Four speakers examine Jesus's post-Resurrection commissions to his followers, focusing on John 20:21, Matthew 28, Luke 24, and Acts 1:8. They emphasize the Holy Spirit's power for evangelism, repentance, and personal testimony as the foundation for witnessing.
Chapters
You won't.
I have a testimony.
I have a.
Story to see.
This is my story this is my song.
Have a testimony Y' all see my testimony.
Rain came when blue My house was built on.
You I say with you.
I feel.
Somebody'S faith rising this is the reason you made it come one more time.
This is the reason I'm standing.
Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Happy Wednesday to you all. I always mention this sometimes, hopping right out of prayer into this, welcoming some faces that are just hopping into the Bible study that weren't a part of prayer. Some Wednesdays, it's a tougher transition than others when there's a lot of prayer requests and a lot of burdens and hurting hearts. But I do my best to welcome you guys this morning, and I appreciate everybody who hops on at that time of prayer. It's. It's much needed, for sure. And possibly we will extend that time for prayer because we always seem to run out a little early. But I'm excited to be with you guys this morning. Not just to dive into the word together, but to spend time with you guys. I. I sometimes loathe technology just because how it could be such a distraction. However, I'm very grateful for it, that we could be scattered throughout the nation. And even I know Reuben's in Canada, but we get to see each other, right?
So.
So I ask that you guys participate like you usually do. If you could turn your cameras on, that'd be great. I. All you guys are Bible scholars yourselves, or even if you're not a Bible scholar, you at least have the Holy Spirit, too, to give some impactful words, words of wisdom, prophetic words. So that's always encouraged. Roger, what's up, man? How you doing?
I'm good, I'm good. I'm doing real good.
Great. Great. Well, I mentioned on prayer call, I am in Paul's Valley, Oklahoma, doing some seminars. And I pulled up to a little podunk restaurant. It's called Pumpkins Barbecue and Catfish Grill. And I'm not a big fan of seafood, catfish, anything like that. Don't really like the smell of it, but this is where my. My restaurant was. And as I shared with the folks on the prayer call, pulled in, went in, set, set things up for the seminar, met the owner, and this past week, I have been battling myself, just. Just feeling a waning compassion for people. Sometimes when you see so much evil going on around you, we get discouraged, we get frustrated, we get angry, and we're called to have a righteous anger. But I felt like it wasn't such a righteous anger. It was just angry, frustrated with people. Right? And that's one thing that I, I mean, I think the Lord, one of the greatest things the Lord has blessed me with is the ability to love, because I know how unlovable I was when, when I fell into his arms and he welcomed me with open arms and forgave me of my sins and, and called me his own. So that ability to love. And I, I set up for the seminar and I, I walked to the restroom and there's a gigantic sign in the hallway of the restroom and said, always pray to have eyes that see the best in people, a heart that forgives the worst, a mind that forgets the bad, and a soul that never loses faith in God. I was like, oh, okay, right? I was like, thank you, Lord, for, for that message. And then when I walked out, I noticed all the other scriptures all throughout the restaurant, every napkin holder, scripture on it. Like, I walked around to almost every table and every napkin holder and there was a different scripture. So then got to talking to the, the owner a little bit more and she said, yeah, this is my ministry. I. And she gave me one of these guys. She says she's given out thousands of these to her patrons, whether they wanted them or not. And she's actually gotten calls. And she shared one story with me of a woman that called her, like, she'll, she'll have like, the waitresses leave these, like when they leave the bill, leave these little Jesus figurines. And the woman called her and said, now when she got the call, when the owner got the call, she thought it would be somebody was angry that the waitress left her this little Jesus figurine. And she said, I went home, I put Jesus on my windowsill. And long story short, she started praying and surrendered her life to Jesus. And she called the, the owner of the restaurant, thanking her so much for this little guy just being a means for her to get on her knees and cry out to the Lord. So, yeah, it turned out to be an awesome evening. And my, when I do these stem cell seminars, I, I, I never not mentioned Jesus just because no matter what I do, I mention Jesus. I, I happened to mention him more than normal last night. And it turned out to be a pretty, pretty good evening. A lot of, a lot of folks had had some good conversations with a lot of folks as you guys who are on here last week. You know, that, you know, well, two weeks ago we finished the book of Revelation and we did a topical Study on Acts 18 the power of the Holy Spirit that dunes dynamite. Power of the Holy Spirit. And it's so we could have power to be Jesus witnesses. And what that word witness means Martus, where we get the word martyr from. So we're going to continue on a bit on this topical study. I don't know if it's, if there's a broad title. I don't know how many weeks we'll be on this topical study. But today the, the title for today is called Sent Ones. Sent Ones. We're all called to be sent out, every one of us when we say yes to Jesus, when we're Christians or followers. And I've, I've expressed on here plenty of times, I hate even just saying Christians when we're followers of Christ. Disciples of Christ were called to be sent out between the time of Jesus's death, resurrection and while really the resurrection and his ascension into heaven. He gave us the great commission which we know in Matthew 28. He says, Go therefore make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of age. But that's not his only commission in that time. And I think it's important for us to, to take some time to know and read and obey all of Jesus commissions from the time of his resurrection to his ascension. We know that God is just like he was in Second Chronicles when it says in chapter 16, verse 9, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him. God is always scanning to see who's going to be loyal. He's calling us all to be sent out. So which one of us, how many of us are going to say here I am, Lord, send me. Right? Because we're all called to be sent out by how many of us have our, our hearts open and our hands raised saying I'm here God, send me out, send me out. And it doesn't mean to be a missionary overseas. It means to be a witness for Jesus everywhere we are. That woman I met at the restaurant last night, she was sent out and I don't know, she may live next door to the restaurant, but she was called, she was sent out and she's witnessing, she's doing the work that God's called her to do. So the four commissions of Jesus and I'm going to list them in chronological Order. But the first one is in John chapter 20, and it's verse 21. And Jesus is speaking to the disciples in the upper room. And he says, so Jesus said to them again, peace to you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you. As the fathers sent me, I also send you. Over 40 times in the Gospel of John, Jesus mentions how the Father has sent him, right? And now, and we know also in the Gospel of John, Jesus says that he's going to send us when he leaves, he's going to send us his comforter. He's going to send us his Holy Spirit. But here's the first commission. Just as the Father sent Jesus to do a work, Jesus sends us out to do a work, right? So it. The church isn't a cruise ship for the comfortable. It's a battleship for the commissioned, okay? And a lot of the church is just on this true ship to heaven. And it's a comfortable ride. And there's no wonder that we see the enemy and we see evil. Sometimes the enemy is a defeated foe. But it seems like, and it feels like evil is getting the upper hand. And we're not called to be on a cruise ship, we're called to be on a battleship. And God is seeking the earth to and fro to see who amongst his people are going to rise up, stand up, raise our hand and say, here I am, Lord. Use me. So that's the first one, John 2021, where we're called to be sent out. The second one is that great commission that I read in Matthew 28. But what I want to really focus on in that passage is we're sent. But then in Matthew 28, we're sent to all types of people, right? Where we're sent to go make disciples of all the nations. When Jesus is speaking of all the nations right here, he's not speaking of, okay, China, Nigeria, the Philippines, Canada, Mexico, wherever it may be. The, the word nations there is ethne. It's where we get the, the word ethnic from. It's all types of people, right? We, we saw a couple times in the Book of Revelation that in heaven there's going to be a multitude of people and it's going to include every tribe, every tongue, every nation. So when we're called to go out to the nations, this isn't just a call for missionaries to go out to be overseas, right? It's, it means to go out to, to be a witness, to make disciples of everybody. Nobody is excluded. Not the rich, not the, the poor, not the broken not the whole. Everybody needs the gospel. So we're. We're sent out to all types of people. And the third one is with a message. We're sent with a very explicit message that we're. We're called to minister to people. And that's In Luke, chapter 24, verses 46 through 48 says, Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. So we're sent out to all people with a message. If you guys could remember all the way back to Revelation chapter 14, when during the tribulation, that angel is dispatched from heaven and he's. His job is to preach the gospel to the lost right, to. To a world that's in upheaval. And it says that he preaches the everlasting gospel, right? And this, in this culture of progressivism, the gospel stands true, right? That the gospel never changes. It's the everlasting gospel. And one thing that we took note of in that angel of that angel in Revelation 14 is that he didn't just preach the goodness of Christ. He preached fear the Lord. And he said to repent. Judgment's coming. So part of our ministering, part of our evangelism is absolutely 100 sharing the goodness of God, what God has done in your life, the way he saved you, the way he plucked you from the ashes, the way he called you out of your darkness. 100 or to preach the. The goodness of God. But it's a message of repentance because nobody else could feel that goodness of God. An unbeliever can't feel that goodness of God, can't receive that love, can't be filled by a spirit unless repentance takes place. So repentance has to be part of it. And God will minister to us and the Holy Spirit will lead us and guide us in individual conversations. If you have a platform where you have a larger audience, he will minister to you as to how, exactly how to preach that message of repentance, that it's accepted. I know Riley always mentions that guy with the bullhorn on the corner who's just preaching. You're going to hell. Turn to Jesus. Not the most effective means of evangelism at times. Right? I'm grateful for every person who's out there with the bullhorn, because at least that person's opening their mouth. They have the boldness to do that. But repentance is rarely preached in this day and age. The message of the gospel, it's not self help, it's repentance, it's forgiveness, right? It's a realization of our own depravity and then resurrected life, right? We, we die to ourselves. We, we resurrect, we're born again by the Spirit of God. So we're sent out to all types of people with a message. And how is it effectively done when we're empowered by the Spirit? And that's what we talked about last week, that Acts 1:8. Jesus says, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me. Again, that word power that I mean, for us to get the word dynamite from this word power, it doesn't even do it justice, right? It just says dynamite has the, the ability to break the hardest of rock, to, to blow it to smithereens. That type of power still pales in, in comparison to the power of the Holy Spirit. And it's that power of the Holy Spirit that allows for us to be brave. Last week we talked about those disciples in Acts chapter four after they had just been filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, right? They're speaking in tongues. They're, they're overwhelmed by God's presence and his power. But they were fearful. And the enemy wants us to be afraid. The enemy wants us to, to not be bold. Fear is a great tool, a tactic of the enemy because it, it paralyzes us, right? And we, we shut her up. And then we. But when we do that, we're believing the lies of the enemy. If we know our identities in Christ, if we know who we are, we know that no matter what happens to us, you're on this earth. You know, we just lost a great leader of the church, Bodie Bachman, right? And some of you may have seen that clip like I did, where he says, you may hear a rumor one day that I die. But no, that's just the beginning. The day we leave this earth is just the beginning for us. So there's nothing for us to be fearful of at all. But the enemy, when he, he does a good job at whispering lies and making us magnify our problems. And when we magnify our problems, we magnify evil. We, we magnify the, the devil and what he, he's doing. When we magnify those things, what shrinks our perspective of God? But when we magnify God, right? And no Matter. Think of a magnifying glass. Put a magnifying glass over something to make it bigger. No matter how big in our little puny finite minds that we have, even as believers, we can't magnify God enough. His majesty, his splendor, his greatness, his vastness is so big that we can't even possibly magnify him enough. But when we do magnify him, when we see him in his proper proportion as best as we can, every burden, every little thing on this earth shrivels up to its proper proportion. And then we realize it's like, okay, I didn't have to be that anxious in that situation. There was no need for me to be fearful. There was no need for me to shut my mouth because I was fearful of man. Fearful of man. What did. What did Jesus say? Who are you to fear more? Somebody who could take your life, Right? It's like, that's fine, but I have the ability. And this is, you know, sometimes when I paraphrase, don't go searching for it. There's no translation that says exactly like this. The Christian Edwards translation. Don't. Don't fear the one who could take your life, but fear the one who could take your life and place you in heaven or hell, right? Fear that one. And that's Jesus Christ alone, Donald.
Yeah, Just kind of circling back to the power of the Holy Spirit.
It's like if you even compare it.
To a nuke, you are diminishing what he can do.
Yeah. 100. 100.
The.
The. The. The same power, the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is the same spirit, same power that lives in all of us right now. Same spirit. And no matter how long you've been walking with the Lord, it could be for the past 50 years, it could be for the past day that there's no, like, JV version of the Holy Spirit. It's the same Holy Spirit. He's the same Holy Spirit that we all have, right? And it's. And I mentioned this last week. We. We're constantly. We're told in Ephesians by Paul that we're to continuously be being filled with the Spirit, right? When. Because the Holy Spirit is within us. But we. We call on God for those fresh feelings, those outpourings of the Spirit. And Leslie said last week, you know, her pastor said, drenched to drip, right? We're drenched with the Holy Spirit. So it just drips off of us because it's. I'd love to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And it's like, I'M walking on cloud nine. I'm clicking my heels. Everything is grand. But it's not just for me. I'm filled with the Holy Spirit, so it could drip off of me. The overflow could come out and affect others. All, all of our service to the Lord should be from overflow, right? We should be filled to the point of overflow daily. So the. These four commissions that were sent out to all types of people with a message empowered by the Spirit. This is really the. The who. It's us as Jesus followers where to all nations, everywhere. The what is with the gospel, the everlasting Gospel, and the how we do it is by the Spirit's power, right? It. It's. It's simple. There's simplicity to, to scripture as in depth. And it's kind of ironic to say that after coming out of the book of Revelation, where it's not the simplest of books to read and there's much interpretation, but what we're called to do is fairly simple. Sometimes we overthink this thing called Christianity and the, the mission that we're on. And we're all on mission. You may not be called to be a missionary, right? But we're all really missionaries. We're all missionaries. It doesn't matter where we are. It doesn't matter what our jobs are, what our careers are. We're. We're missionaries. We're witnesses of Jesus in our own homes, first and foremost, right? But wherever we're at, we're called to be his witnesses. And if God is calling us to send us out, he calls us to send us out. Who amongst his people is there eager with zeal, willing, able, saying, here I am, Lord, send me. Here I am in the Hebrew hanani, right? Here I am, Lord, send me. We, we know of some folks who said that throughout Scripture. We saw Jacob say it, we saw Moses say it. He was called in obscurity, then he answered in humility. We saw Samuel say it. A response of availability, right? And availability capacity is something that we all feel like we lack, at least at times, at least in seasons. It's like I'm maxed out. I'm maxed out. I. I can't put another thing on my plate. But God is calling us to be available. Gita.
Yeah. Thank you. I don't know if you're taking comments now or later, but. Wow. I just want to say, you know, this is just incredible because I've been reading Isaiah 6, 8. I don't know if that's what you alluded to. Right. So Here.
That's the next thing I'm going to talk about, Gita. So go ahead, go ahead.
I mean, you can't make it up. Like, I've been reading that for the last 10 days, and I've been saying, all right, Lord, send me. You know, and they even mentioned that at Charlie Kirk's funeral, right? I think that's one of the last scriptures he said. And that spoke to me so deeply. And the Lord's been saying, like, look, I'm sending you to minister, you know, to the darkest places of the world. Because as everyone knows, or as you know, I've been working with Muslims before, and now I'm working with two Hindus. And I was like, you know, Lord. And it was just yesterday, I was sitting on the train, I read what Moses said. I said, find someone else, Lord, whom you choose. And he replied back to me, and he said, you know, because I'm currently ministering to Hindus who I hired. And I used to be a Hindu, and as you know, I'm Indian. My parents are from India. And the Lord answered me. He said, you know, you're Indian, and you used to be a Hindu. They're going to listen to you, right? More so than, like, a white or a black guy or just an average, you know, an American guy. It's like you're. You're the same ethnicity as them, and they're going to listen to you. So I said, fine, use me, Lord. You know, here I am. Use me. And I've just been meditating on what that means. And I was like, lord, you know, teach me to obey you and more of what the scripture means. And today, that's what your message is about. So thank you.
Yeah. Amen. Amen. I. I think this is the message that. That God is speaking to all of us, to. To his church, to his body, right now, to all of us. What better time than right now, right? And this could probably be said every single day throughout human history. What better time for God's people to band together than right now when we see a world that's so dark, so evil, it. And to the point where we're being exposed more and more. You know, we talked about a couple weeks ago to. To see the video of Charlie Kirk get shot, right? Like, we're not meant to see stuff like that. And we're seeing it so much on a regular basis that we become numb to it. And now, I mean, more churches. We have the Church of Latter Day Saints that last Sunday got. Got shot up and set on fire. We're seeing this and you know, just like when it started with school shootings, like when Columbine, and I forget what year that was, but it wasn't a common thing, right. Everybody was so shocked by it because it wasn't a common thing. And over the years it's become more and more common. And now when you. It's like bare lose anymore if somebody brings a gun to a school or somebody gets shot, it's like, oh, only a couple people died, right? It's like, wait a second. We've become numb to this. And now churches, the. The church is under attack. And I'm not going to take the time to say whether Mormons in the Church of Latterday Saints is, you know, if they're, they're part of the body of Christ or not. I'm not going to talk about that. But in general, those who call on the name of Jesus, right, that there's an attack. There's an attack in this nation that we haven't seen probably since this nation's been established. Sean?
Yeah. Travis and I were just kind of talking a little bit earlier this morning about just the, the wave of revival that's happening right now.
Hey, dude.
He's not paying attention. But just what a thrilling time it is to be a. A witness. And you don't have to be eloquent, you don't have to be an expert in all types of different doxology and theology, but it's just give a witness, just witness about what Christ has done for you personally and you are specifically suited to give your specific message. It's just incredible the time that we live in right now. And it astounds me too, that the devil still thinks that martyrdom is. Is the way to extinguish the flame of the church. All it does is it's. All it's ever done is spread the gospel.
Yeah. Amen. Glad to hear such, such a life in your voice there, man. I'm sure you're. You're sleep deprived.
I think we figured out a decent schedule for both of us to get some. Some halfway good sleep. So.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm surprised too. I shouldn't have this much energy. But we were talking about that Dunamis power though, weren't we?
Yeah. Yeah. Amen. Amen. And you're exactly right, Sean. We mentioned it last week when John and Peter were arrested. You know, they're seen as. As dumb, uneducated men. They're like, yeah, these are unlearned men. Uneducated. Right. And basically say these are a Bunch of dummies. But it's obvious they've been with Jesus, right? They've spent some time with the, with the risen Savior. And that's the same for us, right? No matter how knowledgeable we are, whether we're theologians or not, whether we went to seminary or not, in the end, where we have the spirit of Christ in us, right? We spent time with Jesus. If you have a conversation with somebody later today, they're not going to be impressed. If you have like two doctorates in theology. They're not. But what's going to grab their attention is if you've spent some time with Jesus because you're gonna, they're gonna be able to feel that. And when we talk about the knowledge of God in First Peter, the knowledge of God is mentioned like 13 or 14 times in that, that short epistle. And the knowledge of God is an experiential knowledge. It's not a head knowledge, right? You could know facts about things but have no experience with that person. We, we can know facts about like a celebrity or an athlete and spend no time with that person. Not really have real experience with that person, that really know the person. But knowledge of God. When the Bible talks about knowledge of God, it's an experiential knowledge. And guess what? If it's an experiential knowledge, who could argue with that, right? If you, if you only come with Scripture and not the word of your own testimony, the word of your own experiences with Jesus, then you know, obviously there's a lot of folks who don't believe the Bible. There is, but what was a witness to me when I didn't even care what the Bible said a long time ago. October 28th for me will be 14 years of walking with the Lord. October is always a special month for me. But it was me seeing what Jesus was doing in the life of Lucy and just seeing the heart that she had, how she had a fear of God, how she had such a love and a reverence for God. And it's like, okay, that I, I, I was ministered to through seeing the experiential knowledge of somebody else. Not to say that we're not to share Scripture, right? Because we're, we're to share this gospel message, this, this message of repentance. But, but turning to Isaiah 6, as Gita had mentioned, awesome chapter in Scripture, first of all, there's so much in this chapter, but we see in verse 8 where Isaiah says, here I am. Send me, but I'll, I'll read it from. I'LL just read it from the beginning. And this should have a little more significance after coming out of the. The Book of Revelation. But it says, in the last year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up. And the train of his robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim. Each one had six wings, with two covered its face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cry to another. And that the covering of the face is like, I'm not even worthy to be in the presence of the Lord covering my feet. My feet aren't even worthy to stand before the Lord. And one cry to another, saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out. And the house was filled with smoke. So I said, woe is me, for I am undone. This is the confession of Isaiah. Here you get the, this, this revelation. You, you have this encounter with the Lord. And what does God want us to do? Ultimately is to see ourselves for who we are, that we're undone. Woe is me. In the previous chapter seven times does God say woe to these type of people, Just the previous chapter, one of them being, woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Put darkness for light and light for. For darkness we put bitter for sweet, sweet for bitter. So we, we see, whoa. To all these people. And then for us to come to the revelation that. Wait a second. Woe is me. Woe is me. It's easy to say woe to. And it has those in here, those who are. Get drunk, those who draw iniquity, right? Those who. Who are prideful. Woe to all those. But for us to come to the revelations like, wait a second, wait a second. I'm saying. I know God is saying woe to all these people, but look at. I gotta look at myself first. Woe is me. And he says, for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips. And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. So what does he do? He confesses. First John 1:9. If we confess our sins, right? If we confess to him, he's faithful to forgive and to cleanse us of that unrighteousness. And what does God do here? He cleanses Isaiah. So there's confession. After confession comes cleansing. And then after the cleansing comes the commissioning. Verse 6 says, Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth within, said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away and your sin is purged. So he confessed and, and he said that I'm a man of unclean lips and that hot coal from the, the, the altar presses against his lips and he's cleansed and his iniquity is taken away. His sin is purged. Then verse 8 says, Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send? And who will go for us? Whom shall I send? Wait a second. We just read in John 20:21 that, that God, Jesus, he. He sends us his disciples. Who shall I send? Then Isaiah said, here I am, Hanani in the Hebrew, send me. And then it's what God tells Isaiah to, to tell the people. So we, we all right now, we're in a, a season in life. We're in a, a culture. We're in a time in world history where the church is ready. Even if no matter how seasoned of a Christian you are, people who love Jesus right now, they're ready to, to run through a wall for Jesus, say, okay, the time is now. I'm going to be bold, going to rally the troops. But what does it mean? It's not just us saying, yeah, I'm ready for you, Lord. God wants a willing heart. 100%. He wants a willing heart. But that panini, right, that here I am, it's not just I'm here, but I'm fully present. I'm surrendered. I'm ready to obey. It's whatever you ask, Lord. Whatever you ask. I. I lay down all my, my cares, all my desires. It's whatever you ask. It's more than a physical presence. It's more than us just saying, yeah, let's do this. It's more than you just call in a brother, sister, or Lord, say, yeah, let's do this. Let's take territory. It's more than a physical presence. It's a volitional, emotional, fully engaged presence. And like I mentioned before, a lot of us, we're at our wit's end. It's like I can't put one more thing on my plate I can't do. Like, I'm at max capacity. And some of those things that, that are taking up our time, they're things that maybe we prayed for. They're things that there's responsibilities we have that are a blessing to be responsible for 100%. But what God is saying, in the end, what God wants is that volitional, emotional heart where it says, I'm here for you, Lord, I'm fully surrendered, whatever it is. And that's when God is going to call us.
He.
He called us to be the sent out ones, where the called out ones to be the sent out ones. This is our mission. We are Isaiah here in chapter six. God, as we we mentioned in second Chronicles, he's scanning the earth saying, saying, who loves me? Who has a heart for me? I know a lot of you are going to church. I know a lot of you are checking off the boxes, but who's really in the game? Who's really in the game? There's a lot of folks that they're called, they're on the team, but they're sitting on the sidelines. But who actually wants to get in the game right now? And this is a rally cry for the church to say, here I am, Lord, use me. And when we give God our yes right when we're there, we're saying, here I am, Lord, use me. First of all, we're probably not going to be commissioned. We are commissioned like that. But we're not going to know exactly what our mission field is unless we go through that process. We need, and we need to do it daily. We need to confess, right? We need to be cleansed and then commissioned every single day. Confess, cleanse. Commissioned. Leslie.
Hey. Well, first I want to thank you for the, the thing last week you said about martyr in the Bible is translated to what I've told so many people that this week. And like, every time I tell them, like, minds are just blown. So, you know, just that one, you know, drop of knowledge has, I think, you know, spread out to let people know like what, you know, the root word martyr translates into witness and testify. And, you know, then it goes back to Charlie Kirk about whether you think he's a martyr or not. But, you know, he was witnessing, he was testifying and he was killed for it. So. But what I wanted to say was I love what you just said about are we on a cruise ship to heaven or a battleship to heaven? And I've, I never served on a ship, but I have been on a military ship. And so for me, just saying military wise, I just, a lot of these examples fit back into like when I was, you know, deployed. And so for example, I did fire a mortar when I was in Afghanistan. And just so some people know, oftentimes in the military, when you're about to fire off those battleships or, like, use some kind of missile, we don't say fire, we say send it. So that's kind of the, like, good to go. And whenever, like, in the military, you hear send it, it's. That's like a boom is about to happen. And so I just like every. Like, for me, that's kind of echoing in my mind when you're saying, send it, send it, send it. For me, that means artillery.
Yeah.
And so that just really, for me, really hits home.
Amen. Let's go. Love that, Gita.
Yeah. I just want to quickly add that even for Isaiah or, like, when God sends us somewhere, like, on an assignment that we don't want to do, remember, it's also for us. He showed me clearly that it's pruning. So before the harvest come, there's a pruning season. And we're not called to be comfortable as Christians. We're called to be obedient. We're called to growth. So we don't want to go to these places. But God has clearly shown that it's our benefit as much as it is the other person. And, you know, for example, I might not have wanted to hire Muslims or hire Hindus. It's not that God couldn't find me a bunch of believers, you know, who speak my language and make me feel so comfortable and pray with me every day at the office. He clearly could have, but he chose the other path, and I chose to obey him. But that has brought me so much growth that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise in my comfort zone. So I also want to just reiterate, he's doing it for us as well.
Amen. Amen. Love it. Gerard.
Hey, what's up, brother? That was great stuff. I'll echo what she just said. I know I wasn't in the military, but to know that that's the term that they use, it speaks power. And I was. When you said, you know, we're on a battleship, not a cruise ship, I think about the difference between the two. Right. So, like, a battleship would go out. But if you've ever visited a battleship, I did when I was younger. They're not comfortable. Right. The sleeping quarters are not comfortable. The food, like, nothing about it is comfortable. Where a cruise ship is made the opposite. And I think in American Christianity, that's the culture of the church. Let's make it comfortable. Let's make it a cool hot tub, a Jacuzzi, will you? So we can all feel comfortable where we're at. But like you said, they, you know, raised money for missions, trips to go overseas. And that's all great, but what about the mission work right here? Why aren't we taking. And it would take way less resources, let's be honest, to make that impact right here. Because as you point out, it's not nations as in countries, it's nations as in people, which we know from Genesis. Right. The argument that everybody's having today is Israel, the nation, raised you, the people. So, yeah, that's just so good in so many ways.
And.
And that's what we're called to do. Right? So that was great that she shared that.
That.
Send it. Because that's. That's awesome.
Yeah. Amen. Another T shirt. Send it, send it.
You know, I actually have been playing with an idea on one, but there's another brand. I thought about one, but the way I would design it, another brand already has it, so I'm not gonna do that. I'm playing with some more ideas, but they're working. They're in the mix.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. And when Isaiah asked the lord in verse 11, he said, Lord, how long? Right, how long? Because guess what? He wasn't sent to. To minister to a bunch of people who were. Who wanted to hear what he had to say. Right? We're called to speak to, to people who don't want to hear this message, who reject this message. He. But God called him to confront a. A complacent, comfortable, religious, but disobedient people. Right? Look around us now. I see a lot of complacent, comfortable, religious, but disobedient people. And I, I think a lot of us, you know, we're called to. We're all called to go out to the lost right to make disciples. But I think in the year 2025, there's a lot of complacent, comfortable, religious, but disobedient people within the church. I do, I do. There's been some conversations in my church where I'm at, and it's like, I not going to get into it, but it's like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Because we're not going to conform. We're not going to be a church, period, like a church body, where we're worried about people who are. Are offended at things that are said. Why? Why are we offended at things? Jesus said?
Why?
Why are you offended? Why do you think I'm coming at you with something? It's like, I didn't say it, God said it. Right? And if you love the Lord, that is Jesus say, we actually show that we Love him by obeying his commands. So do we love the Lord? Do we really love him? Do we fear him? And for Isaiah, it, it. The. The mission field were. It wasn't easy, it wasn't fruitful right away. The, the message he. He started lasted decades through multiple kings, right? It wasn't easily received by any means. But we can't be silent for those who God truly calls we. We can't be silent at all. There's consequences of silence. If evil is in our face and we're silent, it's the rule of tacit admission, right? It's like silence is consent, essentially. If, if I don't stand up and speak truth and declare truth, then I'm complying with lies. I'm consenting to lies. And people are so worried about being offended. And I mean, the enemies warp the minds of culture, right, where everybody's so easily offended and cancel culture and all that. But in Ezekiel, chapter three, and it's reiterated, I think, in chapter 17, but says, when I say to the wicked, you shall surely die, and you give him no warning, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity. But his blood I. I will require at your hand. When we're called to go out and share a message, if we're called to turn somebody from their sins. In the last chapter of James, it says that if a brother errors, right? He says that. That know that by you correcting them, you could be saving his soul from hell. Like we're called to correct people 100%. We're especially brothers and sisters who are. Are sinning. But Paul echoes the sentiment where if somebody's sinning in front of you, right, Everybody wants to be like, oh, you know, I'll just love them where they're at. Yes, we love them where they're at, but God loves us where we're at, so we could not be where we're at anymore.
It's not.
So you just stay where you're at. He loves us. So we can now move from that place of depravity to this place of redemption. And Paul says in chapter 20, verses 26 through 27, he says, therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. Again in Ezekiel, the watchmen, all the prophets, those who are called to speak the word of the Lord, if you just let them continue in their sin and you don't tell them what I told you to tell them, and they die in that sin, the blood is on your hands. So now Paul comes and says, I testify to you this day that I'm innocent of the blood of all man. For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. It's not just those who have itchy ears want to hear. It's not just all the good stuff about Jesus. It's this message of judgment, of repentance. We have to give them the whole counsel of God because at the end of the day that's what's going to save their soul. If we just like. I don't know if this is bad doctrine or not, but we can't just love somebody into heaven, right? Just. I don't know if that's bad doctrine or not. I just said it. I didn't really think about it before I said it. But like, like a Joel Osteen, right? And not to call him out on purpose, but it's like you, you can't just talk about how good God is and never preach that. Never preach repentance. You can't do it. Can't do it. Go ahead, Roger.
Oh, dude, I am, I am, I'm getting, I'm getting fired up here. Christian talking about battleships and sending it and just. Yeah, we, you know, Jesus isn't coming back as a lamb, y'.
All.
He's come back as a lion and lions aren't quiet. Like, we are not like the church is being complicit right now. And I think especially in America, that we're in for a wake up call. You guys know what's happening like in Nigeria, the persecution of Christians that's happening all over the world. And we are way too damn comfortable in this country. And we are going to get really uncomfortable really quick when you start seeing some of the things that are happening in our country with, with, with Islam taking over in cities and like churches just being quiet and letting it happen. We are, this is, this is a time like, you know, I know people been saying like end times for, for hundreds of years or thousands of years, but you. The evidence is undeniable of things that are happening right now. And we have to stand up. We are going to find out who, who the Christians are that are willing to say here I am and are serious about it. Because there is a time coming where we are going to be stand, where we're going to have to stand up and we will be counted. Dude, I'm just, I'm. This is. There's just so much going on in our world. And I see this and I hear, and I'm just so excited when I hear, when I hear Christians and people gathering and talking like this because, because it's, it's, it's important. We are being called for an action. And every single one of us on this call was born for this time. We are here right now because God has given us a commission and has given us the tools to act and to be a witness in 2025, right now with everything going on in the world. So let's go.
Amen. Amen. Silence is not an option for us. There's no neutrality in the kingdom. There's nothing. Silence is neutrality. And if you're neutral, guess what? You're that lukewarm church that ultimately isn't going to make it to heaven. Gosh, Holy Spirit, give me an answer. I want to share something with you, but I want to be respectful to, to Lucy and somebody who might see this at some point. A very hard conversation Lucy had with somebody that, that took issue with the pastor at our church mentioning Charlie Kirk's death. And Lucy had a very passionate conversation with that person. And Roger laughs because he knows how passionate, passionate. But God's just gifted her with like a very special spiritual gifting where she could put somebody in their place and that person at the end will, with tears, say thank you and give her a hug. Right? So it's very unique gifting. But if, if we're silent, right? If somebody says like they were offended, if a black person is offended, that a pastor mentioned Charlie Kirk because Charlie Kirk had to be this Nazi because he, you know, he's a Trump supporter and all this, it's like, well, no, let me tell you the truth because. And, and the conversation Lucy had with this person led down a path to further conversation where this person ultimately is just saying, yeah, you know, God doesn't say we shouldn't force our beliefs upon anybody. Okay, well, I get that. But you know, and ultimately, like, you know, like homosexuals, they, they could really love Jesus too. You know, God loves them if they love somebody of the same sex. Yeah, it's all good. It's like, well, no, it's not really what, what scripture says. If you love your sin. And homosexuality is an easy one to, to point out for sure. But whatever the sin may be, if you love that sin, and the Bible's clear that homosexuality is a sin, fornicating is a sin, idolatry is a sin. There's a lot of sins that, that are mentioned, and it's mentioned that people who practice these sins that they're not going to be heaven bound. And it's not because they're, they're struggling with the sin. It's because you're giving into the sin. It's because you love that sin more than you love Jesus, period. Right. And, and so Lucy had a very passionate conversation with this person. And because ultimately it was just kind of like we let people be, you know, if they're happy, let, let them be happy. It's like, wait a second, wait a second. What about Proverbs 24:11, 12 that says, deliver those who are drawn towards death, which we all are, right? We're all prone to sin. We all love sin before we came to Christ and now we still deal with sin, we still resist sin, we still slay our flesh. But sin is still a thing in our lives. But when you're drawn towards death, the call is to deliver those who are drawn towards death and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. Right. If you, instead of seeing this person as, oh, I don't want to offend this person with the message of the gospel, they're. They're happy in that sinful lifestyle. And if it's a just somebody who's married, it doesn't have to be homosexuality, somebody who's cheating on their, their spouse. Right. Whatever it is. I was like, oh, well, you know, they have marital issues and you know, whatever it may be, it's like, wait a second. We don't see that person as, oh, I have to have compassion to the point of compromise. Yes, we are to have compassion, but we can't compromise by any means because that person is somebody who's stumbling in their sin to the slaughter. If you say, surely we did not know this, does not he who weighs the hearts consider it. Right? Like, there's a whole lot of people that are stumbling to the slaughter and there's a culture within the church to say, oh, just they're happy, let them be. Guess what? That's why Paul could, could say in faith and he could declare, hey, listen, I. The blood of men is not on my hands. I declared the whole council of God. The whole council, yes. Jesus loves you. You could tell all these people are in their sin. Yep. Jesus loves you. Jesus is going to meet you right where you are. Right. I think, I don't know if I. That that was like a subconscious thing. Put a little Joel Osteen twang on that thing. But, but at the end of the day, if we don't deliver the whole counsel of God, the blood is going to be on our hands. And ultimately, I don't know what that means.
Right.
But If I just allow people to be led to the slaughter, that are stumbling in their sin and led to the slaughter, guess what that means? I have to have hard conversations with people. Guess what? I got to get on my knees and ask the Lord, how am I going to approach this person with this? Because it's not about me correcting them. Because I'm so righteous. Because I, I pray to God and I have brothers in my life that I, I know and I hope will call me out on my bull crap if there's any bull crap in my life. But how in the world can I allow somebody to stumble to the slaughter when we're talking about eternity? Eternity. I don't care how happy you are. I don't care if you're, you're living your own truth, and I don't care if you're so in love with this person that you know you're not in love with your wife anymore. You love this person. It's like, wait a second. Cut the bull crap. Cut the bull crap. We can't let people just stumble to the slaughter. And if we're silent about it, if we just see people that are, are living a life of sin, especially those who call themselves Christians, and we don't say something, we're consenting by our silence. We're absolutely consenting. And Jesus has something to say about leaders who are silent. He uses the same words that, that Isaiah used when Isaiah said, woe to me. Jesus says, woe to you. Fear, like whitewashed tombs. You, you appear outwardly beautiful, but inside you're full of dead man's bones. Woe to you. So if we're silent, Jesus saying, woe to us. We're, we're all leaders of the church, right? All those who, who right now have their, that not just their hand raised, but their heart in a position to, to go out, make themselves available to. No matter what you have on your table already, it's like, no, I'm making myself available for Jesus, whatever he's called me to do. Fact of the matter is we live in a biblically illiterate day and age. The church is biblically illiterate for the most part. Not you guys by any means, but it's biblically illiterate. And that's an issue if you're biblically illiterate. You don't have a true fear of God. You don't understand the importance of repentance. It's rarely preached. Death to self is ignored. Right? It's about making yourself happy. That this, this idol of Doing what it like do whatever makes you happy? No, it's not whatever makes me happy. It's whatever makes God happy. And what makes God happy is when I obey his commands. Matter of fact, it's the way I actually show him. He knows I actually love him when I do that. So we're at 758. This is good. I could go all day talking about this, but the church doesn't need more comfort. We don't need more comfort. We need more courage. We need boldness. We get the boldness by the Holy Spirit. Gerard.
Yeah, I want to pipe onto that. So I just had. We were talking about this yesterday on my podcast with somebody and that's exactly it. So, like, the church is kind of responsible, right? The lack of knowing scripture, the lack of knowing God having that relationship, because we know, like even the devil knows scripture, right? And he's going to use it to twist. That's what he did to Christ in the wilderness. He tried to trick him not knowing scripture, to give him something to take away from his promise. So if we don't know scripture, if we're not doing our part, the devil's taking territory all the time. That's what he's constantly doing. So if we're not in right relationship, if we're not in the Word, we're not rightly sharing it, then what are we doing? We are idly wasting by, you know, and we cannot be silent. We have been silent for too long. The church, they've told you, quiet your voice, don't do this, don't make people feel that way. It's love. It's love. And it's. It's love for their soul that's being lost. That's why we have to speak the truth. And it's just so needed in this time. And I can relate to you with, you know, a lot of things are happening in the church, you know, today with pastors not having the boldness. Right. Or whatever these things might be, where it's up to us, the congregants, the body of Christ, the ecclesia, the true church, right? To, to take charge and to lead through the Holy Spirit.
Amen, brother. Amen. Riley posted in a story the other day, if you believe in Jesus and simply choose not to obey his commands, you're in the same place as the devil, right? Like it, it. You just. That's reality. It's like, yeah, I believe in Jesus, all that. Yeah, I believe the Bible. And then you just choose to live out a life of sin. It's like, well, you don't really believe the Bible, because if you really believe the Bible and you knew that that sin would lead you to a path of destruction, which is hell, then you wouldn't do that. Yeah, Like I said, I could talk about this for hours. Hours. I'll. I'll finish with this. I. I have the notes. Raj, I don't know if you threw the notes in the chat for this one.
Yes, they're in there. I'll throw them in again real quick. People are asking about your podcast. Toss that in the chat for us.
Okay, we'll do.
Lauren, who's that little one with you?
Oh, it's my best friend's baby. She had to teach today, and her dad was sick, so she's like, can you. And I was like, yes, please get my baby fixed, because I'm. Then, love you, Zach.
I. I just said to Lucy, Lucy's been, like, a little overwhelmed with. With stuff, and said, baby, what? I said, babe, what do you think about having another baby? Right? She was like, no. I said, well, what if it's God's will? Like, just one more. She's like, no, no.
Why did one of my kids say that?
You.
You say, you're done, but what if God wants you to have more? And I'm like, oh, heck no. My youngest is not about to be nine.
Out of the mouth of babes. Out of the mouth of babes.
Get out of here, Gerard.
You know, I was. I'm gonna share this. So my old. My oldest daughter is nine. My. She's about to be ten. My other one. We're blessed to have Elijah, who's seven months old now. And I said, three years ago, I'm not having a kid. No, no, no, no. And then God showed me that, you know, wife got pregnant and miscarriage. We went through all of that, and it realized that we wanted that there was something. There is. What he showed us through that. That trial. And I was in the store yesterday. I put my son on this carrier. I go to this little Jewish market store. My wife likes these olives, and they only sell them there, right? So I walk in this place to get these olives, and these ladies are like, oh, your first one. I tell them, no, it. And they're also, you're done. You got the girl, the boy. I said, I, you know, I'm not going to cut off God's blessing, because if God has a blessing for me, who am I to step in the way and say, nope, I'm done? And I think in culture, Today because we want to. You know, we look at finances and numbers or time and energy, and we forget what he's called us to do. Right? Be fruitful. And if we're fruitful, multiply to multiply the kingdom. And not just only kids, but everything we do.
But.
So don't cut it off. Don't cut it off. Maybe not the right time.
Or snip it. Don't cut it off. Don't snip it. Yeah, but whatever it may be, amen to that. Well, I'll. I'll close out with this, guys. And I have this written in the notes. Just a commitment we could make before God today where we can say, lord, my heart is yours, your searching earth for those who hearts are fully loyal to you. Today. I respond with hanani, here I am. Right? Let that be your response today. Because he's calling us. He. He's sending us out to all types of people with a message empowered by the spirit. And he's. He's asking for us to say, here I am, God, Lord, use me. Send me. So today declare, I'm willing to be sent wherever you call me. I'm willing to speak truth even when silence feels easier. I'm willing to preach repentance and live crucified to the flesh. I'm willing to surrender comfort so that I may walk in your power. I'm willing to be your witness in my home, my community, my nation, and to the ends of all the earth. So, Lord, I give you my yes today without even knowing the cost, whatever the cost is. Right?
It.
Because if he tells us what the cost is, and he. He told Isaiah, Isaiah still did it. He's like, yeah, the hearts of people, they're going to grow dull. They're going to grow dull. They're going to turn from you even more before they. They have those aha moments. So even if we know that's the cost where we're going to go out and we're going to get rejected for the next four years of doing this, this work of the Lord, are we still willing to say, yes, it's easy? And God gives us those layups at times where it's the easiest of conversations and the Holy Spirit just flows. But guess what? Without, before we even count the cost, is our. Is our heart's posture a yes? Do we trust God with our life, with our future, with our calling, with our purpose?
Right.
Do we trust him with it? We're not going to conform to this culture, but we're going to be transformed by the spirit. We're not going to tolerate sin in our lives and especially within the church. And we're going to stand tall in God's truth and his love and in his power today. Say, here I am, Lord. Send me. I love you guys. I love you. I. I think we're going to continue along this theme next week as well. We'll. We'll. I'm sure the Lord will give me specifically the. The action plan and the. The teaching lesson, but I love your hearts. I love your hearts. I believe that on these Wednesday mornings, we are people. You are people that. That does have the heart to say, here I am, Lord. Use me. And you actually mean it. But does that mean making some concessions in your life? Probably. Right? Does that mean leaving some comforts? Yeah, probably. Like Gerard said after Leslie shared. Yeah. This worship, it's not comfortable confines. Right? It's not meant to be comfortable. It serves a purpose. We're on a battleship, not a cruise ship. And I believe right now, for this group and within the church, we're going to lock arms, we're going to band together, and. Yeah, Raj, we're going to send it. We're gonna send it. I almost said something inappropriate, but I'm not going to, because I don't want you to judge everything that was just said by. By closing remarks. So thank you, Holy Spirit, for shutting my mouth on that one. But I love you guys. God bless you, your families, your kiddos, and I'll see you next week. See you guys next week.
Thanks, y'.
All.
