00:00: Which one would I be?
00:00: If you have ideas, I'm very open to hearing that after service.
00:07: And based on some of the chit chat, there are some ideas.
00:12: Lately, I've been thinking I might be Dory from Finding Nemo.
00:12: Not a proud moment, I'll be honest.
00:19: And it's not because I'm learning to speak whale, but rather another aspect of Dory.
00:24: There's been this really cool thing happening in my life, increasingly as I'm a tour, where I will walk into a room and have no idea why I'm there.
00:37: That why did I just come in here and I stand there and I try to remember and nothing happens.
00:42: And eventually I give up and I just go on with life and something will happen.
00:47: I'm like, oh yeah, I was working on this and that reminded me I needed to do that and then I'll go do it.
00:51: But anyone else have those moments where you forget what happened before, right?
00:56: I see a lot of hands, but I don't see a lot of young hands.
01:01: So I'm upset with the young folks right now.
01:07: How does this apply?
01:08: We've been studying the book of Romans for a while.
01:13: If you read the book of Romans, it's not that long a book, it's 16 chapters.
01:16: But if you're reading the book of Romans in your personal Bible reading, most of the time it's like a chapter a day.
01:22: And so you would read the book of Romans typically over the course of a couple weeks, a little longer.
01:26: And by the time you get to the end of that, it's easy to forget where you started and what came before.
01:33: And in our preaching series in Romans, it's been longer than 16 weeks.
01:39: My family likes to tease me about significantly longer than 16 weeks.
01:43: We've been in Romans for about a year and a half.
01:46: And again, it's easy to lose sight, to become forgetful about where did we start?
01:52: What was happening that led us up to this point?
01:56: And so I think what I'd like to do this morning is to step back and say, okay, where have we been?
02:04: What is at the heart of this letter to the church in Rome?
02:08: What is it that the Apostle Paul, in writing this letter, was aiming at?
02:13: What was his objective?
02:14: What was at stake?
02:16: Most of, though not all, most of the letters in the New Testament that are written to churches are corrective in some way.
02:24: In most cases, it's addressing specific things going on in the life of that church.
02:29: But Romans is not like that.
02:32: Romans is not a corrective letter.
02:33: Rather, it's Paul, the Apostle, writing to a church that he did not plant and at this point in time has never even visited.
02:42: So the content isn't centered around addressing some issues that they need to work on.
02:48: As we get towards the end of the book, we reach the last few verses, which are called a doxology.
02:55: Doxology.
02:56: Doxology is a big fancy word, but basically means it's a formula of praise to God.
03:02: Dox, the doxo part from doxos is glory.
03:07: And then the logy can be study, but it can also be word or speaking.
03:11: So it means something like a word of glory.
03:13: It's a word about the greatness of God.
03:16: And so as we get these final verses, we see Paul speaking about the greatness of God.
03:21: And I think we're going to see, as we look at it, something that gives us perspective on the whole book.
03:27: Verses 25 to 27.
03:30: Now to him who is able to strengthen you, according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but now has been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ.
04:03: Amen.
04:03: Amen.
04:04: Did you notice that phrase, to bring about the obedience of faith?
04:09: Does that sound familiar to anyone?
04:11: To bring about the obedience of faith.
04:13: That was something that we encountered at the outset of our study of the book of Romans.
04:18: Back in chapter 1, verse 5, Paul spoke about that same thing.
04:22: He said of himself and the other apostles, their lives and ministry, and he said, we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among the nations.
04:37: So at the beginning and at the end, these bookends of the book of Romans, we see that Paul's objective, his goal in this letter, I believe, but even more broadly in life and ministry, Paul's goal was to bring about the obedience of faith.
04:59: What is that?
05:01: Now, it's one thing to say, and this would be true, that Christians should obey God.
05:11: Christians ought to obey God.
05:13: Christians are required to obey God.
05:15: That's all correct.
05:16: That's fine as far as it goes.
05:18: But that's not what Paul is aiming for here.
05:21: He's not looking to encourage people to believe in God and obey God's rules.
05:28: That was Paul's background.
05:30: That's what he came out of as a Pharisee, and he came into something much better when he encountered Jesus.
05:37: And it's not simply obedience to God.
05:40: It's the obedience of faith.
05:43: It's the obedience that is the result of, the fruit of, the overflow of faith.
05:50: We have this habit in my family of feeding our children.
05:56: It is the overflow of parenthood.
06:00: All the parents out there, you know what I'm talking about, right?
06:02: Like, if you don't feed them, they get whiny, right?
06:05: And once your sons, if you have sons, get to their teenage years, they become endless, bottomless pits, right?
06:15: And you need to feed them like 8,000 calories a day.
06:18: It's insane, right?
06:20: And so we do because that's the overflow of our relationship to them as parents.
06:26: I only hold hands with one woman, Carrie.
06:33: I just want to make sure I'm specific in case you were worried.
06:37: It's the overflow of our marriage, right?
06:41: That that be something exclusive between her and I, and it's the result of our relationship.
06:48: Similarly, when we talk about the obedience of faith, it's saying because of your relationship with God, which only happens on the basis of faith in Jesus, there are things that need to result from that.
07:02: There's things that need to begin to happen and certain things that need to begin not happening anymore because of your faith.
07:10: Let me give you just a few examples of this from God's Word.
07:13: Hebrews chapter 11, verses 8 and 9 describes Abraham, the Old Testament character Abraham, leaving the Middle Eastern city of Ur.
07:23: And it says, By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.
07:31: And he went out not knowing where he was going.
07:35: By faith, he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.
07:46: So you remember the story of Abraham.
07:47: God takes this individual, Abraham, and says, I want you to leave behind your family.
07:53: I want you to travel out of this area to another place.
07:56: I'm going to give you this place for you and your descendants as an inheritance.
07:59: But God doesn't even tell him initially where this is.
08:02: He's got to just go out and say, Okay, I'm trusting that God is going to do what he said.
08:07: I'm trusting that it's going to be worthwhile.
08:10: I'm trusting that this will be a preferable future.
08:15: And he acts in faith.
08:18: We can call it the obedience of faith.
08:20: It literally says, By faith, Abraham obeyed.
08:25: It's the obedience that is the result of trusting God.
08:30: Or Hebrews 11, 7.
08:32: Noah building the ark.
08:33: By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household.
08:46: Now, if you were digging that story, you'd find that God told him explicitly to build the ark.
08:49: It wasn't just something he dreamed up.
08:51: But it didn't make sense in context.
08:55: For him to spend years building this enormous wooden boat, a floating zoo, as it were, in an area that wasn't marine.
09:07: Why would you do that?
09:08: Well, because he trusted God that what God said was coming was going to come.
09:13: And that this boat would be, in fact, needed.
09:15: And so he obeyed because he believed God.
09:20: Or Hebrews 11, 17 to 19 tells us a little bit about the story of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac.
09:28: It's a flashback to the book of Genesis.
09:31: And it says, So if you know that story, you know that God told Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son Isaac on an altar, kill him, burn him up as an offering to God.
10:09: And Abraham looked at the situation.
10:12: He said, Hey, God's made a bunch of promises to me.
10:15: One of which is that this particular son, not just any son, not some son, but this particular son is going to be the basis for me having lots of descendants.
10:24: And at this point, Isaac has no children.
10:26: So he says, Okay, God's made promises that have not yet been fulfilled.
10:30: They got to come through this guy, but he's telling me to put this guy to death.
10:33: So logically, it must be that God's going to raise him from the dead.
10:37: That's the only way I can make sense of this.
10:39: Do you see the faith implicit in that?
10:42: And because of that faith, he raised his hand with the knife to offer his own son as a sacrifice.
10:51: Now, God didn't actually want him to do that.
10:53: He stops him from doing so.
10:54: God himself is going to provide the sacrifice, which he has done in Jesus Christ.
10:59: But by faith, Abraham was at the place where he said, I will even do this if you call me to do it, because I trust that you will keep your word.
11:07: You will keep your promises, even if it's humanly impossible for that to happen.
11:11: Even if it requires the dead being raised.
11:13: And, as it were, the promises of God to you aren't going to happen either, apart from God raising the dead, as he has with Jesus Christ.
11:23: All the promises of God are yes in Christ, and it's by the death and resurrection of Jesus that God keeps his promises to us.
11:31: Amen?
11:32: Amen.
11:34: Hebrews 11, I quoted three examples from that.
11:36: That's the Hall of Fame of Faith passage.
11:38: And if you look through there, what you're going to see is faith and works.
11:43: Faith and obedience.
11:45: Not two things that happen to be side by side, but faith producing obedience.
11:52: That's the key concept here.
11:54: Paul means for more than that the Christian church grow by means of new people coming to faith in Jesus.
12:02: He means for those who come to faith in Jesus to live as though they have faith in Jesus.
12:10: It's not simply, okay, here's how you get on the team.
12:12: Here's how you get in the group.
12:14: It's the entrance ticket becomes how you live.
12:18: By faith.
12:20: As I was thinking about this, I was tempted to say, it's not enough to become a Christian.
12:24: We need to be followers of Jesus.
12:27: And I thought, well, that's false.
12:30: That would be false.
12:31: Because the reality is, you cannot be a Christian and not be a follower of Jesus.
12:38: I can't say, if you're this, you need to go to the next level and become that.
12:42: Because if you are this, you are that.
12:46: Everyone who has become a Christian is a follower of Jesus.
12:50: There is no such thing as someone who trusts in Jesus but refuses to follow Jesus.
12:54: Now, we do it imperfectly.
12:56: There's moments when we mess up.
12:57: There's moments when we resist.
12:59: Absolutely.
12:59: Absolutely.
13:00: But it's the same group of people, whether we describe them as those who trust in Jesus, we call them Christians, we call them followers of Jesus, we call them disciples of Jesus.
13:11: That's the same group of people.
13:14: If you were to read the New Testament book of James, you would find that the heartbeat of that New Testament book is this.
13:20: Faith without works is dead.
13:23: You must have faith in Jesus, and that faith necessarily will produce good works.
13:30: Or that faith you say you have is nothing.
13:33: It does not get you to heaven.
13:35: It does not save.
13:35: It's of no eternal value.
13:37: That's the heartbeat.
13:38: And so I think a word that many contemporary church-going folks need to hear is this.
13:46: You're not on your way to heaven.
13:48: You're not on your way to an eternity with God.
13:50: If you don't have faith in Jesus, and if there's not evidence in your life by how you live that proves that you really do trust Jesus.
14:03: Now, that evidence of good works is not why you get to be with God forever, but it's the proof.
14:12: It's the evidence that you really do trust him, right?
14:16: When our kids were little, we had a changing table.
14:19: It was this bureau, and at the top was a changing table.
14:22: And, you know, we'd change them, and they get to a certain point where, you know, they can stand up and whatever.
14:28: And we'd stand them up, and sometimes they would, like, jump off the changing table into my arms, which was great fun as a dad.
14:33: If they were ready to leap off the table into my arms, what does that action tell you?
14:40: That they trust daddy to catch them, right?
14:44: And if they're like, no, no, no, and they're, like, sitting down, like, oh, we can't trust you to catch us.
14:48: Their inaction betrays that they don't trust me to catch them.
14:56: By the way, I never drop them.
14:59: Any goofiness in my kids is not a result of me dropping them.
15:03: We also see it in our study of Romans.
15:10: I'm sure some of you know the answer to this question, and I want to hear it from you when we get there.
15:16: Romans chapter 6, verse 1.
15:18: What shall we say then?
15:20: Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
15:23: Amen, right?
15:26: If the good news message of Jesus means that there's grace to cover our sin, does that mean we just keep on sinning and go ahead and do it because there'll be enough grace to come?
15:35: And Paul says, absolutely not.
15:37: By no means is that how we live.
15:39: Rather, we're to start living increasingly the way that pleases God.
15:44: Think back to the letter as a whole.
15:48: Think through the context of this whole letter.
15:50: Paul starts off in chapter 1, introducing himself.
15:53: Hey, it's me, Paul the Apostle, writing to you, the Christians in Rome.
15:56: And then, after his introductory remarks, he begins shifting to say, y'all need a Savior.
16:02: Everybody needs a Savior.
16:03: He spends the second half of chapter 1, all of chapter 2, and half of chapter 3 saying, I don't care who you are.
16:09: I don't care if you're a Jewish person or a non-Jewish person, a Gentile.
16:13: You need Jesus.
16:14: Whether you have the written Old Testament word of God or whether you've never encountered it and you've just got your conscience, you don't measure up.
16:21: You don't live well.
16:22: You don't live perfectly.
16:24: And so you need the forgiveness that only God can offer.
16:28: Then, in the second half of chapter 3, he begins to present the gospel.
16:32: He presents this glorious good news about how God has sent Jesus to be a sacrifice.
16:37: And that by Jesus' life and death and resurrection, there's forgiveness available.
16:41: And not just forgiveness, but that God gives people credit as having the very righteousness of God.
16:51: That's astounding.
16:53: Chapter 4, he says, I know this sounds crazy.
16:56: Let me prove it to you from the Old Testament.
16:57: Let's look at the life of Old Testament character Abraham, the first Jewish man.
17:02: The beginning of the whole Jewish, Hebrew, Israelite people.
17:06: And he proves it by looking at specific things from the book of Genesis and how God worked in his life.
17:13: Then he says, let's look at Adam, the very first man, and how Adam failed, but Jesus succeeded.
17:19: How Adam messed up on behalf of humanity, but Jesus succeeds on behalf of humanity.
17:24: And you're going to be represented by one guy or the other.
17:27: And by default, you're represented by Adam.
17:29: And that sends you to hell.
17:31: But Jesus represents people into eternal life.
17:35: He goes there.
17:36: Then in chapter 6, he says, I don't want you to misunderstand.
17:39: I don't want you to hear this good news and think, well, that means we go ahead and sin.
17:43: By no means, right?
17:44: And he begins to unpack how if we are united to Jesus by faith, we will live differently.
17:52: Specifically, he uses the imagery of baptism at the opening of Romans 6 to say, if we've been baptized into his death and resurrection, how can we continue in sin?
18:01: We have to have this new life that is his life lived out through us.
18:05: He gets to chapter 7 and he says, essentially, that doesn't mean I don't screw up.
18:11: And he wrestles through in chapter 7 this issue of how even he, Paul, doesn't always do what he wants to do.
18:18: And sometimes he does the very stuff he doesn't want to do.
18:20: How many of you have experienced that where you want to do the right thing and you screw up and you get to the end of the day, you're like, what was that?
18:25: That's not how I wanted today to go.
18:27: That's not how I wanted to live for Jesus today.
18:29: And other times, you're like, oh, I really want to do this and you do the opposite.
18:33: Or you don't want to fall into a particular sin pitfall and you're like, I did it again.
18:41: That's chapter 7.
18:42: Chapter 8, he says, well, that's not the end of the story.
18:47: The Holy Spirit will enable you to live for God.
18:51: And throughout chapter 8, we see this emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit, our confidence in the work of God, how God is at work in everything to produce Christlikeness in us and to transform us into more than conquerors through him who loved us.
19:10: Then he begins to say, well, I know you're hearing this and you might be wondering, well, what about the Jewish people?
19:13: And he spends three chapters, 9, 10, 11, talking about that.
19:16: He says, chapter 9, this is how you should understand that in light of the sovereignty of God over what God is doing with the Jewish people.
19:23: Chapter 10, he emphasizes more the human perspective and human responsibility aspect of things.
19:29: Chapter 11, he puts it together and he says, God's not done.
19:33: There's more that God is yet going to accomplish in and through the Jewish people.
19:37: And it's going to look something like this.
19:38: He gives us a general view.
19:40: And then he says, okay, what about right now?
19:42: How do we live as followers of Jesus right now?
19:45: Chapter 12 is all about that.
19:46: How then shall we live as followers of Jesus?
19:48: And he lays that out.
19:50: Chapter 13 is the same.
19:51: He gets more specific.
19:52: He says, let me talk to you about what it looks like in relation to government and submitting to authorities.
19:57: Second half of chapter 13, he says, it looks like living lives of love.
20:02: We fulfill God's expectation by living lives characterized by love.
20:08: Chapter 14, beginning of 15, he says, you know, sometimes we're tempted to divide from each other.
20:13: We agree on who Jesus is and so on, but we've got different ideas of, well, I'm going to live it out this way and I'm going to live it out that way.
20:19: And Paul says, you don't want that to divide you.
20:20: There's lots of different ways that you can apply and live out your faith that might be different than someone else.
20:27: And that's okay.
20:29: You want to be a burger eater to the glory of God?
20:32: Eat burgers to the glory of God.
20:33: You want to be a vegetarian for the glory of God?
20:35: Lord bless you on that.
20:37: You can do that.
20:38: You want to drink alcohol or not drink alcohol for the glory of God?
20:44: You can do that.
20:44: You want to celebrate certain special holidays or not?
20:48: You can do that or not do that for the glory of God.
20:51: That's fine.
20:52: And then partway through 15, he says, by the way, this is a mission support letter.
21:01: He explains that he's wanted to come to Rome for a long time, hasn't been able to do it, but he's planning to do a missionary trip to Spain.
21:09: And he's going to, Lord willing, make a stop there, spend some time with them, connect with them.
21:14: They're going to mutually encourage each other, and he's hoping that they will financially support him on his way to Spain.
21:20: Chapter 16, he does some personal greetings.
21:22: He talks a little bit about the proper place of division in the church in order to protect the unity that we are to have in our faith.
21:33: Over and over from beginning to end, he says, let me tell you about your need for Jesus.
21:37: Let me tell you about Jesus.
21:39: Let me tell you how then that plays out in our lives.
21:43: How then shall we live as believers in Jesus?
21:46: We're going to live like we believe in Jesus.
21:50: Our lives should not make much sense at all if Jesus is not true, if his promises aren't sure.
22:00: We should be doing things that make no sense to the world around us in our giving, in our serving, in the way that we forgive people, in our witness, and so on.
22:10: Because we believe that God will keep his promises.
22:13: Here at Faith Chapel, we see that our mission is for every believer to become, make, mature, and multiply fully surrendered disciples of Jesus.
22:23: We mean to be fully surrendered to God and say, I will obey you, Jesus, because I trust you.
22:29: I will follow you because I trust you.
22:31: And then we're supposed to be helping others make that same journey forward.
22:37: Now, I said at the outset and at the end of the book of Romans, we have this obedience of faith piece.
22:45: And that's the book ends of the book.
22:47: I've undersold it.
22:48: I want to take a step back, wider angle lens, wide view lens, and see that there's actually more connection between these two things.
22:57: Let me read from chapter 1, verses 1 through 5.
23:01: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his son, who was descended from David according to the flesh, and was declared to be the son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.
23:45: I want you to see some key elements in that paragraph.
23:49: Number one, the gospel.
23:51: He talks about the good news of who Jesus is and what he's done.
23:54: He talks about his heritage in earthly terms, in terms of being a descendant of David.
23:59: He talks about his work, that he died and then was resurrected, that he's holy, that he's Lord.
24:09: It's this good news about who Jesus is and what he's done.
24:12: He highlights that this was promised beforehand through his prophets in the Scriptures.
24:17: So this is rooted in history and God's advanced plan.
24:21: Then he talks about the obedience of faith, which we've already talked about.
24:23: We see that there's faith that produces obedience.
24:27: It's not one thing, it's two.
24:28: Faith, which produces obedience.
24:31: And then he said, well, even before that, the obedience of faith implies a chronology.
24:38: This produces that.
24:39: But you can also see it explicitly spelled out in Romans 10, verse 17.
24:43: He says, faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
24:48: He's saying, you can't have the kind of faith in God that you're called to have if you don't hear the message about Jesus.
24:54: The message about Jesus produces the faith in God that we need.
24:59: Okay?
25:00: Well, who is this for?
25:02: Among all the nations.
25:05: Every people out there.
25:06: Everybody needs to hear this message about Jesus so they can have faith in Jesus.
25:11: And why?
25:13: For the sake of his name.
25:16: That is, for God's glory.
25:18: For the sake of his honor, his reputation.
25:20: And so we see in these opening verses, gospel, advanced promise, faith, obedience, all nations for the glory of God.
25:31: Now, if you want to put this in order, if you're a note taker, put it like this.
25:38: First word, gospel.
25:41: Then an arrow, faith.
25:44: Then an arrow, obedience.
25:49: Parentheses, all nations.
25:52: Arrow, God's glory.
25:55: This is how Christianity works.
25:57: Good news about Jesus, producing faith that results in obedience.
26:02: This isn't just for one people group.
26:03: It's for the whole world.
26:05: And this leads to the glory of God.
26:08: Now, take that, that framework that we just got from the opening of the book.
26:12: Go back to chapter 16.
26:15: Verse 25.
26:17: Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ.
26:23: He's coming back to that same reality.
26:25: It centers in the gospel.
26:26: I got to tell you about Jesus.
26:28: According to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed.
26:34: And through the prophetic writings, again, scripture, the prophets writing this down.
26:39: It's been made known.
26:42: Has been made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal God.
26:47: Right?
26:47: This isn't just for Jewish people.
26:49: This is for everybody everywhere.
26:52: To bring about the obedience of faith.
26:54: We have the faith, the obedience, the connection between them.
26:57: And then where does he end?
26:58: To the only wise God be glory forevermore.
27:02: Through Jesus Christ.
27:04: Amen.
27:04: This is the heartbeat of Christianity.
27:08: God giving Jesus to be received by faith, which produces good works.
27:16: And God gets the glory.
27:17: And this is for everyone.
27:18: Where are you in that story?
27:22: Have you heard the good news message of Jesus?
27:26: Have you embraced it by faith?
27:28: Is it producing obedience?
27:31: Because if it's not, God's not being glorified in your life the way he ought to be.
27:40: Here at Faith Chapel, we say that our purpose is that we exist to worship God.
27:46: By enjoying relationship with him and one another through Jesus Christ.
27:50: We exist for this purpose.
27:51: This is not some, hey, this is what we want to do.
27:54: This is the very reason we exist.
27:56: This is why God created us.
27:57: This is why God redeemed us.
27:59: That we would worship God.
28:02: Now we chose the word worship.
28:04: But you could substitute glorify.
28:06: You could substitute honor.
28:07: The idea is that we display the worth and value of God.
28:15: That's why we're here.
28:17: In the Presbyterian tradition, the Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches the faith of Christianity to folks in a Q&A format.
28:25: The very first question straight out of the gate is, what is the chief end of man?
28:30: And some of you know this.
28:33: To glorify God and enjoy him forever.
28:36: That's why we exist.
28:37: That's the primary purpose.
28:38: The chief end of being alive as human beings at all.
28:41: To glorify God.
28:43: And in the context that we're looking here at Romans, he's saying, the way that you glorify God is through obedience that overflows from your faith.
28:55: The faith that you have because you've heard the good news about Jesus.
29:00: So I ask you again, where are you on the spectrum?
29:02: Gospel.
29:03: Faith.
29:05: Obedience.
29:06: God's glory.
29:07: I want to see all of us moving forward in maturity along that pathway.
29:14: Let me present the same truth to you from another passage.
29:19: Matthew chapter 28 verses 18, 19, and 20.
29:23: The Great Commission.
29:24: Jesus said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
29:27: Therefore, go and make disciples.
29:28: Therefore, go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit.
29:34: And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
29:39: And behold, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.
29:43: He says, I'm always going to be with you.
29:47: These are things that we have to take by faith.
29:49: And then he gives us our marching orders.
29:51: Make disciples, which includes baptism and teaching these disciples of Jesus to obey everything that Jesus has said.
30:00: Everything he's commanded.
30:03: You don't get a pass on anything where you can say, well, I'm obeying Jesus in areas 1, 2, 3 through 17.
30:10: But I'm going to skip obedience in area 18.
30:13: No.
30:15: Right now, let me ask you this.
30:16: Answer silently in your own mind.
30:18: Is there an area of your life that you would say this is an area of disobedience to God?
30:23: I'm not talking about you struggle sometimes.
30:26: I'm talking about like you're just not following God in this area of your life.
30:31: You need to do business with God about that today.
30:36: 1 John 1, verse 9 tells us, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
30:45: That's written to Christians.
30:47: Do business with God on that today.
30:48: If you've got an area that you recognize as an area of disobedience to God.
30:53: Maybe you don't have an area of explicit disobedience.
30:56: Praise God that you don't have that right now if that's your case.
30:59: Or you've done business with God today on that issue.
31:01: Now what?
31:02: You are to grow in your obedience to God.
31:05: Not out of duty.
31:06: Not like, oh, I've got to do it.
31:07: This is miserable, but I want to make sure I get to heaven.
31:11: No.
31:12: You trust him.
31:14: And so from that flows freely, gladly, obedience.
31:19: Jesus is rescuing me from what's messed up about me and the consequences of that.
31:26: I want to be different.
31:27: I want to be better.
31:28: I want to be more like Jesus.
31:30: So obeying him is good for me.
31:33: I'm going to have better days.
31:34: I'm going to have more joy.
31:36: I'm going to be more successful in life in all the ways that really matter when I obey.
31:41: And I can trust him that he knows what he's doing.
31:46: Now, we've got to go one step further, and I want to leave you with this.
31:51: It's not enough for us to keep becoming ever more fully surrendered disciples of Jesus Christ.
31:59: We have to multiply.
32:01: We have to make disciples of others.
32:03: If we, as Christians, are not sharing Jesus with others and then helping those who embrace that message by faith, if we're not helping them to grow, we are, in fact, disobeying Jesus.
32:18: Every one of you has your marching orders from Jesus himself that you are to make disciples.
32:22: So let me ask you this.
32:26: Who, in your life, are you investing in to come to hear about Jesus and then to grow as a follower of Jesus so that they can repeat the process?
32:37: Every one of you needs to have people in your life that you are praying for God to bring to a saving faith in Jesus.
32:44: There ought to be people that you can immediately say, I'm praying for this person and this person and this person, that God will grab them and bring them to faith in Christ.
32:51: And in combination with that, you need to be looking, seeking, yearning for, asking for opportunities to speak the good message of Jesus Christ to them.
33:04: We don't pray and not evangelize.
33:07: We don't evangelize and not pray, but together, both.
33:12: Every one of you, God intends to use to bring people to an eternal saving faith in Jesus Christ.
33:20: You might think, oh, somebody else would do a better job.
33:24: Well, I'll just bring them to church, Pastor Dillon, you tell them about Jesus for me.
33:28: There are people that will not hear the message of Jesus from me in a way that transforms them.
33:34: But they will hear it from you.
33:36: You are intended and called and equipped by God for ministry that I'm not.
33:47: And I am called, equipped for ministry that you are not.
33:54: God's got specific good works for you and different specific good works for me.
33:58: God's got specific good works for you and different things that you are not.
34:07: Let's pray.
34:09: Father, I pray that right now, by your Spirit, you would convict us that living out our faith is worth it.
34:21: would you convince us in a fresh and deeper way that we're going to have more joy in life, that we're going to be more satisfied in life when we say yes to you at every turn than when we try to be our own boss.
34:37: And I pray that you would make us very uncomfortable with status quo and that you would give us a growing love for Jesus and a growing love for the people around us that as your spirit is at work, we are forced out of status quo into evangelism and into making disciples.
34:58: I pray that every single person in this room would either become a genuine follower of Jesus for the first time in the near future or, if they already are, would begin investing in others coming to faith in the near future.
35:19: May there not be one man, woman, or child in this room hearing my voice today that is not impacted forward in Jesus Christ and helping others to do the same.
35:34: We pray this in Jesus' name.
35:36: Amen.