The Commission is the Mission

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word, providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. This week I want to talk about, and I'll just go ahead and give you the punchline, the Commission is the mission. The Commission is the mission. It's important for us to understand that the Great Commission is the mission, that everything that we do is about this thing called the Commission. And if we look at the books, if we look at Matthew, Mark, Luke, and even John, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are accounts of Jesus' ministry, so is John.

But Matthew, Mark, and Luke are very much alike, but they're seen from different perspectives. We call them the Synoptic Gospels, because they're much alike. And then you have John, which kind of takes it from a different perspective, but similar stories and things like that. But throughout all these accounts, all these scriptures, we see Jesus at the end of his ministry, after he's already risen from the dead, when he's sitting with his disciples, or standing with his disciples, or walking with his disciples, or eating fish on the beach with his disciples, he's talking about some things. Number one, he talked about the Holy Spirit coming.

We shared that through an entire series that we just went through. The Holy Spirit would come, and he would give you this, and he would do this, because I'm leaving you. And then he talked about the importance of being together, which we talked about last week, right? Being together. You need each other, because I'm getting ready to go away.

And as I'm in you, you're in me, and we are working together, and it's important. And then, finally, he says this. And if you go to Matthew 28, 18, and 19, this is probably the most popular version of what we call, what the church has identified as the Great Commission. And it says this, Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to you, to me. So go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

So at the very end of his ministry, I think it's very important that some of the most important things are said when somebody's getting ready to leave, and he's like, I want you to take note here. Here's what I'm giving you. This is very significant. This is very important. I want you to go and do this, to make disciples.

Make disciples. Now, we got a lot of thoughts about what discipleship means. There's a lot of ifs, ands, and buts, and things like that when you talk among church leaders. What is discipleship? But when we get down to what this really means, it's important for us to go to other scriptures to kind of understand.

What does he mean by disciples? Well, Mark 16, 15, 15 and 16 says, it says this. And he said to them, go to all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. And whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. So this account says, disciples.

This account says, whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Acts 1-8 is a great example of the Great Commission too. But you will receive power from the Holy Spirit when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So what are we doing? We're being witnesses of what?

This good news. So what we see here as we start connecting the dots is that these disciples are new believers. New believers. In fact, if we go back, Christians weren't even a term that was mentioned in the Bible until the Antioch church. They said they started coining the term Christians.

In fact, the outsiders started calling these people Christians. You know, like these little Christ. These little Christ followers. These people that are mimicking Christ. And I find it interesting that when we look at the term disciple, and I remember being in a seminary class and we talked about discipleship quite a bit in one of my systematic theology classes.

What is the definition of disciple? The original language for disciple is basically to mimic, to follow, to mimic, to be like. So when we are calling people to salvation, when we are presenting the gospel, at that point, at conversion, people are disciples. They are Christians. So what is our job as a church?

What is God calling the church to do? What is the church supposed to do? We're supposed to proclaim the gospel so that people can become disciples, can become believers, proclaiming the message. That's the intention of the church. So when Jesus left this world, even in Luke 24, 44, he says proclaim forgiveness of sin because this is the gateway into this thing that you were called to do.

And he said that. He left us with that commission. That's the last thing he said. He said, Church, this is why you exist. Believers, this is why you exist.

And they carried that task. They carried that heart. And they went and they were filled with the Spirit and they launched this movement that was gathered around the idea of a man that came down to earth claiming to be God, that came to earth claiming to be God, as he said he was, and resurrected. And this whole movement was built on a resurrection. A resurrection.

And people gathered and disciples and people were being saved and the church was gathering together and the whole intention, everybody who was being saved was not just to have some amen club in their homes or whatever. They were interested in reaching other people. And that was the great commission, that we are to reach people. That why does the church exist? Why does the church exist?

To glorify God on earth by reaching people with his message. Why don't you write that down? We exist to glorify God on earth by reaching people with his message. Our vision statement expresses that we exist to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. We are a gospel-centered church.

We, you know, feed on the gospel. We're hungry for people to know the gospel. That's why we disciple each other. That's why we grow together. We are a Christ-centered church and we have to get this part right.

Before we get anything else right, we have to get this part right. Because we are always going to, we are always in danger of making the gospel about only us. And that happens in church movements all the time. You know, we just get, we get focused because, why? Because we're people.

And we're interested in us. And it should never be just about us. Yes, God blesses us. God wants to help us. We have a church community around us as we talked about last week.

And that was a part of, you know, you being fed and you being helped and you being matured and things like that. But it should never, ever, ever become about a membership club where it's just about us and me and we and what I can get. It's always about being equipped in the group, being equipped in the church so that we can make disciples. So that we can reach more people for Jesus. And there's this myth that has been perpetuated in Christianity that, I call them evangelism myths.

And I want to share a few of these with you. There's a lot of them, but here's the few that kind of stuck out to me. And the first one is, it should be kept to ourselves. That our gospel message, our good news, gospel means good news. If you're not familiar with the term gospel, it means good news.

This good news that Christ brought, that Jesus brought, this salvation message that he brought, is to be kept to ourselves. We are to be closet Christians. I'm to be, I'm to go out, you know, and, and, and, and be a testimony rather than. We're proclaiming the testimony, and yeah, we are to be a testimony, but it's kind of funny that we take that to heart. Like, I'm just going to be, it's easier for us, I'm just going to be a good person and do the right things and say the right things and practice integrity, and then maybe somebody will find Jesus in the process.

No, there has to be a point where we share Jesus. In fact, that's why it says, go and proclaim the gospel. What does the word proclaim mean? It says, speak loudly about it. Be excited about the gospel.

And we need to turn up inside of us this excitement once again. Now, we shouldn't be annoying. There's a difference between being annoying and sharing our faith, right? I'm not telling you to go out and be a Bible thumper and bother people and annoy people and stand on a corner. I mean, maybe if you're called to stand on a corner and that's your gifting, I'm not saying that's a bad thing.

Please don't think I'm bashing people for doing street evangelism. There's a lot of great street evangelists out there to actually doing it the right way. But there's a difference between being, proclaiming the gospel and just being flat out annoying, right? And if we're going to be Christians and believers and we're sharing our faith, we need to be careful with that. We don't want to be annoying people.

So there's this myth that we should keep it all to ourselves. Proclaim the gospel. The other myth I want to talk about is it's only for certain people. I'm not an evangelist. I had somebody the other day tell me, you know, Leon, you're gifted with the gift of evangelism.

I'm not, you know? I'm going to be honest with you. I haven't always been gifted with the gift of evangelism, okay? And this is not necessarily a gift that was bestowed upon me at five years old, okay? Right?

I mean, it's not something. It's a myth that, oh, that person's evangelist. They're the ones that are supposed to go out. I, on the other hand, am not. I have a different type of personality.

I have a different type of lifestyle. And, you know, that's not for me. It's a myth. Everybody is called to be an evangelist. And there's ways that you evangelize.

Everybody is in some way, shape, or form is called to be something, an evangelist to communicate and spread the good news. The third thing I want to mention is it requires special training. Some people think, oh, it requires special training. Now, there's, there are things that you can do to work on how to talk to people who don't know the Lord. And there's classes you can take.

And we certainly want to provide information. We have some things in our salt life track that helps you and guides you to that. And you can go through that. It kind of talks about how to share, share the gospel. But, but, and there's other things you can do.

But really what it comes down to, Jesus didn't, when Jesus called his 12, yes, he was discipling them. He was showing them how to minister and things like that. But he was sending them out, man. He was like, go and do this and come back and report to me. These guys were not new.

They weren't 20 year old believers, right? Or believers for 20 years. They weren't these type of people who've been, been around the church all their lives. These people had no concept of what Christ was talking about. And he sent them out immediately.

You know, there, there's no special training. Think about Jesus and the Samaritan woman. When he met the Samaritan woman at the well, she immediately went out. When she heard about Jesus, when he gave her this, this great, uh, uh, life-giving thought and message, uh, she went immediately to the city and shared it with her friends and wanted them to know about this man named Jesus. It's a myth that it requires some kind of special training or some kind of schooling.

And it's something I do by myself is the last thought. It's something I do by myself. Jot that down if you're taking notes. Here's the thing. Church has been made so internally focused.

I don't know if it's just our culture or what it is, but I think throughout history, we've seen that. It's, it's, it's that, that we, we tend to go from outward focus at the beginning to becoming more inward focus, inward focus, inward focus, and focusing on ourselves. And the church was never intended to be an inward focused movement. It was always an outward focused movement. We were never intended to be like closed off in a room somewhere doing Bible studies all day because what's the point in doing Bible studies?

What's the point in doing discussions unless we're going out and sharing the good news? The commission is the mission that God gave us. The commission is the mission that God gave us. So, uh, what I would say to that, how do we do it? Why, why, why?

So you do it by yourself? No, we don't see that anywhere in scripture. Paul had Barnabas, uh, uh, the disciple. In fact, Jesus even said, go out in twos and do this together. And that's why the church exists because we're doing this together, right?

We're doing this together. Everybody's bringing their gifts together. All of you have been giving, given special gifts and we bring those gifts together as a body. And this body, this organism that is created in the church is a outward focused evangelistic body reaching and proclaiming the good news, the good news, the gospel. I love how Hudson Taylor, the famous missionary said it, the great commission is not an option to be considered.

It is a command to be obeyed. It is a command to be obeyed. We shouldn't take it as an option. I think I may share Jesus and, but you know, it's not from, you know, it's not my gift. It's a, I'm kind of a quiet person.

No, it is never, it has never been an option. It has been a commission. The mission, the commission is the mission. The commission is the mission. So what do we do?

What do we do with this? There's three things I want to point out today. And I think it's really important that us, that how, how can we do this as a church? What, what, what are, what are the things we're supposed to focus on right now, right now as a church here? Salt church here in Virginia Beach?

How do we do this together? Because it's important. It's the very fabric of why we started the great commission. Everything we do is about the great commission. Everything we talk about in our, in our trainings, in our small groups and everything is about how do we get out there?

How do we do this together? Well, there's three things I, I am inviting you to be a part of. And first of all, we need to pray. Pray. We need to be praying that we might reach people with the good news of Jesus.

He said, I'm sending you into the world, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. How do we reach those people? We begin with prayer. And we need to pray that, that, that, we need to pray that, that God would bring more people into the, because the, the heart, in fact, Matthew 9, 37 says this, then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord, ask him, pray of the harvest.

Therefore, to send out workers into the harvest field. So we need to be praying that God would bring a revival to our community, to our culture, a revival that, that, that, that would bring more workers in, that people would be converted and people would, would, would, they gather, grow and go back into the community. We need to be praying for these things. So we get together and pray. And at the beginning of the year, this year, we're going to do some initiatives where we can pray for our community.

We're going to get together, um, um, in, on the weekdays and, and pray. We're going to do a, a prayer and fasting time. We're going to spend, um, uh, we're going to do a 21 day fast. We do that every year at the beginning of the year. It's really cool.

It's a three week fast that you can. Be a part of, there's different fasting options that you could do, and we pray and we fast and we ask the Lord to use our church, to use our ministry, to use our people, to use us to reach more people, to fulfill the Great Commission that Jesus left us with. So we pray together. Secondly, we give together. We give.

We give our time and our resources. Matthew said this in chapter 6, verse 19, his account. He said this about what Jesus was sharing with them. He says, Do not store up yourselves treasures on earth where moths and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourself treasures in heaven where moths and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart is also.

Where your treasure is, your heart is also. Here's what I want to say about giving because giving is one of those things that pastors kind of sidestep because we're afraid of running people out of our church, especially when you're a young church, you know? You want everybody to come into your church, and I shared, I did a series on giving near the end of the year last year, and I'm telling you, I had somebody, I had a whole family pull out because the husband didn't like what I had to say, you know? I said, well, you know, it's scripture, brother. That's just what it is.

And I had, I was listening to a guy, a church growth expert. He's a part of a network I'm in, and he was sharing with me when he first came to salvation. He was learning everything, and he said, he approached, he saw this scripture. He talked about, it talked about tithing, and it talked about giving, and he had never been taught that. He didn't understand why he hadn't been taught that.

He went to his pastor, and he says, pastor, why haven't I been taught this? Well, he says, I don't talk about it a whole lot. He says, why don't you talk about it a whole lot? He says, because, you know, people are scared to hear about it, or don't like to hear about it, or they leave your church, or they get upset. And he says, well, why is that holding you back?

Is that what the Bible says? He said, yeah, that's what the Bible says. He says, look, I don't know anything about this, and you've never told me about this, right? And I need to be doing this, and I never knew it. And here I am, disobeying God, not doing what I'm supposed to be doing, because you have held back from telling us about it, right?

So you need to be telling me about it. And then the pastor is like, you're giving me a hard time, man. He's like, well, I mean, it's just truth. And God's kind of convicted me in that area, because I haven't really spent a lot of time on tithing this year. I usually do a series every year.

And I said, and the Lord specifically spoke to me before our leadership meeting the other day, and says, you need to talk about this in our leadership meeting. I said, no, God, I don't want to talk about it. I've got other things to talk about, because there's other things that are on the list. He says, well, you haven't talked about it at all this year, so you've disobeyed me. So I've done a disservice not only to you, God.

I realize, you know, he was telling me this. You've done a disservice to me. You've done a disservice to your church, and a disservice to you individually. And I'm like, I've done a disservice because I haven't talked about giving and tithing? And I was like, oh, wow, you know, and God has blessed us.

We've always had what we've needed in the church, but I do realize that there are a very small percentage of people in our church tithing and giving. And that blood is on my hands. I said, you know, I need to talk about this. So today I'm talking to you about this. God took tithing very serious.

In fact, in Malachi, he even talks about it, and a lot of people kind of debate about this. You could talk about this in your small groups and have some dialogue about it, and it would be a great opportunity. But it talks about robbing God. He says, if you give, I will bless you. But if you don't, and he uses this really strong term, I will curse you.

Because what was happening is the same thing that's happening today. We like our money, and the people weren't giving, even in the Old Testament. It's not an old thought. It's always been happening. And then people go into disaster mode because they're not giving, and they're not generous, and they're not doing what God told them to, and they're losing things.

And they don't have anything. And he says, if you give, watch what I'll do. I'll open up the floodgates of heaven on you and pour out so many blessings, you will not be able to contain them. And we listen to that, and we just don't believe it. I don't believe it.

You don't believe it. None of us believe it. And he talks about giving, and he only asked for 10%. 10% is what he asked. That's what tithe means.

That pastor was telling me about that. He says, I didn't even know what tithe meant. You know, I heard him talking about tithing. I was looking at the tithe. That actually means 10%.

I have to give 10%. Oh, well, that's what God asks us to give. And yes, it's great for all of us to give together because we're pursuing a commission, and it helps resource the ministry. But more importantly, it's not that we want something from you. We want something for you.

God doesn't want something from you. See, he can make dollar bills appear in the air. You know what? It was hard for me. Let me just give you a principle right now.

And this isn't even in my notes. I was battling God just a few months ago before I hired Alec here. Is Alec in here? And I was like, we can't afford to hire another staff member, but we need somebody to handle our worship. And there's this talented guy over here, and I'm like, God, I can't do this right now.

He says, yes, you can. You need to start investing into my kingdom. And I said, okay, God, you're going to have to deliver. You're going to have to do something because, you know, I don't have the financial means really to do this, but I realize I've got to do this. I've got to step out.

It's just like tithing. I've got to put that 10% in. I've got to do it because if God's going to bless this ministry, I've got to be willing to trust him with the finances that we have, even in our own church. I can't be stingy and hold it in. Well, we've got to save it for a special occasion.

We need to give this stuff away. We need to do more to reach more people, even if it costs us everything, right? So I did that, and immediately that week, a lady called me here in the church and says, I'm going to give you $10,000. $10,000 pretty much covered everything. You know, it didn't cover everything, but it helped us.

It got us. I mean, like God shows us, like he shows us, and I'm not saying that you're going to be, you know, you've got these preachers on TV that you hear in white suits and stuff like that. It says, send in your faith seed offering, and I promise you double, triple fold, pull out the credit card, go in debt, whatever you have to do. I'm not saying that, okay? That's a misrepresentation of the Bible.

It's a misrepresentation of Scripture, but what I am saying, something is going to happen. God is going to start moving in your life. I'm telling you, and I told our leadership the other day, I said, and I told our leadership, it starts with us. If you're not giving, you can't expect to come to me and ask for tools for your ministry if you're not even giving, you know? Like, we can't expect those.

I know this is kind of hard. I'm getting preachy here, aren't I? I know this is hard for me because I'm not usually this preachy, but I'm preaching, I'm a little preachy today. All right. Sorry, guests.

I'm not usually preaching like this, okay? Please come back next week. I've got a wonderful message about the highs and lows of the Christmas season, you know, a great Christmas message. So we've got a Christmas series coming. Please, please come back, you know?

But I'm talking to the believers. I'm talking to the people. I'm talking to the people who understand it because I realized that I was holding back on that because I didn't want to talk about it because I was afraid people were... But what I've been holding back is your blessing. I've been holding back your worship.

So what we're doing actually, even this, I'm going to tell you, next year we're actually going to do this 90... I'm going to do a 90-day challenge. We're going to do that around February. And I'm going to ask you to consider making a commitment in 90 days and see what God does. And I can tell you, anybody who's done this, they'd never come back to me and say, Leon, you were wrong.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Or, Pastor, you were wrong, or anything like that. Anytime I've challenged anybody to give, anytime I challenge somebody to tithe, whatever it is, they've never come back to me and say, well, I was without, I can't believe you did that.

Usually, those who aren't giving are the ones that are hurting, or really, it's just the case. I can pretty much pinpoint when people aren't generous with their giving, you know? Now, I don't look at books in our church. I don't look at all that you give. In fact, I have no clue in this church, I'll just be honest with you.

I look at the big picture. I mean, sometimes we see checks come in, and I send them to somebody, or we plug in a check, or whatever, so I see things come in, but I don't know the big picture, the small picture of your giving. I know the big picture, the big picture of what we bring in every month, and that's all I care about. Like, what are we bringing in, and what are we giving away? Because we want to give away.

The more we bring in, the more we give away, right? So, we're going to do that next year, and I want to challenge everybody here to consider being a part of that, to make that commitment this coming year. And there's another thing that we're doing in this month, and we start it today, and God just laid this on my heart, and there's a fellow pastor that was telling me about it, and God laid it on my heart heavy, and we want to do, we're starting, for the month of December, a Give Like It Matters campaign. A Give Like It Matters. What is this?

What are you talking about here, Leon? Until December 31st, I want you to pray. I want you to pray hard. I want you to ask God, what can I give above and beyond my regular tithe and giving? And you can do that online.

You can select Give Like It Matters. It goes to that campaign, because we're calling it Give Like It Matters 2019, because we want to launch ourselves to the next level in 2019. Did you know that you can accelerate the vision that God has given Salt Church? Did you know you could do that? We always work according to our resources.

If we have the resources, we're able to do it. There's a lot of things we all want to do. I mean, my team is passionate about doing more and more and more in this church, but we're simply limited by what God has favored us with, and you're giving, and the resources that we are given. So you can actually be a part. Did you know that you can be a part of accelerating the vision of Salt Church, to bring it to fruition a lot sooner and a lot quicker?

That's pretty cool. All of us can be a part of that. So I want you to pray about that. Maybe it's $20. Maybe that's all it is.

That's all you feel led. Maybe it's $20,000. Maybe there's somebody sitting here right now that can throw in $2 million. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

We're going to ask for that. Amen? And it doesn't hurt you at all, but you believe, you just got to believe that God is going to bless and take care of you as you take care of the vision of Salt Church, because this is your responsibility. So we give together. We give together.

And then we go. We go. So, this is, they're all commission stuff. Giving is part of the commission. Praying is a part of the commission.

All of this is focused on commission type stuff. So we go together. In fact, Isaiah said this, the prophet Isaiah, then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And I said, here am I, send me. And he said, go and tell this people.

Tell this people. God is calling us. Who shall I send? Who's there to send? God was looking across the face of the earth with Isaiah and saying, who shall I send?

Isaiah's like, I'm here. And all of us need to be in Isaiah. I'm here. Send me. Luke 14 says this.

Jesus was talking to the people. He was sharing a story about this guy who prepared this beautiful, wonderful banquet. He was inviting all the people in the community and his friends. And none of them would come. None of them wanted to come.

They don't want to partake of the banquet that he had prepared. It just wasn't available to them. And then he says, well, do this. Go out into the country and urge everyone you find to come so that my house might be full. See, that's what we're called to do.

We want this house to be full. We've got plenty of chairs to set up. We even got metal chairs in the back. Bring them in. Bring them in.

We're called to go together. Well, how do we do this? Let me just give you four things real quick. And then I'll end our message. message, the first thing is accept the personal responsibility that all of us are called.

Accept the personal responsibility. You've been given a sphere of influence. All of you can reach people in some way. Yours might be military. Maybe you've got a command or people around you that you're with a lot.

Some of you are going to be out on ships probably even. And you're going to be with people a lot. People, you probably don't even want to be around a lot. But that's who God has entrusted you with. Maybe you're, you know, most of us spend a lot more time on our jobs than anywhere else.

We spend more time with people in our jobs than we do with our families in a lot of cases, right? That's your sphere of influence. That's who. Who's yours? Who has God given you?

The people you work with? The people you connect with daily? The people you have influence over? Everybody has influence somewhere. You're 10 somewhere in the influence department.

Did you know that? And here's the thing, as I mentioned earlier. We are all called to be evangelists, right? And when we don't evangelize, when we don't share the hope that is within us, and God says this, it's on our hands. As somebody passes from this life and goes and doesn't know about Jesus, and we never took the opportunity to tell them, we had all kinds of opportunities to tell them, then we've missed out.

It's on our hands. It's our responsibility. We need to accept the personal responsibility. I was just talking, chatting by text with my father-in-law. He has such a heart for the lost.

And he had a friend he grew up with his entire life, and he contracted cancer. And he didn't know the Lord. This guy didn't know the Lord. And he was just sharing with me, I've got to get over there. I've got to get over there and tell him about Jesus.

I've never had that opportunity. And he went over and he shared Jesus. He says, you need to know the Lord. Unfortunately, the man didn't give over to what he had to say. But I love the heart of my father-in-law because he was really burdened because he didn't know the Lord.

All of us have people that don't know the Lord in their lives. In your life, in my life, around us, neighbors, wherever it is, don't know the Lord. It's our responsibility. I have the opportunity to talk to my next-door neighbors every day. And they know my faith, and they know where I stand.

And I've been, I've been, I've invited them to church. And you know what? Sometimes they won't come to church. Sometimes they will. Who knows?

But you have the opportunity. Take hold of the opportunity. We've got to, we've got to accept the responsibility. The responsibility is given to us, the church. I don't know why God did it that way, but I trust him because he has the best plans.

He knows what's best. He's sovereign. He's all knowledge, all, you know, everything. I trust him. And it starts with each of us.

One person reaching one person. One person reaching one person. You have the greatest opportunity this Christmas season to invite somebody to church. Did you know that? You can invite somebody to church.

Build a personal relationship is the second thought. People are not looking for a theological debate. They're looking for a friend. They're not looking for you to argue them into heaven. They just want somebody who cares.

They want you to, they want you to know that it's not about just putting a badge on my uniform, my Christian uniform, saying, I want somebody else to Christ. It's not about that. It's not about that. It's because we care. We build a personal relationship with that person.

You can never speak into someone's life without first earning their trust. It's fear of influence. Thirdly, share your personal story. Again, I was mentioning that earlier, you've got a story. And it's easy for you to share your story.

It's harder for me to share your story. I can share my own story. Some of you got some great stories. Some of you might not have great stories, but it's your story. And you can tell it well, you know?

Don't be afraid to tell your story. I won't mention any names today, but I was talking to somebody this past week that was sharing with me their story. And I was like, wow, you know, just everything they had went through, drugs and things like that. And the reason I won't share their name, because they said, you know what? I just shared that with you, and I really don't share that with anybody.

I don't like to do that. But I was like, that's awesome. You need to share that more, because you've got a good story, right? Because all of us have been somewhere and done something, and you need to share your story. You've got a story to share, and people need to hear it, because you can influence people that have a similar story as you that I can't.

Because we're all called to do this together. Share your story. And give a personal invitation is the final thing. Give a personal invitation. Maybe you know, maybe you're ready to lead somebody to Jesus.

Let me tell you about Jesus. Let me tell you how you can know him. All you have to do is admit that you are a sinner and far from him. Believe, and you can confess, and he's yours, and he can come into your heart and life. But if you're not ready for that, invite them to church.

Invite them to come and be in church with you. And let them sit beside you. Take them out to lunch. Take them out to dinner. Whatever it takes.

And I can promise you this. You may, you know, you may not know how to lead them to Christ. But here, we're going, in this church service, we're going to do everything. Our dream team and our volunteers, everybody that's a part of this, you know, that's helping. We're going to do everything we can.

I'm going to do everything in my power I can to make this the greatest experience that they ever had. So they can come in here, and they can know Jesus. And when you look over at that person, at the invitation to come to know Jesus, and you see them lifting their hands. You knew their life. You knew how far they were.

You knew how in trouble. And when they're lifting their hands, and tears are just coming down their face. Because they discovered life, and they discovered hope. You feel so much joy. And you're going to see what it's all about.

So bring a friend to church. Bring somebody to church. Tell them about Jesus. Make a personal invitation. Charles Spurgeon says this.

I'm going to end on this. This is powerful. This is very powerful. I would sooner bring one sinner to Jesus Christ than unravel all the mysteries of the divine word. For salvation is the one thing we are.

Let's bow our heads. And I just want everybody, I want us to take this very, very seriously. This time, we're inviting the Spirit in to work on the hearts. Maybe you've heard something in this message. Maybe you heard something in the music.

Maybe it was something that somebody said when you walked into church today and connected with you. But you know that you need Jesus. You know that you've tried everything else. You've gone, you've tried it all. Far and beyond.

You've tried to do it yourself for a long time. But you never found satisfaction. Can I tell you, there's a Savior that will fill your life. That will give you hope. And if that's you today, if you would just lift your hand and say, I'm in, Pastor.

Nobody's looking. Nobody's looking. We're not here to call you out. You don't have to be embarrassed. It's nothing like that.

This is a place where, this is why we do this. We wait for this moment. And we care about you. And Christ doesn't, all that stuff I was talking about, he doesn't care about giving or anything like that right now. All he cares about is knowing you.

That's what he wants to do. And if that's you, just say, I'm in, Pastor. I've got to make this decision. I've got to make this commitment today. If you would pray this with me.

And if you didn't raise your hand, you could still pray this. And just believe it. There's nothing magical in the prayer. It's just, it's just, believe and confess and believe and you will be saved. You would just pray along with me here.

Father, I believe that you are the Son of God. I admit that I've been far from you. I confess with my heart. I confess with my life that you are the Son of God. Come into my life.

Come into my heart. Make me new. Change me. Hallelujah. Let's give God a praise.

We'll be going into our time of giving now. And again, I want to mention, start praying and thinking about give like it matters. Because we really believe that God's got some powerful things. If you, you can give in a few ways. You can give online.

You can give by text. There's an opportunity to give by text. Just text that number. If you've never done that before, there's a little setup period there. You can set up real quick.

And after that, all you have to do is dial the number and give $5, $10, $20, $20,000. Whatever is on your heart, right? Amen. Or you can go on our website at saltchurch.org slash give.

Or you can just put it in a little thing right there in your bucket. Also, if you fill out one of those connection cards, drop that in the bucket. Or listen, you can go to our welcome center. We've got a gift there for you. We'd like somebody to connect with you, maybe give you some more information about Salt Church, how to get involved.

As the Dream Team comes and collects the offering, let me just share with you some things. This coming Sunday, I want you to invite somebody to church this coming Sunday because we got a message series we're starting called God With Us. God came down with us. He's with us in the highs. He's with us in the lows.

He's with us everywhere. And we've got an excellent message series for anybody and everybody. So if somebody's troubled in their life, if they're going through some tough times, we're going to share with you how God can do that. Also, Random Acts of Kindness, please be sure to pick up some of these cards. We really want you to get involved.

This is just such a—I've heard so many cool stories about this, you know. People even coming to church saying, well—in fact, I heard a story. Just share it with you real quick while the offering's coming around. Somebody shared with me that there was this lady in a drive-thru, and they paid for their drive-thru dinner. Maybe it was Chick-fil-A or something like that.

And this particular lady, she was purchasing her last meal and was going home to commit suicide. And she received this card. And she came to church. And she gave her life to Christ. Amen.

God saved her. And nobody—this person didn't even know. They were just, you know, paying for a meal. It's just little things. Little things that we do.

So grab some of these. Do something great for somebody. Also, next week we'll have a lot of things, opportunities for you to invite people to our Christmas service. But I thank you for being here today. I just— I'm just thrilled.

Come back next week. We look forward to seeing you. If you all stand with me, and we'll dismiss. Chris usually is my dismissed guy here, so I'm doing all the roles today. So, Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray that we send these people out.

You would send them out to go into our community, to make a difference, and to return fruitful and multiplied in your name. Amen. Hallelujah.