, neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Family, we love to venerate evangelists who have thousands upon people come unto their stage.

That's the wrong perspective. Who's the one who brings the increase? It is our God. To him be the glory. This then leads us to our final component.

Chapter 12: Teach Them to Obey Everything

Teaching. But teaching what? What is it that we're supposed to teach? Well, Jesus says it. All that I have commanded, which can be summarized by love God and love people.

Now, those of you who are paying attention, you may have noticed that I missed something. And it was very much on purpose because whenever I talk to people about this and and even people who are theologically educated, so if you miss this, it's not just you. It's been pastors who have higher degree levels than I have that have missed this. But they missed this. We are to teach them to observe.

We're to teach them to obey everything that Jesus has commanded. So in order to make disciples, we need to be going. In order to make disciples, we need to be about teaching those disciples others to observe everything that Jesus has commanded. Which again, this goes back to what I mentioned earlier. You're like, "Ah, that was just for the disciples." This right here defeats that argument that I literally have heard from people.

The disciples were given this. Yes. But they were told to go and teach others likewise in order that they might teach others likewise. That they might go and teach others likewise. and on and on and on and on. Each of us who call on the name of Christ need to be ourselves disciples, Christ followers who go make, baptize and teach.

The next generation of disciples to then in turn go make, baptize and teach, who will teach the next generation to go make, baptize and teach. But why is this so hard for so many of us to do? Well, first of all, it means that we need to invest in in one another. We need to put others ahead of ourselves and we need to get into the muck and the mire of humanity. And I'll be honest, that's not always the easiest thing to do.

I mean, I know you all are awesome. You ever thought about that? Have you ever thought that everybody thinks they're awesome? Everybody thinks they're awesome. and somebody goes, "I don't think I'm awesome." I know that's out there, but you know what I mean. The vast majority of people, I'm awesome.

And then if you ask people, maybe not. We're difficult as people. We just are. We come with a lot of baggage. But the commission doesn't allow that to be an excuse.

Think about the baggage Jesus had to deal with. I mean, there are times where he just reminds me. He's like, "Look, I know you're struggling with this thing, but my guys, good point. Thank you, Lord. I haven't had to tell anybody to get behind me, Satan, yet thankfully." But, but that just exists.

That's humanity. But I I thought of this thing, this this particular illustration here, and I think this partially answers how and why, is because we like things to be easy. Most of us want a program. A lot of the guys that I meet with who are other pastors, they're just constantly recommending books as though a particular book is the answer to whatever that thing is. I'm just going to give you a little hint at this point of decades of reading all of these different books.

They're all the same thing repackaged over and over and over again with different just from different angles, but they're all the same stuff. There's really nothing new in that. And it certainly isn't anything that overwhelms what the Bible says. But what we're doing is we're trying to find that magic bullet that answers that question. And let me give you an illustration on what I mean, but in different areas.

So, how many of you have downloaded something like a fitness app? Maybe you watched it for six weeks, uh, or you watched a workout series on on YouTube. Maybe you found a meal plan or something like that you did for a while and you expected that six week period of time to just transform your life. You don't have to raise hands or anything. I'm seeing smirking.

I think most of you know exactly what I'm talking about. So, you completed the program, you checked the box, but six months later, nothing changed. Yeah. Why? Well, because fitness isn't a course you complete.

It's a lifestyle you live. I mean, you think about that. It's a lifestyle that you live. Disciplehip works the same way. A class can be a piece of the puzzle.

Because I'll get asked here, it's like, "Well, where's our disciplehip class?" I purposefully do not have one. Now, I'll be honest. I've had a couple guys review a potential curriculum for it, but there's a reason why I haven't done it. It's because for some reason we think, well, I took the disciplehip class and now I am a disciple. And then they come and they sit in the chair and they do nothing.

But what have we just discovered? Disciples are active. It is a lifestyle. It's it's not just a moment. It's not a class to be completed.

It is a life to be lived. Family making disciples living our mission is a lifestyle that is core to the fulfilling of our purpose to love God and love people. It is not a box to be checked. It is a life to be lived. Now today we've seen that our mission, the what we do because of why we exist is found in the great commission.

Because Jesus has all authority. We go as we're living. We make disciples who we demonstrate who demonstrate real life change. We baptize them in public confession and we teach them to obey everything that Jesus has commanded, which is to love God and love people. And then for them likewise to do the same.

Now, here's what I want us to do as we're leaving. First, I want you to write down those three names that I mentioned. Hopefully by now some of you have already had these three names popping into your mind. Second, ask yourself honestly, am I being discipled? Am I being discipled or have you removed yourself from that?

I know this will sound strange. I'm being discipled. I have men who speak into my life on a regular basis. I do not think that I have arrived. That is something that's important for us to understand.

There's not a person in this room who has arrived in their walk with Christ. And if you have, I'm going to tell you truth that I don't have chapter and verse four, but I'm convinced of is that if you think you've arrived, understand this. You're at the beginning. Okay? Now, if you are being discipled, ask yourself this question.

Are you actively speaking into someone else's life? Are you actively pointing someone else towards Christ in what it is to live for Christ? And if the answer is no, it's time to open a conversation to the Lord about that. Because I'm going to be honest, okay, this is where I look up. If you're actively not working to be making disciples, you are actively being disobedient to the great commission.

And that's critical for you to understand that. Again, we don't just confess and believe in the name of the Lord Jesus and come and sit in a chair once a week or even give our tithes and our offerings and come clean toilets or whatever it is. Not that those things aren't important, but those weren't the commission. The commission is to invest in people and see them learn to become followers of Christ. And if you're here today and you've never placed your faith in Christ, if the life change we've talked about today is something you long for but have never experienced, the savior who commissioned us is the same savior who invites you again.

Confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. Believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead. And understand this, you will not might, you will be saved. And all God's people said, "Amen." Well, next week we answer the final question [clears throat] of how how did Jesus make disciples and how do we practically live this out? And that family is what we call our vision.

Would you join me in a word of prayer? Father God, thank you again for this morning and the privilege it is to share in the truth of your word that honestly can be incredibly heavy, a heavy weight, especially if we've not been living in this manner, especially if we've been making excuses. It might very well be that we find ourselves to be spiritually out of shape. And the thought of trying to get in spiritual shape is just so incredibly daunting. But Lord, I pray that you would help those, if there's any within the sound of my voice that are hearing that right now, would realize that if they have the Holy Spirit in them, they've got the greatest trainer of all time.

And that you can be there to bridge that gap and to get them into the shape they need to be. And Lord, they can give you any fear, any trepidation, any concern that they might have. And that they can begin to live a life that honors you through the fulfilling of our mission. that commission to go make baptize and teach. And we thank you, Lord Jesus, and praise you in your name.