Hope Church LV Sermons
Missional Communities :: Make Disciples Part 2
You know the great enemy, or challenge, or tension, whichever word you choose to use for the church. The great challenge that we face and every church faces is the challenge of so involving ourselves in good things that we miss the best thing. I mean as the church there are literally a million good things that every church could be involved in. I mean let's hope that we can kind of establish everything a church is involved in is at least good. Hopefully the baseline, right, I mean that ought to be the bottom-end qualifier. I don't think churches try to involve themselves in bad things, at least let's hope not, right? We want to be involved in good things, but the challenge in ministry, the challenge as a church, as a fellowship of believers is that there's so many good things that you can be involved in that it can become the enemy of the very best thing. It's easy to get sidetracked. And the problem is that our real enemy would love for us to be so involved in good things that we miss the very best thing. Last weekend I shared with you a question. It's a question that I've been wrestling with. It's a question to be honest with you that our leadership team for over a year now has been wrestling with these questions, these stirrings. I shared it with you last weekend. I want to put it back up on the screen and I want you to think about this question. Have we become so busy with our dreams, our plans, our programs, our needs and our ideas of what the church is to be, that we may have missed the very essence of God's real desire for us? I told you last weekend, I struggle sometimes with our expression of church in North America. Because as you compare our expression of church in North America to church and other parts of the world, there's just a vast difference and I'm afraid that it's not us who have it right. As a matter of fact, we're one of the few countries in the world. There are some others, but one of the few countries in the world where Christianity is actually on the decline and not on the increase. So for the church, when we think about the church, what's the best thing? I mean, there's a lot of good things, what's the best, what really matters, what is it really all about? Is it attendance and a weekend event? That seems to be the metric that is most popular in church circles. How many people attend a weekend event? Is that what the best thing really is? Is it retreats and camps and buildings or special events or Bible classes or kids activities or music or sermons or resources published or are any of those the best thing? The reality is, as you examine the Scriptures, there's really one best thing. And it's simply making disciples. The real reason that we've come together as a community, the mission, the task that we've been given here on this earth is to make disciples and all the other pieces, weekend events, buildings, budgets, programs, kids, classes, Bible study, all the rest of it, it only makes sense and it only has any significance at all to the degree that it helps us in the process of making disciples. The rest of it is irrelevant if it's not pointing us in the direction, if it's not challenging us, if it's not shaping us to make disciples, to take your Bible and turn to Matthew 28. Last weekend we looked at two verses at the end of Matthew 28. We're going to look at them again this morning. We really could spend six or eight weeks just in these two verses, pulling the truths out of here, and I want us to look at them again this morning and remember the context before I read them, because when I say Matthew 28, 19, and 20, some of you have been in church so long, man, you know those verses, right? I mean, it's kind of the mantra. It's what we all know. The great commission is what we call it, and the danger is we've heard it sometimes so many times that we take it for granted and we read right through it and we don't really hear the essence of what's being said. But remember the context, it's the last words Jesus spoke to His disciples on the earth. Last thing He said, "They were hanging on every word as He spoke." Verse 19, "Go therefore, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you and lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age." I asked two questions last weekend out of these verses. I want to give you those two, and then we're going to ask a few more this morning. Here's the question, the first one we asked last weekend. If we're really called to make disciples, if that's the mission of the church, number one, it's important we understand what is a disciple, right? I mean, we got to make sure that we understand what a disciple is, and here's the definition I gave you last weekend of a disciple. A disciple is a Jesus follower, growing in fellowship with God and with others. A disciple is not just somebody who conforms to a system of do's and don'ts. A disciple is not just somebody who can answer all the theological questions, no. A disciple is someone that has a relationship with God, and that relationship with God is deepening and growing, and because of their relationship with God, it's spilling into their relationships with others, both believers and non-believers, and how we relate to them. That's a disciple. Then we ask a second question. How do we make disciples? If the task that we've been given is to make disciples, how do we do that? And last weekend, we examined the greatest model ever found, and that is in Acts chapter 2 verses 41 to 47. There we read of the birth of Christian community. 3,000 people came to Christ, and this incredible community was born, and what we understood is that life change happens in community. Community is not something that they did in the early church. Listen, it's who they were. They just begin to live out their relationship with God in fellowship with others, and as the early church began to grow in community, it expressed itself in two ways as we study the New Testament. There was a large group community, the Bible says they would gather in the temple courts, there the apostles would teach, they would hear the Word of God, and then the Bible says there was small group community. They would go house to house, and they would dialogue and discuss the things that they were learning, and they would interact around the truth of God's Word and involve themselves in the lives of others. I gave you a definition of community last week, here it is on the screen, "Sharing in the mission of Jesus by sharing life with others." I want you to say that out loud with me. Sharing in the mission of Jesus by sharing life with others, that's community. That's not what we do, that's who we are. As followers of Jesus Christ, we share in the mission by sharing life together. Let me ask some more questions this weekend. Here's the first one I want to ask this weekend, it's number three. What exactly do we mean by the mission of Jesus? If we say that community is sharing in the mission, what exactly do we mean by that? Last weekend, we said it's making disciples, but what I want to do is unpack that a little bit more with a three-fold statement, because in Matthew 28, 19, and 20, the main verb here is make disciples, yet Jesus uses three participle, three words that describe how or when or where we make disciples. So here's the first part of the statement. God is at work in and through the relationships in my life. I want you to say that out loud with me. Ready? Here we go. One, two, three. God is at work in and through the relationships in my life. Where do you see that? Verse 19. First word. What's the first word? Go. Go. It's a word that literally means to go from one place to another, but it's often used metaphorically in the New Testament to mean to walk or to live or to conduct your life. Now, there's a couple of things you need to understand about the word go here in this verse. Number one, we need to understand it's not the main verb, it's describing the main verb. I don't know how many of you have heard preachers preach versus 19 and 20 before, but I've grown up in church, been in church all my life. I've heard a lot of preachers preach, Matthew 28, 19, and 20, and I've heard a bunch of them wax eloquent on this word go. I mean, they put all the emphasis on the word go, and they take these verses and it's all about the nations, it's all about missions, it's all about sending missionaries to the uttermost parts of the earth, and listen, you guys that have heard me teach and preach for any length of time at all, you know that if you cut me, man, that's what I bleed. I love the nations, I love the peoples of the earth. I believe God's raised us up to touch the ends of the earth. This word go is not really the word go that would put all the emphasis there and make this all about sending out people to the ends of the earth, it's literally here. I believe best translated as you go. And when we understand that this word can be used metaphorically to mean live, I literally think what it could mean here is as you live your life, make disciples. In every season and in every circumstance, Jesus is reminding them here, listen, as you go, he's gathered them on a hillside, as you go, as you leave this place everywhere you are, every season and every circumstance in your life, every moment, you are on mission with God and every relationship around you to make disciples. Let me give you a couple of examples of the way God works through our relationships. First of all, there are season of life relationships. We all have different seasons in our life, and I don't just mean spring, summer, winter and fall. I'm talking about those seasons of our life. We all had a season of our life where we were children. We've had seasons of our lives where we were adolescents and teenagers into college, and then we maybe had a season of our life where we were single adults, and some have moved into a season of their life where they're newlyweds. Summer and a season of life where they're raising kids inside the household. Summer and a season of life where it's now an empty nest and they've sent kids out of the house. Summer and a season of life where they're enjoying retirement. All these different seasons of life, and here's the reality. In every season of life, I'm introduced to a new set of relationships that's God at work all around me and opportunities to make disciples. For example, how many of you, when you were kids, had friends, right? I mean, we all had kids, when we were kids. We had people that we played with, rode big wheels with, or shot slingshots, or did things like we did when we were kids, and had BB gun wars and stuff that my mom and daddy don't know about, so don't put that on the internet. Right? I mean, we had kids, friends, but very, very seldom, now some still, some of you are still hanging out with the people that you rode big wheels with, but most people, we're not still hanging out with the same set of people that we were playing in our street and our cul-de-sac with, we were little kids, as the seasons of life change, the relationships in our life change, and here's the reality. I should be able to look back over my life, and in every season of my life, I should be able to identify God's activity of making disciples. Let me give you an example. Have two sons that are currently playing basketball for their high school, one's playing junior high, one's playing high school basketball, and you know, when you have boys playing high school basketball, you spend more time than you really want to in a sweat smelling gymnasium, right? I mean, well, we spend a lot more time, right, because we're here in one this morning, but you spend too much time in a gym around basketball, and we're there, but you know what's happened because of our boys playing basketball, guess what that's done? That's a season of life that we're in, and God has introduced us to a whole set of relationships with people that we probably would have never known if it weren't for our children playing basketball. One of those families, we got to know I'm sitting in the stands, and I meet a guy up there in the stands, and it's one of those, "Hey, yeah, that's my son, he's number so and so, yeah, that's my son, he's number so and so," and you know, we meet each other there in the stands, and we connect, and we got to know the family this past Easter. We invited that family to come with us to our Easter services here at Hope, and starting Easter Sunday through the rest of that month, the husband, the wife, and both kids, all four came to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, we've been able to baptize them here at Hope, they're growing in their relationship with God. Now, I don't say that to say, "Wow, look what Pastor Vance is doing because it's not me," and listen, I miss it more times than I get it right, but here's what I want you to hear this morning. We know them because of a season of life. My boys were playing basketball, but it wasn't my boys playing basketball, let me tell you that. It was God at work around me in a season of life, drawing people to himself and desiring to use me to make disciples and be on mission with him in the season of life. You see it, but not only do we have season of life relationships, we have circumstance of life relationships because inside of every season in our life, we have some circumstances, right? I mean, sometimes it's the circumstance of a breakdown of your car and you have to take it to a shop and how we all love to go to visit the auto mechanic, right? I mean, it's just terrible. It's almost as bad as the dentist, man, you just hate going there. But if we think about it, let me tell you what that circumstance is. Have you ever thought when you're sitting in that mechanic shop waiting on your car to come out that the reason your car broke down is because God knew somebody else was going to be sitting in that same shop with you? And he put you there? It really had nothing to do with your car. He put you there as a divine appointment because he wanted you to be on mission with God to make disciples and there's somebody sitting in that lobby that God has been cultivating and drawing them to himself and in his sovereign purpose and plan, he put you in them right there together for that moment in time. You see, you have no idea what the person sitting beside you in the emergency. You have no idea what God's been doing in their life to bring them to that point. Now, you're there and you think it's just an inconvenience in your life that you happen? No, it's God at work. Listen, we have opportunities when we have things break down in our home. You have to call a repair man to your house, right? Well, we all love that. You got him for two or three hours in your house. God's brought him right to you. You didn't even have to go find him. You can see what I'm saying here. When we understand this, it changes the way we see our lives. Now these are not inconveniences and obstacles, they're opportunities because I have relationships around me where God is at work bringing people to himself and when I live with an awareness of God's activity, it changes the way I see my life. Let me give you the reality. Here's the reality. Every follower of Jesus is a missionary. You all right? Every follower of Jesus is a missionary, but before you panic, let me give you the second important reality about this word. The word go is passive, not active. You say so. What does that mean? Well, if you're a student of the English language, you remember from studying English that the active verb means the subject is doing the action. The passive verb means the subject is being acted what, upon. Go is not active, it's passive. I'll let that sink in for a minute. It means that I think you could literally say it this way. As God directs the seasons and circumstances of my life, make disciples. You see, this idea of being a missionary is not something that God desires you to do for him. Often I've heard people teach this word go and all the emphasis on what you and I are supposed to do, but it's not active, it's passive. This is not about what I'm supposed to do for him. Listen, this is about what he desires to do through me. As I'm living my life out of the overflow of intimacy with God, God desires through me to make disciples. Here's what that means. God is not looking for super Christians. He's looking for available followers. And just in case you think I'm stretching the word go, he said it more explicitly at the end of the same verse. Verse 20 he said, "Hey, I am with you when." As you go, as I direct, as I sovereignly direct your life, would you be sensitive to my activity of making disciples? And before you panic, let me remind you, in every season and in every circumstance, I am always with you. The mission can be lived out by pastors and missionaries with seminary degrees, but it can also be lived out by second grade children who are passionately in love with Jesus. Do you realize that as Jesus spoke these words in Matthew 28, everybody he was talking to had been saved less than three years? Matthew 28, 19, and 20 was not Jesus' commencement address at a seminary graduation exercise. Most of these people had been saved less than a year and a half. You know what we looked at this crowd and called them? Baby Christians. These were all new believers. Some of them have been saved less than a month. The longest Peter, James, and John, about three years, maybe three and a half depending on the timeline, these were not people that had been walking with God for 20 or 30 years. This mission was not given to the elite. This is not given to the Marines of the Christian ranks. It's given to every one of us. My first grade daughter has relationships at school where God desires to use her to make disciples. Let me give you the second part of the statement. God is at work in and through your relationships in life, bringing people to himself. It's the word baptizing. It's another participle here that describes or modifies this main verb of making disciples. The word baptize, we understand what it means. It's that act of publicly testifying, "I am a Jesus follower." As we live our lives, we are to be sensitive to God's activity around us, drawing people to himself through relationships. One of the ways that God desires to work around us is to introduce people to the person of Jesus. Let me ask you a question. How many of you knew a Christian before you met Jesus? Let me see your hand. Just hold them up for a minute. Look around. All right, you can put them down. Unless you got the gospel in a dream, and sometimes people do, it's happening in some parts of the world. Not the norm, but it happens. Unless you got the gospel in a dream, you knew a Christian before you knew Jesus, because it was the Christian that told you about Jesus. Who in your circle of influence is going to raise their hand next year, and you're going to be that Christian. When we're in heaven telling our story, who's going to say, "I met Jesus because I knew and they're going to fill a blank with your name or my name." God desires to bring people to himself through, listen, the dominant pattern of Scripture in the New Testament is God drawing people to himself through relationships. Let me give you some examples. Just look on the screen. I'm going to run through them fast. Andrew first heard about Jesus through his brother, Peter. Timothy first learned about Christ through his mother and grandmother. Matthew shared Jesus with his co-workers. The first family in Europe came to Christ through the testimony of one family member. Peter and John shared Jesus with an acquaintance, somebody they just met in Acts chapter 3. Nathaniel found Jesus through his best friend, Philip. The Samaritan woman told her neighbors about Jesus. Jesus first built a relationship with Zacchaeus and then shared about salvation. From the Scriptures we learned that we must be sensitive to the relationships around his parents, children, friends, neighbors, co-workers, spouse, brothers, sisters, classmates, teammates, and acquaintances, all our opportunities for God to reveal Christ to others through your life and my life. Let me give you the third part of this statement. God is at work in and through the relationships in my life bringing people to himself and conforming them to the image of his son. You see too often we think make disciples means do evangelism lead people to Christ. Let me tell you one of the great mistakes we made in Christianity. We created two categories evangelism and discipleship as a mistake. You can't do evangelism without discipleship, you can't do discipleship without evangelism. They're forever linked together. Our task is not just to win people to Christ. He said baptizing them but then he said teaching them. Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. This word teaching, we talked about it last weekend. It implies personal time invested in the lives of others, either in small groups or one-on-one settings. God desires to use my relationships, my time spent with others to complete his work of transformation in them. Simply leading people to faith in Christ is not the mission. Do you hear that? Simply leading people to faith in Christ is not the mission. Don't misunderstand me. We ought to get excited when people get saved. Amen? Ah, that's terrible. We ought to get excited when people get saved. Amen? Hey, when people come to know Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior, it is a reason to celebrate. But that is not all of the mission. And any church that says we are content simply to lead people to faith in Christ is failing at the mission of the gospel. The gospel mission is not just to win people to Christ, the gospel mission is to make disciples. Listen to the way Paul said it in Colossians chapter 1 verse 28, we proclaim him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom so that we may present every man, what's the next word, complete. He didn't say saved. He said complete in Christ. The word complete there is the word mature, perfect, full-grown. Then I love what Paul said, for this purpose I labor, striving, here it is again, according to his power, which mindly works within me. Paul understood the mission, but he also understood where the power came from to do the mission. It wasn't him, it was Christ in him. Paul says the mission is to present every man complete in Christ, mature, meaning they have been born, they have been developed and now are reproducing themselves in the lives of others. That is maturity, making disciples. Paul said it in 2 Timothy chapter 2, the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. This principle, making disciples, I want to give you that definition again of community. Sharing in the mission of Jesus by sharing in the lives of others. Here's what I want you to hear me say today and I want you to hear this with crystal clarity. Sharing in the mission demands community. Sharing in the mission demands community. It was the pattern of the early church and we are resolved that it should be the practice of this church. What we are telling you this weekend and last weekend at Hope is simply this. We are not encouraging your participation in a program at Hope. When we talk about small groups and living life together, we are not encouraging your participation in a program at Hope. We are pleading with you to join in the mission of Hope. Make disciples. I've asked Tom McCormick to come this morning and take just a couple of minutes. Tom is our new Missional Communities pastor and I've asked Tom to come and just take just a couple of minutes and answer the question how do small groups impact the mission. Tom if the mission is making disciples, just take a couple of minutes and tell us how small groups impact that mission. I think the first thing that we have to do is to remember the definition. Sharing in the mission of Jesus by sharing life with others. I'm very passionate about this because that's what happened to me. The story is better when you actually experience it, right? I was asked 16 years ago by someone to join a small group and it was a really small group. I made a decision that week, I told my wife, "I really have no idea what's going to happen in this small group. I don't know what's going to happen when we meet, but I just feel like I need to go." So I started going. What happened to me was phenomenal. There were a few things that came out of the blue that I didn't know would happen. The first thing was that I became accountable. Now hear me when I say this. I don't mean accountable to the mission of Jesus Christ. I know that's what we're talking about, but I don't mean accountable to the mission. Here's what I knew that I was being held accountable in my relationship with Jesus Christ. That all of a sudden, I started to recognize the need that I had, the need to know God. Not to be acquainted with Him, but to know Him intimately personally. And I think that's what a small group does. That's one of the first things a small group does. It gives us accountability. Sharing in the mission of Jesus by sharing life with us. I had to be with somebody else. Somebody had to look me in the eyeballs to say, "Tom, are you accountable in your relationship with Jesus Christ to get to know Him?" Because I'll tell you this, there is nobody that you have to talk into doing the mission of Jesus Christ who loves Him. Somebody who knows Jesus Christ, you don't have to beg them to make disciples. There's this desire that is Jesus Christ coming through them that does that. So accountability. Being in a small group means that I'm coming together with others, not only to be responsible for the mission, but to first of all be responsible in my relationship with Jesus Christ. The second thing is encouragement, Pastor talked about this last week. There are times in our lives when all of us go through ups and downs. Most of the time we recognize the downs more than the ups. One of the things I learned in this small group that I joined and stayed with for 16 months was not just getting to know Jesus and not just reading our Bible and not just learning more about who He is. But I remember sometimes when I came in with some stuff, you know what stuff is, right? And I said, "Man, help me to understand this." And there was this encouragement, this time of uplifting and this time of need that I myself couldn't handle on my own. Or I felt like I couldn't. And I think the second thing the small group does is it gives us encouragement to say number one, keep going. Don't stop. But then secondly, you're not walking in this alone. I've experienced this, I've been there making disciples of Jesus Christ in the mission of Jesus Christ. The third thing is intentionality. I was talking to Joe Freiburger right before I came in here and Joe said, "Tom, you know the thing about small groups is that it's really the only time that I'm really intentional about getting closer to Jesus and doing the mission." To be intentional, small groups give us an opportunity to be challenged by others, to be intentional about making disciples, both locally and you've heard it here, globally as well. Here's what I know. When I came here, I asked this question, "How many people in our city don't know Jesus Christ?" and the number was over 90 percent. There are many who think that they know Jesus Christ, but they're 90, more than 90 percent of the people. Here's the deal. Your neighbor, my neighbor, people all around us who don't know Him. People around us who also do know Him, who just need to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. Why? Because the mission is making disciples and it's not just for the pastor and it's not even just for us who sit in this room, God desires worshipers. I remember as we were in the small group thinking how awesome the guy who was leading the small group was, and thinking I could never do what He does, yet that was the exact thing He told me on the first day and the last day, "Go do what I did." That's making disciples. And I believe with all my heart I stand in this position today because somebody invited me to a small group. There are 1.5 billion people in our world who've never heard the gospel, at least 1.5, maybe more. We need the challenge of other people to be discipled and deliberate and intentional about the things of God. And when we are challenged, we usually rise to the occasion. When we go sit on our own, we sometimes, most of the time, bow out. We have one problem though, our tendency is to stay in our flesh and to turn very inward. A group helps us not to turn to us. This is about Him. This is about the Kingdom and this is about making disciples the mission of Jesus Christ. Lastly, perspective. A small group gives great perspective. You know, until I'm with other people, I really don't know maybe what other people, I've always said this, usually we don't like people because we don't know them. It's easy not to like somebody that you don't know. It's easy to say things about people that you don't know. It's easy to just not like them. And most of the time we don't like them, not because we know a lot about them, but because we don't know anything about them, but the truth is that when we come to see from their perspective of why they're going through what they're going through or why they believe what they believe or why they think what they think, all of a sudden we begin to do what Jesus did and we feel compassion on them. All of a sudden, we have a different perspective and the perspective is the perspective that God has, the way He sees them and not the way we see them. All of a sudden in a small group, we begin to talk and we begin to hear stories, what we begin to understand is that we see people from God's perspective and now all of a sudden our whole thinking has changed and we need God's perspective. We need it. We need to be held accountable. Lord knows we need encouragement from others, but we need to give encouragement. We need to be intentional about making disciples and we need to have God's perspective if we're ever going to do such. So Pastor, I think that's how it impacts the mission. Those are the examples. Thank you, Tom. Amen. [applause] Let me tell you why I'm so encouraged. We on our best day at Hope, on our best day in our nine years of history have had about 350 people at any one time engaged in small groups. After last weekend, and we're still signing up, we had some sign up last night, we have some sign up. After last weekend, we have over 720 people engaged and committed to be involved in small groups. [applause] Now, and that's adults. When I talk about the kids areas, that's just the adults in those groups. So, and again, it's not about a program. It's not about the number. Here's what we know. If we can get that many people connected together, doing life together, making disciples together, the impact of that is absolutely exponential. Now, let me wrap this up by answering the question, "Why is this so important?" But why we spend two weeks making such a big deal about this, and there's really three words I want to leave you with. And the first word is the word command, command. 22, 28, 19, and 20 is not the great suggestion. [laughter] It's the great commission. And the great text, it's a command. It's an imperative. It means it's not optional. Here's what that means. If you're a believer, and you're not involved in the mission, you're living in disobedience to God. If there are some things in your life that aren't working out just how you want them to, maybe step one for you today would be to repent and to bring your life on mission with God. The missions for all of us. Second word, calling. I said it earlier, every follower of Jesus is a missionary. This is not a calling for those in vocational ministry. No, no, no, look, if you have never been told this before, you're called of God. You're called of God to be on mission with Him. The ultimate purpose of your life and my life is to make disciples. Third word, cause. Jesus in the middle of this text adds the phrase that does give the nation's implication. He says, "Make disciples of all the nations." The word "nations" here is the Greek word ethnos. We get our word ethnicity or ethnic group from it. It refers to people groups. We tend to think in geographical barriers like countries, but there are over 16,000 people groups in the world. Almost 7,000 of those people groups have no access to the gospel in their language. Somewhere around 2 billion of the people in the world live in what's called an unreached people group, meaning they have no access to the gospel. How do we ever impact the nations? Let me tell you how. As you and I live our lives on mission with God to make disciples, everything that we're doing locally is connected to the big picture of what God is doing globally. I had a family last night after the service tell me that they met a guy in a restaurant. They could tell he was a believer and started talking to him, connecting with him and found out the guy was a missionary to America from Ethiopia. They said, "Hey, we know where there's a great Ethiopian church because we sold our building over on pebble to an Ethiopian church." He said, "You mean the church that bought the building from Hope Baptist Church?" They said, "Yeah." He said, "That's the church that brought me to America." As a missionary, listen, as we live our lives on mission with God. We're a part of something that's bigger than any one of us by ourselves. It's bigger than any one small group. It's bigger than any one church. It's the great cause, the great movement of God on the earth that will one day result in heaven around the throne of the Lord Jesus Christ with men from every tribe, every tongue, every people and every nation singing worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Let's make disciples. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, would you please communicate these truths beyond anything we can humanly do? God convince us in our spirit of the biblical necessity of communion and community and life and fellowship with others. Lord the mission demands it. I'm going to ask you where you're sitting there this morning to just maintain a spirit of prayer there before the Lord. We're going to close our service just a little different. We're not going to stand and sing today, but we do have some of our prayer volunteers and pastors at the back of the room. If you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus Christ today, you don't have a relationship with him and while I'm talking to our people here at Hobon, while we're praying, if you would like to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, if you'd like for somebody to take the Bible and show you how you can do that, how you can know God, while we're praying, you just slip out from where you're sitting, the person next to you will let you out. I promise you go to the back and they'll gladly talk with you and share with you from the Bible how you can know Christ and meet God personally. For the rest of us, what we're going to do during this time is I want you to pray. I want you to pray for our church. I want you to pray for the mission. I want you to pray for us to make disciples. Everything we do, this is how we raise leaders. This is how we plant churches. This is how we work among the nations. It's all the overflow of making disciples. [MUSIC PLAYING] (gentle music)