eSign Church Membership Made Easy

E sign church membership

belonging to the church is a much bigger deal than we understand uh many of us maybe have been lulled into the sleepy a little bit apathetic experience of cultural church membership almost like it's just this other box you checked that kind of makes up who you are but i need to tell you that uh your picture of the local body of christ whether you're going gonzo excited about it this morning or whether it's just like yeah is too small is a bit anemic compared to what god wants it to be in your life and what we believe it is to be in this church uh we talked about the fact that belonging to a church is very biblical a local body of christ you accountable to a group of believers that's how god accomplishes much of what he wants to do in your life and if you're not then those things tend to drift but what makes that church be able to run together and be together is the truth of god's word so last week we talked about doctrine and doctrine is far from a stuffy concept that is distant and it is the very parameters that define our relationship and how we relate to one another and so being part of a local body means we're in agreement about these core truths and they take us forward but today we want to go deeper than that and we want to talk about okay biblically right to do this defined by truth absolutely but now what does it look like what does it mean to be part of the local body of christ and so we wanted to talk today about life in the local church and when i say it's more than you think i wanted to put a quote up there today how many of you are familiar with a guy by the name of c.s lewis if you've been around christianity at all you know his name and prolific writer and just incredibly used by god but most of us became familiar with him through a series of books he wrote called the chronicles of narnia even though he's just a great theologian most of us met him through aslan the lion and susie and lucy and the pevensy children and all these things and wonderful series well the quote before you comes from the last book in that series and it's actually entitled the last battle and uh and it's the culmination of this beautiful allegorical story which really kind of figures in in in just beautiful terms what it means to be in a relationship with christ because as land the lion he's like jesus and and all the adventures and all the stories kind of culminate in this moment when all of our favorite characters finally enter into aslan's kingdom his land and this is one of the statements made about what it was like to do that let me read this to you it says i have come home at last this is my real country i belong here this is the land i have been looking for all my life though i never knew it till now come further up come further in isn't that great i mean if you're a believer in jesus christ you live for the day how many of you looking forward to heaven when when no drag no no limp because of the flesh and sin and and just heaven is not you sitting on a cloud with a harp you know what it is it is the infinite god of eternity saying come further up further in who's he talking about christ it is to be invited into the person of christ and never find an end to the infinite awesome loving powerful creative majestic savior of your life who's looking forward to that that good stuff so here's where i want to flip your head a little bit you don't have to wait till you're dead the invitation that you have received you received at salvation eternal life doesn't start when you step into eternity it started when eternity entered into you through the person and the work of jesus christ when you became a believer you got an all-access pass to eternity and god invited you and he he raised you up made you knew to be what to be part of something that is going into eternity you know what it's called the church where is that experience for you in the local body and this place is unlike the world now just look around you how many of you know we're not done yet don't look up here too hard but guess what all of the power of life and eternity is ours now so the local church and you belonging to it is the antithesis of the world you see out in the world what you have is independence insecurity and a lack of belonging and the reason you have that in the world and you'll never find it anywhere else on the planet and i don't care what kind of cool club or sports team or whatever it is that you jumped into you can't have it out there because it's all run by a sinister boss his name is sin and sin takes and sin separates and sin leaves you isolated and sin leaves you depending on yourself for everything and that is why you can never belong never be confident never have your person be loved in such a way that you can grow and be secure in it why because the world can't do that but when you got saved you got put into the local body of christ and guess what jesus christ rules here not sin in fact the only thing sin could do is give us an invitation to need each other more be more forgiven be more loved and experience our savior more so what happens we are no longer ruled by sin but we actually have a chance to belong to be known the number one thing everybody in this world wants is to belong and get this the only people who actually get to do it are local church members that's how god designed it for you to be part of something and the church isn't far from let's come do our duty sit here listen to the guy preach check the box it is the lord jesus christ saying come further up come further in taste and see that the lord is good and that i can actually give you relationship with a bunch of people who don't look like you and make them closer to you than anyone you could ever imagine because god can do that the church is all about this word together what's it supposed to look like to be part of the local church some are all right together we're together the world can't be we're together that's what we are we're a body we're uniquely grafted in we're together and we're together in unique ways i'm going to give you six things this morning i'm a new normally a three-point outline guy we're going six we're really getting radical today it's gonna be fun um six things that the local churches identified and known by and what we are together on here they are we're together in corporate worship we are together in consistent fellowship we are together in christ centeredness we are together in service we are together in gospel mission and if i summarize all of it it means we are together in this thing called discipleship being followers of christ so that's where we're going this morning the churches together and i want to just walk through these today because i'm defining what it should look like to be part of the body of christ but what we believe at evangelical free church and what we are going to call you to do and the life we want to share with you so it's a real good determiner if this is not what you think church should look like then wow that's oh that's great you know maybe not my spot but if you believe these things and want to share and grow in these things then it's a wide open invitation this is not an us4 anymore it's to say that friends finding a church is not about finding your people it's about finding a place that is empowered by the living god and you can grow in it's a different perspective so it's very important okay let's begin with corporate worship why did you come this morning and some of you here were last we're here last week what's wrong with you why do you keep showing up i mean what is this thing that we're doing i mean how many of you know worship is bigger than sunday mornings right you ever read that passage in romans present your bodies as a living sacrifice pleasing acceptable to god that's your spiritual isn't our whole life worship so what are you doing here and why do we call this a worship service and what is the point of it and why do we do it every week and by the way what makes it work so what is it and why does it work um i want to tell you what we believe and why we need to be together on this friends how many of you know that you were saved to cheer that you were saved to worship the living god with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind with all your strength to shout with your life worthy is the lamb who is slain that's what we do it makes perfect sense that we would gather to do this the scriptures call us to do this psalm 29 says ascribe to the lord the glory do his name you know worship the lord in the splendor of his holiness how many of you know that we come together weekly to lift up our god this is a worship service but what we do and what it accomplishes is very important because a bunch of people getting together in a room and singing is not worship do you know that just the fact that you showed up and sang and heard somebody talk that is not worship worship becomes worship when the content is right it means that this is a worship service when we come together under the authority of the truth of god's word it means that we did not come with our opinion about god we came to hear god's opinion of himself to discover who he is another way to say this and it's up there is that our corporate worship must be truth based this service is not about you it is about god and who god is and if we get this wrong then we haven't worshiped colossians 3 16 and 17 say this let the word of christ dwell in you richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your heart toward god so that all of the activity that is accomplished on a sunday morning must be based upon the truth of god's word it's the reason why and i say this jokingly we try not to sing jesus is my boyfriend music what do i mean by that you did not come this morning to hear god thanks for making me so special and being so cool and you know thanks for meeting me in my garage yesterday and thanks that you love tools like i do and we're such buddies gaga maggot sorry oh lord my god when i an awesome wonder and i consider all the worlds thy hands have made i see the stars i hear the roaring thunder thy power throughout the universe displayed then sings my soul this was not a plug for the hymns though i love them it was a plug for truth why you don't transform anything your life is your life it's precious it's real it's what's going on in you but frankly you're not the discovery point of the church if you are the barometer of what's exciting about here i'm sorry not going to be a very thrilling ride but when the truth of who god is is placed before every one of our lives then we have entered into worship and worship is transformative do you believe that friends this is the truth that we gather to be impacted by the truth of who god is and it permeates everything our songs the scripture all of it everything that we do here is to come under and to rightly know the word of god therefore if you've come on a sunday and the word of god is absent do yourself a favor and run for the door because we haven't given you anything and we might even have called you to worship you which is a terrible end amen friends we are together in corporate worship corporate worship is truth based and by the way it can only accomplish god's purpose in the church if it's truth based there's another thing that worship is and why we gather we gather to be edified have you ever heard that word edification it's a word of transformation it means you being changed and conformed into the image of jesus christ and guess what that's one of the reasons we gather that's why you are here that we corporately can be transformed by the power of god first corinthians 14 26 says this and by the way in the book of first corinthians they were in a mess their church was messed up like most churches at some level but you want to know why it was particularly messed up because they had taken church and they had made it all about them and their experience and the benefits that they got and they had put themselves before the point of worship and it was a mess and paul was having to correct him and he says this look when you assemble each one of you has a psalm and a teaching and a revelation and a tongue and an interpretation basically it was church for me it was church for me and guess what he says look let all things be done for edification meaning that the point of our gathering is not you centered first it is church transformation center edification cannot happen if we place ourselves before what god is and what god wants but here's the crazy thing when god is lifted high the very things that need to change about us happen and we have a spiritual enemy with like nothing more than us to be a church that's just enamored with ourselves and our agenda and the music that we like and the songs and the da da da da da da and we can all happily go along our way not experiencing the power of god and staying just as rotten as we already are how many of that sounds lousy anybody for change and the power of god and a real savior then it has to be about him first what does that mean it means that we are a discovery based church we came this morning to discover more about our god we didn't come dishonestly i got broken how many of you came to church undone this morning do you care about those things you want to see god in that but you know what we know none of that is going to change at all unless my heart is changed by a new view of who my savior is so together we came to learn of god and the joy of our fellowship is when i throw an elbow in the middle of church and say did you know that did you know he could do that did you know he said that you know he knows me like that oh my word it's like he's god amen you say you're ridiculous pastor you need some of this ridiculous by the way we all need to be enamored with our savior that is why we gather in corporate worship and that must be the heart of what we do and we cannot substitute anything for the truth of god's word because it nothing else will be meaningful it will be a show we're together in corporate worship but as joining this is not the only time we're together in fact we are together god wants us together all the time how many of you are like new personal space i love you on sunday morning but really it takes me monday through saturday to get ready to do that again i just wow no um we're together in consistent fellowship when god said do not forsake meeting together in hebrews 10 it didn't mean don't miss sunday church what it meant was that you are to continually be together with god's people of course we will not as a member of our church you need to be here god's word says you need to be here we we worship better when you're here all these things you're part of this but god calls us to fellowship so many of us use that hebrews 10 verse you know as a proof text for that do not let us forsake assembling together such as the habit of some but let us continue to build one or up you know we quote that verse and we go yeah it's important that we're together but friends i think one of the tragedies as a local church who doesn't understand that we get to be together we are the only people on the planet who get to be together if i back up in hebrews chapter 10 i find out that the togetherness that we're being called to in these verses has been unleashed and given to us through incredible work in the person of jesus christ you see we have been freed from our sin so we gather so we gather back in verse 19 it says this since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of jesus you see friends i don't care what kind of group you're part of out there or your friends circle i know this if they're not saved then you're not together because sin rules that thing and it identifies you and sin separates you every one of us in our sin we walk into any gathering measuring ourselves by the state of our perfection and the state of our screw-ups that's why we're never together because we're guilty we're angry i'm hurt about my sin i'm angry about your sin sin separates me over and over we walk in here under the blood of jesus christ forgiven and with the power to move past sin at every roadblock of broken that we encounter therefore i gather because this isn't a hopeless exercise i gather to be known i gather to worship my savior i gather in friendship i'd rather with brothers and sisters in christ who can know me and guess what if you find sin it's not the end of your love of me it's just the opportunity of jesus to show his power in me are you with me we gather because we're freed but i'll take it a step farther we're gathered because of representation this is beautiful in verse 21 actually i think it's 23 it says this since we have a great priest over the house of god friends let me ask you did you come this morning according to your merit did you walk in the room on the basis of how well you've done this week if you did you are feeling distance you're thankful to hear this sermon you're glad nobody's up too close asking personal questions because you know you and i know me but i did not walk in here alone this morning i walked in here with the holy spirit of god who is mine on the basis of the work of the lord jesus christ and here's what happens you can look up on stage i hope you don't do this but you could and you could find fault and if you look far enough you'll certainly find a reason not to be in fellowship because your pastor is scary and he desperately needs jesus but you know what at every point where i should be voted off the island and any accusation comes against me the lord jesus christ stands next to me as my advocate and my representative he goes mine john's mind i died for him i live for him i have an eternal plan for him i celebrate him i celebrate me and him i delighted in him and all of his brokenness is just for a chance for me to show off in him so love him know him serve with him share with him discover me in him and suddenly i am set free from all my fear and all my doubt to do what the world cannot do i can be a friend i can be weak i can be together i cannot know your background i cannot be like you i can be a different ethnicity i can be all these things we should have no reason to hang out but jesus wanted you and jesus wanted me and it makes no sense but now i get you in my life and i need you in my life amen do you see how this is we actually get to be together does that mean we are the perfect holy people who are all perfect and complete and boy we treat ourselves each other so well all the time how many of you have been nipped a little by the sister or brother of christ but is that the end of their value is that the world not on my team i hate you not for me not perfect we can't have relationship no wonder the world's alone they've got no answer for sin we gather all the time we're together on sundays we're together in bible studies we show up at men's events we're at women's events we hang out during the week we invite you over why are you people hanging out because we can amen because it means belonging it's worth a sermon when i was a kid my whole family and i've told you about this we go together near christmas time to disneyland and disneyland southern california and and this is just the way families work in extended families have you noticed that some of the members of extended families have more means than others well let me show you what this means as a kid it means you're standing in line at disneyland and your cousin's eating a new hot churro and your mom's handing you a cheese stick what is up with that as a kid you're like mom i got a churro why can't i have a churro and your mom's like but you like cheese sticks you know moms they're awesome well not everybody's on the same playing field are they but every year my grandfather would gather us all i'm talking 24 cousins and all the moms and dads and he take us all to this restaurant at the end of the day take us all this place called the blue bayou and the blue bayou is like built right in next to the pirates of the caribbean and so it's all the drippy lights and the moss and the pirate stuff but at that meal didn't matter what of the family it was that my grandfather paid so that we all got the meal and the piles of spaghetti and carb heaven it was awesome you know you just eat and everything but that was the point in the day where the family was all there and at your table you'd laugh about the ride you went on it did you see what happened to so and so and we're all there and we're all there on my grandfather's dime we are together on christ's dime amen we're together because he paid and he represents and he gives us this common mutual creed the gospel the worth of jesus that's what we share and we all get a piece of that and so we're privileged to participate notice how it transforms that verse and let us consider now how to stimulate one another on to love and good deeds would you ever do that if it was all on you no you wouldn't you'd back away you invest your life in this crazy group of people not forsaking our assembling together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near friends we are together in corporate worship we are together in consistent fellowship because we can we're also together in christ-centeredness what i mean by that christ-centeredness friends how many of you know that jesus christ is the heart of the church in the bible we've been given two ways to visibly personify that and we practice it and they're called the church ordinances and so in our church we believe the bible shows two of them and the first one is believer's baptism both of these highlight the centrality of christ but we do these because they are public reminders and believers baptism is different you may have come from a different denomination that's fine we practice baptism as a result of salvation not a means because you were baptized doesn't guarantee heaven that is a work that god does within you but believers baptism is the evidence that you have been saved that you are now a christ follower to be baptized was a public recognition of that when people were immersed in water it was to say my allegiance is to the lord jesus christ and what is the local church it is a group of christ followers whose allegiance is to jesus so we will offer baptism and call people to baptism if you've never been baptized we believe you should does it make you more saved no but it is your privilege to with everyone identify under the authority of jesus christ so we practice that the other thing we practice is the lord's supper i could have put the believer's lord's supper because it's the same thing it's for those who have become followers of christ the lord's supper was that time where jesus set up the reality of the new relationship he was going to have and he said this is my body broken for you this is my blood given to you and then he said do this in remembrance of me so we regularly celebrate communion we do it at the first of the month it's coming up is there anything spiritual about when no what is spiritual is that you never stop doing it and you never let this time lag where somehow we could get the idea that all of this is built on us it's not i don't care who your pastor is who your leadership is and how cool the people attending it does not matter apart from christ we're nothing amen not valueless but we have got nothing and so we do this to celebrate publicly the lord jesus christ and as a member we would call you to say you need to be in on this this is where we collectively lift high jesus christ i wrote this down jesus christ is the hero the topic the hope the joy the lord the head the king the foundation the purpose the target and then i stopped writing because it was getting a bit excessive of the church amen apart from him we have nothing to share and nothing to keep us together so that's christ we are together in christ's centeredness what else are we together in so we're we're together in worship corporately being edified by the truth of who god is we're together just together we're constantly fellowshipping and investing in one another so our church absolutely will call you to get deeper in come further up come further in how are you getting into relationships with one another and being the body of christ one another it is not a uh you should do this it's a i mean a a suggestion it's a no this is god called you to do that so if you remember here we're gonna call you to do that and believe you should do that because that's where god wants to do so much of his revealing of himself we're going to say it must be christ-centered but then ultimately we're going to be a church that is together in service in serving that's a way of saying our church believes there's no such thing as spectator christianity you don't attend church you belong to the body of christ there's a big difference i'm glad you attend church i want you exposed to the truth but the idea that that is what this is about is wrong no god saved you for the purpose of putting you to work in his body ephesians 2 10 for we are his workmanship created in christ jesus for good works that means there's no such thing as a christian apart from service with any kind of confidence hope joy or sense of belonging in fact this is so profound that we begin to understand that if you're not serving you are missing out on what god has said it means to be part of the body how do i know that well if you go to scripture the bible says very clearly that when you were saved you were given by the holy spirit of god a unique spiritual gift or even gifts and god's whole purpose was to take you and not just some people think being part of the church is yeah i accepted jesus and that's kind of the end of the theology and then they come here and they spend a lifetime going yeah i i guess i belong but what about jesus saved you and wants to use you in a unique powerful way and that power is to be unleashed as you get connected with the other pieces of the body and suddenly you are not all about you alone but you are a unique piece of what god did you have a purpose an identity a usefulness and by the way friends the rest of your life can't give that to you i'm sorry you can't be such a good mom and that's going to fulfill you i wish it would but there are a lot of moms who worship at the altar of mamdom thinking that that is going to complete their life then they find out that their kids are just as messed up as everybody else it's really depressing nobody i'm not speaking the truth a lot of men who worship at the altar of their employment identity women too we we take pieces of the puzzle we say if i can only be a good this and god says i didn't make you alive in me to have that be your identity i made you part of my body which by the way is eternal and everything else isn't you with me we've got to get ourselves rightly connected to what god's doing so god wants you to use those spiritual gifts and the context of his body i'll even take it further this means that you can't find your purpose outside serving in the body of christ i'm sorry you won't find your identity until you're invested is that's a pretty bold statement i'll get even clearer service is the missing component that unlocks your christianity did you know that a lot of people come to churches and they come and i'm not even bagging on them because a lot of them come honestly and they come with undones in their life i come with undones you come with undones and they're they're deep undones and you want god to fix those undones maybe it's a marriage maybe it's a relationship maybe it's a a broken from the past and and you're like i'm looking for the church that's going to help me fix those things but here's the brokenness of it you say and when i get them fixed maybe i'll start feeling confident enough to serve well i can't do that i should do that or if you only knew me and all this stuff friends christ died and called you to serve now and that work of healing and transformation and joy-changing thing that you're looking for does not come through those things being fixed first they come in you rightly getting connected to your purpose in god and then god using the bigger picture of transformational power that he wants to unleash in the fact that you were never called to be able to fix all that stuff on your own you were called to experience the glorious healing of god in the midst of his church where somebody that you didn't know you needed and you served alongside spoke truth to you and was the personality that you didn't know you needed to unlock that broken thing inside of you so you were transformed well you were in the midst of doing what god called you to do and guess what you didn't have to get perfect before you did it how many of you would like joy a little earlier pick up a towel you say john that could sound so harsh it's not been a pastor for over 20 years my heart aches and breaks with the brokenness i get to know some of the inside scoops you don't there is real pain and real sorrow and real fear don't you think i want god to heal it and i will call you to serve i will say you are not the barometer of joy your broken doesn't get to own the extent of the wonder your life gets to be able to experience you have been bought with christ and he wants to give you family and love and belonging and being known beyond the limitations of you a great old pastor used to say christ is the limit christ is the limit amen this is powerful truth friends and it's what christ modeled so many of us are familiar with christ you know washing his disciples feet but if you put that in context it's john 13 and you have to realize that he did that the night that he was betrayed the night the god-man knew he was heading into the moment before time began that for the first time in all of time and eternity he would be separated from his father the ultimate love relationship would be ripped apart as jesus christ would take on the sin of every man woman and child from adam until the day christ takes us home with him for eternity every life that would ever every compiled pile of sin he would in a moment take upon himself he would be torn apart from his father and then his father would take infinite divine wrath and destroy his son what are you carrying that you can't pick up a towel there's no guilt in that statement it is a perspective if christ could wash feet in the midst of pressure beyond all hope could not that same christ who's our lord and savior say to you serve i know you're hurting i know it's not all done yet i love you i have a bigger purpose i want to give you joy i want to take you someplace you've never been pick up a towel a local church that only serves when it is convenient is not a local church you want to be part of a local church that is learning to serve like christ when it hurts is a place you'll never want to leave amen that's what we're striving hey no perfection here at elgin yet but we believe god's called us to these things how are we doing i got five minutes that's awesome all right uh we're together in gospel mission if i was to take all these concepts what's driving us when we gather in corporate worship what what smothers us and and enhances all of our fellowship time you know what what is it that we are you know serving in and around all these wonderful things it's the gospel we believe the gospel amen we're all about the gospel it's the rule of life it's what we give ourselves to the priority of the gospel philippians 1 27 is so instructional for the church big and church local it says this only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel you know so that whether i come and see you or i remain absent i will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving together for the sake of the gospel you see friends the work of christ on our behalf and who he is motivates everything we do it's why we share it's what we share it's why we meet it's what we want to see the power of for i am not ashamed of the gospel it is the power of god unto salvation for everyone who believes and i don't care who you are it's the power of god for transformation for everybody in this building if we're going to lift hive anything we're going to lift high the gospel of jesus christ and that's what we're going to seek to be united on not the carpet sorry it's blue deal i don't know if anybody doesn't like the carpet i just happen to be looking at the carpet and that's what came out um i who what are we going to be about what's gonna what's gonna cause relationships to deepen our opinion on some random thing or the gospel you see as we focus on the gospel it actually gives room for all this individuality it's a lack of focus on the gospel that takes these pinpoints and makes them divisive so we are going to be united around the gospel and the gospel is going to be the target in all things sunday mornings we're going to lift high the name of christ we want the gospel to be powerfully worked we believe that the gospel is what motivates us on every level of interaction matthew 28 19 says all authority has been given to me jesus spoke this to disciples in heaven and on earth go therefore and make disciples of all 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 am with you always even to the end of the age what does it mean to be a local church on target for the gospel what do we believe about that let me share real quick it means that god wants us to bring the gospel to the total range of people we are in contact with we do not want to share the gospel with who we think we need to share the gospel we need to be motivated to share the gospel with who god thinks and when he says go into all the nations he's making this massive statement but you need to know we're kind of that crazy place that wants you to do it all there's no room for a following christ together in a local church that says you've been about the gospel if in your little category uh where you feel comfortable and feel like yeah i i'm good with i share the gospel with children is it good to share the gospel with kids we're so pray we praise god for the children's workers but guess what if you're a children's worker i'm going to say not enough new because god has called you to be a light for the gospel in the context of your world what does that mean your neighborhood i believe that the local church comes together to be edified the main point of evangelism is not to get your neighbors here though that's a cool thing it's to get you with your neighbors you came today to learn about christ with confidence so that you could go and your neighbor dave bob sarah i don't know what their name is i don't know what they came from or anything but the point is you know that god sovereignly put you in that place for that person and you're called to love them for the sake of the gospel and to bring the gospel to them as weird as that is as funky as it looks absolutely your work your job your family your mission field but guess what not not enough you're part of this church we're elgin evangelical free church guess who we're called to love belgium who knew god has given us this region i mean we might even be called to dundee i see some dundee people over there or huntley sorry wow we're called a huntley great this is our area god has called us to love this place passionately with the gospel and not just one of us all of us now you've got unique talents treasure time it can look a lot of different ways but you part of this church called to love this area and to invest and to attach your life to that effort guess where else globally god are you content can't we just focus on no i want the world so as a church we're going to love the world what does that mean we're going to pursue mission we've got multiple missionaries in our church but guess what all of them are an outflow of our love of the lost and we believe that you are called to love the lost of this world and if you are not connected to global missions then we as a membership are going to say you need to be why because god says where your treasure is there your heart is also god wants your heart for the gospel and guess what happens when your heart gets engaged in the gospel some of you god is wanting to ignite his heart in you and you've confined it to just like one little thing and patted yourself on the bed oh i finally talked to my neighbor i'm not guilting you i'm saying okay it was good wasn't it yeah want some more you want a little more you want to see god the god be god a church is radically transformed with people who do not have an anemic view of sharing the gospel last point because you've been patient it's a lot of information we are together in our gospel mission but we are together in discipleship god did not say go into all the world and make saved people make people who accept jesus and leave it at that he says go into all the world and make disciples what does that mean it means the total transformation of lives from i live for me to i live for jesus guys having a neighbor accept christ is like day three of an incredible journey of them learning of god growing in god doubting god learning the whole you christian you follow christ for a while how many of you know it's not like this it's not an escalator it's like a roller coaster and there are days you were like in the bottom of the dip and in the loop-de-loo and you didn't know where you wanted to go and the calling was follow christ friends there is no gospel apart from total life transformation do you look at your neighbor and not just see them as maybe hearing about god but can you see them mad hungry after jesus because that's the way god died he died for them to be transformed and if all we want to do is piously sit back and when these people get to know jesus they'll be invited to our club we're wrong we're called to be so intentional discipleship and maybe this is a way of saying is relationally driven there's no sharing the gospel without inviting people into your life that's why we're all scared to do it you're not scared to say jesus is the son of god you're scared they're going to believe you and want to hang out good grief they're messy and unsafe and i can't plan what they'll do or what it'll cost me can you that's why none of us immediately starts out as a great discipler we don't understand that it's a total relationship thing you know what discipleship looks like it is an invitation to come grow and guess what if you've been following christ for 90 years or you've been following him for nine minutes the mandate doesn't change it's not like you graduate are you more disciple or are you a disciple i'm following christ and the joy of it is so relational i'll give you an illustration kim and i my wife we like to walk we're we're walking we get on a walk it used to be just to escape our children but we but it's it's my favorite thing you know what happens when we walk we talk there's even some grace because she's not looking right at me so sometimes i talk more openly than i would and we talk and we share and we learn and we discover and we solve and we fix and we grow that's discipleship discipleship is to say i'm following jesus you want to come let's need jesus together you want to be part it's relational if you've invited been invited to institutionalize discipleship no wonder you don't like it because it's not a class it's a relationship with jesus that you get to share with other people you don't get browning points for being further ahead amen final point discipleship is atmospherical i pray and we want to be intentional with that if you are a member of this church or you are just attending here's the invitation that must be come follow him with us this is not the church of the arrived amen we're the church of the after we're after him come grow with us he's the he's the entrance card come come be transformed by him grow atmosphere that must be the atmosphere of the local church and the joy of it is to follow christ together amen that's what it looks like to be part of the body of christ it is not about perfection it's about permission jesus lets us be together even though we've got a ways to go jesus gives us more of himself as we're together and that's what god wants you to be part of and for us to strive for let's pray lord thank you for your body the church thank you that these sweet saints endured a long sermon but god may it be that we are driven by the concept of the gospel the joy of being together because of what you've done the power of your word transforming us the the serving even when it's hard that leads to joy and sharing got all of it would you do that work here and let us strive after it all god's people said amen