Empowered Witness: Living Out Our Faith Boldly

``We know that Jesus is that Passover lamb. We know that it was his body that was broken, his blood that was shed. And in that act, he took the sin of the world on himself and he suffered. He went to the grave and then he rose again. And it is that act which we celebrate at the heart of who we are as followers of Jesus Christ, that he died for our sins and rose again. [00:17:16] (52 seconds)  #JesusSacrificeAndResurrection

One of the big problems of having a professional pastor is that the church lets off and says, well, we pay him to do that. That's not the role of the pastor. The role of the pastor is to equip the saints for ministry. The role of the pastor is to encourage the body, ground them in Christ, so that we all go out with the job of making disciples of the nation. So that's all of our call. [00:57:29] (31 seconds)  #EquippingSaintsForMinistry

That's what Paul's talking about. And then in verse four, it says, every Sabbath, he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. This is what Paul was all about. In Acts 17, it says, Paul, by custom, went to the synagogue. And on three Sabbath days, he reasoned with them from scripture, explaining and proving that Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. This is the Jesus I'm proclaiming to you. This is the Christ, he said. Paul's mission was to proclaim the risen Lord and to prove from the Old Testament that Jesus is the Messiah. That's what Paul was all about. That's what he did. That was his main goal in life, was to make disciples. [00:59:29] (46 seconds)  #PaulProclaimsTheRisenChrist

I just simply said to them, tell me why it's cool to be a Christian, and so they worked on their testimonies, and these young kids stood up, and they said, the thing I like best about being a Christian is that wherever I go, I have family. I'm part of a military family, we move around a lot, but it never takes us more than a Sunday to find my family in a new place, because I just go to church, and I find the family of God there, and I'm a part of it. What a beautiful testimony from a young person, and they just went every week, or every day, a different young person gave their testimony, and at the end of the week, 27 kids gave their life to Jesus. Wow! To me, that's huge. Sounds crass, but production. It's huge results. It's seeing God work, but God works because we have an intentional result in mind. [01:03:08] (74 seconds)  #ChristianFamilyAcrossPlaces

God changes our strategies as we go. Doors open, doors close. Pastor Nick's going through that right now. I will go through it once Nick comes here. We have others who are leaving to new jobs. God closes one door. God opens another door. But he never shuts off the mission. Make disciples. [01:08:14] (26 seconds)  #GodOpensAndClosesDoors

People of God, God, this is our mission to make disciples. Look for God's strategies, and be assured that just like with Paul, Jesus says, lo, I am with you always to the end of the age. [01:10:53] (17 seconds)  #DiscipleMakingUrgency

I hope for anyone this morning, you challenge yourself to say, how much on my brain is it to be a disciple maker? And if it's not, I ask you to urgently begin to pray to God, to say, God, how can I become sharper, better at being a disciple maker? [01:11:10] (25 seconds)