Well, this morning, Matthew 28, even before we turn there, many of you already think, man, I know all about this. And you say, I've heard too much about this. It seems like every time I turn around, the church is bringing us right back to this. Folks, listen to me, these verses, we can't skate over these verses, we got to abide in them, we need to be thinking on them often because they have to, they have to drive everything that we do.
When you see Jesus here, you got the resurrected Christ, you remember He's resurrected and He appears, the disciples over a period of 40 days. They get about a six week Bible study with Jesus. In fact, on the night of the resurrection, He shows up there eating and He just comes in the room, has a little Bible study with them, encourages them. And then He'll just keep showing up in their lives and teaching them and instruct them.
When you like to have been a part of that Bible study over those 40 days. And so here is Jesus though, this is the end of that period, He's about to send to heaven and He gives these last words. These will be the last words of Jesus on earth to His guys. And He'll speak to Saul on the road to Damascus, say, why are you persecuting me?
These are the last words of Christ here on earth before you send to the Father to His guys. And last words are lasting words and last words are important words. In fact, you can make the argument that there's no more important words in all scripture than these words are right here, that Jesus gives to His guys and more than that He gives to us because these words define what the church is and what the church does. These are so important.
In fact, I would tell you, I have learned this. I've seen this what makes a church great is its uncompromising focus upon the great commission. The church rises or falls based on its commitment to this mission. So corporately, the church, if we don't know this and we don't stay focused on this, we will fail.
One of my great fears for the church is not necessarily failure, but that we would succeed at the wrong things. And I'm telling you, church, we are tempted to do everything except what Christ called us to do right here. We are prone to mission drift just like every other organization that's out there. We got to stay laser focused on this mission.
This is what Christ has called us to do. But more than that, let me just share with you, this is your mission. It's our mission corporately. It's your mission individually.
If you know Jesus Christ, as your personal Lord and Savior, your sins are forgiven. You've been forgiven through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And so you're not be judged on the basis of your sin, but know this. Your life will be judged and it will primarily be judged on how well you did this.
Because this is what Christ called you to do. It's what God called us to do as a church, what God called you to do as an individual. So if this is what He's told us to do, if this is our job description, we better know it. Amen?
We better know really, really well and we better be participating. So we're going to look at this morning. Let me pray with us and then we'll join and jump into this text and follow it through. Lord, we just thank you for the opportunity to study your word today.
And we are so grateful that when it came to our mission and our purpose, you didn't leave us to our own devices to try to come up with some mission statement. You telegraphed it. And in this way, we're not called to be creative when it comes to our mission. We're just called to be faithful to do what you told us to do.
And so Lord, help us to understand these things. Help us to see the clear principle of this mission that you've given to us so that we might participate, that we might be engaged in it. And we might grow your kingdom for your glory. And one day we might hear those words well done, good and faithful servant.
Lord, we love you. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Well, look here.
If you look with me verse 16, we'll just pick up there. It says, but the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had designated. And when they saw Him and they worship Him, but some were doubtful. Isn't that amazing?
The resurrected Christ, after all that's occurred, there's still some folks got some doubts. Not quite certain about all this. Now, what's interesting, what's most interesting to me about that is that Jesus doesn't stop there and address their doubts. Does Jesus know they got doubts?
But in that moment, as He comes there and He agrees with them, some are words to be in some of them. He doesn't say, hey, guys, let's just address the doubts. Let's talk about that a little bit. I know you guys got some questions.
I know you got some concerns. He doesn't address their doubts. What does He do? He just simply gives them something to do.
He says, here's your mission. And He starts off with the authority that's engaged in the mission. Look at what He says. And when He saw them, some worshiped in some of the doubtful of our 16, Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
All authority has been given to me. Now, this is so critical that we establish who has the authority because here's what I've learned in my years of church ministry and work. I have learned that whenever there's a conflict in the church, whenever there's any kind of conflict within the body of Christ, it almost always centers around the issue of authority. Who's got the authority?
That's the question. And then that creates a lot of conflict within the body of Christ. Do the elders have the authority, the pastor have the authority, the congregation, the deacons have the authority? Can we just all right here settle the issue of who has the authority?
His name is Jesus Christ, amen? All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Him. There is only one head of the body and it's Jesus Christ. And all of us are called to submit to Him.
In fact, the only way we will be successful as a body is when all of us realize we're all sinners say by grace and He's the head and we're following Him. Now, within the body Christ does establish order. There is order. In every institution that God has created, whether it's the family, government, the church, there's always order because without order there's what?
Chaos. So in the body of Christ there is a leadership structure that God has ordained. Now, let me share with you. It's very important that when we think about leadership within the body of Christ, we do not think of these leaders as above the church.
As if this were some kind of hierarchy. That is not biblical nor is it healthy for the body of Christ. These are not men who are above the church or over the church. They are men who are within the church as sinners say by grace.
At the end of the day there's just men of God who have been saved by grace that God is not that they were smarter than everybody else or more educated than everybody else. But God sovereignly in His grace sets apart certain men unto Himself to lead in the body of Christ. Not above the church but within the church God designates men to lead. Now, what's interesting when you get into scripture and we listen to the whole another sermon for a whole other day, but God, when it comes to church polity and structure, the fact is, I've studied this for years, there's been times I figured it out and this is it and that's it.
The fact of the matter is, He doesn't give us a lot of specifics as to the nature of the polity structure that He gives us in principle. Don't misunderstand me, but He doesn't go into a lot of specifics about the structure or the model of church polity. But I will tell you, He goes into a lot of specifics and a lot of detail, not just about the model, but He goes into a lot of specifics about the kinds of men and the behavior and the characteristics that should govern the life of the men who do leave in the body of Christ. Because let's be clear here today.
It doesn't matter what structure you have. If you don't have godly men in that structure, it'll fail every time. And so God sets apart men to serve and He delegates great authority to them, but only in as much as they abide under the authority of Christ. When those men go rogue and say, we can live however we want to live, do whatever we want to do, guess what happens?
They lose the right to lead. It's the same thing with the president and generals. The president has generals and those generals have a lot of authority, but only in as much as they abide under the directives of the president. And so whenever you have a general who just says, I'm going to do whatever I want to do, guess what?
He loses the right to lead. It happens with General MacArthur and President Truman. You remember Mark MacArthur? You can't go past this line and what MacArthur say?
I'm going to do whatever I want to do. And guess what? Truman said, I may be a haberdasher from Missouri, but I'm still the president of the United States and you start firing. Sit down and listen to the body of Christ.
Whenever men go rogue and say, I'm going to live however I want to live, guess what? They lose the right to lead. And so you have a leadership structure of men within the body, sovereignly set apart, but they only have authority in as much as they abide under the authority of Christ. The fact of the matter is, all of us, when we look at this great commission, do you know as your commission out as believers in Christ into this world that you abide under the authority of Christ?
Do you know this? You're a representative of Christ in this world and you go up with a lot of authority. The teach the word of God and share the gospel of Jesus Christ, but you only have authority in as much as you abide under the directives of Jesus. So he establishes the authority here and he says, I've got the authority and then he says, all authority, heaven and earth, then he says, go.
Go therefore and make disciples. Now, most of you, your translation, just like mine, it has go and it presents it as an imperative as if it's a command. It's not an imperative in the Greek. It's actually a participle.
It's not a command to go. It's literally probably better translation as as you are going, make disciples, not going, make disciples, but as you are going, make disciples. You say, well, pastor, what difference does it possibly make? It makes a big difference.
I'm going to tell you why it makes a huge difference because in the church, we have a tendency to program evangelism and discipleship. And I'm going to go say, Southern Baptist, we are horrible at this. And I pick on Southern Baptist because that's all I know. I don't pick on other denominations.
I'm a Southern Baptist. We're bad at this. We want to program everything. And what we do is we instruct you and what we're teaching sometimes not intentionally, but what we're doing is teaching to you that discipleship is evangelism.
It's something that you do on Sunday night or you do on Wednesday night or you do on Tuesday night. How many of you are going to church and Sunday night with Sunday night with discipleship training? I've got a few of you out there. I'm a little one.
But we have a tendency. We always move towards wanting to program at a place. That is the nature of man. We want to program and tell me the place.
And normally one come to a building. You come to this building, tell me a time, and that's when I do discipleship and we compartmentalize our lives. And what Jesus is saying when he tells you as you go and make disciples, what he's saying to you is that evangelism and discipleship is not a program. It's a lifestyle.
It's something that drives your life wherever you go and whatever you do. Can I tell you discipleship and evangelism, whatever job you have today? God has maybe gifted you in that area and he's put you in that workplace and it's a means of provision for your family. But can I tell you the primary purpose for which God has placed you in that workplace is for the purpose of making disciples?
That's why he's put you there. He strategically placed you in that location for the purpose of making disciples. Do you know where you live? God strategically placed you right there for the purpose of making disciples.
It wasn't just because it was the best house and fit your budget and you like the way it was configured. No God strategically placed you right there for the purpose of the gospel. Evangelism and discipleship is not a program based upon a place. It's a lifestyle.
It drives all of our life. And for us as a church, it drives everything we do. All of the decisions that we make are driven by this command to make disciples. So we say as you go, make disciples.
Make disciples. That is our command. That is our commission. Make disciples.
We are tempted as a church to do everything except that which God has called us today. We are so susceptible to mission drift. You know, we have a tendency to get caught up on numbers and budgets and buildings. None of which is what God called us to do.
Not bad things. In fact, I call them the killer bees. It's buildings, budgets, and bottoms and sinks. The killer bees of ministry.
None of which are bad things. In fact, the most pastors can I tell you what pastors do when they get together. They love to come up to you and go, so how many you run into church? And then they have bigs your budget, what you all got in the bank account over there.
As if those were the measures of success. Not bad things. We love having people in the building. We love having a beautiful building.
And we want a healthy budget. But none of those things are what God called us to do. He called us to make disciples. This is the primary basis by which we will be judged.
That we developed people who loved Jesus and lived like Jesus. That we turned people into people who were totally committed to Jesus Christ. My mentor used to tell me all the time, he said, listen, you're going to be judged on this. He said, you're not going to be judged on how many people who came to hear you preach.
That's not going to matter a lick at the end of the deal. He said, what will matter is how well did you love your wife? How well did you love your boys? And how many people loved Jesus more because they knew you?
What really simplified life for me. That's the beauty of the great commission. It has a way of simplifying our lives. How many people love Jesus more because they know you?
He's called us to make disciples. But what does that look like? What does that involve? Well, I love this.
He gives us detail. Again, he doesn't just put it out there and leave it vague. He tells us exactly what this should look like. He does make disciples and he tells us of all the nations.
Don't skip over that. Make disciples of all the nations. Meaning when we go to make disciples, we don't make disciples. We don't target one specific group of people.
So we don't go out there and say, well, we're just Linux about it. So we target this group. This is who we are. No, no, no.
We go to all the nations. We go to everybody. You know what we're looking for? Anybody who's interested in Jesus.
We'll go to anybody that's interested in Christ. We go to. I've been reading through the book of Acts. We begin the year.
So much fun to see the early church. You know where Paul went? Anywhere there was interest in Jesus. They go to a synagogue.
I'll camp out here. He finds some people interested in Jesus. He tell them about Jesus. He started work there.
And we as a church are to be a representation of heaven. And do you know this in the eternal state? The nations will be represented in the eternal state. This is so cool to think about.
You know in the eternal state, you'll retain your nationality. In your glorified body, you'll retain some of the uniqueness of who you are included is your nationality because it says the nations will be represented at the throne. Isn't that awesome? That in glory, it'll be unity in the midst of diversity and the church is to give the world a glimpse of that.
And so we don't go targeting any specific group of people. We'll go to anybody who's interested in Christ and prayerfully, the church will demonstrate the beauty of heaven. So we'll make disciples of all the nations. And then he tells us to baptize them.
The very first thing he tells us to do, you've heard me preach on baptism a whole lot, but we're going to do it again. Baptism. Get it interesting. The first component of discipleship, baptism.
Jesus never says anything by coincidence. Everything that Jesus says is intentional. So there's a reason that Jesus puts it first. I'm often said if I were God, praise God, I'm not.
But if I were God, I would have never put baptism first. I don't even know if I'd include baptism in the whole program. I would have said read your Bible. Jesus says make disciples and baptize them.
Why would baptism be so important? Here's what I think. I think Jesus would know in the outset. Are you really serious about Father?
Are you really serious about following me? Are you willing to go public in your identification with me? Are you willing to tell this world that I love Jesus? I don't care.
Who knows? And quite frankly, I don't care what it costs me, even if it costs me my life. This man is the whole reason for my existence and my salvation. He's my King.
He's my Lord and I give everything to him. And I will not be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus wants to make disciples who are truly committed to him. Disciples that are willing to make a public confession.
Ladies, you wives out there? What would you think if your husband came to you and said, babe, you know, I love you. But I'd kind of like keep it private. You don't mind.
You know what that ring I'm just going to put that away. We'll bring it out at home. But you know, out there, I'd kind of like to keep this whole deal private if you don't mind. What are you going to say?
Why are you going to say if you really love me? You wouldn't be ashamed of me. You think our Lord expects anything less? Listen, you can say that your salvation is personal.
It is. But you cannot say if you're a Christian that my salvation is private. We're going to make a public confession. We're going to create disciples who are truly committed to Christ and willing to go public for him.
He says to baptize him and don't skip over. He says to baptize him in the name of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Don't you love that? It's not just some triad formula.
Everything is not a word. It's a triad formula. Every time we baptize somebody, we make a declaration that God in three persons, the Trinity is involved in your salvation. In that awesome, every time we baptize somebody, we're reminding them that God the Father was the architect of your salvation.
He knew you before the foundation, the world, and already put together a plan to redeem you to himself so that you can have a relationship with him. God the Son, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Son of God, He left the glory of heaven down on cross with your sins, rose from the dead to accomplish the salvation that you know in your life. And God the Holy Spirit, God the eternal Holy Spirit convicted you of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and drew you to Christ and has become the down payment and the deposit, guaranteeing that all the Father's wealth is coming to you. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit involved in bringing you to Himself.
Powerful declaration. Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. Teach them, teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. What we're really passionate about this is a church.
We're really, really passionate to take people who come to know Christ, make a public confession, they're committed to Christ, and then teach them to know the words of Christ, and then to implement those words in their life in obedience so that they're conformed to Christ. You know, it really is, the Christian life is really pretty simple. It's a commitment to know what Jesus has said to do, and then do it. Isn't that pretty amazing?
It's a pretty simple deal. You want to make a really good commitment here at the beginning of the New Year? Commit yourself to knowing everything that Jesus said, and then implementing what He said into your life in obedience. But we as a church, what we have an obligation to do is to help you get to a place where you can read and study the Word of God on your own.
We're really, really passionate about it. It's the joy of the Christian life is growing into Christ so that you have the opportunity as you study His Word to hear His voice. That's the relationship aspect of following Christ. Without communication, there's no relationship.
And God talks to you primarily through the study of His Word. But what scares me so often is there's so many people who've come to know Christ, even made a public commitment. But they've never grown spiritually because they've never been taught how to read and study the Bible on their own and hear God's voice. And so they may have known Christ for 15 years, but spiritually speaking, they're still in infants because they've never grown in their nose.
They still need to be spoon fed. They can't do it on their own. Somebody else has to do it for them. And I know this to be true.
If I have studied this, I've done surveys on this. Listen, if you've grown spiritually, I can guarantee you. If you've grown in your walk with Christ, almost inevitably somebody at some point came alongside you and taught you how to read and study the Word and how to implement it into your life. And how to obey Christ.
How to have a daily walk with Him. It's so important. It's so critical. It's kind of the engine of the discipleship work that God has called us to do.
And we're deeply, deeply passionate about it. Teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. And what does He say? And hello, I'm with you always.
Even the individual. This to me is unbelievable. He says, I'm with you. Is there anything better to hear in all the world than Christ say to you?
I'm with you. Yeah, various times in our lives and in marriage, we had to make a decision about what to do, where to go, and I'll tell you, you men, you know this. If you've ever been to a moment in your life where you had to make a decision and you said, babe, we're going this way. And she said, honey, I'm with you.
And it's even better when your boy get older and they say, yeah, we're with you. Boy, when you're a wise, you're a man. He said, we're going this direction. Watch it.
I'm with you. You're in a boy's area. You feel like you run through a brick wall. Folks, how much greater?
Hear Jesus whispering in the morning when you get out. Hey, Chad, I'm with you. I'm with you today. Now, no, no, this is not a carte blanche promise.
It's predicated upon us making disciples. You know what I'm saying with you? He predicates it based on the fact that you're out there baptizing people and teaching them to observe. And as you do that, he says, I'm with you.
We know this to be true. You can't do whatever you want to do and expect God to bless it. You really got two options every day. You're either going to do what God wants you to do seeking to follow Him in obedience, and you can have the joint privilege and confidence of knowing that Jesus is with you, or you can do whatever you want to do and maybe hope somehow he'll be with you.
I don't know about you, but I'm going with the latter. I think I would want to know that he's with me as I walk in fellowship and obedience to Him. This is what Christ has called us to do individually and corporately. Now, I learned something a long time ago that when I get engaged in this, the work becomes twice as effective.
I learned this in my first church, seeing people come to faith in Christ's disciples, they start to reproduce. It's far more effective than, because I'll tell you, I've said this many times, if I had to choose between preaching and doing one-on-one-on-three discipleship, I would do one-on-one-on-three discipleship every time, because it's far more effective. It's far more effective to take somebody and to see them come to faith in Christ and then to say, hey, listen, can I teach you how to walk with Jesus and get in the game and to be a reproducer yourself? It's so effective.
Some people listen, they go out there, they leave people to faith in Christ, and they see somebody come to faith in Christ, and they come alongside Him and say, hey, listen, I'm going to bring you over to the next of Abedus Church, and you're going to get with Pastor Steve, because he's going to teach you how to read and pray, because I don't know how to do that stuff very well. But I get you over here, he's the expert, he's the pro, he'll teach you, but I don't look at me. How effective is that? How much more effective is it?
It was you to come alongside somebody and they come to receive Christ and say to them, hey, how about you and I meeting together once a week? Just for a season of time, I've learned and grown so much in my walk with Christ on how to study God's Word, but boy, if you're going to do that, it raises the bar, doesn't it? Because if you want to tell somebody, hey, come alongside me and I'll teach you how to read the word, what does it mean about you? You better be reading the word.
And if you're going to teach them how to pray, you better be praying. But don't you think God intended it to work that way? And when we engage ourselves in a ministry of multiplication, boy, it becomes twice as effective as anything we could do, we run the numbers. Actually, after the first service had a mathematician, she said, I'm a nerd.
And she drew out a diagram of numbers, it didn't make any sense to me. But she said, you're number is right. I said, praise the Lord. I'm not a math guy.
But let me give you some numbers that I can now say have been proven out in mathematics formula to be true. Listen to this. Let's just say that we're going to get 100,000 people every day to come hear the gospel message. How incredible would that be?
We get 100,000 people. Just say we gathered them up at Arrowhead Stadium. We'll just say somehow we got 100,000 people in the Arrowhead Stadium to come hear me present the gospel every day. And let's just say that I was twice as effective as Billy Graham, which I'm not.
Couldn't do it. Billy Graham had a 1% response rate. Let's just say we got a 2% response rate. That means if we had 100,000 people every day, 2% response rate, we'd have 4,000 converts every day.
That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Let's just say we did that for 360 days because I need 5 days of vacation. I don't think I could do it every day. Let's just say we did that for 360 days.
In one year we'd have 1,460 converts. That'd be pretty amazing. In 16 years you'd have 23,360 converts. That's phenomenal.
But let's just hypothetically say let's try to do it Jesus' way. Let's do it through Christ. Now remember Christ here on earth, 3 years of ministry, how many guys meet him on that mountain? 11.
We would fire most pastors if they only had 11 guys after 3 years of ministry. But let's just say Jesus actually knows what he's doing. Let's just hypothetically pretend like Jesus is the all-knowing son of God and has a pretty good method. Let's just say we take his method.
And I pour into one person for 6 months and that person reproduces a disciple. And then I do it again for another 6 months and that person reproduces a disciple. In one year you got 4 people. That doesn't sound very impressive.
But in one year you got 4 people. 18 months you got 8 people. In 2 years you only got 16 people. That doesn't sound very effective, does it?
However, you run the numbers out. And in 16 years you'd have 4 billion with a B. 4 billion converts to Jesus Christ. That's half the world's population.
When you think of Jesus' method and those kinds of numbers, you actually begin to wonder how long did Jesus think we would actually be at the steel? But here's the problem. There's one exception to those numbers. Every time there's a breakdown you cut the numbers in half.
Meaning every time somebody comes to faith in Christ as a disciple but never reproduces. The church becomes half as effective as they could be. And you begin to wonder what would happen? What would happen if every one of us got serious about this?
What would happen if just this next year we all had one person to faith and discipled them so that they became a reproducing disciple? All of us are just links in a chain. All of us are here if you know Christ because somebody shared Jesus with you. They impacted you, somebody discipled you.
They invested in you. And the mission is that you would pass it on to somebody else. Even in your home, the primary place of discipleship is your home with your kids. Moms, many of you are developing disciple makers who are going to change this world for Christ.
This is the mission. This is what Christ has called us to do. You might say, well how do I get involved here at the next of Abbish Church? Well, for the longest time people would ask me, tell me about the discipleship and how you get involved here at the next of Abbish Church.
And I would seek to explain it to them and then I got confused. And I thought that's not good. If I'm confused about it, then they probably don't know either what we're doing. And so we set out to hopefully make it a little more simple.
And one of the primary ways we've sought to make it a little more simple is by changing up some of our terminology. And so we're changing up not what we do, but we're changing up what we call what we do, hopefully to help you better understand how to get engaged in discipleship here at the next of Abbish Church. So let me tell you how we're going to begin to refer to things, not changing what we do, but changing what we call it so that you know better how to get involved. The first thing we're going to do is we're going to have what we call life groups.
Now, life groups, this is a name change. It's going to be so hard for me because it's all I've ever known for the longest time is what we would have called Sunday School. Now we're going to call it life groups. Listen to me, some of you, listen up, really, really clear.
Because I know what you're thinking. Some of you have already passed through getting rid of Sunday School and terrible, passed out of front of the church, my class is going away, it's awful. We're not doing that. Listen to me, say it with me.
We're not doing away with Sunday School. One more time. We're not doing away with Sunday School. Your class is going to stay the same.
You're going to continue to meet the exact same way. None of that changes. We're just going to change what we call it. Primarily because, you know, we do have life groups on Saturday night, and it's really hard to call them Sunday School.
Alright, so that was the primary end of the time. So life groups. Now, at the Soto, Paola, it'll look a little different, but it's going to be life groups. Life groups here at the next Abbish Church are primarily attached to a worship service.
So we have life groups that meet at eight o'clock, nine, thirteen, eleven. We have life groups that meet on Saturday night. They're attached to a worship service, and they're ongoing. They go on all the time, and they never really stop.
We take a little break here there, but most of all they just go on all year long, and they're focused around your life stage. So, you know, it's high school. It's young adults. It's collegiate.
It's young families. It's empty nesters. It's senior adults. It's centered around your current life stage.
And it's where you get fellowship, and listen. Life groups are important. If you don't have one, listen, you need one. That's where you connect.
And the Bible is the focus of it. We have curriculum, so you get into a life group. You're going to study where you got to connect in fellowship. You get a prayer group.
You get people who surround you. How many of you adhere today? You would say, I'm primarily connected to Lenox about this church because of a life group in my life. It made a difference in your life.
It's huge, folks. It's huge. You need a life group. The second thing that we have is what we call Bible studies.
And Bible studies are all the midweek activities. This includes mid-night Bible study. It includes Tuesday morning men's Bible study. Our women meet on Tuesday mornings.
A lot of them do Bible studies. We have Bible studies on Wednesday nights. It's the foundations of faith class. It's the marriage class.
It's taking the Bible and applying to your life. It's supplemental education so that you can learn more about the truth of God's word. It's the teaching doctrine and truth and how to apply it to your life. But those are Bible studies.
So those are our midweek opportunities. And those for the most part are seasonal. They're primarily seasonal. Meaning they start in the spring and then restart in the fall.
Sometimes they'll be offering, sometimes they won't. But there's seasonal, supplemental opportunities to grow in your knowledge of God's word and how to apply it to your life. So those are Bible studies. And then the third category that we have, which is really the driver behind some of these changes.
This is what we call D groups. And D groups are small groups. They're one-on-one, one-on-three groups that meet for a specific purpose, with a specific time frame with the goal of teaching you to read and study the Bible on your own. So these live groups, it's not lecture.
It's not master teacher driven. Bible studies are master teacher driven. Bible studies, one teacher, they come. They give you instruction.
You learn. You grow. D groups are not master teacher. It's assigning you, scripture, you read, and you come back and share what you're learning.
And you discuss how you're applying. And it's a time frame. At the end of which, when you learn to say, guess what we do at the end of it, we kick you out. And it goes against us because everybody wants to hang out.
We want to hang out here at the church and we want our us for and no more. And we have to kick you out. Because we're called to go out into that world and make disciples and reproduce ourselves. So a specific time frame, D groups.
Every one of you in this room, you need a life group. Along the way through your life, you're going to need some of the supplemental Bible studies. And everybody needs to be engaged in a D group. You're either in a D group because you're learning how to read and study the Bible on your own, or you're leading a D group.
And by the way, D groups, they're primarily probably not going to meet here. This should happen in your, you should invite guys over to your house. You should meet them at a coffee place. You should meet a lady for lunch and you're investing in her.
And guys, this should, men, it should be older men instructing younger men. It should be older women instructing younger women. Getting together in small groups. And listen, praise God.
This is happening all throughout our church. I love this. Today, it's going on in so many different ways. But now we just have a way to describe it and define it so you better understand what it is.
But folks, we got to be engaged in discipleship and we need to stay laser focused on this or we will fail. It's very easy to get busy and things that don't really matter. You know, we got staff, our staff work so hard. But it's one of my fears.
We'd have a bunch of staff running around with their tongues hanging out. You got to get the inflatable, their holding tube cups of coffee, you know, and they're getting all this stuff and we're running them into the ground. Our staff are hard workers. But listen, if we're not doing all that hard work for the purpose of making disciples, it's all for not.
If, however, we focus that kind of effort on the Gospel mission and the Great Commission, we know that the Lord is with us. And listen, we will change this community for the glory of Christ. But we need all of you. Let's get in the game.
Let's see what God would do in 2026. Let me pray for you. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to study your word this morning. God, it's such a blessing that you have given us clarity when it comes to our mission that we don't have to think up something you've told us what to do.
God, forgive us for being distracted. Forgive us for all the ways in which we divert from the one thing you call us to do. Lord, I pray if there's somebody here, I know if somebody's here and they don't know Christ, it's probably a bit of an unusual week for them to be here and they're probably wondering what in the world is all this about. God, I believe that you put a desire in all of us to live for something that's bigger than ourselves.
Most people are looking for something to give their life to. They just can't find any worthy cause. Lord, I pray that you have, you would open their eyes to reality. You've made them for a purpose.
It's bigger than them, a purpose and a mission to make disciples for your glory. Lord, I pray that you draw them to yourself. They would see the need of salvation. They would see the depth of their sin and see the beauty of Christ.
They would become a disciple of Christ. They commit themselves to following you. They'd make a public confession. And then they would know the joy of participating in a great purpose.
Lord, for those of us that do know you, help us. Lord, we're so easily distracted, not just corporately but individually. Lord, remind us every day of this mission. May it not just be a program that we participate in certain times of the week at certain places, but God make it the attitude of our lives, wherever we go, and whatever we do.
Our primary goal is to make disciples for your glory. We love you Lord, and we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.