Red Stone Church
A Great Commission Church Introduction
They meant picture real quick. The last time you got something from IKEA or Amazon, and it was supposed to be like a king bed with a mattress and a convey cover, and somehow it was all shrunk down in like a three by five box or something. You've got three cajillion pieces shoved into that box, and now you were supposed to make something beautiful and gorgeous and remarkable out of that thing, right? And just think about the anxiety that you feel. If you know anything about me and my craftsmanship, it's not great for one Christmas. I was to put together a train table, and so I was trying to cut crown molding, where it's supposed to kind of fit together. Let's just say that the train table was not level, nor could bear weight, so I don't know much about tabling, but those are two very important things that tables should do is to both be level and bear weight. It did not happen. Let's just say that Christmas, the North Pole, did never call me ever again, because that's just what you do. So whether it's pancakes or whether it's furniture, whether it's IKEA, we just spend a lot of our time making things. Now you may not make any cookies or any furniture this week, but you will make some things. So for instance, some of you in here today are planning to make some type of presentation at work or school. You're gonna walk into some kind of conference room, or maybe you're gonna be on some Zoom call, and you're supposed to present something to others. So you're about to make a presentation. Some of you are leaders, and you have to make a big decision, and before you make that big decision, you have to make sure that every one of your people on your staff or on your team are on the same page. Some of you are trying to make an impact on your community. And so maybe you're joining a commission board, or maybe you're volunteering your time, not sure. Some of you want to make healthier decisions when it comes to your diet. It's been a long summer. You've consumed too many calories, and so you're like, "Oh, this is the time we're gonna go into Thanksgiving, and we're gonna be slender." Not true. Others of you are trying to understand your passion better, because you have to make a choice when it comes to your vocation. Am I gonna go this way or that way? So the truth is that we make things all day, every day, because making things, that's intrinsic to being a part of a human being. And that's our syllabus, is that we're makers. That's what we do. We believe that we are under or inside the story of God, in which God is the first creator, the beginning of all things, and He has invited us to be co-creators with Him, and part of that is making stuff. Now this is a tiny little word, right? Four letters, it's not even that impressive to say out loud, make. And yet, when you understand this word, make, it really is remarkable. You see, this is what you're doing when you make something. You're taking like a bunch of different ingredients, and somehow, some way, through the great measurements or proportions or whatever, you're able to put them all together, and it works to make something. Or if you're making a piece of art, you have to take a bunch of different things, put it all together in order for one thing to show up. The same is in making decisions or making a plan. Again, a thousand different individual parts, somehow coming together, so that you're able to do that one thing and do that one thing better. And so the question for us this morning, and just a short period of time, we're gonna keep you all day, don't worry, is simply this. How do you make your life count? There's a lot going on in just that one question. But you want your life to count, don't you? And so many of us, especially if you found yourself in a church on a Sunday morning, or you didn't sleep in, somehow, you ended up here. A lot of us in here want to make our life count when it comes to the story of God, when it comes to what the Bible has to say about all things. And so for the next four weeks, you and I are gonna go on a journey on what purpose looks like. How to look at your life, maybe a little bit more objectively to see if it measures up with this tiny passage at the end of Jesus' earthly ministry. When you look at your life, and you look at this thing called the Great Commission, how does your life intersect with that? Because we believe that that is how you make your life count, is to live in light and in alignment with this Great Commission. So we have a mission statement at our church, and it is so very complex. It says this, we are at Redstone Church, we are disciples, making disciples of Jesus. That's it, it's not gonna blow you away, but there it is. But inside this little statement, right, disciples, making disciples of Jesus, what happens is very, very important. Because when we look at this statement, and we try to do everything according to this statement, and so next week we're gonna do a family meeting, we're gonna hear about budget, you know, ministry plans, and you know, the goals that the elders have set out for us, like all of those things are on that. Like above here, but deep down at its core at that conviction level is this one little statement. Because we believe that our job really is to replicate and to do what Jesus has told us to do, that we are to be disciples. And then we are supposed to pour all of our energy and effort into making disciples. Another world, right, not after a marketing campaign, but really after the person and the work of Jesus. Now we get this conviction from the passage that we read. I think it's good for us to reread it together, starting in verse 18. So if you've got your Bibles, Matthew 28, 18, and following it goes like this, and Jesus came to sit and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, "baptizing them in the name of the Father, "the Son, the Holy Spirit, "teaching them to observe all that I have commanded to you "and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. "Before we are able to like move forward "into our class for the semester, "as you get your syllabus, "you need to know the guts of this great commission. "You need to know its structure, "you need to understand its grammar. "First and foremost, "I want you to highlight the person and work of Jesus. "We take the great commission as it is only what I am to do "for him. "What we want to teach you this morning "is that he's already there. "He is a part of this amazing work." Verse 18, and Jesus came and said, "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me." That's what he says, that there is a governance about the person and work of Jesus, that all authority is his, not ours. If we see anything good come out of it. It comes from his authority. And so first and foremost, breathe. All authority has been given to us by him. He's there. He's firmly seated on the throne. It's amazing. But the second thing that you see about his character is not just governance, but proximity. Look at the end of 20, and behold, look, gaze. Now don't take your eyes off it, behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. You've got governance, all authority, but you also have proximity. He is with us. We're moving, sure. We're going absolutely. We're trying to flex this kingdom muscle absolutely, but it has to start with the person and work of Jesus. Secondly, you are gonna see all kinds of actions. So look at this slide. I've highlighted a bunch of different movements of the Great Commission. And so if you're familiar with church, you're familiar with this, but I just want you to just look at these movements. You see this idea of going, and making disciples, and teaching, and baptizing. It's just a very action-oriented. And so with all of these actions, you need to know, like with the presence of Jesus, he really does want us to do something with our life. He really wants there to be true purpose and fulfillment and he's showing you his cards from the very beginning. Remember, these are his last words before he leaves for heaven. We have a couple of other phrases that he kind of gives and visions or spoken, but very present. These are the last things he says to his people. And he wants you to know that these are the actions that are absolutely essential for your life. How do I make my life count, people will ask? Well, Jesus has said, we align our actions, right? Our motivations, our behaviors. We align them here. This is what we get to do. But there's only, of all of the circled things, there's kind of a trick question, right? But what is the main verb of the Great Commission, right? Well, you get kind of seduced by this idea of going or teaching or baptizing. But there's only one main verb in the Great Commission. And this is the verb disciple or the verb to make a disciple. That's the action with all of the actions around it. That is the main verb. All the other things, the going and the baptizing and the teaching, those are called participles, class. What do you know about a participle, right? A participle is helpful and good and is absolutely essential to understand but it's not the thing. And so when our conviction grows deep into our belly and it rises into our hearts that hopefully, overflows in our lives is because we've circled the one verb in the Great Commission that our job is to truly to make disciples. That's what we get to do. And we do that by doing. And we do that by baptizing. And we do that by teaching, absolutely. But those are just modifiers of the main thing. Our main purpose in life is to look at our lives and say God has made me in His image and light and is wonderful and good and beautiful. And He has something in me that I can give to at least one other person in life. That's a lot of responsibility. But that also set you free from the cloud. The parameters out there that's pretty noisy. It's a little bit like static noise of what is my purpose? Now remember being at a lunch or a breakfast with a high-end business person here in town. He doesn't go to our church. We'll just spend some quality time. He's at the end of his career, right? And everything looks good on paper, like business, check, probably money, check, success, right? I mean, all of the things, I mean, he just got the checks, but here he is. A middle to late end of his career. And he was like, but did I do enough? He's asking. What truly is my purpose in life he's asking? And then he's saying, did I make a difference? He's now looking back at a career and like, but was it enough? And I simply wanted to tell him what I want to tell y'all. The only way to measure the answer to that question is through the great commission. He gives us, Jesus gives us a purpose statement and he gives us our motivation. And he gives us the reason why we wake up every single morning is simply to invest our lives in the name and spirit of Jesus in order to give that away to at least one other purpose. That is our purpose in life. It truly is disciple making. That's who we are and that's what we get to do. So that's your syllabus, right? That's kind of what you have like at your disposal. For the next four weeks, we're gonna go into this idea of exactly how we can reorient our lives around the great commission. You come back for family meeting, you're gonna hear the same thing. You're gonna hear the elders do the pitch that we want to align our ministries, right? Everything with this. Part of this series comes out of a true like a heart level confession during Lent. So if you know anything about Lent, it's 40 days, it proceeds Easter. I gave myself 40 days to journal every single day on this one verse in the Bible. So for 40 days, all I did was fill up pages, every single day about this. And so we want you, right, to get some of that. One of the aha moments toward the end of the 40 days is the idea that this is not an isolated event. But all throughout scriptures, we see this tiny little word and we see it not just numerically and there's a bunch of times that you hear the word make, something like 12 or 1300 times. It's not just the number of times, the times it's repeated. It's when it's mentioned that truly got just, it's just started, it's as if it just started jumping off the pages of the scriptures. This idea that what we see God doing in his making ability all throughout the human history, it says if Jesus is saying, "See, you get to do what I've been doing all along." On some of the first pages of our scriptures, you will hear this, Genesis 1, 26. Let us, that's God, the Trinity, let us make mankind in our image. You turn the page to chapter two, he said, "Lord said, it's not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." He's now gathered the Hebrews together. They're now a people and they're people under the word, because they now have 10 commandments. They're written word of God and what is the very first one? You shouldn't have no other gods before me. You shall not make any graven images out of gold or silver. The incarnation of Jesus, John chapter one. And through him, Jesus, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. Jesus is now fully in his ministry. He's gathered his disciples. Matthew four, he says, "Come, come, follow me." Jesus says, "I will make you, fishers of men." At the end of his life, that was the beginning of his ministry. At the end of his ministry, Matthew 28, go and make disciples. Two Corinthians five, talking about you and how you sit before the Lord. And before him right now, God made him, that's Jesus, who had no sin. He made him to be sin for you so that you could be remade in the righteousness of God. This is the creative genius of God. First page, let us make man in our image, last page, Revelation 21. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth descending. And he says, "He who is seated on the throne says, 'I am making all things new.'" It happens over and over and over, but so does the word "the," right? This happens over and over and over, but in the beginning of creation. And at the beginning of mankind, at the beginning of the Jewish nation, at the beginning of Jesus' life, and then at the beginning of his ministry, and then at the end of his ministry, and the recreation of people in his image. And at the very end of our story, it's this one word, make, over and over and over again. Because we are to be disciples who makes disciples of Jesus. That's what he has called us to do. And so for four weeks, that's what we're just going to get a pause. If you're new to our church, it's a great time. We encourage you to come all four weeks, three now. But come all four weeks just to kind of lean in to understand, come to family meeting, kind of see behind the curtains, see where we're spending our money. Hopefully it's through these endeavors. Because we truly, at our heart level, we believe that Jesus didn't lie to us. We believe that he knows better than us. And he says, if you want to make your life count, have it look a little bit like this. So maybe you are looking at a career change. Maybe you are looking at life and kind of shrugging right now. Maybe you're maybe at the end of your life, like, well, Lord, here we are. We would encourage you to look back at these simple words at the end of Jesus' earthly ministry and say, "Has my life aligned there?" All authority, he says, right, and I will be with you all ways. To all encompassing words, always, right, and all authority. That's kind of the reign and rule that we were working with here. Nothing surprises us. Nothing of syllable is out of line. This is how he wants us to give our lives. Amen. Let me pray for us. It's a Lord we pray now as we are kind of the first day of class in understanding that this semester, hopefully, Lord, we have worked hard to get it all started, right, and moving in the right direction, Jesus, we want to be about the right things. We know for a lot of our days, or weeks, or months, or seasons, maybe even generations, it's easy to get persuaded, Lord, that we're supposed to be doing other things with our time and energy and money, Lord, we want our lives. We want our ministry. We want our church to be defined by this thing. So give us conviction, Lord. Help us and understand that this is where we are. So Lord, we pray and we want to pause for those in the room that may have sensed just a little discomfort in reading and understanding their life and their pursuits. I pray that you don't just throw a hammer or a burden on them. Your yoke is life that helped them to be free now, to see with better eyes, with better clarity of why and what their lives need to be given to. God, thank you so much for life upon life and family, upon family who have been given their lives to these things. Thank you to all of those individuals, Lord, who have caught this burden, and they have faithfully, daily, and weekly, monthly, given their lives to see you rain, big, and other people's lives. Help us to be a church full of disciple makers, and we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. At the heart of a disciple maker is the heart of someone who loves Jesus and wants to follow after Jesus. And the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took a piece of bread like this, and he says, okay, this is the new identity, you guys. This is a piece of bread, right? It's just normal. This is what society is built on right here, like if you don't have meat, right, you don't have java juice, right, everybody's got a little bread. He says, as the very sustenance of life, he says, this is my body, and he says, given for you. And so both the sustenance becomes the sacrifice. How do we follow after Jesus, understanding that he is the sustenance for all humanity, no matter where you are. And the heart of who Christians, because the heart of who Jesus is, is this heart of sacrifice. But then he does something that only he could do. He says, this is my blood, and he says, poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins. And so when we are putting ourselves to this great commission, it truly is just having people look at the person and work of Jesus over and over and over again. So today's response is not one of guilt or shame, it's to just fix your eyes on Jesus who says, hey, by the way, this is how this is purpose, and to see him once again is faithful and true and good, both to follow and to give away. So we would encourage you to stand your feet and respond appropriately to Jesus. If you love Jesus, if you follow him, if he's King, if he's Lord of your life, we would encourage you to come to his table knowing that this table is sufficient for you. If not, you're struggling.