Latest / REZ CHURCH Podcast / You're Not Special, You're Sacred - January 4, 2026

Transcript

You're Not Special, You're Sacred - January 4, 2026 · REZ CHURCH Podcast

• 0:00
  Maybe some of you made some New Year's resolutions.
• 0:03
  I am not going to give you the depressing statistics on how
• 0:06
  often those fail. Here's what I will tell you.
• 0:10
  If you set a New Year's resolution for something, let's
• 0:12
  say you decided this is the year 2026, I'm going to get fit.
• 0:15
  Finally, the number one, the number one factor as to whether
• 0:21
  or not that's going to happen is who you spend your time with.
• 0:25
  So, so if you want to get healthier, if you'll go spend
• 0:28
  time with people that value that, it's amazing how that
• 0:31
  suddenly gets a little better. A good buddy of mine, Oscar,
• 0:34
  called me up. He said, I'm ready.
• 0:36
  I'm finally ready to get fit. And he's like, when do you work
• 0:38
  out? I was like 4:30 in the morning
• 0:40
  and he's like, I'm coming. I was like, we're going to find
• 0:43
  out. And so, you know, we were two
• 0:46
  days in, he's like, I can't walk.
• 0:47
  I was like, yeah, that's part of it.
• 0:49
  OK, So anyways, who you spend your time with matters.
• 0:53
  And so here's what I want to tell you in the, in the context
• 0:55
  of this, if if you've begun to look at kind of your life and
• 0:58
  this year and what's going on, you're like, man, I really want
• 1:01
  a heart more like Jesus or I really want to pursue Jesus a
• 1:03
  little bit more. I really want to deepen my
• 1:05
  faith. Here's what I'm going to tell
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  you. The number one factor to whether
• 1:09
  or not that's going to go well in 2026 is who you spend your
• 1:12
  time with. You want to pursue Christ a
• 1:16
  little bit more, get in to group community relationship with
• 1:21
  people who love Jesus and love you and you will be amazed at
• 1:24
  how much faster you're going to paddle that boat.
• 1:27
  So sign up for a group or sign up the fill out and I'm new here
• 1:31
  card or fill out just about anything.
• 1:33
  And when we call you to follow up, tell them, hey, here's what
• 1:36
  I feel like I need. And we will start working with
• 1:38
  you on what does it look like to find people to do this with you
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  and you won't need people. Now we're kicking off a four
• 1:46
  week series starting today for the month of January Called sent
• 1:50
  just called sent. And here's why Jesus plan to
• 1:54
  reach the entire world with the news of the gospel was his
• 2:00
  church. So so go ahead and look around
• 2:03
  you look left, look right, go ahead.
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  If you're sitting next to your spouse, this is a good time to
• 2:07
  go. You look good.
• 2:10
  They like compliments men. If you're single, don't don't
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  say that just yet unless you know they're going to be OK with
• 2:17
  it. So look around you.
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  Look at everybody sitting in the pews.
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  Y'all ain't Plan B. This is the plan.
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  You're not spectators or an audience.
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  You're the plan. Say me, this is this is God's
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  plan. If you're going like what a
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  plan? He didn't make a mistake.
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  You're not the junior varsity. He chose you before the
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  foundations of the earth according to the Bible.
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  You're the plan. I want you to, I want you to
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  hold on to that because we want to talk a lot about it over the
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  course of this month. You're the hope of the world,
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  Christ in you, the hope of glory.
• 3:00
  Now, different generations have called this different things.
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  Some generations might call this missions or evangelism or
• 3:06
  testimony, or we're just going to call it sent.
• 3:09
  For the next 4 weeks, we're going to be talking about being
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  sent because if you're a Christian, then you have been
• 3:14
  sent to spread the good news of Christ.
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  And so for this today, we're going to talk about how Jesus
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  did it. And then for the next two weeks,
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  next week and the week after, we're going to have guest
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  speakers come in here from other churches that are specifically
• 3:30
  kind of an expert in specific fields, talk about what it looks
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  like to reach a lost and broken world.
• 3:35
  And there's some really good, I mean, you're going to enjoy the
• 3:39
  next two weeks. Week 4, this is super important.
• 3:43
  Week 4, January 25th, what date? We are not going to meet here.
• 3:49
  We're going to have one service at 10 AM in the parking lot of
• 3:55
  the Junketeque outlet. You better write that down or it
• 4:00
  could be really lonely over here.
• 4:03
  We're breaking out the COVID tent.
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  Hopefully it doesn't come with a pandemic.
• 4:09
  And we're going to meet in the parking lot and then we have all
• 4:11
  kinds of stuff afterwards, different ministry
• 4:13
  opportunities. You can sign up for them already
• 4:16
  right now in the lobby, but we're going to do those on that
• 4:18
  day. So I don't want you to show up
• 4:20
  and be really lonely here. We're going to be over there at
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  10 AM, OK? January 25th, That's one more
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  time. So do you hear me?
• 4:28
  OK, over the next 4 weeks, we, we want to teach the doctrine of
• 4:33
  what it looks like to be sent and we want to really get into
• 4:35
  the mission. And then we're just going to
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  continue to give you unapologetically opportunities
• 4:40
  to partner with local partners, outreach organizations with us.
• 4:44
  We have a massive emphasis in 2026 on action.
• 4:49
  We want to get you in the game. Listen, I want you in the game
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  and Bakersfield needs you in the game.
• 5:00
  So we're going to start our series today, week one in
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  Matthew 9, verses 35 through 38. And if you if you don't get
• 5:06
  anything else out of today, I need you to get this one idea
• 5:11
  that's nestled in here. And it's this.
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  You're not special, you're sacred.
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  You're not special, you're sacred.
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  And I'm going to explain what that means.
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  So let's start in Matthew 9. We're at the very end of the
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  chapter. All throughout the chapter,
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  Jesus has been doing miraculous healing.
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  He has healed blind men. He's healed a lame man.
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  He's taken a little girl who died, raised her to life.
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  He went and found a tax collector, which is about the
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  most ostracized physician in the 1st century, and he invited that
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  person to be his disciple. And then he casts a demon out of
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  a man. It's been an interesting
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  chapter. And then we're going to pick it
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  up right here in verse 35. Read with me and Jesus went
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  throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their
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  synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom and
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  healing every disease and every affliction.
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  When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they
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  were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.
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  Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but
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  the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the
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  Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
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  You see a phrase here in verse 35 says gospel of the Kingdom.
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  So gospel if you're new, you never, I don't really know
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  what's going on this Bible thing.
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  Gospel just means good news, just means good news.
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  It's the good news of the Kingdom.
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  So. So what is the good news that
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  he's sharing about this Kingdom? Well, here in the 1st century,
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  the Israelites, God's, God's people had waited for a coming
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  Messiah or savior. In fact, all of the Old
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  Testament of the Bible had been promising, prophesying that
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  someone was coming to save the people, the Savior, this
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  Messiah. And so natural question maybe if
• 7:19
  you're hearing that you don't know much about the Christian
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  faith is save them from what? Well, there are a lot of
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  prophecies that were essentially promises from God.
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  We get the benefit now of looking back and understanding
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  that those prophecies were completed by Jesus.
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  And so when we read some of those, maybe they were a little
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  confusing at the time. They're a lot more clear now.
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  Let me read you one that probably at the time was very
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  confusing, but we understand it a lot better now.
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  This is Ezekiel 36, 25 through 27.
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  It says this the prophecy. I will sprinkle clean water on
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  you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses and from
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  all your idols. I will cleanse you, and I will
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  give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you.
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  And I will remove your heart of stone from your flesh.
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  And I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit
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  within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to
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  obey my rules. Now at the time that was written
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  might have been pretty confusing.
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  Sounds like a surgery they didn't even have, right?
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  We can look at this now and know this is what Jesus was going to
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  do. Jesus came to save us from
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  ourselves. He came to save us from sin,
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  from spiritual death by placing His Holy Spirit inside of us.
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  But back in the 1st century, if I said why is the Messiah coming
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  to save you, the most common interpretation was that the
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  Messiah was coming to save us from the Romans, Roman
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  occupation. And so Jesus is in the
• 8:56
  countryside. He's going from village to
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  village and he's preaching good news.
• 9:00
  The Kingdom has come and they're all going really where's where's
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  your army? If you're going to save us from
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  the Romans, you're going to need like I don't some soldiers, some
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  Chariots, maybe a couple Apache helicopters, right, like might
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  help. See, most people in that moment
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  missed Jesus because he wasn't offering the solution they had
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  imagined. They wanted people miss Jesus
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  because they they thought the gospel missed the point.
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  They thought, you know, Jesus is a great idea if he gives me what
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  I think I need. And in that moment it was
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  military strength. It was freedom from Rome.
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  And so they missed him or they rejected him outright.
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  You, it's easy to look back and be like, I don't know how you
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  could miss Jesus, but I do that. I've done that.
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  When I decide that what will really fix my life is more
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  money, then as long as Jesus gives me more money or a
• 9:59
  promotion of some type than I'm totally down with Jesus.
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  Like Hallelujah, if that's what Jesus gives me.
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  And if not, well, I don't know if that's for me.
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  Like maybe maybe you've met someone like this.
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  Like, you know what we all want, What I would really like Jesus
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  to do is show up in my life and tell me that all of my choices
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  have been right. You know what I mean?
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  I you've been right. Everyone else is wrong.
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  I just need the Jesus that will show up and affirm my lifestyle
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  and my choices and my opinions, my political views, all of those
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  things. That would be wonderful.
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  Here's the problem with that. I mean, that would be a Jesus I
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  could really easily latch onto. The problem with that is he's
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  God and I'm not. So when the when the power of
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  the gospel of Christ pierces my heart that the first thing that
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  happens is I begin to realize how wrong I've been and how much
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  I actually need a Savior. The gospel, the good news of
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  Christ, the very first thing it does when when we meet it is it
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  exposes. It exposes everything about our
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  heart and our need for a Savior. Look at verse 36.
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  It says when he this is Jesus. When he saw the crowds, he had
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  compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like
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  sheep without a shepherd. In the original text, those
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  words harassed and helpless that they were just rich with
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  meaning, weary, troubled, bewildered, despondent,
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  scattered, meant, prostate thrown on the ground.
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  What the the The writer here is trying to describe to you our
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  helplessness without God. Jesus looks at these crowds of
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  people, most of whom listen to me, most of whom are going to
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  reject him. In fact, not that long from when
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  this is written, most of them, the majority is going to take
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  him to be crucified willingly. And yet he's going to look at
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  them and he's going to have compassion on their condition.
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  What is that condition? He's not concerned about their
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  poverty. He's not considered concerned
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  about the Roman occupation. He's concerned about the state
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  of humanity apart from God, because it's helpless and
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  hopeless. This is the message of the
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  entire Bible. The whole Bible is that that no
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  amount of money, no amount of knowledge, no amount of power,
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  no amount of of science, no governmental systems can fix
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  what is wrong deep down inside of me.
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  When humanity rebelled in the very beginning of the Bible, we
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  now all have been born under this curse, separated from the
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  very God who created us for relationship with Him.
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  We were designed for relationship with the Creator
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  and separated under a curse, and there's no hope.
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  And the state of the lost, the state of those separated from
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  God, should drive us to compassion and urgency.
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  That's what it does here in Matthew 9.
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  Jesus sees that, and it drives him to compassion.
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  If the state of lost people drives Jesus to compassion, how
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  come so often it drives us to anger?
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  Have you been around American church for any period of time?
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  You know what I'm talking about. Well, why do we see American
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  Christians so angry at lost people so often?
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  Well, we read the gospel. We don't see Jesus screaming to
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  them about their politics or their poor choices or their bad
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  opinions or anything else. He was disturbed, certainly.
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  He was not silent. He was very vocal.
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  He's very motivated to address the problem, but it with
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  compassion, to show them that there was hope.
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  And listen, it is possible that we can be motivated by anger,
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  but but anger motivates us in a very distorted way.
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  You see, anger causes us to see lost people as a problem to fix.
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  Compassion sees people as image bearers to love so that Jesus
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  can fix them. Anger balls up its fist and
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  shouts at the lost. Compassion kneels to wash their
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  feet. That's what's supposed to be
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  happening to us as Christians. The the same gospel that exposes
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  our heart to show us that we're the problem in need of a Savior,
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  exchanges our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh so
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  that we can begin to feel real emotion for those who are still
• 15:28
  lost. The gospel doesn't just expose
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  the gospel in flames. When I was lost with a heart of
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  stone, nothing could set me on fire.
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  Nothing moved me. I could walk past homeless
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  people all day long. I could scroll past the
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  statistics on orphans. I could ignore my Co workers or
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  my neighbors pain. Because stone doesn't burn,
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  stone doesn't feel, stone doesn't move.
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  But because God gave me a heart of flesh and eyes to see a
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  broken world, now he has set me on fire to reach others.
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  And he's done that for you too. To, to, to look at a lost world
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  and see it any differently is not to see it the way Jesus
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  does. The heart of flesh burns and a
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  heart on fire moves. And I, and I think that one of
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  our challenges as Christians is sometimes we feel the weight of
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  this or the urgency of this, maybe even the passion of this.
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  And, but we aren't really sure what to do with it.
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  And so I, I think there are times where churches motivation
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  does not actually come from biblical places.
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  Here's what I mean by that. We should be passionate, but we
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  must be compassionate. You hear me?
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  We should be passionate. It should, it should well up
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  inside of us, but not in an angry way, in a compassionate
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  way. So what does Jesus do with his
• 17:05
  compassion? He feels this compassion.
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  What does he what does he do? Well, he does three things.
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  Look back at verse 35 says when Jesus went throughout all the
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  cities and villages teaching in their synagogues.
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  You can underline teaching proclaiming.
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  That's another word for preaching can underline
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  proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom and healing.
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  There's the third verb, healing every disease and every
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  affliction. So he went just like your scent.
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  And he did three things, Teaching, preaching, healing.
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  So what does it mean to teach? Well, he engaged their minds.
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  Jesus is probably the best storyteller we have ever seen.
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  There was a study I read recently, Jr.
• 17:47
  Briggs counted that Jesus was asked over three.
• 17:52
  No, Jesus himself asked over 300 questions.
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  He's just constantly meeting people and asking them questions
• 17:58
  to get them to think. They've done neurological
• 18:00
  studies that when you ask a question or answer a question,
• 18:04
  your brain waves spike. You start to think about things.
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  It's the way to captivate people simply to ask questions.
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  Jesus was constantly asking people questions.
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  Over 300 questions. Jesus was asked over 180
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  questions in his short little mission on earth.
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  About three years, 180 questions.
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  He answered five of them directly. 5 You know what he did
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  the rest of the time? They asked him a question, He
• 18:31
  asked them a question, they asked him a question, He told
• 18:34
  them a story. Jesus was constantly engaging
• 18:38
  people's minds to try to get them to see the truth of the
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  Gospel. He didn't want them to just
• 18:43
  memorize something. So he's teaching.
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  He's also preaching. We see Jesus preaching.
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  What's the difference? Teaching a little bit more
• 18:54
  informational tends to engage the mind.
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  Preaching is supposed to be transformational.
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  Teaching leads us to understanding.
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  Preaching leads us to commitment.
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  I teach to reach your brain. I preach to reach your heart.
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  And so Jesus did both. He preached the Sermon on the
• 19:13
  Mount is phenomenal and he preached through stories all the
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  time. Jesus loved to preach through
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  stories. Think about how brilliant the
• 19:21
  the the actual genius of the story of the Good Samaritan.
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  The Good Samaritan story came Why?
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  Because someone asked him a question and he didn't answer
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  it. He's like there was a man
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  walking down. He starts the story, but think
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  about his story. His story is to explain who is
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  your neighbor? But but who are The Who are the
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  failures in the story, the religious elite and who's the
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  hero of the story, the Samaritan outcast.
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  Jesus preached to reach their hearts.
• 19:54
  So he taught the gospel, but he also preached the gospel.
• 19:58
  And then he did a third thing. It says Jesus healed.
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  He's healing all throughout the chapter, all of Matthew 9, he's
• 20:04
  healing. This is a radical message about
• 20:07
  transformation and salvation in this gospel that he's preaching.
• 20:10
  It's not just taught to the mind.
• 20:11
  It's not just preach to the heart, it's displayed in power.
• 20:14
  Listen, you might not like what a guy says, but he raises a
• 20:17
  little girl from death to life and you're like, this guy's
• 20:21
  serious. Even Jesus skeptics had to deal
• 20:24
  with the fact that he's doing these supernatural miracles.
• 20:27
  In fact, if you read Jesus life, they're people that don't like
• 20:30
  Jesus, but he keeps doing these miracles and they have to try to
• 20:32
  explain them away. They're like, maybe he has a
• 20:34
  demon, he's moving with unavoidable powers.
• 20:42
  It's impossible to ignore the power, the supernatural power of
• 20:45
  Christ. Now maybe you're thinking, OK,
• 20:46
  look, I, I can maybe see how I can teach the gospel.
• 20:50
  Maybe, maybe I can figure out how to preach the gospel.
• 20:54
  But how am I supposed to do miracles?
• 20:57
  How am I supposed to do supernatural miracles?
• 20:59
  So here's the thing you might be missing.
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  You are one. That Jesus took you from
• 21:11
  spiritual death to spiritual life as a supernatural miracle.
• 21:17
  The the the God took someone with a stone of heart, a heart
• 21:21
  of stone who is dead spiritually and raised you to life, set a
• 21:24
  slave free, a rebel that's been reconciled to God.
• 21:29
  That's not self improvement, that's resurrection.
• 21:31
  You didn't pull yourself up and do this to yourself.
• 21:38
  God did that. So.
• 21:40
  So now as a Christian who's been raised from spiritual death to
• 21:44
  spiritual life, we can live for Christ in a way that is so
• 21:48
  impossible, so radical, so counter cultural that our very
• 21:52
  lives are miracles. Last December, so about 13
• 21:58
  months ago, I was up here and we were talking and I said my wife
• 22:02
  and I had been praying and and separately in prayer had reached
• 22:07
  a conviction that we were supposed to be foster parents.
• 22:11
  Do anyone here remember that? OK, so we're sitting up here and
• 22:14
  it's kind of like live at the moment.
• 22:15
  You know, I'm like, man, my wife and I have been praying here.
• 22:17
  Here's that. So we start on this thing.
• 22:19
  We sign up. By the way, it is not quick.
• 22:23
  You deal with the government. So nine months of forms and
• 22:30
  training and certifications and inspections and two new social
• 22:34
  workers along the way. Apparently you can't keep them
• 22:36
  more than three months. Maybe it's us.
• 22:39
  Nine months of work. We finally get approved, no
• 22:44
  phone calls. So finally, a couple months
• 22:49
  after getting approved, we get a phone call, We pick up a foster
• 22:51
  kid. We have them for two weeks and
• 22:53
  we have had no foster kids since it's been a year.
• 23:00
  We spent most of that in trading and filling out forms and phone
• 23:04
  calls and inspections to get two weeks of a foster.
• 23:16
  As someone that really likes efficiency, this bothers me.
• 23:22
  And I'm like, you know, you're talking to guy, You're like,
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  what are you going to do? What am I going to nine months
• 23:26
  of work for? Two measly weeks of like, what
• 23:28
  is that for? Like, what's God going to do
• 23:30
  with two weeks? And then in the moment I'm like,
• 23:33
  what did he do with two fishes and five loaves?
• 23:41
  So our foster kid leaves and then he shows up the youth
• 23:48
  group. That's cool.
• 23:53
  And then his brothers show up in the kids ministry and his
• 23:56
  grandparents show up, his mom shows up and we're just like
• 23:59
  where all these people come from.
• 24:02
  And then on December 14th, I got to baptize him.
• 24:11
  Y'all understand that's not supposed to be how that works,
• 24:13
  right? Because if that's the formula,
• 24:16
  all we got to do is sign up to Foster and everybody's getting
• 24:18
  saved. I wish you were that that,
• 24:23
  Listen, if I were writing out this plan, OK, I'm just going to
• 24:25
  do nine months of work and then we're going to have two weeks of
• 24:28
  fostering. And then people are just going
• 24:29
  to give their lives to Jesus. I'd be like, this is a stupid
• 24:32
  plan. And if it were my plan, it would
• 24:37
  be a stupid plan. The good news is it was not my
• 24:42
  plan. It was a miracle because no one
• 24:47
  writes a plan like that. It's a dumb plan.
• 24:49
  God didn't ask me for a plan. He called me to obedience.
• 24:55
  He said, Daniel, you have a spare room, you have a stable
• 24:58
  household. You give it to me and I'll use
• 24:59
  it for my glory. So we teach and we preach, but
• 25:07
  we also live radically, and God displays his power to a lost
• 25:11
  world. And so to live radically means
• 25:17
  we're going to be willing to serve a bunch of people who may
• 25:20
  not even be grateful that we're helping them.
• 25:23
  So we're going to need supernatural motivation.
• 25:26
  We're going to need God to light us on fire.
• 25:29
  Because I'll be honest, ministry is hard.
• 25:32
  People are mean. They're going to hurt you.
• 25:34
  Hurt people hurt people. So no amount of moralism, no
• 25:39
  amount of religion is going to want motivate you to keep
• 25:43
  pouring yourself out. God has to light you on fire.
• 25:51
  I want God to light you on fire. And as he does, you're going to
• 25:56
  realize that God is leading you into specific ways to reach
• 25:59
  people. I can't even tell you all the
• 26:02
  ways. I just know He's going to do it.
• 26:06
  The beauty of that, you're going to get to discover how that
• 26:08
  works. So I want you to take a moment.
• 26:14
  I want you to just think like what?
• 26:16
  What are the things that God has actually already started to call
• 26:18
  me to do? But they seem inconvenient.
• 26:20
  They seem like a bad plan. So I've been sweeping them under
• 26:24
  the rug. I've been ignoring them.
• 26:25
  I don't actually want to listen to the God because I have a lot
• 26:27
  of rational reasons not to do it.
• 26:29
  Because I got to be honest with you, I've got a lot of rational
• 26:31
  reasons to not be a foster parent.
• 26:34
  What's he telling you? What's he been working on that
• 26:40
  you don't want to listen to? I'm not trying to guilt you.
• 26:45
  I'm trying to invite you into an adventure of a lifetime because
• 26:51
  God wants to use you. That's the good news.
• 26:55
  But you have to move as He leads you.
• 26:57
  So Jesus is teaching, Jesus is preaching, Jesus is healing.
• 27:02
  I can't heal like Jesus could at will.
• 27:04
  Most of us probably can't. But I can live supernatural,
• 27:09
  radical life of obedience in such a way that seems
• 27:11
  inexplicable to the outside world.
• 27:14
  And I can expectantly wait for God to do glorious and
• 27:17
  impossible things through it, and he will.
• 27:20
  You see, I don't need to have the power to heal because I know
• 27:23
  the Healer and he's invited us into his work.
• 27:29
  Listen to me, church. Listen, if you will live like
• 27:32
  this, the world will notice. They're going to see the
• 27:35
  miracles. They're going to the fact that
• 27:37
  you're saved is a miracle. The very testimony of our
• 27:42
  salvation is a miracle. It is a supernatural act of God.
• 27:46
  And so this has been happening. Jesus been going around the
• 27:48
  countryside. He's been preaching, He's been
• 27:50
  teaching, he's been healing. People are taking notice.
• 27:52
  And then he turns to his disciples in verse 37.
• 27:54
  He looks at him, He says this, He says this.
• 27:57
  The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
• 28:06
  And there's there's two things that he's saying in that moment.
• 28:09
  I want you to see both of them. Here's the first thing he's
• 28:10
  saying. Most of the world is lost.
• 28:15
  Y'all realize that, right? Yes, yes, most of the world is
• 28:22
  you. You know most of Kern County is
• 28:23
  lost, most of the city of Bakersfield is lost, most of
• 28:32
  your neighbors are lost and most of your Co workers are lost.
• 28:36
  If you work for the church, that's weird.
• 28:43
  You understand what I'm saying? When you leave these this
• 28:48
  campus, most of the people you're going to see and interact
• 28:51
  with in this world don't know Christ.
• 28:57
  Jesus is going the the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers
• 29:03
  are few. What does he mean by that?
• 29:05
  Few of those saved will live like they're sent.
• 29:12
  Few of those that know Christ will actually live like they're
• 29:15
  on mission. Jesus isn't saying we need more
• 29:17
  conversions in order to get more workers.
• 29:19
  That's not at all what he's saying.
• 29:20
  He's saying the workers are already here, they're just not
• 29:23
  working at the harvest. They're saved, baptized, sitting
• 29:29
  in churches around the country. That's the crisis.
• 29:37
  We are far too comfortable. The harvest is rotting because
• 29:41
  the laborers are sitting in the barn.
• 29:46
  The good news is I see that changing all around this church.
• 29:51
  I see that in you. I'm watching God move in you.
• 29:54
  I'm seeing it happen. We have story after story after
• 29:57
  story watching it happen. What do we do about that?
• 30:01
  Verse 38 What do we do about that?
• 30:03
  Therefore, so then pray earnestly to the Lord of the
• 30:09
  harvest to underline that word. Those two words send out, send
• 30:14
  out laborers into the harvest. Send out the actual original
• 30:19
  language is more forceful than send out.
• 30:21
  It means thrust forth, yes, we need to be sent out.
• 30:28
  For some of us, this is how we get sent out, right?
• 30:35
  Fighting every moment like I don't want to, blah, Francis
• 30:41
  Schaefer, in one of his most famous sermons, said the the the
• 30:45
  leadership, Christian leadership is like metal being extruded
• 30:49
  into a form. Takes a great deal of pressure,
• 30:52
  right, to push us into those moments because we fight it as
• 30:56
  much as we can. I don't want to do it.
• 30:59
  Can I tell you how much I did not want to be a foster parent?
• 31:03
  Let me step back. Can I tell you how much I when I
• 31:05
  was a kid, I said I want to be anything other than a pastor.
• 31:12
  How's that working out? When I became a pastor I said
• 31:19
  listen that's fine. What?
• 31:20
  OK God? Fine, all right, as long as I
• 31:22
  don't have to preach. I went from not wanting to be a
• 31:28
  pastor to not wanting to preach, to not being able to shut up.
• 31:35
  Y'all are laughing way too much of that joke sent forth
• 31:43
  compelled. Every single Christian.
• 31:49
  Say me is commissioned to go from disciple to disciple Maker.
• 31:54
  That's what the gospel does. And the only prerequisite is
• 31:58
  that you're saved. That's the power of the gospel.
• 32:01
  That took fishermen and tax collectors and some ragtag group
• 32:04
  of nobodies and turn them into apostles for Christ.
• 32:12
  That's how someone like me hints up somewhere, like here, sent
• 32:19
  forth. The gospel empowers.
• 32:26
  It's what I'm trying to tell you.
• 32:28
  It doesn't just expose, it doesn't just inflamed.
• 32:30
  It empowers. When, when, when God saved you,
• 32:35
  he put his Holy Spirit inside of you.
• 32:37
  He commissioned you for the work of the harvest and equipped you
• 32:40
  with spiritual gifts and everything that you would need.
• 32:42
  And he wants. All He wants from you is a
• 32:43
  humble heart and an obedient servant, and he provides the
• 32:48
  rest. I don't know what God's about to
• 32:50
  do in your life, but I know he's about to do something
• 32:53
  miraculous. I see it all around this church.
• 32:59
  I feel it in my bones like some of y'all feel the rain.
• 33:03
  I'm like, oh, I can. I just, I see it bubbling up all
• 33:07
  around this church. The gospel empowers.
• 33:12
  Here's the thing, right? I'm not special.
• 33:16
  I've just been set apart by God, just like you have.
• 33:21
  You're not special. You're sacred.
• 33:26
  You're sacred. We, we, we, we don't have some
• 33:31
  sort of special ability that others don't have.
• 33:33
  I can't heal at will. We're not smarter, we're not
• 33:35
  more gifted, we're not more qualified, but we are sacred.
• 33:38
  We've been set apart by God for his purposes.
• 33:41
  The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in
• 33:45
  you. You're not special, you're
• 33:49
  sacred. You're not impressive, you're
• 33:51
  empowered. You're not the hero, but you
• 33:53
  know the hero, and he has invited you into his story.
• 33:59
  So we serve and pray. That's what Jesus says.
• 34:02
  We serve and pray. So today when we end this
• 34:05
  service, man, we're going to pray over this whole church.
• 34:08
  We're going to pray to the Lord of the harvest that you would
• 34:10
  begin to realize you've been sent out.
• 34:12
  It was a beautiful quote in one of the commentaries I was
• 34:18
  reading I wanted to share with you was talking about this idea
• 34:21
  of being sent forth of being commissioned and says this we
• 34:24
  find our motive or motive for going and doing this in the
• 34:28
  heart of Christ and our strength to do it in the prayers of the
• 34:34
  church. This is why we pray for you so
• 34:37
  much. I want you to come on this ride
• 34:41
  if you're if you're willing to run after the lost.
• 34:44
  I want to explain a bunch of tools we're putting together to
• 34:48
  just try to help ways to equip ways to offer you opportunities,
• 34:52
  ways for for maybe you to take a little test step in different
• 34:56
  directions and see where God's leading.
• 34:58
  Got a bunch of stuff this year for you.
• 34:59
  So here's one of them we built. We built a ping pong ball wall.
• 35:05
  And what we're going to do is every time you invite someone to
• 35:07
  church, when you come in on Sunday, you're going to get one
• 35:10
  of these little white ping pong balls and you're going to write
• 35:11
  the name of the person you invited.
• 35:12
  And you're just going to drop it in the top.
• 35:14
  And we're going to fill this sucker up.
• 35:15
  It's probably going to take like, I don't know, 1000 ping
• 35:17
  pong balls. You'll have that done by
• 35:18
  February, right? We'll build a bigger one.
• 35:27
  And every time someone you invited comes, we're going to
• 35:29
  let you put the name on a on an orange ball so you can just
• 35:31
  watch the colors. And every time someone after a
• 35:34
  service comes and it gives their life to Christ, we're going to
• 35:37
  put their name on a on a pink ball.
• 35:38
  We're going to put it in there. And every time someone moves
• 35:40
  forward in obedience to believers baptism, we're going
• 35:43
  to put their name on a like a green ball.
• 35:44
  We're going to put it. And we're just going to watch
• 35:45
  God do work all year. All right, check this out.
• 35:50
  I'm going to show you how this is going to work.
• 35:52
  Get up here, guys. Right here, right here, right
• 35:54
  here, front step. OK, here's what I want you to
• 35:56
  do. I'll give them some ping pong
• 35:57
  balls just so you know the holes right here.
• 36:00
  Go ahead and Chuck them in. Come on.
• 36:17
  OK, one tip, 1 tip. If you want to reach people for
• 36:20
  Christ, you might have to get close.
• 36:24
  Going to put it out there. The Instagram verse might not be
• 36:27
  enough. You might have to get into their
• 36:29
  life. So every time you invite
• 36:33
  somebody, I want you to put your name on their ball.
• 36:34
  Why don't you put them in here? Your neighbor.
• 36:38
  I got to meet Richard's neighbor the other night at a house
• 36:40
  warming party. I didn't realize it, but he was
• 36:43
  married to a girl who's a twin sister of someone that I did
• 36:47
  their wedding and they recognized me and they're like,
• 36:49
  we know this guy from somewhere. I'm like, oh, that's the pastor.
• 36:52
  And Richard's like, oh, that's an in.
• 36:55
  Let's talk about church baby. Right?
• 36:58
  We're two down. We're almost there.
• 37:03
  OK, so we're going to do this every Sunday.
• 37:04
  It's going to be sitting down in the lobby.
• 37:05
  She'll come in. I want you to think about this
• 37:07
  every single week, man. Have I, have I invited someone
• 37:10
  into my life, into into church, into house, and it's just a
• 37:12
  conversation about the gospel. We're going to put the name in
• 37:14
  there. We're going to keep doing it.
• 37:15
  Secondly, you probably pass the tables on the way in here.
• 37:18
  There's a bunch of things to sign up for, and I want you to
• 37:21
  take part in them. I want you to consider them.
• 37:22
  I want you to pray over them. There's all sorts of fun stuff
• 37:24
  that we're going to do all month long and be opportunities, so go
• 37:28
  check out all those things. We also put it on a website.
• 37:31
  On our website, if you go to resurrect dot church slash sent,
• 37:35
  there's a bunch of links of all kinds of cool stuff that we're
• 37:37
  doing. So we're all in one place.
• 37:40
  We'll talk about ways to partner at Jado.
• 37:42
  We're going to go over there later in the month.
• 37:43
  There are two big events we're going to invite you to that I
• 37:46
  want you to go to. One of them is an evangelism
• 37:48
  workshop. It's here in town, it's free.
• 37:51
  It's in February, but I need you to sign up so I know how many
• 37:53
  people I'm feeding. And the other one is at the very
• 37:56
  end of April, beginning of May. It's in Sacramento.
• 37:57
  It's called the Thrive Conference.
• 38:00
  Those two things. We sent a lot of people to
• 38:02
  Thrive last year. We're going to blow those
• 38:03
  numbers away this year. It's like it's like church camp
• 38:08
  for adults. We're going to love it.
• 38:10
  OK? I want you to go to those
• 38:11
  things. The Bakersfield Angels and
• 38:13
  Shelby and her team are going to be out there.
• 38:14
  There are so many ways to start taking some steps to begin to
• 38:18
  see where God's leading, and I want you to start moving towards
• 38:22
  some of those things and investigating where God is at
• 38:25
  work in your life. So let's start with this.
• 38:31
  Every single day, pray. Pray to the Lord of the harvest.
• 38:38
  Pray that God would would keep you sensitive to those
• 38:41
  interactions as you're at the gas station, as you stop for a
• 38:45
  minute at Starbucks to have a conversation with a barista, to
• 38:48
  just have conversations with people about what God is doing.
• 38:53
  Pray, pray daily. Serve somewhere.
• 38:57
  This month we're going to try to give you more and more
• 38:59
  opportunities. I want you to serve somewhere,
• 39:01
  try something out. There's going to be
• 39:03
  opportunities everywhere. Come to these two upcoming
• 39:06
  events that we've got planned in February and in May and start
• 39:10
  inviting people to hear the good news.
• 39:14
  It is my dream, it is my hope, it is my constant prayer that if
• 39:17
  you call this church your home, you will be so compelled by the
• 39:20
  Spirit of God that you cannot escape the work that He's doing
• 39:22
  in your life. You'll be so empowered and
• 39:26
  amazed by the way God is changing you that you will link
• 39:29
  arms with people in this church. And we are going to charge into
• 39:32
  these neighborhoods to foster, to adopt, to feed, to serve, to
• 39:36
  give, to teach, to preach, to invite, to testify to the
• 39:41
  supernatural work that God is doing in each of us.
• 39:47
  Maybe you joined us today. Maybe you're online and you, you
• 39:54
  realize that that God has actually been calling you to him
• 39:59
  for quite some time and you haven't been able to articulate
• 40:01
  what that was. But you're you're beginning to
• 40:03
  understand that God actually loves you.
• 40:06
  And that voice you hear in the back of the head, it's not a
• 40:09
  monologue, it's actually God calling you to salvation.
• 40:15
  We've been talking a lot about this term called gospel.
• 40:17
  If you, if you're not familiar with the gospel message of the
• 40:20
  Bible, then give me the last 30 seconds of your time here and
• 40:24
  let me explain it to you. God created you for relationship
• 40:29
  with him and every single one of us has rebelled and and broken
• 40:33
  relationship, separated from God and we can't fix it.
• 40:39
  So God sent his Son Jesus fully God, fully man, to live a
• 40:43
  perfect life we could never live, to die a death that we
• 40:47
  deserve to die and to rise from death to prove that he had
• 40:51
  conquered sin and death. The Bible says that if you will
• 40:55
  turn from your sin and trust Jesus, that God Forgives you
• 40:59
  completely, adopts you as his child, and gives you eternal
• 41:05
  life. That's the gospel, that's the
• 41:07
  good news. So if you would like to
• 41:09
  surrender your life to God today, I want to give you that
• 41:12
  opportunity. Will everyone please bow with me
• 41:14
  for just a moment, close your eyes for just a second.
• 41:17
  I just want you to concentrate on you yourself for just a
• 41:19
  moment and block out all the distractions.
• 41:22
  If you're willing to ask God for forgiveness and salvation with
• 41:26
  every eye closed, with every head bowed, I just want you to
• 41:29
  repeat this prayer after me, quietly, silently, however you'd
• 41:31
  like to do it. Jesus, I know I'm lost and I
• 41:41
  can't fix myself. I need you to save me.
• 41:49
  So I put my trust in you and I surrender my whole life.
• 41:56
  Be my Lord, please Jesus. That's the first time you've
• 42:04
  ever said a prayer like that. Will you raise your hand for me
• 42:06
  to see? Thank you, thank you.
• 42:12
  You can put your hands down in Jesus name, Amen.
• 42:18
  Real quick as we as we leave real quick if you just
• 42:22
  surrendered your life to Christ for the very first time.
• 42:25
  Welcome to the family. Will you stand with us?
• 42:34
  We're going to sing a song. Our per team's going to be up
• 42:37
  here. We'd love to pray with you.
• 42:38
  If you gave your life to Christ moments ago for the first time.
• 42:42
  There are tables in the back that say I raised my hand.
• 42:44
  We'd love it if you'd find your way back there.
• 42:46
  As we sing, tell someone about the decision you just made.
• 42:49
  We would love to celebrate with you.
• 42:51
  We have a gift for you. If you need perf for any reason,
• 42:54
  our team is going to be up here. You move as the Lord leads you.
• 42:56
  We love you, Church.