Come and See: Help Others Find Their Way to God

``I believe spiritual depth and spiritual growth comes from also almost how we see things in nature. You know something is mature in nature when it's able to reproduce. And in the same way, when you're a follower of Jesus, spiritual maturity is the ability to reproduce your faith. As simple as helping find somebody or as profound as articulating your faith to somebody, spiritual maturity is that. And anytime somebody says, man, I'm just I'm not getting fed. I always challenge people. Go share your faith. Go give something away, and go serve someone. Because it's these things in these moments that really begins to light a new faith in our heart. [00:41:01] (48 seconds)  #MultiplyYourFaith

Now here for Jesus, Jesus has no prequalifications. And and I would I should actually adjust this a little bit. He does. The only pre fault prequalification for Christ is this, that you must have an open heart. Or as sometimes Psalms calls it, you must have a broken spirit. Being willing to say it's no longer about me, it's no longer about my opinions or my belief systems, now it's about Christ. [00:46:09] (31 seconds)  #OpenHeartReady

This is the profound thing about Jesus. As we learn that Jesus is just walking from one town to the next, next, learn he bumps into a guy named Philip. He immediately invites Philip into the inner circle. There's nothing that separates us from God. So those people that you're bumping into, those people that you might have written off because of how they've acted or lived, you'd gotta know Jesus has not written them off. And I always gotta remember this, those who look the furthest our way are quite often the most ready. And so I can't write those people off. I just gotta be willing to invite them, to talk about them, to pray for them as quick as Jesus was. [00:47:47] (50 seconds)  #InviteLikeJesus

So as we start today, I want I want you to know we do have a mission statement. I'm sure you've heard it. You're gonna begin to see it all over the churches that we exist to help everyone find their way to God. We exist to help everybody find their way to Jesus Christ. That is our mission statement here at Compass City. And most likely, you are here because somebody helped you get here. Now you may not you may not have been invited by somebody to Compass City, but I would bet there's been somebody in your past at some point who's helped you, shared something about God to you, prayed for you, pointed you in the right direction of God, and you are now here this morning with us in person or maybe online. You are not here by accident. [00:25:43] (49 seconds)  #FindYourWayToGod

Now think about the presence of Jesus. These men bump into Jesus on the Sea Of Galilee. They start having a conversation with him. He, a stranger, invites them to their house to his house or to where he's staying, and they go. And it's because the presence of God is powerful. You need to know the presence of God is significant. How I actually how my life changed was the presence of God. It wasn't a message that was heard for me. When I became a Christian when I was 18, I had been to church before. I had heard the story of Jesus. I knew the things you're supposed to know because I grew up in a, quote, unquote, Christian household. But it wasn't until for me, there was a moment where I felt that I was standing at a y of a crossroad and that I either was gonna walk toward God or walk away. In that moment, I believe I felt and experienced the presence of God, and the presence of God drives you to a response. [00:33:10] (66 seconds)  #PresenceChangesLives

And and as you think about Compass City, if you wanna become part of our family, just know it's living out the values of who we are. And one of those things is having your eyes and your heart open throughout the week. Are the people around you who desperately need the good news? [00:52:26] (17 seconds)  #OpenEyesOpenHeart

And so for me, I never heard. You know, like, hearing didn't do it for me. Experiencing the presence does. And so this is just a reminder for if you're a follower of Jesus here this morning, when you share, when you go and begin to share your faith with people, just know the presence of God is powerful, and it can change anybody. But we also know that they say, statistically, it takes seven different contact points for a person to finally come to church. So that means seven different invitations, seven different they might see a service online, then they might see your sign. They might see the bible verse on your work desk. They might finally hear you share. They might see you pray before your meal, and then it takes statistically seven different times before they even think about coming to church. But don't disregard the presence of God and what he can do. [00:34:16] (56 seconds)  #PresenceMatters

And it's important to know also this is an important time to kinda define what spiritual growth is, is you need to know if you're new to Compass City, there's gonna there's gonna come a time where you're gonna say, Brian is now boring. His jokes are weak. I'm I'm kind of not getting filled up. I think I need to find another church. I need something more beefy. I need something deeper. And it's okay to feel that way because we all do feel that way, but I want you to know just because you feel that way does not equate to spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is not what you're gonna learn on Sunday morning from me. Spiritual growth and and it makes sense also that we think that way because in the educational system, we grow by how much we learn. So if we learn more, we keep going to college and getting more degrees. We'll get smarter. And so we also think of that same thing as, oh, it must be the same way spiritually, but, actually, it's not. You can be very smart and very spiritually dead. There can be a lot of people who have their multiple degrees on multiple degrees in theology and religion and be completely spiritually dead. [00:39:49] (73 seconds)  #GrowthBeyondKnowledge

who we are is a family that's very imperfect, but we're real. I had a really great little reflection of this this last week with my family. We went over to my parents' house with my kids, and we're hanging out. We're celebrating my mom's birthday. And my daughter, who's the second born, was looking through my firstborn's baby book. Because, you know, you give a baby book to the grandparents. And when you got your first kid, you know it's everything is about that first kid. And so when he was seven days old, we got the baby pictures. And my daughter asks, hey. Where's my baby book? And I said, you're a second born. There's no baby book. We love you deeply so much you'll never comprehend how much love I have for my daughter, but you do not have a baby book. We are imperfect but real as a family. [00:23:59] (63 seconds)  #ImperfectButReal

Now here's what's really important. You need to hear this, and, also, you need to hear this for the people that you're gonna one day bump into. Nothing you've done in your past or now will disqualify you from the grace of God. Now I know there's a lot of people shaking their heads. Yeah. Yep. But people hear that, but they don't let that get into their hearts. Right? There's a reason why the Bible talks about our hearts and our minds. People will get that into their minds, but they won't get that into their heart. We'll shake our heads, but, like, yeah. Yeah. But sometimes we don't believe that. So I wanna say that again. Nothing you've done in your past or now will disqualify you from the grace of God. [00:46:57] (50 seconds)  #GraceForEveryone

And here's what I love about Compass City. Here's what I love about our church. You know this if you've been here. Like, we are who we are. We're honest. We're real. We're never gonna feed anybody. We're never gonna manipulate people, but we are gonna invite people to Jesus because he is the way. And so we gotta believe it. My words aren't gonna change people. Your words aren't gonna change people. The music they listen here listen to here won't change people. The words on the back of the screen won't change people. The power of the holy spirit will change people. [00:51:31] (39 seconds)  #PowerOfHolySpirit

But it's a reminder for all of us people who consider ourselves followers of, Jesus, churchgoing people that anybody can follow at any time. There are no prequalifications to follow Jesus. [00:43:41] (20 seconds)  #AnyoneCanFollow

We have three values that we're gonna be talking about this month. It's find, give, and serve. And today, I really wanna talk about finding and really why that's important. But here's the deal. Everything we talk about is not new. We don't create anything new here at the church, really. Everything that we do and that we believe is based on Jesus and the same beliefs that have been a part of the Bible for the last two thousand years. So you gotta know, even though we we talk about our church values, really, they're just the values of who and what it was built on, which is Jesus Christ. [00:25:09] (34 seconds)  #FindGiveServe

So what's interesting here, it says that Jesus found Philip. When actually, again, you go back and you you try and look at that word. I went back and looked at the Greek word found. Another way to say it is he ran across Philip. And what was happening was he was traveling on the Sea Of Galilee, Jesus, from Capernaum to Bethsaida. There's those two towns, they're about five miles apart. So Jesus was on a five mile walk. And in the process of going to Bethsaida, he comes across or what we would what we would say today, he bumps into Philip. And when he bumps into Philip, Philip is not his target, but immediately he bumps into him, he invites him, and Philip is immediately in the inner circle. Think about how weird and abnormal that is, that he is not trying to go to that person, but in the process, he bumps into him and immediately just says, hey. Come. And immediately, he's a part of the 12 disciples. It's crazy. [00:42:33] (68 seconds)  #BumpedIntoJesus

But it was just a keen reminder for me, and I wanna remind everybody, is that she had a bad experience with somebody in the church, not the church itself. And we cannot throw the old phrase, you cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater. The church has been alive and kicking and changing lives for thousands of years, and the presence of God is rooted in the church and in the believers. And so sometimes there's not a word that you're gonna say to somebody. You just gotta say, come and see. [00:50:52] (39 seconds)  #ComeAndSee

Well, I love what he said. He just said, come and see. You know, sometimes those people just need to come and see. You know, I'm a pastor, and so I love to, like, dive in and hear people's stories. [00:49:58] (18 seconds)  #HearTheirStories

And so, really, the the big question that I have for us this morning and for you this morning is who needs to be found? Who needs to be found in your life? And there's gonna be people who are like Philip. Philip was a spirit or I'm sorry. Nathaniel was a spiritual burnout. He was a skeptic. He had some sort of history or past with the church. And because of that, he was blocking his experience from Christ. You know lots of people maybe it's even you that's here with us this morning. You have this past. You're a religious burnout, and that's okay. [00:49:12] (41 seconds)  #WhoNeedsToBeFound

So here's the first crazy miracle of this whole thing. Andrew hears about Jesus from John. We all know John who wrote lots of books of the New Testament. He heard about Jesus from John and followed Jesus. So at this point, we don't know Andrew had any face to face conversations or had met Jesus at all. But he had heard about Jesus from John, and it says he listened and believed. And then what it says, it says Andrew then goes to get his brother. Who's his brother? Peter. Peter becomes the founder of the church that we're in today. [00:35:57] (53 seconds)  #SmallShareBigImpact

So going down this crazy lane, you have John tells Andrew. Andrew then goes and tells his brother Peter. Peter then essentially founds the church that we're in today, All because Andrew listened. [00:36:56] (20 seconds)  #ListenAndPassItOn

So here's the first crazy miracle of this whole thing. Andrew hears about Jesus from John. We all know John who wrote lots of books of the New Testament. He heard about Jesus from John and followed Jesus. So at this point, we don't know Andrew had any face to face conversations or had met Jesus at all. But he had heard about Jesus from John, and it says he listened and believed. And then what it says, it says Andrew then goes to get his brother. Who's his brother? Peter. Peter becomes the founder of the church that we're in today. [00:35:57] (53 seconds)  #ChainOfFaith