The Transformed Life | Week 7: Witnessing | Matthew 28:16-20 - Clint Leavitt

At Midtown Presbyterian Church, our mission is to invite people into a transformative relationship with Jesus Christ. We borrow this language of transformation from the scriptures, where we are encouraged as Christians to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds" (Romans 12:1-2). Being a Christian isn’t simply about information - it is about transformation, becoming people whose entire beings embody the way and work of Jesus in every part of our lives. With this goal in mind, we at Midtown have developed an introductory curriculum, alongside a library of resources, events, sermons, and podcasts, designed to help transform our community into Christlikeness. Listen as Pastor Clint explores Jesus' command to make disciples in Matthew 28, and how the language Jesus uses helps us recognize what witnessing is and isn't and guides us to do it well in our world. Sermon Resources: 1. Resources on being covered by the "dust" of your rabbi: see Avot 1:4, from the Jewish Mishnah 2. “The governing assumption today, even among professing Christians, is that we can be ‘Christians’ forever and never really become disciples…The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples–students, apprentices, practitioners–of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom in every corner of human existence. Will they break out of the churches to be his Church–to be, without human force or violence, his mighty force for good on earth, drawing those around them toward the eternal purposes of God?” -Dallas Willard, The Great Omission 3. Lifeway resource on percentage of Christians who witness to their neighbors: https://research.lifeway.com/2019/04/23/evangelism-more-prayed-for-than-practiced-by-churchgoers/ 4. Lifeway resource on openness to spiritual conversations: https://research.lifeway.com/2022/02/22/most-open-to-spiritual-conversations-few-christians-speaking/ 5. See Barna's "Recapturing Evangelism" resource 6. “Do you love your faith so little that you have never battled a single fear lest your faith should not be true? Where there are no doubts, no questions, no perplexities, there can be no growth.”--George MacDonald 7. “If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to be born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don't know its name or realize that it's what we're starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it.” -Frederick Buechner Join us below: Facebook: www.facebook.com/midtownpreschurch Instagram: www.instagram.com/midtown.pres Website: www.midtownpres.org Community Groups: www.midtownpres.org/community-groups Sunday Services: www.midtownpres.org