{"id":11241,"date":"2023-02-26T08:33:47","date_gmt":"2023-02-26T13:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/?post_type=message&p=11241"},"modified":"2023-03-06T08:36:13","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T13:36:13","slug":"a-vision-for-spiritual-formation","status":"publish","type":"message","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/message\/a-vision-for-spiritual-formation","title":{"rendered":"A Vision for Spiritual Formation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Below is an automated transcript of this message<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Lord <\/i><\/span>, You are the promise keeper. You are the promise maker and the way maker. You are the only way, through your Son Jesus. We come ready to hear from You now, from Your Word and from Your Spirit. We open up our minds and our hearts, willing to hear from You, desiring to hear from You, so that our souls are lifted up to You. Lord, we pray for this service, but we also pray for the service next door in our Gathering Place. We pray for the service down the hall with our collaborating church\u2013 Door of Life Church with pastor Ken Fontenot. We pray for their service, Lord. We recognize that there are many iterations of your church in this city and we want to collaborate for all those that are sharing the Gospel. Lord, give us the spirit of cooperation and unity first in our place as we work together to see people hear about Jesus. We pray for our Rocky Mount campus, today, for the same thing. Lord be so present <\/i><\/span> with us. We want to be more like Jesus. We want to be disciples that follow Jesus. Lord, we surrender afresh to You now, in Jesus\u2019 name. All of God’s people say, Amen.

To be a disciple means we’re learning to be like Jesus, growing in His character, while learning to do the things He could do and developing His competencies. It’s about character and competency to do this. We increasingly pattern our life after the life of Jesus.

One of the questions that we have to ask is, \u2018How would Jesus pattern your life if He had your job, your personality type, your family situation, lived where you live or made the same amount of money that you make?\u2019 When we examine the life of Jesus and the gospels, what we see emerge is a particular way of relating to the world around Him. He is very intentional in how He used His time to invest in certain kinds of relationships. It’s the pattern of His whole life and ministry.

Put another way, Jesus had <\/i><\/span> three great loves that His entire life oriented around. Jesus would go up a mountain to pray; this wasn’t abnormal for Jesus, was it? Throughout His life, He was constantly getting away from the crowds and everyone else to spend time with His first love, attending to the upward dimension of His life\u2013 His relationship with His father. We then see Him come down the mountain and run straight into the people. He’s investing His life into His disciples. Jesus was never ambiguous about who His spiritual family was and attending to the inward dimension of His life, Jesus spent more than 50% of His time with just His spiritual family and no one else, but then He steps out into the full brokenness of the world, driving out an evil spirit from a troubled boy. Jesus attends to the outward dimension by dealing with sin head on. He’s concerned with how sin affects individuals, how each person is separated from God because of their sin and doomed because of it.

He’s concerned <\/i><\/span> that, when you get a bunch of sinful people together, they create systems of sin and injustice. Sin creates individual problems and communal problems. Jesus stepped out and brought hope to both three great loves. He was deeply connected to His Father, He was constantly investing in those His father had given Him to disciple and to be spiritual family with and He entered into the brokenness of the world with good news and asked for a response individually and communally to be disciples of Jesus.

We pattern our life in the same way that Jesus did\u2013 up, in and out. Most people are naturally good at one there, okay at the second one and they’re fairly bad at the third, but rather than simply playing to our strengths, we commit to be learners.

The invitation of Jesus is to pattern our life after His, to learn His ways and to let His power be made perfect in our weakness. We, also, recognize that because a collection of Christians is the body of Jesus, we want the full expression of Jesus, not just parts of it <\/i><\/span>, so that these three dimensions saturate community life as well.

Whether it’s a group of eight people or a group of eight thousand, when a group of people are committed to truly being the body of Jesus, the Holy Spirit begins stoking the fires of a red hot center by which people can’t help but be drawn into the warmth. We have a spiritual family learning to live up, in and out in a communal way. People the Lord has prepared can’t help but be drawn in because this community is the Gospel made visible.

Today, we’re in week eight, the final week of our series, \u201cThe Renovation of the Heart.\u201d Today is kind of unique in that we are concluding our eight-week series, \u201cThe Renovation of the Heart.\u201d This is, also, Vision Sunday, so if you’re visiting for the first time, you might find this as kind of an unusual service. It is in fact kind of unusual because we’re going to be reporting on how we responded on our <\/i><\/span> spiritual formation survey a couple of weeks ago. I’ll be reporting a little bit about that and, also, casting a vision for our church afresh to us so that we know where we are headed.

I have to say to you during this series that I’ve been hearing so much testimony from you, so many testimonies from you, saying you are experiencing what we are talking about. You are experiencing the renovation of your heart. You are becoming more and more desirous of being like Jesus; that’s what it means to be believers. It means that we’re growing more and more like Jesus and that we’re submitting our lives so we’re becoming less like ourselves. \u201cI must decrease and He must increase.\u201d Jesus is having a larger and larger influence over us because we’re convinced of this\u2013you can change the outward things in your life. You can \u201cmove around the furniture\u201d of your life and it will change your life for a season. You may think it’s changing your life, but it isn’t. You can change houses, you can <\/i><\/span> change jobs, you can even change spouses, but wherever you go, there you are. You’re still bringing you. If there’s no heart change in you, there’s no real change.

That’s why our theme verse for this series has been from Proverbs. Proverbs 4:23 (ESV) \u201cKeep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.\u201d Real life change takes place at the heart level. We have to have heart change and only God can do that and we have to say, \u201cyes.\u201d Our part is to say, \u2018Yes, I surrender and I want Jesus to be my Lord and Savior. I want Him to come into my life. More than that, I want to become like Him. It’s not about my effort, it’s about my surrender.\u2019 The only effort is to say \u201cyes\u201d to Him\u2013 I want Your will more than I want my will. I want You to bring my will into alignment with Yours and so, our hearts are like the \u201ccontrol center.\u201d It’s like the \u201ddriver’s <\/i><\/span> seat\u201d of your life. The spiritual heart is what we’re talking about.

The renovation of that heart would be this: Here are the car keys. Here is the driver’s seat. Lord Jesus, You drive. I’m going to go over here. I’m going to let You lead my life. I want You to empower my life. I want to be like You.

This is why Dallas Willard says, \u201cA disciple is who JESUS would be if He were YOU.\u201d If you want to be a Christ follower, it means less of you and more of Jesus. You might be wondering why you’re going through what you’re going through today. You might be asking, \u201cWhy am I going through this God? What are You doing to me?\u201d God tells us in His word what He’s up to. He says that My desire for you, my children, those of you that have trusted Jesus, My desire for you is to make you like Jesus, so that He’s the firstborn among <\/i><\/span> many brothers and sisters. He cares more for our character than He does our comfort. He wants us to become like Jesus in every aspect.

A couple of weeks ago we took a survey. It was the second time we’ve taken it. We took the same survey in January of 2022. We can check the \u201cspiritual pulse\u201d of our church and see how we are doing as a church. We are commanded to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Are we doing that? Are we making people that are growing up to be like jesus? I want to go through some of those pretty quickly.

(Review of survey report given at this time.)

From our survey, we developed four character descriptions that describe a number of our survey respondents. If one of these sounds familiar to you, we hope you\u2019ll especially be inspired by today\u2019s message.

\nI don\u2019t know whether one of these spoke to you, but we all can get a vision for spiritual formation!

It’s an unusual sermon today, because its Vision Sunday. In the Book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul, from the Holy Spirit, is giving us a vision for the church. If you want to know what the church is supposed to look like, who it’s supposed to think like, how it’s supposed to behave, read <\/i><\/span> the book of Ephesians, because that’s why the book was written. It was written for the church; it is a vision for the church.

As we look at chapter four, where we’ll be digging down today, he gives us a vision for how to build up believers so that they get a vision for how to follow Jesus, so that they follow the patterns of Jesus\u2019 life and they have the three loves\u2013 to love God, to love others and to love ourselves. To know how to love up, love in and to love out.

As we’re looking at the text today, that’s how we’re going to be describing it. Let’s dig in.

Ephesians 4:11-16 (ESV) 11 \u201cAnd he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God <\/i><\/span>,to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.\u201d This is God’s word. Amen.

WE CAN BE BUILT UP TO MATURITY IN CHRIST\u2019S LOVE\u2026\n1. By growing UP in the faith and knowledge of Jesus.

We’re looking for these three loves from the pattern of how Jesus lived. The first is we want to be built up to maturity, get a vision for being built up, by growing UP in the faith and knowledge of Jesus. Growing up how? In knowing Jesus and having more and more faith, ever increasing amounts of faith in Jesus. We look UP.

The first thing that it means <\/i><\/span> to get a vision for the church is the church is the place and it’s the people. It’s the people of God, the body of Christ because \u201cthe church is not the steeple, the church is the people.\u201d The church is the body of Christ.

We are identifying ourselves as people who are marked by faith in Jesus. We are the Jesus people. That’s who we are. We’re the Jesus people; we’re all about celebrating Jesus. We are worshiping Jesus and we are growing in faith, believing and trusting Him more. We’re growing in knowledge of Him.

That word, \u201cknowledge,\u201d has the idea of relational, intimate knowledge to really know Him, not just to know about Him, but to be in a relationship with Him. Paul opens up here with this idea that the church has been gifted with this fivefold gifting. He names them: apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, pastors and teachers. The church has been <\/i><\/span> given this fivefold gifting from the Lord Jesus in order for the church to do what? To equip and build up the saints. \u201cBuild up\u201d is a cool Greek word, I love Greek words, as you know. The original New Testament was written in Greek.

\u201cOikodom\u0113\u201d is the Greek word for \u201cbuilding up.\u201d This Greek word sounds Japanese to me for some reason. I has the idea of \u201cto build a house.\u201d The verb here is that the body of Christ is to be built up like a house and to be built up in unity.

Did you see that in the scripture? We are to be built up in the faith and knowledge of Jesus so that we’re together looking up. We’re singing songs about Jesus. We are hearing the word of God and it’s causing us to depend more on Jesus. We’re the Jesus people. When the rest of the world is divided, arguing and finding different camps, two different identities, we are to be the people that say we’re one. We’re different because Jesus lives in us and <\/i><\/span> we follow Him. We are more and more growing in Him.

I would recommend to you if you want to know more about Jesus, to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the four Gospels. Saturate your life with some daily reading about how Jesus thinks, talks, moves, acts, and treats people. Then say, as you are reading, \u2018Holy Spirit, show me how I can allow Jesus to live through me, so I’m becoming less of me. I must decrease and He must increase, so I’m becoming less of me and more of Jesus.\u2019

Paul says for the church to get a vision for becoming like Jesus because that’s what God wants to do. That’s His purpose. Grow up. Stop being like little children, sucking your \u201cspiritual thumb.\u201d It begins with the question, \u201cHow do I grow up; how do I do it?\u201d You need to \u201ceat\u201d right. You need to \u201cfeed\u201d yourself the word of God. You need to hear the word of God preach <\/i><\/span>. You need to be with other people that are living out the word of God, so you learn to feed yourself and you learn to get access. A Sunday sermon is not enough.

I work during the week to put together the best \u201ctable\u201d that I can set for you, so it’s a balanced meal. I actually look at the whole year, fifty-two Sundays, and try to think, \u2018Okay, we need some \u201ccarrots.\u201d We need some \u201cbroccoli.\u201d We need some \u201csteak.\u201d We even need some \u201cdessert\u201d in there, so the kids will stay at the table. But, that’s just for Sunday. The other thing I’m trying to teach us is how to feed ourselves, which is why we gave you the \u201cRenovate\u201d devotionals to help you learn to feed yourself so you don’t starve.

How do you grow? First, you feed; you learn to eat from the word of God and then the <\/i><\/span> other thing is you exercise. \n\nHow do you exercise? You exercise the spiritual disciplines. You pray; that’s a spiritual exercise. You read; that’s a spiritual exercise. You fellowship\u2026I could go through them all, but I don’t have time, but if you want to grow to be more like Jesus, you must pursue Jesus. You want to know Him better. If you read the book of Psalms, His eyes are roaming to and fro, looking for a heart that would yield towards Him, looking for someone that would just say, \u2018How about me, Lord? How about me? Look at me; would You let me become more like Jesus?\u2019 If you say \u201cyes\u201d to Me for that, I will do everything for you, My child, to make <\/i><\/span> you more like Jesus. That’s what He wants.

Romans, chapter eight, says that He’s the prototype. He’s the firstborn, the One that we’re to pattern our lives after. Romans 8:28-29 (NLT) 28 \u201cAnd we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.\u201d If you want to know what God is up to, look at Jesus. He’s the prototype. Look up. Pursue Jesus. He’s real.

Do you believe that the spiritual world is just as real as the physical world? I do. The Bible does. He’s right here, right now. The Lord Jesus, by the Spirit of Christ, is right here in this room. You can talk to Him. You can walk with Him. You can hear His voice speak to you. He’s alive <\/i><\/span>; He’s risen and He is ready to empower you to live for Him and pursue Him.

2 Peter 3:18 (ESV) \u201cBut grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.\u201d Grow up. Stop being like children. How do you do it? Put Him in the \u201cdriver’s seat\u201d and ask for the Lord to help you grow up to be more like Jesus.

Some years ago we bought this building after nineteen years in the \u201cwilderness\u201d as a \u201croadie\u201d church if you will. We were all over town renting spaces. We bought this old movie theater. When we first bought it, I went up on the roof to see the condition of the roof. While I was walking around up there, I looked across and I saw Wilson Medical Center across the way. I said, \u201cWell, that’s just appropriate isn’t it? After all, we are the \u201chospital\u201d church. No wonder God put us across the street from <\/i><\/span> the hospital.\u201d We are the church where people show up, sin sick and relationally broken. We are the messy place that will love them anyway. We’re the people who say, \u2018Come as you are and be forever changed by the love of Jesus.\u2019 Come on in, but don’t stay that way; don’t stay the way you are. Grow up. It’s messy, though; if you come into the ER and you’re bleeding, they’re the ones that help clean you up. There has to be some mature \u201cphysicians\u201d and \u201cnurses\u201d in the church. We need some mature people here that are willing, but also not judgmental. How can we be those people?

What if a baby is born over at the hospital? They check them and help them. We <\/i><\/span> want to be the kind of church that has \u201cspiritual babies.\u201d That \u201cspiritual baby\u201d might be 60 years old. We have people that took the survey saying, \n\u2018I got saved in this church when I was 66.\u2019 \u2018I got saved in this church when I was 50.\u2019 That person is 54 years old, but they’re a \u201cspiritual baby;\u201d they are a \u201cspiritual newborn.\u201d So we need to be a kind of church that doesn’t just say, \u2018Hey, get out of the crib and go.\u2019 We need to make sure that somebody is taking care of the <\/i><\/span> \u201cnewborns.\u201d

We want to lead people to Jesus. I’m not the answer. I’m not your answer. I’m just one of you. I’m one of those five-fold people; I’m that shepherd guy. My vision is not to fill every one of these empty seats. It’s not to see if we can get a bigger building. It’s not to see if we can be a mega church. Do you want to know what my vision is? Look around you. It’s you.

My vision is the vision that Paul had, that was his vision, the vision that Jesus had. Jesus looked upon the people and He had compassion in His heart for them because they were sheep without a shepherd. That’s my heart. I love you and I want you to know Jesus better, I want to know Jesus better.

Here’s what <\/i><\/span> I believe\u2013we don’t have to worry about the empty seats because if it gets out that we love people and our vision is for people to get closer to Jesus, the seats will take care of themselves. There\u2019s a broken world out there that needs Jesus, so that’s why we’re here.

Church, let’s get a vision. Here’s what we’ve written down and I believe it’s consistent with what we’re studying today. We said that we’re a church that exists to make disciples of Jesus Christ who have a growing heart for God, heart for each other and heart for our world. The first aspect is the upward; we want to have a love for God, a growing heart for God through knowing and growing our faith in Jesus Christ.

WE CAN BE BUILT UP TO MATURITY IN CHRIST\u2019S LOVE\u2026\n2. By growing IN truth and love as Christ\u2019s body.

Let’s grow IN. Grow IN truth and love as Christ\u2019s body. Look <\/i><\/span> at verses 15 and 16, 15 \u201cRather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.\u201d

We are the body; the church is the body of Christ. He’s the head. I’m not the pastor, I’m the under shepherd. He’s the great shepherd. I work for Him. We’re to grow up IN Him; we’re to grow up IN Jesus. We are to do it together as we speak the truth in love to each other.

I want to talk about that for a second. Jesus hung out with His disciples. Some of them were \u201cboogers\u201d to be with. Some were \u201cprickly.\u201d Do you have anybody that is \u201cprickly\u201d right now in your small group? Maybe they’re sitting in the same row with you right now. Don’t look at them. They\u2019re <\/i><\/span> \u201cprickly.\u201d You get up close to them and they are hard to be with. This \u201ctruth in love\u201d thing means that we’re going to be transparent with each other and trust each other.

We have a saying in our church, \u201cBuilding a bridge of trust that will bear the weight of truth.\u201d We want them to know that we love them no matter what, but we also want to speak the truth to each other and stop lying to each other, stop putting on airs, stop pretending and be real. Be authentic. We are the \u201cmessy\u201d church and we know it. We’re the \u201chospital\u201d church; welcome to the ER. We know that, so we’re in all different places in our spiritual growth and that’s okay. \u201cSpeaking the truth in love.\u201d To be that kind of people that <\/i><\/span> stops playing at following Jesus and gets real with each other. To grow up to be like Jesus, it’s necessary to hang out with His other disciples.

Can you imagine what it was like for the disciples? Peter was always talking without thinking; always shooting his mouth off. James and John, the sons of thunder, had a bad temper problem. Jesus said, \u2018You guys are like sons of thunder,\u2019 they were always losing their temper. Then, there was Simon the Zealot that just would not stop talking about politics. Judas Iscariot over there, was all about the money. We could go on. If these disciples wanted to follow Jesus, they had to hang out with each other. Over time, what we know is they learn to love each other.

Following Jesus means we learn to love and speak the truth in love. It is authentic to be a church that’s truthful. \u201cAgape\u201d <\/i><\/span>in the Greek means God’s sacrificial, unconditional love. It is that kind of love that says, \u2018I’m going to love you no matter what.\u2019 It’s not, \u2018I’m going to love you because of.\u2019 It is \u2018I’m going to love you in spite of,\u2019 because Jesus has so loved me and I feel I’ve grown in faith and knowledge to the point now where I know Jesus so well and He loves me to the uttermost. \u201cWarts and all,\u201d He loves me. That love is now flowing to me to the point where I can love others and it’s not effort. I’m not saying, \u2018I’m going to make myself love you.\u2019 I see them the way Jesus sees them.

If you go to a restaurant and you see a family and they have that uncontrolled toddler that’s throwing food and beating his head on the floor, you’re trying to ignore him. You will be happy when they take that kid out of here. You wish <\/i><\/span> somebody would teach them how to parent. You’re thinking all kinds of judgmental thoughts, right? Some of you are thinking that you’re talking about my family. But you know what? That family that comes in with that kid. They leave with that kid. They don’t leave this kid here. Now, the kid’s a mess, but they take them home because they are family.

Now, some of you right now, if you were to do what you’re actually thinking inside your \u201cnoggin\u201d right now, inside your head, you’d be laying out here on the floor right now, beating your head on the floor and just being who you really are. I’m glad you’re not because it would scare us and it would be distracting. You’re that kid.

Here’s what I want you to know. We’re the family of God and we’re not going to leave you behind. Now, <\/i><\/span>there’s a part that you have to own, you can’t \u201cghost\u201d us older people. If you don’t know what that means, ask the younger people, they’ll tell you what that means. My grandchildren are teaching me such vocabulary. So I know things now. To \u201cghost\u201d somebody means to just disappear without a word. This happens in the church all the time. You get the, the \u201cchurch bouncers;\u201d they just hop here and hop there. Somebody says something that they don’t like and they go somewhere else.

I want us to be the family of God. We stay at the table, even when \u201cprickly\u201d people are around us. If you can’t think of anybody \u201cprickly,\u201d then you’re probably the \u201cprickly\u201d person. Do you know what the test of \u201cAgape\u201d love is? Not how you love somebody that’s lovable; they’re easy to love. The love of Christ in you is that you can love <\/i><\/span> someone that’s hard to love. They’re God’s gift to you. You’re thinking right now, they’re sitting next to me. Well, you need to learn to love them.

How do you learn to love them? By thinking, how does Jesus view this person? I want to love them the way Jesus does. I want to love them the way He would love me. I want to love them like they were my brother or my sister, which means, I would tell them the truth, but I would also let them know our relationship is never at stake. I’m here for you.

Let me give you some background from other scriptures. Romans 12:4-5 (ESV) 4 \u201cFor as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.\u201d\nWe are to be one. The mark of the church is that we are in <\/i><\/span> unity and then we have the mark of love. We’re following Jesus.

In John, chapter 13, Jesus tells His disciples, John 13:34-35 (ESV) 34 \u201cA new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.\u201d That’s how the world will know, because we’ll be so utterly different than what’s going on out there on social media, on the news, in the neighborhood, in the workplace and in the school. We love each other and we stay unified; not false unity, but speaking the truth in love, telling each other and being authentic and real with each other in love. That’s a vision of growing in towards one another as we follow the pattern of Jesus and how He loved.

WE CAN BE BUILT UP TO MATURITY IN CHRIST\u2019S LOVE\u2026\n3. By growing in going OUT as Christ\u2019s ministers.

At the beginning of our reading today, there’s that fivefold gifting of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and <\/i><\/span> teachers. Why did Christ give the church this wonderful gifting? Why did He do it? He did it, in order to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Look at the people next to you, they, as believers, are the ministers of this church, I’m not the minister of the church, don’t call me the minister, I’m the pastor, I’m a shepherd, I’m not the minister. Now, I have a ministry outside of the church and I will be a minister out there, but my job to you is to equip you and to build you up so that you go out and do the work of the ministry. We’re the \u201chospital\u201d church. All of us are being trained to go out and to \u201crescue\u201d people. That’s what we’re being trained to do, to \u201crescue\u201d people in the name of Jesus. We are to no longer be children.

Look at verse 14. Stop \u201csucking your spiritual thumb.\u201d Grow up. How do you grow up? Just <\/i><\/span> ask the Lord. He wants you to grow up. You don’t have to stay where you are. Grow up spiritually. People that haven’t grown up find everything that comes around knocks them \u201cout of their tree.\u201d They are tossed about by every spiritual doctrine and wave.

How do you grow up? Learn to read the Bible. Learn to study the Word on your own, pray and talk to God, be in fellowship with other believers and know how to share your testimony. There are people here that will teach and help you; they’ll talk to you about your testimony, help you learn how to word so you can tell others. Everybody, that’s a believer, ought to have an \u201celevator version\u201d of your testimony; \u201cbetween the first floor and the third floor\u201d length of testimony. You ought to be able to tell them something about how you love Jesus. Everybody ought to have a \u201dWalmart <\/i><\/span> checkout line\u201d version of your testimony, but I know most Walmarts don\u2019t check out people anymore. It\u2019s mostly a \u201cself-serve\u201d check out system now. I don’t know if you are able to talk to somebody at Walmart. When you go, remember you’re carrying Jesus and be ready to talk about Him.

1 Peter 3:15 (NIRV) \u201cBut make sure that in your hearts you honor Christ as Lord. Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you about the hope you \nhave <\/i><\/span>. Be ready to give the reason for it. But do it gently and with respect.\u201d

Here’s the thing\u201d because we are following Jesus, we’re learning more about Him. We’re growing in our faith: \u201cmore of Him, less of me.\u201d We’re learning to love each other \u201cwarts and all.\u201d That’s how we know we’re really loving with the love of Christ is when we learn to love people that rub us the wrong way. That’s the real test of whether or not you’re growing in love.

As we go out, we recognize that we are sent out on mission, so we \u201cgather for power\u201d and we \u201cscatter for proclamation.\u201d We \u201cgather for encouragement,\u201d we \n\u201cscatter for evangelism.\u201d We’re being equipped; we’re gathering here for equipping, so that when we go out we’re telling people about Jesus.

Stop inviting people to church and start inviting people to Jesus. If you invite them to Jesus, then they’ll need a church. Then, you tell them <\/i><\/span> about our church. Tell them about Jesus; \u2018Do you know Jesus?\u2019 Tell them that you know Him; tell them what He’s done for you. You’re the worldwide expert on what Jesus has done for you. Nobody knows more about that than you. Learn to tell people about that\u2013 \u2018This is what Jesus has done in my life.\u2019 Get a vision for it. Get a vision for the pattern of the three loves that Jesus had: To love UP, to know Him better, become more like Him. To love IN, to love each other with the kind of love that loves through all things. To love OUT and to be willing to rescue the hurting and to tell them about Jesus.

I want to close with some visionary thoughts. If you’re here for the first time, you’re wondering, What kind of sermon is this? Well, it’s unique because I’m casting a <\/i><\/span> vision and the vision is for you. The vision is not mine. Paul was casting vision and it wasn’t his; the Holy Spirit gave it to him. It’s a vision for the church.

Our church says it like this. I’ll put it up on the screen for you: \u201cThat we exist to make disciples of Jesus Christ who have a growing heart for God, heart for each other and heart for our world.\u201d Up, in and out \u2013that’s our vision is you. We are equipping you to get out there, driving \u201clittle ambulances,\u201d picking up people on the side of the road, patching them up and getting them with Jesus. Some of them will come in here. Some of them will go to some other church. I don’t care what church they go to as long as it’s a Gospel-preaching church. We are to be out there, telling people about Jesus. We’re being equipped for that.

Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV) 19 \u201cGo therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the nameof <\/i><\/span>the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.\u201d

Our \u201cCommander in chief\u201d gave us the vision and we’ve just worded it: \u201c…heart for God, heart for each other, heart for our world.\u201d That’s our vision. we’re in eastern North Carolina, we’re in Wilson, we’re in Rocky MT, our second campuses in Rocky Mount and Wilson, there’s 83,000 people that live in Wilson County. There are 95,000 people that live in Nash County. Can we reach them all by ourselves? Maybe over 50 years, but what if we tried to collaborate with other churches? That’s what we hope to do. We want to get with other churches that believe as we do and cooperate with them to try to reach these people, so that every man, woman and child has repeated opportunities to see, hear and respond to the Gospel.

(Gary shares Vision Strategy and Gospel Saturation Plan)

We’re concluding our series today. It’s been a great series, but we’re challenging ourselves now to get a vision for growing up more like Jesus, get more connected to Him and get ready to share His love with the world. I would challenge you, as we finish up our 40-day journal this coming Friday, to take this Saturday or maybe another day that you have free and look at your 40-day journal. Read through all the prayers, in one sitting, that you wrote and then notice how many God already answered. Notice how you’ve grown. Maybe, put updates on your calendar saying, \u2018I’m going to pull this journal out again, six months from now, and see how it speaks to me now. Don’t just stop after this week. Keep on growing,

Let’s pray. Lord, thank You for Your word. Thank you for your help. Lord, You’ve given us such a <\/i><\/span> love for You and such a love for each other. Lord, we’ve identified that we’re growing in that, but Lord, we need to grow even more in our love for others outside in our community. Lord show us how much You love those outside in our community so that we know how to talk to them about You. Help us to be prayerful about it; prepared and trained for it. Lord, I’m thinking about that person that might be here this morning that’s never committed their life to You. If that’s you, my friend, I hope right now you’ll say \u201cyes\u201d to Jesus, right where you’re at. Maybe, you’re watching online or maybe you’re in the room next door, right now, God’s listening and He’s ready to hear you surrender to Him. Would you do it right now and say, \u2018Lord, I want to follow Jesus. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me, that He was raised from the grave and that He lives today. Come and live in me; forgive me of my <\/i><\/span> sin and make me a child of God. I want to follow You. I want to be a Christ follower.\u2019 If you’re praying that prayer, believing, He will save you and make you a child of God. Others are here and you know Jesus. You’re a follower of Jesus, but you haven’t committed to \u201cgrow up\u201d in Jesus. You’ve been too satisfied just staying right where you are; you’ve been too comfortable. Right now, would you say, \u2018 Lord, I want to grow. I want to be discipled. I want to grow in discipleship. I want to take responsibility to follow, to grow and to be what You want me to be.\u2019 I pray it now in Jesus’ name. Amen.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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