The Mission Jesus Left Us

You can't go on mission by just forcing yourself to tell other people about Jesus, and you can't go on mission just by feeling guilty or shameful for the fact that you've turned inward in your faith. There's only one way you go on mission, and that's this, being with Jesus in his presence. That's the answer. See, if being with Jesus in his presence doesn't change you, then you aren't in the presence of the right Jesus. Because when you're in the presence of Jesus, he will change you from the inside out. So how do we go on mission? Get closer to the heart of Jesus. The closer you are to the heart of Jesus, the more your heart beats for the same thing that Jesus' heart beats for. [00:47:11] (36 seconds)  #PresenceTransforms

He went to this island. God showed favor upon him, and he lived among the people for thirty five years until he died of natural causes. He made such an impact on the village that the villagers put his body in a coffin, and and they buried it in the center of the village. And they put a tombstone up, and they wrote on the tombstone that when he came, there was no light. But when he left, there was no darkness. When he came, there was no light. But thirty five years, he lived among us. And he taught us that our ways didn't line up with the God who created us. And he loved us, and he slow walked us into relationship with God, and that when he left, there was no darkness. [00:43:08] (49 seconds)  #LifeThatBroughtLight

Maybe you're following the Jesus that just makes your path smooth ahead of you. Maybe you're just following the Jesus that's gonna get you to heaven. Maybe you're following the Jesus that your parents followed or your grandmother followed. But if your heart isn't being radically transformed and your number one priority isn't the number one priority that Jesus came to this earth for to seek and to save the lost, you're not following the right Jesus. So what does he invite you to do? He invites you to repent. He invites you to come back to him. Kneel down before him and say, Jesus, I want my heart to beat with the same thing that your heart beats with. Lord, I I want my mission to be the same mission you came to this earth for. [00:32:49] (48 seconds)  #FollowTheRightJesus

You come follow me. I wanna show you how to do something, and I want you to be an expert at it. I know you know how to fish. He was talking to fishermen. I know you know how to fish, so he uses that analogy. But he says, this is what I want you to do. Come follow me, and I'm gonna make you live in big mansions. Is that what he said? Come follow me, and I'm gonna make sure that life is smooth and perfect and you don't have pain or, you know, any problems at all. Isn't that what he said? Jesus said, come follow me, and I will show you how to do one thing and do it really, really well. Seek and save those who are lost with me. [00:35:39] (38 seconds)  #SeekAndSave

But there's a proven process that if you're not just if if you go beyond the large group and you decide to be in a small group, what we call life groups, k, if you commit yourself to that kind of community and you commit yourself into finding a place to serve, because we believe that everybody has a gift to share, that we we've noticed there's a proven process there. That if you do those two things, you you become more engaged in the heart of God. And as you become more engaged in the heart of God, guess what happens? You grow. [00:15:02] (32 seconds)  #LifeGroupsTransform

Right? You wanna buy a house and you wanna get a really, really special interest rate. But to get that special interest rate, you have to have a certain credit score. And you walk into the lender, and you go up to the lender, and you're like, look, I wanna borrow x amount of money, and I wanna buy this house. It's my dream house. And he goes, we'll fill out this credit report. You fill out the credit report, and you're a 100 points below where you need to be. Does the lender look at you and go, it's okay. I'll loan you the money anyways at the special, really, really special low interest rate. Do they do that? Yes or no? So in this world, we have standards that get set for things that we want and things we want to be a part of. So why would the kingdom of God be any different? [00:38:36] (47 seconds)  #KingdomStandards

I've come to this point of being convinced that once you have surrendered your life to Jesus, k, the enemy hates that, but the enemy wants to do everything he can to keep you from reproducing your faith into the hearts of others. It's like he's lost you, but he wants to make sure that you don't end up affecting others. And so the quicker he can get you into the church, the more he can just let you live in your little comfort zone and escape away from the rest of the world, then you become ineffective at reaching the rest of the world. You're in the little cocoon called the church, but you're not gonna be bringing anyone else into it. You're not living on mission. [00:21:28] (44 seconds)  #BreakOutOfCocoon

You can argue with them all day long, but you're not arguing with me. You're arguing with him. Like, because he's the one who said, this is the mission I came to do. I came on a mission to seek and to save those who are lost. So please hear me today. Right? With all the kindness I can give you. I'm just your I'm just your chubby little pastor friend up here. Right? If you've been following Jesus and his mission isn't your number one priority, then you aren't pursuing the right Jesus. If the number one priority of seeking and saving the lost isn't your number one priority and you have claimed to be following Jesus, I'm afraid that you may have been following the wrong Jesus. [00:31:49] (55 seconds)  #CheckWhoYouFollow